Category: Thoughts

If I was still in 8th grade…

If I was still in 8th grade, I would probably write a song about this emotion. I would probably scribble this excitement into stanzas and practice at the piano. I would write about this infinite hope holding my hand like Hercules and putting ground beneath each forward step. I would write about treasure and blessing and the joy bursting out like a thousand piñatas.

I would write about these lessons I’m learning and I would not be ashamed to sing out my young, cheesy optimism. Several weeks ago I came across a huge stack of diaries, dating back to age 13 and documenting almost every year since.

As I read some of the pages, I rolled my eyes at the drama and blushed at the honesty. When I started writing, I used pencil because I thought I may have to go back and edit it for future publication. I also included chapters (again to save time in the editing process).

It all sounds so goofy now, but there is at least one thing I do not want to lose from my 8th grade self.

Hope.

Not just the melodramatic and flaky hope for a diary to be published or a song to be picked up by Point of Grace (because I sent them a song and gave permission for them to use it on their next album), but the kind of steady hope that is fueling my days. This hope is as concrete as the jungle where I now live, but it is indestructible.

This hope in the future grace of the Lord means I have certain hope for good things in this world and certain hope for eternity. This is a different language than hoping for rain or a job or a good report from the doctor. This hope, rooted in the work of Christ, is secure. I am hoping in something that will come to pass.

This is why I have joy like confetti and footsteps like dancin and days like diamonds – because God is in the heavens doing whatever He pleases, and He was pleased to call me child.

Today is my second day of work as a middle school success counselor in a rougher part of Brooklyn. A certain hope is exactly the kind – the only kind – of hope that can make this a joyful pursuit.

Posted on by Caroline 2

when you’re in an earthquake, sing

God provides.

Sometimes, He provides less than what we ask because He wants to give more than what we think.

That’s what happened tonight, anyway. My new roommate and I plodded our way to the 5 pm service, weary of apartment hunting and feeling like the persistent widow at the Lord’s door. “Please, Lord, provide!” We thought we were asking for His provision of an apartment today. We thought that was the only way His provision would happen.

And He did provide, but we’re still without an apartment. Instead He gave us Himself. We sat and drank in the words of the sermon from Psalm 77 and then we broke bread and drank the wine of communion.

He provided Himself and we got filled up.

He provides always, because He is a Provider. It is not in His nature to do anything else. Today His provision was Himself – which is not technically an apartment – but is more than abundant to meet our needs.

This is the firm foundation I can sing upon when there is an earthquake underfoot.

Posted on by Caroline 1

joy falls like confetti

“The Gospel changes what I fundamentally boast in – it changes the whole basis for my identity. Nothing in the whole world has any power over me – I am free at last to enjoy the world, for I do not need the world. I feel neither inferior to anyone nor superior to anyone, and I am being made all over into someone and something entirely new.” Tim Keller

I probably could not have chosen a better book of the Bible to study leading up to my New York move. Galatians is freedom’s anthem and I’m loving it’s accompaniment to my new Brooklyn steps.

Freedom.

Nothing like couch-hopping to remind you of all the reasons you don’t have to boast. And in this beautiful in-between place before I find an apartment, I feel crazy freedom to enjoy my new “home.” Because the world does not have power over me – to make me less secure or less approved or less stable or less free.

The world cannot make me less free.

Even in the most in-between of places and most uncertain of phases, freedom means joy. The sun streaming in the window this morning, the breeze sweeping through Hawthorne Street, the full Saturday stretching out it’s weekend arms – in everything joy falls like confetti. This is a freedom the world cannot steal, a freedom hidden so deep and kept so safe because God has claimed the sacred space.

I am free to enjoy the world because I do not need the world. It’s really a very fabulous thing – because need means dependence. If my freedom depends on the world, I’m like a runner in a race without a finish line. I’m desperate to get to a place where I can be free of all the running, but the end never comes – the distance looms ahead of me and always increases.

But I do not need the world for freedom or fulfillment. Because Christ already crossed the finish line for me, I am free to enjoy the race. I can run with abandon and determination and the kind of joy that makes me giggle. I can run without worry or fear. Because I know Christ is for me, my footsteps are light and my eyes are open. This is my freedom in Christ – to enjoy the world because I don’t need the world.

I am being made over into something and someone entirely new and I am not in charge of that process. I’m just running with my eyes fixed like flint on the One who granted the grace for me to run at all. As I run, I will boast in Him.

And it is for freedom that we are set free.
Posted on by Caroline 1

the least likely place to feel worldly secure

Where, would you imagine, is the last place in the world you could feel secure?

A fashion trade show in Las Vegas, teeming with the fashion conscious, industry hungry, ladder climbers, perhaps?

This is a very legitimate “least likely place in the world” if you find security by way of comparison. There are beautiful people everywhere. Literally, we’ve spent the last 3 days looking across the aisle at American Apparel models parading around in front of their 8 foot poster likenesses in all their ‘made in the USA’ glory.

If you go down the hall or up the stairs to the big times, it’s even crazier – where the largest global market week for contemporary fashion earns its title.

Everybody’s got a limit and I think I just hit mine like a brick wall. I’m not a fashion conscious, industry ladder climber and I can still feel like 15 years old around people who are.

But, guess what? Sitting right smack dab in the middle of the least likely place to feel worldly secure (with my TJ Maxxed top and my thrifted jeans and my plump petite size), I’m the same amount of self-confident.

I’ve done a lot of people watching these last couple days. I’m sure people have done a lot of watching me too, but I didn’t really notice. There is a point, in the wee hours of 6 am, where I shrug at the mirror and say, “It’s not going to get any better than this” without too much fight. But often, in all my watching of fashion comings and goings this week, I would start to smile a little bit (hopefully underneath my facial expression, but I can’t promise that).

I would smile because even if I always feel 15 around people who are supremely fashionable, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel less accepted or less approved or less loved.

Isn’t that magical?

Worth is not negotiable. Approval is not a trend. Acceptance is not a fad – not for this girl, anyway.

I already have the approval of the most important audience and I did absolutely nothing to gain it. Not a single thing. It’ll shock me every time, but maybe this week more than others because it feels like people try so hard to gain worth and approval and acceptance.

I smile because this day is full of reasons to rejoice and worrying about what I eat or drink or wear or buy is a big distraction to that joy.

Tomorrow, I’ll get off the plane in Brooklyn and call it home for my weary, vagabond feet. I’ll figure out the trains and maybe someday soon stop living out of a carry-on suitcase. I’ll find a local deli and make friends with the neighbors. I’ll people watch on the corner and join the massive morning commute. I’ll put one foot in front of the other and every footstep will take me in the direction of something new. I will shake off the distractions of “all other things” and smile because of the first and best thing.

I can’t think of a better/worse place from which to set sail, because I’m not really leaving from anywhere and that can really confuse an identity. But, not this girl. Well, that’s what I’ll keep preaching to myself.

I am approved, accepted, and loved because God approves, accepts and loves.

He is gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He is steadfast and certain. He is kind and patient, tender and just. He is my rock and fortress. This is my Lord who gives me identity, wherever my nomad feet roam and whatever my little hands do.

This is my Lord and my security.

Posted on by Caroline 0

dancing on marbles

I don’t think I’ll ever have the right kind of social graces to move through life with less awkward form. My walking lately has been like dancing on a floor full of marbles – anything but graceful and more than a little injury.

It’s hard to walk steady when the ground always seems to be shifting. But don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining. I’m the one who thought it’d be a good idea to throw marbles on my dance floor in the first place. It’s just, well, a funny thing to find myself in the middle of (even if I put myself here).

When you dance on marbles, you move your feet because you’ll fall if you don’t. You might fall if you do, too… But you move anyway and as long as you’re moving, you might as well dance, right? I’m out there on that dance floor believing there is a solid foundation on the other side of all that movement.

Am I the only one who thinks dancing on marbles is a great analogy for living in limbo, desperately dependent and full to filled with hope? (I am running on very little shut-eye, so the answer could be legitimately yes).

But I have to admit that I wonder (ahem, often) – does life ever level out? 

I think the answer is no, which is both exciting and a little scary. I love being in limbo – the adventure and the unknown and the forced dependence of it all. That’s when my hope gets electric. It has to be, or else I’d go crazy.

Because I don’t think life ever levels out. I don’t think there is a time where I get to “settle down” and things start making more sense. I don’t think there is a phase where I get to sit back and let life happen to me for a while. If there is such a phase, I’ll never get there and that’s okay.

This hope – the flailing about on loose marbles kind – is too electric to grow out of. You’ve got to hope in something when you know for certain your chances of standing on your own are nil. And I’ve got a sure hope, a certain future, and a definitive peace in the middle of all my gauche flailing.

Of all the phases of loose marbles in my life so far (and I’ve had many), this seems to be the most marbly. That just means my hope is extra super electric.

And let’s be honest – I don’t actually have control over the marbles or the dance floor, anyway. Just the dancing, and I can do that.

Posted on by Caroline 1

if something or nothing or everything

I spoke at a little gathering this morning, in the basement of a little church in the belly of a little town in Iowa. The Griswold Optimist Club meets every Friday at 7 am. A hearty breakfast always accompanies the conversation and the updates and the meeting agenda, followed by the program.

After my grandma’s precious introduction, I stood up with the Optimist Creed as a backdrop to share with this little crowd. I spoke and they listened. Somewhere in the middle, as my words went out, I thought about the great tension of now and not yet – about being present in the moment while pushing toward something in the future.

Today is my last in Iowa before the Eastward adventure to NYC. I’m not as confident as I sounded as an 8th grader in the Optimist Oratory Contest, but I probably have more peace. There’s something safe about orating your dreams and something scary about living those words on paper. I learned to love speaking – to stand in front of a group and have the microphone; to arrange my ambition into words that hold the audience’s attention.

But the living out of those words – the dreams and hopes and ambitions that are prime content for speeches and blog posts and soap boxes – is a humble pursuit.

What if I fail?

What if I don’t ever do all those things I dreamed about in my winning 8th grade speech? What if I am never part of some sweeping humanitarian campaign that ends up in the news?

The older I get (boy, I never thought I’d say that), the more convinced I am that I don’t have any wisdom to share or advice to give. I write a lot of words, publish a lot of posts, scribble a lot of sentences… but often the questions repeat and the lessons are reruns.

This lesson that I am learning again on this Friday morning is simple: If something or nothing or everything comes of my dreams on paper, I am no more and no less a child of God. My inheritance is no more and no less heaven. My future is no more and no less the abundant life Christ promised in John 10:10.

Believing God for His promises means stepping forward in faith, knowing that the future does not depend on my performance. God is faithful – it’s just who He is. So, when He says He will complete the work and bind the wounded and mend the broken, I know that He will.

Obedience to Him as He redeems and restores might look like Paul’s encouragement to the people in Thessalonica, “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” (Thessalonians 4:11-12)

Nobody writes speeches about that. Nobody ends up on a podium to encourage a simple, proper walking out of this life.

Having dreams is not bad. I love dreams. I remember my high school graduation announcement used a quote from Willy Wonka (who borrowed it from a poem by Arthur O’Shaugnessy), “We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams…”

I love dreams, but they are always held in the tension of today. Dreams are things that are not here in this moment, things that are often written on paper and read with confidence that the speaker can make them come true.

I don’t have that kind of confidence.

My confidence is in the One whose words create realities. He spoke and our reality came alive. He speaks and our reality stays alive. He never fails.

He is the dreamer. I just say, Amen.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

best and hard, hard and best

Why do the words best and hard go so well together? Why is it that the pairing of bitter and sweet make so much sense?

It’s a delicious intensity – where all the moments hold more weight and all the minutes hold more heat. There is a cumbersome madness of more that is crowding my last days in Iowa and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Coffee dates and backyard parties, rooftop adventures and state fair strolls, breakfast meet-ups and star gazing gatherings, living room laughter and back porch devotions – with each last thing, more of the best and hard and bitter and sweet crowd my days.

I cannot remember leaving a place I did not love. What a fortunate thing to say! The Lord’s provision in my past has always been beyond what I can rightly appreciate or enjoy. From the farm to Michigan, Chicago, Austin, Honduras, Ames, Des Moines and back to the farm again, the Lord goes before me and stays with me. He is my first and best delight and He has never sent me to bed without a healthy helping of His grace and peace.

His provision is always more than I need because His provision is always Himself.

Always more, always Himself, always abundant. Always.

There are few things about which you can truly say “always” or “never” and feel confident about the assertion. God’s provision is one of those things. It’s not an unnecessary superlative or an excessive affirmation…

He truly is best and most and always.

And that is why all these last Iowa things are more complex than a trite phrase about bittersweet goodbyes. I consider it a blessing to love what I’m leaving as much as I love what I’m starting. There is too much joy surrounding me on all sides to get bitter about anything, even if it is both best and hard.

The memory verse for this week from Fighter Verses is from Proverbs 22:1, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” And, as I reflected this morning on the devotional from Verses Project, I thought about what is best and most in this life. All other measuring systems and scales shrink in view of eternity. The only way to wake up (in whatever state or country) is with eternity in full view and the greatest inheritance in mind.

Posted on by Caroline 0

how to give the best advice

I was one of those high school students that teachers pulled aside and said, “You’re a natural leader…” The next sentence would usually be an invitation to partner with that teacher in some sort of classroom takeover.

I don’t know what it was they saw in me – whether it was my fearlessness in front of my peers or my willingness to participate in any sort of takeover plot. What I do know is that it planted a seed that grew into a grown-up me thinking I always have words to say (and that those words are worth listening to).

I ended up pursuing a career (and I use that term loosely to describe the general direction my professional life has gone) that is all about connecting to people. I graduated with degrees in psychology and communication and my joke has been, “Basically, I got a degree in figuring people out and then talking to them.” Every single job I’ve had – from printing shop to administrative assistant to guidance counselor to paint crew to service coordinator – has been about relationships. The most important moments (professional and personal) have always happened in conversations.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that all those times my teachers and family members and friends said, “You’re really one of those ‘natural’ leaders” kind of got under my skin and convinced me I had something to say and that people should listen.

That’s what born leaders do, right? Lead people.

Yes. But it’s both more and less. The secular world has its way of preaching its own religious message and this business of leadership is a popular sermon. There is a tendency, when people come to me for advice, to speak from my own pulpit – to guide and direct and advise from my own experiences and knowledge.

Along the bumpy and unconventional “career path” I’ve been walking, I have learned something very important about leadership and advice and relationships. It really boils down to one very simple thing.

Give me Jesus.

This is the sermon Paul preached to himself in Corinthians and Galatians and it summed up his life and ministry. He even later cautioned his listeners to filter out any worldly advice that might sneak in to sabotage the original message of the Gospel.

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5, ESV)

Paul was intensely aware of His need of the Gospel – his dependence on God’s grace shaped the way he spoke and listened and preached and led. His leadership did not look like more of his words or his knowledge or his expertise. His leadership looked like more Jesus. Because the more he filled his life with Jesus, the more it became the only thing he could give to others.

Give them Jesus.

Maybe there are natural born leaders – people who have the characteristics and personality to be presidents and prime ministers. But the longer I live, the more I’m convinced that the best leadership comes from people who are most concerned with following Jesus.

When we feel like we are failing as leaders or as communicators or advisors, we don’t need to work to be better at those things. We need to ask the Lord, “Give me more Jesus, so that I can give them more Jesus.”

I read this little nugget from Tim Keller in my devotional this morning. I like to think about my heart being melted by His love and that love overflowing to others. That’s the kind of leader I want to be.

“If we find ourselves unloving, the solution is not to seek to love better or more; it is to look at Christ, who gives us an unlosable, unshakable acceptance from the Father, and as we dwell on our hope, we will find our hearts melted by His love, and overflowing with His love to others.” Tim Keller in “Galatians for You”

Posted on by Caroline 1

what does freedom look like?

I remember having a conversation with my friend Sarah in Honduras – we were sitting on the patio at a café and blocking out the construction noise. We were talking about what it would look like for a person to live as if truly forgiven.

There was a point, soon after we asked the question, where we ran out of words. We just sat there with our eyes in the air and our imaginations running wild. I think we both giggled to break the silence and then agreed that a truly forgiven life would look like freedom.

This morning, that freedom found footsteps as the pastor preached through Galatians 5:13-26. We are designed to walk, but it’s an “out-of-balance” exercise – every footstep is like falling until our feet find the ground again. Movement is uncertain and uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous. Movement in any direction means leaving what is safe and stable (even if just because it is known).

But, we are made to move.

If we didn’t move ever, at all… we would never feel the freedom of motion. We would never get anywhere or experience anything outside of our shoulder width stance. Our safety in what is known would also be our prison, and one we choose for ourselves.

How does freedom work? How do footsteps happen?

After church today, over Panera with my uncle Tom and cousin Vince, we talked about freedom footsteps. Because walking is not an abstract activity. It’s not something you experience by dreaming or talking or thinking. Walking is something you experience by doing and we were made to do it.

So, how do freedom footsteps happen? Because Paul tells the Galatians that we were called to it.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

We were called to a freedom that breaks us out of the prison of pride and idolatry, safety and self-promotion. We are no longer held captive by the idols that informed our spiritual paralysis. Through the work of the Spirit, by the grace of God, our feet shake the fear weighing us down.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Our walk – our freedom footsteps – displays the power and glory of the Savior who set us free. We do not keep in step with the Spirit to prove our worth. We keep in step with the Spirit to express our freedom.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.(Galatians 5:13-26, ESV)

Tonight, I met up with my dear friend Emma. We used to meet weekly for “Dream Sessions” where we challenged each other creatively and tonight we had a reunion. She is a very special inspiration and kindred spirit. Her wisdom is crazy years beyond her high school age. As we talked about freedom and footsteps, she shared this quote from memory:

“A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.” -thought to be spoken by Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

A ship is not made to sit in the harbor, but it can only sail if it is released from the shore. And the same is true of us: by God’s grace we are released from the chains of our shoulder width stance to the freedom of forward motion. Walking with the Spirit is not meant to gain our freedom, but to express it.

Posted on by Caroline 0

pray to the One I love

This Friday is passing without much ado about anything. I’m not sure if I’d prefer much ado about nothing. I think I’d prefer much ado, period.

But, Fridays and Tuesdays and Sundays are not about preference as much as they are about presence. So, I’m streaming the new Civil Wars album while I write reports and smiling about the next three weeks that are about to unfold in front of my face. I’m just jamming to this beauty and loving the Lord who gave us song.

It feels like I just said yes to a hot air balloon ride without a destination – and now I will just enjoy the surprises with the scenery. Nothing makes sense and I am so glad I can laugh at that.

Well, I take that back.

One thing makes sense and that’s all the sense I need.

God is good, all the time.

 

Posted on by Caroline 0