Idle and Blessed

You can’t run every race in a lab. There will always be people in your way those first few miles, there will either be a cold start or a hot finish, and you’ll always have to choose between water and the extra 10 seconds. There will be hills and bad pavement and a hot sun; there will be blisters or tight hip flexors or stabbing ankles. Sometimes you will cross the finish line with more left to give, sometimes you’ll barely jog over it, and sometimes you’ll be in bare shoes-kicked-off feet running over gravel. But you’ll always, always cross it. And most of the time you’ll be surprised at your new PR, but sometimes you’ll groan at the sight of the clock and I just want to remind you that the important part is what you feel in the last ninety seconds. You pick up the pace and you survey your effort level and you give it everything you have. As the legs move numb and the mind zeros in, the skin tingles and you feel only good things and there it is, the euphoria ...

So life after college is fun. If your idea of fun is intense pressure to know where you're going, why, and what your salary will be. I can assure you I would be having a life crisis right now if I didn't have grad school plans for the fall. But since I do, I feel like I'm in the eye of a hurricane: in the thick of the storm without feeling its effects. If I were looking for a full time, adult job right now, I would be lost and very likely I'd still be babysitting 30 hours/week instead. The part-time job of caring for children every day is challenging, but it feels less than purposeful. I may be perfectly happy with it for now, but I didn't go to a private university for four years to earn a religion degree to clean up after multiple kids under the age of 6. There's too much debt involved for one, not to mention all the knowledge of ethical paradigms I'm not using. You feel me? The truth is I want to be needed. And not just needed for food, rules, nap t...

In my heart right now there are roughly 3 billion prayers going on. My best friend and her future. My brother and his freshman year of college. My families in Russia. The Russia Family Camp team leaving in a few weeks. Family Camp. New Life Church in Karachaevsk. The pastors of New Life. The hurt and pain and division there. The orphans there. The orphans I met once and haven't seen again but I see their faces when I sleep sometimes. My move to Atlanta. The next three years. Finding a new church and home. Finding new friends. Perseverance in this next season. My future regarding Russia. For me to do everything even now , in this seemingly meaningless summer, as for the Lord. To know what it looks like to be led by the Spirit, and trust it. To move away from pride, selfishness. Russia. Russia again. I know most of you who read my blog are people who pray. And that's why I am posting this here, even though I usually don't. I am in...

This is the summer between. I'm not a college kid anymore. I had four beautiful years of growth, struggle, joy, and transformation. Those four years are over, but nothing has taken their place. I'm not a graduate student yet. There are three blank years ahead of me with nothing but potential written into them, and until I move to Atlanta, those years have not begun. This is the summer between college and seminary. I'm a marathoner. I ran the race that I had prepared for, and on a personal level it was one of the most fulfilling goals I have accomplished. But as I train for the rest of the season, I'm not running 50 miles a week. I'm cycling, swimming, mountain biking, trail running. Triathlons are up ahead, but they aren't here yet. This is the summer between the marathon and new goals. My heart is full of Russia. For the first time in 8 years I am not going there. A couple weeks ago I would have said I was following the Lord's leading by staying ...

The rain is falling steady, slow, gray. It's a Friday and I listen to music about resurrection and I think about what I make life into. I race and fight, I pound my feet into the ground, running and running and always running. At my best I run towards things, toward Spirit and grace and passion and the things that make my soul & heart & body all work together in time-forgetting joy. At my worst I run away from the things that hurt me, always fleeing from demons and self and the moments that rub me raw. It is the running that makes me who I am, chaser of justice, seeker of deep hearts, lover of learning, exceeder of goals. It's the running and competing and pushing that make me work for great things. But it's the running -- the fleeing kind -- that gets me pinned into corners of comfort and escape from fear. Escape from mess and ugly and wrong. In the corners I judge each moment, stamping with approval or not-good-enough. "Fear is like this piano wire cutting...

Summer has come to Nashville. Summer and not Spring, because you know how it is. 55 degrees one day and 85 the next. But it's beauty-filled and and running over, greenest grass and tallest trees and the flowers all bow down in the wind. It makes me glad to live here, grateful to live here, and I think it helps me take hold of the moments better. It helps me live in each moment, singularly, noticing. I notice there's beauty because there's a newness to it. Suddenly, it smells like cut grass. Suddenly, it smells like the color yellow. Suddenly there's not winter in the air. Suddenly. We learn best by contrasts. We notice change more than continuity. It's a point of noticing for us. This summer my prayer is that when the fall comes, when change comes to me in big and real ways, it will be a point of noticing. A learning time. An exploring time. I know myself enough to know I won't like Atlanta at first. But I'm praying for a sense of wonder and open eyes to...

Most days I go through life from the inside of the pages, writing each letter of each word as it comes, scripting the hours of my life into days as the pages turn. Big things happen, and get written in bold black ink, so that when I look back over the story they are easily recalled. But even the sweet things, the big things, the things that give me goosebumps and remind me of sunshine in June, can get put into lines that quickly give way to the ones after them. Not this week. This week I have lived life holding the whole book in my hands, looking down at it and seeing it all at once. And I have realized how fleeting it is, but how pretty and full and green. It's one of the rare times when I step back and notice the significance of the place I'm in and how far I have come. And I really truly believe everything belongs , the sorrow and struggle and failure and doubt, the determination and motivation and epiphany. It's integrated, it makes the picture believable. And relat...