My mom: "I've noticed most of my friends have had facelifts now."
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
#blogFAIL
I was really proud of myself for blogging semi-regularly for awhile, which of course just goes to show what happens when you get really proud of yourself. My life is a constant process of God humbling me, and here you have yet one more example of that-- my notable absence from substantive blogging.
But it's a really cool story that I will tell you once all this biz is wrapped up. And I literally mean BIZ-- I resigned from my current job yesterday and will be starting a new one in two weeks.
I.AM.SO.EXCITED!
And SO busy. I have 3.5 days to wrap up two years of work and to leave something for my successor to work with, and because I created my position out of nothing, that's a little bit challenging. Oh and I'll be moving. So please forgive me if my blog content is limited to silly photographs and Family Guy clips for a little window of time.
Today, please enjoy the photography skills of my BFF's husband.
Ladies & Gentlemen, Cade Bowman Photography.
But it's a really cool story that I will tell you once all this biz is wrapped up. And I literally mean BIZ-- I resigned from my current job yesterday and will be starting a new one in two weeks.
I.AM.SO.EXCITED!
And SO busy. I have 3.5 days to wrap up two years of work and to leave something for my successor to work with, and because I created my position out of nothing, that's a little bit challenging. Oh and I'll be moving. So please forgive me if my blog content is limited to silly photographs and Family Guy clips for a little window of time.
Today, please enjoy the photography skills of my BFF's husband.
Ladies & Gentlemen, Cade Bowman Photography.
*This is one of my favs, and homeboy in the photo is also an amazing photographer, Brett Arthur. Brett might tell you I am the best bridal portrait assistant he's ever had. Or he might not.
These gents have skills + fantastic wit & sarcasm, the both of them.
Enjoy & Happy Friday.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
We interrupt this seriousness to bring you something completely irrelevant. Wednesday Letters: Peanut Butter Edition
Dear Peanut Butter Lovers,
TODAY IS YOUR DAY!
NATIONAL PEANUT BUTTER LOVERS DAY!
Question: What time is it?
ANSWER:
I'm sorry about all of that. I don't what just happened.
TODAY IS YOUR DAY!
NATIONAL PEANUT BUTTER LOVERS DAY!
Question: What time is it?
ANSWER:
I'm sorry about all of that. I don't what just happened.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Mediocrity
A couple of things I read today are sticking in my mind.
First, a question: What if God called you to be mediocre? (YIKES!...hold on, don't freak out yet.)
Second, a scripture: Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Colossians 4.5
I'm in a season of life that feels a little bit in between. I'm an adult, but I don't have my own family. I have a job, but it's not what I want to do forever. I live in a house, but I don't own one. I like my city, but I don't think I want to live here forever. There are some pretty big things I want to do with my life, but I'm not doing them yet. That's okay with me, it's just where I am.
But I find myself hesitant to let my roots grow into this place of life, literally and figuratively, because I don't want it to be permanent. I want to do great, big things and I want to travel widely and I want my name on the cover of books. And so, in my wanting of these things, living as a single girl here in this small-ish city, working at this job where few products of my time bear my name, and basically existing in a small sphere of influence, I sometimes feel like my life is mediocre. My daily routine does not effect the world, and maybe that should be disappointing.
So then, the question above, is slaying, eh? What if God is calling you to be mediocre? What if God is giving me this life and this little area of space & time and saying here you are, Hope. This is what I have for you to do. Use your gifts, I'll provide.
My favorite part about my house in this city is the space it provides to build relationships-- with my roommates, with my mission group, my church, my neighbors, the friends I have made at random and the ones I have known for my lifetime. And so the line from Colossians is especially perfect. I have the space in my life now to walk towards outsiders and make them feel like insiders. As a single woman, I have time. I have evenings and weekends and energy that can be put towards a "mediocre" life-- appetizers and football, wine and a sprawling back porch, card games and raucous laughter.
I do not think anyone famous will care to come to my little house for the pure pleasure of the company of my friends who have chosen to live in this city, I do not think I will receive recognition from editors or publishing houses because I host a party for no reason at all, and I do not think that matters a bit.
The best use of my time is to live intentionally. To open up spaces and hearts for relationships that are true and deep. It might feel small sometimes, but to the person who would be sitting alone in her apartment otherwise, it will feel very, very large.
And that matters.
First, a question: What if God called you to be mediocre? (YIKES!...hold on, don't freak out yet.)
Second, a scripture: Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Colossians 4.5
I'm in a season of life that feels a little bit in between. I'm an adult, but I don't have my own family. I have a job, but it's not what I want to do forever. I live in a house, but I don't own one. I like my city, but I don't think I want to live here forever. There are some pretty big things I want to do with my life, but I'm not doing them yet. That's okay with me, it's just where I am.
But I find myself hesitant to let my roots grow into this place of life, literally and figuratively, because I don't want it to be permanent. I want to do great, big things and I want to travel widely and I want my name on the cover of books. And so, in my wanting of these things, living as a single girl here in this small-ish city, working at this job where few products of my time bear my name, and basically existing in a small sphere of influence, I sometimes feel like my life is mediocre. My daily routine does not effect the world, and maybe that should be disappointing.
So then, the question above, is slaying, eh? What if God is calling you to be mediocre? What if God is giving me this life and this little area of space & time and saying here you are, Hope. This is what I have for you to do. Use your gifts, I'll provide.
My favorite part about my house in this city is the space it provides to build relationships-- with my roommates, with my mission group, my church, my neighbors, the friends I have made at random and the ones I have known for my lifetime. And so the line from Colossians is especially perfect. I have the space in my life now to walk towards outsiders and make them feel like insiders. As a single woman, I have time. I have evenings and weekends and energy that can be put towards a "mediocre" life-- appetizers and football, wine and a sprawling back porch, card games and raucous laughter.
I do not think anyone famous will care to come to my little house for the pure pleasure of the company of my friends who have chosen to live in this city, I do not think I will receive recognition from editors or publishing houses because I host a party for no reason at all, and I do not think that matters a bit.
The best use of my time is to live intentionally. To open up spaces and hearts for relationships that are true and deep. It might feel small sometimes, but to the person who would be sitting alone in her apartment otherwise, it will feel very, very large.
And that matters.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Confabulation
It was requested that I work the word "confabulatory" into my next blog post, so here I am. One definition of the word is "to talk casually; chat." And that's what I'm going to do today. Here are some things that keep running around in my head day after day....
Yesterday, I went to the bookstore during my lunch break. There was a little boy walking out the door with his dad just in front of me, and the boy was asking his dad if both doors worked. His dad said yes of course they both work, but you only need to use one. So I used the other one and said, see, this one does work!
And I found myself again wishing deeply that I were in a bookstore with my own three year old, rather than escaping my desk for an hour between business, alone. Lately, there's been a trend among my friends that ex-boyfriends are getting engaged and married, and while we, the exes, are sure that these men are not good for us, it's often difficult to navigate the waves of jealousy towards these men that wash quickly over us, the single girls. Not because we want those men in particular, but because, what's wrong with us?
One friend articulated the frustrated questions clearly: "I just wonder sometimes. I feel like I am finally trying to gear my life toward God and get my shit together. I'm struggling and working hard to correct myself. Did he correct himself? Is it possible that he found love in the last 2 years, real love and I can't get a date!! What is that about??" (See, other people say "God" reverently and cuss in the same sentence!)
Last weekend, one of my roommates and I were watching The Notebook because we like to torture ourselves. (Sidenote: do you ever wonder how Nicholas Sparks' wife feels about all this love story writing? Does he romance her as much as his characters do? I should hope so.) When the movie was over, she asked me: "Do you think it's possible for two people to really have love like that?"
I have moments where I am so desperate for my happily ever after and other moments where I feel totally unprepared to know how to love a man. Those moments tell me I'm not ready yet, that there's more for me to learn to be capable of being fully myself and also capable of letting go of control, in the knowledge that I'll never be able to love someone in a way that will complete him. He has to find his completion in Christ, just like I do. But that also means I have to know that I will never be anyone's end-all be-all. And if I am, I will fail him, time and again.
This terrifies me. Because as cliche as that movie is, I have loved like that and I have lost it because I did not understand that I was completely selfish. I did not understand that a man will never complete me. I loved like that, not only for the sake of loving another, but because I wanted to be loved that way. I played games and I demanded and I held expectations from books and movies and unrealities.
It's disappointing really, to see what I once held and to understand how I so handily misused him. But, that understanding makes my heart change. It makes me see that loving a person is just that-- it is choosing another's happiness over your own. It is submission. It is support. It is encouragement. It is shutting the hell up sometimes. It is saying things outloud instead of holding them inside to fester. It's accepting your own humanity. It is being wrong and saying so. It is forgiveness.
My favorite depiction of marriage is a walk. Marriage is choosing to walk with one person forever, to walk life, with vallies and mountains and joys and sorrows, with the realization that the other person is only a person. I will marry a man and he will still just be a man. He will not have any hope of saving me or I of saving him. But we'll be walking together, and I suppose that having that person to be my person, my hand to hold is the point.
I imagine that walking with another human being will make my brokenness ever more obvious with each passing day. I've heard it said that marriage isn't meant to make us happier, it's meant to make us holier. Maybe that's what is so hard-- the fact that our beliefs about marriage and partnership in life are not defined the way the culture swirling around us would define them. We swim in an ocean of "if it feels good, do it" and don't stop to consider that actual heart change rarely feels good.
When I say that I like change, I don't mean it externally, and I don't think I mean the process. This is painful, this part right here. It's the result that I like. I've spent so much of my life making choices that are difficult because I believe them to be right. I'm sure I will continue to do this, but damn it. Why do I so want an immediate payoff and why isn't there one?
Another definition for confabulation is "the replacement of a gap in a person's memory by a falsification that he or she believes to be true." Isn't it interesting that we believe "happily ever after" to be true when that's not really how it works at all?
I feel like I just mentally threw up onto this page.
Yesterday, I went to the bookstore during my lunch break. There was a little boy walking out the door with his dad just in front of me, and the boy was asking his dad if both doors worked. His dad said yes of course they both work, but you only need to use one. So I used the other one and said, see, this one does work!
And I found myself again wishing deeply that I were in a bookstore with my own three year old, rather than escaping my desk for an hour between business, alone. Lately, there's been a trend among my friends that ex-boyfriends are getting engaged and married, and while we, the exes, are sure that these men are not good for us, it's often difficult to navigate the waves of jealousy towards these men that wash quickly over us, the single girls. Not because we want those men in particular, but because, what's wrong with us?
One friend articulated the frustrated questions clearly: "I just wonder sometimes. I feel like I am finally trying to gear my life toward God and get my shit together. I'm struggling and working hard to correct myself. Did he correct himself? Is it possible that he found love in the last 2 years, real love and I can't get a date!! What is that about??" (See, other people say "God" reverently and cuss in the same sentence!)
Last weekend, one of my roommates and I were watching The Notebook because we like to torture ourselves. (Sidenote: do you ever wonder how Nicholas Sparks' wife feels about all this love story writing? Does he romance her as much as his characters do? I should hope so.) When the movie was over, she asked me: "Do you think it's possible for two people to really have love like that?"
I have moments where I am so desperate for my happily ever after and other moments where I feel totally unprepared to know how to love a man. Those moments tell me I'm not ready yet, that there's more for me to learn to be capable of being fully myself and also capable of letting go of control, in the knowledge that I'll never be able to love someone in a way that will complete him. He has to find his completion in Christ, just like I do. But that also means I have to know that I will never be anyone's end-all be-all. And if I am, I will fail him, time and again.
This terrifies me. Because as cliche as that movie is, I have loved like that and I have lost it because I did not understand that I was completely selfish. I did not understand that a man will never complete me. I loved like that, not only for the sake of loving another, but because I wanted to be loved that way. I played games and I demanded and I held expectations from books and movies and unrealities.
It's disappointing really, to see what I once held and to understand how I so handily misused him. But, that understanding makes my heart change. It makes me see that loving a person is just that-- it is choosing another's happiness over your own. It is submission. It is support. It is encouragement. It is shutting the hell up sometimes. It is saying things outloud instead of holding them inside to fester. It's accepting your own humanity. It is being wrong and saying so. It is forgiveness.
My favorite depiction of marriage is a walk. Marriage is choosing to walk with one person forever, to walk life, with vallies and mountains and joys and sorrows, with the realization that the other person is only a person. I will marry a man and he will still just be a man. He will not have any hope of saving me or I of saving him. But we'll be walking together, and I suppose that having that person to be my person, my hand to hold is the point.
I imagine that walking with another human being will make my brokenness ever more obvious with each passing day. I've heard it said that marriage isn't meant to make us happier, it's meant to make us holier. Maybe that's what is so hard-- the fact that our beliefs about marriage and partnership in life are not defined the way the culture swirling around us would define them. We swim in an ocean of "if it feels good, do it" and don't stop to consider that actual heart change rarely feels good.
When I say that I like change, I don't mean it externally, and I don't think I mean the process. This is painful, this part right here. It's the result that I like. I've spent so much of my life making choices that are difficult because I believe them to be right. I'm sure I will continue to do this, but damn it. Why do I so want an immediate payoff and why isn't there one?
Another definition for confabulation is "the replacement of a gap in a person's memory by a falsification that he or she believes to be true." Isn't it interesting that we believe "happily ever after" to be true when that's not really how it works at all?
I feel like I just mentally threw up onto this page.
*With thanks to S & T for quotes & opinions.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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