She put the best in friend.

I love having best friends in different places. I love that this life permits me to have more than one best friend, and, even if it didn't, I'd probably try to break the rules with at least 3 or 4. From first grade to highschool to summer jobs to college, I've found some faithful, kind, and loving best and dear friends. They rejoice with me. Cry with me. Laugh with me. Challenge me. Pray for me...I love them because they give and love even when I can't.

Meet Amber. She's been my long-time best friend. She really is the best. Getting together with her always reminds me of how far we have come. We've known each other since first grade, which means our friendship has survived some very precious and terrifying years. We experienced extreme feelings of ecstasy, jealousy, nuttiness, happiness, and hurt in junior high. AND braces and vicious acne. We went through those exact same things in high school, but found that each feeling came quite a bit deeper the older we became. Together we came to terms with who we were. We've watched each other discover God, individual passions, and the beauty of life itself. And today, we have survived almost four years of being best friends half way across the country.Though we don't see each other much, each time we get together I am reminded of how precious and sacred our long-lasting friendship is.

But a friendship is always growing isn't it? That might be one of the most frustrating and beautiful aspects of friendship. Amber and I are still learning how to be honest and vulnerable with each other. When we were little, I was jealous of the big bows her mom decorated her hair with and I thought she was one of the prettiest little girls I had ever seen. I was jealous of her when the guy I liked in middle school had feelings for her. And now I'm jealous of anyone who gets to spend time with her on a daily basis, because she's wonderful to spend time with.

Like a lot of girls our age, we get together to talk about what's important. And then we get down to what's really important... men. We rant, we confess, we scowl, we laugh, we obsess, we question, and we pray about the males who have made their way into our lives. We've gone from being obsessively giddy and overly romantic, to liking the same guy and hating each other, to seeking pure and Godly relationships, to talking about the ins-and-outs of relationships and how incredibly more complicated they are than we ever anticipated, to wondering whether or not testosterone fits into our future at all. I hope your thoughts on relationships have progressed as ours have, one way or another.

As I've been writing I've been thinking that this particular best friend really doesn't get as much thanks as she deserves. For putting up with a lot through the years. For always being willing to go on an adventure with me. Or be hurt by me. She's meeting me at Starbucks in a few minutes to waterpaint and drink tea. I think I'll thank her. Have you thanked someone who's a "best" in your life? Maybe you should thank them too. And then waterpaint and drink tea with them.

Never Fully Dressed.

Playing on iTunes: "I'm writing to bare my soul to the world, that the world might be able to relate to my issues" music. Because I have a confession:

I have a downfall. A worldly nemesis who occasionally makes a visit every few times a year... mainly when the seasons change or when I take a trip to the mall. His name is Fashion. He lurks in my closet, watches me put on my outfit for the day, and then, just as I ready myself to step out of the closet and tackle my daily To-Do list, He tells me to glance in the mirrror once more before I leave my closet, and, as I do, he whispers in my ear "That style won't do. The vibe you're giving off screams 'yesterday' when it should scream 'tomorrow'." I hear that and after a long linger in the mirror, I think to myself... He's right. So I change... over and over again, caught in a cycle of deception and vanity and before I know it, I'm staring at a monster-made-messy closet with "clean my closet" added to my already lingering To-Do list. And one defeated thought flashes through my mind like a billboard in Time Square: Fashion's right, nothing will do.

In my frustration with my "I-must-show-all-the-other-fashion-gurus-in-my-city-I-can-rock-the fashion-vibe-of-a-lifetime" addiction, I can't help but wonder if there is a remedy for me and those like me who sit on the floor of our closets, surrounded by piles of too many clothes. Clothes we are addicted to. And yet we are sick of vanity. Sick of "caring too much". Sick of not being able to find the "classy, but moreso indie, not too dressed up or down, no one else has thought of this" look. We sit there, sometimes in tears, other times with an empty blank stare on our faces, in awe that we just spent so long in our closet we missed the church service we were getting ready for. We even sing a Fashion-revised version of Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts", belting her mournful lyrics, applying them, of course, to our relationship with Fashion: "I know I can't take one more step towards you, cause all thats waiting is regret...Fashion, who do you think you are, running round leaving scars? And now your back for me" I think its beyond okay to remind myself that Jesus once compared those clothing mounds with "moths and rust" ie. death and destruction.

In a year or two you might hear of a girl who suffocated in her closet, smothered by her own piles of clothes, wearing a blouse and scarf that didn't even match her shoes and pants. But that girl won't be me. I have decided it is time to start putting in ear plugs when Fashion bugs me about what I'm wearing. And when he wants me to take that final critical glance in the mirror, I'll tell him what Christina Perri told her deceitful and lousy beau, "Don't come back for me, don't come back at all".

For lent this year, clothes were my focus. I didn't subtract from life. I added to it. I added a small but but critical rule. I'll admit I've been defeated more than a few times this lent season, it has never been so difficult for me... but I am determined to not let Fashion control me. I'm determined to have my inwardness outshine my outwardness. To care about what I wear, but to care more about the inner workings of me, which, in all honesty, need much more time spent on them than my outward appearance.

 So what's my rule? Start from the left to the right and each day wear the blouse that comes next. No skipping around. No changing or trying on something different cause I'm not "feeling" a certain top. I can still keep creativity by pairing whatever bottom I want with whatever top I choose, but the top must stay the same. Time saver? Yes. Room for creativity? Yes. Time to inwardly delve into how I can clothe myself with patience, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness? Yes. Freedom? Yes.

Here's to freedom. If this is something you struggle with, let me be the first to offer to buy you some ear plugs or help you chunk your full-length mirror in the nearest dumpster.

Chelsea

Someone once told me the most important word I should ever remember is someone's name. A person's name truely is a powerful word.

We are called by our names. Remembered by our names. When someone knows my name or remembers it from long ago, my innate "desire to belong" gets fulfilled. When someone mentions my name in a story, I feel a sense of significance settle within me. Someone knew my name. They thought I was important. I was worth remembering.

I love people that are worth remembering. I think a lot of people really are worth remembering. I love taking note of those individuals. People who have remembered my name and even gone farther than that... they have given me life by being a part of my life. Investing in me. Going beyond my name to my heart.

One of those life-givers, investors, and go-er beyond-ers is my friend, Chelsea.

Chelsea has held many roles in my life, and she might even giggle that I referred to her as my "friend" since she is also my boss.... but I am so thankful for this one year of working with her. We've had the chance to take some beautiful walks down the avenue together. And now, after pouring so much of her life into myself and others... she physically gets to bring life into the world.

Today I went to Chelsea's baby shower. My first baby shower ever in fact. There were at least 5-6 others there who had no idea what to expect or that it is okay to have a soda chugging contest using baby bottles. Those wonderful "others" I so gratefully love to call my co-workers, but more importantly, my family. I've never felt so comfortable and out of place at one time. Moments like those are beautiful and rare though, and, looking back, they never really seem out of place but, moreso, just right.

I loved celebrating Chelsea's life and the fact that she has something inside of her that is going to change her life forever in less than two months. She has given so much life to my family of friends and I, and yet it was beautiful to turn around and speak truth into her life.

I also love seeing Chelsea enjoy life. She has a genuine smile and uses it often (I've cried so much in her apartment because I've been laughing too hard). How I wish I could see her face when she sets her eyes on Baby for the first time. To see her enjoy life in such a new way. Thinking of  her joy when she finally gets to see Baby... the little life she has been waiting to hold for so long.

And Chelsea will give Baby a name.  Baby will be called by that name. Remembered by that name. And when people say Baby's name, they will bring life, significance, worth, and a sense of importance into Baby's life....

To my "he"...

Some people call it a long-distance relationship. Lately I've found a few new names for it... Too Much Fun, Ridiculous, Difficult, and "wait, what?"

Both long distance and short distance (any distance really) are similar to culture shock. At the beginning there's a euphoria and honeymoon-ish cluster of emotions that bubble and burst.... and then real life hits and there's confusion, frustration, and one too many blank stares. When the he or she on the other end of the phone (or for short distance, the he or she sitting across the table from you at Starbucks), suddenly loses the glow that seemed to radiate from their ever perfect and presentable person. They lose their splendor and it becomes harder to love them. Loving all of a sudden becomes a choice, not an action motivated by shallow romance and euphoric feelings. And the most reality biting thought throughout all of this is that you, the one they call their other... YOU have lost your angelic glow and have been exposed as a flawed and maybe even selfish human being that is just as difficult (or maybe even more difficult) to love.

Yet choosing to love them, even when it is the last thing I want to do, is something I've decided is a lot more fun and much more beautiful. It's a little something that holds true with everyone we interact with, and yet here it is to a different and deeper degree than I've ever experienced it.

In the midst of finding myself "back from my honeymoon", I enjoy our time together still. Good conversations, honest thoughts, coffee shops, reading, movies, roadtripping, singing together, being still, taking pictures, and laughing. It's the simple things we do that i really love most.

To my he, thanks for looking past my selfishness and choosing to serve me through your actions and hope-filled words.

When Christmas Isn't Merry.

Today Texas was visited by a blanket of snow. My emotions that only tend to get stirred by the beauty of snow and ice are pouting because they find themselves dormant yet another year. I'm sitting in my usual coffee shop in California staring out at unwelcoming gray skies and ugly palm trees. Christmas break is over and I've missed winter by only a few days (I'm reading A Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis... and can't help but think if Narnians could read this they would be baffled that I'm wishing for snow). No matter the weather, I am more than grateful to be back in California and am ready to begin another season of "furthering my education".

This year Christmas was frustrating, mournful, blank, and sad. Far from Merry. I've heard this happens to everyone at some point...having a Christmas that lacks the "happy factor". Or a vacation that only seems to highten exhaustion rather than exstinguish it. I gave myself time specifically to write. I clickity-chipped my computer keys till my thoughts came no more and my fingers were tired; yet, I found myself distracted, irked that i couldn't remember how to semi-colons in a sentence anymore, and too frustrated with my cliche imagery to finish anything. One thing I know, writing is not a simple task.

But I sit here desiring to write because these words are important for someone to hear. Because they have had a Merriless Christmas before too. They've had a Christmas filled with good and bad. A Christmas filled with beautiful moments. A shattered Christmas.Agrateful Christmas. And Christmases filled with deep hope amidst gloomy circumstances.

And this year I've decided it was okay that it was just... Christmas.

 

A warm breeze.

It seems the season of life I find myself in is dry, sad, and frustrating.

Even writing or celebrating anything feels empty and strained.

I know there are times in life that will simply be gray. But I love the few rays of light that bring warmth into the seemingly overwhelming and deep darkness. I have a hope that is greater than any darkness I find myself in. I hope you do too. And, my sweet but quiet confession, is that lately the light has been small but present, bursting forth in the simple things.

Today I found light. Or maybe it found me. I walked outside and found myself enveloped by a warm breeze. I took time to sit and quietly welcomed the warmth in. The soft rays of sunlight were even strong enough to reach in and warm my heart. It was as if the sun had compassion on me.

My hair gently brushed against my face. My eyes closed themselves. My shoes were disguarded. My hands lay loose in my lap. I didn't even know someone was taking a picture of me in such a beautiful moment.

Here's to the other "warm breezes" I graciously encountered the past few weeks... a sweet acoustic serenade of "Stand By Me", truly enjoying each sip of hot chocolate, reading words I needed for that particular moment while bundled up in a soft blanket on the floor of my laundry room, accepting failure then taking a step to move on.

Let's celebrate the kind warm breezes. Simple, temporary, and so gentle.

Our "Family Thing"

It's December 22, and Christmas is ever before me. Christmas is the only time of year my parents, siblings, and I get together anymore... Our family feels so mature and grown since none of us live at home. I having older siblings whose lives have been in full swing for years (that means they're big kids, with real jobs and rent to pay). We grew up about as fast as it takes my dad to assemble our phony Christmas tree (i mourn the year we reverted to a fake tree... and still hold some bitterness in my heart when I can't smell the fresh pine). With one in The Netherlands, another in New York, myself in California, and our parents in Texas, we just don't get to "bump into each other" all that often.

I love "family things".. It seems like every family has its own quirks and quibbles, but I love seeing a family have that one thing that is unique to them. The thing that sets them apart. Ours is cookie decorating.

We keep a few holiday traditions, but the one that stands out to me the most is our annual Christmas cookie decorating extravaganza, which could more appropriately be named "I can 'decorate' at least 20 cookies in globs of icing and eat them ALL without barfing before the night is over" extravaganza. My brother has probably never decorated as many cookies as he has eaten... but, between you and me, I'm pretty sure I come in a close second to him. And since Christmas is so wisely and strategically celebrated right before everyone's new years "no sugar" resolution begins, I have no remorse for the amount of sugar I intake.

I call it a homemade heartattack. I'm not a chef or baker. I don't know a food recipe from a grocery receipt, but I appreciate my mom's homemade brilliance when it comes to this tradition. Homemade red and green icing. Homemade cookies. Way too much butter and powdered sugar. We would be at a loss if one year she decided not to make them.

So here's to my families cookie craze. Even though the red icing looks pink. Even though I've never figured out why our Christmas cookie cutouts include a sheep, a plane, and a windmill. Even though my sister wins "most creative cookie" every year... I can't help but celebrate our "family thing" and those deliciously deadly sugar packed treats.

What's your "family thing"? And don't you think it's about time to celebrate it?