It's just Tuesday:

This life has no true rule book. No actual manual that explains the process of paying off student debt and grocery shopping efficiently. There isn't a 'how-to' blog on dating the next guy or confronting best friends. There isn't a self-help book which perfectly describes how to receive criticism, or hear the opinions you know are true but don't want to accept. All that this life is, is one hesitant step after the next and the occasional over-confident leap, and for my performance-driven, perfectionist of a soul, this reality doesn't bode well.

I find myself, life experience after life experience, learning the hard way, judging my successes and choices against the grain of my well established sisters, happily married friends, and degree-toting peers and comparison is stealing my joy. It is robbing me of my confidence and convincing me of my rebellion. If I cannot make the right choice, why not make all the wrong ones?

This is not a confession of a series of bad choices. In fact, by most people's standards I probably live a pretty good life. I'm a relatively straight-laced, mature, moral person living a pretty good life. While this is mostly true, I know of the warring inside. The constant battle to live by the expectations of my community and the demands of a Christian label. But that's just it. Christian is not my label. It is my identity. One that I was created for and one that I chose.

The last couple weeks we've had baptisms at church. I've sat and watched as people put their public stake in the ground, proclaiming Christ as their Savior. I clap and holler as they come up, out of that water with fresh hearts and a confidence that shines like Jesus' face. It got me thinking about decisions, words, and actions. My decisions. My words. My actions. Yes, I have an external expectation. A standard set by my upbringing, but more importantly it's an internal standard that longs to please God. To be near to Him by following His commandments and knowing His desires for my heart. Yes, I was raised in the church. For as long as I can remember, it was Awana on Wednesdays, church on Sunday, and youth group on Sunday nights, but somewhere along the way Jesus pricked me and out of that moment he breathed his very ruah, his holy breath, into my lungs and my life changed. I decided to look into his eyes and step out of my boat and, like Peter, walk toward him.

I was baptized, in middle school, in front of church just like these people last Sunday. But, here I am again publicly proclaiming myself as Christian. In a world where "Christian" is marked with a stigma of judgement, selfishness, and criticism, I am telling you that I am a Christian. Not because I am condemning a life you live, if differently, but because I want this world to know that despite the warring, every decision, every word, and every action is motivated by Jesus. To be like Jesus. To be kind and helpful. To be confident and genuine. To be caring and wise. To be just and generous and to leave every person with the knowledge and feeling that they are valued beyond measure and cared for beyond imagination; not because I have loved them but because Jesus gave me to them and somehow overflowed his irrevocable love into them.

I am Christian because I want to be and that is something I will not apologize for.

With all that said. I am not, despite my best efforts, perfect. I swear. I give-up, I am honest to a fault, I disrespect my parents, and often seek personal gain. I fail sometimes, most times because just like everyone else I'm a flawed human being. And just like every one else, I need saving. Redeeming, I need purifying. Pruning. Even still, there isn't a manual on how to become better. But, lately I've been so deeply convicted of my own neglect of the love letter left to us (it's the bible, folks). Sermon after sermon in the last months has reminded me that to be like Jesus I need to know him. To be better I need to seek him. And to give peace to this internal battle, I need to pray. It's time I open all I am to the possibility that God's promise is true and in reading, seeking, and praying He will reveal himself to me and bless me. Not because if we "do good" God will give us stuff, but because to know Him is to follow Him and to follow Him is to receive his blessing.

One of my favorite authors said,

"there is this lie floating around that says I am supposed to be able to do life alone, without any help, without stopping to worship something bigger than myself. But I actually believe that there is something bigger than me, and I need for there to be something bigger than me. I need someone to put awe inside me; I need to come second to someone who has everything figured out" (Blue Like Jazz, by Don Miller) 

It's an encouragement to me because, despite my best efforts, I am not perfect. It's an encouragement because we are frail, broken, flawed people and Jesus is the most perfect peace about that. He says all that is okay because I love you still. I love you yet. I love you regardless. I love you forever. So, maybe, on this Tuesday open up your eyes and your hands and your hearts and seek Him. Ask Him. Find Him and be restored. Like I am being restored right now in my empty classroom. 

Could it be?

I have waited.

I have cried out.

I have prayed.

I have walked in wilderness for months and now a quiet whisper of goodness seems to name each new day. Could it be over? Could I have walked through fire to actually reach the other side? Could it be that freedom and healing, for which I have prayed, are actually mine to claim?

I spent the last week of 2015 reading through my journals from the year. The last year was marked by a Grand African Adventure which broke down my concept of God. It included the giddy start to my first love and the painful process by which it ended. I endured failure and waiting in my academic life, followed by challenge and joy as I finished my undergraduate degree. I learned that heartbreak is real, it is tangible, its all encompassing. I experienced deep and lasting need. I pressed into emotions: anger, frustration, mourning. I cried, screamed, laughed, and talked incessantly with anyone who would listen. My year was marked by the very real ups and downs of life and change. It spoke of hurt and gladness. Understanding and lacking. But, mostly it proclaims profound faithfulness on the part of a Good, Good God.

There was a day in October where God said he would call me deeper still. In the midst of all that fall was, he asked me into wilderness and waited for me to say yes. I stumbled in, not by choice, and cast my eyes upward, desperate for a way out. But, he said, deeper still. So, I took my quivering hands and one by one pulled open my fingers. I sat there with my shaky palms facing our slanted ceiling and begged him, 'Papa, if I give it all to you, will you fill them again,' only to learn that my hands were empty to begin with. I had given up a relationship, I had not sacrificed my life for his kingdom. I had made a choice to walk away from the "not best thing", I had not moved to a foreign place to preach the gospel, or forsake all comforts. My hands were empty and still he came. Each day after that one I walked with God. Mornings were quiet and lonely. Just me, the whistling tea kettle and my Jesus Calling. As I walked out the door to go be teacher, I read words that would remind me of God's promise. I would trust them and glean strength from them. As my anxious heart would beat faster when I neared my exit, I would whisper peace and accept it. It was small and shaky, but it was faith.

Then it came. November 20, my last day teaching. I pulled into the parking lot and burst into tears because I had done it. God had done it . With all the deeper still and wilderness and empty hands he had brought me to the end with perfect sustenance. November 20 became December 11. I said goodbye to my students, finished my portfolio, accepted a future job, bought all my Christmas presents and waited. Soon my quiet mornings disappeared in favor of sleeping in. My slow cups of tea became travel mugs of coffee and that deep-rooted faithfulness drifted into random acknowledgements. Days were becoming less of a struggle. Life was more normal. My heart ached less frequently and my mind didn't wander as often. Slowly the idea of self-sufficiency replaced my deep need and I walked through my Mondays and Tuesdays without so much as a 'Good morning, Jesus'. Eventually though, I learned that he had a not-so-new girlfriend and that semblance of a solid foundation shattered because I wasn't good enough. I wasn't wanted. I wasn't needed. I wasn't moved on enough. And I was mad because my heart beat anxiously again, and the memories tugged at my contentment. And the wanting sank too deeply. My heart broke. Just as quickly as I believed I was good. I was needy again. It happened that way, so I opened my journals and learned from my old self that I had been in this place before and God was calling me deeper still.

Now it's January 20 and I realized I have not forgiven him. After all this time and all this process and all the letting go, my "empty" hands are actually gripping so tightly to a sense of justice. A feeling deep in my gut that tells me he owes me something. When really he owes me nothing at all. Or maybe all he owes me is to become what God intended and to live that precious life fully. After all this time I still have nothing to give. After all I have done and worked for, I am still needy because after all, God is the one on the throne.

Recently, I find myself staring at two versions of myself, hesitantly asking God if it is over. If I can pack up my tent and claim healed instead of healing. And, I think, he says, deeper still, because there is faith to be learned in the mundane. There is faith to be learned when things are good. There is faith to be learned out of joy and gratitude and I do not yet know it. Again, I have to walk something out. It's I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you, and I forgive me, too. It's claiming my name as God's before anything else and it's practicing mundane faithfulness.

January 1 came and went. I wrote a "Shannafesto" for the first time in history because I sit in expectation for what this year will be and what these pages will teach me. But there is this idea that everything is a process. This whole idea of forgiveness has less and less to do with the  boy and more to do with grace upon grace. It's about trusting that God has got it and that is good. The most perfect good.

After reading through all my journals I realized that I write about faith the most. The concept of faithfulness is something I strive for, but this process allowed me to understand that in all my striving and trying to achieve this perfect faithfulness, I have become faithful. I know from where my strength comes because I experienced a season in which I could not do a day without leaning into the Spirit. I know from where my joy comes because my heart hurt and there were people that made my stomach hurt from laughter instead. This is what it is to know him and that is all these empty hands long for.

"Behold, this we have searched out; it is true. Hear, and know it for your good" 

Job 5:27 

The Days Are As They Are

So many of these days are marked by crying. Not the I'm frustrated traffic was bad cry or the my students weren't cooperative today cry but, the real crying. The deep-deep-down- something -is -painful crying. The feeling that rests into your marrow.

I can go all day distracted and the moment I step inside the empty walls of my little west side apartment it sinks in, creeps up, and I find myself on my knees or curled up. Stuck on the stairs because I didn't make it through the door. These days I find myself staring, endlessly at the walls, thinking of nothing but that one thing. The one thing that keeps you up throughout the night and, once sleep finally comes, wakes you up again in the morning. Each thought followed by a whispered 'Jesus.' a desperate need for the one that will answer. The one that will draw near. The one that will end the way my body shakes and wash, like that breeze on saturday, over the anxious churning stomach and say to me beloved, what is your need. love of mine, i am your rock. 

It's true that there is no manual in this life of how to get over him, of how to walk diligently through that process of grief. There is no list that allows us to know our end goal and to skip steps to be good again. It's also true that God never promised that his blessing would always be the good kind. He says he promises provision and faithfulness but in the way that means, Shan, you have to walk through a valley now. The thing is, it's a valley he made and one that is just deep enough for me to reach for that hand and know His name. It's just wide enough that each step is exhausting and in need of a reliant strength. It's just long enough that when I make it to "the other side" I'll have a massive hill to climb, but my legs will be stronger, my heart will be purer, and my mind will be set on the one thing that is better for me.

It was a week ago, three days before I turned 22, I was sitting on my bed, in my new room, in my new apartment, feeling some kind of desperate I had convinced myself was also new. I opened up this blog and started reading. Reading words that told me I had been here before. I have felt desperate. I have felt needy. I have felt ill equipped and lost and confused and forsaken. I may have never felt the sort of sadness I do at this moment, but a year ago I mourned the loss of something so deeply, so viscerally, I was convinced that God didn't know me. I was sitting on my bed telling myself that this was the first time I ever truly lost a thing that mattered when I read my own words telling the world that we are not without need and that God designed us to need him. It's true. You and me. Woven together with a gaping, unmistakable need for the direction and nearness of our Creator.

I may have spent some of these tears seeking out the affirmation and encouragement of that person that left. I may have had a few nights whispering to the dark ' I miss you'  before falling asleep. But, it's been in the hundred other moments, the scary ones where you can't catch your breath, or you find yourself staring at a wall in the classroom, or the mundane 'I'm done thinking about this' moments, where I find him. Sitting in our furniture-less "Room of Requirement" forcing my hands open so that my palms face heaven and saying to him, I have nothing. Oh God, I have nothing. I have nothing to give you, but take this burden. Take my empty hands and fill me up. Be my song, my joy. I have nothing, Oh Jesus, I have nothing to give you but, say the word and raise these bones. I have nothing, yet I have you. Be my strength, my all in all. That is faithfulness, dear ones, your desperation, your need, your joy, your thankfulness, your praise, your broken heart, your goodness. It is faithfulness. Go to Him. Go to the thing that is better for you.

"In returning and in rest you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength."

Isaiah 30:15

You are not. We are not.

You are not without need, He says to me as I walk barefoot through the sand dunes. I'd done 14 miles without my shoes so far, why was I having so much trouble? You are not without need, He says as each blade of dune grass is sharper and sharper on my feet. You are not without need, He says as I stubbornly stop, refusing to take off my pack, but putting on my newly purchased hiking shoes.

I had done 14 miles in the dunes and in the woods, maintaining the rear counselor position so that the 15 6th graders doing the hike could have an encourager always at their rear. But, this wind was difficult and the shore line was non-existent. My feet needed a break from the frigid lake temperatures so I cut into the dune line the kids were following. For some reason the dune grass was bothering me. I had taken time at the last base camp removing splinters from my feet and had to walk carefully to avoid getting any more. Walking carefully was making me fall behind. Although I wasn't the last, there were a few kids behind me with our final counselor, I was definitely hiking slower than I wanted. It wasn't really a time that I was seeking the Lord. My mind was blank, really, just focusing on the hike and the wind and getting where we were going. I was holding my sandals and just pushing. I was going to not care about the dune grass. You are not without need. You are not without need. So, I put them on and finished the hike.

It wasn't until a week later when this sentiment, this one truth became important and now, a few weeks later, when it is a constant, rhythmic mantra coursing through my mind.

You are not without need. The helper. The hand to hold. The deep rooted surety that we are sons and daughters of the King. You are not without need. The comforter. The adventurer. The fulfilling peace of the Holy Spirit. You are not without need. The encourager. The reminder that we are all broken and all put back together. You are not without need. The challenger. The voice that tells you change is good because God is good. The whisper that puts you on the track to be all that God intended when he created you.

You are not without need. And you are not without promise. Take this moment to acknowledge your thirst and find Him; to understand your need for living water and find Him. Because this is His promise, "I will make you lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know [me]."

God does not say that He might do what is good. He never once says that he might get around to showing us the clear and perfect path. He never says that he'll let us wander and drown for a bit until he feels ready to force us in the right way. He says that he will. He will  be your safety, your righteousness, your faithfulness, your justice, your love. He will.

Will you be deeply needy and allow Him to be all that He promises he is? Will you submit in humility that God's will is so much better, so much sweeter, so much grander than the small ideas we could ever imagine for ourselves? If you have that want, find the need and let Him fill you up.

A Practice of Faith:

You thought you wanted them, the questions about your time in Uganda, but as they fly at you the panic makes your heart beat a little faster, you aren't sure. No matter how many times you've heard the most annoyingly general inquiry, "How was Africa?" you still don't have an answer. Debrief taught you to have a planned response, but each time you forget what you meant to say and have to decide again how you will, in one or two sentences, describe the experiences that left you sobbing uncontrollably on the dorm step, or the incredible laughter you had with a roommate that was so joyful it made your heart explode, or to explain how the challenges of what you thought would be your career destroyed your confidence and rattled your belief in God. So, you take a breath, look wide-eyed at the half-curious person and say, 'It was great!' or maybe if you really like them you spice up the adjective by saying, 'It was really great' and wait for their reactions. Do they inhale as if to ask you another question or do they nod, drop your gaze, and move on to the thing they actually wanted to discuss. You hope for the former. You hope you'll be able to tell them that it was the most challenging experience you've ever had but also the most life giving thing. You hope they will want to hear you talk about the days spent in the classrooms, or the dinner you made for all the roommates or the trips to the market with other girls from the program. You hope they want to know that God stripped you of everything you relied on so that when you came home you were left with nothing but a need for him. But, they don't. So you move on with them. You write it all down though because you want to remember. Quickly, heart-breakingly fast this grand adventure, this life-changing experience stops being the thing you are doing and becomes the thing you did. Every new day is just 24 hours separating you from the sun, the red dirt, and the brown skin. How do you handle the end of it?

I sat and journaled and cried because my people didn't ask and I found it hard to honor my time there without telling stories. I felt guilty each time I started with a 'when I was in Uganda...', but I remembered the whole Ugandan journey was about digging in. I realized that digging in is really a practice in faithfulness. We have a faithful God who was here in the pages of my journal among the pressed leaves and dried flowers, even in the smell my pages had adopted from four months in a foreign world. I began to understand that God is faithful so that we are faithful. I came home to no job, no school, no functioning car, and a heart that hadn't been ready to leave yet. I was unsure of God, unsure of my belief that He was tangible, existent. I instantly went from routine, homework, responsibility, and intense independence to nothing but reliance on my parents for transportation and endless hours of free time. God was carving out space for Him. He was telling me, 'That nothingness you feel? It's room for me" He was telling me, 'You can't find me if you don't seek me.' He said, 'You can't know me if you don't open your heart and your hands to my plans'. He said, 'You can't follow me unless you take a step' and I said, okay. 

At first, it was easier to live in that wildness, to thrive in the high of the nothingness and to avoid His gaze. He kept carving, stripping, and calling me to Him because he is Elohim. I can't tell you what has happened because words aren't enough, because it is deep and still unknown but He calls us to be obedient and I've often believed it's that JUMP of faith, the here is ALL OF ME, but really we don't know what that looks like. I'm only 21, I don't know what ALL OF ME is. I don't understand how things will go or end. So you take a step, you write down how you drank too much and kissed a boy and then you did it again. You write it down and realize that isn't the wildness you crave. You realize your life needs to reflect the faithfulness of your creator and to honor the work He put into designing your heart and its desires, and to whittling away the things that hinder His goodness. As five weeks without a car goes by and you've now spent most mornings finding peace in His presence you feel changed because God is good. And then one morning you are talking to the newest good thing in your life and decide to put away your phone because you want to be with Jesus. You walk into that space He made and God says, "Receive it. My Grace. My Love. My Truth as I pour them over you like water. Here is my Presence. My Peace. My Goodness as I see you taking my hand. Here, Receive my Calm. My affirmation that your fear has no place because I have won the battle and lead you to where I want you."

I guess I just want to share that 6 months ago I was giddy to leave for the trip of a lifetime. 4 months ago I experienced the refinement of God. I was stretched, broken, and built up. (Almost) 2 months ago I came home feeling empty, rebellious, and apathetic. Today, though, I am singing his praises. God is Faithful so that we can be faithful. He is all about holding hands, walking slowly. About putting down roots in a dwelling place and experiencing harvest. He asks us for trust, for the reaching out to touch his robe, the willingness to cross the lake into an unknown place, and the ability to follow and do as he did.

he is the faithful father so take a step. 

"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength, my song, and has become my salvation" 

Waking Up in Amsterdam:

I woke up in Amsterdam and took a walk to find coffee and chocolate croissants. It was a brisk walk not because I was walking quickly but because the cold could be seen on my breath and my cheeks turned pink. My nose hasn't been cold in months. As I walked, I found myself thinking over and over I woke up in Amsterdam. This trip, just a short excursion before returning home, was expected to be an adventure. It's our first time in Europe and we had sights to see and places to explore and things to drink. Instead, Andrea got sick and spent yesterday sleeping on the couch of the hostel and then 8 hours in a hospital bed. 

After months in Uganda learning about expectations and letting go of plans I found myself frustrated, anxious, and antsy. I wanted this trip to be a BIG thing. My first time in Europe. Acting on my adulthood, being able to make all my decisions and navigate public transits and canal roads without help. I was defeated yesterday, yet, today I woke up in Amsterdam. 

There's a common phrase used to comfort people about God's new mercies every morning. A lot of times this verse is used as a blanket statement to console someone instead of truly confronting their need. Today I'm finding it exceptionally true. The conviction that I could continue in my 51 hours frustrated that it hasn't gone as planned and letting the change in plans ruin the entire experience or I can get back on my knees and thank God that she doesn't have Malaria, and for the many people praying for us at home, and that our luggage isn't lost, and that we are still waking up in Amsterdam. 

We finished our semester at Uganda Christian University on the 13th of December and spent 5 days in debrief with each other reflecting on our time and preparing for re-entry. To sum up my experience: Mukono, Uganda had a lot to teach me about letting go of expectation. To hope for God's plan to work out instead of hoping for what I wanted. I learned to embrace the tension of wanting my own plan and desiring to be in the will of God. And I did learn. I learned to dig in. I learned to push passed frustration, or sit in it for awhile and learn from it. I learned to be present with God and with others and surrender. I've found that while letting go is harder said than done, it has to happen. Simply put, we can't let go and still expect. We can't hope for the thing we are trying to let go of because it will be impossible and we'll end up defeated. heart broken. angry. We can't expect God to teach us and grow us and reveal himself to us if we are not willing to see what he has to share.

This morning I woke up in Amsterdam. I had coffee and a chocolate croissant. I smelled winter in the air and was glad for it. Here's to optimism, to new mercies every morning, to a God that blesses us and is faithful even when we're denying him, to finding freedom because we truly surrender, to the new day, and to waking up Amsterdam. 

A dryer time:

I am tired. I am tired of praying without answers. I'm tired of realizing my heart has dirty motives. I'm tired of being wrong. I'm tired of realizing I'm just trying to get something from God. I'm tired of burden and I am definitely tired of rice and beans.

I keep thinking about my history as a swimmer. There was a part of my 500 yard race, at about minute 5, where I would get this tired but have to keep going. It was then I would have to remind myself to kick harder, pull faster and catch my competition. In the last 100 yards I had to drive, deprive myself of oxygen and use my last bits of energy to finish hard into the wall. This tired is a lot like that tired. But, God, he hasn't given me a finish line. He never said pray for a few weeks and I will miraculously save your Grandma's cabin. He never said seek me in the mornings and find your bills paid for. He never said knock and the door to your new car will be opened to you. He just said that I would find him. He promised in finding him I would have satisfaction and joy and peace and hope. Not that he would give me those things through other means, but that He embodies those things.

There is a common theme in the Church of Uganda. Pray, seek, believe and God will bless you. Songs are often sung with lines like, "wonderful things will happen to you if you have faith in God". But my weary heart knows God doesn't promise "wonderful things", he promises nearness, refreshment, faithfulness and understanding. He promises to be our satisfaction.

I recently sent a frustrated message to my greatest friend that expressed my anger towards God. I had been praying for weeks that God would change my Grandma's heart about selling her cabin and had not felt anything from him. I told her, "God is nowhere to be found in any of it" and she graciously corrected me, "He is. If only it was for you to seek him." When I responded with, "It's not enough," she merely asked, "Is it not?" Is it not enough that God would put this in my life and drive me to wake up early every morning and seek him? Oh, my heart. Out of pride I didn't respond. She was wrong. God had left me. But, really, I was wrong and it was enough. He brought me to him to show me sin and to root it out. Is it not enough that I would seek him? It's enough. He is enough. My prayer is that I, that we, would stop trying to get things from God. That we would pray not with the hope of an answered prayer, but with the knowledge that God will show up and the belief that it is enough.
It's his love that showed me my pride, and his grace that brought me to him. This is enough. The sun is shining and that is enough.

I've got 34 days left in Uganda and I want it to be enough; for me to have learned what God intended, for me to walk away from here knowing more about myself and him. I believe this will be true. But, I've still got 34 days. Each day, let's wake up and say, Good morning Jesus, let us acknowledge that what he has in store is more than enough. What he has designed is good and perfect. What he will do is welcome and that we are ready to walk with his hand in our own.