Lessons Learned From A Weekend We Didn't Expect

This past weekend, our plans were to drive to Milwaukee for a wedding and then come back on Sunday. But, just in case you didn't check Facebook this weekend, here's a little recap of the super great weekend we ended up having:

So to sum up, we drove 4 hours, broke down, spent 4 hours at a tiny gas station trying to get a tow (thus missing the wedding), spent 40 more hours in Wisconsin waiting for our car to get fixed, found out it was a problem too big [read:expensive] to fix, rented a car, and drove 4 hours back home. Awesome. Weekend. As Bri says, it would have saved a lot of time and money if we would have just gone outside on Saturday, set his car on fire, and then gone back inside. Touché. 

However, that is not what happened, so therefore we now have this story to tell. This story that includes tears (I held it together pretty well most of the time), gas station food, an hour and a half of being on hold with Discover, sitting in a cold car while one of my dear friends walked down the aisle, losing a beloved car, missing plans with good friends, and renting a car 2 weeks before we both turn 25 (ergh!). 

But it's also a story that includes the sovereignty of our God. Our car stopped running literally a block away from a gas station (rather than the highway), the gas station attendant was super helpful and nice (even when we were basically loitering in his store for 4 hours), our friends came and saved us with their AAA (and let us crash at their place all weekend), and so many other small (and big) blessings along the way. 

So here are a few lessons we learned from our little adventure:

1. Hold your expectations loosely. I titled this post "Lessons Learned From A Weekend We Didn't Expect" because that's exactly what this past weekend was... something we didn't expect. It was a disappointment in many ways and didn't go at all how we planned. But the situation only got more frustrating as I tried to hold on to my expectations with all my might. As I felt like I had a right to the plans we had made, the disappointment only grew more strong. But when I started to let go of those plans and embrace the direction God had us on, my attitude changed drastically and I was able to enjoy the moments that were joyful.

2. Focus on the positive. Be thankful. As you can tell from my two lists above—one filled with all the sad, bad, and mad things we had to deal with, and the other filled with all the graces we encountered throughout the ordeal—perspective can really change a situation. As much as we wanted to wallow in the suckiness that was our weekend, both Bri and I made it a point to try and dwell on the positive things that were happening and be thankful for how God was so plainly providing for us. And when we did? It made all the difference.

3. Have a sense of humor. Don't take things too seriously. Be against the problem, not each other. It was really easy to get wound up in this stressful, time-sensitive situation, and then take that out on each other. But after awhile, I think we both realized that it wasn't the end of the world, and that if we had a sense of humor about it, everything would feel much less heavy. I joked that this weekend was a test of our marriage and we passed, but really, it was a test of how well we handle stress and "emergency" situations. 

Bonus Lesson: Emergency funds are good. This whole situation is SO much less stressful since we aren't freaking out about finances. For now, we've decided to try out the whole one-car family deal, and so far the first couple days have gone well! But we are aware that we will probably want to replace that car eventually (maybe before next winter), and it's so nice to not have to wonder where it's coming from. Thanks Dave Ramsey!

So hopefully you had a less disastrous weekend then we did, and can instead learn these lessons second-hand. You're welcome. :)

Best & Worst [Marriage Edition]

So a little over a year ago I wrote this post titled Best and Worst. It was based off this quote—"I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both," and was all about how we are called to love people in view of their flaws and shortcomings.

I wrote that post after being in my first real adult relationship for exactly six weeks and one day. And I didn't even know the half of it.

Because this first real adult relationship continued on for a year and 3 months to where I stand today and it has changed me.

When I wrote that post a couple months of marriage, 5 1/2 months of engagement, and 8 months of dating ago, the hubs really didn't know my best and worst, and I didn't know his. We were brand new to this whole relationship thing, plus we were long distance and had probably barely even spent much time together as a couple.

But I still loved this picture, this idea, of being loved and chosen by someone who knows your best and your worst. I mean, who wouldn't love that? Besides, of course, that it's terrifying to think of someone knowing you that well.



I loved it, but I didn't really know it. And although today I know it so much better than I did on that warm day in August, I know that I still don't even know the half of it. Because yeah, I've seen more of his best and worst, and you better believe he's seen more of mine (heavier on the worst), but I'm certain we still haven't seen it all. I'm certain that over the next weeks, months, and years more bests and worsts will come out, and ultimately, more bests and worsts will be born. Because this relationship, it's changing us.

So yes, I understand more deeply what it means to be known and loved. And it's a beautiful, sweet thing. It's a thing that wells up gratefulness in me. It leads me to worship my Savior who does it completely and perfectly and who also has gifted me with an imperfect but wonderful earthly expression of this knowing and loving.

But I also know that my understanding is so minuscule, so minute, compared to the grand scheme of it all. Because every day that I am on this earth my husband gets to see a little bit more of my best and worst, and he gets to continue to choose me, to choose both. And I get to do the same with him and we get to both experience this knowing and loving from the One who does it wholly and without reserve, Jesus.

And it's a really good thing that we have a perfect example to follow. Because this knowing and loving thing, it's hard. But it's so, so worth it.

//photos via Availeth Photography

Empty Your Shoe

"In marriage, the little offenses creep in and steal your joy if you don’t learn to overlook them (Prov 19:11). Like small rocks in your shoe, they begin bruising your heal and causing greater pain if they’re not removed. Your marriage is your ministry and you have a purpose beyond your immediate happiness. There are mountains to climb, and you must climb them side by side! How can you climb mountains together if you’re both agonizing about tiny pebbles in your shoes? Empty your shoe, get rid of the pebbles, and get on with life. " 

—Ryan Frederick, Fierce Marriage [read the whole post here] 

Amen and amen. This is such a good reminder that Satan will use whatever he can—including those tiny little things that shouldn't even matter—to try and ruin our marriage. He will do whatever he can to tear us apart. He will make anything and everything seem like a big deal if it will bring disunity and disharmony.

I think this is going to be our new code phrase for when we're feeling those little annoyances and frustrations. "Can you give me a minute? I need to empty my shoe." or "Hey babe, do you need to empty your shoe?"

Because we can't climb those mountains with a shoe-full of pebbles!

//photo via Availeth Photography

Lessons From Rush Hour Traffic

Yesterday I was sitting in rush hour traffic at 5pm. Radio up, windows down (just kidding! It was raining and cold and dark because we live in the great white NORTH!). Anyway... I used to get super duper annoyed during rush hour and would have a sour attitude the whole drive home. But then I decided that's a not-so-wonderful way to end my day/start my evening 3 days a week, so I decided to change my attitude about rush hour.

//via

I used to not want to let people in, especially those people who totally skip the whole forever-long line to get onto the interstate—those people that accelerate past you, only to cut in right as the entrance ramp approaches. Those people who don't use their blinker. Those people who make you miss the green light by one car. ONE CAR, people!

So I could choose to see these people as selfish jerks, OR I could choose to see them as children of God who are in a hurry to get home. I could see it as an opportunity to love and bless them because, who knows? Maybe they are even more excited to get home to their hunny than I am (doubtful), or maybe their babysitter will charge them an extra hour if they are 5 minutes late. Or maybe their commute is a lot longer than mine and they just want to get home and relax because they had a really terrible day at the office.

But whatever the reason they are in such a rush, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is my attitude toward them. I can get angry and bitter and self-righteous about my polite driving compared to theirs, or I could just have grace toward them. I could show them love and let them in and maybe make their day a little better and hopefully they'll pass that on.

And all of this makes driving home just a little bit better. It gives rush hour traffic a little more meaning in my mind, and if anything can make rush hour better, then hey, I'll take it.

So what opportunities do you have today to love and bless others when what you really want to do is get even or get mad? How can you change your attitude about a situation today? How can you show someone grace today? Even if it's as small as letting someone cut in front of you with a smile on your face—you know what they say—ya' gotta start somewhere.

Transition

I've become convinced that in the blog world time moves at a much faster rate than in the real world. It feels almost unnecessary to comment on the fact that it is somehow late May and once again the space between my last post and this one is far greater than I would have hoped, so maybe this is just my new normal. Yeah, we're gonna go with that- a new normal.

So, transition. What a crazy concept. Change, movement, different, forward. These are things that can be welcomed or very much resisted. When the transition is good, we often look forward to it with much anticipation. When it's not so good, we tend to dig in our heels and want to stay put. But no matter what, transition is hard. It takes work and is usually outside of our comfort zone. 

I'm undergoing quite a bit of transition right now. With living in a different city (living in a city, for that matter), experiencing apartment life for the first time, being done with full time ministry and moving on to 9-5 kind of work, being engaged and living in close proximity (finally!) to loverboy, and having a new sphere of people to interact with, life looks a whole lot different today than it did a couple weeks ago. 

But this transition I'm going through is thankfully the kind that I'm willing to greet with arms open wide. It's softened by loving family, friends, roommates, and a certain man who all make life a little more normal feeling amidst all the change. Plus, the whole time I have my ever-constant, never-changing, forever-faithful God by my side. He has carried me through transitions before (ones much more difficult than this one) and I have no doubt He will do it again. He remains solid when everything around me is moving, He stays the same when everything else changes. 

So even if this transition was the kind where I wanted to run away and hide under the covers, He would still be there, ever present, by my side. My job is just to trust. To choose to believe that God is constant and good even amidst transition. To trust that His grace is sufficient, that He is sufficient.

Transition pushes me to trust God more, to rely on His sufficiency. And that's always a good thing. Here's to transition!

How Being on EDGE is a Lot Like Being in a Relationship

So in case you didn't know, I am currently in FLORIDA headed into my last day of what has been a week-long conference for my job with The Navigators. How blessed I feel to be spending time in a warm and beautiful place with hundreds of others who are doing the same work on campuses all over the nation! It has been an encouraging and challenging week as I've heard speakers, attended workshops, and caught up with friends from Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Illinois, and all over the US!

As we were given some time to reflect on the things we had learned from our year and a half on EDGE Corps so far, I had one burning thought- being on EDGE is a lot like being in a relationship. Let me break it down for you.

My time spent on staff with The Navigators has been incredibly refining.

Whew! If there's one thing I've learned on EDGE it's that I am a sinner and I NEED Jesus. Every. Stinkin'. Day. Doing full-time ministry has exposed my selfishness, my desire for control, and just how much I need God's grace. I have seen both my pride and my insecurities clearer this past year and a half than ever before. I have been more aware of my weaknesses and shortcomings. But I have also seen clearer how much God loves me and wants to take me further than I am right now. 

I have learned that it's not about me.

Like I said- full-time ministry has exposed my selfishness. It has exposed my desire to serve self. To be comfortable and have it easy. But it's not about me. Life isn't about me. It's not about people loving me and serving me and being as comfortable as I can. It's all about loving Jesus, and loving people. If I'm not doing either, then any of the work I do is just a noisy gong. As a follower of Jesus I am called to lay down my life for others, as Jesus did for me. And I think I have realized that calling even more now that I am vocationally doing ministry.

I have been forced to trust and depend on the Lord more than ever in the past.

Again. Jesus. I need Him. Being on EDGE has presented circumstances that have grown my trust in God immensely. [Two words- support. raising.] I have had to depend on Him in a very real way for my livelihood. I have had to rely on His power to make any of the work I do be productive for His Kingdom. I have had to trust that He would work in students' hearts even when things seemed to be at a standstill. I have seen God come through for me in huge ways and my dependence on Him has deepened.

These lessons I've learned while on EDGE seem eerily similar to lessons learned in relationships. Maybe that's just life. Maybe God chooses to refine us and teach us and humble us through the circumstances we find ourselves in. Maybe He uses whatever means He wants to reveal Himself to us. And those means are happy and hard and joy-filled and uncertain and wonderful and messy all at the same time.

Giving: When It's From Daddy

So a few months back I wrote a post about giving. I made the observation that I felt that God had really been revealing a lot to me about giving leading up to my EDGE Corps experience and in the first few weeks of raising support. And He never stopped teaching me things. I know that this summer I learned so much about having a giving heart, learning both from my donors, as well as through the Word. But somewhere between the middle of August and now, I started to forget some of these things.

I started to believe that what I had was mine, and I didn't want to share. I started to see my possessions  money, and time as things that I had worked hard for, so why should someone else benefit from them?

Yes. I know. Even after a summer of seeing God provide BIG time. Even after so many people sacrificing and generously giving to me. Even after living with some of the most giving people I know. I sure can be daft sometimes.

Orrrr, I'm just human. And it takes me more than once to learn a lesson. So let's just say that this last week at church really struck me hard. The sermon's topic: Greed. Ohhh boy. Just to give you a tidbit, one line that has stuck with me is this: "Being stingy can just be a cover-up for greed." Yikes. But the real lesson I took away from it was this:

That which I feel my father has provided for me, I can give freely. That which I feel I have provided for myself, I will have a tight grip on.

Let me break it down for you:

My pastor told how he had bought his daughter an MP3 player when she was younger and filled it with  a bunch of Christian music. After a few days he noticed that he hadn't seen the MP3 player in awhile and asked his daughter about it. She explained that she had met a girl on the bus who didn't have an MP3 player, or even any Christian music for that matter, so she gave it to the girl. Similar scenarios happened a few times after this, where the dad would buy her a new MP3 player and she would inevitably end up giving it to someone less fortunate than herself. Finally, when the daughter was old enough to pay for her own MP3 player, she kept it, and still has it to this day. Once she spent her hard-earned money on it, she wasn't as generous with it.

This is how it so often is with us [well, with me anyway]! If I see what I have- possessions, money, time, as coming from my daddy- God, I can live open-handedly with it. I can give freely. It is only when I start believing that I have provided and worked for what I have, when I forget that all I have is a gift from God, that greed starts to creep in. And I know that's not the way I want to live. I want to live generously. I want to live with open hands and an open heart. I want to live like Jesus lived.

Little Steps

A couple years back I went to Romania over Christmas break and worked in some orphanages. I (being me) kept a blog for that adventure as well, and recently went back and read some of my earliest posts about fundraising.

It is humorous for me to read my Junior self talking about having to raise $2800 and how much of a daunting task that was. God was SO preparing me for this time in life where I am asked to raise more than 10 times that much! It is so neat to see how I was learning little steps of trust and seeing God provide, to see how I watched my percentage slowly rise and actually get to 100%.

It's funny how God works, uses events in our past to teach us and prepare us for the present. How He is using today to prepare us for tomorrow. As I look back on my fundraising past, I remember having to raise a few hundred for a trip to NYC, then around $1000 for Mexico, then the daunting $2800 for Romania... and how all the while God was just building up my trust, showing me that He could and would provide, no matter the amount.

And now I get to see Him show up again, only this time it's magnified beyond all my past experiences. God is so good! How precious that He wants so badly for me to know this lesson, this idea of absolute and total trust and dependence on Him, that He patiently teaches it to me over and over again! In the past it has been little steps, but as I am learning and growing, He is asking me to take leaps and bounds, and all the while trust Him.

[In case you're curious, this post was a good reminder about the need for people to send, and this one was fun to read as I can relate to it now, but just at a much higher level!]