full heart

"these are the things i think about when im alone without you i wonder of your whereabouts and hope like hell youre happy where you are"

that song is in my head a lot, especially when im in my think tank.

my heart is so full and beating a lot. it is good to be here though, to feel and feel so deeply. im thankful for it.

the last few days have been a different sort of spectrum, but most that i am thankful for. transitioning away from camp and back to what my life is moving towards. life or something like it. when i am less tired and my eyes can stay awake, i will actually write down the things i want to remember, but for now i am here in this place and that is enough for me.

camp is and is not real life. it is both and neither. maybe i will never know the line between the two, but i walk the fence often. molly and lily and i have been keeping in touch by being goofy and serious, short videos and long talks. im thankful for that too.

tonight i ate dinner with kelly and lauren and it was awesome. kelly is probably getting engaged before the year ends and lauren is married. relationships are funny things. we talked about all that stuff, and talked about shame and regret and called things by their right names. we talked about what made us who we are and where some of those things started. some of the stories had a ton of shame and embarrassment but they werent heavy in the same ways. we confessed together the things that we thought about and it was so beautiful. often when it comes to shame, we steward it awkwardly and do more damage than good when someone confesses to us. christa talks a lot about being a good bearer of someones story. i hope i do that well sometimes because i think its important. when we come together and confess, it can be so powerful and so worshipful. tonight we talked about how when it comes to sin, there are 3 responses. 1 is to be vague and skate around it, more so skating around something than admitting it, writing it off as something insignificant, when that is typically not the case. the 2nd is to make a joke of something, belittling what it actually is. the third is to call the thing for what it is and just admit it. the first two look like confession, but are just shoddy attempts to satisfy some obligation. they dont allow for healing and in most cases, we prevent the other person from actually speaking into our pain, and we forfeit the healing we could receive. grace is so deep and we miss it sometimes when we only wade in the shadows. my friend lauren is wise too and she said that we also forfeit our right to minister to each other, knowing that we are a royal priesthood. that thought is so powerful. we are meant to be priests for each other and to administer healing and forgiveness. even if we cant heal or forgive the entirety of something, we would do well to reflect on that.

i keep coming back to joy and thankfulness because i see it. God is good to me. my grace runs deep. it would be easy for me to pretend that i was invested and to give you the illusion that i am present. it is much harder to genuinely live there. this whole past year has been genuine and for that i am so thankful. but in that, the process of trusting has been hard too. fears and other things. but i am so thankful, because slowly but surely, i am trusting. trust. such a light thing but such a heavy thing. it is so  foreign to me in some ways, but so familiar in others. it is such a weird process and i dont get it. old wounds die hard.

ramble.

nonsensical.

this is what i know. i have great old friends. i have great new friends, and young ones, and middle aged ones. great friends in every part of the process of life. sometimes i see God in the way we move through the process. i have a good friend who is new and who is wrestling like madness. beating fists and crying out. i have another old friend is who breaking free from the chains that have held her captive for so long. and to me, they are both so beautiful, because i know something of those processes. i know that they are hard and confusing, but that their other side is so sweet. that the grace of Christ's face, holding your hands, saying, "i know. i know it is hard. i know you are confused. i know you are hurting. i know YOU. and you will be okay", is so satisfying. the wrestling is hard. such a strong metaphor. in a fight, the closest you can get to someone is wrestling. you are literally face to face, and you can feel your "opponents" breath. you know the grooves of their body, weakness and strengths. you come out of the match knowing the other side better, regardless of whether you won or lost.

this whole post doesnt even  make sense. but my heart is full and it needed to go somewhere cause i have to sleep tonight. God is good. i praise God so much for my friends, old and new, because in all of them and being reminded to trust and to be okay. it is SO hard, and so challenging to not run, but i am trying to give what i have in that.

so long and goodnight.