It is Him who is Great

Watching the sunset at San Clemente Beach

Waking up in a sunshine laden room with a whole day of freedom in front of me is a distant dream that has recently floated far from reality. But today is Spring Break, and today I remember Christ as I walk through the beauty of CA and reflect on His unconditional love for me - to bring me here, to make me a life, and to allow it to be better than I ever imagined. Taking time to be with that Truth has not been a priority of mine - life has been too filled up. It has been split between friends here & there - keeping in touch from afar while striving for presence. Time invested in a man who somehow manages to make every minute of sunsets and coffee and walks and cooking just that much better. So many hours with seven year olds - draining and fulfilling at the same time - the push and pull between weekdays and weekends; holidays and approaching summer. So today is my day to circle back and parcel through and try to wrap my mind around the events in this washing machine of life happening faster than I can keep up with.

Hometown Visit! Classic Bean shot.

City Walks

I have been thinking about beauty - how beauty has a way of drawing us to the Creator. Matt Chandler says that the non-believer can be in awe of the beautiful things in life - the ocean and mountains and intimacy with another human; but the believer experiences those things at a greater level - Christ alone magnifies that which He created. He brings purpose and He brings a deeper satisfaction in beauty. Without Him, those things are great - but they are also empty. This has been my experience lately - with God's presence, all the details of life become an adventure. God defeats boredom because He illuminates the mundane and replaces it with beauty. There is nothing like a roadtrip through the Midwest to show this. For the outsider, cornfields and 30 degrees and a horizon for days might seem worthless. After all - why would one ever leave California for Spring Break?! Because God has a way of seaming together all things - when He is at the center, relationships sense the undertone of something greater at work. A mysterious depth that causes me to be so drawn to another person because I see the work of Christ in their heart.

Visiting my dearest friends Jenny/Andrew forces a return to what I know and who I am and where I am going. Introducing Benjamin to the closest parts of my heart - my city, home, best friends - has changed the way I am with Him. God allows the fear of vulnerability to be broken down... and honesty to spring forth in a way that forms intimacy and the purest of love. How great of God to give me these gifts... and as I experience them, I am reminded that any hint of them being great is simply because He is in them.

These friends in Dayton I so dearly love.

The Blue Wall; aka: location of Murray's finest meltdown

So many good memories... and the best is yet to come!

These Girls

Love these Chitown sista so much!

My heart almost exploded this past weekend when I was picked up by Ash at the airport [in unplanned matching outfits...] then entered into a room full of my favorite Chicago gals. We cozied up in our socks and sweatshirts as random snippets of life pinged through the air... ten thousand conversations at once - as girls do - about jobs and boys and weddings and heartbreak and God and church and community and Chicago and moving and future. Words strung together wrapped in the constant theme of Change.

Arrived from the airport to this!
Bunkbeds and pillow talk....

This group of women have prayed for me and fought for me; their faith is deep and it is real. They push me to be myself; and I often believe it is in this circle that I am my truest self; accepted fully and completely as I am. It is a Come As You Are type of friendship; one that I didn't believe could exist until it one day it did. 

SO much heart talk with my dearest Britt

That night, Ash and I shared a deflated air mattress on the hardwood floor of the main room, where we were awakened by streaming sunlight and pattering feet towards the coffeepot, but none of those things mattered. What mattered is that we were together. And nothing else.