a lesson from the three wisemen

I've been eager all day to get down in my room and write.

Finally. I'm here... me and my thoughts... and I feel safe.

It was a rough weekend. One that I didn't want to write about because of my fear of what people would think of me, but one I was looking forward to writing about because it exposes my brokenness, humbles my pride, and reveals God's redeeming love and mercy.

I'd say it all started Friday. I don't know if I already felt off that day or not, but I set myself up come Friday night. I went to practice for the improv team at church. We had a show on Saturday night and Friday night was going to be our second time rehearsing together. I was tempted not to go because it was my good friend's birthday and a group of us girls were going to go celebrate, but I knew it was important for me to go. And once I'm there I end up loving it. Practice was from 8-10pm, but I told the girls I would leave early (about 9:15) so we could go out. The plan was to go downtown Chicago to see some band play, but the weather that night changed our minds real quick.

Since they weren't waiting on me to go downtown I didn't feel as rushed with leaving rehearsals. In fact I was really enjoying myself, and kinda didn't want to leave. Basically I chickened out when it came to leaving early. They had called my phone like 5 times and I knew they were waiting on me, so just as I was about to say "OK, I have to go..." Steve Cochran walks in to rehearse with us. My selfish switch flips on and I say to myself "oh, I just want to play one improv game with him." At this point one of my friends was waiting at the door, but I couldn't leave now. Not only did I want to practice with Steve Cochran, I wanted him to think I was funny. Oh, pride... such a lovely thing.

To those of you who don't know, Steve Cochran is a stand up comic who has a radio show here in the Chicago land area. He's like a local celebrity.

Now... to be 100% honest... I didn't know who he was until he stared in a play we held at church last fall. And even then, I just knew him as the radio guy, in which case he still wasn't a big deal to me because I had never even listened to his show, and I had no idea he was funny... (it was a serious play.)

Being even more honest... He did not become a big deal to me until a few months ago when the guy I liked made this big deal out of him. This guy... the guy that I liked... is funny... real funny... so when he said Steve Cochran was funny, Steve Cochran all of a sudden became hilarious to me.

It's funny how impressionable we can become when we like someone so much. Anyway, so being interested in the guy who was interested with Steve Cochran, I became interested with (but not in) Steve Cochran.

Fast Forward. All these leads up to the reason I wanted to stay and do improv with Steve Cochran. I finally leave about 9:45pm. We all meet up at one house and then ride together to Spatz, some new live music bar in Warrenville.

There's 5 of us girls at the table just hanging out and talking. I enjoy a blue moon because I enjoy blue moons (it's a beer, mom)... and enjoying a blue moon is a way I can not be rigid in my faith by not drinking enough to get drunk, but drinking one to show my openness... at least that was how I was called out (in a good way) by an awesome speaker I heard a few weeks back about holiness.

Anyway, halfway through the night a waitress from another table comes up, puts a shot glass down in front of me, points to these 3 business men at a table across from us and says they want to buy me a drink. Please picture this because it makes no sense... I am in jeans with holes and a hoodie and they are in business suits with shiny shoes and slick hair. It caught me off guard and I honestly wasn't impressed by them or the shot they sent, but to be 100% honest... deep down... I was flattered... in a sleazy kinda way, but flattered none the less... which is probably why I want you to picture it... I was noticed and my insecurity feels the need to prove to you that I am noticable... even in jeans and a hoodie.


So here I am... sitting at the table with a shot glass in front of me. I haven't taken a shot in years. And I have no interest in entertaining that part of my past, but when I look up at their table and they wave and smile, I feel bad. I feel bad because one of them paid for this drink, and to refuse it would be rude, and God forbid someone think I am rude.

I ask the waitress what I should to because I don't want to take it. She said just wave and smile and walked away... thanks... big help... easy for you to say lady, you're obviously not a people pleaser (then I remember she's a waitress and it's her job to be a people pleaser... huh... maybe I'm in the wrong field). Anyway...

I do not want to take that shot... A) because I genuinely do not like nor can I stand the taste of liquor. The only reason I drank it in the past was to escape my feelings. Which leads to B) I have no desire to escape my feelings. I have no need for that shot. It serves me no purpose... other than to drink something that tastes like crap and feel like crap about it later.

I do not want to take that shot, but the guys are watching, and I feel bad. People may be reading this saying "big deal, it's one shot." But that's just it... it's so much bigger than just one shot. That one shot symbolizes my voice and the fact that I have no desire to drink it. To swallow that shot is to settle for silence so that the rest of the world can enjoy me... it's to give into the comfort of pleasing other people all the while feeling uncomfortable with myself just because I don't want to say no.

So what do I do?

drum role please...



I take the shot. (Ouch, I hate that I wrote that.) Without even hesitating, I take the shot, and I give in to my flesh and the smiles of some guys from a few tables over. I take the shot... and it's horrible. They are pleased. Yet somehow I don't feel better. I did what people pleasers do, I pleased them, but I'm not satisfied. In fact I feel worse. I feel worse because I feel like the girl I used to be when I had no voice or any sense of feeling, the same girl who had no hope, and the same girl who had no purpose in life... other than to make sure other people were pleased with her at all times... a life that is not really worth living.

I feel it right away, but I act cool... a talent I have perfected over the years... remaining "cool." I say it's talent because while many people make no effort at all to be or remain cool, I find myself much like the boy from the movie Juno who says he has to try really hard to be so cool, despite all appearances to the girl who thinks he's the cheese to her macaroni.

To physically feel the alcohol is to lose sense of reality, to lose my sense of emotions... something I don't want to lose again... no matter how hard the pain. The harder the pain experienced, all the more joy and laughter that can be experienced on the other side of that pain. Which is why I don't ask for God to take my heartache away, just to walk with me through it.

I messed up. I made a bad choice. And to be honest... I didn't know how to feel about it the next day. I was more worried about what other people would think of me than what I actually did. And I started to ask myself "as a Christian, how upset should I be? as a human, how much should I really care?" So I'm trying to find the right response and act accordingly, but honestly, I don't know that there is a right or wrong response. I don't think what I did was anything major, and honestly, drinking a beer and taking a shot... not that big a deal... but what it symbolized to me... huge deal. Doing something I don't want to do just to please the next table over... huge deal. The small stuff matters... it's a reflection of how I will act or handle the big stuff. With me, everything is a snowball effect... it starts small, but just keeps getting bigger and bigger until it crashes. It may only be one step, but it's a step in the wrong direction... for me... not for everyone... but for me.

I'm not OK with what happened Friday night, but I'm not going to sit in my brokenness and beat myself up about it... I'm going to run to Jesus and say "look at me, look at who I am, look at what I've done. Look at every ugly characteristic in me that I don't want you or others to see, look at me and know my heart and every intention in it, and please... love me anyway!"

Some people may read this and be disappointed in me... something that would have crushed me a few years ago... but I'm OK with experiencing God's grace in my moments of weakness. Some people may read this and think I'm crazy and completely over-reacting... but being called crazy as a result of my faith is something I'm willing to live with.

God's grace is not an excuse to do as you please... I have no intention of going out drinking every weekend and justify it with God's grace and forgiveness... but it's a beautiful thing when you come to realize that the life you judge others for is not beneath you, and you are once again reminded that you are in constant need of a Savior... no matter how well behaved.


And by you, I mean me.

thoughts from a train

Take every opportunity to write, I tell myself.

Take every opportunity to write.

What if I don't know what to write about?

I'm sitting on the train waiting to go back to Naperville. It's 4:30, and the train doesn't leave till 5:00. I can't look out the window because all I can see is concrete. I look at the empty seats ahead of me and I wonder who will fill them.

I miss the beach. My mouth longs for the taste of the ocean, my skin is begging for the warmth of the sun, and my feet are dying to feel the squishy, soft sand beneath them. My heart longs for a reminder of the comforts of home.

I miss the palm trees and the reflections of the lights in the ocean. I miss diving into waves and letting them shoot me straight up in the air. I miss running into the ocean with my clothes on... or off (but bathing suited).

If I think hard enough I can almost begin to feel like I am there. I can feel the wind on my face but it's coming from the ocean, not from between buildings. My feet are dirty but it's from sand and dirt, not the cold, hard concrete.

When my heart was broken I would go to the ocean. Where do I go now?

There is no ocean. There are no waves. I'm just waiting on a train.

The sun is out, the air is warm, and I'm waiting on a train.

The train doesn't heal my heart. The train doesn't calm my spirit. The train does no more than serve it's purpose... it gets me from A to B, but nothing more.

How many of us go through life like that? Getting from birth to death... that's it. We serve no other purpose other than just to get through this life and (depending on what you believe) into the next.

I bet a lot of people on this train are like this train... going from A to B for a 9 to 5 only to do it all over again day in and day out... until time is up.

My biggest fear is becoming one of the train people... a 9 to 5er going from A to B only to go back to A to return to B again tomorrow. I don't want to be stuck between A and B and I don't want to be confined within 9 to 5.

What does it look like to not be one of the train people? I don't know if I know... but that's part of the excitement- not knowing. It's an ongoing adventure- not knowing.

Train people know exactly where and when they are going (which is why I don't want to be one)... no suprises, no changes, no adventures, just train schedules... telling them where and when to go.

I wonder if the train people think I am one of them. What if I were?

For split second I am tempted to get comfortable, but the woman in front of me just gave me a reason not to join the train people. She's reading an article on how to lose 20 pounds. I forgot that train people read stuff like that- stuff like dieting and wall street and hollywood pregancies and fast cars- stuff they invest their time in when they're not riding on trains... the stuff that belongs in between A and B, but after 9 to 5.

I look out the window at the empty tracks beside me and I catch a glimpse of my refelction and I realize... there is nothing wrong with train people... it's just not the life I was called to live. I bet some of these train people are perfectly content where they're at... being train people... and that's OK. But when I look back at my reflection in the window of the train... I know I don't belong.

And I sit, fearful of enjoying the train ride and settling for contentment.

I don't want to settle for the contentment of the 9 to 5 city life no more than I want to settle for the comforts of the beach... the comforts of home.

I don't want to settle.

I want to live. I want to feel.

I want to do more than just breath.




... and I want to get off this train.

goodnight moon

I'm isolating right now. I don't even know if I know why, I just know I am.

My aunt and uncle are upstairs... maybe watching tv... maybe they've gone to bed... I don't know... I've been down in my room for hours.

I feel safe here. Safe from the world. Safe from people. Safe from being exposed. Safe from being hurt. I just feel safe.

So what do I do? I hide here.

I think alone time is good... but like food, exercise, and the color pink... only in moderation.

My alone time has become my hiding place.

But so has my busy-ness. It's just as easy to hide in the busy-ness as it is to hide in the quiet.

If I stay busy I don't have to think. I don't have to process. I don't even have to feel. I just keep going. Lately I've just been going... not living... going. Going through life instead of living it.

And when I'm not going, I'm hiding. I don't know if the hiding is a result of the going, or if the going is a result of the hiding. Maybe it's just a vicious cycle to which neither one is to blame, but both of which need addressing.

I was going to address it by writing something motivational... like doing something about it... but honestly, I'm tired right now. And I don't feel very motivated. And the most freeing thing is knowing that that is OK. And I am OK... because that is just where I am today.

A very wise friend once said to me...

"you have to allow yourself to be where you are today in order to be where you need to be tomorrow."

Thank you wise friend.

Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or maybe just when I'm where I need to be, I'll write about living life to the full. Living life... not just going through it. Because ultimately... that's what I want... even in the tiring, unmotivating moments... I want to really live life. And that's not me trying to be strong or prove myself, that's just me saying here I am right now... in this moment. But I'm not stuck in it, because it's in these tough moments that grow me into the person I am going to be.

Is this justifying isolation? I don't know. Maybe. To tell you the truth, I don't even know what my motives are right now. By tomorrow morning I could feel amazing and blog about what a wimp I was the night before. But the reality is, feeling down doesn't make me a wimp no more than a year's worth of recovery makes me cured. I can pride myself on how well I am doing... but the reality is... it's still hard... and that's OK. Reality is not defined by my emotions. Reality is what is. Recovery does not mean perfection. Recovery means making a choice. And I have made a choice... even in the tiring, unmotivating moments... I have made a choice.


Thank you wise friend...


and goodnight moon.

losing my religion... part 3