march.

In just two days I board a plane headed to Rwanda, and for the first time in an entire year, I feel totally unprepared. It is a ridiculous statement because at this particular moment in time - I am more ready than I have ever been. My suitcase is packed. My team is trained. Lessons are written, crafts are planned, games are waiting to be played. I have absolutely no doubt that Love has been calling me “home” since I flew back to California last year. My heart has not wavered for one moment. I know THIS is His very best for me. This is the Kingdom work He planted in my soul before the dawn of time. Even still…right now in this moment… I feel small and a bit overwhelmed. 

I keep thinking about Joshua and the Israelites marching around Jericho. Our theme verse for camp this year is Joshua 1:9 - Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Together, they marched around Jericho for days. The command made no sense, and yet they walked with obedience. If they had stopped early, absolutely nothing would have come of their endeavor. TOTAL COMMITMENT was required. Sometimes we don’t fully understand the outcome, we just have to choose steadfast endurance. That might be the story of my life - run the race marked out for you even if you don’t know where you’re going - even if your heart feels weak - even if you appear to be alone in the arena. 

Right now I feel small and incapable, there is some pain, and there is some loneliness. I have worked hard in anticipation of this departure and now that the time to go has come, I am trembling. Every ounce of my heart is ready to take those campers in my arms and yet my heart breaks simultaneously. A joy so great coupled with a sorrow so deep. EVEN STILL, I know I have been called to GO and I know my God will be with me. I can put on my armor and trust in the King who has overcome, I can march forward with steadfast faith in the very God who singlehandedly took down the wall of Jericho so that the Israelites could defeat their enemy. HE HAS OVERCOME. 

the last w letter - before we are together.

Dear William.

Today is July 13. It has been 11 months since we said goodbye. And it is less than 1 month until we will say hello… again.

In the secret spaces of my heart I prayed that I would see you on Sunday, August 12…exactly one year after our goodbye. I knew I had to be at Pastor Joseph’s church in the event you were there. I knew I would search the faces of every child who entered the door looking for you. I wouldn’t let go of hope until after that church service was complete…and even then, I knew a small part of me would hold onto a tiny shred until I boarded the plane for home. 

I printed a picture of us from last year and it is tucked in my Kinyarwanda Bible. I know I can’t bring you an actual gift, but that photo says Ndagukunda across the front, which means I love you and I have long hoped to give it to you or at least leave it with Bob for delivery on my behalf. Sweet boy, YOU ARE SPECIAL, you’re MY WILLIAM. 

What I still can’t envision is what it will really be like to see you again after so much time has passed. I wonder if you’ll really remember me. I have no doubt God used you to change my story - but I can’t know how our week together changed you. That is yours and yours alone. No words can be exchanged to describe it. I also had no idea God had prepared and purposed another week together. It is richer than anything I could have dreamed. I didn’t know you would be coming back to camp. I didn’t know that again we would share meals, and you would hear more stories, and make more crafts, and we would get to DANCE together until our feet can't move for one more beat. It is all too good. 

I can’t picture arriving at camp and having you there…getting to introduce you to the new members of the team…feeling your hand slip back into mine. Taking your cheeks in my hands and looking deep into your eyes as mine fill with tears of extraordinary joy and gratitude that can be expressed no other way. 

This life may not be what I ever expected, what I ever even hoped for; but I know that THIS - that YOU - are a gift from God and I will not miss this moment. I will not forgo this opportunity to shake my tambourine in the wilderness and rejoice in the promised land moments I know are coming. His presence is with us and He is for us and His goodness is far greater than I can comprehend. 

Thank you Father - for the richest and most abundant of gifts. 

Thank you Lord for William. 

I am coming back for you. 

-shell- 

glimpsing the radiant ripple...

This weekend I went to camp with my favorite teens. It was hard and exhausting (par usual) but mostly, it was a gift. Mostly in the midst of all that hard, I saw how far I have come and how far we have come together. Mostly for the first time in so many years I had space and freedom to actually have conversations with some exceptional teens who have faced extraordinary and overcome MUCH and they are beautiful. They cried and they shared and they let me walk alongside and they want to continue to grow and I am amazed by them. I am PROUD of them. I am grateful for their stories and their strength and the way they inspire me to press on. I see Jesus all around them - and I know He is at work.

On Sunday morning as we celebrated our camp graduates, I realized that we could have seen them 5 times in the last 5 years…but instead we have seen them 45 times because of this crazy thing God planted within me called CHOSEN. In the next year we will add another ten times to that for a grand total of 55 shared events. I had no idea five years ago when Connie and Rachel and Amy started talking to me about this tiny dream that it would become a drumbeat in my heart - a passion - the thing I would mark time by and build my life around. CHOSEN is central to nearly every major decision I make. I cannot imagine my life without it anymore - and frankly, I don’t want to - it is joy and fulfillment and one of the most incredible motivations to seek Christ with all my heart. I want to be present for them and to shine His light in their lives and without His constant strength, I am not enough. Only by His power can CHOSEN provide true hope and be meaningful and significant in the lives of these teens. 

That said, as I engaged with teens at camp, as I watched them cheer one another on at the ropes course or make s’mores together (so so many s’mores) or laugh throughout soccer games or share stories while wearing ridiculous face masks or sing during worship, it was so very evident that God has marked them and they may not know Him yet - but they are willing to hear about Him and they are being shaped and changed and growing in character and those steps forward are everything. They are all I have prayed for and they are what He is asking of us and I am so overwhelmed with gratitude and overcome by the grandeur of a dream so small that has become something so deep and permeating and truly life-changing not just for me - but for so many. I guess it really was a glimpse of this ripple effect - of so many lives - of so much hope and the power of possibility - and I pray I can take hold of that peek He gave and run full force toward Jesus - to God be the glory great things He has done! 

hope.

The past few days - maybe weeks, I have found myself regularly reaching for my giving keys necklace. It was a gift from my dear sweet friend Amanda in the midst of a particularly challenging season. On the face of the key, inscribed is the word HOPE. I find I am a particularly leaky vessel when it comes to hope. I strain to hold onto it, and yet it filters through my fingers and fades away. I always need more…just another ounce. 

Last night, I was lying on my bed…on an ice-pack…and basically preaching to myself as the tears poured down my cheeks. Reminding myself of Truth. Speaking the words out-loud, praying they would resonate with my soul. “You are loved. You are worthy and acceptable and approved, exactly as you are in this very moment. Even if you are never married and never have a family of your own - you are living your BEST LIFE if you are chasing after Jesus and living in the very center of His will. His best dreams for you are the only adventures you can ever hope for - they’re more than you can imagine. You do not have to see it now. You do not have to make sense of this. You do not have to feel it in this moment, and it is ok to wrestle with all of it. BUT YOU ARE WANTED AND YOU ARE CHOSEN. The Creator of the entire universe picked you…you are not small in His sight, you are precious and beloved and you must cling tight.”

It is SO easy to let the circumstances of our lives and the feelings of the moment dictate our responses and reactions. Pain is real. For me pain is real both physically and emotionally, and yet God is the Author of every detail. He is able. He is sovereign. Where He is limitless, I am so very human and thereby exceptionally limited. If I allow the gravity of my past or even my current circumstances to dictate my future expectations, I stop trusting the voice of my Father. I have to keep approaching the throne with confidence - and I lose all sense of boldness and courage if I am looking at the weakness and frailty of nature - I have to look at the face of my King. FOR I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED AND AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE! 

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: if we asking anything according to his will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15

Only there will I find hope…and courage…and expectancy. Only there can I put aside the thoughts that seem to fill my mind with words like impossible and steady myself in Him alone. 

loving well...caring a lot...and trusting Him most.

I have always been a bridge builder. No, I don’t mean literal bridges. I mean the kind where you lay down so people can walk on you, over you, across you - and ultimately get to someone else. THAT KIND of bridge. I’m the friend who gets bruised and broken again and again. And then, when I think I have given every last bit I have, when I think I literally don’t have one ounce or smidge left, I find just a little bit more. Truth telling, I don’t know how to not care. Even when I’m completely out of love, when I’m wrung dry - there is still 5% down deep in me somewhere. 

I can’t tell you how many friends have brutally wrecked my heart. They likely have no idea it happened; and I’m not saying it is entirely their fault either. Nothing ever is. I’ve never been one to walk away or let go easily. I don’t take the idea of “friends for a season” very well and I end up getting my heart broken. Since I was a little girl my dad has told me my capacity for love is my greatest gift and will always bring me pain. 

Last week one of my dearest friends lost her dad to cancer. Our friendship has been somewhat challenging throughout the past few years, and the past six months have been distanced to say the least. I chose me. I chose boundaries and even though I fully believe it was the healthier and better choice, in this moment it feels totally wrong. I told her in March when we ran into each other that I would be there for her when this moment came, and I meant in. A few weeks ago I knew the end was drawing closer and I sent flowers. I have been consistent in sending texts to remind her I was praying and that I cared - but I haven’t actually seen or had deep and meaningful conversation with her throughout much of this year. Only 20 minutes after her dad died, she told me. I suppose if you are family - that reality doesn’t just fade or disappear even if there is a season of distance. I walked into the celebration of life on Friday afternoon and her mom welcomed me warmly. She hugged me tightly and said, “I’m so glad my other daughter is here.” I was asked to sit in the front row alongside the immediate family and to attend the private meal following the public reception. It was my honor. 

I fell into my role as aunt shell with ease - I laughed alongside the kiddos and chased them around, making sure they were entertained and trying to keep them out of their parent’s hair at least for periods of time. But my heart aches as I looked at my friend. I longed to sit across from her and hear her heart - to know how she was really doing - and yet I also knew I wasn’t the one she would choose to share those stories with, and maybe I won’t be ever again. How do you love well and care well and give much when you’re also letting go? How to you protect yourself from falling apart when you’re invested but you’re also walking away? How do you hope for more and still say - grateful for now. 

Dear Lord, I entrust my dear friend to your care. I give you her heart and know You are at work in her life regardless of what I ever see or know of her days. Thank you for loving her infinitely more than I ever can…and loving me more than I understand as well. Thank you for holding my heart and promising to provide abundantly more than I need. Be strong and gentle and gracious as I seek your face, and wash over us both with Your love. Healing is forever in Your hands Jesus. 

Mother's Day.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. A day that is notoriously challenging for me - it is filled with longing and so many reminders of a title I yearn for, but do not have. I have spent years of my life praying for hope, asking He would be near, begging I would be faithful to press on in the midst of my unbelief. I have earnestly sought after Jesus. I have prayed that He would be my biggest dream and the truest desire of my heart. 

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. Yesterday was also May 13. It could have fallen on any day of the month - but it did not - it fell on the 13th. The might not be anything special, but I choose to see it as a special little gift from a Father who loves ME with great intention. On the 13th of each month, I celebrate a little boy named William. The little boy in Rwanda who CHOSE ME, danced with me, held my hand, made me a bracelet that is more precious to me than any other. The little boy that God used to sing His song over me and remind me that there is a distinct and purposeful story for my life, that He has not forgotten me for one moment, that I am seen and loved and in His time I will come to understand the why behind the waiting. Yesterday I did not have tears, I did not have sorrow or longing. I had an abundance of gratitude for a God who filled the dark and grieving space with hope for the future. A God who taught me to dance for Jesus even in the midst of the most painful circumstances…and live.

This morning I got the pictures of our campers for Rwanda 2018. In the secret and unspoken corners of my heart I have held onto this tiny shred hope that I would see William upon my return to the land of a thousand hills. I have faithfully prepared my team to meet 100 new campers. This is a new year and in Africa it is wise to anticipate different and unexpected. Things are ever-changing and we have far less control than I can begin to express. When I opened the documents containing pictures of the campers I can only describe the feeling as complete SHOCK. Many of the faces and names that lined the pages were familiar, the names were recognizable and rolled off my tongue. SO many of those kids were MY CAMPERS. MY FAMILY. God in His abundant and unimaginable generosity is allowing us to return to Rwanda to love OUR KIDDOS for a second year. With a most fierce pace I scanned the pages looking for the eyes of one little boy and I found him - top row, center, document two. My William. 

Oh how He loves me. 

Happy Mother’s Day. 

our best Christmas yet...

Over the weekend I celebrated Christmas with my lifelong best friends Anna and Jenny. Yes, you read that correctly. It took us until April 28 to get together for Christmas. This is REAL LIFE. Anna’s kids have birthdays in December and January. I have family out of state so I travel at Christmas. Jenny had an infant in the fall. We wanted to make it work, but sometimes you just have to look at reality and decide that sanity is more valuable, take a deep breath, and choose to celebrate when the time is right instead of FORCING FUN as the date dictates. It was ABSOLUTELY the best decision we could have ever made.

This weekend, we went to Liberty Station in San Diego and brought the gaggle of children who played together with enthusiasm. Jeremiah basically laid all over this amazingly friendly dog while Cami Jay stayed locked in her stroller and Adelynn and Juliette ran around in circles. Adelynn talked nonstop and we bribed Juliette to speak, but still aren’t convinced Jenny is telling the truth about her skills. We ate Mexican food and drank beer and the kids pretended to finish their hot dogs! Really Juliette fed me spoonfuls of her rice and Adelynn ate her french fries while living on the promises of ice-cream! 

Honestly it was a scene straight from my imagination. We dog-piled and sang “down by the bay” and I got to kiss all those babies over and over. I wasn’t sad for even a moment. I have had so many seasons and spaces where looking at those kids all together would have made my heart want to EXPLODE into a million pieces, but the Lord has been so faithful and kind to restore and repair my heart. He has reminded me time and time again that He is near and present and at work. Earlier in the weekend, while at the Beth Moore conference I heard the words, “He still has a surprise in store for you” and I want to let that sink in deeply - I have repeated it numerous times since. As I watched those amazingly beautiful kids run around, it felt like a true gift just to be in their lives. To love them. To laugh with them. To play with them. To have this time to give to them. This moment in time is special and I do not want to waste it WAITING for what is next. I want to be FULLY PRESENT RIGHT NOW. I want to hope and cling tightly to the belief that there is a SURPRISE IN STORE FOR ME, my greatest dreams are coming, and all the while I am living something beautiful and wondrous! 

Anna, Jenny and I have been exchanging ornaments since we were little girls. When Anna and Jenny had babies, they passed the tradition on - hey everyone needs MORE ornaments for their tree, right?! SO now I give ornaments to Anna and Jenny and because I don’t have kids yet, auntshell gives the kids a BOOK. My kids will exchange ornaments with their kids should that day ever come, but it is generation to generation - so I’m still in the ONE ORNAMENT CLUB. Anna gives an ornament to Jenny and then Adelynn and Jeremiah give ornaments to Juliette and Cami Jay. Same story for Jenny only reversed: Jenny gives an ornament to Anna and Juliette and Cami Jay give them to Adelynn and Jeremiah. It’s basically the cutest thing ever. This year we had a bit of a carfuffle because we gifted in a public place, and there are three-year-olds amongst us, and glass ornaments. So we celebrated Christmas in April which was already probably a spectacle and long story short - Anna’s crew ended up with one ornament that I had actually hung on her tree at Christmas (woohooo Africa angel) and one truck that somehow unintentionally went home with Jenny and was thereby saved. The glass ornament was shattered and all the others were tossed because they were wrapped in crinkled up paper for safe keeping and looked suspiciously like garbage - so out they went when Daniel threw away the remnants from dinner, like a good tidy dad! CHEERS TO CHRISTMAS 2017 friends.

Truth-telling, my heart is still rejoicing from our evening of togetherness. It was a night of belonging like we haven’t had in such a long time and it was exactly what I needed. I am praising the Lord for the gift of peace and contentment in a season that has looked so much like wrestling and longing. I know it can swing back that direction any time - but right now - today - I am just glad for a bit of merry and jubilation - even if it isn’t even remotely close to Christmas! Perhaps there was a tiny hint of a Christmas miracle holding out for a spring night…for three friends who just needed to all come home. 

i have the hunger....

OK, i know this isn’t a real blog post, and i probably shouldn’t publish it - but this is MY WORLD so i can say whatever I want to. and here is what i want to say today (in all lowercase apparently)

i want to eat the world. the entire world. i know. not at all what you expected. i want mac and cheese. and a hamburger. and endless amounts of french fries - probably dipped in ranch - which means I want Red Robin. i want cinnabon. i want that lemon loaf from starbucks that is like an entire days worth of calories in approximately 6 bites. i want to call my mom and ask her to make cookies for my africa training on Sunday. i want to eat olive garden because they have bottomless breadsticks. i want basically anything except an acai bowl or a green juice. i want a steak and a baked potato and a loaf of brown bread with butter or garlic bread that just came out of the oven or a huge slice of lasagna and i know that all of it will probably make me feel disgusting and i don’t think i even care. i want a carne asada burrito or maybe we can go ahead and make that a california burrito and throw some french fries in there! OH MY GOSH PLEASE AND THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH.

i don’t know what’s wrong with me - but i thought you should all know i have a little problem. apparently i’m very VERY hungry. wow.

if THIS isn’t my most attractive side…

Henri did it again.

I read my first Henri Nouwen book in college - At the Name of Jesus - and was floored. I think I read it twice, straight through. My copy is highlighted and underlined and has multi-colored flags all along the side. It will forever be one of my very favorite works and I recommend it highly. Henri Nouwen immediately become one of my all-time favorite authors. I have since read many of his other works and I hold fast to my immediate determination that virtually anything that comes from his pen is deeply rooted in Truth and will re-directs my feet toward the straight and steady path.

Yesterday I knew I would be spending some time with the neurologist, which is bound to be a downer, so I brought along a Nouwen I had yet to read. I scoured pages 1 - 90 while in the waiting room - underlining and turning corners at an unfathomable rate. I needed this book desperately - a reminder that we are CHOSEN, BELOVED, BROKEN, & GIVEN. I pictured the faces of my CHOSEN teens and the Rwandan campers I hold so dear - the words on these pages sing to them as they do to me - YOU ARE CHOSEN, YOU ARE CALLED BELOVED. Your days have meaning and purpose and validity and your brokenness is unique to you, it is part of what makes you an individual and no one else can possibly understand it - but it is not wasted - it is mighty and it is part of what He is writing to shine His glory on earth. Oh my goodness the beauty of being distinct and called to more.

“Our preciousness, uniqueness, and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time - our brief, logical existence - but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity. life is a God-given opportunity to become who we are, to affirm our own true spiritual nature, claim our truth, appropriate and integration the reality of our being, but most of all to say “YES” to the One who calls us Beloved.” 

Oh HN. Thank you for setting my heart on fire and course-correcting me once again. I applaud you and am SO GRATEFUL for your rich collection of truth and the ways you have been used to direct so many toward the One who has called each of us and is drawing us toward Kingdom work here and NOW!

the book of mormon...

I went to see the Book of Mormon and I was super excited about it. You should know I am a Broadway loving FIEND. I love all things theater and performing arts is kind of in my bones - I was in the FAME program as an elementary school kid and honestly my love for the stage has never faded. I walked into Segerstrom and sat down in my plush red seat and the lights went down and I was thrilled, eagerly anticipating the spectacular that was sure to come. And then it started, and I honestly was utterly baffled. I couldn’t clap. The singing was fantastic and the dancing was sharp and strong - but I was completely and totally trapped - I couldn’t exactly enjoy any of it because it was so utterly wrong. It was hilarious - but it was funny at the expense of faith and I couldn’t grapple with that in the midst of watching the show. The question was too big. So I sat there stunned and confused and honestly completely baffled. And at the end of each number, I realized yet again, that even though the art was exceptional, I really couldn’t bring myself to clap.

As I sat there, the questions came fast and furious and truly made me cringe. One of the first songs is “Hasa Diga Eebowai which in theory translates to f-you god (I cannot even believe I am typing that in my blog!!). It was “african” (and I say that very loosely) in nature but not even CLOSE to the version of Africa I experienced. Even if it is a joke - can you clap for that? That isn’t a mockery I am willing to take lightly. There were characters with grossly inappropriate names. There were actions described and mimicked that were horrendously inappropriate. The description online reads, “The Book of Mormon is a musical comedy about two young Mormon missionaries who travel to Africa to preach the Mormon religion. First staged in 2011, the play mocks various Mormon beliefs and practices.” So I guess I could have / maybe even should have known. Nevertheless. 

The show mocks moronism for sure - but more than that - it mocks faith and standing for truth and sharing Christ. While it might not have been about Christianity directly, it made me think a LOT about leading people astray, and making fun of people for what they believe wholeheartedly. Christ is not a joke to me. I looked around the packed theatre and thought about how many people were hearing these subtle lies about belief and laughing at the expense of what someone holds so very dear. There was something about it that felt really wrong. It wasn’t poking fun at someone, it was openly mocking - pointing fingers - shaming. I think I’ve decided it was hideous and ugly and I entirely disagree with it. That is a personal opinion, of course, but if I had it to do over, I don’t think i would pay for that ticket again. I don’t want to support artists who are intentionally abusing someone else’s belief system. That is persecution and minimizing another person in such an obtrusive way is wrong. 

I didn’t realize I would feel SO STRONGLY about it and I keep thinking about it even weeks later. No thank you Book of Mormon. And maybe - thank you even still - for reminding me that I really do care about the way people are treated and respected even if they hold to a different belief or value system than me. And not because I’m tolerant, but because I love Jesus and I think He demands we are better - because THAT is how we will show people who He truly is - mockery and shame will never win someone to the Kingdom. 

I think the Book of Mormon version of art is doing damage - what do you think?