Revealing Grace

Gosh guys, I'm so excited. I cannot believe this is real life. God is so good! And I know you might get tired of the mushy-gushy, but I'm going to pretend that you guys like this stuff as much as I do. So today's post is a love story, a real life fairy tale perhaps. The first time I met Cameron I looked him up and down and considered his potential. He was tall, good-looking, kind, and wearing a big coat with a fuzzy hood. He had potential. It was a few months before we really got to know each other. I was mean. He was sweet. I considered liking him then decided not to. He loved me with consistency. I decided to give him a chance. Two weeks later we were madly in love with each other. We both told our parents a week after we started dating that we had found the one. He proposed at least three times in the course of our dating life. The first time we had only been dating for 2 weeks. We were in the car when he told me that he had "never been more sure of anything ...

Today at the office we were reading the story of Jesus calling His disciples. We all know the story from the Sunday School flannel-graph.   Jesus walked up to the fishermen and said, "Hey follow me and I will make you fishers of men!" I think there are probably Sunday School songs about it too. Like this one. . . Gosh that is a terribly creepy song. Please don't use that at your church. . . . . Annnnnywaysssssss. . . Anyways the version we read this morning was in Luke and there was something I hadn't noticed before. This is the version where he tells the guys to put their net on the other side of the boat and when they do they get so many fish they can barely pull it in. And then Jesus says, "Follow me" and they pick up their stuff and walk away (that's the Mer-notes version). I've always known about the "put your net on the other side" part and figured it was just Jesus showing them He was Jesus. But this morning a thou...

A few months ago I went to Pasadena for a couple of days. I was at Target (because of course that is my first stop when I return to civilization) in line buying a pillow for my couch. As is my usual MO I began telling the cashier that I worked on an Apache reservation and therefore needed to buy this pillow (strong logic). As I was explaining my work the lady behind me started asking me more questions. Was I in social work? What kind of kids did I work with? The conversation continued as we left the check-out line. She turned out to be studying pastoral burn-out and she asked if she could pray for me. We stood outside of Target in Pasadena and she prayed a prayer straight from the Spirit. The words she prayed were just what I needed, and she referred to situations I had never mentioned. As she prayed I felt my spirit lifted. God cared enough to send someone to give me His words of comfort. God loved me that much. As I thanked her she exclaimed how it was God-ordained that we end...

This past week I got a text that read: "When God has shown you what path to take in life how has He directed you?" It was a good question and frankly I was honored to be asked. Though some might see me as "young" I've lived a lot of life and had quite a few direction changes in my years. God has continually blessed me but there have been quite a few crossroads where the path forward seemed uncertain or unclear. The first piece of advice would probably be to  chill out and wait but that didn't start with a "P" so it will just be an addendum. Plus I still stink at the waiting part. Too many times we are so anxious for knowledge that we think God is ignoring us, instead of realizing that we just need to wait for His timing. But waiting sucks, so I really don't blame you if you've gotten annoyed waiting for God to answer. It's all a test of patience (which starts with a "P") and trust (which doesn't). So here I prese...

The other night I realized I had poison ivy all over my right arm. In the midst of uncontrollable frustration as to its symptoms (and initially thinking it could be bed bugs brought home from the rez) I then flooded my laundry room trying to wash all the pillows. It was one of those nights where the little things become huge problems and I felt my stress and anxiety rise as I rushed around my house howling about my arm that was surely about to fall off or kill me. Perhaps I have a flair for the dramatics. Though those problems weren't really as life-threatening as I made them seem they were a smaller symptom of a bigger problem. Throughout year 2 of my ministry on the reservation the hurts, the trauma, and the pain have built up to manifest themselves in the ever-increasing anxiety attacks that I have paid tribute to before. In the midst of the joy, the fun, the happy, my heart begins to beat incredibly fast and I cannot breathe quite as easily as before. It's definitely n...

I'm going to throw this out there: loving someone is hard.  I know, epic new thought, right? Of course I always knew that love wasn't like the fairy tales, that prince charming didn't come and sweep you off your feet with a song and a ride into happily ever after. I knew that it was harder than the movies depicted, but I still kind of thought that real love would be entirely blissful and lovely and there would always be a twinkle in the eye and dancing in the kitchen (I do watch a lot of romcoms, let's be honest). It's just been over the last few months that I have learned the true nature about love and let me tell you, it is oh so different than I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, loving someone is one of the most beautiful, challenging, rewarding, and humbling experiences of my life. I will always choose love, no matter how hard it is. To love is wonderful but to love is to be challenged, much more than I originally realized .  So here is what...

It was the quintessential Robert Frost moment. The fork in the road labeled two paths and the decision lay before us like an open hand. There wasn't danger in one or the other, and neither had terrible consequences, but the first footstep would hold the answer.                                              <---- More Difficult                Easy -----> I had been battling sickness all week so the sensible answer was obviously the "easy" path, but with one look at each other my brother and I knew what we had chosen. We took our steps past the "more difficult" sign with confidence and moved toward the goal of the lakes promised above. The signs weren't lying with their descriptions of ease and difficulty. The path we chose included steep runs of slippery rocks that had to be climbed in the fashion of a monkey, on all four...