Author: debbie beal

The comment:

I also for the first time am beginning to pursue a girl in the hopes of making a relationship that is pleasing to God. I’ve never been one to date; I’ve never even really had a girlfriend. However, I feel compelled by the Spirit to make a change and put myself out there like I never have, and to do so in a way that puts her interests first, no matter what that means (even if it means being zoned as a friend). It’s very weird because I’ve never experienced anything like this before, unless it was a major life choice that the Spirit was leading in a bigger-than-usual way. Talk about being uncomfortable with saying that. Its sound uber cliche and could easily be passed off as rationalizing. Is it? I don’t think so, but thats part of the tension.

Maybe you are rationalizing it… but, maybe you’re not. Only you really know your motivation and your heart, try as you may to convince the world, the Lord and yourself. I’m actually quite amazed at how good we can get at believing things that simply aren’t true and pawn it off on ‘God telling us to’. I’m not saying He’s not, but ‘following the Spirit’ can sometimes lead to shady things when we aren’t constantly going back to Scripture with the things we are sure we’ve been told.

Another tricky part of this situation is that once you’ve gotten the notion to pursue someone in such a fashion, you need to make sure you’re not in it to get something out of it…and, at least for me, that becomes next to impossible. I had a similar experience to yours a few years ago (check it out, if you haven’t).

As much as you can convince yourself that you’ll do whatever it takes to be there for her, to put her needs ahead of yours…you’ve already established that there is the hope of making a relationship. Perhaps you meant friendship, but, even at that rate…what if friendship isn’t what you get out of the whole ordeal? What if you literally get nothing in return? What if you get worse than nothing? Again, you can ask yourself what-ifs all day…

My point is that you already have expectations, whether you want to admit that or not. When you have the expectations, you can’t help but put those upon other people. In the end, if things don’t result in a relationship, you’ll probably be disappointed. I think that’s okay. I think that’s what reaching out to others often looks like. I don’t know how to tell you to love selflessly and to never expect anything in return… I don’t think that’s natural to us. Do we still have to do it? Absolutely…

Shoot- and ultimately, I give you props for pursuing, especially when it’s a completely unknown territory for you. It seems quite rare that men are willing to put themselves on the line for a girl without first knowing if there’s any sort of interest on the other side.

So basically, my thoughts in a more concise nutshell:

• In following the Spirit: are the things that you’re doing in line with what Scripture says (Scripture not taken out of context, that is). If you weigh each action, each word and it is line with what the Word says…keep walking into it. Keep pursuing. 
• Think about what it really might mean to put her interests first. It’s a promise, a commitment. And maybe you’re not making it to her (please don’t…not yet, anyway), but the depth of what you’re talking about goes much further than a ‘Oh, she’s not reciprocating at all, I must have heard wrong…’ If you decide to pursue this, and if what you’ve said above is your true heart behind it, you must be all in…no matter what. Even when… 
• Be a man who is bold and confidant. Maybe the Lord’s just urging you to walk in that boldly and this girl is the first of many that you will honor and respect and you (and they) will learn a lot about godly relationships through the way that you’re being obedient. Be ready to learn a thousand lessons along the way that will be different from what you originally thought you might learn. It’s a fun adventure! 
• She may not be the one for you. Please don’t let the first thing that you tell her in a DTR be that you really feel like the Lord is leading you into this specifically. If she’s not feeling the same way it can cause both of you to unnecessarily question whether or not you’re hearing from the Lord at all. Perhaps approach it from more of a, ‘I feel compelled by the Spirit to make a change and put myself out there in a way I never have before…and you’ve really caught my eye because…’. 

Even the skinny girls think they’re fat.
Have you ever noticed that before?

It’s maybe one of my pet peeves. Maybe not so much that they feel like that, but that they make comments in front of me (when I’m clearly larger than them) about how fat they are. Well, who am I kidding…it’s annoying that they feel that way at all. Annoying because I want to shake them and say, ‘THIS is not something YOU have to worry about…so stop it already.’  Because out of all the things in the world to be obsessed over, their invisible fat shouldn’t be one of them. And I’m not sure how much they realize that when they call themselves fat, it makes me feel like they are calling me obese (even though they aren’t and I’m obviously reading into the situation…).

I did have one skinny friend who was the opposite of this, actually. In fact, I caught her shopping in the maternity section on the day of her rehearsal dinner because she wanted clothing that wouldn’t cling to her body in such a way that revealed her skinniness. It made me laugh and love her all the more.

It doesn’t always work this way, though. The most beautiful girls tend to think they are ugly, the skinniest girls tend to think they’re fat…and the ugly girls still think they’re ugly and the fat girls still think they are fat. It’s this universal problem that, surprisingly, we all seem to have in common, no matter what we look like.

I’ve tried to wrap my brain around it so many times. I’ve tried to wrap my brain around the fact that women seem to always come back to 2 huge issues: how we look and men. Why…? 

Why are we so obsessed with looking different than we do? Why are we so obsessed with seeing every small imperfection within us and instead of embracing it, we try to change it….or if we can’t change it, we either hide it or beat ourselves up for it. Do we care about what our bodies look like because we care so much about men and we know that they care about what our bodies look like? Is that the deal?

It’s rather exhausting, don’t you think?
I wish I had some great advice to give you, but I think this is one of those times where I could spout off a bunch of truth and you’ll take it worth a grain of salt because, while I may be able to identify with you, I don’t know what’s really going on with you in the specific place you’re at in life. I don’t know who has said what to you, I don’t know whose standard you’re trying to live up to, I don’t know the ways you’ve been hurt or wounded, I don’t know where you’re finding your identity, I don’t know what your expectations are of yourself or others. I don’t know.

But, I do know that we’re all involved in this viscous cycle of trying to desperately accept who we are as we were created to be while simultaneously longing to know we are beautiful, wanted, worthy and desirable. In our heads, no matter how much we hit them against the wall to try to knock it out, we believe that beauty means thin….and then a longer, more personalized list of things we accredit to the word. Until we achieve that, we aren’t beautiful at all.

It doesn’t matter how many people tell us something different, at the depth of our soul, we always come back to a place of despising how we look because it isn’t what we wanted to look like. We are too often truly too unhappy with our appearance.

I guess my word to you is that no one else cares as much as you do. No one else notices…and even if they do, it doesn’t prevent them from being your friend or not. If your eyes were bigger, your hair thicker, your hips slimmer, your stomach tighter, your legs longer, your boobs larger, your feet smaller, your face clearer…would it really change anything?

I think it only changes the way you feel about yourself…and I hate that the external changes are the things that bring a greater confidence within. Doesn’t that seem backwards?

It’s all stuff you’ve heard before: it’s what’s on the inside that matters, your beauty should not come from the external but from the internal…

At what point do we allow that truth to sink in? At what point do we focus more on the radical changes that need to happen within our hearts before we’re ever worried or consumed by the external? Because, at least in my own life, the darkness within me is far uglier and more powerful than anything I look like on the outside.

I want to stop avoiding the internal because I’m too focused on the external.

So, I don’t care if you’re skinny, fat or something in the middle… I don’t care if you’re beautiful, ugly or plain and average. There is more on the line than how we look. We have to be willing to get over it, to move into the depths of our hearts, and allow ourselves to be changed there. We have to be willing to get over ourselves and see others who matter more than our diets, our make up, our hair-do… and live lives that truly matter.

What are you waiting for?

Sometimes, when you date people, you miss out on other things in life.

It’s funny because so many of us spend a lot of our time wishing we were in relationships without realizing how tremendously consuming they can be. They take up our time, our money, our emotional energy, and sometimes they become our new identity….they interfere with our other relationships, our future plans, our schoolwork, our real work, our social calendar. Too easily they become all we think about, all we dream about, and all we spend our time on. Too easily they become these things even when we aren’t in them.

I didn’t date in college. Not because I didn’t want to… because it just didn’t ever work out. Now, looking back, I’m thrilled to be able to point out all the opportunities and all of the memories I had that were not infiltrated by one single college boyfriend. There was never a chance for me to choose a boyfriend over something else, and because of that, I think I was able to really enjoy just living.

So, without further adieu:
If I had dated in college, I would have (probably) never…

1. had dance parties with my roommate in our dorm room when studying became too unbearable
2. grown accustomed to eating large amounts of cookie dough while in the midst of heart-to-hearts
3. joined a sorority
4. volunteered to lead a high school small group
5. led a drama team (complete with many an SNL rip-off)
6. held two guys hands at the same time, without them knowing…
7. created and starred in the hit show, Aspiron
8. sung karoake in front of hundreds of strangers on multiple occasions
9. gotten serenaded by a group of fine-singing a cappella men on my birthday
10. made road trips to Arkansas and Texas any chance I could
11. gone to Europe
12. worked at an all-summer long camp 3 summers in a row
13. gone to formals/dances with various guy friends
14. joined leadership of a greek christian organization
15. started prayer meetings/bible studies on Thursday night with the girls in my pledge class
16. set up a tent for an overnight in our living room
17. helped with D-Nows in other cities
18. been a founding member of ‘Go Nuts for Donuts!’
19. helped with Special Olympics
20. volunteered to help on a ski trip
21. random acts of kindness in the middle of the night with a group of strangers
22. did an internship for a college ministry where I co-led activities and outreach
23. dressed up and done humiliating skits in front of many
24. acted demon-possessed in the middle of a church service
25. been ‘miss-miss-missy-miss miss’ in the 2006 Miss America Pageant. 
26. made a meat pinata
27. purchased 25 baby chickens
28. graduated
29. moved to texas 
30. made a ton of fabulous friends that I was able to invest in fully and vice versa (both guys AND girls!)

I’ve been stretching a lot lately.

Did you know that I’m a songwriter?

Yep.
I used sit in the bathtub for hours, churning out song after song after song as I tried out my own poetic lyrics to my all-original melodies. The bathroom was the best for this because of the acoustics, so I cozied down in the hot bubbles, all set up in my very own studio.

It was the life of an aspiring 13-year-old girl. My first hit was sung amongst my family (especially my brothers), as they mocked the teenage angst that had clearly come out through my lyrics.

Why do you try
When you do cry
All alone, all alone

How long does it take for you
When you are feeling so wrong
To stop your feelings
Why do you try
When you do cry

I’d say it truly debuted during my first year working full-time at camp, though. I sang it over the microphone to a few friends when I thought no one else was around to hear me…but you can be assured that I was wrong about that.

As you can see, it didn’t make a ton of sense (which is why we still laugh about it today), but the tune was also strangely brilliant and awful. I got a bit better. In the midst of my early teenage uneasiness, I also wrote a song about boys. I think it’s a song you might hear on any country radio station.

Just a friend
how could he think
I was just some girl who he thought was
Just a friend

3 years later
I always saw him
with that special grin
he took the other girls away
but I knew I was
Just a friend

It was entitled ‘Just a Friend’, in case you couldn’t tell. As tragically pathetic as all of this is, this second song seemed to become the soundtrack of my life. I always felt like just the friend. I remember weeping at the grande finale of Dawson’s Creek because Pacey, the best friend, had won the heart of Joey. It gave me this strange hope that my ending could also be different.

I felt like a lot of my crushes had been wrapped up in guys who were also my close friends. We had crossed into the friend zone and there was no going back. While I saw our closeness as intimate and special, they were thankful for a companion who they didn’t have to worry would fall in love with them. It was always a fun scenario when they found out they were wrong about that small detail. I tried my best to avoid ever letting them know, but sometimes… sometimes I just had to be honest. I usually always think this is the wrong move (especially in hindsight).

So… if you find yourself crushing on your best friend?
Don’t even mess with it. While I’ve had some incredible guy friends and we’ve gone through the, ‘You like me, but I don’t like you back’ phase…I think we’d be better friends today if all of that stuff hadn’t come up between us. It goes both ways, really. Great guy friends who liked me and I wasn’t interested at all… I kind of wish they had never told me.

‘Cause here’s the thing: the feelings pass. They do. It might take a long while, especially if you continue pouring your heart out to them and only them and putting yourself in situations where they are meeting needs that they shouldn’t be… but, on the whole, they go away. You meet someone else, they meet someone else (which automatically means you should probably back off a little and allow their new relationship to flourish). You go separate directions. Sometimes you keep in touch, sometimes you don’t. It’s okay.

I assure you that I’m incredibly thankful I didn’t have the opportunity to date all of my close guy friends when I thought I wanted to. Sometimes being just a friend is the sweetest thing of all.

Enjoy the friendship.
Let this be a season where it’s just good…and don’t try to make it into something it’s not. He’ll let you know if he’s interested (if he ever is and when he is ready). Be yourself and be his friend (not the weird version of yourself you turn into when you want a guy to notice you).

That’s it.

Just a friend.
It’s a good place to be.

Maybe I’ll even write a new song about it…

I like getting dirty.

Not necessarily where you’re literally covered head to toe and mud is oozing out of every orifice and you’re still finding it behind your ears a few days later type of dirty…although sometimes that’s fun, too. And, no, not necessarily the sexual type of dirty, either.

The type of dirty that matters.

The last week has stirred up some emotions in me that I had forgotten existed. I got to witness my eldest brother gearing up for a grand opening of a church plant. It required meetings, phone calls, early mornings, late nights, taking responsibility for things… and it’s all volunteer. I got to sit in on a different church plant meeting with my youngest older brother (he’s the 3rd of us 4 kids, and I’m the baby… just in case that got confusing) and his wife. As the church discussed starting out in a new location, they were soliciting the help of those who weren’t afraid to get dirty…to arrive early to set up, to stay after to tear down, to sacrifice time, energy, and money for a cause they believed in.

As I’ve also been sifting through a lot of old memories (photos, emails, journals), I started getting nostalgic thinking about my earlier days working at camp full-time. When summer staff left, all that remained were 10 people to do everything to keep a year-round camp running.  We were jacks-of-all-trades by necessity. I quickly came to consider myself a professional dishwasher and shower scrubber as we cleaned up and prepared for new groups to arrive almost weekly.  Camp had just finished its seventh summer and we were constantly relying on a few generous donors to help pay off our monthly debt.  We were never guaranteed our next paycheck, but we worked long hours in faith that God would provide. 

We weren’t afraid to get dirty… in fact, it was required that we did. Camp wouldn’t function if we weren’t willing to do anything and everything (including emptying out the slop buckets at the dump when it was usually inevitable that the conglomeration of congealed gravy, eggs, mashed potatoes would splash on you–the worst was when it sometimes, somehow, got in your mouth…). 

It’s the type of dirty that when you say you need ‘all hands on deck’, you literally mean that you need all hands on deck. Every person is necessary, every person plays a vital role. The type of dirty where you don’t possibly slack off because you know your team is counting on you, and you know that your goal, your mission, your vision is so much greater than you. 

It’s the type of dirty that feels more refreshing and renewing than anything else, because it’s centered around the gospel…and from that everything flows. It’s the reason it’s all worth it, and at the end of the day, no matter how tired you are…you’re 100% convinced that your labor was not in vain. 

It’s the type of dirty that’s rewarding because of the fruit it bears. It’s the type of dirty that flourishes, that gives life, that grows into something you could never hope for or imagine. 

I want to get dirty again. 
I want to work hard for the sake of the gospel. 
I want to help start things, I want to help things thrive… I want to do whatever it takes. 

I don’t know when the last time is that you got dirty for the sake of the gospel. I don’t know when the last time is that you sacrificed sleep, time, money for the sake of the gospel. I don’t know when the last time is that you took a risk, that you took a chance, that you jumped into something you weren’t sure would even be ‘successful’ simply because you thought the end goal was worth it…that you thought more people would know Jesus because of your efforts. 

I hope we’ll all start looking for ways we can get dirty. 
Look for ways to help a struggling ministry, join a church plant, devote yourself to a team of believers that are unified in vision and passion…not because of what you’ll get out of it, but because of what you can contribute to it…because you know that Jesus Christ is worth it, because you know He has given you gifts to be used so that He might be more glorified. Use them! 

Getting dirty doesn’t have to look a certain way, just be willing to do it. 
Abandon everything else for the sake of Christ, for He is who we serve. 

There are LOTS of single people in the world.

Let me clarify- there are LOTS of single women in the world. Lots of single, Christian women. But, I think most of us are looking around, wondering why we’re still the only ones who are single.

Or, maybe that’s just me… or maybe it’s just the bombardment of engagements and weddings and babies lately. Does anyone else feel like that’s all their Facebook newsfeed has become? That and politics. It’s cool. I genuinely love rejoicing with my friends in their moments of celebration and excitement…I love seeing them glowing and stepping into a new chapter in life.

I can’t help but feel a little left behind though. My best friend from high school is pregnant with her third baby. My best friend from college is a happily married doctor. Almost all my other friends are married, pregnant, or have at least one or two kids.

I feel old. And young. Old because I know I’m the same age as them and they are in a completely different stage of life… it’s sometimes hard for me to not feel like I ‘should’ also be in a similar stage. Young because I mostly still feel like I’m in my early 20’s, enjoying no commitments and doing whatever I please. It’s a weird place to exist in.

As I continue to talk to single, Christian women (usually college-aged)…I can easily identify with their feelings toward relationships and marriage. It seems there’s always an air of waiting, or a bold proclamation that Jesus is their boyfriend, or an apathy toward the entire subject.

I remember myself in college, wrestling deeply with a longing to really be pursued by a man who loved Jesus wholeheartedly but never having it happen. I remember thinking about it constantly, or trying to constantly not be thinking it about it constantly. My freshman year I had a conversation with a sophomore girl who told me that every time she thought about guys, she immediately began to pray. She had also given up talking to guys–it was almost like a fast. I wasn’t too sure about the latter, but the praying thing sounded good. It sounded in line with the whole ‘taking your thoughts captive’ idea. So, I tried it. From what I recall, it was good while it lasted….but it only lasted so long.

And I guess that’s my point. We’re always trying to find these ways to cope with the waiting process, searching for things to fill our minds and hearts as we secretly beg and plead for the Lord to bring that guy along. ‘Cause somewhere within us, even though we might disappointed and defeated with our current reality, we still hope that it’ll happen for us. We still hope that God will come through and bring someone that we can share life with…even if it’s just a small shred, right now.

Here are my current thoughts on the issue:

1. Don’t put your life on hold because you are waiting for the possibility of marriage. Don’t fill your life with ministry simply because you think that the more you give, the more you invest, the more you love others, the more you’ve ‘done your time’ that means it earns you the right to a relationship…that somehow God will be indebted to you. He’s not. As one blogger put it, Jesus is the end goal, not our means to a life we think we should have. 
2. I don’t know if Jesus is your boyfriend…or husband…or whatever else. I’m not sure if us viewing Christ in a romantic light is even Biblical. If, when you say that, you’re simply saying that you want Christ to be all-fulfilling and all-satisfying–that you want Him to be your everything, I can buy it. Maybe the confusion is in how we interpret the word ‘love’, and while we are deeply loved by, sought after, and saved by Christ…I think that the love of Christ is very different than that of a romantic love that we often think of in a romantic relationship. An eros type of love vs. an agape type of love. 
3. Your apathy might be a coping mechanism for a deeper loneliness, or it might just be a that you genuinely don’t care if you get married. Be willing to dive deeper if need be, but don’t over-analyze and make up something that’s not there either. 

We went whale watching the other day.

We were on a large boat that could hold over 200 people and, to be honest, I didn’t have such high hopes for the adventure. I wanted to see whales jumping out of the water, fully extended so I could capture some sweet shots of them mid-air. In my head, that’s what whale watching was…but things don’t usually ever turn out the way I imagine they will, so I tried to have low expectations.

It was like the time I was in Hawaii and my friend and I randomly, spur of the moment, decided to go skydiving. We pulled up to small trailer at the edge of the island, were rushed into some harnesses, signed our lives away and stared at each other in disbelief that we were about to jump out of a plane. A few minutes later they informed us that we wouldn’t be able to jump after all…the weather had gotten too bad. We did get to go a few days later, but we lost a bit of the luster that came with the spontaneity of the adventure.

It was like the time a few weeks ago when a group of us tried to go hang gliding. We had bought a groupon deal almost a year ago and were pumped to soar in the sky like a bird for a while. Instead of flight, we received lessons and a few good seconds of airtime as we learned how to move and adjust our body according to the glider and the wind. Still cool, sure…but it wasn’t what we thought it would be.

It was like the time I was in India and I begged and pleaded with the Lord to heal this 5-year-old girl of her inability to walk, speak, function like a human being and nothing happened.

I could probably list a thousand other instances where I wanted to do something or be a part of something that seemed awesome, but for whatever reason it ended up either not working out at all, or it simply was a disappointing experience.

I started processing this a bit on our long boat ride out to see the whales. And as much as I know truth, I really found myself in this struggle to believe that God wants good for me…even in the little things. Or that I’m scared to tell him things or ask for things or admit that I want anything at all, because I fear it won’t happen. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend I don’t want something and to be excited or thankful if it comes along.

In the grand scheme of life, I’m not sure it really matters that I see whales jumping, get to go on a skydiving or hang gliding adventure, or witness an actual physical healing. I think the thing that matters more is recognizing continued distortion of how I view the Lord. I say continued, because this is nothing new. At the end of the day, I don’t know if I fully believe that God cares about being good to me. I don’t know how to get there, and I feel like a ‘bad’ Christian because of it.

These are those times that people typically spout scripture at me and assure me that God is good. It’s one of those times where I know that…but in the middle of riding out the see the whales, I found it easier to convince myself that I wouldn’t actually see anything cool because cool things don’t really ever happen to me.

And so we rode on…and on…and on. We circled around for a long while, and my projection began to seem more and more likely. No whales for us. But then?? There were some spotted in the distance. We pulled up closely and all of us ran to the side of the boat to capture a glimpse of the enormous beasts. I clicked away at my camera, catching a tail or two or the backside of a whale (which really just looked like a log).

Every time I got to a place to see or take a better picture, it seemed I had just missed it. A woman next to me commented, ‘You’re bad luck. Anytime you get close, they disappear.’ Ha! I felt like she had just spoken the story of my life. Even in the midst of getting to see the whales, all I felt was disappointment… and I knew that somewhere deep in me, I blamed God for it.

My brother and I stayed on one side of the ship when mostly everyone else was on the other side. A few moments later, 2 whales (a mama and a baby) decided to come to our side. We had a perfect view.

And while I didn’t get the picture of a whale in midair that day, I got this one…and I love it. As we lingered, we watched this babe and mom roll over, flap their pectoral fins, slap their tails. Apparently a lot of the behavior we got to witness was ‘rare’.

It was here that the Lord reminded me that He is good…even if it’s different than I want or expect. I think I learn this lesson a lot–and I might continue to for the rest of my life. Sometimes we just need reminders.

Things I know?
God is good.
Things I believe?
God is good.

And beyond just living like that, I want it to infiltrate the way that I think…so when things don’t necessarily go the way that I hoped, I might just genuinely believe that it’s better.

As we struggle through the commotion in our minds/hearts over what it means to truly follow Jesus and how the external and the internal bleed into one another…may we find the joy of simply trusting that He is exactly who He says that He is.

And may there be no disappointment in that.

I’m kind of a beast.

Not the kind of beast who is strong and awesome at everything she does. The kind that is literally a beast. A hairy one.

I’ve been going through a bunch of old photos recently as I work on an ‘on-the-side’ work project, and I came across this gem:

Yes, that’s a picture of one of my arms next to one of my guy friends’ arms. Can you even tell whose arm is whose? I wish I could say the hair was always that blonde, but this was immediately following a summer of being out in the sun.

This is the one thing I’ve try to hide about myself more than anything else. In my list of things I always wanted in a guy, ‘hairier than me’ was pretty high up there. It was mortifying to watch people’s eyes drift as they caught a glimpse of my arm and know exactly what they were thinking. I sometimes avoided little kids because while the rest of the world seemed able to resist saying anything about it, kids lacked the filter and, with disgust, commented on how hairy my arms were. Awesome.

I tried lots of things to fix it–Nair, shaving, waxing… my mom even felt so sorry for me she took me in for 3 treatments of laser hair removal. It didn’t work. I gave up trying and decided to embrace my naturally woven arms. Keep in mind that this is just my arms we’re talking about so far (although, I do relish the thickness of my head hair, ensuring that I’ll most likely not go bald in my old age…).

One summer my hairiness taught me a very valuable lesson. I was a 3rd summer returning counselor, meaning I was a little cocky and thought I was ‘too old’ to learn anything new. I had a group of students that I had had before, and while not all the students were the same, I felt extremely comfortable with the leaders and several of the campers.

On this particular day we were out on a hike, and my co-counselor and I got the brilliant idea to create a complicated mess of a team challenge for the group. The group would carry a blindfolded and mute me to our next destination. It was brilliant because I could no longer talk or see or walk… but it was simultaneously terrible because I could no longer talk or see or walk.

As soon as we began, comments starting flying.
‘Dang Hammer (because that’s what I was called back then…)… you’ve got junk in the trunk!’ was a favorite of mine that I remember from that day. Never before had I been insecure about the size of my tailend… until now. There was a wide array of complaining, moaning, and struggling to move just a few feet.

I stayed mute, and left my partner to lead the exercise. It wasn’t long before I heard a commotion and one of our youngest campers was down for the count- defeated by heat exhaustion. My partner decided to run back to camp to get a vehicle to take the boy in. That left me alone, in all my camper’s arms… not talking, seeing, or walking…because I wasn’t entirely sure what all was even happening.

They kept talking and complaining…commenting about how heavy I was and how hard this task was. I wondered if they had forgotten that I could still hear everything they were saying. I was getting pretty frustrated, but everything ended when the following was said:

‘Dang Hammer, you have a beard!!!’

Something internal snapped and immediately I was able to talk, see and walk again. I scurried out of their arms, very aware that a hot mess of tears was about to explode down my face. I was humiliated, called out on something I’m not even sure was true, but in that moment I felt exposed and naked. I took off down the road, leaving my entire group to fend for themselves with one sponsor. I ran back to camp weeping, no longer able to hold it all in.

Fortunately, I passed my co-counselor on the road as he was driving to retrieve the dehydrated boy. I didn’t say much of anything, but one look on my face revealed to him how terribly upset I was. I kept walking back to camp and let him take care of the group. When I got there, the first person I saw was my boss. I went up to him, told him he should fire me because I had just left my entire group on the side of the road.

He was kind and showed much grace as we talked through the situation. I wasn’t fired that day.

I tell this story because, while humiliating, this catastrophic event allowed for the Lord to work in a way that I never would have expected. As the group apologized to me, I was able to forgive. My co-counselor and I ended up washing their feet that night. Guess who put their faith in the Lord that night? The boy who had both commented on my junk in the trunk and my beard.

It’s kind of surreal thinking about it.
The lesson I learned was all about how the Lord can use even the things we are most ashamed of, most embarrassed about…the thing we try to hide the most… for His glory. It was a life-altering moment of recognizing that even (what I think are) the ugliest parts of me can still be beautiful.

I’ve told this story a few times since then–all with this same desire and hope that others will seize this and not live in fear of being ‘exposed’. There is nothing hidden that will not be made known, and I’ve found a lot of freedom in being able to openly talk about my biggest insecurities. There’s been freedom as the Lord has used that and reminded me that it’s not about me.

Shoot… wouldn’t we all want our beards to be brought to everyone’s attention if it meant that someone else knows Jesus by the end of the day?

So, what is it for you?
What things do you try to hide from the world? What things are you most ashamed of?
And what are ways that the Lord might be able to use that for His glory? ‘Cause it can be done. Be open to it. Ha.. and even if you aren’t? I imagine you’ll find out, one way or another.

Also- I’m not saying go out and flaunt your biggest insecurities (’cause, don’t worry, I now regularly shave my arms)… I’m just saying those things can be good and it’d be sweet if we could adopt a mentality of believing that even our ‘ugliest’ things really can be exquisite.

A little at a time.

When I left college there was a sort of comfort in the fact that almost all of my friends were leaving at the exact same time. We all had new places to be, new adventures to go on, new friends to make… we were all saying goodbye. It’s how high school was, too.

This is the first time in life that I’ve been the only one to really leave and to know that life continues on as normal without me. I’m the only one going… and I feel the loneliness set in.

I’m not even sure if it’s really fully hit me that I’m gone for good, but there are waves of realization that hit me from time to time. I struggle to keep my head above them, and sometimes I succeed and other times I feel myself give in to pull of the current. It hurts.

And then I pop back up again, I see the horizon full of the unknown and my heart leaps with excitement once more.

I feel stuck in this cycle every day. Eagerly anticipating what’s next, but still mourning as each day reminds me of something else that I’m no longer a part of. I have to remind myself that there’s hope, that there’s better, that it hasn’t even been that long and that there are to be months of feeling unsettled because that’s exactly what I’ll be.

I don’t want to be honest about it, either.
I want the transition to be easy and painless and good–and I want it to be like that because I know it’s right. But, even if it’s right, I see now that the journey involves a rougher course than just smooth sailing.

I don’t want to write because I feel unable to even process my own emotions in the midst of saying goodbye to everything I’ve ever known. Starting over again feels weird because I’m mostly just facing the black abyss of the unknown as I stare at my future. There are decisions to be made- decisions that are weighty because of the financial ramifications, the time requirements, the importance of being sure.

I’m never sure.
How are you supposed to decide something when you’re never sure?

My brother recently told me that it’ll all probably get worse before it gets better. I think he’s right.
This is one of the moments where you know all the right things, you know all the comforting things… but those aren’t the things that move you into a better place.

This one of those moments where all I can do is cling to hope, the anchor of my soul.
But, sometimes I think it’s okay to be sad.
Sometimes I think we forget that…and we try to always be ‘perfect’ and happy (or at least appear that way to everyone else). Sometimes I think we don’t want to believe there’s a time to mourn…or that we think we appear weak when we actually need to just be sad.

I may be mourning quite a bit these next few months- but, I may not be. I don’t know what the future holds. I do know there is hope, and that there’s much to seize in stepping into the unknown. I am excited about that, albeit a distant excitement right now.

I hope you feel the freedom to mourn if you need to today. Maybe you’ve left something/someone, too… maybe it’s a church, a city, a community, a relationship, a friendship, a loved one, a job, a school. Maybe you’ve had recent loss and you really need to allow yourself time to mourn. I hope you do.

I also hope that we aren’t people who wallow in that sorrow or sadness… but that we might healthily mourn and still live life to the fullest each day. That we can live life with a perspective of ultimately caring about the things that truly matter, even when it has nothing to do with ourselves (which is typically always).

I just needed to be honest about where my heart was tonight, even if I didn’t want to be.
Thanks for listening (….reading?)
Thanks for letting me be sad.