Only the Lonely

Nine months ago I did one of the silliest things that a 22 year old fresh college graduate could do:

Just 6 days after my college graduation I loaded all my belongings into the back of my friends' baby blue 15 passenger van and moved 45 minutes down the road to the one stop light town of Floyd.

If you know me at all you're probably thinking, "Girl...you love Floyd. How can that be a silly thing to do?!"

You're right. I LOVE Floyd. Loved it since the second Dave Sloop called me on my way back to Blacksburg after spring break my freshmen year of college and told me I was going to lead WyldLife there. But y'all - moving to a one stop light town in the mountains of southwest Virginia is something else.

I came into this gig so excited. My life in Blacksburg had become tumultuous (thank you sin and living with 5 girls!) and, to be completely honest, as I was loading my things into the back of that van I was running away. I was running away from the mess and hurt I associated with Blacksburg and had adopted a "the grass is greener mentality" about my new home (I legit moved my move date up two weeks just to get out...).

Sometimes I think the Lord just looks down at us and shakes his head laughing when we think like that.

Seriously.

In college this place was my comfort. Even in the hard times it was so so sweet to me (hence the overly used Instagram hashtag #sweetsweetFC). All my best friends were here (even though most of them were under the age of 13), my community was here, the mountains were here, I discovered my career here, I belonged here. I didn't belong in Blacksburg, but I BELONGED here. I knew without a doubt that THIS place was where the Lord has placed me. My love for this place was not my own, but it was instilled so deep with in me by Him, and I was sure of that.

And yet, when I moved here. It was lonely. It was slow. It was empty. I sat on my front porch and realized that in a lot of ways my paradise that I had run away to was not all that much different than the desert I had tried to run away from. As I realized that it felt like God was shaking his head and laughing at me. "You silly, silly human," he was thinking.

Loneliness is hard. Especially when it is coupled with shattered expectations. And man, has it been a lonely nine months. Not all the time - we have many nights in our house filled with laughter, fun, and togetherness. I have many days spent with families that have "adopted" me, whom I love dearly. I have many lunch dates with my little buddies who mean the world to me. Painting adventures with girls that are like my sisters. Coffee dates with women who are much wiser than I. And yet, the recurring theme of my last nine months is that I'm lonely. It makes those sweet times so, so much sweeter, but the other times still sting just as deeply.

I made my girls memorize Psalm 23 this summer (we only got about half way through, but that's progress, so I'm proud).

The Lord is my shepherd

I shall not want

He makes me lie down in green pastures

He leads me beside still waters

He restores my soul

He leads me on paths of righteousness 

For his name's sake

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil

For you are with me

Your rod and your staff they comfort me

You prepare a table before me 

In the presence of my enemies

You anoint my head with oil

My cup overflows

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever

I love this Psalm. Its become kind of a cliche t-shirt Psalm, but I love it so much. When you really let those words marinate on your heart the comfort that is embedded in them is divine. So. Much. Comfort. 

The LORD is my shepherd. I shall not want. 

In my loneliness. In my hurt. In my joy. In my despair. In my success. The LORD is my shepherd and I shall not want. 

I shall not want for peace. For comfort. For companionship. For restoration. For provision. I shall not want. I lack nothing. 

I memorized this Psalm in the 8th grade as a part of my confirmation class. It has amazingly stuck in my mind verbatim since then, but I've never really pressed into it or appreciated the divine weight and glory of the words. Life will be hard. I will walk through death, find myself in the presence of my enemies, need correcting, but in all of that - the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. 

As I look back on this lonely season I see it filled with pain. It is heartbreaking to believe that you are alone while everyone around you seems not to be. But in this time I've learned two very important things:

1. We all feel alone

2. I'm not alone 

The people around me experience loneliness just like I do. I'm not the only one. We all perceive in one way or another that we're the only one. It's a hard thought pattern to break - but it's true - because....

I'm not alone. 

The Lord is my shepherd. A shepherd is always with his sheep. He doesn't just point me in the direction of green pastures and quiet waters, he leads me, he walks along side me to those places. 

I'm still lonely. It's still hard to be a young, single, fresh college grad in a small, mountain, one stop light town surrounded by young families and engaged couples, but even in that loneliness and that pain - the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. And there is comfort in that.

(The title is an ode to Colony House and their incredible new album and they're kind of fire so just look them up. You'll be thankful you did.)

On Being Not Okay.

Two months ago by cousin killed himself.

Those words are hard to say. They are hard to think about. They are hard to believe.

After his funeral I told myself I was fine. In the week between his death and his funeral I had cried all the tears I had needed too and I was going to be okay. End of story.

No, beginning of story.

Two months ago my world changed. I described it to my mom as I had woken up and the world was still spinning, but while everyone else’s was spinning normally, mine was spinning upside down and backwards, and from the outside you couldn’t tell because the world was still spinning. I thought that feeling would resolve quickly, but it didn’t. Random moments capture be by surprise, and when I think everything is spinning normally the veil comes crashing down and reveals that my world is still slightly backwards and upside down.

I don’t love emotions. I never have. My college roommate will happily tell you that I don’t cry. Ever. I have cried more in the past two months than I have in years, and for so many weeks I was ashamed of that. “Its been a month, Abby. Pull yourself together. Come on!” “You’re crying again?! Geez, girl!” “This isn’t normal, you need help” “Don’t tell anyone about this, it’s embarrassing” “Do NOT tell that person asking how you are that you’re ‘not okay’” Phrases like these spun around and around in my head.

Mentally, I would check off the stages of grief I’d learned about in every undergrad psych class I took:

1. Denial – I did not believe the words as my dad said them. I woke up the next morning hoping it had been a nightmare.
2. Anger – I was never mad at Paul (consciously), but I was hot with anger toward war and politics and PTSD and our culture and Obama (told my mom I wanted to punch him)
3.  Bargaining – TBH I don’t remember how this one presented in me, but I’m sure it did
4. Depression – Paul’s death came the Tuesday before I started grad school. I love my program and was so excited to start, but getting out of bed and getting myself to work and class felt like some of the most impossible tasks. A low lying level of depression definitely still follows me around these days.
5. Acceptance – he’s gone, I can’t change that, he’s free where he is now, that is good.

I would run through that list and say to myself, "why can't you get over this yet!" or “you’re done, you’ve completed all the stages, pep up!”

Not the case. Four years of studying psychology had not prepared me for the reality of grief. And in all honesty I still don’t understand 100% how it all works or why things happen when they do. Grief doesn't make sense. That's the only thing you can be certain of. The way I am processing this whole situation is markedly different than my mom or brother or aunt or cousin or grandfather.

And that’s okay.

It’s all okay.

My tears are okay. My confusion is okay. My hurt is okay. My backwards world is okay. It’s all okay.

We live in a world where talking about things like this doesn’t happen. We stuff any feelings that aren’t sparkly and pretty and “acceptable” for the world to see deep within ourselves and only encounter them in “weak” moments by ourselves. And I hate this. With a deep and burning passion I hate this. As humans, we were created for relationships, and yet we don’t embrace that. We only engage with people unless we’re tied together with a neat bow. We don't show people our dirt, or sit with them in their's because it's messy and messy scares us.

Talk about it. I read somewhere once that our mental health is just as important as our physical health. Let people know that, please. Care about them so deeply that when you ask “How are you?” you really want to know the truth, that you won’t settle for “good.”

Shed your tears. Feel your pain. Talk about it with someone. Share someones tears. Share their pain, and their confusion, and the depths of the sadness. Remind them that not being okay is the most okay.

Two months ago my cousin killed himself. Two months ago my world started spinning upside down. Two months ago I began learning (and believing) that it’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay that my not okay looks different than your not okay.

I will shed many more tears, and that is okay. I will miss him, and that is okay. I will get mad, and that's okay. I will feel confused by my emotions, and that is okay. I will be more or less not okay for some time, and that is more than okay. 

The entire world lost a really, really, really incredible man, and it is definitely okay to not be anywhere near okay when I think about that. 

He's at Work. (literally).

Confession: there may or may not be tears running down my face as I sit in the office and write this.

In December when we were planning for Allie's baby leave from Hey Helen I, like an idiot, completely forgot about the fact that we have WyldLife club on Fridays after school (aka worst leader ever), so I volunteered to work every Friday until the beginning of March.

Last week was our first club, and I missed it. I sat in an empty boutique as my middle school friends and teammates kicked off the semester in style. I was devastated. As a leader I felt worthless and like I have completely failed my team.

Going into this week knowing that I would be missing yet another club today I prayed that I would believe that I was sitting in this store and not at club for a purpose. I wasn't at club, but that didn't mean what I was doing wasn't important. Being a WL leader feels like something that is just ingrained in my DNA at this point so believing that my Friday can be purposeful and used by the Lord when I not at club is not going to be something that I believe easily, if at all.

God is good.

At around 3:20 today, the same time all the kids and leaders would be walking down from the elementary school to the club room a lady in a tie dyed shirt came into the store holding a stack of papers and asked if Allie was available. I told her Allie wasn't here today and assumed that she would hand me the papers, ask me to give them to Allie, and leave (we've had lots of people promoting things come in and that's always what happens).

This lady was different. She led me over to the counter and set down her stack of papers. "I'm going to tell you about this," she said, and starting telling me about a boy, her son, named Cameron who passed away a couple months before he graduated from Pulaski County High School and the run that they do every year to raise money for the PCHS scholarship in his memory. "Every part of the run is connected to Cameron," she told me. From the route (his paper route when he was 12) to the wrist bands (made in the town his grandparents live in) the whole thing is somehow related to the life of her son.

After explaining the details of the race and what Allie gets if she donated a door prize we make a little bit of small talk. I tell her that I'm a part of a church here in Floyd and that we're always looking for outreach opportunities to participate in and that I'd pass all this info along our people because odds are we'd love to be a part of this. "Oh, what church?" she asks. Oh its called Sojourn, we're only about 6 months old, yada yada. "Non-denominational??" Yeah! "There's a church in Radford Cameron loved - Valley Bible Church."

GOOSEBUMPS. One connection after another starts popping up. Sojourn is an off shoot of VBC, Pradeepa (from VBC, on YL staff) was Cameron's YL leader, he and his friends spend time in Floyd every weekend, etc, etc.

I obviously didn't know Cameron, but I think I would have liked to. I am thankful that his mom chose today, at the time that the second club I would miss this semester was just beginning, to walk into the store. I'm thankful that she decided to share her son's story, her faith, and how she intends to celebrate his life and encourage others even in his absence.

I am thankful that the Lord reminded me today that my time is not useless. I am thankful that even though I wasn't at club I got to share a special conversation with a very special woman, and be encouraged by her, and feel the Lord so present in our conversation - a conversation that would not have happened if I hadn't been sitting in this empty store.

Our God is good. And he is at work. He is at work through a life cut short, through a mom celebrating the short life of her son, through churches and Young Life. The Lord is at work all around us and he makes things purposeful and worthwhile and adds meaning to our day, and what an incredible blessing it is to be able to be a part of that.

______________________________________________

If you want to check out more about Cameron's story or the Color Me Cameron run/walk happening in April check out the scholarship website and FaceBook page.

"You HAVE to Jump!"

I spend an oddly large amount of time with children under the age of 12. In fact I recently gave away FloydFest tickets because I would rather spend the evening with a 9 and 7 year old than go to the festival. (So weird I know). Through my years as a WyldLife leader I've also learned that young people between the ages of 5 and 14 can pretty much get me to do anything. It's a blessing and a curse. I've been convinced to ride roller coasters, eat weird things, and make a fool of myself dancing in front of large groups of people.

This past week I've gotten the blessing of spending an extra abnormal amount of time with the world's greatest 7 and 9 year olds. It always surprises me how much you can learn from little kids. Jesus draws to many parallels to little children in the Bible so it shouldn't be that surprising, but it is. The girls spent the afternoon with me the other day and decided that they wanted to go swimming in the pond at the house I'm staying at. I'm not big on ponds or murky water or the gross bottoms of ponds or water with fish and snapping turtles in it. Trying to be sneaky I didn't put on my bathing suit and told the girls I couldn't get in because I forgot a bathing suit. Don't know if you've ever hung out with girls this age, but they are freaking relentless.

Ten minutes later I was standing on the end of the dock wearing a life jacket (I know how to swim, just wanted to keep myself from touching the bottom, and the girls got to laugh at me in the process) and all my clothes with fearless little girls on both sides of me. "You HAVE to jump!" They kept screaming. I tricked them a couple times and got them to jump in without me, but eventually I caved and jumped in the pond.

Plot twist: I didn't die. Shocker, I know. I survived, I laughed, I jumped in a few more times, and I even had fun.

How many times in life do I face situations where I don't want to jump? Where I stand at the end of the pier and make excuses instead of jumping in? Oh how I wish these sweet little girls would follow me around all day everyday and remind me that I have to jump. I have to jump into relationships. I have to jump into uncomfortable situations. I have to jump into things that Jesus calls me into even when I don't want to, just like Peter stepped out of the boat. I have to trust that whatever I'm being called into is worth the risk, and that's scary as crap, but it's also an exciting adventure.

Jump. 

Worms & Weeds.

In the 9th grade I spent an entire semesters researching earthworms. Of all the biology topics I could've chosen to spend my semester reading about I'm not entirely sure why I chose worms, but I did. And I quickly found out that in all of scientific history pre-2009 there were only about 4 papers written about worms, so I spent the whole semester reading the same 4 papers that all basically said the same exact thing about worms:

1. They have like 3 stomachs
2. They eat dirt
3. They poop dirt
4. They are both male and female at the same time, but can't fertilize their own eggs
5. Too much rain = worms on sidewalks

And there you have it - the incredible simple earthworm. I learned a good deal that semester, well as much as you can from 4 empirical articles, but there's one important life changing outcome of my semester of worms - dirt. 

If I had to try to pinpoint when I really starting loving dirt it was probably around the same time I started developing a weird enough interest in worms to study them as a high school freshman. It is nearly impossible to learn about worms and not also learn about dirt. And thus, as my semester's exploration of the earthworm concluded in a ten page paper (the struggle to write that was very, very real) my love for dirt lived on.

(So much so that mom tried to convince me to major in soil science here at Tech - big regret there. More on that later).

Here at Magnolia we created something of a dream for me - we created a really big patch of dirt in our back yard. Last summer we tilled up a part of our backyard and turned it into a vegetable garden and had so many zucchinis we literally made 2 zucchini cakes a week. It was ridiculous. This summer we got to re-till and prep the land entirely by hand. Hard work, don't get me wrong, and very, very dirty, but very, very fun. 

I love our garden. It's legitimately one of my absolute favorite places on the planet. You can learn so much from gardening. It connects you to nature and has a billion ways that it is a picture of God. 

Today as I was weeding the small section of our garden that was not lucky enough to receive weed resistant paper there were a million different things running through my head. But I kept coming back to the idea that my garden is a battleground. I am constantly fighting the weeds for possession of that one paper-less corner. The stray cats that inhabit our backyard are always mistaking the garden for a litter box. The sun is murderous to by little vegetables, but too much water is also killer. But don't get me wrong, those plants are resilient little guys. Just like my garden in a battleground, so is my heart. The weeds are sin, it pops up everywhere. Even when I spend hours pulling weeds out of the garden I can't get them all, and when I come back in the morning there will be even more. I can spend my whole life trying to pull all the sin out of my heart, but I'll never get all of it. I'll turn around and encounter and act on more sin in my heart. I will seek out things that bring me spiritual death, that scorch and starve my soul, or that drown it in excess. 

God loves me like a love my garden. He finds joy working and shaping my heart the way that I find joy in working this dirt with my hands. Life comes from this worm and weed infested dirt, and he makes life spring forth from my sin infested heart. He wants to help me rid my heart of the sin that is crowding out the work that he's doing and has become rooted so deep. 

By the end of the summer my roommates and I will have been able to enjoy a bountiful harvest of yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, peas, watermelon, and cantaloupe that we raised and tended to with our own hands. That we nurtured and loved. 

I need to learn to trust that I have a God that wants to nurture and feed my soul, and weed my heart of sin, and wants to see me grow and has a bountiful harvest in store for me. I need to learn to be a little bit more like our zucchini plants, and do what I was created for - trust in my God and be in a relationship with him that includes me being fully reliant on him, I can't weed my own heart, and I can't force myself to grow.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." 

John 15:1-4

Abide.

Our humble little backyard garden in all it's glory.

Flowers mean fruit and fruit means yummy food.

Our first zuke of the summer!! In a few weeks this guy will be ready to serve as our inaugural zucchini boat.

Watching these little guys grow is so weird, but oh so cool.

Randy's humble little pea plants - these guys started out as little seeds and they're only going up from here!

Squashs <3

TwoOhOneFour.

In 2014 I fell in love.

Okay, slow down, not that kind of love. Well, maybe. If I had it my way I'd be on the arm of a sweet, handsome, and Jesus loving boy (probably one of the uniformed type - there, you have your confirmation), but who am I too make plans? A 21 year old girl and still mostly convinced that boys have cooties.

So in 2014 I didn't fall in love with a boy, shocker. I got a tattoo, died my hair purple, went to Italy with my best friend, read the entire Chronicles of Narnia series, and flew to Germany for the last time (last one is super bittersweet). Oh and I turned 21, I guess that's kind of a milestone in the US of A. I did a lot, and a lot of rather exciting things. And I learned a lot. I'm a very blessed 21 year old.

But back to love. In 2014 I fell in love with mountains (I've always loved mountains, but that love grew lots), and elementary schools, and passion. I read a quote somewhere (most likely Pinterest) that said, "Passion changes everything." Which I promptly wrote on the cover of my journal with the word "everything" capitalized. Passion changes EVERYTHING. I'm not an incredibly passionate person. I'm not moved easily, and more often than not I don't see things through (just ask my mother, this is her favorite trait of mine).

I fell in love, and it made me passionate, and it changed everything. Honestly I probably couldn't tell you what I wanted to do with my life this time last year. Odds are it was probably something close to guidance counselor or full-time ministry, but just so that I'd have a viable answer for the age old "So what are you going to do with your life?" question. I knew I liked kids, I knew I liked schools, I knew I liked places like Floyd, but there's definitely a difference between I-like-this and I-want-to-do-this-forever feelings.

Interning as a guidance counselor these last five months wrecked me. I failed. I messed up. I realized I know nothing. I sat, tongue tied with hurting kids because I didn't know how to help them. But strangely, I loved it. In my beloved Floyd I watched school become so much than a place for kids to learn math. Here they were fed, safe, got almost any kind of help they needed and in the guidance office we got to fight for kids' wellbeing and success and teach them about being little people.

I don't stick with anything, I don't stay anywhere. But here I am prepping for grad school (and dreading the 3 years I have to wait to actually be in an elementary school) and man oh man is it so worth it. It's hard. It's hard to watch kids hurt for any number of reasons and not know what to do or be able to help in the way that I want to, but as a friend of mine recently put it you have to love the potential for goodness in your job to love it. And there is so much potential for good, for change that is wholesome. I haven't gotten to see a ton of that, but I've been able to see little glimpses and that's enough. Enough to make me fall in love with the kiddos, and the school, and all the work that I have to do to get there.

Cheers to elementary schoolers for making me fall in love and become passionate for once in my life.

Location is everything.

Sometimes there are tons of thoughts swirling around in my head and they don't quite seem to connect with my fingers. People always talk about having a caffeine IV so they didn't have to drink coffee, sometimes I wish I had some sort of opposite IV that just extracted all my thoughts straight from my brain. Writer's block is a punk that I wish I could counsel into non-existence.

I'm American. Yes, I grew up all over the world, but even then I got to live in some of the most industrialized and well-off countries in the globe. I have never experienced real starvation. I have never slept in the cold without a roof or heat. I travel on airplanes and drive on highways in my 2012 Honda like it's no big deal. My life is so comfortable. And I don't even understand why.

It's currently 1 am in Germany, and I should be asleep, but insomnia plagues me so harshly here and sleep is never my friend. So in these late hours I watched a documentary, Virunga. [It's beautiful. If you have Netflix, give it a viewing because it's definitely worth your time]. It's a compelling and moving look at how "conservation is war," focused on the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

War is breaking out all around the park as they fight to keep the endangered gorillas and the park safe from rebel groups, and oil companies, and destruction. Obviously the point of the documentary is to move one into action to support the park and do whatever they can to help stop what's happening too it. Sure I felt that a little bit, but there was something bigger that I got hung up on.

I couldn't, and can't, wrap my mind around the fact that somehow I ended up comfortably splitting my time between the US and Germany. Sure, my country has been at war for as long as I can remember, but not within our borders, I am fleeing from nothing. And that these people in the DR Congo ended up in a place that has been at war for what seems like ever. Power is always shifting, everything is corrupt, and people are always running. The movie showed scenes of people literally running down the streets as a new rebel group moved in and took over the village. I don't run, not even for exercise. I don't run, and that is these people's whole lives. Running.

When I think about it I realize that I don't think about this much because it's hard. It makes it hard to see what's good in our world. It makes me doubt my God because on the large scale these world seems so overtaken by evil and darkness that I find it so hard to believe that he can even begin to penetrate the clouds that cover so much ground. I get mad about that fact that I've been whining all week about how much I want a fancy dSLR camera. As I type this I want to punch myself for being so utterly selfish and blind.

I'm American and I live in my own little world. My eyes are blind to the fact that there is real evil out there that tears apart families and physically hurts in a way that I will never know. My world is comfortable so I don't care. In my world my God is mine, all mine. I am so quick to forget that he is the God of the nations. That he is the God of these people in the DR Congo that are fighting to keep gorillas safe and bring peace to their country. He is the God of the Germans that live next door to me.

In church on Sunday there was an African family that lit the advent calendar. When they were done that father was saying a prayer. I don't know if he had planned out ahead of time what that prayer was going to be, or if he just let the Spirit speak through him in the moment, but he got to a point where he began to cry. He was saying something along the lines of, Father, let those we know who have not come to know you experience your love this Christmas season. You could sense that his tears were those of heartbreak, that he was thinking of a specific person whom he wanted nothing more for than for them to know Christ, but they were also tears of hope. That he knew the Lord was faithful. That he would make himself known when he deemed the right time. I've seen some Americans cry like this, but it's rare. I admired this man as he prayed, and wanted to have the same hope and conviction that he did. Why does this seem to be more common among people who don't hail from the great US of A?

God is my God, but he is not solely mine. He is the God of the nations. I am lucky, I am so lucky that I am too quick to forget how lucky I am. Somehow I get to live in a place where having a Macbook and an iPhone and a queen size bed are normal and expected. By some miracle chain of events I ended up in a place where industrialization happened and economies became robust, and owning cars that drove on thousands of miles of maintained highways became the norm. My brain wants to explode thinking about how if I was just born in a different geographical location my entire life would be 200% different.

I don't know what to do with this. I think this was more for me. To get all my thoughts out of my head and wrestle with them on a page rather than just all up in my synapses, but here ya go - chew on the implications of this with me.