her first

I went with my baby sister (L) to her first concert a couple of nights ago. She talked the whole way there and was beyond excited. I was too, I couldn’t wait to experience this first with her. She’s almost 13 (roughly the same age I was when I went to my first concert. It was exciting to watch. We walked up to the Wiltern (she had no idea how lucky she was to be seeing her first concert there) and the scene before my eyes made me stop dead in my tracks. I watched my innocent little sister walk through a metal detector. (Disclaimer: I am not complaining about them, I was thankful they were there.) I paused for a second thinking back to my first concert and remembering that there were no metal detectors, just bag checks. I was overwhelmed by the fact that this is the world that L lives in. This is the society that she will be forced to spend her teenage years in. There will be fear in her heart when she starts her first day of high school next year. While I believe and acknowledge that 9/11 changed our country, I am also not blind to the fact that it’s progressively got worse since then. When shootings happen, I don’t know how to respond and I rarely get past the fact that people died. Families are left to grieve and all too often children are left with scarring images and memories that they will never recover from. While I have opinions (which are just that, simply opinions) about the political side of all of this, my heart can rarely get to the point of processing the political side of shootings and/or terrorist attacks. Last Sunday I stood in the Sunday school classroom with my little 3-6 year olds with very overwhelming feelings. My church meets in a school and for a second I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a teacher in a situation like that. It was a horrific feeling as I stared at the smiling and perfect faces of the precious kids in the room with me. I’ve felt convicted in the past week as I’ve thought about this tragedy in light of eternity. You can say or believe what you want in this time. You can have your opinions, that’s fine. But there is one thing that’s missing and it’s the most important thing. The church is called to be the hands and feet of Jesus. The church is called to reach out to and love the broken. So I guess I’m just asking where is the church in all of this? How is the church representing the love of God in the midst of so much evil and pain?

It has to start within our hearts as individuals. The church has to step up and the church has to be the love of God. There is not amount of laws or decisions that can be made to stop the evil from happening. 

But God.

healing.

2017 was a hard year for me to understand while I was in the midst of it, it felt mundane and painful and good all at once. I started 2018 off very sick which has caused me to reflect on the previous year more than I usually would. If I could sum up 2017 in just two words for you, those words would be healing and restoration. Those things happened for me as an individual and for my tiny little family as well. The end of 2016 left me with more questions than answers. Questions I feel like I battled for most of 2017. The pain of sudden and tragic death, the pain of being farther from where I wanted to be, and the fear of the unknown left me crippled. The Lord took Evan and I through a very deep, rough, and painful 12 month season of healing. I choke back the tears as I write this because I remember so many exhausting nights. Nights where we would fight about literally nothing to come to to the conclusion that we were two hurting people. I couldn't tell you how many times I screamed at my husband through the tears, "don't they know what they took from us"? I wanted someone to acknowledge the pain that had built up in my heart and in my soul for the past few years. It was in the quiet moments that followed those words, the moments where even my husband himself didn't know what to say that I felt God say "I know what they took". It felt like these conversations came more often than I would've liked and were a huge reminder to me that I wasn't as healed as I thought it was. But each one of those conversations took us farther into the healing process. Each of those difficult conversations led us to the Cross. 2017 reminded me that I was no longer the person who I was spiritually 2-3 years ago. In so many ways this was a bad thing but in so many ways it was good. My walk with God was no longer "easy" and no longer "black and white". Instead it was real, honest, and sometimes brutally ugly. Remembering last year has left me with a deeper desire for the child like faith. It has brought me to a point of wanting more of Jesus and less of this world. The year took a lot out of me and left me gasping for a breath of fresh air. The end of 2017 was literally perfect. It was a quiet night as Evan and I discussed the things we look forward to in 2018. That talk left a joy in my heart that I can't quite explain. I reached one simple conclusion as the year ended, the painful journey of healing (as far as my finite eyes can see) has prepared us for what God has in store in 2018. I don't wish to re-live 2017 by any stretch but, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am so thankful for the healing in 2017 because I can calmly step in 2018. I hate the way the new year is always portrayed and due to my depression/anxiety, I hate New Years Eve and mostly New Years Day. But I will tell you, there is something(s) about 2017 that have left me with hope.
Here's to healing, restoration, and new things.
Happy 2018!