dear friends,

i must say, i truly enjoy reading your blogs. i enjoy reading about your dreams [sleeping or awake], your travels, your thoughts, your struggles, your triumphs, your lives, and your stories. i love being able to connect with you through your words. whether you are 2 blocks, 2 states, or 2,000 miles away. 

i love reading your words, listening to you wordsmith. listening to you wrap and weave words with the skill of wise craftsmen. and you all use them so differently. so beautifully. some of you use raw words. writing allows you to escape, to say what you want to say. for some of you, your writing is thought out, detailed. every word is carefully chosen, exchanged over and over and over until the right combination is found.

your words. i read them all [although perhaps a little too often]. i love your words. i value your words. so please. please. please. please. please. please. write. write a little. write a waterfall of words. but please, write. because if you don't, who will? who will tell the world of your dreams? who will tell the world of your travels? who will tell the world of your stories, your struggles, your anger, your beauty, your sorrows, your joy?

please continue writing friends. 

i like your words.

these friends of mine

friends. i see Jesus in these people.

alexandria.

the God loving, earth caring, food cooking, beautiful soul that i call my best friend. a lover of God and of people. so full of adventure and life. when i'm around her, i'm more compassionate, more honest, more of the me that God is calling me to be.

jaime.

lays down her life for the best and worst of friends. holds tightly to God's promises and is a friend who truly understands what it takes to stand in the will of God. she keeps me sane when i'm tip-toeing the edge of insanity.

marcus.

the kindest man i know. loves those who don't deserve love. cares more deeply for the people around him than anyone i have ever known. chases after God with such fervor. and never, never, never gives up on anyone.

nathan.

the thinker. the professor. the contemplator. he wrestles with every idea, relationship, aspect of life. when he cares, he cares deeply. he is one-hundred percent in or one-hundred percent out. he is deep and good and full of wisdom. he is my brother, the first person i call. his wisdom is a strong, steady keel in an ocean of waves.

behr.

makes everyday new. everyday bright. everyday beautiful. she's a rock in a crashing sea of unsteady friendships. beautiful, free, and young. she grows boldly and pulls others up off the ground as she grows upward. she's full of forgiveness and mercy. she's my neighbor, my friend, my late-night-confidant. i laugh harder and breathe deeper when we are together.

andrew.

sacrifices sleep, food, homework, sanity for his friends. gives so much of himself. lives abundantly, beautifully, and true. lays down his life for his friends daily. honest and true, and his friendship makes me more so. our first conversation was 10 hours long. (not exaggerating)

paul.

his smile, laughter, humor are contagious, but not ignorantly so. his kindness shows the wisdom of a life that has seen less happy times. he soaks up each day so fully, sometimes, i swear i can see each ray of sunlight sink into his skin. he is so sincere, and i learn what sincerity is every time he hugs me.

arin.

wonderful. wonderful. wonderful. one of the most intelligent minds and souls that i know.  a lover of words and thoughts. he has taught me the value of every-single-word.  every word is carefully chosen. every thought, thought out. he is bluntly honest and wonderfully bold. his life humbles and encourages me.

allison.

humble and beautiful. steady and bright. her laughter lights up rooms. her compassion topples buildings. she has a voice that the most talented lark would envy. a beautiful woman, down to the deepest part of her soul. i am humbled to call her friend.

you bless me more than you know.

it's a brand new day

this song came on pandora 2 minutes ago.

It’s a brand new day
The sun is shining 
It’s a brand new day
For the first time in such a long long time
I know I’ll be ok

Most kind of stories
Save the best part for last
And most stories have a hero who finds
You make your past your past
Yeah you make your past your past

It’s a brand new day
The sun is shining 
It’s a brand new day
For the first time in such a long long time
I know I’ll be ok

This cycle never ends
You gotta fall in order to mend

It’s a brand new day
It’s a brand new day
For the first time in such a long long time
I know I’ll be ok

"i write because it keeps me sane. because i find God in that place where my thoughts escape my finger tips and make contact with my keyboard."

"about 90 percent of the reason i write is for what it does on the inside of my life, and about 10 percent for what it does on paper. "
-shauna niequist

before i sit down to write. i usually have about a million different things racing every which way through the folds of my mind.
i usually set my stuff down, grab a cup of coffee, sit down, check the weather, check my email, etc.
well, I check my email, then I add events and meetings and workout schedules and work schedules to my calendar. and then i think about how busy i am. how little time i have. and i think about how tired i am. then i panic about how i will handle my new schedule in the fall. and how i am going to get good grades. and then i think about things like the pull and lacrosse and sailing team and how i will make all of those work. and will i have enough energy left to do all of them. especially working a 5 am shift? and all of that craziness makes me think about my grades again.
and my grades make me think about how badly i want to be a veterinarian. and then i think about why i'm here. and can i really justify spending this much money on school every semester? then i wonder if it's really worth it? and am i really where i'm supposed to be?
but then i remember how i was brought here. and that i had no part in ending up at this college. and i remember that saturday afternoon in the kitchen. i remember sitting down with my parents, and them telling me that Hope was where i had to go. it was cheapest with financial aid. and i had no choice. it was Hope or nothing. and i remember being so upset. with them, with myself, with God. and i remember being so crushed. so, so crushed. i was going to be stuck in holland forever.
but then i remember the past year. the overwhelming beauty, brokenness, and love i've experienced. and all the things i thought weren't possible, became so much more so. and dreams and hopes and stories whispered under breath were no longer fiction or wishful thinking, but reality. and i learned more about God and therefore, more about myself.
and the learning reminds me of the seemingly insurmountable walls i faced. the ones i thought i'd never get through. and the hardship, the brokenness reminds me of the immeasurable blessings.
but the blessings make me wonder if i'm still on the right path. and i walking in a way that pursues the narrow gates? and i panic and worry about my schedule and school and everything over again. and i wonder if i have any chance of making a difference in this world. any chance at all. or if i'm just a crazy, aimless, dreamer? am i waiting to change the world? why am i not changing the world now? and maybe with all these crazy thoughts, it's best i didn't.

and that's the craziness inside my head.

and that's why i write. because, understandably, if i didn't. i might lose it. i write because when i scribble things down and rearrange and organize and visually see the craziness, the insanity looks a little less scary. it looks a little less overwhelming. because when i write. i believe in the good. in the beauty. in the joy. when i write. some part of me empties onto the screen. words tumbling out faster than i can type them. and i rewrite entire paragraphs because i get so ahead of myself. like i've been saving up all these words. and they explode onto the screen in front of me. i write because it keeps me sane. because i find God in that place where my thoughts escape my finger tips and make contact with my keyboard. i find him there. and when i do, i feel like i am breathing for the first time.

"when i write, i believe that all the ideas might have a place, instead of just running themselves around and around in a circle. writing gives me a place to use all the flashes and thoughts and rabbit trails that rattle themselves around in my head making me crazy. writing is my best chance at happiness, and it is the riskiest thing i can do. but that's how life is. the riskiest things always yield the best, most beautiful things. what writing teaches me, over and over, is that God is waiting to be found in the darkest corners of our lives, the dead ends and bad neighborhoods we wake up in, and in the simplest, lightest, most singular and luminous moments."
-shanua niequist

"and it was good."

i've written in passing about this before. but regardless. i found myself thinking about it today.

it's april 2004. my friend matt and i were sitting at the top of a mountain. by top, i mean some where over 12,000 FASL. we had arrived at the top of a ridge. we were so far up that the trees had ceased to grow any higher, making a crisp, green line across the gray snow below us. we unstrapped our left feet from our boards, settled them into the crook of our arms, and looked up towards the top of the ridge. we began to climb up about another 40 feet. we got to the top.

the two of us.

speechless.

enveloped in our own thoughts. enveloped in the sheer magnitude of the beauty around us. enveloped in the overwhelming feeling of being so small, yet part of something so much greater than ourselves.

i've never felt such a loss for words. a feeling, a sight, a moment so much greater than our small lives, that to put it into words would be a crime.

there were only a few small words uttered up there on that sharp, rocky, peak.

we had been sitting there for i don't even know how long. matt didn't even turn his head to look at me. and i didn't even answer his question. but quietly, and almost under his breath, he simply said, "i don't know how you can see this and not believe in a God." I'll never forget that moment. ever.

there is something in that fiercely cold afternoon that speaks to something deep within me.

it's the same thing that spoke to me last summer. ally and i drove out to the marina late in the summer evening. the hot sting of the day had succumbed to the coolness of the night. we walked out to the end of the docks and laid down on the wide wooden dock. we gazed up at the stars. we watched hundreds of meteors. flying, hurdling, flaming chunks of space rock streak across the night sky. we laid there staring up at the great unknown well into the night. at one point, ally slowly spoke a few words, echoing the words of another friend, "how can you see this and not believe in a God...?"

i think that too often we separate our world into two separate places. a physical and spiritual world. when the truth is. they are one in the same. creation speaks so strongly of a creator, because that's what it was designed to do.

God reached across the earth and covered it with beauty and majesty and ceaseless wonders.

"and it was good."

goodness

God is good.

and life is so so so good.







but i truly miss all their lovely faces.