the benefit of brokenness.

In our society, if you don't have your act together, people don't seem to want much to do with you.

[have you noticed that?]

A well-intentioned friend once said to me, "When you're feeling sad, all you have to do to make yourself feel better is smile. Even if it's a fake smile, it still releases the same endorphins that real smiles release, and before you know it, your fake smile will become a real smile."

And while the science nerd in me finds that to be fascinating, can it possibly be healthy?

To cure sadness, we should simply fake happiness until we start actually feeling happy?
If that's the case, we should probably inform every counseling center in America that they're no longer needed. And heck, while we're at it, we should tell people not to give hugs when people are down: It unnecessarily spreads germs.



Of course this isn't true.
(well, i mean, maybe the endorphins thing is accurate. i haven't fact-checked that.)
But to emerge from a state of sadness | brokenness | disappointment  --it'll take a lot more than releasing good vibes from your facial muscles.

The deeper question remains, though:
Why are we so desperate to move away from this state of brokenness?
Has our culture taught us so unilaterally that brokenness is bad, that we can't bear to accept the emotions we're genuinely feeling? That we need to quickly bandage up any wounds we suffer in order to become a "whole person"? That brokenness is a sign that there's something wrong with us?

But. What if that wounded state is the place that helps us grow the most?



Over the past couple weeks, I've been stuck on this concept.
It seems to me that when I'm the most broken, I'm also the most myself: I don't have mental or emotional energy to smooth off the rough edges, my personality has no choice but to come out in its rawest form.

When I'm feeling broken, I'm more desperate for wisdom and truth.
And that feeling of desperateness leads me to seek out the only true constant in my life: I lean on God so heavily in these broken hours.

It's in my brokenness that I live a life of unabashed dependency on God. The life that creates the archetype for how I should always be living.

To be strong all the time is perhaps the most unhealthy goal one can have.
The power of Christ is made perfect in our weakness [2 Corinthians 12:9]; our marriage to the world is exemplified in our desire to fix our own brokenness.




This morning I was sitting in church, the notion of brokenness tumbling around in my head. The worship band began to play a well-worn praise chorus written by Brooke Fraser called Hosanna.
I absently sang the lyrics of the first couple verses and choruses, so familiar that they came out of my mouth almost automatically.
As I found myself singing along with the bridge, though, the words' juxtaposition grabbed my attention:

heal my heart and make it clean

followed almost immediately by,

break my heart for what breaks Yours


I stopped singing as I realized the two things the song asked for were healing and brokenness.
Are they one and the same?
Is it only through acknowledging brokenness that true healing can occur?

After all, sometimes when things seem to be falling apart, they may actually be falling into place.
If we've already placed a bandage over what is broken, we aren't allowing the broken pieces to fall where they need to.


When we "put on a happy face" despite our brokenness, we resist the promise made to us:
I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. [Ezekiel 36:26]

We aren't the ones who create that new heart. We aren't a people who have the power to form renewed spirits.

This new heart and new spirit is the one that begins to form only after our existing heart and spirit break.
In our brokenness, we are made whole, and He is made perfect.




All the walls you've built up are just glass on the outside 
So let them fall down. 
There's freedom waiting in the sound when you let your walls fall down. 
This is where the healing begins.

[Healing Begins, Tenth Avenue North]

i am a person.

The past few months have changed my definition of "summer vacation".

One of my favorite quotes is by Anton Chekhov, who said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it's the day-to-day living that wears you out."

That's certainly proven itself to me.


This past May, I became particularly ill with what I thought was a Crohn's Disease flareup. I went to my doctor and was told that no, my health concerns were unrelated to having Crohn's; instead I'd contracted a bacteria called Clostridium difficile, or C.dif.

The only cool thing about C.dif is that it has a period in the middle of it like a rapper. Everything else about it sucks: This little bacteria was eating my internal organs, specifically my intestines.

I was immediately placed on a crazy dose of antibiotics, and I immediately felt better. Not only did the medicine make the C.dif inactive; it also gave me a reprieve from Crohn's Disease.


Since May I've been on these antibiotics.
Since May I've been able to live life as though I don't have Crohn's Disease.
Since May I've been on a true summer vacation.

I finished the antibiotics ten days ago, but yesterday afternoon, my body confirmed that the medicine was certainly out of my system: My Crohn's Disease came back with a vengeance.


As I sit here writing, in more pain than I remembered being possible, I can't help but think of a friend of mine.


Yesterday, I had lunch with this friend [who will remain nameless for her own privacy] who was diagnosed with colon cancer on July 20. She's in her thirties and has two young kids, lives a very active and healthy life, and is one of those people who warmly and unassumingly shows you her beautiful soul the moment you meet her.

She'll be having a foot of her colon removed tomorrow morning, a mere 15 days after her diagnosis.

As we discussed the nitty-gritty of the surgery over lunch (These are the lunchtime conversations I have with people. Appetizing, no? ...Anyone up for Panera next Monday?), she referenced having Multiple Sclerosis, likening her cancer to her MS in some ways.

It caught me off guard for a moment. Despite having known her just shy of three years, I'd completely forgotten that she had any sort of health problem. How is it that Crohn's Disease is so prominent in my mind, yet she handles MS with such grace that I'd entirely forgotten it was even a part of her body?

When I posed this question, her response was simple:
She doesn't view herself as a sick person.

No, instead, she views herself as a person. Yes, a person who happens to be sick, and a person who happens to have a cancerous tumor she's been unwittingly carrying around with her, but she views herself exactly as I've come to view her: simply as a person.

When I turned this perspective around to myself, I reluctantly realized that I've come to think of myself as a sick person. I'm a patient. A victim. A broken body in a broken world.

Why is this my identity? Why isn't my identity more along the lines of, a person who laughs? Who loves? Who lives life with abandon?


Why do I carry the burden of a broken body in my mind, when I only have to carry it in my body?





Since May, I've gotten a summer vacation from the day-to-day living that Chekhov insists (and rightly so) will wear you out.
That should give me a reenergized jumpstart on learning to view myself as what I am: a person.

learning to be.

If you know me at all, you know that I love language.

Words, grammar, foreign language, sociolinguistics… I find it all fascinating and wonderful.

I was looking on the bookshelf in my living room a few weeks back, and a book title grabbed my attention:

i am not, but i know I AM.

Ah! Not only was it a masterfully worded title, it's also a concept that I, as an ESFP, often struggle with.

I've had the opportunity to hear the book's author, Louie Giglio, speak a handful of times, and the simplicity with which he presents God is energizing.

So of course, I took the book off the shelf and have been reading it, slowly but surely {my self-discipline when it comes to reading is lacking}, ever since.

Last week, I read a chapter in which the author relayed an experience he had while meditating on the phrase, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

He took the phrase word by word, and spent a day on each word.

My inner word nerd got jazzed at the idea of getting to spend an entire day thinking about a single word, so I resolved to address a phrase in a similar way. As I continued to read the chapter, I felt Psalm 46:10 worm its way into my consciousness:

Be still and know that I am God.

Such a cliche churchy phrase, yes.

A couple years back, though, this concept hit me in a big way, and ever since then, it's held a special place in my heart.

So I set out to do my word-a-day meditation on this phrase.

Be.

My first word was "be".

Two letters.

B-E.

Be.

What the heck was I supposed to get out of those two letters?

Be is an irregular verb, so I started by making a conjugation chart:

I looked at my conjugation chart, and couldn't get past the thought of, "Gosh, Kelsi, you're so lame. Why are you making conjugation charts for a verb in your native language?"

But I continued to look at my chart, determined to get something out of this.

Suddenly, something clicked in my mind, and the top left corner jumped at me: I AM.

The simple state of being is congruent with the very name God gives Himself.

To be is to commune with God.

To be is to explore God.

To be is to realize the essence of the One who was, is, and always will be.

i am not, but i know I AM.

I got so excited about these two small letters.

B-E.

As I continued to meditate on this tiny word, it became a huge word.

Its eleven definitions on dictionary.com scarcely scratch the surface of its meaning.

How can I learn to be?

I want to rest on my laurels and let God take His role as the I AM.

I want to stop worrying.

I want to relinquish control.

I want to simply be.

Easter rantings and some humbling Easter lessons.

Yes, I know Easter is supposed to be the most jubilant holiday of the Christian calendar.
Yes, I realize it's the day that changed everything.
But, more often than not, I view it as an annoyance.

Why?
Because I'm selfish and it messes up my routine.


See, lots of non-churchgoers come to church on Easter because "it's the right thing to do".
Well I can't handle that. It makes it difficult to find parking and seating at church.
The sanctuary is stuffy with the extra body heat.
The line for the bathroom is exorbitantly long.

And the worst part of all is that the church feels a need to create an especially showy production to entertain all these guests in hopes that they'll come back.
I just want my normal church service!



But yesterday.

Yesterday was Easter.
I went to my [overcrowded] church, keenly aware of my penchant toward a sour Easter attitude.
I prayed that I'd be able to see beyond my own discomfort in a way that would allow me to experience Easter in a real way.


And you know what?
Yesterday, for the first time, I was able to truly focus my attention on the beauties of Easter.

And so, dear friends, I'd like to share with you what I learned:




Defeat is the only way to truly find release.

Most of the time, Christian doctrine preaches that Jesus died for our sins.
Well, yes, that's true. But what's even more important (and often omitted) is that Jesus rose from the dead for our sins.

The Bible isn't abundantly clear about what Jesus knew in advance in regards to His crucifixion and resurrection.
He clearly knew that something terrible was about to go down; otherwise He wouldn't have spent such an agonizing night in the Garden of Gethsemane praying for the Lord to take the cup from Him (Luke 22:42).
But what exactly did He know? Did He know He would be living again three days later?



Just before He died, He uttered the words, "'It is finished.' With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit" (John 19:30, NIV).

It is finished.

Those are words of finality.
Everything was over.
Jesus had admitted defeat.

And through that defeat,
through Jesus relinquishing His control,
through His giving up,
that is where we gained the greatest freedom we can ever know.


Even after Jesus proclaimed, "It is finished," He still provided the greatest redemption.


It was once He saw that He couldn't do it on His own.
It was once He acknowledged the power of the Trinity.
It was once He gave up His spirit.

That was when God was able to complete the work.
That was when God was able turn something that was beyond repair into something beautiful.
That was when God fulfilled what His plan had been all along.

After it was finished.
After it was hopeless.
After it was beyond repair.



The concept of defeat is one I've wrestled with on and off for years now.
In a culture that encourages people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, I've learned that it can be indescribably difficult to release my situations and to give God permission to intervene.
But I've also learned that sometimes God allows us to hit rock bottom in order to give us no choice but to look up.


And that's when we see that we can't do it on our own.
That's when we acknowledge the power of the Trinity.
That's when we give up our spirits.



The beauty of the Cross is the most ugly form of beauty in the history of humanity.

The beauty of the resurrection, though,
that was the day that
Sin lost,
Hope soared,
Love won,
And we were changed forever.

choosing freedom.

I am healed.
I am whole.
I am free.


Those were the words that kept echoing in my head today.


They're unusual words for this time in my life.
See, although I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease almost eleven years ago, the past 21 days have arguably contained the most discouraging hours of my journey with Crohn's.

It started with a sharp abdominal pain one evening, and it all went from there.
I ended up being hospitalized for the first time ever. They couldn't find anything wrong with me, and sent me on my merry way.
Since they discharged me from the hospital 12 days ago, though, I've been consistently exhausted, in pain, and unable to resume my normal activity level.

Please understand: I'm not the type of person to let anything hold me back from living my life.
The fact that I'm sick to the point of it compromising my life is frustrating beyond explanation.

And the fact that I don't know when [or if] it will subside is more discouraging than I know how to articulate.

Yet,

I am healed.

I am whole.

I am free.

In the present tense.

I am healed.
I am whole.
I am free.


…but I'm not.
My body is broken. My soul is discouraged. My mind is burdened.
I might be inclined to believe these words if I perceived them to be true, but I can't think of anything like that in the present tense when I'm so affected by my current physical state.

I read a book last summer called "Heaven is for Real".
One of the concepts in the book that made the most lasting impact on me is about the way time works:
Our earthly perception is that time is linear. Things happen chronologically. In order.
On the other hand, time, to God, is on an X, Y, and Z axis. More than one thing can occur simultaneously.

My earthly body can feel broken to me, but still be healed, whole, and free.

I am healed.

I am whole.

I am free.

I've been learning a lot about spiritual warfare through this, and how Satan can manifest his evil in the physical realm.
We're in a fallen world, and God wouldn't choose this brokenness I'm feeling: On the contrary, He has plans to prosper me and not to harm me.
But while I'm on this earth, God's plans will be sabotaged by the devil.

Still, I am free.
Free from the bondage of this world.
Free from the clutches of Satan.
And free from this body in which I live.

I am healed.

I am whole.

I am free.

I often think of the story in the Bible of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, but touched the hem of Jesus' robe and was immediately healed. [Mark 5:24-34]
I can relate to her in so many ways. Chronic illness wears at you in a unique way: It whittles away at the essence of who you are, until finally you're little more than a gray skeleton of a person who was once vibrant.

Anton Chekhov once said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."

For twelve years this woman bled.
Every single day.
She was weak. She was weary. She was worn down.
Yet she still had faith that she was healed | whole | free in Christ.

What a beautiful assurance.
She came to Christ with the confidence that she would be restored in full.
And through her faith, she was renewed in His strength.

She knew that all she needed to do was to touch the hem of the robe of the Healer, and to believe that He would cast out the illness. the brokenness. the physical manifestations of an imperfect world's spiritual battles.
And, just as she believed would happen, she was healed, she was made whole, and she was freed.


I am healed.
I am whole.
I am free.

And I'm going to cling to the hem of the robe of the One who is mighty to save.

admitting defeat.

I've always struggled with asking people for help.
I was raised that if you don't know how to do something, you figure it out and you do it yourself.

(within reason, of course. if your liver suddenly fails, there's absolutely no shame in having a surgeon perform an operation rather than doing a liver transplant on yourself.)


For the past week, I've been sick.


It's a weird kind of sick, though:

• At some point each day, I have a fever. It doesn't last for more than a couple hours, and it hasn't gotten above 101*. 
• Any time I eat anything, I get really nauseated / sick to my stomach for the next few hours.
• My intestines (which are always a wreck due to my Crohn's Disease) have been bleeding and throbbing and just hating me overall.
• I can't sleep soundly.
• I've been so weak (likely from the amount of blood I'm losing, thanks to my intestines) that almost every time I stand up, I get dizzy.

But have I told anyone? No.
Have I asked for help? Of course not.

Today, I finally admitted that it would be in my (and my students') best interest for me to leave work early. It only made sense; I was leaving every lesson at least once to go get sick.
So I cancelled out my last 3 students of the day, and I went home.

As I was driving home, I reached my breaking point: I knew I needed help.

Matthew 7:7 came to mind: "Ask, and it shall be given to you." [KJV]
And right on its heels came Matthew 21:22, "If you have faith when you pray, you will be given whatever you ask for." [CEV]

That's it? Ask and believe?
Why didn't I do this sooner?
Why is asking God my last resort rather than my first line of defense?


"The power that made the body will heal the body."


I see that on the wall of my chiropractor's office every single week.
Why haven't I internalized it?

I suppose it all comes down to trust.
I've become a worrier.

"What if I pray and God chooses not to heal me?"

"What if I try and it doesn't work how I want it to?"

"What if I take a risk and it backfires?"

The one the wind and waves obey is strong enough to save you.  --Tenth Avenue North, Strong Enough to Save


"If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." --John 14:14 [NKJV]

It doesn't get much plainer than that.

Why is such a simple concept so hard for me to wrap my mind around?





"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him." --1 John 5:14-15 [NIV]

Heaven and children and the like.

The current Christian “it” book is called “Heaven is for Real”.

Now, I’m the kind of person who will avoid reading a book / watching a movie / listening to a band / eating at a restaurant / wearing a certain style for the sole reason that it’s popular. But. Last week, I found myself on a cruise ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico reading “Heaven is for Real”.

The premise of the book {in the event you’ve been floating through a cave in an inner tube or something. Not that I’ve done that in the past week… well ok, I have. But that’s another story for another blog post.} is that a 3-year-old boy was in surgery and was close to death. He “visited” Heaven during this time, and the book talks about the discussions he’s had with his parents since that experience. It outlines the things he saw, learned, and experienced in the 3 minutes he was there.

He spoke of Heaven in detail, and as concretely as if he were telling about a playground he played on, or a swimming pool he visited. There’s no way he was making this stuff up. Kids speak matter-of-factly and they have no filter. They say what’s on their mind. And the details of his story remained consistent over the course of 2 years. That’s hard to do for even an adult. Unless it’s true.

This boy didn’t question anything he saw. He didn’t think twice about the fact that people had wings. He didn’t bat an eye at the fact that God is “kind of blue”, as he put it. He didn’t argue the fact that Jesus has a horse that’s all the colors ever, plus millions of other colors.

Instead, he embraced it. He remembered fondly everything he experienced. He allowed that 3 minutes to infiltrate who he was as a person. And most importantly, he communicated the messages Jesus told him to bring back to his family.

Why do we doubt?

It’s so easy to become complacent, to view God as a faraway being. A concept rather than an entity.

But that’s not the case: God has an active and direct hand in our lives. The kid in the book said that he saw God shooting down power to his dad when he preached.

Active.

Direct.

Personal.

Real.

There’s a chapter in this book called “Jesus Really, Really Loves the Children”. Apparently that love was so evident to the kid that he wouldn’t shut up about it. His parents eventually got so annoyed with it that they told him, “Ok, we get it. You don’t need to keep reminding us about how much Jesus loves the children.”

What is it about the children? What makes them favored in the eyes of God?

I learned a lot about childlike faith over the past week.

When you have Crohn’s disease, it’s absolutely 100% foolish to put yourself in a situation in which you won’t have quick easy bathroom access. But I chose to zipline in the rainforest of Belize anyway. For over an hour, there was no possible way I could use the bathroom. I had been feeling sick that day, but I didn’t want that to stop me from taking advantage of the day I had in Belize, and the incredible opportunity that presented itself to me there.

So I ziplined.

Before I started, I asked God to help me not have to be sick while I was up in the trees.

See, my big problem is that I ask God these things, but then I doubt so thickly that I make myself sick anyway.

“Ask, and it shall be given you.” —Matthew 7:7

Why don’t I believe that?
Sure, I believe it. But I don’t believe it.
You know, the kind of belief that requires trust. Belief that necessitates faith.

Faith.

Childlike faith.

Is it the literal children who Jesus favors?
Or does He simply want our reckless, unabashed faith and trust?

I can’t become a child again. I’m not Benjamin Button.
But I can up the ante when it comes to trusting like a child does.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” —Matthew 18:3

my personal evolution regarding Darwin.

I've done quite a bit of driving over the past few weeks, and in order to pass the time, I've been listening to audiobooks.

The first one I read (well, "read", I suppose) was called Committed, and was written by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. It's her most recent book, and it chronicles her journey from never wanting to remarry, to now being married again. I found it to be very interesting, and I learned a lot about various cultural views on marriage, the history of marriage, and the like.

I then tried to read CS Lewis' Mere Christianity. After battling for a while with the combination of a skipping CD player and scratched CDs, I gave up on that one.

The third audiobook I'd gotten from the library was Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. That became the only option I had left. So I started in on it.

Yes, Darwin.

Yes, Origin of Species.

Here's why:

I love debating and intelligent discussion. It seems to me that Origin of Species is a frequently discussed and debated book, although my experience has been that very few people who discuss it have actually read the book. [much like the Bible, which, for the record, I'm also in the process of reading the whole way through.]

Before I started reading Origin of Species, I had some strong (albeit uninformed) opinions about it.

The bottom line was that I hated Darwin. He was an ignorant fool who made outrageous claims solely to upset people. In my mind, he was the Hitler of Christianity.

So when I started the book, I was ready for my beliefs to be challenged, and for my core to be shaken.

What I found instead was that Darwin was a very calculated, methodical, and scientific man. His claims make sense, and not only that, but they also strengthened my largely Creationist beliefs.

The book's format was pretty formulaic: it was essentially, "I did these experiments, found these results, and therefore came to these conclusions." Darwin didn't come across as a know-it-all like I expected; instead, the book read like a friend telling a friend about some interesting new things they'd been learning. Overall, it's a very exploratory retelling of "this is what I've been researching, and here's what I've found," rather than an in-your-face, "this is what is true."

I agree with 95% of what Darwin says in Origin of Species. All the conclusions he reaches align with my beliefs, with the exception of the infamously controversial way he interprets the way all his evidence works together to prove that all species come from a common ancestor.

The evidence he uses to back up that claim boils down to his observances that species change gradually over time, rather than changing all at once. He implies that this new theory should supersede the creation story as told in Genesis. What Darwin fails to take into account, though, is that a day on Earth is a different length than a day on Jupiter, for instance. Why should we necessarily limit the story of creation to Earth's norms when it's a recounting of the creation of the universe? When the Bible states that fish and birds were made on the fifth day and that God created humans on day six, I don't believe that those events occurred 24 hours apart. In fact, I believe that they didn't occur 24 hours apart.

Darwin's theory doesn't disprove Genesis 1; instead, it reminded me that God is bigger than this finite world that I know.

Darwin dedicates much of the book to his argument for survival of the fittest. His premise is essentially what I'd always heard: that the most healthy/beautiful/fast/whatever of any given species is the most likely to outlast other members of the same species. What I didn't know about Darwin's concept of survival of the fittest, however, was that species are often modified (over the course of several generations, of course) in a way that causes beneficial behavioral change.

If the new beneficial behaviors don't start until after modification has occurred, why do these adaptations occur? While Darwin doesn't answer this question in his book, I can't see any reason aside from a higher power dictating these changes because He knows they will benefit the species. Bottom line: God has a steady hand in evolution.

From the outset of the book Darwin is clear that he uses the term "create" loosely. He advises his reader to take the term with a grain of salt, saying that he is unsure of whether or not a higher power has created the world.

Boom.

Darwin ≠ Hitler of Christianity.

{well, not necessarily. but his clause about creation is definitely a point in his favor.}

While I don't know anything specific firsthand, I've heard that Darwin eventually renounced his claim that all species stem from a common ancestor. So perhaps this entire post is in vain and is a repeat of what Darwin said toward the end of his life. For whatever reason, though, Darwin's stance in Origin of Species is what he's most remembered for, and that's the Darwin that I had in my mind before I started the book.

Regardless, I learned quite a bit from reading (..."reading") Origin of Species, and it really caused me to think. Overall, it reaffirmed my belief that God oversees everything, wants what is best for us, and has a constant hand in our lives.

yes, Jesus loves me.

There seems to be a huge emphasis within the Christian world on loving others the way God loves them.

Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

--John 13:34 [NIV]

Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

--1 John 4:11 [NIV]

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, …love each other. … Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.

--Philippians 2:1-4 [MSG]

But what ever happened to looking out for number one?

How can we adequately love others if we don't first love ourselves?

And how can we adequately love ourselves if we don't first choose to receive that love through the only Perfect Love?

I heard a lyric yesterday that I can't get out of my mind:

I can't love me how You love me.

God's love is the only pure love.

He alone knows how to love us.

He alone knows how to give us worth.

He alone knows how to give us a purpose.

But until we find that love. find that worth. find that purpose,

How can we begin to love others?

All of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

And I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me.

--John Mark McMillan, How He Loves

fairytales. churchtales.

My roommate is in divinity school, which means she writes papers without ceasing.

I love to proofread, so I'm her designated proofreader. Which I'm totally glad about.

Her most recent paper discussed the influence of Christian teachings {especially through contemporary Christian music} on unmarried Christians' views on and expectations of marriage.

See, when a fairy tale is presented as a fairy tale, the "happily ever after" ending isn't internalized by the reader as something that will necessarily happen.

When this same fairy tale is implicitly told as something that could --and should-- occur in real life, it becomes damaging to young people's expectations of marriage, and really, of reality in general.

Let me explain.

Most girls in America are taught a standard repertoire of fairy tales from a very young age.

[You know, Disney movies, story books, etc.]

They're told these stories in such a context that there's no way they could believe the stories to be true: they're very aware that the stories are fictitious. Sure, they may subconsciously apply these stories to their lives as they grow up, but my guess would be that most girls don't believe they'll eat a poisoned apple and then be awakened by a prince's kiss.

Christian circles, however, teach similar stories through a lens of sexual purity.

We're taught things like, If you're patient, the one you're waiting for will come. And, Things will fall into place and will be utopian for people who wait obediently.

What seems to be implied through the mindset of most Christians is that a woman who is unmarried isn't actually unmarried. No, she's in a half-married state to a man whom she has never met, and must therefore wait and pray for him until the day when she will finally meet him and can be fully married.

How on earth is this healthy?

Through trying to teach sexual purity, Christian circles have reinforced the understood social norm that a person is somehow inadequate if they are unmarried.

You worry 'bout the maiden

Though you know she's only waiting.

Spent her whole life being graded

On the sanctity of patience

And a dumb appreciation,

But the story needs some mending

And a better happy ending.

--Sara Bareilles, Fairytale

So then, what should the proper approach be?

I'm an advocate of sexual purity before marriage.

But how should this topic be addressed without it seeming like young people are waiting for a reward of sorts once they find the person who "completes" them?

It hit me all at once:

I'm not ready to release my Crohn's disease.

I'm not entirely sure what prompted her, but when Ashley asked me tonight if I wanted prayer for healing, I couldn't honestly answer "yes". Sure, I'm tired of being sick all the time. But has it become so much a way of life that I'm unwilling to entertain the idea of trying life without it?

What a warped concept.

I mean, who wouldn't want to be healed from a chronic illness?

[…right?]

Perhaps it's because my identity has become so intertwined with my sickness.

Maybe it's that I get satisfaction from the attaboys I receive from those who admire how I cope with it.

Or maybe I don't wholeheartedly believe that God can (or would) heal me.

"In the corners of my mind, I just can't seem to find a reason to believe that I can break free."

--Shackles, MaryMary

Whatever the reason, I didn't ask for prayer for healing.

Instead, I asked for prayer for release.

"Once I've tasted freedom, the chains could bind no more."

--What it Means to Be Free, Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

It's funny how my Crohn's has claimed such a hold on my life.

As much as I hate it, I've become a slave to it.

It dictates my diet. | my finances. | my schedule.

It's become a huge part of my life story.

After all, I have learned a lot through living with chronic illness.

But why am I unwilling to let that go?

It's not enjoyable. It's not fulfilling. It's not something I want to be identified by.

We're supposed to cast our burdens upon God. (Psalm 55:22)

Crohn's disease is certainly more of a burden than it is a blessing.

Logic tells me that I shouldn't want to live a life with chronic illness.

Yet I can't seem to genuinely want healing.

So let it fall down

There's freedom waiting in the sound.

This is where the healing begins.

--Healing Begins, Tenth Avenue North

it's been a year.

A year ago today--at this very minute--I was texting my friend Sarah, trying to decide whether we should go to Crema for coffee, or if we should just wait to meet up at the show we were both planning to attend that night. We opted to meet at Crema.

And as a result, that's where I was.

I can still picture it. I was sitting in a chair, facing the corner where they have coffee beans and shirts and mugs to sell. Sarah was to my right, and a friend of hers who'd just moved to Nashville was to my left.

My phone buzzed. It was a text from my friend Britt.

There had been an earthquake in Haiti. A big one.

Her family was safe, and that's all she knew.

There was no longer any reason for me to be at Crema. I was mentally absent from the conversation as I texted friends and family to see who had been affected, and how severely.

Suddenly, there was absolutely no part of me that wanted to be in Nashville. I didn't want to be anywhere but Haiti. I felt so helpless: there was nothing I could do from here.

But if I were there, I would've been equally useless in the midst of all the chaos.

In the weeks to come, I spent a lot of time and energy processing.

Trying to comprehend it all.

I'm still not completely sure what it all means, why it happened. Even though I've come to terms with it, I still have questions that will never be answered.

photo credit: Troy Livesay

Today marks the one year anniversary of this earthquake that changed the face of Port-au-Prince forever.

Life has gone on.

But I still am trying to process.

I went back today to some blogs I linked to in a post I wrote shortly after the earthquake. I read entries that had been written by friends of mine in the days after this calamity, and words started jumping out at me.

Words like,

Helplessness.

Suffering.

Broken.

Wondering.

Scary.

Intense.

Uncertain.

Extreme.

Crying.

Pain.

Gone.

Lost.

Sad.

Afraid.

Drained.

Emotional.

"Some of [the things that have happened] feel wrong to share - Like only God should know these personal horrible tragedies." --Tara Livesay [January 13, 2010]

But other words were there too, buried in the layers of raw emotion:

Overcome.

Resilient.

Praying.

Healing.

"I am out here, trying to find a purpose in all of this mess." --Jessica Ackerman [February 12, 2010]

The Haitian people are so strong.

Their culture allows them to show grief, and to not be ashamed of it.

Sure, you have to deal with what you're dealt, but many people groups would disintegrate after experiencing trauma of such magnitude.

It makes me love that country so much more.

photo credit: @RAMhaiti

For whatever reason, the topic of homosexuality keeps coming up in my life lately.

It's one of those "hush-hush" topics in religious communities.

[well, in much of society, really. remember "don't ask don't tell"?]

But when it does get brought up, it's one of those subjects that is almost always discussed scornfully.

This past week, the women's soccer coach at one of the schools where I work was forced to resign when she told her team that she and her female partner were going to have a kid together.

Get this: Not only is this woman preparing to be a first-time mom, she's now unexpectedly jobless.

And that's when it really struck me: Why does it even matter whether homosexuality is "right" or "wrong"?

Are we not called to love?

Are we not called to accept?

Are we not called to respect all people?

Are we not called to not pass judgment?

Yet overall, Christians are the people who shun this particular community more than any other group does.

"But if we are the body, why aren't His arms reaching? Why aren't His hands healing? Why aren't His words teaching?" --Casting Crowns

Can we not live a life where we love all people, regardless of circumstance, past choices, or personal convictions?

Why do we feel we have a right to judge?

"Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone." --John 8:7

It seems to me that the issue isn't as much with homosexuality itself as it is the way Christians choose to treat their fellow man.

the Kelsi bubble.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that you aren't the only one with problems.

Although I suppose it's natural to get wrapped up in your immediate surroundings, it's certainly not healthy.

The past couple weeks have been rough.

I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease nine years ago.

Three weeks ago, I spent time in the hospital to have some testing done.

Two weeks ago, I went to my doctor to follow up with the testing.

The testing showed that my Crohn's is more active and more aggressive than my doctor anticipated. This means I need to change my treatment, which is always an uncertain and scary thing.

We discussed the two treatment options I've yet to try:

The first option is a combination of 2 meds. I've been on both medicines before without much luck, but sometimes medicines behave differently when paired with other meds. One of the medicines, though, made me so nauseated the last time I was on it that I had no desire to try it again.

The second option is a relatively new medicine that often causes a brain infection which is usually fatal.

I left that appointment not knowing how to process this information. I had three choices: continue to get sicker, compromise my quality of life by constantly being on the verge of throwing up, or put myself at risk of a fatal brain infection.

I prayed.

I journaled.

I cried.

I thought.

I researched.

I discussed.

But still, neither option seemed great.

And then I started talking to Sarah.

Sarah has Lyme disease.

Now, I didn't know much about Lyme disease before I talked to her, but it's not as treatable as one might think.

Sarah plays violin.

Her Lyme disease is affecting her brain in ways that limit the mobility of her arms and fingers.

Sarah likes people.

Her Lyme disease makes it so she often can't process what people are saying to her.

Sarah celebrates holidays.

Some days she feels fine. Some days she literally can't function. She's had to stay at home by herself for the past several major holidays just because those have happened to be days where she has been especially sick.

Sarah smiles a lot.

She would never let her Lyme disease prevent that.

Today I went to my doctor.

We decided on an alternative therapy for treatment, although it would require me to give myself a shot each week.

I was looking at my calendar to see which day of the week would be best, and I chose my shot day based upon which day of the week intersected with the fewest holidays.

And then I thought about Sarah.

She has to give herself 3 shots every day. On Christmas. On her birthday. On Valentine's Day. On her wedding day.

And that's when I realized what's so terrible about chronic illness:

There's no reprieve. Ever.

It's a constant battle. It's always in the back of your mind. It's always a source of worry.

For 9 years, Crohn's Disease has been somewhere in my brain at all times.

Every single day.

"Any idiot can face a crisis; it's day to day living that wears you out." --Anton Chekhov

Then my dad called me to ask how my appointment went.

I filled him in, and then asked him about his most recent trip to Haiti.

[He got back last night.]

His response was, "It's hard to tell people that they're going to die when their only sin is that they were born in the wrong country."

And here I am being all concerned about whether my meds were going to make me feel nauseated or not.

It's interesting how my circumstances seemed unsurmountable and bleak until I put them next to others.

Next to what Sarah deals with every day, Crohn's Disease is cake.

And when placed side-by-side with dying for lack of accessibility to treatment, the relative unpleasantness of Crohn's Disease is microscopic.

How did I get to a point where the only thing that matters is what's happening to me?

When did I allow myself to get so wrapped up in my own life that I forgot that God is bigger than any of it?

Where along the way did I dismiss the fact that my life isn't about me at all?

"I turn off the news when I don't like what I see. It's easy to do when it's population: me." --Matthew West

lenses.

Several months ago, I was coffeeing with a friend, and she and I got onto the topic of international travel. As we discussed various cultures and Americans' views on those cultures, I realized how pivotal our attitudes toward the outside world are in the way we treat others.

Since that point, I've been focused on the concept of the lens through which the individual views the world. I've applied it almost exclusively to culture, and have used this principle in countless discussions of how ethnocentric Americans tend to be.

Every morning, I start my day by checking my email from my phone.

[I check it on my phone so I can stay in bed a few minutes longer.]

I'm on a mailing list where I get a Bible verse and mini-devotion sent to me each morning. That's generally the first email I read.

This morning's verse smacked me in the face. I reread it 4 or 5 times, and then proceeded to grab my journal and write about it. Even still, six hours later, I can't get its words out of my head.

"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted." Titus 1:15

Basically, your outlook on life and your perspectives about others reflect the essence of who you are.

DANG.

A few nights ago, I had a conversation with a friend which led to him talking about how his knowledge of God is limited by the finite capabilities of his human brain. It basically took my obsession with the cultural lens to a whole new playing field: the human lens. As humans, we can only comprehend God through our lens's limited understanding.

Why I'd never thought to apply the lens concept to religion is beyond me, but it makes so much sense. My frustrations over others' apparent cultural ignorance are no different, fundamentally speaking, than the way in which I'm ignorant about the complexities and mysteries of God.

And then came this verse.

My prejudices about others are a reflection of my own shortcomings.

Something I dog on a lot is cultural Christianity.

[you know, people going to church because it's what everyone around them does, and do just enough to keep them from feeling guilty.]

But according to this verse, I perceive cultural Christianity to be prevalent in society because it's the way I operate. My lens is reflecting what's inside before allowing me to see out.

Is this really true? Have I been so sucked into a culture where Christianity is the norm, that I've been living it simply because that's what's socially acceptable? And because it's so mainstream, am I living cultural Christianity without realizing that's what I'm doing?

They say that bringing out the good in others is the best way to bring out the good in yourself.

By Titus 1:15, though, you can't bring out the good in others until you've found that equilibrium in yourself,

OR

conversely, does bringing out the good in others create a rightness within you?

It goes back to a verse in Matthew I came across yesterday: you can't wash the outside of a dish and assume that's made the inside clean as well. It has to start with the inside, and then the outside will end up being clean (Matthew 23:25-26).

So then. I suppose I don't have room to evaluate how accurate (or inaccurate) a person's perspective might be. I need to work internally, and everything else will fall right where it should be.

...easier said than done.

Albert Einstein can't call ME lame.

I came across a quote today that grabbed my attention:

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind. --Albert Einstein

At first I got all offended.

After all, it's been pounded into me my entire life that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

Nope, no science necessary for faith, Christianity, or religion in general.

But then I thought about it a little more.

Something I've been discovering about myself over the past several months is that nature is one of the most concrete ways in which I see God.

Nature is one of the most-studied things by scientists.

And then it clicked:

God is the God of science.

He created the elements on the periodic table.

He created every atom, molecule, and quark that humans haven't learned to see.

He created the process of photosynthesis.

He created meteor showers.

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.

There's really no way to go through a day on this planet without experiencing God through science, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it.

The two are so intermarried that there's no way to untangle them.

In our culture, there is much separation among various disciplines.

But God created it all, and it's all a reflection of His image.

So as usual, Einstein is right: there's really no reason to even try to separate religion from any other aspect of life.

How can I stand here with You

And not be moved by You?

half a year later: still trying to understand.

It's been 6 months.

The world has moved on.

Healthcare Reform.

The World Cup.

The oil spill in the Gulf.

Greece's financial crisis.

Sure, there are other valid things to focus our attention on.

But there's still need in Haiti.

I had dinner with a friend last night who just got to the US from Haiti a few days ago. She told me that there are still entire villages in Haiti that haven't received any help at all. None.

"Exactly 6 months ago 220,000 people died and 300,000 people were injured... All the money in the world couldn't fix that."

--@akagstrom

Yet a lack of help is almost literally adding insult to injury.

Today, I spent time watching, reading, and listening to several updates on Haiti's earthquake's aftermath from several different news sources.

People still don't get it.

The thing that struck me most was that relief workers and organizations are imposing American standards on this Haitian calamity.

Organizations are funding the building of houses on empty land.

Great. That's awesome that they're doing what they can to help.

[And no, that's not sarcastic in the least. Honest.]

But what they haven't taken the time to learn is that Haitian communities are extremely close-knit. You know how when you endure hardship with a group of people (or even just one other person), you automatically have a bond with those people? Take that concept, and apply it to an entire community who's experienced generations of starvation, disease, and the struggles of everyday life. Do you really think they're going to leave that community just because a more sturdily constructed house is offered to them? Not a chance. Sure, that might seem illogical to Americans, but that's the way it is.

We aren't meeting the people where they are. We aren't catering to their needs. Instead, we're meeting the needs we think they have.

Is that really helping them?

I'm not convinced that it is.

photo credit: Troy Livesay

"I know the problems are endless and the needs are great. I know the mountains are large. People are suffering. Things seem not to improve. It feels almost insurmountable.
But I also know ...
As the love of Christ compels us, we must recognize that He gave us all hands, hearts, and gifts that are even more endless. We must believe that our ability to advocate for others is great. We cannot turn away from what hurts us to see. We cannot give up on things that frustrate us. He is bigger and more able than we know - if we all respond with His generous love - things will change. I believe it."

--Troy Livesay

"6 months later, it is still difficult to understand, to describe, to convey...what's happened here. Pa bliye Ayiti. [English: 'Don't forget Haiti.'] Pray, hope give."

--@jen_halverson

grace.

God has been hurt by me.

I've caused God pain.

I've caused God sadness.

I've caused Him grief.

Who am I to feel as though I have the right to mistreat God?

The Creator of infinity.

The Lover of all.

The only One who won't ever hurt me.

Yet I've hurt Him.

And I've been selfish enough to think that I have a higher agenda than what He has for me.

Awesome. Why do I do this?

I defame His name. His existence. His creation. His world.

It's all so sacred. It's His Love. His bridegroom. The one thing He loves more than anything else.

And I treat it as insignificant. Unimportant. Irrelevant. Worth nothing.

He experiences human emotion. And I've caused Him to experience some of those emotions that no human wants to have to endure.

If no human would want to endure them, surely we wouldn't wish them on a God who has never been anything but good.

But we do.

Not only do we wish them upon the One benevolent God, we inflict them upon Him.

I am the cause of God's grief.

And He is the cause of my joy.

There's nothing that's fair about that.

But I suppose that's a prime example of the character of God.

While I was choosing to hurt Him, God chose to be humiliated and brutally murdered for me. [Romans 5:8]

It's not fair.

But that's grace.

It's overwhelming sometimes.

"God didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive."

-Aaron Bryant

a more different blog on love.

Apparently my brain is getting stuck on topics lately. I've blogged about water twice in the past month-ish (although I think I might've only published one of them? I don't remember), and now I'm writing about love for the second time.

But it's such a deep topic. It's one of those that could never be overanalyzed. Love is so multi-faceted, and can signify so many different things.

It's interesting to me that there's only one word in the English language for love.

[my inner word nerd is coming out...]

There are four words for love in the Greek language:

agape (αγάπη) is most commonly used in modern day Greek, and refers to real love. You know, like the kind of love where you would do absolutely anything for the person.

eros (έρως) is a sensual passionate love. i.e., getting to know someone in the "Biblical sense".

philia (φιλία) is friend love. It can refer to loyalty among friends, comfortable familiarity with family, etc.

storge (στοργή) is acceptance. Sometimes it has the connotation of a begrudging acceptance, but it's almost always used in reference to an unearned affection.

My point of focus the past couple days has been agape love. It totally blows my mind. It's quite possibly the most beautiful and unselfish thing I've ever witnessed.

There's an older couple at Madison Park (my church in Anderson) who have been married for a lot of years. Over the past few years, the wife has become more and more affected by dementia.

I first met them a couple years ago when I started to become more involved in the worship arts ministry at Madison Park. At that point, the wife was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's. She would say the same things to me every Sunday (most Sundays she reminded me that she plays violin and would then give me a high five because I "deserved it"), but was otherwise self-sufficient.

By the time I left the church the following summer, she had become somewhat socially inappropriate, and was no longer mentally capable of driving, but was still able to play violin in the orchestra and be an active member of the church choir.

I hadn't seen or thought about her since I stopped attending Madison Park eight months ago, but while I was in Anderson this past month, I couldn't help but notice her in the church choir there.

You see, she kind of stuck out. Not only was she the only female standing smack dab in the middle of the men's section, but she also wasn't really singing. She'd stare off into space for a few minutes, then sing a few words that weren't necessarily a part of the current song, and then she'd look around some more.

It was honestly kind of sad to watch, but at the same time, it was really a neat thing to see. Her incompetence wasn't the neat part; it was the way her husband was there to support her. She probably shouldn't have been in public, but her husband was right there with her watching her every move and making sure she didn't harm or embarrass herself (or anyone else).

Her husband has literally devoted his entire existence to enabling his wife to live the life she wants to. She was standing in the men's section so he could keep a closer eye on her. He stands in her shadow and watches from a distance. If she does anything inappropriate (which is frequent), he gently guides her away from the situation.

She's obviously a very different person now than who she was when they got married.

But he wasn't kidding when he told her,

"For better or for worse.

In sickness or in health.

Until death do us part."

I was looking through the four Greek loves to try to identify which of these was most closely linked to the love I saw this man show his wife, and I couldn't decide on just one. His love for his wife is so deep that it encompasses all four of these loves. Sure, there's probably not much eros in their relationship at this point, but he displays the other three loves in an unmistakeable way.

The interaction between this couple is the closest thing to God's love that I can ever recall seeing. Sure, a lot of people are of the opinion that God is a harsh and critical deity. But all I know for certain is what I've experienced, and what I've experienced is that God is a god of unconditional, unmerited, irrational love.

Regardless of what I do or how far away I try to run, God's never stopped loving me. He's never stopped providing for me. I don't understand it. But I can't deny its truth.

Love always protects,

always trusts,

always hopes,

always perseveres.

-1 Corinthians 13:7

lately.

I've done a lot of driving lately.

{Seriously. Close to 1500 miles in the past 11 days.}

I've started learning Russian lately.

{So far I know the alphabet and numbers 1-10.}

I've tried to start reading again lately.

{I've read maybe 100 pages within the last year. And that's probably being generous.}

I've been learning to love lately.

{It's harder than it looks. It's also more rewarding than I could've imagined.}

I've been worrying about money lately.

{I guess that makes me normal.}

I've gotten really into fresh fruit lately.

{It just tastes so good.}

I've been skyping a lot lately.

{It helps me to miss my faraway friends less.}

I've been learning lately.

Learning about myself.

Learning about others.

Learning about God.

Learning about peace.

Learning about contentment.

It's funny how you can have all the degrees in the world, but there's always going to be more to learn.

I guess that's why we have God.

Friends.

Experiences.

Pain.

They shape us into who we are. They teach us things we couldn't learn any other way.

I was listening to the radio today as I was driving. The question was posed, "How can I know God loves me?"

Sunday School answer?

Jesus loves me this I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

(Or I guess there's always Romans 5:8... "God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.")

Real answer?

I'm not sure.

The question is so simple and so fundamental that we tend to gloss over it.

It's one of those things that I've always accepted as truth without questioning it or giving it much thought.

I got stuck on this question.

I thought about it for a while, discovered I didn't have any conclusions, and then promptly dismissed it.

And then I started reading some old journal entries of mine.

I came across one where I'd written, "Bondye konnen tout bagay. Bondye komprann tout bagay."

God knows everything. God understands everything.

Such a simple couple of sentences. But such a comforting concept.

I realized that was my answer.

How can we know God loves us? He knows everything and understands everything.

He has it all under His control. He knows what's happening, even when we don't. (Especially when we don't.)

He knows everything. He understands everything.

Everything.

My finite mind can't even understand the concept of everything.

But who cares? God knows it. He gets it.

Of course He does; He made it.

And He loves His creation.

"But what is man that You are mindful of him?"

--Psalm 8:4a