Ash & Evergreens

What I want to do is paint a short picture of what my first 3 months in Iowa have been like. Where I started and how it's going. Iowa was never a destination I had in mind when I thought about my future but here we are... I might even be getting an Iowa license / plate soon (because insurance).  The Beginning - Dubuque was not what I expected (so hilly and squished). It wasn't flat like the rest of the midwest and all I could think was about how sad I was that I wasn't going to be able to ride my bike in the same way I had previously. Trust me, these are like mini-mountains some of the grades on these hills. - The Lord provided early with an apartment (it's doable and a space that's mine. A place I'd want to be long term? No, but it's a start) - The job was a rough start for me. There's always a learning curve with something new, but this was also learning an entire culture that has deep roots. Honestly, I cried every day after work for probably 3 weeks....

2 years ago I sat in a session at a women's retreat where the breakout speaker, who happens to be a 3-prong friend of mine, walked through the differences between being alone and loneliness. Then she went on to talk about the need for having a 3-prong life, based on Jennie Allen's book  Find Your People (if you haven't read or listened to it, you need to!). The idea is that a 3 prong outlet is safer and stronger than any other kind. We've all plugged things into weak outlets. What happens?? The cord falls out and the thing stops working, then we huff and puff and grunt getting up from the couch to go and tenderly plug it back in. But, imagine that same scenario now with a 3-prong outlet. You plug that appliance in and BAM... you almost have to use both hands to pull that sucker back out of the wall. ________________________________ As I have walked through life over the past, almost 2 years, I have heard and felt more and more the need for a 3-prong life. But what does ...

I was listening to a podcast recently and the woman who was sharing said that she had interacted with another woman at her church who said that she often makes a huge pot of soup and some salad, on a Sunday morning, and will intentionally look for people sitting alone in service to invite them over for a meal with her and her family. And. I. Loved. That. I have said this before, and I will say it again... invite singles over, even into the mess. Invite singles into your life, into the 'mundane' of errand running and laundry folding. Invite them to the athletic events and the theater performances. Let them be part of your family.  For whatever reason, the Lord has not deemed it time (now or maybe ever) to give them a spouse or family of their own, but they are ever much as created for relationship as someone who the Lord has deemed time to be married/have a family. And, for the love, quit seeing or telling singles that they are less valuable or that their lives will be incomplet...

I don't know if you care for country music at all, but there's a Miranda Lambert song called "Mama's Broken Heart" and the chorus goes something like:  " Go and fix your makeup girl, it's just a breakup Run and hide your crazy and start actin' like a lady 'Cause I raised you better, gotta keep it together Even when you fall apart... This ain't my mama's broken heart" Maybe you've heard people say, "Just follow your heart" or "you do you". Maybe you've heard song lyrics or speeches from a big stage where emotions and how to handle them were the focus. To some, 'emotions' may sound like a 4-letter word. You've come to understand that emotions and feelings are meant to be stuffed down, not shown, and therefore, not worked through. Yet, to others, you have so many emotions you don't know how to handle them all.  Whatever end of the spectrum you fall on, can I tell you today that emotions are a h...

Recently, I moved to Dubuque, Iowa. Recently I moved to Dubuque, Iowa by myself with as much as I could fit into my vehicle. Moving is exciting and magical and watching God provide is so cool and amazing in many ways. But does anyone every talk about the difficult side of it? Where you show up to a city you've never been to and a workplace you've never been to? Where you move into a place and don't know the people around you? Where you don't have community or social circles yet so you take yourself for walks every evening after work around the park behind your complex and stop to watch people playing pickleball for about 20 minutes or so before you continue your walk back to your apartment and then sit and watch a movie, get ready for bed, and do it all again? I make that sound so sad... but it's not. I mean some parts are but as a whole, it's not meant to be.  It's just quiet.  It's uninterrupted me time. Well... me and Jesus.  The pace for the last few...

What does it mean to you when you are called by name? When I was in 5th grade, we moved to Tennessee and began attending a fairly big SBC church with a booming children's ministry. One of the annual events the kids' ministry ran was called "24 Hours 4 Him" which was essentially a very intentional and organized church lock-in for 1st-5th (6th?) grade. The theme for my first time participating was all about the names of God . And that was the first time I had heard more names for Him outside of the ones I already knew (Immanuel, Abba, Wonderful counselor, etc). At the end of the event, we were given a little keychain with cards attached to it, each representing and defining a different Name of God.  I still have that keychain. And ever since that event, the names of God have been one of my favorite ways to praise and glorify Him and one of my favorite things to share with others. So, today, I want to share a few with you. ____________ Elohim   |  God El Shaddai  | Lord...

Have you ever started a spiritual discipline and it didn't quite go as planned? This winter, I was in a spiritual formation class that included practicing spiritual disciplines. We had to intentionally give up something for 21 days and complete two 2-hour solitude retreats. I chose to give up social media for 21 days and then ended up doing my solitude retreats at a cabin in one day. I initially set myself up on the lazy boy, turned the fire on, opened my Bible, and... crashed! I napped so hard for like 1.5 hours, had dream-inception, and woke up not knowing what time or day it was. Is napping a spiritual discipline? Because if so, I crushed it. I took my plan to rest and ran with it. But once I woke up, it was time to actually do what I went to do. Much like disciplining ourselves to not eat ice cream every night, not order queso at a Mexican restaurant, or get to the gym regularly, spiritual disciplines are also challenging. You see, Spiritual Disciplines by definition are practi...

Silence filled the room as people were asked to share about their late relative. His death was sudden and dumbfounding. The family gathered to pay their respects, but there was no visitation, no funeral, just a time for family and close friends to gather together in commemoration.  "Who wants to say some words?" someone asked.  But it was quiet. The gathered did not know what to express because the person the words were intended for didn't exactly have a glowing resume. People were not crying and exuberantly trying to talk over one another because there was so much depth, goodness, impact, and memories to share. Eyes peered around the room at each other, darting away when gaze was met. Were they to feel shame that there was nothing much to share? Being together, mourning a loss, and prayer was enough to fill the space, but how sad that it was nothing more? When I was in the 8th grade, I had a friend/teammate pass away unexpectedly (she was 12, I was 14). That rocked my wo...

 I hadn't known depression before like I came to know it in 2022. It was an unwelcome foe that motioned me in its direction and stayed with me often like a faint shadow. Each year for the past decade, there have always been one or two days that I would call my "dark days" and then after they were over, the rest of my year was usually just fine. This past year though, I met it in a new way. There were so many great memories and moments in 2022, but they were regularly shrouded under a vail of grey, black, and white. There were days I didn't want to get out of bed and didn't want to put my best effort into things. I stayed as close to my routine as I could because that was safe... that was comfortable.  I didn't want to read my Bible, I didn't want to regularly journal, I wanted to talk to the Lord (and did) but it didn't hold the same depth and joy that it had in days past. I didn't know what to call it, I just knew something wasn't right, I did...