here's my 11.

I was sitting at the kitchen table with my best friend, Terri.

I remember that as though it were yesterday. I can still see her at my mom's "place" at the table (I was sitting at my stepdad's), smiling and joking with me, as we talked about how lame church was going to be. She was pretty proud of herself because she had somehow ducked the entreaties to go, made by our friend Steph.

We were anti-church. I'm not entirely sure why. I had felt slighted after being laughed at years before by the other kids at my grandmother's Methodist church--I was the only kid who didn't know the Lord's Prayer (ironically, the recitation of that prayer became my favorite moment of Episcopalian services). Terri had been raised catholic.

I told her Steph's mom was picking me up by 6:45. I didn't want to go. I remember whining and making faces, and her repeatedly rubbing it in my face that she had said no.

I remember running out to the car when Mrs. DePasquale got to my house. The church was (and is) about 10 blocks away, in the center of our little suburb of Zion--a lakefront community founded by Reverend Dr. John Alexander Dowie, a faith-healer from Scotland. Hence the name of the town. I've since learned that he is intimately linked to the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, though the church he founded, the same that founded my own faith, now bears no resemblance to Pentecostalism.

It was Halloween, 1999. Steph had convinced me to go to Sunday night youth group, then called "Big Stuff," at Christ Community Church (clearly not the name that Dowie had christened it with). God intervened. I said yes. I had Terri come over beforehand because I was so not enthused about going. I got in the car. And from the entire evening I remember only one moment: creaming Steph on the nose with a chocolate-covered marshmallow. Youth ministry is so great.

We played this game that involves partners--one standing on a chair, one lying down underneath the chair--a teacup full of sticky chocolate sauce, and a handful of marshmallows. If you've ever gotten within ten feet of a youth group, I'm sure you can figure it out.

I don't remember when I first said yes to Christ. I don't have a journal from that year. I've got a couple of letters or writings here or there, from a few months later, in which I'd clearly felt like the decision had been made.

But whatever happened that night, or that year, it set the course for today, and tomorrow. I've heard often this phrase about how some people have enough church in them to never really be at home in the world. People tell me that growing up in the church never really leaves you. Studies show that there is a window of years in which the gospel should be taught, if kids are to carry faith successfully into adulthood.

I wasn't really very young when I first met Christ. But though I didn't "grow up in the church," I think I've always had just enough Christ to ruin the world for me. That first encounter, though it was brief, and though it led very shortly to a complete dismissal of all things Christian, was enough. It was enough to hold me for life. To bring me back. To leave me at every altar in Galesburg, IL. To keep me at a megachurch. To make me accept once, fall, then accept again and finally.

Oh, Father. You didn't have to bring me back, but You did. You didn't have to bring me at all. But You did. You have brought me every good thing, and my whole soul is grateful. My whole soul is Yours.

morning thoughts.

The sun shines today also.

One of my favorite lines from Emerson. I won't force-feed you the foregoing paragraph, but I'll tell you that it's about tradition. Actually, Tradition. It's about how previous generations were able to form their world, and their God through fresh eyes. But "ours is a retrospective age." Emerson claims that we live through the experiences of those before us.

Thus, Emerson would have us remember that the sun shines today also. The world continues to turn. We are in the world. We have the ability to construct our own reality, today also.

I like the line because I think they speak to a living religion. And in fact, the strictures of religious tradition are in part what Emerson was railing against.

I like that in a few simple words, I can be reminded that God is not dead, church is not something that I do, and scriptures are not hollow words. God is very much alive, to be experienced as vibrantly by me as by the first humans on this earth. His Church is something that He breathes into. His Words are a living link to His heart. When I pray, when I worship, when I read--the process is interactive. That's a miracle, friends. A miracle with 24-7 access that requires nothing more than my willingness to take part. I don't have to beg God to work in me.

Emerson was not exactly a bible-believing Christian, so I doubt he'd favor my reading of his words.

The Holy Spirit sows truth where He will, I suppose.

gathering clouds.

I'm still alive. Still thinking. I just can't seem to write two words next to each other.

But I was reading yesterday when I felt suddenly a powerful and irrefutable urge towards prayer.

It was bizarre. The urge wasn't a normal desire--like I get home sometimes and just think, "Prayer and Old Testament sounds so pleasant for this afternoon." It was a directive. And there was something attached to it. The sense that this wasn't casual prayer. Not that Pentecostal prayer ever really is. But there was this sense that I need to be in prayer especially this week. And not only for me, but for those around me, to strengthen us all. Especially as though I'd need their strength and wisdom.

I can't explain it. I might be crazy. When I was a case manager, I always wondered which crazy person I'd be, and I've long suspected that I'd be the apocalyptic one--the one who walks around preaching repentance and talking about "the coming darkness," and "the gathering clouds." That kind of thing.

So I might be crazy. This urge might be crazy. I recognize that. I'm not chancing it--I'm praying for myself and every person I see on the sidewalk this week--but I can at least nod to the impossibility of it all.

Do you think God gives these senses? Why would He? Have you ever had a sense like this one? What happened?

low ambition.

My friends are doing all of these crazy awesome things. Meeting with Nobel Prize winners, and winning medical fellowships, and passing the bar. And I'm in Southern Missouri, applying to seminary.

At one point, I would have been jealous of them. I'd have attempted to console myself with some idea of my own prestige. But it's not about that anymore. Whether I do anything "important" at all, ever, is a moot point.

The most important thing I do every day is waking up, and telling God that I'm in. I'm in again. I'm in today. I'm in to try to let His love work through me, to show others how much He loves them. I'm in.

I don't need a Nobel prize winner to help. No fellowship could make God more or less loving. A lawyer's salary would be nice, but I don't need the money, or the power.

My skills are what they are. My potential is what it is. I am what I am. And none of it matters unless it's all in line with His love, and it is. For the first time, it is. It's good. Feels good.

I am a far cry from perfect, but I'm no longer reaching for perfection. Now, I'm out for holiness. For one-ness with God.

I think that part of this seminary process has been giving up my own ideas of success. I've been wondering if I am willing to say that I don't care if I'm never well-known in my field. I don't care if I'm never published, if I'm never THE go-to psychologist in a field. Going to seminary has represented to me that admission--so being ready to go has meant my laying down my own ambitions. I think I'm willing to do that now. I can honestly say that I don't care what happens to my name, and my reputation, as long as I'm doing whatever it is God would have me do.

This is very different from the individualist world, in which part of happiness is recognition. It feels good to walk away from that. To walk towards God.

I'm sure I'll panic. I'm sure there'll be moments of uncertainty. I'll read a FB status, and feel jealousy. And who knows? Maybe seminary isn't the right direction. Maybe psychology is still the plan.

But to walk from the world, towards God, and His love for people--it's all the plan I need to know.

it's more than just a game for two.

I love God.

I'm not sure when it happened. I don't know the exact moment.

But I love God. And I've already seen Him do cool things in and through my life.

I came here claiming Christianity, but with a powerless faith. One that generated passion for the person of Christ, but lacked an understanding of how the person necessarily called forth the presence of the divine. I was more than questioning--I was angry, and hurt, and distrustful. But I accepted Christ. I was baptized. Then I accepted Christ again. And somewhere in all of that, I came to love God. I came to see His unmistakable thumbprint in the minutiae of my life. I felt His love for me expand into far-flung corners of my world, and lift my heart to see them. More recently, I've watched as He spins a love for people inside of my heart unlike any of the more idealistic sorts of love I've harbored in the past.

When I doubt, I sometimes show myself these things. I parade His work in front of my mind's eye, and ask--what does this look like to you?

Looks like love. Like an an incredible, glorious, breathtaking, and unmistakably divine kind of love.

So I love God, because He loved me first.

two-stepping with God.

I have this game I play. I started it in college. It's simple.

You start walking. And for each step you take, you have to whisper to God one thing you're grateful for.

On my agnostic or atheist days, I'd just whisper to myself.

Regardless, I'd whisper. One step. Folksy black-and-white photos of great-grandparents I've never met. Step two. That first sip of coffee in the morning. Another step, over the crack. My grandmother's antique pearl-and-diamond ring. Forth step. My mind. Step five. That eye-popping blue of the sky. And another...

No doubt, the gratefulness saved me. I'd play the game when I was happy, but also when I was sad. When the depression, and the regret of it all came down. Trudging from block to block, I'd still play. More slowly, maybe. Later, I'd play it in writing--journaling one blessing after another.

The game was a gift from God. Another of the ways in which He equipped me to know Him, before I really did.

Sometimes, I doubt. I start to worry that there's no evidence for what I say about God, and Christ, and atonement. But then, I remember the ways in which He has worked so powerfully but in seeming silence in my life. I see Him having guided my ways so thoroughly, so lovingly. And I think that my proof is there. My evidence is in the careful orchestration of all moments leading to this one.

Leading to a moment in which I can stand whole, though sometimes insecure and often unsure, and claim a life with Christ.

This is wild grace.

Another step. I walk with God.

prayer promise.

Do you think it's possible to have a prayer "confirmed"?

I was in prayer a couple of days ago, asking for something for a friend of mine, something huge and kind of non-specific, but very, very important for this person. And suddenly, it was as though God said "Yes, I'll do that." I was a little surprised. Did my subconscious just make that up? Did God Himself really tell me that He'd answer this huge prayer? What just happened?

The moment was so clear, and so incredibly precise. I definitely felt the "yes." But does God do that kind of thing? I mean, this was a whopper of a prayer. It covered the whole of my friend's life, from this day til the last. It branched out across the person's life. Big prayer.

Yet, there was a "yes." There was a definite moment wherein God seemed to tell me that He had heard the prayer, and had every intention of taking care of it. I could be crazy, but it felt like a promise to my heart. As though God were telling me that He would do as I asked in protecting this person.

I'm not sure what that means. I guess we'll see.

My prayer life has been getting funky fresh recently. I find myself called to pray at strange hours, and in strange ways. I feel directives--turn off the music, flip to this passage, get on your knees, go pray again. I might be losing it. This could be the final descent to insanity.

Then again, when I finally get there, I'll be all prayed up. Bonus.

But seriously--God is doing funny things in my prayers. Weird prayers are being answered--and others confirmed. Last week, I was given this whacked-out passage--at least the implications are whacked-out. I'm praying with friends. It's all a little jumbled up. A little out of the usual.

Praying I'm not crazy.

happy anniversary to us.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the best sermon ever written.

I know what you're thinking. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was written like, 250 years ago. But with all due respect to the memory of Jonathan Edwards, he was just out-shined. It happens. I used to have the prettiest hair in my peer group, and then I met Natalie. Such is life.

So, today is the one-year anniversary of the best sermon ever written, and in honor of this auspicious occasion, I'd like us to meditate on one line from said sermon. (If you're interested, its title is "God Chose You!", delivered by Lindell on a Wednesday night prayer service at James River.)

Towards the end of the immaculately-organized specimen of Word-ed wonder, Lindell says "And tonight, you might not understand what is going on in your life, but that does not mean that God is not in control."

Excellent, right? Don't you just want to listen to the whole thing? Email me, I'll hook you up. (Oh! Or maybe we can have a super-fun people party, and listen to it together!)

It was this sermon, and that idea, that began to shift my thinking away from rigid adherence to knowledge. I had been pushing so hard against atonement--how does it work? I asked myself again and again. I felt like I was just banging my head against the wall, sometimes begging God to help, to give me something--anything--that would make it all make sense. But this sermon, and that idea that my confusion is no indicator of God's presence, changed me. I began to slowly understand that God is God regardless of whether or not I understand Him.

My life is proof! I've never understood Him. I've searched, and asked, and begged, and cried, and prayed. And somehow through all of that, even in the moments when I thought I was acting completely outside of a system with God, He was guiding me. I didn't understand, but God was in control.

Because of that sermon, I chose to attempt the belief that though I don't understand the greater metaphysics of exactly how I am saved, that God is still a good God. I chose to live with the ambiguity of election.

So I look forward, and I think that I don't understand all of this. I don't know how it's going to work. I mean, really, who am I, and where am I going, and what will happen now? But maybe, just maybe--

I don't understand what's happening in my life, but God is completely in control.

ours are the souls

I've had something of a strange weekend.

I woke up yesterday morning to what I can only think is some sort of prodding from God: I don't have the luxury of losing hope. There are people who need help, who need to see Christ's love lived out.

Seriously, I woke up, fuzzy and foggy and wrapping my head around consciousness, with that one message pressing onto me. That particular kind of communication has only happened once before--it was last fall, I woke up to the urgent notion that evil was waiting for me, that I had been letting corruption into my heart. I had been, actually. But the directness of the message changed my mind, righted me. Taking that situation as guidance for how I ought to interpret this one, I realized I need to take hope more seriously.

As a side note, I am fascinated by how God communicates with us via different methods at different times. Another post.

Back to yesterday. I was reading in Joshua later, and it suddenly occurred to me that I am not empty-handed. Sometimes, I feel like I have nothing of value to offer in faith. But I heard, distinctly, as I read...There are people who need what you know. Though I don't know a lot, it occurred to me that there are people who need that little. There are people who are where I've been. Who need to know that Christ is real, and that peace is possible.

Which brings me to this morning.

I was listening to Lindell preach, and there was this beautiful moment in the sermon at which he said something like this: "I have never regretted a dollar I've given to the work of Christ." I immediately flashed to meeting him recently, shaking his hand while he smiled at me, and I realized...mine is the soul for which that dollar paid. He's never regretted it because he knows that souls like mine are at stake. Don't get me wrong--I know that the dollar didn't literally buy my soul, nor did Lindell's preaching, or the building. My soul was bought by Christ's blood. I was saved by Jesus alone. But, many many people gave sacrificially, allowing God to work through them, and because of that, I came to know the blood that saved me. Mine is the soul.

A few minutes later, I was walking to the bathroom between services, and I ran into this kid who just seemed so alone. I remembered how people in this church reached out to me, giving me their phone numbers and email addresses, and asking me to hang out with them, and praying for me, and showing me grace. And as I gave him my email address, I thought...his is the soul.

This Body is beautiful. More beautiful than I can write.

I used to read accounts of early Christians--willing to die of crazy first-century diseases in order to take care of others--and I'd think that we're not doing so well. That Christians aren't so great.

But I don't think that anymore. This Body is beautiful.

hoping on for dear life.

I've been trying to talk myself out of this seminary idea. The problem is this: there's nothing else I want to do. There's nothing else I feel I should be doing.

Nevertheless, the whole idea is a little crazy, and off-the-beaten-path, and I've got no shortage of effective counter-points for why I should ignore the prompt. Some are valid.

I was with a friend tonight, and I knew that I needed to ask her to pray with me. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. Praying with people I know is so, so so hard. Vulnerable. Awkward. I just can't. My palms got sweaty even as I started to ask her, and my heart felt it might explode, and I just can't.

Driving home, I realized--this seminary thing, it's never going to work. Who do I think I am? I can't even pray with a friend, and I'm thinking about seminary? Yeah, no. Give up, Ash. Give it up. I don't care if you think God is leading you there--clearly you're wrong. Law school is nice. Go to law school.

Even now, the allure of that thinking is strong. I know that the reality is that I'm not fit for seminary. That I'm something of a failure in faith. But. And this is a big but. I want to choose hope. I want to hope that if God is calling me to seminary, as I feel He is, that however inadequate I am for the task, He will do something crazy, something unheard of, something remarkable, and astounding, and miraculous in my life to prepare me. This shouldn't be a difficult hope. He's already done everything. I live in Christ. I am redeemed. The impossible is the reality of my heart. I, and you, and every believer I know, we are all walking sign posts to the indestructible force of hope in Christ.

Yet, I get discouraged.

But hope is a non-negotiable. I don't get to choose when to have hope, and when to abandon it. There's no biblical support for my being selectively hopeful.

I think to my favorite scriptures, and Paul doesn't write that "His gifts, and His call are irrevocable, for some people." Joshua doesn't hear that "I might not leave you, nor forsake you." Jesus himself leaves no ambiguity, He never says that if you "ask me for anything in my name, I will do some of it."

Hope is not up for debate. It is irrevocable, it's all-encompassing, and it brooks no competition from fear. Hope is entire. Complete. Hope in God leaves no place for doubt. Hope is an imperative.

In that sense hope is not something that we do, it's who we are. As people of the light, hope is not a pleasantry. It's not a safety blanket. And maybe this is what separates out those who use religion, and those who are religious. We are often accused of adhering to religious beliefs in order to gain a sense of security. The world is rough, and so we go God, or so the line goes. But what of those moments when hope is not easy? When relationship with Christ doesn't feel very secure? When hope is a chore?

I can't lie. I don't feel very hopeful right now. I drove home tonight, thinking that I should just give up this idea of seminary because if I can't pray with friends--if I'm too scared to share my faith in that kind of intimacy--what hope do I have of having anything to do with ministry? So, ministry's out, I thought.

I felt no hope. No hope that I can be whoever I need to be to have God using me in the way I think He intends. I still don't feel hope for that. But I don't think it matters that I don't feel it. I'm not called to feel it. I am called to harbor it. To let God's hope live in me. To protect ferociously the hope of His promises.

I wonder if we're all called to such hope, not because it makes our lives better or safer or more secure, but because the lives of others depend upon it.

He wantsta hold your ha-aaaa--aaand.

12 minutes. I just finished writing my lecture notes for the classes I teach tomorrow, and I'm giving myself 12 minutes before I force sleep.

So let me be brief. I was in my graduate-level religious studies class tonight, and I have no business being in a graduate-level religious studies class, but I sat there, and something weird happened.

I am a girl after knowledge. I was raised to value education for education's sake. I went to a school at which being smart was cool. Facts, and knowledge, and rhetorical skill have all been drilled into me as things to reach for. So part of the allure of this religious studies class has been the idea that I could some day know as much about theology as these people do. I could be as smart as them. The level of proficiency that I have in psychology--I could have that in theology. I could be the expert. That's after all part of the glory of academia--most serious academicians want to eventually be the best at what they do. I haven't been immune to that vanity.

So I was shocked tonight to sit in class, and realize that yes, I want to know all that they know and more, but I don't care about the academic debate nor the prestige. Suddenly, in the middle of class, I realized that I don't care at all about the dispassionate academic, debating-for-debating's-sake going on. Divorced from Christ, the theology meant nothing to me in that moment. Yes, I want to know about Augustine. But not so that I can have a rousingly self-serving discussion about the historical implications of his witness doctrine. Not unless knowing the historical implications will help me to help someone else understand God's love for them. Otherwise, I don't care.

I drove home, floored. I thought I wanted to go into theology to be the smart one. That was part of the plan in considering theological doctoral programs a couple of months ago. But the plan just got turned on its ear. My heart did something crazy. It flipped on me. I said I never wanted to go into the ministry end of seminary. Seriously--I just told someone from Dallas Theological Seminary that very thing a few weeks ago over the phone. "No sir, I'm not interested in ministry--just the academic end of theology." But, eschewing the academic interest in favor of any interest that will help me to bring people closer to God--that sounds a lot like ministry to me.

Maybe I just had a bad bite of something. Lead-poisoning? Low oxygen? I don't know. I'm going to sleep on it.

Regardless, I got home to friends in my living room, one of whom related how a third friend of ours expressed his concern that I was spending "too much time with people from the cult."

Nuts, right? Let's be real, though, I don't need his opinion to unsettle me--I can do that well enough on my own. Am I serious about this? I'm not qualified to help bring people to God. I'm a child. I'm flighty, and doubt-filled, and unstable at times. Who am I kidding?

But even if Rome wasn't built in a day, how crazy is it that my heart just flipped like that? Is it even possible? Have I finally lost it? I told God that I would need some hand-holding. I wasn't sure what that would look like.

Am I seeing it?

running scared. towards nowhere.

My heart is broken.

It's easy to trust God for things that I could do myself. But when it comes to things I think only God can do--I'd rather revoke my belief than take the steps towards uncertainty. I think, "God, I can't apply to seminary. I can't consider turning my plans upside down to do that." And then, "I'm so scared, I'd rather say no to what it is I think you're telling me to do. I'll still love you, though." And finally, "It doesn't matter anyway--you don't even exist."

Yes. Blog girl would like to go to seminary. Moreover, she feels lead to seminary, and has, for some time.

I know it's crazy. I know I don't belong there. And I have no idea what I'd do after I go to seminary. This is not a well-thought out plan.

I also know that my character is not at all what it should be for involvement in any sort of ministry. I know that I'd have a steep-learning curve, coming out of a different field. And that I'm not exactly the seminary prototype.

But still.

I want to go to seminary. What's more--I think it's a desire from God. Yet, the idea of stepping out towards that dream has me so scared, I start to doubt that God is speaking to me at all. Maybe I've been wrong about all of this? My doubt makes me feel like a failure, and then I've got additional ammo--I tell myself that if I can't do something so simple as be confident in this, or pray with people, or approach the altar, I'll never be able to make it through seminary. I should just follow the safe path. I'd make a good psychology prof.

I pray for strength.

"For His gifts, and His call, are irrevocable."

handing out hope.

Today, for the first time ever, I wanted to tell someone about Christ.

I know that sounds strange--shouldn't I have wanted to tell people about Christ a long time ago? Regardless...

I usually hear phrases like "share Christ" or "witness" as creepy and analogous to "evangelizing" or "proselytizing"--both of which are dirty words in the world from which I come. My best friend says that she's fine with Christians, as long as they don't try to convince her of their beliefs. For example.

But my impulse wasn't creepy. I was sitting with a student as she told me of some of what she was struggling with, and she just seemed so lost and hopeless and broken. I suddenly found myself wanting to just put my arms around her and tell her that there is a God who loves her more than she can imagine. That no matter how bad things seem, and regardless of whether she passes or fails my class--God loves her. He loves her, and He desperately wants her, and He has plans for her life. I wanted to tell her of how fascinating and wonderful the story of Christ really is, and to talk with her about what it means that God would come in flesh to live amongst men. Then what it means that He would die. I wanted to share with her some of my excitement about stuff in the Old Testament, and how it tells us of who God is, and what we can expect from a life with Him. I wanted to give her hope.

Of course, I couldn't share any of that. She's my student. I am an instructor employed by the university. But I prayed as I talked with her that God would do something crazy-supernatural in her life to show her truth, and steep her in love.

In the mean time, I was blown away by my own response to her sense of hopelessness. Inherent in my desire to tell her about God is a deep-seated belief in Him as the ground for all that is good and necessary for hope. I believe. The intensity of my desire to share with her took me by surprise. Wonderful, and terrifying.

Such is faith.

camp high.

Transparent. Be transparent, Ash.

I keep repeating that to myself, because I feel self-conscious, and slightly cheesy being "that girl" who goes on a hyper-spiritual "camp high" after a womens' conference. The first church I joined would talk about it as the "honey moon phase."

I remind myself that there's nothing cheesy about it--refilling and clarifying and strengthening are in fact the points of having a conference, or a camp retreat. I tell myself that I'm not alone. That it'd be sad if I had come out without a new perspective, or a changed heart.

So I'll be transparent. I'll be honest, and maybe cheesy, and naive, and I might gush a little bit. That's okay. Smart, strong, realistic women can gush.

Something changed. I went into DFL as one person. And have come out as a different person. That's a bold statement, I know. But true.

I worshiped openly. I talked openly about faith. I made a resolve to accept this life as my own. Something changed.

There's a lot to say, and I hope to get to all of it this week. God spoke to me about identity--who I am in Christ. About my relationship with my parents. About the courage to step out in serving, and giving, and in choosing. He made solid all that has been wiggling, and sliding into place over the last few months. Something changed.

I have a sense that if you ask me in twenty years about the major transitional points in my faith, I will talk about DFL 2010 as one of them. I'll tell you about these issues of identity. I'll say that I had been struggling with accepting my life in Christ as the core reality of my self, but that God laid to rest all questions of ownership. I'll tell you that those days of the conference were the moments in which my faith became real to me, in which I began to truly understand my relationship to God in worship, during which I shifted from seeing faith as an obligation to faith as an identity, and to understand my role as an every day evangelist as one that begins with God and leads to a love of people not above God, but from God--because He loves them, and I love what He loves.

In 20 years, from my office as a professor, or a statistician, or an Olympic figure-skater, if you ask me about my faith, I'll tell you that it all happened differently because of three days in October of 2010. That I took chances I wouldn't have taken. That I made choices I wouldn't have made. That I stepped out where I might have stayed safe--had it not been for the way that God used the words and worship of DFL to speak to me.

I don't know what will happen next. That's scary. I do know that something changed. I know that my faith is fundamentally different today than it was a week ago, and that I am whole-heartedly excited about my faith, my love for God, and the way that my love for Him will play out in the lives of others.

Something changed.

nerdy spiritual.

Friends.

It's 11:20 at night. I squirted strawberry milkshake into my right eye, leaving me with a fuzzy field of vision, and raccoon eyes from the smeared eye liner. After four days in a hotel, I'm having trouble remembering where we keep the water glasses in my apartment, and I've mislaid my toothbrush in one of the many still-packed bags at the foot of my bed. My mother is alive and safely back in Chicago, so that's a bonus--but my roommate and I got to talking so I haven't called her to let her know I made it home safe, so I know I'll hear about that tomorrow. Probably from the police first, at my door after she called to report me as a missing person. I have to teach the statistics students in 9 hours, but I have no idea where our stats text is. God only knows where my Bible is, and I wish He'd give me a vision of it, because I could use a good Word.

Most of all, I just need to talk.

I hate to be that girl who goes to a church conference and comes out all nerdy spiritual, but...

So much happened. I feel like I've left something behind, and moved into something new. And I'm terrified. Like, scared enough to turn back, to try to get back whatever comfortable safety I had. To pretend as though I didn't worship openly. Didn't promise more.

More to come.