valuable lessons I have learned/am learning, and some random in between.

1) At the beautiful marriage retreat, I learned not to focus so much on the exact words someone is saying, but rather, on the heart of what they are trying to say. Like sometimes, when I start senteces with "You never..." I should just say, "I miss you."
2) Our dishwasher floods.
3)  I have friends that I love, and we are in each others lives for a reason.
4) Birchcroft is a gift. It is not about me. It is not about how much time I put in or what I get out. It is a gift. Like life. Even though my professor tries to convince me otherwise.
5) Ungratefulness is the enemy. Comparison is the antichrist.
6) Little Blue by Josh Garrels is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard a father write for his daughter. Take a listen.
7) I miss things I don't have, especially during the holidays. And I know if I am,  we are all carrying certain things with us around the holidays. Things we wish were different. Family relationships. Lost loved ones. Absent people. So, yeah.
8) My mom is amazing. Like, she really is the most amazing woman. She kicks ass at being a business woman, a single mother, a lover of God, a provider, and a hope giver. As I get older, I realize that more and more.
9) People who veer from the path-they are still in God's hands.
10) I am still broken, I still need healing, and I am so blessed to know that's okay. That its part of my testimony. That it is part of what God is doing in me. In all of us. In you. Stagnancy never got anybody anywhere. Carry on.
11) I am messy.
12) I am a procrastinator. I am really going to get serious about changing this. Go ahead and smirk, I am going to try. I cannot, however, promise anything about being messy.
13) I am ready to create things. I need to create time first. And then, I want to create.
14) I want to find that thing that goes beyond wife, friend, daughter, student. I think I am getting there. Finding it, at least. Not starting at all. Slowly but surely.
15) I want to be intentional about loving where I am, who I am, and what I am.
16) My favorite Christmas song will forever be the Little Drummer Boy.
17) I miss my countries. Greece, Ecuador. There is a feeling I get there that I don't get anywhere else.

18) Life doesn't resolve. Nothing fully resolves. Except for Jesus, His love, and even that doesn't fully resolve. Yet. It does. But not fully. And that is okay. And I can't explain it. And that's okay.

morning pages.

If I were to tell you that I was never confused, as you are, I would be living in a world of falsehood and self deception. I am sometimes troubled like you, distressed like you, and yet-weren't some of the greatest prophets doubtful, angry, and full of despair? Of course, that isn't all there is to life with God. After all, the same prophets that lifted their fists to curse God were the same ones who wept and repented at the beauty of the Lord. I know these prophets were filled with the same indignation that I sometimes feel, but at the same time, they were filled with hope. And so to answer your many questions, I would say that, you are right, there is no proof, and sometimes, its hard as hell. I don't have the answers you think you need, but I would say you don't really need those answers. Ultimately, you will choose to believe or you won't. As Fredrick Buechner said, God himself could rearrange the stars and spell out 'I exist' and yet, without faith, we would walk past the same dark night filled with stars and look away. It's not that different than looking at a perfectly symmetrical flower, or the ocean, or a beautiful forest filled with leaves that are a million different shades of yellow and walk past it everyday, insisting a good creator doesn't exist. Ultimately, you have to choose to believe with almost nothing to go on. Or everything to go on, depending on how you see things. I am sure you wonder why you should believe. Well, if you look around you, you will see that you do a million things with hope and faith that something will come out of it. Should you stop doing all those things? Should you stop believing and having hope in everything? After all, you have no guarantee of the 'right' outcome, there is no guarantee. There comes a time where a person simply has to believe. Just like a mother who believes there is a child in her womb, a mother who believes that after nine months a human being will enter the world, and will live, and she will get to call someone 'daughter' or 'son.' She has no reason to believe this will happen, at least, she can't have any certainty of how the events will play out. After all, so many things could go wrong. But for those nine months, she believes, with no guarantee that her belief will be founded. (I know...she has all those millions of women who have had children before her to go on....but does she, really? How many times has something tragic happened, and a woman is left without a child?) So should she, because of this, mourn when she finds out she is carrying a child? No. Because she has hope. I know some people say that God is a crutch,  a way to make us feel better about ourselves, a sort of drug for the weak. I would say it takes more courage to believe that there is hope and goodness in this world, and a benevolent Savior who came to save us, than to believe in....nothing.
I am no apologist and I am not trying to be one.  I know all the arguments in the world cannot make a man believe if he is not open to  believing.
All I know is that I believe in a God who has transformed my life, and sometimes I remember how much He has changed everything, and sometimes I forget. Sometimes I am confused, but most of the time I just realize how much I need a Savior.
 In a world that is so broken, God offers us the promise of a miracle. I miracle that already has happened and has yet to be. It is bigger than a crutch to make us feel better. It goes beyond reason, beyond our feelings, beyond our conceptions of who God is or what this world is or why we are here.
All the great philosophers combined could not come close to the mind of God. But we have all the power in the world to draw close to the heart of God. In a world where there is great hope and great suffering, why not draw near? Why not humble ourselves and declare we need something bigger than ourselves?I mean, clearly, we do.
It is a far cry from a 'crutch'.