Where my hope lies

Life is so much like the ocean. There are cycles and waves.

In the past eight years of my life:
I have doubted my own self and my decisions.
My  faith in God and humanity has wavered.
My health has faltered.
My heart has been splintered.
I have been disappointed in relationships.
Loved ones have died.
My ambitions have been trampled.
Curve balls have been thrown.
I have been lonely.
I have felt lost.

Through it all God has been faithful and to this day remains faithful.
And my faith, though wavering and at times almost nonexistent, has sustained me.

Praise be to God, my Sustainer. My hope is in you.

A stunning view of the mountains and the sea in Delphi, Greece

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.  
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. 
-Hebrews 10:19-25

Goodbye 2013!

Happy New Year! It has been quite some time since my last post, so let's review some of 2013 shall we? I love lists, so I will make a list of highlights (starting with two broad themes, then in chronological order).

1. Best year of my life - I learned so much, all of which boil down these categories: humility, vulnerability, gratitude, and empathy.

The magnet reads: You're on the right road if you're happy when you're lost.

2. Worst year of my life - I made it out alive and am a better person and stronger for it.

3. March 23rd I got my forward helix pierced.

 4. May 19th I ran and completed the Chicago Half Marathon with the best running buddy a girl could ask for, Kristin Martin!  *2hr: 22min: 26sec*

5. June 2nd Eric graduated high school. I am extremely proud of this kid.

 6. June 29th my best friend of 19 years, Kayla Feltz, married the love of her life, Dean Puthoff.

7. June 30th I chopped off 15 inches of hair, give or take. I LOVE my new hair!

Before...

After!

8. July 1st I went gluten free.

 
9. September 29th Silas Joel Henriques came into the world! October 20th I met and cuddled and snuggled Silas.

10. God provided for me in miraculous ways.

 I am so looking forward to whatever 2014. In the past 25 years 10 months and 30 days, that is the entirety of my existence, I have learned that life is the ultimate crap-shoot. Relationships have proved to be the anchor in what started out to be a very rocky year, flooded with continual tears, doubts, fears, failures, ailments, and injuries. Midway things started looking up, leaving me optimistic that no matter whatever lies ahead of me it can be navigated with guidance from God and support from the wonderful community of friends and family around me. I will not say that I will never doubt God again, because I most likely will. And subsequently will be blown away yet again by God's unending love, patience, faithfulness, and remarkable way of coming through in the twelfth hour.

On receiving

It is better to give than to receive, they say.

It is better to know when to receive instead of give, I might add.

This summer has been a healing time for me. I am surrounded by a community of givers where I do not feel ashamed to be a receiver - and often. Currently I am in a position where I need to take a little more than I give. I generally find that giving is a way to receive, but at the moment I am so thankful to be surrounded by generous people that I am able to take. And take. And take some more.

Being needy is not something that I enjoy, but I think it is definitely a theme in this season I am in. Not just needy, but desperate. Raw. The kind of needy that you cannot hide; I fear that people can see through my facade, see the tears that are ready to be shed at any moment. I’m not really trying to hide the fact that I am needy, I just don’t want to make others uncomfortable.

I was just journaling the other day that I feel like a faker. I fear I am faking being happy. Perhaps happy isn’t the right word; I am happy. However deep down the core of me is discontent and restless.

My friends joke that I only have one expression, a huge smile. This is true. I do wear a smile more often than not. That smile is not faking, because even deeper than the discontent that is writhing within my core is a bedrock of faith. Because of my faith, I have hope, wrought through time and adversity.

I was just washing up the dishes at the close of the evening and reflecting on the fact that I genuinely enjoyed and was thoroughly present in the moment during an entire evening I just had. Dinner with friends. Discussing all the wonderful fruits that we’ve sampled from our times abroad. Silly YouTube videos. Laughter. Sharing. Receiving. Giving.

Lately I have had difficulty being present with others. This has been troubling since it is usually something that comes very naturally for me. I am invested in relationships and genuinely love to hear everything from others that range from the mundane to the highly significant. These days I cling to the moments when I forget that I am trying to override this utter feeling of dissatisfaction and don’t have to exert any effort to be absorbed in the moment. Hope.

I know that this feeling of discontent that comes with this stage, I have had similar ones in my life, and no doubt there will be more. The preparation stage. The worst kind of stage that results in the best possible outcome. God has been stripping me of everything that I put trust and security in and will stop when God alone remains.

Nature reflects the will for life to continue despite circumstances that may be. Nature is somewhere I find hope.

At this point I feel the weirdest sense of peace I have ever felt. Sometimes I think I have lost it. Lost my peace, lost my faith, but the truth is I was built to endure much adversity. For whatever reason some require a lot more refining by fire than others. I would like to think that all the adversity, all the tears, all the questioning, the doubts, the fists shaking in the air, add up to making things better for those who come after me.

It certainly has made me a tougher and a softer person at the same time. God is into paradoxes.

Spring and summer happenings

So it's the end of June and my last update was April 1st. Whoops!

This doesn't mean nothing worth mentioning has happened, au contraire!

1) With April came the end of the Spring semester, thanks be to God on high! Seriously.

2) May Term play term was a lot of fun but incredibly busy.

My typical day went something like this: wake, eat, Religion and Sexuality from 8-12, lunch, forum post for class, work from 3-5, intramural volley ball games from 6-7ish, dinner, then reading homework for all of eternity, thank you KGM. Throw in spontaneous Chief visits and card nights, too!

3) Chicago Half Marathon! May 19, 2013

This was so FUN! A shout out to the best ever running buddy, Kristin Martin! We ran the race together and finished under our goal time clocking in at 2hr:22min:26sec. A huge thank you to Kristin's aunt and uncle who allowed us to have full use of their awesome condo to crash the night before the race. This will forever be the weekend that the stars aligned perfectly.

One of the things I most love about running is how I am constantly blown away by the things that I am capable of. This has spilled into a larger metaphor in all facets of my life: mentally, spiritually, emotionally, as well as physically. I love pushing the limits of what I once thought was possible.

4) Working with the fun, quirky printing and mailing crew at GC.

I went strait from school to working full-time at my campus job I started back in January in the printing and mailing department. There is never a dull moment!

5) Summer spontaneity.

I love working a forty hour work week then doing whatever you want! So unlike school where the work is unending. I run, read, porch sit, and write letters in my free time. It's awesome. I am currently engrossed in Les Miserables. When I'm not doing one of those four things I'm hanging out with my girl Rosalynde or having potlucks with other GC students hanging around for the summer. This is a slice of the good life.

 That's the nutshell version to catch you all up on life happenings!

In the darkness shines a faint light, small but powerful

It is now April. It has been about six weeks since my last post, but not because I have had a lack of things to say. There are many drafts that I started and stopped. There have been more drafts than that started in my mind that I didn't allow to leave the confines of my mind.

My journal has been experienceing the same kind of neglect, so don't take it too personally.

Writing is therapeutic for me, a sort of catharsis if you will. Everything is ok as long as I'm writing, even if nothing is ok.

I haven't been writing.

And things have been far from ok.

Well folks, to put it mildly, so far this year has been exceptionally hard. I have battled through so much in these past three months to make it to today, the first of April. I started off this year so hopeful, so optimistic. The realist in me is kicking myself in the butt, whispering, "See, that's what happens when you dare to hope." Or was that the depression speaking? Probably both. Yes, most likely both.

Depression sucks. I have battled with it off and on throughout my life, most of the time silently, not even acknowledging it myself. I thought if I ignored it, maybe it would go away. Maybe people wouldn't notice. Mostly I felt guilty and ashamed. A little proud as well. Or a lot proud. I have a fierce independent streak in me. But depression alone is awful. Depression on top of a host of other crappy curve balls that life throws and keeps throwing (which I won't even attempt to delve into here; ain't nobody got time for that!) feels like it will absolutely consume you from the inside out.

But it is freeing to realize that we can't do it alone. That we don't have to and we weren't meant to.

I have cried so much this year.

I cry relatively easily. I have a really tender, sensitive heart, but I began to realize that crying on an average of every other day was NOT normal. This was not like me.

Late one night, through chatting with a friend on Skype, I admitted to myself that my depression had come back. Just removing the denial of that fact was enough to lift a weight. I didn't have to try to fake it any longer, but rather could face this beast for what it was, like I have had to before. But depression is a dirty bastard. People who have never experienced what depression is have no idea what it is like. It is not this thing that can simply be shaken off. It is like something that crawls deep into your mind and plants itself there. Rationality goes out the window. For someone who is logical, this is terrifying.

I usually fight off emotion with logic, but that is another topic altogether. I have a systematic way of disecting what I am feeling and why. I am able to compartmentalize my feelings. I have been accused by a dear male friend of mine of being "like a guy" in this way, because often my truest feelings never reach the surface. Those must be excavated.

With depression, logic is useless. I am left defenseless, mainly because I can't answer my first question on that checklist: why do I feel this way?

Long story short, I am winning this battle. I am not defenseless, but I am already victorious. The war isn't over, and more battles will likely crop up throughout the rest of my life, but I have conquered so many of these battles before. Not without God though, and the love and support of people like my father who know what a bastard depression is and how powerful the love of God is.

There are those who believe that God does not want us to suffer and that there is no place for suffering. I don't believe that God wishes us to suffer, but I am confident that God uses it. I can't help but believe that there is a greater purpose in all of this. In hindsight I am thankful for the pain, because it has made me realize my dependence on God, God's love, grace, provision, and my own ability to be a light when all that surrounds is darkness.

P.S. I want to give a shout out to Abby Hertzler, whose book inspired me to finally put these words to the page through her book The Pen and the Pieces of Myself.

Mail!

The only thing better than getting mail at college is, well, nothing.

There is in fact nothing better than receiving a letter while away studying at college. And receiving a letter from a friend who is a living a great distance away has a heart-warming affect that is more easily felt than described.

Yay, mail! I received a letter from Marty who is currently at grad school in Belgium.

This single piece of mail made my entire week!

I look forward to having nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren, and having them be able to recognize my handwriting. I recognize the handwriting of my family and friends and can't image life without written communication. I have always loved writing letters since I first learned how to write and is something that I still practice weekly with great delight. Technology can never take that away from me!

Write someone you love a letter this week! If it's me, I'll surely write you back! :)

Give [thanks]

What are you thankful for?

I think about this question often, but on this particular holiday of Thanksgiving Day we are especially encouraged to reflect on those things that we are thankful for. I am not going to write out a detailed list, as I have much to be thankful for and it would be a long list. I will however reflect on what I have learned in the past several years about giving, gratitude and the like.

One of the most profound things that I have learned in the past five or so years is that you should give from what you have. This may not seem profound, but it totally changed my perspective on giving. On a particular day I felt bad that I could only make a certain contribution and thought to myself, "If only I had more money, then I could really give something that would make a difference. I'll aspire to make a lot of money in the future so that I have a lot to give away." Upon having this thought I was immediately convicted about my motive of giving and why it had to be a larger sum to really matter.

From that point on I told God that I would always give from what I have, no matter if it is big or small. It's a silly notion to wait to give a "meaningful" contribution until you can give a certain (and might I add arbitrary) monetary amount. Remember the story of the widow's offering in the gospels of Mark and Luke? Jesus tells his disciples that she has put more into the treasury in the kingdom of heaven with her two coins than the many rich people present who threw in large sums of money.

On the subject of giving, I ran for my second consecutive year in the Run for the Turkeys 5K race this morning! I really like this race because it raises money and canned food donations for a good cause, stocking the West Ohio Food Bank to feed hungry families right here in our own neighborhoods.

Here is the food I gathered for my contribution to the food bank.

 

Pre-race photos with Rachel and Chris. We were the barefoot running gang! It was quite a chilly morning for VibramFiveFingers!

And we're off and running!

 

 Eric was my photographer today and captured this amazing shot of me right as I was crossing the finish line! (Thank you The Little One!)

 

I was pleased with my time of 27:22 minutes! That's a three minutes faster than last year's 30:11, and only about 30 seconds over my average 5K time. I have been running technology free since coming back from my knee injury this summer because I knew I would either: 

 

a) become discouraged at how slow I have become due to my time off

 

b) push myself too hard, too fast

 

c) both of the above

 

So I really had no idea how fast or slow I would run today. Not my fastest, but I'll take it! I'm excited to continue training through the winter to get ready for some races coming this Spring as my knee slowly but surely continues to get better.

 

Traditional post-race picture with Anna

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I encourage you to give. Give thanks. Give of yourselves. Give in times of plenty. Give in times of need. Simply give! And always give thanks. I leave you now with these words from the book of Colossians:
 

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Colossians 3:15-17