if you don't already read the broad river community church advent guide...go read it now.

broadrivercc.wordpress.com

if you aren't eating peanut butter poptarts already...go get some now.

those are my two public service announcements.

life is good friends. it hasn't been an easy 6-8 weeks lately but sunday night i learned peace again. sunday night chelsea picked me up and we drove to target just to walk around. we talked and laughed and listened to good music. her jeep is a little slice of home for me, i've been riding around in it for the past 6 years. it's my favorite. at target we wandered and had no agenda and didn't feel rushed and we bought playing cards and decided to share a drink together at tavern 24. so we got drinks and a side order of fries and played round after round of speed. no agenda, no rushing. it was 9 on a sunday night and we were playing cards at a bar together and it was good. we started talking about life and transitions occuring and hopes and dreams for our futures and then peace and hope snuck up in me.

 i've been anxious about brazil and health things so long that i forgot peace and hope and joy and love existed. i've been living so frantically for so long. i told chelsea i was ready. i was ready to leave boiling springs. i was ready to move to brazil. i'm ready to move to richmond. ready for this next chapter. i haven't been ready until sunday night. chelsea agreed that i was erady. she said she's seen me grow and become who i am today and has watched me get up and just do things that i want to do. colorado, grad school, cdh, brazil. so, as we sat there and talked about our friendship and the impact it's had on our lives i still knew. still knwe i was ready.

monday i ran into my friend tyler and he looked me in the eyes and asked if i was ready to go. i said yes. he said, i can tell.

monday i rode all over charlotte with caroline going to doctor appointments and she got in my car when we left and said Hannah, you are different. you are calm. you are peaceful. I haven't seen you like this in a long time.

tuesday night at women's prayer Heather said, you are different. you look better. you seem more healthy.

friends, my hope is back. even on monday which was full of doctors and numbers and not a lot of hope i ended the day with an email to my family that ended in saying that I had hope. I have hope that Jesus is more than all this mess. I have hope that Jesus knows my little body better than any doctor. That decisions I make at this point Jesus promises to meet me in them. I have hope that He will be for me in the decisions I make and if they are wrong His grace is bigger than my mistakes.

I maybe haven't felt this alive and full and hopeful as I did the first time I went to Brazil.

I'm ready.

(i also know that when push comes to shove and I have to get on an airplane in 6 weeks to move to brazil on my own for 6 months I may not feel this way. but I'll read this post over and over and over and know that the Lord that has given me this hope now hasn't changed and will never leave me-so I will find my hope again if somehow I drop it along the way)

"tell me about you. brazil is soon. you need to quit a job. you live with a boy. youre eating new food. tell me about it" -Christine in an email today.

That sums up my life pretty well. I have been in a season of busy/rest and of creating new normals. Creating new normals is scary. It means you are tired and up and down a lot and in my case-not very compassionate but demand compassion from everyone else because "my life is changing and i just need you to give me grace" and then i forget that everyone's lives are changing-big or small- and they need the grace too. I forget that. I've been reminding myself that a lot this week after a few weeks of tempers, tears, and being incorrigible. 

Brazil is soon. Brazil isn't what I thought it would look like or be. I thought Reid was going. I thought I'd be going with Crossroads. I thought I'd have community with Mark and Paige (i will...just starting in april) But, I know I am called there. I can't be discouraged or bitter about the things I thought. I can only continue to be faithful and obedient to the Lord and know that this is His plan. Or...my plan and He's just tagging along and promises to be faithful if I am too. Either way it is good. If my life has taught me anything it's that I'll never be stranded anywhere. I'll never be alone. I'll never have to feel desolate and destitute. I can always choose joy. 

I have 6 jobs. Hopefully soon to be 5 again. After Thanksgiving it'll be 2. That is good. This season has been so fruitful financially. I am so grateful. It's so crazy. This town has loved me well. I have been given so many opportunities to serve and love people that love me. God does this crazy thing always where things work together and work out in the moment and in the future. This seems silly to say but working at the Gap and at the coffee shop have given me so much confidence in my future. I can be understood when speaking to strangers, I can learn new skills, I am a reliable employee. I am efficient and effective in the jobs I do. I am not hanging my hope or my life on these traits but they are good for me to learn. 

I do live with a boy. 4 of them but specifically Josh still. We adventure, we laugh, we don't take life too seriously, he makes me slow down and rest more than I'd like to but it is so good. Grateful for this fun season of life with him.

I've started making my own food. Specifically, I've stopped eating sugar. I started 3 weeks ago and I've replaced 4/6 cans of ensure daily from my diet. I had really bad sugar withdraw headaches. I was grouchy as shit. I demanded more from the people I love than I ever should. I'm mostly past that point. It is good. I feel good. Everyone in this town asks me how I'm doing with it because Britt told everyone. Chelsea and I have been praying that it works. That it's real and not a fluke. It's crazy. 

I've learned things along the way too

• just because you cry, doesn't mean you haven't made progress in life. doesn't mean you aren't healing, or processing life well. it's okay to cry.
• you can't let how you feel affect how you treat others. you can't act like a bitch all the time because you are going through sugar withdraw. you have to deal with it. this goes for most sicknesses. there are exceptions.
• my computer can last 2 hours on a 33% charge. 
• seasons are seasons. chances are they aren't going to last forever. embrace them. live fully in them. love fully in them. 
• you will find that is is necessary to let things go;simply for the reason that they are heavy. 
• "here's the thing. peace isn't the absence of distraction or annoyance or pain. it's finding me, finding peace and calm, in the midst of those distractions and anoyances and pains." 
• "people need a safe place and some time to discover what they already know. so i just try to hold space and time for folks."
• "the only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. not advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the future. just love"

I have been running lately. And I didn’t know it until yesterday. Running from things I don’t want to deal with. Running from (potential) shame. Running from actually admitting things in my life that hurt me or people that have hurt me. I spent time with Chelsea yesterday catching up on life and sitting with her in hard things and before we sat in hard things I told her that my life was good and I was content and that it was calm and easy to breathe right now which is not a lie. As we waded through things in her life and she let me listen and love her I realized there were things that I didn’t want to deal with that could affect my content state of being. I still don’t want to face those things. I still don’t want to acknowledge them. But they are looming closer now. It’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen and I may get kicked in the ass later in life for not dealing with them now but that’ll be alright too.

also, I realize I’ve been living in a false reality. Which goes along with the above. I read a blog by Ellie Holcomb a week or so ago and she talked about how she’s been so good at lying to herself for the past few years and it wasn’t until she started going to counseling recently that she realized it. My first thought was to be shocked that Ellie Holcomb just admitted and really would lie to herself and about herself and live in a false reality. Her life seems so perfect. And then so quickly I realized that I was living in a false reality even about people like her who I don’t know—I so often think other people have it all together and must never have messy lives like I do. Dumb. So Chelsea and I waded through the waters of realities and perceptions and expectations. Heavy things. I lie to myself about things that happened (things that I maybe wish would happen but haven’t or things that could happen even though they probably never will) or how I see myself or how others see me, and I lie to myself about what other people’s lives are like.

Brandon and I talked the other day about how people perceive us. He talked about how he wished people would perceive him as the person he wants to be (his potential) not who he is now. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately because I thought at the time it was a dumb thought. I thought you should take people as they are and not just wish they’d be this person you think they could be. I think both sides are right though. You have to be expectant that God is changing that person just like he is changing you but also be okay to sit in the heavy things for a while until they figure life out. If God is choosing to work in my heart and weed out the bad things then chances are He’s choosing to work in other people’s hearts too. I forget that a lot. Again, I live in this false reality that people are either perfect or too messy to have the Spirit weed out the junk in them.

I want to live in reality. I want to live with the messy things that have happened but I want to have a kingdom mindset and live in the glory that is in me that happens to be the same glory that was in Jesus. I want to live in the grace gifts I’ve been given here and not live in the shame or even in the potential shame that I know I could face someday again in life if I gave into it. Not because I don’t want to face reality but because the reality of my life is that I’m forgiven and loved and treasured and that is the only reality I want to choose to live in.  

I am grateful. grateful for the ability to run, to laugh, to hang out at 9 year old's baseball games, to stop on the side of the road for a sunflower field, to make decisions about what i put into my body to make it healthier, to have honest hard conversations, for a multitude of jobs, to sit in a tree for 2 hours with josh deer hunting, to make excellent lattes. 

i've been told over and over for the past 12 months that i need to slow down. that i need to rest more. that i need to be by myself more. that i need to do less. i hate being told these things. i hate sitting. i hate not doing things. its the controlling part of myself. i don't know when i got to be this way. but here i am. tring to pray about it, find time when i can, spend more time with the Lord, and breathe easier. when Josh asked me to hunt with him yesterday I thought we'd be like running through the woods and hiding behind trees and stuff. I didn't know I'd sit in a tree for two hours and have to be quiet because once i came up I couldn't go back down. So...I sat. I prayed. I thought about my life. I decided Kelly's spirit animal. I breathed slow and deep. and I was okay. Life went on even though I didn't do anything for two hours. So...today, I did it again. I was supposed to clean a house and I didn't have to so I slept in and had a quiet time and sat in the sunshine and went on a run and sat in the sunshine some more and took a nap at 11 am and then went to work. taking life a little slower isn't so bad all the time. 

ecclesiastes 11:10 (NLT)

 So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. 

psalm 94:19(msg)

The minute I said, “I’m slipping, I’m falling,”
    your love, God, took hold and held me fast.
When I was upset and beside myself,
    you calmed me down and cheered me up.

psalm 94:19 (niv) 

When anxiety was great within me,
    your consolation brought me joy.

things are okay even though they don't feel okay. everyone reassures me that i'm okay. that i'm not lazy. that i'm doing the best i can. that the Lord has me where i'm supposed to be. that if i didn't struggle my faith wouldn't be as real. that doors are closing for a reason. that i'll find the perfect job. that i am loved. that i am wanted in this town and with these people. 

i think those things are true. most of them anyway. my heart on the other hand...doesn't believe them. i feel anxious, i feel like i'm floundering, thoughts consume my mind of not having a job for the next 5 months. of not being able to love people, not being able to visit people, not being able to pay people for services they provide for me. people are being so gracious to me. i have to talk myself out of the thought that there is a hint of pity in their voices and their eyes when they tell me to not worry about paying them. 

but i'm finding hope. in crazy beautiful sunsets, in heart to heart text messages, in driving stick shift successfully, in hanging with smiling babies, in grocery shopping with my best friends, in making davis and walker laugh by acting like a dinosaur, in scripture at perfect times, in friends racking their brains trying to figure out jobs i can do, in the song holy spirit by jesus culture, in honest conversations with josh, in laying with two of my best friends in a comfortable twin sized bed, in ceiling fans at brcc, in encouraging texts from friends old and new, in lunch time phone conversations with sam, in prayers prayed daily for me, in falling asleep peacefully, in an abundance of tears, in grace and mercy i don't deserve. 

i just had the thought that i wish my life was an adventure right now. it usually is but i think i'm missing the adventure. the adventure is now. there's no details, there's no waiting. you just do them (bob goff) i'm going to try to just do it. to choose the adventure and not wait for anything to come around. 

romans 12:1-2 
 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

this is an offering if i choose to offer it. God's still not waiting for the arrival, he's waiting for me to surrender this. all of this. the complaints, the tears, the questions, the joy. all of it is an offering. loving davis and walker is an offering. it is good. 

Sometimes I have to combat the bad things with the good things in my life. This is one of those times. I need to remember the goodness and mercy that followed me this summer. I talked to Sam about it a lot the day cdh ended and I haven’t written about it to process it yet. This is the start of that process.

camp ended and I rejoiced. It was a hard and good summer. I was sick almost constantly. I laughed more than I thought I would. I didn’t cry much. I worshipped more freely than I ever have before. I was accepted and loved madly. I was pursued fiercely by the Lord. I made more boundaries than I ever have before in my life and the Lord protected me within those boundaries and my life and heart got a lot richer because of it. 7 women spoke truth into my life and heart on a daily basis. I healed more than I knew I had to heal. I let go of anger I didn’t know had deep roots in my heart. I felt more free than I ever have. (I’ve tasted and seen the sweetest of loves, where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone. – holy spirit. Jesus culture.) I told Sarah a few weeks ago that I thought I was confident in the Lord and who He created me to be before this summer but my expectations and reality were vastly different. I felt more whole than I ever have. This wasn’t a mountain top-splitting my heart open experience. It was day in and day out confidence and truth and love from the Lord.

I don’t let the Lord love me how I deserve to be loved or how He wants to love me. We accept the love we think we deserve. What love do I accept? I accept love when I feel easy to love. When I like myself. When I like my life. Its easy for me to feel love in those times because I’m not a mess. When its midnight and I’m in bed drinking and sad its not easy for me to feel love. Its not easy to let the holy spirit work in my heart and intercede for me. When I doubt or feel like I’m faltering I don’t want to accept the grace and mercy I accepted two hours ago when I was happy and content and it was light out. I don’t let Jesus take over the darkness for me.

hunger for more tonight-holy spirit.jesus culture.

Matt told Meghan who told me that we are treasures and we are to be sought not to seek.

surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. God said the creation was good on day one, not just when it was finished on day 7, He says I am good now, where I am, in the messy process, in the 12:30 am tears and prayers. He sees it is good and knows that it will be good further along in the process too. Now that is worthy of my hope and joy.

tonight I changed the atmosphere not just in my room but in my heart. It went from being sad and bitter to spirit filled and hope-filled. Heather fox would be proud. 

life has been full of cool stories lately. of God showing up in ways I could not fathom. of extravagant love. of perfectly timed situations. of driving by myself a lot-but not because i was upset. of unexpected times to rest. of laughs and conversations and ease of friendships.

thursday night was crazy and incredible and good. the holy spirit did crazy things at the night service. we sang holy spirit you are welcomed here come fill this space flood the atmosphere and in the middle of the song clayton came out and gave an invitation before he even preached. he said people needed to confess things, needed to repent of their sins, needed to accept the lord. this camper literally ran straight to me from the bleachers and we ran outside together. she said she had to confess something that she'd been struggling with the past year-porn and masturbation. she was scared and felt alone. i said hey, that was 7 years of my life too you aren't alone. we prayed, she confessed it to god, we prayed more. we held hands and cried and rejoiced in not being alone. in the power of the lord and the ability to be set free from chains that bind us up. in the power of confession. i was blown away by the lord's timing.

i went inside and jessica davis told me she had seen my cardboard testimony that talked about porn and she had a girl for me to talk to. the girl found me after the service and we talked in the bleachers and she confessed it to me and i asked her hard questions. she was 13. we prayed and held hands and cried and she shouted I KNOW I WILL AND AM OVERCOMING THIS. i can't believe it still. i'm so proud of these two girls. the Lord is so good.

today i was reminded of how incredible this town i live in is. i went to pick flowers with gaby for martha's 90th birthday party yesterday. gaby and i picked flowers from the side of the road, then saw leigh ann driving so we followed her to her house. we all got out of our cars at the same time and leigh ann and megan got out and gaby and i got out. we picked flowers and went inside where hayden was doing her laundry. then we went to brittany and ryan's house and hung out with them then got flowers from ruth and brett's. we went to heather and seths and were hanging with heather when seth and brandon came in. they had been at costco together. two grown men just running errands together. leigh ann and megan going to the post office together. gaby and i picking flowers together. this town does life together so well. i think i forget that sometimes. nick and caroline took everyone on crossroads staff to the river today on the echo expeditions bus. homes in this town are open, we run errands together, we never let others ride alone, we make wedding invitations together for hours on a saturday, we eat meals together, we come together to celebrate one another, we pray together, we support each other.

i am so grateful for this week. grateful that even when i am so blind and dumb the lord still desires to remind me of himself. that he loves me too much to let me live in forgetfulness or ignorance to himself.