Abigail: Thirty People in 30 Days

Abigail.
She's beautiful. And I can say that in the most basic of ways. If you're a man, you want to be with her, if you're a woman, you want to look like her. She carries herself with confidence. She's the kind of beautiful that looks adorable even during a hike, the kind of beautiful that as her friend you say... REALLY!? And the kind of beautiful that if you're not her friend, if you don't know her story, you're jealous of. (Easy to understand.)

But the problem with her beauty is, if you stop there, and too many people have, you miss the bigger picture.
If you stop at the fact that she's twenty and stunning, you miss the things I've learned from her in the 8+ years that I've called her my friend.

Abby has always been a trend setter. She moved out of her Dad's house her second year of college and lives in Pittsburgh now and attends classes. She wants to be a doctor, or a nurse, or something else entirely? (whatever it is, she'll be great). She goes grocery shopping at this kinda creepy store over by the water, and drinks wine in her apartment late at night. Abby visits markets on Saturday afternoons and goes to music festivals. She doesn't make excuses, she is her own person, she lives without regret. She has big dreams, big plans, and she is going somewhere.

So, you're probably thinking after all of this that Abby has taught me that I want to live in the city, or live a little more free, but on the contrary. Abby has taught me that I am as grounded as they come. I want a house, with a white picket fence, in the middle of the country somewhere. Writing some book and volunteering at a women's shelter and baking cookies every afternoon. It is almost as if Abby is sowing my independent oats for me. The stories she tells, the memories she is making, they sound wonderful and exciting, and although I tried the city for a month and have visited her, I have learned that it's not me.

This is what I think she taught me most though, that people are more than they seem. People are the bits and pieces that others have left with them, the hurts they have been dealt, they blows that landed on them, the memories and scents and dreams that will never leave... you person you're talking to right now, the person you're about to send that email to, the cashier you're about to see at the store, they are more than they seem.

So while she is out making a name for herself and conquering the world, maybe I'll be the friend in her corner in the middle of some country town somewhere. Reading her blog and hearing her stories and cheering for her. Maybe that's what I can write my book about? All the things she taught me...

Carrie Foust: Thirty People in 30 Days

Carrie Foust.

"All the way my Savior leads me
Who have I to ask beside
How could I doubt His tender mercy
Who through life has been my guide..." 

My dear friends. I had no intention of writing this post today, no idea this post would ever take the tone it is about to take. Oh yes, this beautiful girl deserves more than a post in some unread blog. She deserves a crown of many jewels in Heaven, a beautiful red carpet, a song just for her... today she received one of those things. A very very large crown from our Heavenly Father.  This weekend Carrie's battle with cancer, Leukemia to be specific, came to a very tragic end. Although not sad in eternity's eyes. And I have no doubt that is exactly how Carrie would see it. My beautiful friend fought a very long and hard fight, but I have no better conclusion to draw other than that God needed another beautiful voice to worship at his throne. 

Let me tell you what Carrie taught me. 

As if fitting all the lessons her beautiful heart taught could fit into a blog post...

Carrie was that smile, the one that even on the worst days made you believe in something greater than yourself. Her mere presence helped you to find the joy in the simplest of things. Whether it was decorating a hall for a Christmas competition, celebrating with pizza parties, attending a basketball game and cheering on the other women who lives on her floor, bible studies, and tye-dye. Cancer... even that Carrie faced with this overwhelming sense of calm and faith that the Lord was in control. 

Carrie taught me what it meant to live out the verses in Jeremiah.  "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." The thing that a person really learns from Carrie is not the simplicity of a naive faith believing in these verses... no, Carrie understood what it meant to wander in the desert like the Israelites did for seventy years before Jeremiah ever had the inspiration to write such a verse. You see, she knew real pain, real trial, and real desperation and still she was the first to pray, the first to offer encouragement, and the first to ask how she could help... I have no doubt Carrie allowed God to work more through her short life in twenty years than some people allow him to do in their eighty. Carrie taught me about strength and about all things friendship. She continues to teach me still...

So Carrie, for you, I will be what you saw in the world. I will have hope, I will persevere, and I will never ever lose faith. Your death has brought me to my knees and as I petition God for answers, I know that even if I never get them in this life, I cannot wait until the day when we worship him together again. That day will come, and I look forward to hearing your beautiful voice on the other side. Heaven is blessed today. <3

"When clouds veil sun
And disaster comes
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
When waters rise
And hope takes flight
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Ever faithful
Ever true
You I know
You never let go
You never let go
You never let go
You never let go..." 

Whoever Built that House I Stay in at the Beach: Thirty People in 30 Days

Day 2 of 30

Outer Banks

So, I know the history behind the Outer Banks. The stories about pirates and treasure, ship wrecks and the stormy seas. The Wrights even have their own special memorial there that I've visited. They are great, wonderful inventors, and I highly recommend visiting the memorial if you ever find yourself in the area, but this post is to the builder of the house I stay at during my week long vacation every summer with my family and our friends about two blocks back from the Atlantic coast.

Since before I was born my parents and a number of family friends and relatives have been pushing through the 7+ hour drive it takes to reach the house.  That doesn't include the countless hours of planning. I remember the "beach planning" parties my Aunt used to have each summer before we left. Not so secretly, I think they all just used this as an excuse to get together, have a few drinks, and enjoy themselves.  The lists were real, however, couples were in charge of one meal a night, and plans were in fact made. When they made these plans between the laughter, jokes, and story telling I'll never know...


So to that building/designer/owner (I honestly don't have a clue who he is), thank you for designing the perfect place for the memories we've created together. Thank you for allowing us to borrow your piece of land, your weathered decks, the pool that oddly enough seems to collect frogs in the early morning. With out, I would have missed out on a number of lessons in the last twenty-two years.

Since I've been alive our family has only missed going to the Outer Banks two years. The first was the year everyone in the group seemed to have different plans and we ended up staying in some place at Ocean City Maryland (nice, but not the Outer Banks by a long shot), and the last was the summer of 2010-2011. My sister was in between two surgeries and the right decision was to not go.

That beach, that house, somewhere between Corolla and the Town of Duke, between TimBuckII and the BBQ place we frequent each summer lies a number of my childhood memories. Hacky-Sac in the garage during a storm, water balloon fights with the neighbors across the street, my cousin Will hiding the monkey my parents bought me, singing THE original songs that my generation of pop stars attempted to redo, making sand castles with my neighbors, burying toes, getting so burnt my dad took me to the in door community pool... they are all there. Memories I've collected and am finally old enough to cherish.

So thank you very kind sir for your beach house for our week of vacation each summer. It is because of that house that I learned a very valuable lesson about life... it goes by. It look all year to plan, hours of driving, tons of packing and repacking (because lets face it, my dad was not prepared to have two girls clothing choices fit into one suitcase...), and in one week, seven days, we would do the same in reverse to come home to our dog a the time, the need to collect our mail from the post office, and to realize that we did in fact finish two bags of combos in seven hours...

Fonzi. Happy Days. Get it?

So breath it in, because you've got what, a solid 80 years here if we're lucky? Take a moment to dig your feet into the sand, or ride the waves in, jump from the diving board into the pool yelling "FOR FONZI"  (or whatever you want to yell!), and watch the fireworks on the 4th with your favorite people. Because life is short, but if we stop waiting for life to begin, and start enjoying everyday we're blessed to live... we might just get to 80 and be glad we went to that beach house every year and reclaimed a bit of our childhood.

Emily: Thirty People in 30 Days

I process a great deal through memories, relationships, the way people make me think, feel, act, even believe.  Needless to say, the last two years have included a great deal of changing, struggle, tears, rejoicing, embracing, excitement, arguments with people.  The difference is, now I am old enough to process the lessons those people have taught me along the way. The next 30 days will be in honor of one person and the biggest lesson they have taught me along the way. Some will be named, some shall remain nameless. But the importance isn't the name anyway, its the lessons they have taught me. Lessons, that if you continue reading, I'm sure you'll be able to relate...


                             Emily. 

We've all had that friend. The one who knows you, your history, the way you acted when you were ten and saw you grow into who you are today. That's Emily for me. I remember the day she befriended me at our 4th grade Halloween party, and besides a short period of what I don't love referring to, we've been great friends since. I must admit, along the years, she's been a much better friend than I ever was to her. It was Emily who thought up the idea to begin scrapbooks for each other, which she began on my 16th birthday. It was me who never actually followed through on finishing hers our senior year of high school.
She's been through a ton in her life. A ton. And for a great deal of it all, I've had a front seat to watch it all unfold. While her faith seemed so strong and sure, I was just thinking to myself... God you really do have some funny ways of bringing us to you. Through each experience, I grew in my own faith.
So, besides this just being my ode to how great and wonderful I think she is (I do suppose I am biased since she's a great friend of mine), there is a lesson from this...

It's the lesson about picking up right where you left off with people that matter and valuing those friendships. No matter the distance, the length of time we go without speaking (which is less and less now that I've grown to appreciate her as much as I should have years ago), when someone matters, you just pick up. The inside jokes are the same, the fact that you will always have their back remains, and in the end, all that matters is that they are okay. That's what great friendships are about. It's about forgiveness.  Knowing that whatever happened when I was young and selfish (more selfish than I am now...), doesn't matter as much, as the truth that a great friend is there. There is a deep joy in knowing that if i picked up the phone right now and needed a single thing, she would be here. There is a peace that comes from being known well.

So this is my suggestion to you (if you've made it to the bottom of this post) call up that person that is always there, send them an email, tweet them, facebook message, blog about them, send them some snail mail even, and tell them they matter. Thank them for knowing your story and being a supporting character in the chapters that you haven't written yet...

Love and other Beautiful Things

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love. 

(it has taken me almost 22 years to even begin to comprehend the weight of this chapter...)

LOVE.

I spent 19 years afraid of it,
1 year convinced I'd found it,
another year running from anything that resembled it,
maybe this year I'll just live in it...

We love people differently, and sometimes we love the same person differently at different times. At some point, we learn that those we love most are the ones we sometimes let go, the ones we let decide for themselves if they love us as well, the ones we let walk away from our tears,
because we have to love them right.
This right kind of love, well it's unconditional. It isn't bothered by what he said he would do, or what she said that night she was really upset, it isn't worried about how silly it looks when it cheers for the other, and it doesn't think about what everyone else is saying. Instead it just is. It's there, whether it's across the street or 1,000 miles away. It is calm, it does not fear, it does not snap,
and it does not bend on one very simple thing...
it will never, ever, give up.

No, love is not always given the credit it deserves, and those who love the most often have the least power in a relationship. The one who loves deepest is usually the one who feels the most pain. The one who loves fully often knows what it means to feel the sting of betrayal sharpest.
In the words of a very wise mentor and friend of mine... "I think that's how Christ feels every time we choose something over Him. Every time we tell Him that He alone is not enough."

So... if you are loving unconditionally... consider yourself in very excellent company and keep on doing it.

HOPE.
He's a very fickle thing,
one minute he is the strongest emotion 

and the next you wonder where he has fled to...

I think hope deserves more credit than it gets. It is the simple thing that says when the electricity goes out suddenly, it will come back on, it is the hope that even after all these years maybe you'll still meet your prince charming in the back of the store looking at tea mugs, or that your Pappy will suddenly remember you again.

Hope. it keeps us moving when we think we can't go any farther, and hope... well it's the last to go.

So hang on to hope.
Even if it's only a very little flicker.
Even if the light is dim.

Hope against all hope. 

Faith.

It is the thing that makes us believe in the wind,

not because we see it,

but because we experience its existence so often
and we know without it, the leaves wouldn't blow. 

Faith. We need to have a bit more of it in ourselves. Oh yes, we believe that someone up there is taking care of things, we recognize there is no way we'd be as creative, or that the stars would look so bright, without something greater than ourselves... but we doubt just how wonderful we are in his sight. 

We are so unable to believe that just maybe that creator deeply cares for us.

We just cannot fathom that WE are capable of great things.

Well, that is faith. Believing. Not only in a God that seriously delights in us, but in the fact that we were created for so much more than this. We are talented, beautiful, intelligent, successful, wonderful, amazing beings,
and it's time we start living like we actually believe that.

Faith, Hope, and Love... find the joy in beautiful things.

Clint Eastwood Films and Lessons Learned

I have cried very deeply three times that I can recall. You know the cry, it’s more like a choking sound really than a cry. It’s hard to breath, you can’t see because your eyes are overwhelmed with tears, and your nose begins to run like you have a very bad case of the common cold. If you wear glasses like I do, this also means you have either had to take them off or clean them after you gained your composure back. It’s just not the best look, or the best feeling. It leads to puffy eyes, often for me my throat is sore after,
and I am left exhausted...

Three times I can recall crying like this.

Twice in my car.

Once during a very lonely walk back to my dorm room in late march.

But there is something sweet about Bridges of Madison County (if you haven't seen it, go rent it),
something redeeming about a love that was better off with its potential unrealized.
sometimes love is sweetest when it's kept perfect in our dreams...

What does unrequited love teach us?
(besides the very obvious fact that maybe we should be better protectors of our hearts?)

That pain you feel when you realize you’re so deeply in love with someone who does not feel the same about you… well that pain forces us to recognize that we are not in control, but that our hearts are so protectively held by someone much wiser than our fickle selves. When we too rashly give ourselves to something that was not meant to be, a prince that was never meant to be our significant other, there is something greater that holds us when we fall apart.

There are other lessons we learn in the process as well… we learn to be strong. We learn to guard our hearts with a bit more gusto than before. To be a bit wiser about whose feet we lay our souls at. And we learn that not all great men are going to be OUR man.
Most importantly though, this form of love, teaches us just how large our hearts are, the lesson screams just how much love we have to give for some very lucky recipients.  For me this meant I could put myself more fully into the friends and family I had neglected while I held on to hopes that would not be realized in the immediate future. It meant I could sing again, I could sit down and write without every thought being on my loneliness. It meant that my floor of beautiful women could have more attention, my academics which I love could excel (I got my scholarship back!), and most importantly, my relationship with Christ could blossom. No, those deep feelings don't just run away, we just learn to channel them into the proper ventricles.

And I think often like the stages of grief, moving past those feelings of wanting someone who doesn't want you (maybe they broke up with you, maybe you broke up with them, maybe they were just never yours to begin with...) can be very hard. You deny, you get angry, you plot revenge, you may be bitter for a while, you may pretend the situation never happened, whatever it is though, eventually you have to deal with it head on. Face to face, eventually that person, that situation, it comes back to us.
Well, I think there is a joy in that. There is a deep joy in facing down our demons. There is a pretty beautiful realization when one day you wake up and that Sara Evans song actually does correctly describe your life...

So, you "brush your teeth anyway" and you get ready, and you go to work or in my case classes, and before you know it, you're no longer bitter, you're no longer upset at the way things ended or the way they turned out, you're just okay. You're better than okay, you're great. And you just wanna thank whoever is up there, just gotta thank God for knowing that whatever was back there in your past... whelp, it just wasn't right. And maybe the next one won't be right either. Maybe the letters you're sending, or the texts, or the long conversations you're having won't mean a thing... but if that's the case, then you'll learn from that one too. And someday, when you least expect it... life just works out.
And that my friends, being content in that, now that is joy.

My Beautiful Friends

My favorite hour of the day is between 6:30 and 8p.m. Whenever the sun is setting, the earth turns this beautiful shade of yellows and everything is set off in perfect hues. So this week I took my best friends out to play with my camera settings... this is what happened. 

Erin's Toms came to join us!

Erin is stunning. So funny when posing too!

even in black and white Emily is simply one of the most beautiful women I've ever known.

 

 

the three of us :)

Going out with them reminds me why I love summer so much. They are beautiful and taking pictures of them is the easiest thing in the world. This is joy... capturing memories.