Bullets - Part 1

Well friends, it's been a little while or a long while. While I'm discovering that marriage + a full-time job + doing ministry = awesome, it also equals not much free time (you know, with someone living in your ish constantly - in your bed, in your used to be but not anymore clean house, your time - you know). Because of these things and other things you'll read in the bullets, you're getting just that for a little while - bullets. They're effective for a busy life, right? Maybe I'll elaborate on them when I have a moment to myself, speaking of, there are days when I'd like to be a stay at home wife. Key word, wife - not mom. When I have kids, I'll need the heck out for a minute, you know what I mean? But as a wife - plenty to do around here, quiet house, I think I could dig on that for little bit. Maybe if we lived in Delaware or Oklahoma or something... I digress.

Bullets of things I dig right now:

- my husband's 30th birthday weekend, promise to give you a full post on this, but man - it was delightful - friends, wine, country music, surprises, the whole bit





- hikes in this stupidly gorgeous place








- this girl, enough said








- this crazy thing called Young Life and the 80 college leaders that come with it - the love I have for these people is so deep and so fantastic and the way they love high school, junior high and special needs kids is phenomenal




- a weekend in Napa with my dearest friend and her husband - soul food, I tell ya




- this guy... still totally into him, I got a good one - also loving our weekend getaways while we have them - sonoma for a work conference? i kinda love that.




- friend visits - totally into friend visits (shameless plug)


- cuisine-themed girls night once a month - this is the only picture I have from it - sorry I'm not sorry


- this house we bought, no big - i dig that and the droves of paperwork we're drowning in


in other news... still working on our wedding photo album, and a post about our wedding. just feeling guilty so I thought I'd say it outloud.

.paralyzed.

something about this whole job search thing has left me feeling paralyzed. like i'm stuck in a New York City traffic jam with no way out,



or like i'm water that's meant to be rushing down a river and i'm dammed up because someone stuck a wall there.

that's a little bit how i feel. now, let me be honest about something if i can. i'm grateful for this time. stinkin' grateful to get the chance to work part time from home for an organization i believe in with my whole being - operation hope. i love that i get to have a small piece in changing one itty bitty corner of Africa and that they have trusted me enough to let me do it from orange county so i don't have to uproot my life. did i say i love it? because i do. it's fantastic.

but there's just something about not being able to move out, not being able to "go to work" everyday, not being able to meet new people and have a reason to get out of the house that has me paralyzed. (not to mention my car's in the shop all day...) i don't think this is the way my God created me to live. i don't think this is the "abundant life" he talks about in his word. i don't feel like my soul is being fed sitting at home on my computer looking for part time jobs and re-creating a website. maybe if i was a stay-at-home-mom, this whole part-time from home job thing would be just what i need, but i'm not and i'm going nuts.

i know that student ministry fills my soul, it gives me a reason to live beyond myself, it makes me recognize that the job is bigger than me and that i have a gracious God who loves to have his kids depend on him, so he makes it bigger than i can handle on purpose. i miss that. terribly and i want desperately for him to provide a job for me that will allow me to do student ministry, but they are hard to come by in these times because of the current situation of non-profits. so if you're reading this, pray with me.

i want out of the traffic jam, i want the dam to break and i want my life and spirit and soul to be set free to live and minister the way that God created me. i. love. Jesus. and i desperately want to take that love to kids who are without it. it fills my soul like nothing else can or will. so Lord, in your sovereign mercy, provide a way out.

.you can have all this world, but give me Jesus.

i have this small group of girls - 8 of them in all, they are amazing. they come from lives completely alternative to my own. according to the world i know and love, they have it rough. they live in rough neighborhoods where my blood pressure rises out of fear when i drive them home. they live in homes where peace is not commonly felt or known. many of them are raised by only one parent or the other, rarely both. they live the antithesis of what my life was at 16 years old - and they live it with courage and strength. they made a choice to love and follow Jesus this past summer and are truly learning what that means on tuesday afternoons at our house - and they do this alone, most often with parents who are ridiculously non-supportive. they are my heroes.

this is who they are - this is all they know and they'll say, "i don't really have that many bad days, i have a great life." but about 30 minutes into digging into the word and inevitably digging into our lives, because that's what Jesus is good at - they break. it's typical to have tears and we embrace them, we walk through them, we grieve their lives and we try to let Healing offer hope for tomorrow. these days, tuesdays are my favorite days - they are the days where i most see Jesus at work.

today, one of my girls asked me a really raw question - she said, "Bree, do you ever get sick of parents telling you they don't want their kids over at your house or getting kicked off high school campuses because they don't want you to talk to us about Jesus?" and i said no. i said no because when you live a life of ministry, this is what you can expect - that the world will neither appreciate nor be excited about what you're doing because they won't understand. and i said no because this is what i was created for - because if myself and my co-leader, katie weren't pursuing this, these girls would not be sitting in my living room talking about Jesus on tuesday afternoons. and i deserve none of the credit for my lack of consistency and lack of preparedness - none. He is just stinkin' faithful, day after day.

a friend of mine articulates it well in saying, "Who would enter heaven clean, manicured and adorned with the world's riches? The notion is complete insanity. We were made to enter heaven bloody and broken. Like we just got down off a cross."

i want that - i want the blood and brokenness, the highest highs and the lowest lows - bring it and let me settle for nothing less in this life.