.i wanna.

lately i've been more inspired to do the things i've always wanted to do. to go after stuff i haven't wanted to go after for a long time. i think part of that is a change of pace - a new place to live, new friendships, new goals, etc. i think part of that is reading books like "bittersweet"

by a writer named shauna niequist who i feel like i'm friends with, even though at best, she's a friend of a friend. it's inspiring me in ways i haven't been inspired in years as did her first book (cold tangerines). i think part of it is seeing how my sort of friend kristen is inspiring and growing the students she teaches. i think the other part of it is being in a relationship with someone who asks hard questions like, "what would you do if no one stopped you?" or "have you ever thought about writing?" or "start praying about God opening up those doors again." i think the biggest part of it is my Creator, who made me with the gifts he made me with is helping me find out the best way to use those gifts to expand HIS kingdom, not mine. so here's my little list of "i wanna's" that's been finding it's way from the recesses of my brain to the forefront and causing me to think, to dream, to remember, to get scared and excited all at the same time. so Father, i invite you into my "i wanna's" and i tell you do do what YOU wanna do with them. use them to glorify your name.

i wanna...

- start writing more (which inevitably means less people time, yikes! have you met me?)
- start reading more (which is essential when you want to write more and also means less people time)
- learn the guitar and do it well so that i can use the gifts i don't use very often & learn to speak through music
- teach again (did i just say that?!?!? that's a whole other blog post that i'm not ready to verbalize yet)
- work with high school and college students again (shocker! ha.)
- get better at loving those in my life really really well (i feel like i've slacked at this lately)
- have people over for meals more often and ask how life is and really listen

so God, little by little would you grow those things in me and make me more like you by doing them.

.#13b - nate date...

i remember putting this challenge before myself this year to go on 2 dates and i remember thinking, "this one is gonna be hard for me" and "i really pray that both dates are with the same guy" well, both of those things are true. it was hard for me to actually be vulnerable enough to let nathan know that i was interested. and hard to get on an airplane to seattle not totally knowing what was coming. and hard to trust God with something i so often like to control. but so worth it...

back in march, i went on a snowboarding retreat with my new church in santa barbara and met this crew of awesome peeps. we became friends. we did really fun things - like magic mountain & game nights & went out to eat & went camping and just did life together and did it well. in fact we still do. it's a good crew and they've been an absolute gift to get to know these last 7 months or so. getting to know this crew has also meant finding this unexpected connection and genuine friendship with nathan. and since i'm someone who values staying on topic, i'll skip a bit of the middle and go to our first date. after 4 months of hanging out and a couple weeks of realizing we liked each other, he put the offer out there to join him on a "companion pass"to seattle for the weekend, i said i'd love to be the one that goes as his "companion".

"companion" (in case you didn't know) is another word for "soon-to-be-girlfriend"

so in the only restaurant at the sacramento airport, nathan and i had our first date...
followed by a conversation that led to me becoming his girlfriend...
followed by dates, dates (including both our siblings' weddings!) and more dates to come...

these dates, and this man have been nothing short of God giving good gifts to his kids. He loves us enough that he orchestrated all this, because he's that good. in a season of spoiling me rotten (a great job, living in the most awesome place ever, a solid Jesus lovin' community of people...) i'd have to say nathan is on the top of that list. he is a man who loves Jesus with his whole being. he's humble and patient, tender and loyal, athletic and hilarious, brilliant and grounded. he's someone i respect and admire, someone with whom i share a passion first for Jesus and then for things like the beach, the mountains, high school ministry, traveling, family, good food and wine, i could go on and on...

i would say that's a successful date, my nate date.

.#19 - international adventure.

one of my 30 before 30 was to have my next international adventure booked. well, i've booked not 1, not 2, but THREE international adventures in the last few months. looks like i undershot that one :) brace yourself for the itinerary de Bree for the next 8 months of my life. drumroll please...

late october (a.k.a. my birthday) - about 30 of us are going on a 3 night CRUISE TO MEXICO. i realize it's not all that international but i do believe it qualifies because you need a passport, right? i will blog more about this later because it serves a dual purpose in also being my epic 30th birthday celebration.



early november (a.k.a. the week after the cruise) - my awesome job is sending me to ALBANIA and ROMANIA. really? who am i? sometimes i wonder :) mostly i wonder because if i'm honest, i likely couldn't pick out those places on a map - so for your benefit and mine, a little geography refresher...

i get to go connect with some pastors in albania about sending a team this summer and i get to go meet with 2 new ministries in romania to talk about partnering with them this summer (one that rocks babies who've not had any physical touch and another that works with romanian street teenagers - amazing stuff). this trip is such an unknown for me, but i can't tell you how excited i am about it, it gets me pumped just typing this right now. i can't wait to tell the tales of HIS work there. and as an added bonus, i get to go to HOLLAND to visit my family on the way home - pure bliss!!!

early april (a.k.a. too far away) - 4 other friends and i found an offer we couldn't turn down - cheap flights to NEW ZEALAND with a 2 day teaser stop over in AUSTRALIA!!!!! this is kind of a dream for me and has been for a while, so we're pretty dog gone excited about this one. it'll be a 2 week trip over all and from what we've decided should involve alot of surfing (for the guys) and beach hangin' (for the girls), hiking, boating, sight seeing and making connections with some friends of friends over there. i am BEYOND EXCITED about this adventure.


one more thing (in 3 parts) off the list :) i'm bummed to tell you that i don't think yosemite, oregon/idaho or surfing are gonna happen, but i'm still determined to try my best. stay tuned...

.on loss.

this week we lost a dear friend. a friend who was both sweet and sassy. a friend who fought a more than 10-year classy fight with a brain tumor. Claire Carey is with Jesus and while there's clearly a part of me that's saddened over the loss of a friend, there's part of me that's envious of where she is right now - the songs she's singing that have been sung for thousands of years, the dancing she's doing without needing any help, the talking she's doing without delay and without the struggle it's been to tell her brain to tell her mouth what to speak, but mostly the sweet interaction she's having with our gracious God who gave her to us, but now has called her home to Himself.



there is a sense of loss for those of us left behind. those of us who knew her only peripherally, those of us who got to spend time with her weekly at home group and those of us who were in her daily, even hourly life. it's for those that my heart hurts most. for her husband, her best friends, her family, her caretakers the last few years. there's no worse pain.

but there's something that happens when we lose someone.

we give ourselves permission to grieve - to cry, to pray, to talk about things we wouldn't normally, to drop everything else to be community for each other.

and there's something about this that i think is so healthy, so right.

after our home group spending time together last night doing just those things, i went home feeling somewhat relieved, feeling more peaceful, feeling more raw but simultaneously more put together than i did when i got there. why? because we need that. and we need that more often than just when there is loss. we need that regularly. we were meant to be known. so why do we only use tragedy as an excuse to cry, be honest, drop all other things to be family? my resolve is to do this more often... to be family for those He's put in my life and to be real and give others permission to do the same whether times are good or bad.

Claire Carey, thanks for trusting that God is good despite your inability to understand your circumstances and thanks for using your life as a testimony of that. and thanks for making us family this week. we will miss you here, but will see you there when He calls us home.

.a heart spilling out.

Tears are how the heart speaks. I know that when tears come to the surface and I get the lump in my throat that I used to get when I would get dropped off at summer camp for 2 weeks – something’s happening in my heart, it's spilling out in the best way it knows how.

And at that juncture, I have 2 choices – 1) embrace it or 2) fight it.

Depending on where I am and who I’m with is usually how I make that choice, but there are those times when fighting it is not an option, which leaves one with only the option to embrace.

So today… I embrace them.

I embrace them because they today they are for a couple in my home group who is going on ten years of battling her brain tumor and the road is way too long. I embrace them because they today they are for a local pastor and his family who just got the very disheartening news that his 6-year-old daughter’s cancer is back and appears to be attacking organs and inoperable. I embrace them because today they are for injustice happening in Africa to a people who have some of the purest hearts I’ve seen. I embrace them because today they are for one of my dearest friends and her husband who have been in a wilderness of miscarriages and heartache for entirely too long. I embrace them because today they represent questions in my own life that don’t seem to have answers.

I embrace them and I give them back to my Father because while His kingdom is here now, it is also not here yet – in its fullness at least. Man, I can’t wait for that day.

But until then, I will try to embrace them when they come – because they are my heart spilling out and because those tender moments are when my Abba draws nearest to me. So Lord, be near.