from underneath the table.

monday night was the 'welcome to the family' tour with Kutless, Disciple and Esterlyn. We packed out the venue with about 1200 people, mainly teenagers armed with Kutless posters, and parents armed with earplugs. i started my evening off with a venti caramel frappachino, and ended it with a second one! it was running, non stop, all night long. coralling volunteers, inventory on merch, meeting with various staff, and being the liason for much of the staff and artists. i love my job, but sometimes it's exhausting. i confess, i even hid in the bathroom for about ten minutes just to get a break. at the end of the evening, i was running inventory with Corey, the merch manager for Kutless. i had to categorize and count each t-shirt design and size. i was in high heels (don't ask me why i thought THAT was a good idea), so i slipped them off and started counting. pretty soon, i realized i was so exhausted that i couldn't stand up anymore, and i sat down on the floor, surrounded by piles of t-shirts. counting counting counting.

it's a different view from the ground.

from the ground, you can see the concert from another angle. i could see the cables from the speakers snaking along the stage, and the movement of 1200 people milling around. i could see the volunteers cleaning up, and lighting being moved around. as i counted, i was distracted by a little boy off to the right of the tables. blond and blue eyes, he hopped anxiously on one foot, waiting for jeffrey, the drummer of kutless, to come out and sign autographs. as soon as he reached the end of the line, where his jeffrey was signing, i watched as jeff got down on his level. he made eye contact with the little guy, asking him about his drums and his favorite songs. other fans were waiting, but jeff just kept on giving this aspiring drummer his full attention. he gave him kutless drum sticks, and the little guy's eyes lit up. i just watched. i stopped counting, and i stopped worrying about who needed me at that moment, and everything i had left to do in the evening. i just watched. and i saw, in that moment, why i work in the music industry. because, it is, of course an industry. but it's more importantly...a ministry. jeffrey reminded me of that, even though he didn't know. that little boy reminded me of that.

this whole week has felt like an extended version of a show date. i have been running non stop. i work for about four websites writing and editing, and i work as a press writer for another artist. i have deadlines upon deadlines, as well as my regular schoolwork and assignments. my recent decision to re-enter nursing school has only elevated the meetings and things i need to remember. it seems like i can never quite catch up and relax.

but i realized something today.

"Be ready and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain. " Exodus 34:2

God wants stillness. He wants full attention. He wants me to present myself every morning, no matter how much I have to do. no matter how much sleep i have gotten.

sometimes...God wants us sitting down.

on the floor.

because things look different from down there.

I see Him working things together.
plugging in the cables, turning on the switches, arranging the events.
i see Him getting down on my level.
all the pieces fall into place. i like walking in His story.
but i like it too when i can see His story better from the floor.

when everything you know...

...changes.

i was hanging out with my buddy matt today, chatting about how quickly plans can change, and how grateful we are that we have a God big enough to overcome our rapid, sure-fire mistakes.

last month, happily armed with three hundred dollars in my savings earmarked for my ticket to nashville i, being the astute driver that i am, neglected to check all the way around my ford taurus backing out of my family's driveway. wouldn't you know, my dad's bright red truck just popped up outta nowhere. i promise, it just sprouted out of the driveway. like a daisy. needless to say, even going at a very slow pace, i did considerable damage to my dad's cute little truck..and my cute little left hand mirror. the same mirror i had shelled out a hundred bucks to fix just 34 days earlier. it was, you guess it, exactly three hundred dollars to fix.

matt and i were talking about how Gods economy is different. we think, "Well, Lord, i dont think You are fully grasping the situation! This is $300.00! or this is _______(fill the blank with: a million dollars, a new job, relationships, etc.)." like maybe we dont truly believe God is a $300.00 dollar God. or a God big enough to hand me a job, or matt the apartment he is praying over. it comes down to just a lack of belief that God is everything He says He is.

my favorite people in the bible are esther and job. someday i want my children to have their names as their middle names. esther was a woman truly trusting in a God bigger than impossibility, and in the face of certain death, she said "if i die, i die". simple trust. or maybe not so simple. job lost everything, and my favorite part was he was so genuine. he wavered in trust, he questioned God, he wondered where the purpose was. and yet, he still came out on the the other side, blessed, astonished by the faithfulness of God, and more importantly with a bigger-picture-God. i love when God just nails him with the majesty of who He is. 

"then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:"Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me."Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt' Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?"

 the best part is verse 1, where it says "then God answered Job from the storm."

from the storm.

from the middle of confusion. 

from the center of uncertainty.

God speaks. 

this week i got news that i got back into nursing school. being the 'planner' (cough cough, stubborn) person that i am, it threw me into a tailspin. i HAD  a plan. graduation, applying to medical schools, possible working in the music industry. and now here was a new plan. surely God didnt understand that now was not a good time (insert sarcasm here), because i had midterms, for crying out loud! apparently God doesnt work on my timetable, because He seemed pretty good with now. 

i might be kicking and screaming my way, but He's pulling me into His plan, His time, His story. and 

when everything i know

changes,

He speaks. 

he shut the door.

i have committed to reading the whole bible in a year. that was my new years goal (not resolution, because we all know how those turn out!) i have been very convicted lately to become a student of the Word, sharpened by its truth and shaped by its meaning. i met with my SOMA group today, for the first time this term, and we knelt to pray for our campus and our winter classes. specifically, we prayed for a boldness to share our faith, and additonally, the motivation to study and genuinely learn the Word this term. i feel this is something the Lord has been placing on my heart, and i have become so very excited to be purposeful on my campus. i have often grumbled about college in my hometown, when so many of my friends are at larger-city universities, having a huge "college experience", if you will. i admit, my attitude has not always been Godly or grateful. but i have realized that God has specifically placed me on this campus, at this time, for a very real and purposeful reason. just as esther did not recognize her place in history, i truly believe God is revealing mine slowly. and i cannot balk at a God who is clearly big enough to overcome my poor attitude to stir in me a genuine love for my fellow students and my professors. as i was reading last night, i came across a verse (and for the record, i have already missed a day of reading, so there goes the "resolution" side of things. hence, i changed it to a 'goal'...) i came across a verse that was smack dab in the middle of a story i have read probably a hundred times. noah's ark. i have listened to my niece read it to me, even, in her delicate five-year-old voice, pointing out each and every pair of watercolor animals in her bible story book. i have taught the lesson in sunday school, and watched my class of twelve six year olds color an array of olive branches and rainbows. and im fairly certain there are even childrens songs about the flood (which i personally find a little weird, since its a song about floodwaters that wiped out almost all the population. if i were five, i think i would be terrified). but what struck me this time that i read the classic story was this line:

"Then the LORD shut him in."

in another translation, it reads:

"Then the LORD shut the door."
do you remember the story? people were sinning. alot. and God decides to save the righteous. noah find favor with the Lord, and is a "doer", acting in obedience to what i am sure sounded pretty ludicrous. then, watching the heavens open up and literally POUR. i've seen rain, because, well, i live in oregon. and ive been to brazil, and watched raindrops fall from dusky skies that were the size of small coins. but ive never seen the world flood over. but ive felt the door close. i try to imagine what noah thought as the door closed. as that last sliver of light disappeared, and the resounding echo of that door slammed shut. perhaps he was a stalwart picture of trust. maybe he was simply resigning. but i know how i would be, and thats scared. i have watched that light disappear. and its scary. i have listened as i was told my dream of nursing school was gone. i have waited for news at the doctors office. i have closed my eyes as i heard i lost my job. the light seemed faint last week when i crashed my car. and it seemed bleak when my blood pressure dropped again, and i found myself with more frequent breathing episodes. but did you catch it?
"The LORD shut him in."
The Lord's hand never leaves.
even in the darkness, His hand was resting on the outside of that door.
He shut it.
i rest in knowing that with every door that has closed...
i have a God big enough on the other side.

reunion.

I stood at the airport last week, waiting for my sister, her husband, and their children to fly in. Medford has a very tiny airport. Just one gate. One terminal. People mill around in twos and threes, interspersed with TSA officials. It is quiet, for an airport. Just the crackle of the intercom, assuring us that we should not leave our bags unattended. A few hushed conversations. Lots of people on their cell phones, waiting for their cab, or their relative.I held the hand of my five year old niece as she hopped on one foot, anxious to see her cousins. She clutched her cabbage patch doll by the hand, half dragging her miniature knit afghan behind her, singing softly to herself. We settled down into one of those black leather benches, and she boosted the doll up onto her lap, looking momentarily up at me to ensure I was fully involved in her and her dolly’s imaginary scenario. The plane is late, so we wait some more. We stand next to a couple waiting for their son to return from Haiti. Others around us wait for relatives to return from around the nation, around the world. Everyone restless. All waiting for that moment. The moment of return.
I couldn’t help but think about the reunion that God has in store for us. Reunion with Him, unhindered by the weight of the world. Also, restoration. Of a world that is flooded with sin. With brokenness. In a world where we too, are restless for reunion with our Savior.

That He might restore a nation where over one million babies are murdered before they even get to breathe.

And 5700 people die from HIV daily.

In a world where Human Trafficking is the third most lucrative business in the world, second only to drugs and firearms.

In a world where two million women and little girls suffer from untreated fistula and are social outcasts.

Restless.

26.000 children will die tonight of starvation.

I want reunion. And restoration.

My four year old towheaded nephew rushed out of those revolving doors and into my arms. And I thought of the best reunion of all…when God restores all things to Himself.
Until then, I will be restless.

a manifesto.

"theres a pattern here, a pattern we find in the bible that gives it insight into the deepest truths of how the universe works. egypt. sinai. jerusalem. babylon. salvation is what happens when we cry out in egpyt. we all have egypts, dont we? addiction, suicide, anger, rage.. we all have darkness, and slavery in our hearts. we could make our lists, and they would be long. the bible uses the word sin for this condition of slavery. the technical definition is to miss the mark. we've all missed the mark. God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. rescue redemption grace. this grace takes us to sinai. egypt. then sinai. where we find purpose and identity.
God doesnt want to just save us. God is also looking for a body to incarnate the divine.
we're invited at sinai to join the God of the oppressed in doing something about our broken world. that always involves hearing the cry of the opressed and acting on their behalf.
if we forget them, we lose track of our own story.
our story takes us from sinai to jerusalem. and that raises the question:
what will we do with our blessing? will we remember egypt?
or will we lose sight of the plot?

in a world where there arae 27 million slaves.
in a world where 840 million people will go to bed hungry.
Jesus wants to save our church from the exile of irrelevance.
God says to Cain "listen!"
because everything starts with a cry.
it hard to hear the cry when youre isolated from it. in proverbs, it says the rich man's wealth "was his fortified city." walls isolate.
so can gates
freeways
schoolsystems
grocery stores
health clubs
shopping malls
homes
office buildings.
but when we hear the cry everything changes.
because when we hear the cry, we are with God.
listen, God tells Moses. listen and go.
this will take movement. action. life. it will involve risk.
it will not be boring. it will cost something.
the Eucharist always does.
it isnt about just saving the world, its about saving us too.
from the kingdom of comfort
from the priority of preservation
from the exile of indifference. you have to be captivated by a cause so massive and compelling that you would sell everything to be a part of it.
what happens when your religion isnt big enough for God?

what do you do when your system falls apart because the new thing that God is Doing is Better, beyond superior, more compelling?"-rob bell

there were tears

There were tears

And they swept into the evening

Like a rain sweeps into cracks

Filling them up

Overwhelming.

And there was laughter

And it moved into the room

Like a touch can move

To the deepest part of us

Unconscious.

There was fear

And it tried to hold us back

Gripping tight

Like a rescue effort

Unnerving.

There was possibility

And it whispered softly

Remembering its own presence

Gently nudging

Quietly.

There was relief

When it was over

And it rolled over us like a tide

And we soaked it in.

Revelling.

Over all these things

There was but one more

In the tears of a girl

And the nudging of a boy

There was Life.

Encompassing.

this day's been crazy but everything's happened on schedule...

this week has been a learning experience.

i think maybe God is trying to teach me patience.

or at least a measure of trust.

and yet...its all been okay.

i have become aware, this week, that i will not be returning to nursing school (unless a large miracle occurs) in the Spring as i had initially imagined. was i devastated? yes.

my last five years have been devoted to nursing school. as the epitome of what i defined as success, it seemed the end-all to worth, and self esteem. when asked "what are you up to these days?", nursing school always emerged first. as if i had to make sure that i got that out there, and it set the standard that "im doing something productive, see?" and then i could mention all the other, inconsequential things that i am doing. then i could breathe easy, as long as the other person (perhaps a classmate from high school, or a family friend) knew that i had my life together and was, in fact, accomplishing a superb career.

and then it was gone.

and i realized that i had to swallow hard and say..okay Lord. I get it. I get it.

its not about what i do. its about who I am. better yet, its about Who You Are, and who that, in turn makes me. when your definition of success is taken from you, you have to grasp onto a new definition of success.

maybe it will be the fact that i feel God is caling me to work with sexually trafficked little girls in Ethiopia. success in the world's eyes? probably not really. it's a low paying job, with eternal repercussions. there are little girls the age of my precious niece who are being violated in ways no one should imagine.

and no one is there to hold them. there's even more that defines who i am. i want to get to the point, when people ask me what i am up to, that i say "im loving people. im loving my family. im feeding the homeless. im advocating for children who dont have a voice. im living my life slowly. im savoring the moments before my nephew gets too big to hold in my arms. im smiling more. im running every day, because i love the freedom i have when i run. im listening more and talking less. im praying without ceasing. im spending time people who are drug addicts and alcoholics and inviting them for dinner so i love them like Jesus."

isnt that success?

nursing school...yea. it was important. i made decisions that catalyzed it disappearing. im aware of that. but im eager to step into the Story that God is not yet done with. maybe He wants to move me to another country and let me work for free to save the very least of these. maybe He wants me to get a grip on the events in my nation and my world so i can better see like Him. maybe He just wants me to be Still.

and listen.

i dont know.

i dont have a major.

i dont have a class schedule.

but i have a God who Loves Me Beyond Measure. He died for me. and He will never leave me nor forsake me.

He is still writing. it's not done.

His plans are perfect.

His schedule always runs on time.

ten thousand children.

10,000 children and all I can do is just talk.
While my house is full of possessions that negligence bought.
Everyone tells me that I'm not to blame,
Why do I still feel the same?
Only love can save us all.
Only love can save us all, save us all.
10,000 children are my invitation to change.
To continue in excess now suddenly feels oh so strange.
Prayers and money should not be confused,
But I pray that both still are used.

Only love can save us all.
Only love can save us all
What will become of me?Inside of history
10,000 children and all I can do is just talk.
-dave barnes

today is national aids day. do more than just talk.

i
need
africa
more
than
africa
needs
me.

facedown

last week i sat in my SOMA (greek for body: a christian group on campus dedicated to changing our campus with the gospel) group and was completely unengaged. you know, that feeling you get when you are physically in attendance, but you are emotionally absent? that's where i was. having just received my SECOND failing calculus quiz after working very hard, i was discouraged, and struggled to pour my heart into worship. oh, i sang. i read, i prayed. but engaged in the connection with my Saviour? in true communion and fellowship? nope.

i was not in the posture for worship.

i didnt know there was a posture for worship. but the Lord has been revealing there is.

and its facedown.

i mean, facedown.

smudging our noses with dirt. eyes to the ground.

grass stained knees.

thats where i desire to be. because i know where standing gets me. Psalm 1:1 says "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers."

look at that. "who does not walk", "or stand" "or sit".

how bout kneeling? how about facedown?

singer Mark Hall says that that verse, to him, demonstrates the way we can so quickly edge into sin by starting out walking, then we stop and stand, and before you know it, we are sitting. wallowing in depravity. distracted. keeping company with those who mock what Christ lived for. so why dont we let our knees being us closer to humility? i know why i dont. i am prideful.

i let my knees stay strengthened by pride.

i brace myself up on selfishness.

i secure my head with distraction.

i dont want to get "dirty".

i dont want grass stains on my knees.

i dont want dirt on my forehead.

but God is calling me to throw myself down.

okay Lord. draw me down. into a posture fit for worship. facedown.

Churched

My earliest memory is of church. I distinctly remember toddling down the aisle at church in California: ambulating my pigtailed, three year old self past several rows of pews. I even remember what I was wearing. Grey flannel overalls with little black puppies peeking over the edge of the front pocket, like watchdogs set on guiding little me safely down to the stage. I am not sure what exactly I was headed towards, or even what the pastor had called me down for. I am not sure whether it was about Jesus or not. I only remember one thing: he was holding fruit snacks. And to me and my pigtails, he might as well have had the world.

Matthew Paul Turner has memories of church, too. In fact, that’s what his latest book is all about. Close on the heels of his quirky, provoking, and sometimes controversial books aimed at twenty-somethings, Turners proffers a new type of book: a memoir. He moves effortlessly through a graceful portrayal of life in a fundamentalist Baptist church, where legalism reigned supreme, and the mercy of God shone through in rare moments. Indeed, the grace of God weaves itself like a ribbon through the poignant and wrenching tale. And it’s funny. Did I mention that? I laugh and cry through a lot of books, but during Turner’s retelling of the creative censoring of cinematic masterpiece ‘Ben Hur’, I was simultaneously gasping for air and crying buckets. He narrates in painfully funny detail, his first haircut, which deemed him a satisfactory Baptist: “To my father, this haircut was about much more than doing away with my Bobby Brady mop. It was about me looking like a Baptist. I think my father thought that the angels in heaven would be a good bit happier once my head looked as clean-shaven as a Marine’s.” He discusses his first Sunday at the new church, describing the feeling as “being kidnapped by Puritans, except without the witch trial and the dunking booth”. He does such a masterful job at retelling the “Barbie burning”(a very innovative way of “scaring the hell” out of him and his Sunday school peers) that one very nearly can smell the scorched plastic.

Turner is a storyteller. With “Churched”, he joins the ranks of Donald Miller and Anne Lamott, with a loping, candid pace that carefully and meticulously shuffles along. ‘Churched’ is like those moving escalators at the airport: you step on and it moves so steadily you start to become comfortable and relaxed, and before you know it, you’re being shuffled off right back into the real world, thirty yards closer to your destination. Maybe this book will move people closer to a destination of a more genuine love affair with Christ’s bride, His church. “Churched” is not a stab at parish life. In fact, it is a kind, benevolent look at a life clouded by legalism, where the grace of God shone extra bright. Rather than bitterly recollecting the hurt and confusion he felt as a child, Turner approaches it with an optimistic cheer, urging us to examine how we view church, and what it means to follow Jesus. He ends with a moving paragraph, and I wept when I read it. “Last Sunday, Jessica and I went to church. It was Easter. A couple people got baptized. The guy sitting next to me took two smoke breaks. I closed my eyes during the praise and worship. Pete gave a sermon about hope. We took communion.
I wasn’t afraid.”
I’ve always admired Turner for his gritty and droll style, and was ready to leaf through another jaunty book where I would laugh and maybe learn something about being a college student in the twenty-first century. At least, that’s what had happened with his previous works. I was wrong. I read it through overnight. I couldn’t put it down.
I cried.
I laughed.
And then I opened it and read it all over again.
I learned something about myself. How I view church. What my role is in the body. Why I come every Sunday, Why trips down an aisle don’t guarantee a heart right with God. That no matter how many sermons we annotate or people we convert, it comes down to loving Jesus with the abandon of a child and an eagerness to do His will.
Even without fruit snacks.

***I AM GIVING AWAY A COPY OF CHURCHED! COMMENT WITH YOUR BEST 'CHURCH' STORY AND I WILL CHOOSE A WINNER NEXT WEEK!***

blood on the doorposts of the universe

i bought a cup of coffee for a man two nights ago at Starbucks.
i handed it to him, steaming coffee on a cold night, and
it moved from my hands to his.
my hands, smooth from little real manual labor, smooth from being protected by the elements of the outdoors, smooth from a life lived in plenty, hands that have never known whats its really like to want,
hands that are always abundantly, excessively, full.
to hands weathered by cold and heat, hands that extend to beg.
hands that i know fingered a trigger to fight in Vietnam,
hands that daily peel duct tape off a roll tucked into a backpack to mend his eclectic wardrobe.
hands that pick at a broken guitar.
his name is Todd, and he is homeless.

i dont know that what i did was right. i know full well that Todd is capable, and indeed, should get a real job and stop begging on the streets. i know that much of what he does with the money he gets is spend it on alcohol and cigarettes.
but i also know that in that moment, all i knew was the movement of mercy that stirred in me as i slid my card across the counter and ordered a second latte.
he needed that coffee. and i needed a reminder that i am not my own.


i have been reading the new rob bell book, 'Jesus wants to Save Christians'.
i am going to be honest, i am on the fence about rob bell. his writings have changed my life, in that i have been awakened to the state of the Church as a whole, my role as a Christian, and how that looks like, to Love, to extend grace, to live out the words coming from my mouth.what does that look like?

numerous situations have arisen this week that have challenged me to rethink how i view Love.
was it loving for me to buy a coffee for him? maybe. rob bell says that there is blood on the doorposts of the universe. as i stepped into starbucks that night, a child died in Africa. as i slid my plastic money across the counter, a little girl wept in Ethiopia. as i jammed my key into the ignition of my Taurus, a little boy woke to captivity in Mali. What am i doing about it?

where is Love, where does Jesus show up in situations like that?
what difference am i making?

i heard a great speaker at the last show i worked publicity for, and he said "If you woke up this morning, in a bed, with food and a dollar in your wallet, you are in the top 1% of the world."

the top 1%.

he said "Jesus has put us at the front of the line, and asks us "What will you do with this now?"
i was talking to a friend the other night, and was so frustrated with myself for caring so much. i get so passionate about poverty and hunger and abuse, and i still live my life exactly the same.
i guess what i want is a heaviness that i am justified in caring. I want God to move me so i dont forget that i am not my own, that caring is something He has placed in me. I want a heart humbled and moved to mercy. I want hands that will scrub the blood from just one doorpost. i want theburden of loving the world.

did you feel that?

Donald Miller says "It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things"

simple things...and maybe not so simple.

yesterday i worked at the salvation army for four and a half hours.

i folded clothes and stood side by side with a woman who was a former drug addict.

i sorted hangers with a woman who told me that she was a former prostitute.

and i am ashamed to say...i judged them first. i mentally attached their former lifestyles to their names. and i inwardly cringed at my lack of compassion.

and then God nudged me.

hard.

and He gave me a glimmer of what it means to look with compassion and look with mercy and look with eyes that remember...i am no better. i felt blinders slip off my spiritual eyes. and i listened. and that drug addict became a woman torn and broken, hurt and lost. she became a woman with four children to raise. she became a single mom who wishes she could afford to get her kids halloween costumes that are brand new so they dont get teased at school. she became a woman who forgot that she is worthy of Love.

that prostitute became a girl just older than me. someone i might have had class with, someone i might have bumped into at starbucks on a friday night. a girl who carried wounds behind her eyes that the heavy makeup could never disguise. someone i needed to know. and someone that i realized, as her hand moved, sorting hangers into boxes...bore the mark of Jesus' awakenings to me. and as God moved me to look, truly look, i saw. i heard Him speak. "do you think you are better than this? That scarlet letter is yours too... as much as you are Mine, she is Mine. and she is worthy of Love."

nudge.

do you get it, He asks, do you see Me?

are you watching?

earnestly seeking for the moments when I lift the blinders and nudge you?

if you dont watch, you will miss it.

nudge.

did you feel that?

and so i ask you..where are you spending your time. God moved me this week. He showed me where He would spend His time. it was right there. he overrode my poor attitude and opened my eyes. He moved my heart to where His is at..with the broken. Billy Graham says the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Level it out, God.

letters from war

i found a large stack of photos in a box my mom dug out the other day. my grandma was sitting next to me as i flipped through a stack of sepia toned photos, immediately engaged by the handsome uniformed soldiers...about my age probably..but they seemed so much older. in their eyes they carried the weight of a war that i never knew. i paged through about forty five photos. windy beaches that would months later bear the blood of sons and brothers, and smiling groups of soldiers, arms draped round shoulders..the same arms that would hoist each other across battlefields and into trenches. every photo had no name. just a face. a smile. a flash of light reflected across clear, optimistic eyes. a sheen of sunlight illuminating crew-cut blond hair.
i flipped through stacks and stacks, as my mom and two aunts also laughed over old family photos, and they shared stories i had never heard before. i listened.

then i happened to glance up at my grandma.

and the stacks of photos froze in my hand.

and for a moment, i became privy to what it meant to be a war bride. i watched her eyes well up with tears. i watched her hands unfold a letter stamped 1943 and smooth the yellow paper as she read the graceful script. i felt her heartache as a i watched emotions flicker through her eyes. i felt what it must have been like to be married to a man in the service. i was humbled. and i realized that for every moment of freedom i enjoy, for all the rights that are mine....there was a man who fought for them. and there was a woman who fingered letter after letter. women who were wiping away tears of their own as they wiped runny noses and messy faces of their little ones, little ones who asked when daddy was coming home. women who said "i do" to tours of duty and lonely nights and goodbyes.

i considered all this as i watched my friend michelle in her wedding dress yesterday afternoon. beautiful and serene, holding tight to the arm of her husband, a Lance Corporal in the Marines. i listened to her say "i do" with clear confidence because she knew that no matter what, God is going to hold her together, a lesson i have watched her learn with such grace and poise, i am honored to call her my friend.
and i was thankful. that there are women who are called to the high honor of being a war bride.
the wars may have been 64 years apart, but maybe michelle will one day unfold letters and remind her granddaughter that freedom is never free.

thanks grandma.