here's to (twenty six).

here's to quiet mornings and fresh brewed coffee

to wet puppy kisses and soft clean fur

to deep conversations and playful banter

here's to silhouettes of mountain ranges

to homemade pasta and olive oil and parmesan

to crackling fires and fuzzy blankets

here's to hello's after it's-been-too-long's

to popcorn and late night movies

to steep hikes and breathtaking views

here's to belly-laughter and happy tears

to holiday spices and giant snowflakes

to clacking keyboards and brand new paintbrushes

here's to sunset beaches and sandy toes

to empty airports and used book stores

to sloppy kisses and children's games

here's to favorite playlists and horseback rides

to inside jokes and nicknames

to sore muscles and deep stretches

here's to road-trips and waterfalls

to much-needed hugs and encouraging words

to brunch and grapefruit mimosas 

here's to sparkles and streamers

to hot tubs and heaping bowls of ice cream

to new tattoos and old hoodies

here's to wisdom (from hard earned lessons)

to kindness, and joy, and connection

here's to twenty six.

can you see me?

 It's 3:02am and I should be sleeping, but I'm not.

I'm staring at the blank wall behind my bed and swallowing a wave of nausea as the projector in my head flips chaotically through my memories. I cringe. I hold my breath. I clench and unclench my fists.

I realized recently that there is a common thread throughout the memories that my brain chooses for the highlight reel. 

Can you see me?

It echoes between the walls of my soul. 

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be seen. To be noticed. To be known. But in a very specific way. I don't just want to be seen, I want to be admired. 

I want to be seen as brave, beautiful, strong, responsible, wise, competent, kind, diligent, special, and successful, to name a few. At the end of the day I want to be seen as good. Please tell me I'm not the only one. 

I want you to see me.

Yes, you. I'm talking to you, reader. 

Family, Friends, Coworkers, Distant relatives, Acquaintances, Christians, Atheists', Buddhists, Democrats, Republicans, Young, Old, Wise, Ignorant...etc.

I want you to see me.

Which is why I am awake, tossing and turning at an ungodly hour. I am thinking about all of the times my flaws have slipped through the cracks of my futile efforts to appear "good." Some memories boast of my ugliest mistakes while some simply announce that I "said the wrong thing" or "made the wrong face." 

Like a chameleon I want to adjust myself in whatever-which-way that will gain your approval. And failing to gain that approval feels devastating. There is an avalanche of evidence against my illusion of somehow pleasing everyone, which leaves me with lots of opportunities to cringe in the middle of the night as I rolodex through my past.

Can you see me?

That question seems to be tattooed on the inside of my ever loving eyelids. I so desperately want to be seen by you. And I want you to love what you see. Because then maybe, just maybe, you will love me. 

Oh. 

There it is.

My soul is constantly searching for the affirmation that I am enough. That who I am is worthy of love and acceptance and belonging. So I peer into the chasm of my history and carefully calculate how you see me, thinking that is where I will find the evidence of my true value. 

Do you see me as brave, beautiful, strong, responsible, wise, competent, kind, diligent, special, and successful? Do you see me as a failure, a burden, rude, selfish, broken, foolish, and flawed?

In reality, there's no way to know what you see when you look at me. I can't read your mind. If I could I would probably be surprised at how little you were actually thinking about me. And even if you judged me with the same scrutiny that I judge myself, your opinions would be varied. One action could be perceived as wise to you and extremely foolish to someone else. 

You are human, just like me. Flawed, beautiful, brave, and foolish. To ask you to define my value is unfair to us both...despite what my brain may tell me at o'dark thirty. 

Can you see me?

My soul was wired to ask that question - it's imbedded in my core. It drives me to my knees. And it's there that I find the same truth again and again. 

There is someone who sees me. One who has seen every single snapshot of my life; every failure, every victory, every secret and every public announcement. I believe that I am seen by a good God. And when He looks at me He doesn't see me the way I want to be seen. 

He sees Me. 

All of me. He sees the good, the bad, and the ugly. He sees the actions and the motives behind them. He sees the maturity and growth and the foolishness. He will never turn away in disgust. He tells me that I am loved. 

I am worthy of love and belonging not because I am without flaws, but because I am designed for love and belonging. The need to be seen and known and loved is no accident. It's woven into the fiber of my being. 

So when I find myself tossing and turning in the night, desperate for reassurance, I want to turn my gaze to the truth that I am seen by the One who loves me most. There is no façade, no fear, no excuses. I am just me. And no matter what you think about me, good or bad, it's ok. I can rest in my worth as a daughter of God, created with intentionality and purpose, loved extravagantly and unconditionally. 

As I finish writing this I am reminded that so often our actions are driven by unacknowledged and/or unmet needs. Chances are, there's a reoccurring theme behind that things that keep you awake at night too. What is it? What echoes off the walls of your soul? 

let go.

You’re still in shock

It makes sense

The wind knocked out of your chest

Reality hit you this morning

Take some time, take a breath

When you woke up and rubbed your eyes and the images remained

And you realized that nothing will ever be the same

You thought…so many things

And then it was not at all what you thought

Now you’re left sitting in the rubble

Picking up the pieces

Desperately trying to make sense of it all

Then, a flutter in your ribcage

A whisper in your heart

Giving you direction in the chaos

A place to start

Let go.

It’s quiet, but firm

Unrelenting

Let go of what you thought it would be.

In the ashes and the rubble of your dreams

Let go

Let go of what you expected of yourself and what you expected of Me

Weep, mourn, rage

Whatever it takes

But please, let go

I know it sounds cliché and trite and dismissive

And I know you’re angry that I even brought it up

You’ve held on so tightly for so very long

It’s time to admit that what you wished for is gone

Let the dust settle

Let the tears fall

Let go

Let go of who you were, and who you will never be again

Let go of the regret, the guilt, the shame

No, it won’t erase the anger or the pain or the scars

It won’t rewrite your history or realign the stars

But it will help you breathe

Tend your wounds

Heal your heart

So let go

It’s the only place to start

twenty five.

1.     Food past the expiration date isn't worth it. 

2.     Spiritual, emotional, and physical connection with others is vital to life.

3.     Questioning what you believe requires integrity.

4.     Friendships/relationships are allowed to grow, change, and disappoint without devaluing the individuals involved.

5.     Cat urine is the worst smell in the world.

6.     There is absolutely no sense in keeping (or wearing) clothes that no longer fit.

7.      Nobody has all the answers.

8.     Sometimes self-care just looks like survival.

9.     Persistent, domineering self-talk can still be completely false.

10. Buy the non-slip shoes.

11. Just because you can stay up past midnight doesn’t make it a good idea.

12. It’s perfectly ok and healthy to change your mind.

13. To-do lists are a magical game-changer.

14. Debt is not the end of the world.

15. Pray bigger prayers.

16. Life is harsh. Cherish the beauty.

17. Humans in the church are just as messy as humans outside the church.

18. Being ignorant when you are young is not a failure – it’s normal.

19. Don’t get drunk…but if you must, do it around sober, safe people.

20. Seeking professional help is underrated.

21. Advocate for yourself in the doctor’s office.

22. Gaining weight is not the end of the world.

23. You are allowed to let go of harmful beliefs,

24. There is tremendous healing potential in vulnerability…There is also tremendous potential for wounding.

25. Art is underrated in the adult world. Do it. Share it. Celebrate it.

because it matters (be kind).

It's been a hell of a season, hasn't it? 

In conversations over zoom, in person, through face masks and over copious cups of hot beverages I have heard it again and again. We are weary. We are struggling. We are aching.

We got the proverbial wind knocked out of us. We have been repeatedly kicked while down. We have absorbed multiple "last straw" moments and yet we are still standing...Or crawling...Or at least, breathing. 

God only knows the details of my hard season and I don't know yours. The struggle has taken many different shapes, colors, and sizes. No two of us share the exact pain, and yet we can share a collective sigh that somehow sums up the experience.

And so here we are. 

And yet, in a season where so many are feeling different shades of the same struggle, we find ourselves increasingly divided and hostile. As a natural-born peacemaker, it's exhausting to watch. I have dear friends and family that span a vast range of opinions regarding political, religious (or non-religious), economic, and scientific worldviews (to name a few). It seems that I know people on all extreme ends of the spectrum of opinions. 

This is what I have concluded...

Nobody has all the answers... if any. 

Most people are doing the best that they can with the resources that they have. 

We are not all that different.

...And if ever there was a time to be kind, it's now. 

2021 was hands down the most difficult year I have lived yet. The perfect storm of circumstances collided during the pandemic for me resulting in the loss of so many precious things. One of those precious things was certainty. 

Things like my purpose, my faith, and my passion feel shaken to the core. 

I have been questioning so much and so often that some days it feels as if  I will wake up and realize I have been unknowingly cast as a supporting character in a satirical TV show. So often I have felt as if nothing matters anymore. As if life is a meaningless and cruel joke. In the chaos of everything that has happened and is happening in the world and in my personal life, is there meaning to be found? 

In the ashes of everything I thought I knew, I have discovered something that I believe does matter.

It's love.  

See, we humans are so messy, so awful, and so desperately beautiful that it takes my breath away. To experience love is so painful and so necessary that we will stop at nothing to obtain some version of it. We each carry the ability to love and be loved and yet for whatever reasons we withhold it, extinguish it, or abuse it. 

This is my plea. 

Be kind. 

You have no idea the pain that another human is carrying in their soul. 

You are no better and no greater than your neighbor that you mock. We are all simply human. You cannot begin to boast of knowing the why behind someone else's behavior. You can speculate, you can guess, you can even puzzle together the handful of facts you hold. But it is not yours to know or to judge another soul. It is yours to love. 

That's what makes your life beautiful. Not your opinions, not your knowledge, not your certainty. It's your love. 

We are all tired. We are all struggling. We are all aching.

Please, be kind. 

Be defined by the one thing that makes humanity beautiful, that makes human life worth living. Be defined by love. 

Because it matters.

At the end of the day when everything else has burned to ashes, love matters. 

Be kind. 

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

crying over brownies.

I jumped behind the couch before I had a chance to process the peculiarity of it. I tucked my knees, wrapped my arms around my body, and the dam broke. As I cried, it began to dawn on me how ridiculous this must look.

After all, the crammed-between-the wall-and-the-back-of-a-sectional in a dark room doesn’t really scream “dignified” in my book (or “sane” for that matter).

And why, you may ask, am I hiding behind a couch, crying and shaking like it’s the start of the apocalypse?

Because I ate a brownie.

I ate a brownie to challenge my eating disorder. Clearly the eating disorder fought back (I’ll spare you the inner dialogue).

I discovered something in that moment behind the couch:

It is incredibly vulnerable to cry over brownies.

I have a loud inner critic that informs me almost 24/7 that the things that hurt me “shouldn’t hurt” or that the feelings I have shouldn’t be “that intense” or that those raw, sensitive parts of my heart “shouldn’t exist” and/or “don’t matter.”

You’re crying about a BROWNIE, Joanna! C’mon! This is idiotic.

And that’s the reason I jumped behind the couch.

Because in my heart of hearts I believe that no one should see me cry over such a “stupid” thing. That my feelings are wrong and nobody should see them. My feelings are too much. I am too much. That the most appropriate and logical thing to do in moments of intense emotion is to go away.

So, I hide. Behind couches, yes… but most often beneath a mountain of “right” answers, independence, introvert excuses and productivity.

In truth, I would rather discuss difficult emotions for hours upon end than feel them for 90 seconds. And heaven forbid there is another human in the room with me when I feel them. I don’t want to be seen crying over brownies. How embarrassing.

Let’s be real, I wasn’t crying about the brownie.

There is a tender part in my heart that aches from years and years of believing that what I eat is a direct reflection of my value as a human being. That if I don’t do that area of my life perfectly, I won’t be seen and I won’t be loved.

So, I wasn’t crying about the brownie. I was crying because it hurts to be unseen, unknown, and unloved. It’s hurts to challenge the voice in my head that is convinced that this is all dependent on the brownie. Even more than that, it hurts that I have believed this since I was a little girl, and as a result, invited the wrecking ball of an eating disorder into my life.

It hurts.

I was crying because it hurts.

And pain is so vulnerable.

Maybe for you it’s not a brownie. Maybe it’s a comment your partner made (or didn’t make), or the job you didn’t get, or craving the substance you are trying to give up, or the flashbacks, or the cancelled appointment, or coming home to an empty apartment, or the unmet expectation that your family will know what to say and when…

Sometimes it just hurts.

Can we learn how to say things like that? To feel things like that? Things like:

I’m hurting
I’m sad/mad/disappointed/confused..etc
It hurt when…
I feel unlovable
I’m struggling with my inner critic
I’m so tired
I need encouragement
I’m scared
I feel ashamed
I don’t have all the answers
Will you help me?

And I don’t just mean when life is crisis. I mean in the brownie moments. In those little things that really are not little at all. I personally try to wait until the big moments to have my meltdowns. You know, the screaming-in-my-face-billboard-you-are-DEFINITELY-not-ok moments.

I want to learn to be brave in the brownie moments.

To tell those tender parts of my heart “you matter” and to invite them to have a place in my life (my not-hiding-behind-the-couch-life). To feel the hurts, even if the cause seems “idiotic.” To allow myself to be seen and loved in those spaces.

This is new territory for me.

I’m scared
I feel ashamed
I don’t have all the answers
and sometimes it just hurts.

If that means crying over brownies, so be it.

in the dark.

.

.

.

I love the darkness

.

.

.

I love walking or jogging in the dark with the stars and silent streetlights.  I love exploring caves, climbing on a roof at night, or laying down on cold cement to ponder the night sky.

There is something about the dark that feels safe to me. Comforting. It’s the idea of being enveloped in something and blotted out of view. I feel invisible in the dark, and that feels good.

It’s hard to be seen.

Especially for my ever-loving-self wearied by the constant awareness of how I am seen. For as long as I can remember, I have diligently watched the reactions of the people around me. Reading into faces, tones, words, and trying to gauge how I can present myself in the most acceptable way. I have struggled on the journey to be myself rather than the image I portray.

We are miles down the trail but nowhere near the summit, friends.

I love the darkness.

I’m not sure when that started because as a kid, I slept with my closet light on and the door cracked open. Heck, I even sprinted to the bed after flipping off the light because you know, monsters.

Now, the dark feels like a refuge. A place to breathe, to sleep, to pause. To pretend the rest of the world does not exist. To pretend life is as peaceful and beautiful as it appears in the starlight.

A place where you cannot see me and I cannot see you.

This feels safe…for awhile.

I’m learning a painful truth in this season of pandemic-quarantine-isolation-stay-at-home-national-emergency. Ready?

We are not designed to live in the dark.

(please don’t roll your eyes, I know I’m the only one who JUST figured this out).

I crave acceptance, affection, and unconditional love. I have tried my best to be seen in a way that will provide these commodities. The problem with my efforts is this:

The only parts of me that are able to receive said commodities are the parts that I allow to be exposed. The parts of me kept hidden in the dark will never experience the miracle of being truly, extravagantly loved. 

In the dark I will continue to long, hunger, and starve to be seen. Truly seen.

In the incredible book “The Soul of Shame,” Curt Thompson writes that we are all storytellers. We are all longing, searching, seeking, someone who wants to hear us tell our story.

To really listen, to hear, to see us for all that we are.

So while the dark may seem safe, it is anything but true.

I can hide from myself and hide from you, but there is One who sees my soul.

I am finding a desperation in this season to encounter my Abba with an intensity I have not experienced before. The noise in my corner of the world has both increased and decreased in pandemic-land. I cannot pretend away this reality. I am needy in too many ways. Shaken in vulnerable places. And I am brought to my knees, not to simply “pray” but to pour out my heart and my tears.

In the dark, I need to be seen.

I need Him to envelope me, because the darkness will not hold my soul in a safe embrace.

I see the messiest parts of myself and pretending in the dark is no longer enough. I cannot present the image to those around me because there is no one to see. Nothing but social media, phone calls, and video chat. Showing up at work to be seen, but only with the parts of myself that are appropriate for that setting.  

I am lonely and I know I am not alone.

We are not designed to live in the dark. We are designed to be seen, and to see each other.

Friend, do you know that your soul is seen? That here, in the madness of 2020, you are not invisible? There is One who sees you in your little corner of the world and knows the state of your life, your family, your workplace, and your soul. You are not alone, unheard, unseen, or unloved.

There is safety for my soul in the presence of a good God in the middle of a bad season. I can sit on my living room floor in the morning sunlight or the cold cement at night and I can rest in the truth that I am known and loved, no matter what this crazy future holds.

I hold this truth tightly, desperately.

I am inviting the light. Inviting exposure to the parts of my heart that cry out to be seen, to be loved. If I cannot do that with others in person, I can sure as hell do it with the God who refuses to be confined by physical boundaries. He sees me.

I will find my refuge enveloped in the light, though the dark endures around me and the storm rages inside me. 

Will you join me?

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

    the night is bright as the day,

    for darkness is as light with you.

(Psalm 139:7-12)

For he will hide me in his shelter

    in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

    he will lift me high upon a rock.

(Psalm 27:5)

Blessed be the Lord,

    for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me

    when I was in a besieged city.

I had said in my alarm,

 “I am cut off from your sight.”

But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy

    when I cried to you for help.

(Psalm 31:21-22)