Coming Soon

Last year I had the incredible privilege of leading a group of senior girls in a ten-week bible study.  Going in I had no idea what to expect, and to be honest I had no idea what I was even doing, but I went for it. Those nights, in a little cabin, exceeded anything I could have ever been able to imagine. Some nights consisted of pushing these girls way outside of their comfort zones, and some nights consisted of pushing myself way outside my own comfort zone. But one thing was for sure, every week all of us walked away changed.

But one night specifically changed me forever, and as I look back on it now, it was in that moment that a little dream was starting to grow in my heart.

I was doing a spend the night babysitting gig one Sunday when I got a text that one of the girls in our group had just found out her mom had passed away from alcoholism. Words fall short in those moments but I sent her a text that just said, “I’m here.” Her response was “Thank you Adria. I will see you Tuesday at bible study.”

At first I was shocked, two days after her mom passes away and she wants to come to bible study. What am I suppose to say? What are we supposed to talk about that night? Tuesday rolled around and I knew there was nothing I could say, there was no scripture I could give her, and there was no song I could play, so we dedicated that night to a night of prayer. The girls took turns praying for different things and I closed the night off by praying for this sweet girl and her family. In that moment I realized: it wasn’t about her coming so she could hear something that would make everything better. It wasn’t about her coming and me having some powerful talk that would heal her. No, it was just the fact she had somewhere to go. She had a place to come to that she knew was safe. That was all she needed.

A place.

A safe place.

A hiding place.

I battled all summer long with the desire to transfer schools. I wanted to do more. I wanted to experience more. The nonstop back and forth game in my head was never ending. Most of you know that I coach high school volleyball. Every day I would come home and find myself telling my mom about another girl that was just so heavy on my heart and every time she would suggest them being a part of my bible study this year, but I kept running into the problem of “they aren’t seniors.”

I wanted more, but Jesus wanted more too.

Months ago I was tossing and turning in my bed just thinking about what to do with school and my next semester and I could not land on a decision. Jesus so clearly spoke to me in that night “you aren’t transferring.” With hesitation and resistance I finally surrendered and just said, “Okay Lord, I am not going anywhere.”

It was then that the tiny little dream that had been tucked down inside of me birthed to life. But it wasn’t until I was willing to tell Jesus that I would stay that He was willing to reveal it to me.  You see, He was just waiting until I got to the place where I finally surrendered and was willing to dig my heels into the ground I was/am walking on that so He could show me the "more" I wanted. I quickly scribbled these thoughts into my journal that night and ever since then everything has sky rocketed.

That all leads me to this….

That little bible study needed to be more.

That bible study that was just senior girls needed to be more.

I wanted more, and Jesus gave me more.

I asked some of the girls who were a part of the bible study last year to write a review. There were two similarities throughout them all.

1. Connecting with other girls in their own community and realizing they weren’t alone in following Jesus.

2.     Having somewhere to go.

When I think back on my high school years I still find pain in some of the mistakes I made, but grace rains down on those wounds and slowly is healing them, but yet I still think of the “what ifs.” I am learning that those can’t apply to me anymore, what is done is done.  But I lay awake in bed at night heartbroken for the high school girls that are doing exactly what I did. I dream of the “what ifs” for them.  I was lonely, and decided that where everyone else was going, I was going to go to as well. I wanted a place, and I found one. But it wasn’t the right one.

What if girls had somewhere to go on a Friday night instead of the party? What if sooner or later they realized there are people with the same heart as them? What if they knew they did not have to run to the boy to be seen? What if they had a safe place to run to have someone give them grace they need for their own wounds? What if they had that place? A place to run and hide from the ways of the world.

How many girls would not sit alone on Friday nights? How many girls would not feel the need to go to the party? How many girls would find a community because they know at this place they will find people like them? How many girls would not run to the boy? How many girls would choose Jesus instead of choosing the world?

Maybe they just need a place.

Well, I am REALLY excited to say we are in the process of creating that place. After many phone calls, emails, and meetings, things are starting to piece together. What was once a little bible study for senior girls will now be a once a month gathering, on a Saturday night, for all high school girls. Sometimes I think the church can serve as a barrier. She goes to this church, and she goes to that church, and it eliminates possibilities for some girls to meet. The purpose of these events will be to connect high school girls with other girls in their community, that without a gathering like this they would never meet. With the goal in mind that maybe once connected friendships will form, and loneliness will disperse. Community is the key to following Jesus in high school, and some girls just need to find a community, we want to help them make that happen.

I honored and so humbled to say that Cindy Cathy has agreed to come alongside of me and one of my dear friends, Haley Lamp, and help us make these nights happen. I am excited to learn from someone like Cindy Cathy. We are in the process of finding a temporary space for these events to happen, but the goal/dream in sight is to one day create a space that would just be dedicated to high school girls, and would be available more than just once a month, but that is a long way off. I have a meeting Sunday to get approval to use what we think might be perfect for these nights.

 “For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory. The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.”

                                                                       Psalm 32:7

                                                                         The Mission:

To allow High school aged girls to have somewhere to run instead of running to the ways of the world. A place where they can find: safety, security, community, and truth. A place where they can sit and allow Jesus to guide them down the best pathway for their lives. A place where they ultimately will learn how to hid themselves in Jesus, the true hiding place, and grow to realize in Him they have everything they need.

High school girls, get excited because we are!

Friends, will you start praying for this with us?

Questions? Suggestions? Or want to be a part of making this happen? We would love to hear from you.

Coming soon:

That place that so many need.

Starting 2016.

Jesus, be the center.

All Things Messy

I am an organized person. I was a mothers dream teenager because there was never the battle of having me clean my room. I did it naturally and still do.  I live by a planner. Not because I want to have every second of every day planned, but I like the comfort of knowing that my day will be a little less chaotic because I took an extra step to plan it out, and to remind myself what I have going on. This semester my organized and tidy self was turned upside down.

My planner would explode if I tried to write everything down. Juggling school, work, and coaching has been one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I spend so much time in my car just going from point A to point B and then eventually to point C: home to school, school to work, work to volleyball. A couple days ago I was driving from one point to another and looked in my rearview mirror into my backseat, and (total girl moment) just started crying. It looked like my car was my second bedroom. I keep all my books for school in my car because I know I will forget one trying to get out the door in the morning. I have my book bag, my gym bag, my volleyball bag, and who knows what all else is back there. To say the least it was the farthest thing from clean. I remember just saying, “Jesus, my life is such a mess right now.”

           

Days before I had been reading/studying the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10.

“Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.” Luke 10:42

Another version says, “Only one thing is essential, and Mary has chosen it.” Everything in this world opposes the idea of loving Jesus, but we have to choose it anyway. Mary got it right, she chose the one thing that was needed, and nobody could take that from her. But Mary’s choice was driven by her desire to respond. Mary sat at his feet, inhaling every word Jesus had to say, and His worlds fueled her to respond, and her response was her choosing Him. I was so reminded in that moment when I thought my life was such a mess that I had a choice. I could be Martha and be “pulled away by all she had to do” (Luke 10:40) or I could be Mary and I could just choose Jesus. Isn’t it that simple most of the times? We can choose to be pulled away and to see everything in our lives or we can choose Jesus.

Jesus set the most beautiful example for us to follow. When He could have chosen the heavens and all their glory, He chose a crown of thorns and a spear in His side. When He could have chosen beauty, he chose the mess. He chose the mess because He saw us in the mess; He saw beauty in the mess.  

As cliché as it is, it is all about perspective. I learned that day that sometimes the mess just says you are living. You are giving life all you got and not slowing down to tidy up. If that’s the case maybe what we sometimes think is mess is really just life. Maybe sometimes Jesus takes us to those places of breakdowns in the driver seat of our cars to remind us that our choice to continuously choose him is the very thing that will always see us through, and that how your life appears to look really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that when people see your life they see Jesus. 

Maybe the backseat of you car is a mess. Maybe your kitchen is overflowing with dishes. Maybe your hair hasn’t been fixed in weeks. All of that doesn’t discredit your ability to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I think that is what I was missing. I thought that I had to have it “all together” to be able to be used. But in the end it’s not our ability to have it all together, it’s our ability to just say yes.  

I am not discrediting the tidiness. I am not speaking against being organized. I still live in a way where I try to do those things. I am saying that when we get to the point that we can’t adjust to anything other than our perfectly organized life and checking off our to do lists then we are becoming a Martha. If we are living in the way where we get uncomfortable when our days don’t go as how our agenda planned than we have our hand squeezed a little too tightly around control, and we have to release that. Control is saying “my way.” Flexibility is saying “whatever you want Jesus.”

I had to let go of my control that day in my car. I had to let Jesus shatter my agenda. I had to live a messy life to see that a messy life is no less satisfying than a “tidy life.” I had to go back to the beginning. I had to sit down at His feet, listen to what He was trying to say, and then respond. I had to do as Mary did. I had see that my eyes can't be fixated on the things of this world. I had to see that I just needed to choose Jesus. It was that simple. 

Here is to realizing that messy lives are beautiful.

Today, just choose Jesus. Nothing else matters. 

When Not Having Words Is a Good Thing.

I have a flooded email inbox that has not been touched, and an overflow of text messages that most of the time I never even stop long enough to read, let alone respond. I figured what better way to explain myself than to throw it out on the internet for all to see. For all who await a response, I apologize. I promise I will get to it sooner or later. But let’s be real, it will probably be later.

Life has been moving at a pace worthy of a speeding ticket. And me? I am keeping up, but most of the time completely out of breath. This summer I started working my first full time job, and an adjustment that was. But when I think about the summer, it feels like a blur. I blinked and school was starting again. There were so many times this summer that I sat down to write about all the Lord was teaching me, but I could never transpire it into words. I have never gone through a season of life like I did the past couple months, a season of pure conviction.

At times it tasted so sweet, and other times it was painful, but is that not what conviction should be? Jesus reveals to us things that are impure. Things in our lives that have no place. He reveals character defects that must change. To see that, to realize those things, that is painful. But it is when you are in that place and know that you still have a downpour of grace raining down, that you finally understand how sweet grace really is. I tasted that grace this summer and I will never be the same.

Like I mentioned before, there was so much I wanted to write about, but it never came. But this I realized, Jesus did not want me to write. Sometimes when I come to this blank page, my first thought goes to the views, or the response I will receive. I am so quick to make it all about myself. If that is ever my intention then I hope/pray that Jesus does exactly what He did the summer, strip me of all words.

The well-known phrase of “personal relationship with Jesus” became active in my life this summer.  By that I mean, all that what transpiring in my heart, all that was being chiseled away, all that Jesus was showing me about Himself, I was simply just sitting in it with Him. In a world that screams social media, sometimes we are so quick to put our spiritual lives on display for the world to see. I am the first to say that I believe that social media is an incredible outlet for the gospel, but when it becomes your only outlet then a bigger problem is at hand. I am also the first to say that I am guilty of snatching up my phone to tweet the latest verse I read. But this summer that changed. This summer it was just me and Jesus. The need of the world to know every detail of my quiet times became nonexistence, and how much more personal my relationship with Him became.

Every time I started to compose a tweet, or pull up a word document, Jesus gently pulled me away time after time and spoke into my heart, “they don’t have to know.”  I was so unsure of why He was doing this for so long. But after so many occurrences of the same thing, I came to be aware that I was just trying to prove myself to everyone, to make sure people knew how spiritual I was. But if I am turning my life into a megaphone of how spiritual I am compared to a megaphone of how alive Jesus is then I am missing it. I am getting it all wrong. I wanted to just do and Jesus wanted me to just be with Him.

Hillsong has a song out right now with the lyrics, “I touched the sky when my knees hit the ground.”

This could sum up the past couple months for me. On my knees I was found time after time, thanking Him for His grace. Thanking Him for second chances. Thanking Him for wanting my relationship with Him to be personal.  Thanking Him for the patience He has with me even when I make the dumb mistakes time after time. It was when I finally went into that posture that I could hear what He has been trying to tell me so long, “First, I just want you.”

Yes, He wants so much more from us, our talents, our time, etc.  But first, He just wants you. He wants you with Him, in the most personal relationship. He wants you to sit and not do one thing. He wants you to taste His grace and experience His love. When you have experienced that, it will be the fuel to set a fire down in your heart, and to send you out into this world that desperately needs Him.

To my fellow writers:

I encourage you to not feel the need to tell the world all that Jesus is doing in your life. Let some of it be personal, just Him and you. Let there be freedom in your lives when you do not write. Jesus does not think more or less of you depending on how many blog post you compose in a year. Take it from me; sometimes the best thing that could ever happen to you is to not have words. Sometimes you don’t need words, you just need THE word.

To all:

Know that conviction is the door we should always walk through. The door that will always lead us to the humility we need, and the door that leads us straight to an ocean of grace. It will be painful at times, but it is so worth it. Know that you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, but instead you just need to go to someone.

As for me right now, I am coaching volleyball again and loving every second of that. I am taking classes and working part time. I am journeying through Psalm 119 with one of my sweet friends and it is rocking both of our worlds. A lot of people ask me, “What is next?” “Are you transferring?” Honestly, I have no idea, but I believe that Jesus will direct my steps. For now, I fix my eyes not on the future, but just on Jesus. Believing He will carve the path out for me to follow.

Psalm 119:133

“Establish my steps and direct them by [means of] your word.”

The Arsenic We Think We Need.

I had a conversation with a girl the other day via text. She said to me, “I am tired of being the good girl, and want to have fun.” Memories came rushing in like a hurricane. There I was my junior year having the same feeling she was. I was so tired of being the girl not invited to any of the parties. I was so tired of being the girl home on the weekends. I wanted to have fun.

By the grace of God, He reeled me back in before I jumped off the cliff. But that feeling, that feeling that a teenage girl texted me she was having, I know that feeling all too well.  What broke my heart was this vibe that I was getting that she felt like she failed because of the way she felt.

What have we done to give this impression that to be honest about where you are at is to be deemed a failure? What have we said that has sent the message that to struggle is to be defeated?

To be honest is a victory in itself.  “Lying lips are extremely disgusting and hateful to the Lord, but they who deal faithfully are His delight.” [Proverbs 12:22]

To struggle, to be weak, that is so be strong.
“…for my power is made perfect in weakness.” [2 Corinthians 12:9]

The lies just keep piling themselves on top of themselves.  It started with Eve.

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5

In other words, God has withheld something from me that I really need. At any time in your life that you have had a void, or a want, that lie has come to you. The suggestion that God has withheld something that you need. Satan was telling Eve that the very thing God told her she didn’t need was actually the thing she needed most.

You see God withholds the arsenic from us and Satan suggest that the arsenic is what we need the most.

What was my arsenic? Whether it was needing to be accepted in the "in-crowd" or have a boyfriend, or be out on a Friday night with everyone else. It was everything I thought I needed, but oh how I didn't

The lies.

Don’t struggle.

Don’t be honest.

God is withholding something from me.

Don’t believe them.

Be honest.

Struggle.

Know that God is withholding nothing from you, only the arsenic.

And take my word for it, changing your ways might result in fun for a while, but eventually your eyes are open and your taste buds are awaken to the arsenic you have been sipping on. Save yourself from having to taste it. Instead taste the grace. Taste the mercy. Taste the unconditional love. Taste the things you won’t find anywhere else.

To the one who is like the girl who texted me: It is okay to be where you are at. You are not a failure. You are not defeated. Most of all, you are not alone, so many of us have been there.

Take it from me….

That arsenic you think you need, you don’t need it.

You just need Him.

On my way.

The white computer screen stares me in the face day after day. But the longer my eyes stare at the white, it slowly transforms into what feels like red and blue lights flashing in my rearview mirror. The officer’s name is emptiness and I think of all the excuses in the book to defend myself.

“Do you know what you have been doing wrong?” he asks

Before I can say anything, he speaks again, “Nothing is wrong.”

Then it all makes sense.

That has been the problem. I stare day in and day out at this blank screen waiting for something to go wrong. When the waves of life, that feel like they have been crashing over you for years and years, finally still themselves to whisper. Then what?

I translate pain into writing. So I have been waiting, waiting for something to go wrong, waiting for the high tide to come once more. I have been waiting for some type of pain, waiting, because if it comes then I can write once more. 

If there was a college degree for “not being okay” I am a Harvard graduate. I’ve grown to be comfortable in the chaos. I’ve grown to adapt to the environment.

Echidnas are like baby porcupines. When they are approached by something threatening they will often curl into a ball, leaving only sharp spikes pointing out toward an attacker, and they stay like that for as long as needed. Go ahead and call me an Echidna. I have curled into a ball, lifted my spikes to the sky, and have stayed like that as gravesides and rehab facilities have attacked. But now, how do I get out of that ball?

If you have read my other post, you know that Jesus has done amazing things in my family’s life this past year. You wait and wait for the day to come when the pelting of the rain storm finally stops, but now that it has come I have found myself so empty.

I have become so good at being "not" okay, that I do not know how to be okay. I do not know how to have that same desperation for Jesus in the everyday life as I did when I sat outside my room listening to my mom and brothers fight.

I don’t know how to translate joy.

But last night, Hannah Brencher, spoke at a girl’s night for my church, and said something that left me mouth wide open.

She said, “It’s not okay to just be lost anymore. You have to be found.”

Jesus was so clearly saying to me that it’s not enough to just translate the pain anymore, but that He wants me to learn to translate the joy. He was so clearly saying to me that it’s not enough to just be content with being not okay, but that He wants me to learn to be okay. He was so clearly saying to me that it isn’t okay to just be desperate for Him in the hard times, but that He wants me to learn to be desperate for Him all the time.

And then I cried to a stranger.

I have never met Hannah. I follow her blog (you should too) but I have never spoken to her. But of course I was assigned to sell her books last night. So she was standing next to me moments after she finished speaking, and I kept fighting myself before I leaned over to her and told her how what she said hit me so hard. Before I knew it my eyes were filled with tears as I told her, “I just don’t know what to write.”

In the most tender voice she said, “that’s when it’s the most important that you go to the page.”

More words were exchanged before we ended our conversation with her just saying, “keep writing.”

So today, I write. I write because it’s not enough to just translate the pain. I write because it’s not enough to just be desperate for Him when it’s hard. I write because it’s not enough to be content with being not okay. I write because the grace that flows down daily covering me, gives me a reason to write. I write because it’s not enough to just be lost anymore.

Here is to being found.

Here is to learning to be okay.

Here is to finding Jesus is the everyday moments

Here is to learning to translate the joy.

“All is okay here. You are free to go on your way,” the officer said.

On my way I will go…

Still learning,

Adria

 

Jesus is life.

It was like waiting for the doctor to come into the waiting room and tell you they were going to make it.

It was like being Jonah in the bottom of a whale waiting for my cry to be heard.
“He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.” [Jonah 2:2]

It was like watching the little dots on an imessage waiting for a response.

It was like looking for land when you have been lost at sea.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

I left church one Sunday months and months ago with a weight in my hand. The weight took form in a light bulb. We were in a series called “Winsome” where our pastor was nailing over and over that a desire needed to be birthed in us to see people come to see Jesus.

Light bulbs were given to us. Given to us to represent a person we wanted to see go from death to life. The light bulb was to serve as a reminder of that person, to pray for them, and when the time came that they found their way to the feet of Jesus we would give them the light bulb. Our pastor encouraged us to think of someone and to commit to praying for them to find Jesus, but as I sat in my chair while he talked my mind couldn’t find its name to one person. There was no one being laid on my heart.

My pastor said, “it could be your sister who has flushed your finances down the toilet and is a drug addict.” I can still hear the words clear as day. It might not have been my sister, but I knew, I knew my light bulb was for my brother.

Addiction has run rabid through my family this past year. I have never faced that struggles, and that is only by the grace of God. But because of that I couldn’t relate, and I searched for the compassion, but resentment was the only thing I could find.

But something shifted in me that day. My resentment became conviction. For so long I was just wishing/praying my brother would stop doing drugs, because that would solve all the problems. That would stop my resentment. That would remove my embarrassment of having to tell people he was in rehab. That would stop my mom from having to spend money on him.  But in the end none of that was the answer, Jesus was.

My prayers changed that day. Because everything I was praying was all about me. Selfish prayers are as good as no prayers.

So it began.

Days.

Weeks.

Months.

Journal entries.

I prayed. I prayed that my brother would become the prodigal and return home to the father.  But every Sunday, the “Jesus is life wall” where the light bulbs where to be screwed into, starred me in the face and was a painful reminder that I had to keep praying.

But that is when the praying means the most. When you are so tired, growing hopeless, and just want to throw the towel in. That is when it is most important to keep praying. When the words are barely coming out and your knees ache from finding yourself on them. Even then… keep praying.

Yesterday marked 7 months.

7 months that my brother has been at rehab.

We loaded up the car and drove 3 ½ hours to what they call his “blessing” aka when he leaves to come home. In the back of the room we sat, me and the rest of my family, as one man after another got up and shared about my brother and the impact he has had on them while he has been in this treatment center.  Then he got up. The words that came from his mouth were words that sent me into flashbacks of night and nights of begging God to do what only he could do.

Jesus did it.

They offered the chance for the family to say something if they wanted. As I walked to the front of the room, where 51 guys waited for me to get words out, I knew this was the time. I explained the “Jesus is life wall” and the winsome series, etc….

You see, I held on to that light bulb. I held on to that light bulb, with faith that Jesus would bring my brother home, and yesterday it made a change. It went from being a weight in my pocket, to being a tangible way of showing my brother that not once did I stop praying for him, not just me but so many others as well.

The moment when I handed him the light bulb that I have held on to for so long will be engraved in my mind/heart for the rest of my life. But something else will too…

Talking in front of that many guys can be intimidating, especially when you know the journey they are on, but as I looked out and saw so many of them eyes full of tears something clicked in me.

For some the tears came from the sentimental aspect of the moment me and my brother shared, but I think the message to most of them was, “she didn’t give up.” 

I think that’s it.

I think that sometimes people just need to know that you won’t give up on them. I think that sometimes people need to know that you will walk the road back with them, hand in hand. I think sometimes people need to know that the messiness doesn’t scare you off. I think sometimes people need to know that even if it takes months and months that you will wait. Because all those things simply say, “I believe in you.”

Yesterday my brother came home from rehab, but more than that, yesterday my brother became the prodigal returning home.  Seven months clean, which is what we all desperately wanted. But more than that he knows it was all Jesus, and that is something that makes all the waiting so worth it.

Today, we celebrate. We celebrate a simple little light bulb. We celebrate it finally finding its way to the person it was designed for. We celebrate the returning of the prodigal. We celebrate that Jesus works while we wait. We celebrate that my brother now has a story to tell.

A story that says, “Jesus is able.”

A story of someone walking out of the darkness and into the light.

A story of someone going from death to life.

A story that he will now go and tell.

 

Keep praying.


Jesus is life.