This week I made a very important purchase. I bought a new journal. It’s cloth bound, and has not one, but TWO ribbons to keep your place, you know, just in case you’re writing two entries at a time. I bought it because my counselor said it might be a good idea to write down when I get triggered. Hearing about a friend’s Mom’s illness. A lady coming into the dessert shop wearing the same scarf and coat my Mom used to wear. A bad dream. Writing these moments down makes it a little better for me, because when I write it down I can control the story. No longer do these painful moments control the narrative. I get a choice with how I integrate them into my life. My life has two bookmarked ribbons, one is placed between the pages of the present keeping tabs on my daily ups and downs, and the other marks the future. Where I will be, what I will accomplish; many stories I don’t know the ending too.

Sometimes I see trauma or bad things that happen as if our hearts are made of stone. We get hit, and they seem to crack and almost break completely. And God comes to the scene of our wrecks and ruins and binds our hearts back together with brightly colored ribbon. Our hearts become soft, like fabric, but they are made hardier, stronger. Ripping seams can be more tedious than smashing concrete. They clothe our souls instead of keeping everyone out.

So if someone lets you in on their story, and shows you their fleshy and fabric heart, carry it gently. When I worked with kids, we called this trauma-informed care. It meant if a kid came to you upset, you didn’t yell right back at them. When I try to live this out in life, I call it compassion. Because you may find, like Jesus, your own heart breaks. But it’s not about you. No answers are needed. No advice asked for. Let the person be living and sharing a Psalm’s depth, from despair to joy. Don’t push them towards a Proverbs response, until they’re ready. We must live in that tension between David’s questions and Solomon’s wisdom. One was the father, the other was the son. Our questions give birth to answers, but it may take a generation.

It may not be a new journal for you, but take a risk my friend. Let your heart break, not over selfish gain or ambition, let it break into pieces so it can be rebuilt.

9“The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?

10“I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give to each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds.

For the first time since her memorial service, I stood in front of a sanctuary of people and shared a little piece of my heart. I was talking about joining small groups and trying to inspire other people, but really I was more personally impacted than anyone sitting in the services. Isn’t it funny how the Lord often works that way? We think we’re doing a “great” thing for him and really he’s doing a great thing to our fallible hearts. Sometimes I really do wish for a stone heart. Something hard and incorruptible. Yet here I am with a very broken and woven heart.

This week my friend Savannah shares her experience moving to NYC for the first time. Savannah is passionate about her faith, ethical fashion, and vegan flat white lattes. Check out her ethical fashion blog if you’re interested in learning more: Savannah Dimarco . I’ve included a few lines from Emma Lazarus’ poem to introduce this blogpost, since they are inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, and referenced below as well. Thanks! Katrina

Emma Lazarus, 1883

“As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge.” – Lais of Marie de France

Thick-curled brunette payot and a wide-brimmed hat. Headphones plugged in. “Wonder what he’s listening to?” I thought, “The Torah through his iPhone?” “Absolutely wonderful.”

I turn the page in my book Ulysses. Leopold Bloom is wandering about Dublin on the way to Dignam’s funeral, dreaming about floating away on a toadstool, and next thinking of the Dead Sea, “couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the.”

The top-hatted fellow steps up out of his seat, getting off at 59th St. Columbia Circle. Shuffles off the train and onto the platform. Doors close. “This is an Uptown Bronx-Bound Express Train.” say a voice over the loudspeaker.

I’ve seen more Jews on the New York City underground than anywhere I’ve previously lived, and it’s caught my heart by surprise. Only last week, I found myself welling into tears on the Brooklyn-bound morning train, listening to “Open Heaven River Wild” by Hillsong whilst a Jewish young man seated beside me read Hebrew scriptures from his smartphone. A person cherished by the Author Himself. Unthinkable that a people group might hold fast to its heritage for millennia, isn’t it? Suffering war, genocide, and diaspora yet somehow retaining its unique cultural and religious personhood from time immemorial. I’ve all-too-often lived in a non-denominational-Protestant-Gentile bubble, haven’t I? How little I’ve known.

On the Manhattan underground, God has prompted me to learn more about His great passion for Jewish history, theology and narratives. And on a wider level, I’ve been reminded that being exposed to something new means seeing a different side of God’s creativity, ingenuity, and heart. Yes, I came to the city primarily to work in publishing and to volunteer with a social enterprise, but since arriving in mid-July, God has broadened my perspective through daily encounters with the #HumansOfNewYork.

I never planned to move to Manhattan. On the contrary, from the moment I left London Heathrow in 2016 on a flight bound for the Václav Havel airport, I was dead-set on returning to Great Britain ‘the first chance I got.’ After a few months in Prague and a year in Portland spent wrestling in prayer, the Holy Spirit encouraged me to say ‘yes’ not to London or Edinburgh, but to New York City.

Sehnsucht

a German noun translated as “longing”, “pining”, “yearning”, or “craving”,^[1] or in a wider sense a type of “intensely missing”.

God knows how much I adore wild gorse and cloud-veiled Munros and the Welsh countryside and the sehnsucht feeling that rises up from it all, but all the same, Jesus knew what I needed even more. What did I need? I needed to look out to Ellis Island, and to wonder what Emma Lazarus’ verses meant for the English and Italian immigrants in my own family or for immigration ethics today. I needed to explore my new neighborhood in Harlem, and to feel consciously that I might be the sole white person on any given street: it is humbling, beautiful, and good. Above all, I needed to feel my own smallness and longstanding ignorance in possessing only fragmentary knowledge about the cultural, racial, ethnic, and socio-political composition of my own country.

I believe that God will use my life and any believer’s life to make an impact on this world for infinite good, and that He delights in bringing us to places that cause our hearts to cascade into fits of total joy. Yet I am beginning to find that actualizing an impactful legacy requires continuous surrender to the Father’s will. He is writing a story of nobility for us, but He also intends for us to embody the characteristics of the noble person He’s created us to become.

Since coming to New York, Jesus has showed me that though He acknowledges my longing for work in social justice abroad, He also knows the narrowness of my current perspective. Against all odds, He’s taken me to the historical center of American immigration to hear others’ perspectives, to experience new cultures, and to discover again and again how much I have to learn. Saying ‘yes’ to New York, it seems, is saying yes to God’s loving authorship in the greater story.

“In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:4-6

Much love,

Savannah

I embarked on a fitness journey this last year. Jesse and I joined an awesome local gym that partners with my work. It builds me up and grows my muscles day by day. But I’m slowly realizing, you can always be stronger. The training doesn’t end. It never stops. I wanted to climb the rope. Done. Now I want to climb the rope faster. I wanted to lift my heels to the bar. Now I want to do it without jumping first. I celebrate for a minute when I reach my goal, and then I have to acknowledge there’s more to accomplish. Because your strength grows when you’re in a process of breaking and rebuilding. It’s good to work hard and accomplish goals. Yet, I am constantly aware that there’s still farther to go. It’s motivating and maddening.

Grief, I’m finding is no easier. Some days I just want to be done with it. To stop the suffering and pain and loss. To break up with it and have a clean break. To not find it punctuating every aspect of my life. To talk with my friends about our “parents” and how they drive us “crazy.” To have a functioning parental unit.  To look back at old pictures and simply sigh at the times gone by, instead of feeling tears choking in my throat. If only it was as easy as climbing a rope. If only you could train and be done, and then I’d finally be satisfied. If only we were made to be that simple. We are made in the image of God, however, so we don’t have the luxury of an easy, simple life. That would mean God is simple and does not experience the depths of loss and love. We are complex and intricate people who feel the acute sense that this world is not our home. We can’t stay here forever.

Genesis 19:17
When they had brought them outside, one said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away.”

Sometimes I find myself wishing to be my pre-grief self. Free of stretch marks from the weight I gained while eating grief casseroles (metaphorically and literally). I’ve since lost the “weight,” but those marks remind me of what happened. They’re scars, in a way. I found that when I start to struggle with my own body image, I’m usually struggling with grief and/or transitions in my life. I don’t really hate how I look, or think all my clothes are terrible, and that I would be better off as a troll under a bridge (you’ve probably had one of those days too). Really, what I’m saying is, “I’m not comfortable with this new normal,” “I’m not comfortable in this world where she isn’t.” It all boils down to, do I really believe I’m made in the image of God? Am I thankful for the person he’s making me into? Or am I going to rebel and seek to steal, kill, and destroy this gift I’ve been given?

Isaiah 61:3 ESV
To grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

How do I grow as a woman apart from her? I can be trapped in the lie that if I return to a previous version of myself, all my current problems will disappear. I don’t want to move on, but I’m propelled forward whether I embrace it or not. Time can be viewed as either a cruel teacher, or a persistent trainer.

At first, I started going to Terrain (the gym’s name) just to prove to myself I could do it and have something in common with some of my coworkers. Then, as my body started to change I realized that I was starting to get caught in the trap of vanity. I found myself looking forward to going back to my old pair of jeans. My Mom had complimented me on these jeans. Then the jeans got a hole in them and I had to throw them out and Jesse just shook his head cause it was a TRAUMATIC experience for my hoarder heart. “I know you really love those jeans, but it’s time to throw them away,” he told me. What I really needed to throw out was my broken mentality. I thought the point of exercise was to return to who you were before (which is impossible). Change happens and then we must choose to transition onward.

I thought that the point of working through your grief was to return to who you were before. That mentality steals, kills, and destroys. Even if I hadn’t lost my Mom, I still can’t be the same person I was. The point is to be refined and grow into the strong, powerful, and beautiful woman of God I’m called to be in this part of the story. This is our inheritance.

Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV
To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.