Tag: summer

summer in the city: barton fridays

lindsay1 Comment

I’m going to make this short and sweet.

If you live in Austin and don’t go to Barton Springs at least once a week during the summer, you are wrong.

photo 2

My office recently announced the beginning of “summer hours”, which means we get out of work at 3 pm on Fridays. I immediately rallied the girls, and Barton Fridays came into being.

Step 1: Bring my bathing suit to work on Friday. At exactly 3 pm, change into said bathing suit. Drive directly to Barton Springs and bask in the sunshine and wonderful 68 degree water. Yes, 68 is cold. But it’s the most refreshing thing in the world when it’s 100 degrees outside with 90% humidity. It’s also one of the best places in Austin for people watching… so buckle up. Step 1 could last for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours depending on how you’re feeling.

Step 2: Happy Hour at El Alma just down the road. They have the best sangria and mangoritas I’ve tasted in Austin. So we’ll go there, sit outside on their awesome rooftop patio, drink margaritas, eat our weight in chips and salsa, and maybe not leave until 8:30 pm. We’ve done crazier things.

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Moral of the story: Rally your friends and head to Barton Springs. Then, head on over and meet us for margaritas. You won’t be sorry.

Have a great weekend!

themes for summer: part II

lindsay2 Comments

Four and a half months ago my husband and I got married. As some of you might know, one of the greatest parts about getting married is the end of your engagement. Seriously. Now I know why, back in the good old days, the man peaced out for a while to prepare, and just came back when he was ready to take his bride. It can be brutal.

One of the most popular questions we were asked during that 4 month period was:

What’s been the hardest part of being engaged? 

You know what our answer was? Registering. 

Super spiritual, right?

Registering. It’s like an insta-fight. Tell me you’re not going to get ticked off at your fiance when you’re standing in Bed Bath & Beyond at 8:30 pm after you’ve both worked all day, staring at a wall of silverware trying to pick one of the 3,457 options, while being ravenous with hunger because you haven’t eaten anything since lunch? Tell me. I mean, why can’t we just have one option for silverware? Then we can all be united, and not compare ourselves and the world would overall be a better place.

Anyways.

We pushed through. We finished the registry (praise all things holy). And then something crazy happened: people started showering us with gifts. It was like Christmas everyday for two months. The boxes at Taylor’s parents’ house just kept piling higher and higher, and every time we would visit there was something new to unwrap.

Then we got married. And the boxes.kept.coming. Our apartment had a never-ending tower of cardboard for a solid month.

When the gifts finally slowed, and everything was in its place we realized that our friends and family provided us with literally every single thing we needed. I look around our apartment and can count on one hand the items that we owned before we were married. Every other solitary thing, down to measuring cups and dishtowels and soap dispensers, was given to us in one way or another. And we didn’t earn any of it. During this time, it hit me that getting married is either the largest scam on the face of the planet, or an incredible picture of God’s overwhelming love and provision for his children. 

I choose to believe the latter, and am overwhelmed with thankfulness every time I walk in our home. It’s more than enough. We have been spoiled by an abundance of generosity. We want for nothing.

How much more so am I spoiled with the love of my Father? How much more generous is he with me, in giving me his Son Jesus? How much more so has he provided for me in simply giving me life, since I deserve death?

The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing. 

I love this translation of Psalm 23. It reminds me that I already have everything. If I truly believe the Lord is my Shepherd- that He is protecting me, guiding me, rescuing me, making sure I’m fed- then there is nothing in this world I could possibly need that He hasn’t already given me.

My only reaction to that is gratitude. Thankfulness that leads to worship. It can only be that.

My freshman year of college was the first time thankfulness really entered my radar. One Sunday night at Young Life club, our leader told a story of how he challenged a friend to write down five things he was thankful for each day for a year. No repeats. At the end of his four years in college, his friend handed him a notebook, with pages completely filled with things he was thankful for. Our leader challenged us to do the same.

So, I did. During my journals in college, you will find a list of five things I’m thankful for in front of every entry. Sometimes it was as small as coffee in the morning, and sometimes as big as seeing YL kids begin walking with Jesus. But every entry mattered. They mattered because God changed my heart through practicing thankfulness. I realized that even my worst day with Jesus still beat my best day without Him. That in the midst of hurting, God is still good and He is still on his throne. 

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Then, the first two years out of college happened. I experienced heartbreak, failure and brokenness like I never had before. In my life, God has walked me through tough seasons. No one is exempt from those. If you follow Jesus, you will suffer.

But this. This was unlike any of the previous seasons, which is no way lacked significant pain and heartbreak. This type of brokenness was the I can’t bear to get out of bed in the morning because the ache is my heart is too great type of brokenness. I cried and cried. I wrestled with the Lord. I asked Him “Why?” over and over and over. I asked him “Why not?” even more.

“Why couldn’t I do this or that, or be with this person or that person?” “Why am I here, and not there? Why can’t I be there?” Why not?”

I was desperate for answers. I cried out, pleading, demanding to be answered. And the answer I received was,

Wait, trust me.

That was not what I wanted. I did not believe it enough for me, and my heart grew hard.

I felt abandoned, and like the Lord had failed me. I started to believe, although I couldn’t articulate this at the time, that God was punishing me for my failures. I started to believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection wasn’t enough, that I was paying my own price. 

If you look at my journals during that time period, there are no lists of how I saw God that day. You will find very few, if any, lists of things I’m thankful for. In the midst of heartbreak, I stopped practicing thankfulness and started believing I had nothing to be thankful for. That is not a good place to be.

It affected everything. How I thought about life, how I acted towards people, how I dealt with my work and home and friendships. Lies became so rooted in my brain, that I’ve just recently been able to identify them as such and begin the hard work of uprooting and replanting.

Thankfully.. yes, very thankfully, God finally said “That’s it” about a year ago. And to my surprise, he began unashamedly showering me with love from all sides. I began dating Taylor, which showed me a side of Jesus I’d never known before. Our community of friends blossomed, and he gave me an incredible group of girlfriends to live life with. You should see them rally when people are in need. It’s truly a beautiful thing. Taylor and I got engaged and the amount of love and provision we received only escalated. All the gifts, the showers, the parties, the friends staying up late to do wedding crafts, the prayers, the celebration. God shoved it in my face… in his ever-kind, gentle way… that I was loved, and lacked nothing. He reminded me that He had not abandoned me. That I am his child, and he never would. He was not absent during those two years, I just couldn’t see what He was doing. And probably because I’m stubborn, He decided to show me all at once. When He did, I could not deny his love. My heart began to soften, and thankfulness began to return little by little.

photo 2Last week, I got a letter from my sister. The letter’s only purpose was to tell me she loved me, and was thankful for me (She is awesome). Inside the letter was a list I wrote at the end of my freshman year of college titled “Thankful.” The list was 100 items long. She found it as she was cleaning out my old room, and thought I would like to have it. As I re-read the list, I was once again overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness. He is so good.

So I’m practicing thankfulness this summer. It’s the only appropriate response I could possibly imagine for the Shepherd who gave everything, so I would lack nothing.

*****

What are you thankful for right now? I’d love to know! 

themes for summer: part I

lindsay2 Comments

As summer is rolling in, I feel like life has finally settled down. I feel ok saying it’s slowed down to the point where I’m actually able to begin processing the last couple years of my life. What a concept, right? For roughly two years, I’ve felt like life has just happened. Major life changes and events were occurring, and there’s me just swimming along, desperately trying to keep my head above water. Don’t misunderstand me- I’m not saying these events were all bad. I’m saying it’s been A LOT. For an introvert, and someone who needs a significant amount of time to understand what my heart is doing and feeling, these seasons tend to cause a little anxiety. And I’ve been all busy trying not to drown and couldn’t find the time to address it. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath for about 26 months, and I’m finally starting to release it.. little by little.

I’m typically an all or nothing girl. But lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that this might not be the healthiest.. or most effective way to live. I’ll have grand plans or giant dreams that I never take any action towards because I can never figure out how to do all of the things, all of the time. Inevitably, there’s not enough time or energy to make it all happen. I can’t figure out how I could possibly do Step Z, so I end up abandoning the dream as an impossibility before I even try Step A.

As the dust has settled in the last month, three major themes keep popping up in my thoughts, conversations and readings. This is unusual for me, since most of the time my mind is like a pinball machine, bouncing a tiny silver ball around and around with no clear direction or focus (Because I have to think about all of the things, all of the time). So, I’ve decided to try actually paying attention to those themes, since they have somehow managed to become louder than the pinball machine. I’ve decided to work on the art of taking small steps. Of focusing on a few things at a time, biting off small pieces, instead of attempting to stuff an entire slice of pizza in my mouth all at once. We all know how that ends.

Take for example, this post. Originally as I was thinking through how I wanted to write about all this, I thought it would be best to do it all at once. Get it done. Wrap it up. Make it happen and then move on. But that wouldn’t do these ideas justice. Each one is significant and has its own story attached to it. So I decided to write about them one at a time, and fight against my desire to do all of the things, all at the same time. I decided to fight against my temptation to want instant results, which ironically leads me to the first main theme…

Patience. 

Last night, two of our good friends got married. To each other. It was just wonderful. There were so many people we loved there to celebrate, and we tore up the dance floor. Obviously. Josh and Natalie are maybe the most joyful, genuine, sincere couple I’ve ever been around, and it was so refreshing to watch them take in every second of the night.

Like I said, we raged. *Photo by Ryan Lear.
Like I said, we raged. *Photo by Ryan Lear.

Josh’s father, Larry, is a pastor and performed the ceremony. Everyone always told me he is a great speaker, and now I know why. His explanation of how a husband and wife love each other inside of marriage is one of the best I’ve ever heard. He described that love as three movements: the first looking at each other, the second looking at the horizon, and the third looking outward. Each movement had a characteristic attached that he called pivotal to your love growing deeper. When looking at each other, forgiveness is key. When looking outward, spending quality time with each other is key. And when looking at the horizon, patience is key.

The act of looking to the horizon, with your partner by your side is one of looking to the future, asking God what part you play in his will, where He’s taking you. But he’s taking you there as a couple, not as individuals. Two completely different people, two completely different upbringings and backgrounds and world views and thought processes. Two completely separate reactions to the same situation. And God, in his grace, is making you one and taking you to the same place. It’s no wonder why patience is key- that is going to be a long, and often difficult journey.

Just so we’re all on the same page..

Screen shot 2013-06-10 at 11.29.52 PM

Well. Based on this definition, it’s safe to say patience is not one of my strong suits. The second definition is what does me in: an ability to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay. Heck, I got annoyed with Taylor earlier because we were 7 minutes late to dinner. And don’t even get me started on how restless I’ve been lately. I have dreams, dammit, and I want to be living all of them. Right now.

You see, I want to be at that place on the horizon. And God is showing me is that I lack patience to endure the journey that will get us there. Yikes.

Larry referenced an African proverb in last night’s ceremony that says,

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. 

So often, I trick myself into thinking I would rather go fast. Oh, but when I really think about it, that’s the last thing I want. The last thing I want is to “achieve” something, reach all my goals, and realize I have no one to share it with. No one who knows what I’ve been through, no one’s stories that I know. I’ve always wanted a partner, and I’m so thankful for Taylor. I’m so thankful that we get to journey through life together, but it has become clear to me even in our first five months of marriage that the journey will require patience.

Patience with each other, and with ourselves. The ability to endure our faults and the healing that comes with them, to endure life’s hardships without complaint. The ability to have a quiet, steady perseverance that in the end will lead us to much greater joy than having all of the things.

afterlight

Too often I forget that we’re only 24.. that Taylor and I have barely been a couple for a year. I expect us to have it all figured out. I am impatient. Impatient with myself, impatient with Taylor, impatient with circumstances. Somewhere along the line, I got it in my head that God’s love is performance based. That’s a lie straight from hell, but it’s one that I battle daily. When I believe that lie, I set unrealistically high expectations for myself, and then get impatient with my inability to adhere to my own fabricated standards. I frantically compare myself to anyone and everyone. I get impatient because I don’t believe I am enough, that I’m doing enough… as if God’s acceptance of me could possibly be based on my own merit.

My ability to be patient is directly tied to believing the gospel: I offended the Holy God, and the price to be paid was death. To reach resolution in a conflict, someone has to give. It should’ve been me, but instead God gave me Jesus and completely absorbed the cost of my sin through his death on the cross. When I am believing that my worth is based on that truth, and not on my performance, I can rest. I can be still. I can endure. I can patiently wait on the Lord because I know He has not forsaken me. He had a chance to, and instead he pursued me. I don’t have to strive to earn anything back. I did not lose his love.

So this summer, I’m focusing on patience. With myself, with Taylor, with friends, with circumstances, with our marriage and most of all with God. I’m focusing on enduring with people, and recognizing that life truly is a journey meant to be lived out and experienced little by little. I’m working on listening more to what Jesus says about me, and less to the lies in my head. On giving myself grace, and being still, believing that I am enough because of Jesus. I’m choosing to trust in God’s timing, wait patiently on Him, and ask him to move in my heart and life, instead of trying to do all of the things.. all of the time.