Before and After.

“When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.” – Psalm 94:19

The past few months I have felt more alive than I had for a while. I feel like me again. Not the me that was battling with anxiety or fear or depression, just me. Free to laugh, free to love, free to experience joy. Just free.

And there’s no way to explain it, except by the grace of God. Yes, I did quit my thesis and start seeing a counselor, but I did not solve this problem myself. There has still been plenty that I could be anxious about. I just haven’t been. Even as I was processing what I want to do after graduation and living in that season of uncertainty, I had peace. I got this new perspective — that we never actually know what we’re doing next year and we always need to be trusting God with our futures. Right now, I’ve just been in a season where that is a lot more evident.

I’m at a place where I can recognize that it is by the grace of God that I am not struggling with anxiety or fear the way I was. He has restored my soul, and His comfort brings me joy. He breathed life into my dry bones, and His living water awoke my desert soul. I am so incredibly thankful to not only be alive, but to be genuinely living again. And I owe that all to my God, the rock in whom I take refuge.

❤ Lizzy

Thoughts from Airports.

There’s something about an airport. I know I’m not the first to be mesmerized by the beauty that is a collection of people from all over the world, each on their own journey. (I mean, isn’t that what Love, Actually is actually about?) I’ve been in dozens of airports in my life and every time, I get that little thrill of embarking on an adventure and imagining the adventures of those around me. I don’t love flying, honestly the whole concept still kinda  freaks me out– like not even the metal hurtling through the sky part, but the fact that you walk into a room, sit down, wait a few hours and leave that same room in a different country. Where was I? Right, airports, I love them. There’s a piece of me that wanted to be Tom Hanks from The Terminal. (Except for the war torn country and borderline captivity thing.)

I’m writing this from a layover in Kansas City (not in Kansas) on my way to Panama City Beach, Florida for a spring break trip with Cru. (Because Missouri is in between Massachusetts and Florida, I guess? Sometimes I think the Southwest people have never seen a map of the U.S.) I love watching everyone waiting at their gates–the families, and couples, and those who are flying solo like me. There’s such energy, but simultaneously time is frozen. Like if I thought about the fact that I woke up in my bed in Boston and now I’m in the state of Missouri and there are thousands of people around me in this city and state living their lives and going about their normal days, my head might explode. This city is someone’s home, and I will probably never meet them, but they have a life and a family and a story all of their own. Gosh dangit, the world is a big place. 

I’m excited to be in Florida on Big Break this week and experience one more little leg of my journey — to meet new people I would never have met if I’d stayed in the little snow globe I call home. I can’t wait to see what God will do this week and how He will surpass every expectation. Wherever you are, I hope you’re enjoying this part of your story, too. Happy Spring Break!

❤ Lizzy 

(Un)Qualified.

I am currently in that scary stage of life where I am attempting to discern the first step in the next phase of life. I am graduating in three months, and that security blanket of class schedules and work and student activities will soon disappear. The blanket may have been scratchy at times, but it’s still all I know. Now the time has come for me to shove it in a box in my parents’ garage with all the other remnants from my past.

Even though this era of transition is totally terrifying and totally exciting, most of all it is just totally weird. I still feel like a little kid pretending to be a grown up, hoping that no one around me will notice the facade. [Picture Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30, sans the sweet apartment and beauty that is Mark Ruffalo.] How am I supposed to persuade someone else that I will make a productive contribution to society, and then convince them to pay me to do it?

The biggest problem is that all these jobs and opportunities I’m interested in require significantly more experience than I have. Required: 5 years professional experience. Unless the job consists of mildly amusing tweets or discussing feminist theory in Joss Whedon shows, I can guarantee I do not have five years of experience doing it. Does that mean I’m not supposed to go for it? Should I resign myself to being an impoverished intern for the next five years? I sure hope not.

The truth is, I have a lot of experience, just not the kind that fits nicely on a resumé. I’ve traveled and studied languages. I’ve invested in community and maintained 20 year long friendships. I’ve taken time to grow as a person and figure out my own identity. I’ve engaged with issues of social justice, gender, race, class, mental illness, on personal and academic levels. I’ve learned to say no to lesser things, so I can say yes to things that matter. I’ve learned to be vulnerable and authentic and raw.

And I’ve learned that even if it feels like I’m just shouting into the void (™ John Green and every other YA author), it’s worth it to pursue the things I’m passionate about. So no, I may not be qualified for all these jobs, but that sure as heck won’t stop me from applying anyway.

❤ Lizzy

PS. Somebody please hire me. K thanks bye.

Snowy Senioritis.

Let me set the scene for you. January 2011. Hamden, Connecticut. I was a senior in high school, fresh off Christmas break. Just as we were beginning to start up classes for my final semester at the tiny Christian school I’d been at for as long as I could remember, a giant snowstorm dumped several feet of snow on our little state. We ended up getting a full week off school. We were quite literally buried in snow, and it took weeks, maybe even months before a non-white patch of ground was visible anywhere in the state. I peered around towering snow banks in order to merge into traffic. I constantly had to move my car and park it other places to avoid plows. I went sledding and built snowmen and hibernated at home. It was a beautiful time. My graduation date was set, so I didn’t have to worry about school extending further into my precious summer vacation.

Fast forward, four years later. January 27, 2015. Boston, Massachusetts. Once again, I am a senior, but this time at Boston University. Winter storm Juno dumps two feet of snow on Boston over the course of two days. Classes are canceled. Snow dunes fill Commonwealth Avenue. I go out to play in the snow. We have snowball fights. We walk on the frozen Charles River. We hibernate in our dorms, fueled by hot chocolate and Netflix and wine. It’s beautiful. A few days later, another storm, another snow day. Then a week later, another snow day and another. In all, we have had five snow days in three weeks. A month into the semester, and I have yet to have a full week of school. But once again, my graduation date is set. Sure, we have to make up classes on a few Saturdays, the way they took away our February break back in 2011, but I think it’s worth it.

I have always been pretty academic. I don’t always love doing my school work, but I’m usually able to motivate myself fairly easily to get done everything I need to.  But there’s something about Senior spring. It’s so easy to kick back and just want to skate through the rest of the year (quite literally). All these snow days are wonderful, but they are not making me any more motivated. It’s time to get my butt into gear and plow ahead (so many snow puns) through my work. Because eventually, I may actually have to go to class. But who knows? I hear there’s another storm coming through tomorrow.

January 2011. Snow day chic.

February 2015. Boston.

On Letting Go and New Beginnings.

I guess February is as good a time as any to write my first blog post of 2015. Honestly, I think it has taken me a full month to figure out what the heck happened in 2014 anyway. The short version is that 2014 was really really hard. I struggled with severe anxiety, basically stopped sleeping for weeks at a time, and had my life turned entirely upside down several times.

In the midst of all that upheaval, I tried a lot of new things, and subsequently failed at a lot of them. I had never really failed at anything before, but I also had never attempted anything of that magnitude either. This crazy challenging year was a tornado that wreaked havoc on everything that had previously appeared so stable and established.

But despite failing often and being perpetually confused, I had opportunities to see the Lord work in ways I had never experienced before. So even in the middle of the, for lack of a better term, shit show that was 2014, I grew and learned so much about who God is outside of my limited perspective on Him and who I am.

After the chaos and turmoil, I crawled my way into 2015, so thankful to have made it (even just metaphorically) to the other side. I have no doubt this will be a year of new beginnings. After all the changes that happened last year, there’s no way it can’t be.

I quite literally woke up on January 1st in a state I had never been to before on the way to a new house on the opposite side of the country from everything I’ve ever known. (That particular adventure will be documented further at a later date.) I spent the first few weeks of this year helping my parents move into their new life in California — 3,000 miles away from the place that has always been home.

And now I’m sitting in Boston, in my final semester of college, looking out into the great unknown that is my future. On December 29th, I said goodbye to my childhood home, the place where I became who I am. And on May 17th, I am going to say goodbye to college and the place where I became an adult. But with both these crazy traumatic goodbyes, comes a beautiful exciting new beginning on the horizon. I hope.

Hasta luego, Hamden.

One Year.

April, 15, 2013. For many people around the world that date might not mean much, but here in Boston, it means everything. It’s the day we all discovered again just how strong we really are. I always feel uncomfortable talking about the marathon bombings, not just because it was a tragic event in my city, but mainly because I wasn’t there. My story from that day never felt valid, because I was 3,000 miles away when I experienced it. In moments of crisis, everyone has their stories about where they were when they heard the news. I’ve heard a dozen times the story of my Mom watching the news after JFK was shot. For 9/11, I was in my 3^rd grade classroom. I didn’t really know what was going on, but all the teachers seemed nervous. I saw Seniors walking down the halls crying. Kids whose parents worked in New York started being pulled out of school early, and there was palpable panic in the air.

And on April 15, 2013, my story didn’t take place on the finish line, or even in my dorm in Kenmore Square. When I heard about the Marathon Bombings, it was already dark outside, and I was sitting in my bed, in my little room, in my apartment, on Calle Manuel Cortina in Madrid, Spain. Earlier that evening, I had gotten drinks with friends, our usual sangria at Bar Miguel Angel. We had celebrated “Marathon Monday, Madrid Style.” We had toasted to Boston and to the Marathon and to all our friends back home who were drinking and cheering on the marathon from the sidelines. That night, I didn’t know what had happened until Facebook statuses started streaming in, saying “I’m safe.” I stayed up until 3 or 4am, waiting to sleep until I was sure that every person I loved and cared about back in Boston was safe. I desperately refreshed the Boston Globe website, hoping for more updates. I remember waking up the next morning and being unable to go to work or class, because the memory of what had happened the day before had begun to sink in. There was an aching in my gut that I just couldn’t shake. I had to learn how to say “bombing” and “explosion” in Spanish so I could explain what had happened to my host family.

Everyone told me they were so happy I was in Madrid, because that meant I was safe. But every time I thought about that, I felt even more nauseous. Because the last thing I wanted was to be safe. I wanted more than anything to be in Boston, to love and serve and comfort everyone who was hurting there. Because maybe if I could just do something, just help in some small way, I would be able to stop crying and wouldn’t feel so nauseous all the time. But instead I remained paralyzed, unable to make sense of any of it, and unable to move forward. I had never felt so helpless in my entire life. I couldn’t do anything, so I prayed. I prayed for four days straight.

The most poignant moment in that blur of grieving for my city took place when I finally went back to work. I worked at a refugee center during my time in Madrid, and I was taking one of the men who lived there to an eye doctor to get new glasses. He and I were fairly close, and he knew that I went to school in Boston. As we were walking to his appointment, this man, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who had been forced to leave his home and family and move to an entirely new country fearing for his life, looked me in the eye and said, “I am so sorry for what is happening in your home.” And nothing meant more to me in that moment than his simple understanding and sympathy.

Late that Friday night, I stayed up to watch the news stream in as the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ended in Watertown. The moment he was caught, I felt a surge of relief throughout my entire body. The tension melted away, and I started to breathe deeply for the first time all week. I was finally able to sleep well that night, knowing that justice would be served, and Boston would be a little bit stronger.

When I went back to Boston over the summer for the first time, I walked the mile from my dorm in Kenmore Square to the Finish Line. As I stood on that faded blue and yellow paint, I let all the emotions from that crazy week wash over me one more time: the fear, the sorrow, the pain, followed by the joy, the relief, the courage, and most of all the love. I have been in love with this city since the moment I unpacked my bags in August 2011, and on April 15, 2013, the most overwhelming emotion I experienced was love. Boston was the home I chose, and I have never stopped loving it. And I will continue to love it next Monday along with runners from all around the world, during the 118th Boston Marathon. 

That love fueled me, so that even during the biggest crisis of my adult life, all the way from another continent, we remained Boston Strong.

❤ Lizzy

 

Marathon Monday, Madrid Style
April 15, 2013

 

 

 

The Power of Stories.

There was a really great response to the blog I wrote this past weekend about “Choosing Joy.” It reminded me why I started blogging in the first place. This blog started in November of 2012, when I was (surprise) feeling depressed and apathetic and needed a creative outlet to process through all the junk going on in my head. I had attempted to blog every day of November, and miserably failed. But that didn’t really matter, because the process of blogging even just a few days that month helped me work through my thoughts and emotions and experiences, and even just helped me get out of my own head. What I hadn’t been expecting when I started blogging a year and a half ago was that other people would actually read them. People started messaging me telling me that they had experienced the same things, or even just commented to say that they understood how I felt. It had started out as a solo project to get out of my own head, but blogging was even more therapeutic as it created a method to connect with other people.

The title of my blog comes from a phrase that I use extremely regularly in real life. Whenever I’m with friends, and I’m trying to get their attention so I can tell them something, I usually announce “Storytime with Lizzy”. It’s basically my way of telling people that they need to stop what they’re doing and pay attention to me now. (Because I’m actually a 5 year old.) The truth is, though, that I just really love stories. I think they matter a lot. Telling stories is my way of making sense of the world and my own experiences within it. It’s a way of taking control of my own life, and making it the way I want it to be. Simple errand runs can become epic adventures. Horrible, bad days can become funny anecdotes. It’s a way of defining myself as an individual. But it’s also a way of connecting with others. When I tell stories, it gives others a glimpse of who I am, my values, my sense of humor, and my worldview.

It makes sense, then, why one of my favorite TV shows is How I Met Your Mother, which is literally 9 seasons of one guy telling his kids the story of how he met their mother. In fact, Narrator Ted tells stories the way I do—taking way longer than necessary, adding superfluous background information, and going off on hundreds of tangents within tangents. But it’s not just this frame story that I love. Even within ridiculous sitcom subplots and shenanigans, the show is based in real characters and real friendships. Despite the drama, the five main characters: Ted, Barney, Marshall, Lily, and Robin, really do love each other and have each other’s backs. They grow together and challenge each other to be better (usually). I started watching the show when the fourth season started, and last night the final episode aired. Over the past five years of watching this show consistently, I feel like I’ve grown up along with these characters. The show gave me a new vocabulary, new holidays, and a renewed belief in the importance of friendships. And as silly as it may sound, watching the final episode felt like saying goodbye to the gang at MacLaren’s.

Good stories have a way of drawing us into them. They give us a new perspective to view the world. We can see our own lives through the filter of the experiences of others. And by telling stories, I’m able to bring my friends into my world and my life. Telling stories is a way I can share parts of my life with friends who may not have been there yet. Because in the words of Barney Stinson, “Whatever you do in this life, it’s not legendary if your friends aren’t there to see it.”

❤ Lizzy

Choosing Joy.

I filled up my journal yesterday, and haven’t had time to buy a new one yet. So I’m going to go back to what I used to do, and record all my thoughts and emotions for the entire internet to see. 

The bottom line is, I’m tired of just waiting to feel better, and I am deciding to choose joy. For the majority of this semester, I have been struggling on and off with pretty severe depression and anxiety. I haven’t been sleeping, I worry constantly, and I’ve believed countless lies, including a few of my personal favorites like: “you can’t do anything right”; “God could never use you”; and “you will always be stuck in this rut”. About a month ago, I finally began to see these statements for the lies that they are. But recognizing that something isn’t true, isn’t always enough to keep you from thinking about it. The thing about depression is, it is inherently selfish. And I don’t mean that as a judgment call in any way on people who suffer and struggle with depression, but it’s true. When I am depressed, I am physically incapable of thinking about anything except for myself: my problems, my loneliness, my expectations, and how I don’t measure up. It makes it impossible to step outside of yourself and see what God is doing all around you. As I stop being so internally focused, and begin looking at Jesus, I am able to realize that my depression isn’t quite so heavy. I can put it in perspective and see it for what it is, a lack of deep dependence on the Lord. (Disclaimer: this is just based on my own personal experience with depression and does not necessarily apply if someone is clinically, medically depressed or has some type of chemical imbalance or other mental illness.) As I look to Jesus and learn to depend on Him (because really I am incapable of doing anything without Him), I begin to see more clearly what He is doing all around me. I am able to step outside of myself and be a part of His plan for my city and love people sacrificially the way He did (though admittedly never as perfectly as He loves us).

This brings us to now. I have begun to recognize the amazing things God is doing in my life, and in the lives of friends, family, and even strangers all around me. But even as I see these things, and praise God for His goodness and faithfulness, I still don’t always get excited about them. I still struggle with apathy and cynicism. I still find myself trapped by “realistic Christianity” instead of praying for God to do big, unexpected, seemingly impossible things and actually believing and expecting that He will. I see friends who are so passionate about what Jesus is doing, and I find myself wishing that I could be like that—that I could be so hungry for God’s word and desperate for His presence. I would pray for that desire, and would occasionally catch glimpses of it, but it never took hold the way I wanted it to. I was living under the assumption that it would just happen, that I could passively wait around until God gave me a deeper desire for Him. I felt this way, until I watched this video. After watching it, I started to question those assumptions. That’s when I came to this conclusion. I am tired of waiting to feel better, so I am going to choose joy. Because joy is a choice. Choosing joy is choosing to see what God is doing and celebrating it. It’s about being thankful for the people, places, and time that God has given you. And most importantly, it’s about recognizing that God’s plan for the world is exciting! So, I am deciding to be excited about it.

 

❤ Lizzy  

Divine Restlessness.

Today was the first day of classes, marking the beginning of the spring semester. The past few days I’ve been attempting to get excited about this semester and everything God has in store. But for some reason, every time I try to think about the next four months, I find myself facing a giant blank void. I spent so much time praying and thinking about what to do next summer, that I forgot to spend any time praying about God’s will for my spring. After an emotionally and spiritually charged season of my life, my natural reaction is to ask “Now what?” I spent so much energy pushing through the end of last semester and all of my Christmas break, that I came out the other side dazed, confused, and unsure of where I was running to all this time. 

I’m trying to believe that God is going to do big things this semester even though I have no concept of what those things could possibly look like. I am desperately trying to avoid the rut I find myself in so often. When I don’t find a satisfying answer to the question of “Now what?” I sink into a familiar apathy of passing time and doing activities without understanding why. When I lose sight of my purpose within God’s plan, I lose any conviction to keep going and give up before I even begin. Mumford & Sons’ line from “I Gave You All” regularly resonates with me: “If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy, I could have won.” I know what it’s like to drown in apathy and depression, and that is not how I want to live. 

Intellectually, I know that God has a plan for my life and even for this semester, even if I don’t understand it yet. But here I am again, asking that always terrifying but sometimes paralyzing question, “Now what?” 

When I find myself with wrestling with confusion or uncertainty about the future, I reread my favorite book: Just Courage by Gary A. Haugen, the founder of International Justice Mission. I know I should turn directly to Jesus, and I often do, but sometimes in the midst of my ennui or fear, it’s hard for me to see what is right in front of me, and I need a little help getting there. When that is the case, I open up Just Courage. It’s an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone, especially if you’re uncertain about God’s call on their lives. He addresses these “Now what?” moments of our lives, saying that this voice we hear is “divine restlessness, sacred discontent, and a holy yearning for more”. This resonates with me deeply. I understand that God has promised an abundant life, but I have trouble reconciling that idea with the life I am actually living. In the book, he continues:

“For Christians the question Now what? finds its answer in the question For what? For what purpose have we been rescued and redeemed? In order to know what is supposed to come next, we must have a clear understanding of the ultimate destination of our spiritual journey.”  

What is the destination of my spiritual journey? Is it just to live some comfortable, peaceful life in a relationship with Jesus? That sounds nice, but it doesn’t satisfy that divine restlessness within me to do more. I may not always understand God’s specific plan for my life in a season, but His divine calling never changes. He has called me, the redeemed, to restore His world to Himself though His divine power. 

I am weak and vulnerable and clueless. And right now I am experiencing that weakness in a very profound way. I don’t feel like I can do anything this semester of any worth. But 2 Corinthians 12:9 tells me that His power is made perfect in my weakness. I can’t lose sight of the mission He has entrusted me with, to be the light of the world and reflect Jesus in every facet of my life, even if I don’t always understand what He is doing. 

I have no idea what this semester is going to look like. But I trust the God who put me here, and I believe that His grace is even sufficient for me. He will guide me every day and do extraordinary things through me when I depend on Him and step out in faith. 

❤ Lizzy 

Looking Ahead.

It’s always impossible to adequately sum up an entire year. But I always feel some amount of tension on New Year’s Eve. I’m supposed to look back and reflect on the year behind me and wrap it all up in a neat bow with bullet points of wisdom to guide me as I start the next year. But it would take forever to sufficiently process 2013, so let’s just skip that part and look ahead to 2014. 

2014.

It’s an open book, exciting and a bit overwhelming. I honestly have not thought that much about this new year, so it managed to creep up on me. I have no idea what I want it to look like. Sure, I have vague desires for joy and peace and love and a sense of direction in life, but nothing concrete. I’ve accomplished so many of my life goals this year, yet it still wasn’t perfect. I still struggled with loneliness, and depression, and crippling self-doubt that I was never doing quite enough. But throughout that confusion and pain, somehow I still managed to be a part of some amazing things. I explored the world and learned so much about myself and God’s plan for my life. But even so, some of these goals didn’t bring the satisfaction I hoped they would. What does that mean for the rest of my life? I think I’m learning that arbitrary goals and experiences aren’t worth as much as we’ve always been taught. In fact, they don’t mean anything if they aren’t according to God’s plan for my life. 

I guess my New Year’s resolution is just to take it one day at a time, looking to Jesus to guide every step, and allowing Him to lead me where He wants me to go. I am going to live vulnerably and love deeply and rest fully in the arms of my God. 

Happy New Year!

❤ Lizzy