Adventures.

I’ve always dreamed of adventure.

Sleeping under the stars,

Immersing myself in new people and places.

Stories. Oh, the stories.

Stories I would hear. Stories I would tell. Stories I would live.

Someday when I got out.

Out there.

Wherever there is.

But no one tells you about the adventure of investing.

Committing.

Staying.

Choosing people and a place to call your own.

Abandoning the nomad dreams.

Limiting the fantasies, so you can love the reality well.

Adventure is slow.

It’s small and tender.

And it’s found more in the consistent and routine than you’d ever imagined.

It’s messy and not glamorous.

But it’s rich and full and warm.

It’s fewer fireworks,

And more kitchen tables.

In fact it doesn’t really feel much like an adventure at all.

But oh, is it so worth it.

Love Recklessly.

I don’t hear God often. I feel His presence almost all the time, and I connect with Him through praying and reading the Bible, but in my 20 year relationship with Him, I’ve audibly heard His voice only a handful of times. So when I do, it’s life changing. It rewires my heart, creating new pathways for me to seek God and know His plan.

It was 2 years ago. I was in the Middle East, sitting on a giant rock that jutted out into the sea. And in that moment He spoke my identity over me. Identity is a funny thing. It’s something we can spend our whole lives searching for or building. Even when literally passed down from Heaven it can take a lifetime to unravel and understand. It was a brief sentence, a question really. I heard the voice of the Father, full of love, but with a heart breaking for His child who was so lost and confused and didn’t even know it. He said, “Lizzy, I created to you to feel deeply and love recklessly, when did you become so jaded and cynical?” Ouch. It’s a moment and a feeling I’m not likely to forget. In that moment I felt more loved, but more repentant than I ever had before.

I’ve spent the past 2 years unraveling that question. I’ve come back to it time and time again. Feel deeply. Love recklessly. Feel deeply. Love recklessly. In many ways it’s the only calling I know. It’s led to my passion for justice and heart for my community. The phrases echo through my soul over and over again, and each time I feel the weight of them in a new way.

Love recklessly.

Arms and heart wide open. Unashamed of feeling more and unafraid of rejection.

Love abundantly and excessively, like you’ll never run out, because your source is eternal Love Himself.

Committed and overwhelming. Loving people before they’ve earned it and long after they’ve given up trying to earn it.

Love without agenda. Love without walls or armor. Without fear or safety-nets.

It’s a messy and counter-cultural love that’s often viewed as foolish or naïve.

Oh, God, may I never stop loving this way.

March 23, 2016

I really like the idea of writing. I think a lot of people do. I like the idea of expressing myself beautifully and eloquently by pouring out word pictures all over the page. I like fancy journals that make my words look profound when I write in them. I want to be a person with so many thoughts and feelings and original ideas that they burst out of me, forcing me to write them all down before I explode. I’ve spent most of my life wishing I were the sensitive, creative, artist-type. And sometimes I am. But most of the time I’m loud and often shallow. I’m not as introspective as I want to be, and I don’t look at my life’s experiences and draw any kind of universal meaningful conclusions about the world. I like trashy melodramatic TV shows and One Direction and selfies when my eyeliner looks good. I let other people’s words run in my head and let them define myself when I don’t know how to. My narrative is littered with retweets and anecdotes about other people, because I don’t believe I have anything new to add. That would be fine, if it didn’t stress me out so much. I have mini existential crises every three weeks about the war I’m waging in my soul between consuming and creating. Sometimes I forget that the story I’m actually writing will never be read, because it’s more like a tapestry I’ve woven out of the life I’ve chosen. I’ve sacrificed the unwritten novels and poems for taking time to invest in relationships, and I have no regrets. But at the same time, sometimes I wish I could pause everything else just to document who I am at this exact moment. Who I am and what I believe and where I hope my dreams will take me. Because writing it down makes it permanent and concrete. It’s a method to capture the nebulous life that I live and classify it. Sometimes I’m afraid of that permanence. I allow the moment to pass, because I’m afraid to commit to the thoughts and dreams that I know are subject to change. Occasionally, though, I take the leap. I dive deeper into myself and let the waves of emotions and thoughts and real life crash over me. I pause for a moment to reflect and connect and maybe even pull something out of myself I’ve never thought or understood or said before. And in those moments, I finally write.