Running

Listening to:http://youtu.be/TCunuL58odQ

I am such a terrible runner.  I think maybe the world's very worst runner.  I started running 8 years ago after a miserable breakup and failed relationship.  Every run I would blast music in and attempt to escape the soul numbing pain that coursed through my body and spirit.  The hilarious thing about choosing this type of workout goes back to the bleachy, florescent halls of Mission Middle school. 

 It was seventh grade.  It was gym class.  I was a bit chubby and totally awkward.  Lucky me it also happened to be presidential fitness testing and it was time to run "The Mile".

It didn't exactly go well.  

I was the last one running.  Red faced, winded and beyond horrified my sweet gym teacher decided everyone should follow beside me and cheer me on. To encourage me ensure complete and utter humiliation.  I did finish the mile, but a pure hatred for running and any type of group sport that required coordination or hustle was forever banned from my wheel house.  

That's why 10 years later when I laced up a brand new pair of tennis shoes (my very first pair that weren't cheerleading shoes) it was rather a bizarre choice.  That day in an effort to cauterize my heart and move forward, I developed a very dangerous habit, fleeing.  Soon running became my modus operandi and it wasn't long before I even was evading God and anyone that dared near my very tattered, barely beating heart.  

Recently I have had a change of heart, a total shift in direction.  I find myself running full force towards the Lord and his communion table.  I mean actually running, at church, through a crowd of people.  Don't let your grandma get in front of me!  I find myself running towards the communion table because I am craving the remembrance, the acceptance, the passion, the remembrance of Jesus' joyful acceptance of suffering for me.  What a beautiful gift to have a physical reminder of the love and sacrifice which he so freely gave to us.  He is literally the only one who ever has, and ever will love you to death.    Because of his great love.  I am finally responding to His jealousy and I feel Him whipping around me, His soul hurricane breaking my branches.  And my heart is yet again turning violently inside of my chest, but for once my reaction is different.  Rather that hide, I pursue, rather than flee I run towards him.  Eyes fully fixed on the prize and the glory.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1 & 2 (NIV)

And because your body needs a little nourishment too, a hearty comforting (but healthy) recipe

Sagey Butternut squash

1 cubed butternut squash ( I bought one precut because it was actually cheaper and I was feeling actually lazy)

1 bag or stalk of brussel sprouts

1 handful fresh sage

1/2 handful fresh rosemary

olive oil

maple syrup

S&P

optional: pomegranate seeds

So SIMPLE.  In a large baker place the squash, brussel sprouts and roughly chopped herbs.  Drizzle with olive oil, maple syrup and S& P.  Bake in preheated 400 oven for 20 min or until brussel sprouts just begin to brown.  Serve immediately, topped with pomegranate seeds.  

Also makes a delicious lunch and starter for pasta sauce.  Add some mushrooms, finish with greek yogurt and serve over soba or udon noodles.

If…then

In logic, a conditional is a compound statement formed by combining two sentences (or facts) using the words "if ... then."   A conditional can also be called an implication.

If God is real…then 

WHAT?

What is the implication of the very existence of God in your life?  If you were able to open your eyes every morning and place your bare feet on the cold hard floor with certainty in your heart that God was as real as your morning breath, how would that change your life?  The bible says that Faith is the belief in that which we cannot see, but what if you were able to take faith to the next step?  What IF you opened your mind to the reality that you are dirt that has been kissed by heaven, a handiwork woven by the divine himself in your mother's womb?  How would that impact your story?  Maybe it would become your story.

When I was little just 5 or 6 years old I would tell everyone I met about Jesus.  I would tell them of his great love.  How he welcomes the little children to his lap offering a loving embrace.  I would proclaim the importance of salvation and urge all of them to join me in following His ways.  My mom literally couldn't keep a bible in our house because I would give them all away.  I distinctly remember one of these interactions with a little boy that lived next door to us.  Our little chubby child hands holding each other swinging on my backyard play-set  hearts open and spirit willing.  

How life has gotten in the way.  How satan's lies and whispers have stopped my open heart and willing spirit.  Louder and louder I hear, WHO ARE YOU?  So much that those lies have drowned out the message of love and welcoming embrace found in Jesus. Somewhere along the way satan tricked me into believing that I needed to hide and most importantly I needed to take my message of Jesus with me.  WHO ARE YOU?  

I will tell you.  I am a sinner.  I am broken.  I fail often and I fail BIG.  When I stumble I flat out fall.  Collide.  Collapse.  

But that is the shadow.  That is the lie.  The very broken nature of this gorgeous earth we all share.  The truth is that through the craziest plan ever I am chosen.  I am redeemed.  I am beautiful.  I am perfectly whole.  I am welcomed.  I am embraced. I am God's personal messenger.  I am the selected method to share that salvation.  

Why is that so scary to say?  How hard it seems to do the very thing that I was made to do.  Love God, Love others.  Receive, Share.  Gather, give.  Tonight I encourage all of you to challenge your beliefs to really see if this God thing is something?  If God is real nothing will ever be the same.

Yeah that's the good stuff

Relationships are more Important

Listening to:
"The Good Stuff"

http://youtu.be/lYQZJ9NUzYU

Do you remember the first time a crush called you on the phone?  And not texted you, or Facebook messaged you, or liked your picture on instagram, or sent you a meme (whatever that is!), but called you.  On your parents land line.  Oh the excitement.  Oh the rush.

I remember one such call.  I was in the 5th grade and had a huge crush on this boy who had just moved back to the US after living abroad with his family as missionaries.  I thought he was the dreamiest.  I mean remember when basketball shorts and jordans were just the bees knees(and he loved Jesus and African orphans)! I don't remember quite how I found out, but news had arrived that he was going to call me one night at my parents house. So I went home after school and got ready, I mean full on primped for a phone call!  (And there wasn't even a chance of having a frightful accidental FaceTime!)  I re-crimped my hair, brushed my teeth and changed out my sweet colored tube socks.  Breathlessly I waited on the fireplace in my parent's living room for that shrill trill to pierce the air.  

When it did my face lit up with anticipation and embarrassment as my dad did his best intimidation, Terminator-style voice before handing the receiver to me.  After about two minutes my face flushed, I threw the phone as girls' giggling hit the ground hard. I ran to my room in tears.  It turns out my first phone call was nothing more than a cruel prank by girlfriends.  Sweet missionary boy didn't quite reciprocate my crush. 

Ugh what a story.  I know every one's inner 5th grader is crying with me right now.  The truth is at any age relationships can be devastating, much more destructive than a prank phone call.  They can be the wind that whips through your life, leaving behind serious tornado damage.  Personally I have experienced my fair share of relational wreckage.  At many times I have retreated from further entanglement with other people, fearing that my little refugee bag couldn't tote around much more.  But this last year God has been teaching me something.  Something so profound that it has changed the way I view myself, and certainly the way I view others.  

Despite the fact that vulnerability towards others may result in the most pain you ever experience, it also can result in the most pleasure and joy. Relationships rock your world. And that's no accident; their ability to both sustain and deplete us is at the heartbeat of our very existence.  

The picture painted of creation in Genesis is one of the most fantastic stories ever told.  The imagination, the suspense and the imagery is astounding.  God is roaming around a gigantic realm of universe that is completely unformed, a foggy nebulous hillside, when he is struck with creative genius.  He spends the next few days creating all the things we enjoy and adore about this earth: spectacular sunrises, starry skies, mountains, oceans, whales, hippos, kale, bumble bees, honey and every other creature, natural phenomenon and vegetation imaginable.  He stops and surveys all of this splendor and beauty and decides it needs one more thing.  A kindred spirit.  A friend to share it with.  A relationship.

IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.  God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness. So God created man in His own image, in the image  and  likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. 
(Gen 1:26, 27)

I always have to pause here to really take in the size and weight of that idea.  God wanted relationship and so he made me?  In His very own image He created a human being to just enjoy day to day life with.  The next part is what truly astounds me,

Then the Lord God said, "It’s not good that the human is alone. I will make him a helper that is perfect for him."
(Gen 2:18)

So here is God, this larger than universe, incomprehensible being that just created the entirety of reality as we know it, and he wanted companionship.  So he creates a human.  Truthfully God could have called it quits then.  He could have hung up his artist smock, washed His brushes and spent the rest of eternity enjoying the masterpiece of creation with Adam.  
But He doesn't.  He loves his relationship with Adam so much, and He loves Adam even more, so he decides the only thing to do is make more relationships.  

Are you starting to see how intricately woven relationships are to your being?  I believe this is why despite the knife sharp edge that all relationships pose, we continue to crave them and seek them out.  I love the idea that God loves relationships.  That He loves them so much He created humanity simply to revel in them and even then he desired more for us, for him.  I liken it to a grandparent. Even after one's own family and lifetime leaves a trail of wrinkles and gray hair the greatest joy comes from  more children being created and watching that new parent and child relationship unfold.  

The human heartbeat is comprised of two parts: the lub-dub that we're all familiar with.  It's the noise that we hear while in womb and the one that we seek out for comfort when we place our heads on the chest of another.  Lub- dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.
The noise is formed from the opening and closing of valves pushing blood through the fascinating machine of our hearts.   The first pitch, the lub, comes from the beginning, the initiation of the ventricular systole, blood rushing in.  The dub comes from the short snap of closure in the aortic and pulmonary vanes as blood is pumped outward.  Even our heartbeats are a reminder that we exist for relationship.  Upward, outward. Upward, outward.  Upward, outward.

The reality of engaging in broken human relationships is there will be turbulence. You will have to open yourself up to the potential collateral damage.  But isolating yourself from relationships is as noxious for your soul as oxygen deprivation is for your heart.

Today I rejoice in relationship with the Lord!  I rejoice that He has given me the opportunity to experience more relationship.  Despite the hurt, despite the stumbles, I rejoice for the hope of my relationships echoing the heartbeat of our creator.  Upward, outward.  Grace, mercy.  Love, acceptance.

Remedy for what ails you

Pain

It was summer.  Naturally it was hot.  That kind of heat that can only find you in the bowels of summer where even the slightest hint of an ice cold coca cola will make your heart skip a beat.  I was at camp.  I was at camp, I was hot, and I had a toothache.  The kind of toothache that even the most extreme doses of ibuprofen cannot even dull.  The only thing that finally relieved my pain was my dad picking me up and taking me for a double root canal.  

When was the last time you felt that kind of pain?  What was your immediate reaction?  

This week I found myself in some discomfort.  I was sick, I had a bit of the post holiday blues, and I was just feeling plain ole depressed.  And what do you know, I made a deal with you, with myself and with the Lord to remain clean this month.  What I am learning is that means to remove all things that dull my heart; whether that be for pleasure or for pain.  The bible tells us to,  "watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life" Proverbs 4:23(NASB).  But how often have I found myself in that very same funk running to a trusty glass of pinot, or a delightful truffle, or better yet hours of mind (and heart) numbing SVU marathons.  Numbing not only the pain but the very source of all my emotions.  So as you can see I found myself in a bit of a predicament.  

Pain.  No Novocain.

We use all kinds of remedies to dull our pain don't we, even if its merely a distraction, an optical illusion of sorts for our cerebral cortex.  An old remedy for a toothache was good ole distilled rye applied directly to the gums.  But how often have I found myself reaching for that same brown bottle (well really more like a red wine bottle, a lady has standards) to dull the aches of my heart.  When does it go from halting a pain deep in your bones to numbing the very source of all your pain, your heart.  

I'm not alone.  There are many of you out there in pain and we are medicating in droves.  In just 3 months in 2013 over 5 million prescriptions were filled for pain medications.  And how many of us find our own version of therapy?  The bottle, the fridge, the mall, the dirty websites on our computers?  And why.  Because we don't want to face the sharp bite of pain alone.  We…I just want a little something to get me through. 

John Keats defended the ruthless schoolyard bully insisting it intricately woven to our very existence,

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” 

― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

C.S. Lewis echoes this position stating that God uses pain to prick our ears to attention, to jerk our hearts towards heaven, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” 

― C.S. Lewis

But what do we all do instead.  Reach for a buffer, a shield for our intelligence and earplugs to the Lord.  We may not have fully developed souls, but our intellect is fully protected and cushioned amongst all of our favorite vices.  

What I discovered this week was not earth shattering but it did rouse my mute slumber.  We all do have a little something to get us through,

“One word

Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:

That word is love.” 

― Sophocles

If our hearts really are the source of all of life, joy and pain, where is the sense in numbing the very place that can actually swing the pendulum the other way?  And if it is true that every time I walk through a dark valley, though I come out a little more haggard, my soul comes out a little more defined.  So why am I subjecting it to slovenly rest?  This week I stopped, I allowed my heart to feel the genuine pain and I realized God was yelling at me through a bullhorn trying to get my attention and refine my character.  And I also realized this was a pain that even extreme doses of self medication couldn't touch.  Just like that horrid dental nightmare, there was something deep rooted in me that needed drilled out of my soul.  I wonder how many of these lessons I have missed in an attempt to feel better, to feel less.  The amazing truth, the amazing gift is that the ultimate salve for all our most harrowing hurts is love.  A little word that requires so little and gives so much.  

Sophocles was a famous playwright during the period of philosophical brilliance in Greece in the 5th century BC.  He's most famed for his plays Oedipus the King and Antigone.  If you've never heard of the Oedipal complex lets just say its safe to assume that Sophocles understood a thing or two about painful awkward family dinners.  And 500 years before love was actualized on earth, when Christ was born in a lowly manger, Sophocles knew the truth, that only love can set us free from the pains of this world.  So this week after some wrestling and some soul refining I finally came to rest.  On truth.  On love.  

John 1:14 (NLT)

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son.

Season

Changing with the leaves

Listening to: Seasons of Love
http://youtu.be/hj7LRuusFqo

This morning I awoke to the most beautiful sheet of frost covering my entire kitchen window.  Despite the heat running all night, condensation from last nights soup formed tiny snowflakes across the century old panes. It is cold!  11 degrees to be precise.  Cold enough to freeze not only my windows, but my car door locks as well.  I can't say that winter is my favorite season.   

But sometimes it's all in the perspective.  How do I perceive this season of life?  Is it a dormant frozen window pane or a frost encased tree preparing for a bountiful bloom?  How difficult it is to be content in your current season!   

Many have asked what the overall purpose or aim of this exercise in discipline and public sharing.  Ultimately I always find it easier to believe the lies than the truth.  One lie that we are all susceptible to is the classic lawn envy; ironic that the phrase most often associated with jealousy invokes an image of the green eyed monster.  Despite the temptation to believe that your peers grass is greener, even their beautiful garden contains cantankerous weeds.  It is easy to slip into the comparison game and think how miserably short your own life falls.  Amazingly I constantly hear from the very peers whose lawns I am coveting that they are experiencing the very same emotions!  That their own lives aren't where they wanted them to be by 25, by 30, or 50.  One goal of this exercise is to escape the strangle hold that coveting places on my life.  If you are so busy worrying about what you don't have and what you haven't accomplished, how can you ever recognize all the gifts, all the blessings.  

When it comes to coveting vs. contentment in  my own life, I am fairly certain that coveting has a home court advantage, and several years of points up on contentment.  The first memory I have of jealousy ironically is the color of green, neon green.  A little pleather jacket, perfectly piped in hot pink satin to drape stylishly over the petite shoulders of the one and only Barbie.  When I spotted this jacket on my friends Barbie, I wanted it.  I coveted it.  I plotted on how I could get it for myself.  

We all have a neon green jacket that consumes our thoughts and steals our present joy.  The key to contentment is perspective.  Even if this is the winter of my life, can I find the blessings despite the blustering cold?  Can I choose to delight in the beauty of frost, the incomparable beauty of an individual snowflake?  While I am preparing for the impending burgeoning of spring can I find delight in the wait, the dormancy?  I know in my head that all good things take time, but can I rest fully in that knowledge in my heart?

"He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end" Ecclesiastes 3:11

Even if you're seeing the lack of beauty in your own life more than the lovely, rest in the dormancy.  Know full well that everything is made beautiful in its own time.  If even the trees and the bushes need months of frost and rest before they can burst forth with a colorful bounty, why would our own lives be any different?  Bundle up, enjoy those mittens and earmuffs today, for the warmth of spring (and torrid heat of summer) is impending!


Since I am so cold here are some healthy options to keep you warm!

Breakfast:
Hot water with lemon and honey
Green Jasmine tea
Christmas Juice

Snack:
Sprouted English Muffin
Hard Boiled Egg
1/5 Avocado

Lunch:
Winter Greens Soup

Snack:
Roasted pecans
Cinnamon tea

Dinner:
Quinoa stuffed sweet potato

Christmas Juice (Red & Green!)
1 beet with greens attached
1 c kale
4 carrots
1 honey crisp apple
35 (ish) blades of wheatgrass
slice of ginger

Winter Greens Soup:
1 Bunch leafy kale
1 bunch collards
4 cloves garlic
1 jar of summers loveliest tomatoes
1 bunch radishes
onion
8 large carrots
Chicken or Vegetable stock


Sautee onion and garlic until translucent.  Add chopped radishes and carrots.  Simmer until softened.  Cover with jar of tomatoes and stock.  Season with pepper, grated ginger, lime and rice wine vinegar. Bring to a boil and add stemmed and chopped greens.  Serve over udon noodles garnished with green onions and cilantro.   

Quinoa stuffed sweet potato
Prepared quinoa
Dried figs
green onion
garlic
curry
sweet potato

Bake a sweet potato until almost fully soft at the same time prepare 1/4 cup of quinoa.  Quickly sautee garlic, add green onion, chopped figs and curry.  Season with S & P.  Incorporate cooked quinoa.  Slice sweet potato in half and stuff with quinoa mixture.  Bake for 5 more min.

New Day

Listening to: Begin Again

http://youtu.be/cMPEd8m79Hw

I am an epic snoozer.  It annoys even the best of friends.  One college roommate was even frustrated enough to turn my alarm off during finals week, causing me to almost miss a test.  Sometimes a new day just feels so daunting, so fragile.  

Yawn.  I would rather hit the snooze, pull the covers over my head and tell Beast, despite the persistent clanging of my phone, it is not time to begin the day.  And then I repeat this.  4 times.  At least.

I know.  

ANNOYING.  

You suddenly empathize with my sweet college roommate don't you? Despite my hesitance to embrace the newness of each day I am in awe of God's provision.  It's like He knew we could only hold it together for 24 hours before He needed to give us a redo.  (In my snoozing I suppose I am simply delaying that redo.) 

But seriously have you ever stopped to contemplate the goodness and wisdom of a new day?  One hebrew word for new is chalaph, which means to change, pass, renew, alter or sprout again. One place that this version of "new" appears in the bible is in one of my all time favorite verses Isaiah 40:31,

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew [chalaph] their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

I know incredible.  I will certainly get on board with that kind of NEW DAY.  I just love that despite the stumbles and shortfalls of yesterday, a sunrise is a reminder that today is new.  Today we can choose to learn and to change.  That is what I focused on today.  That the Lord would bring an Isaiah 40:31 kind of change to my life and to my soul through this journey.  What I put into my body today was actually the easy part!

Breakfast:

Water with the juice of one half lemon

Jasmine green tea (yes I skipped coffee!!)

PWC:

1 c pineapple

1/2 cucumber

1 c kale

about 30 leave of wheat grass

Snack: 

1 c. Roasted Chickpeas: 

Drain one can organic low sodium chick peas and pat dry, toss in olive oil, lemon zest, cumin and pepper.  Bake at 350 for 40 min or until crunchy and brown.

Lunch:

Side salad with Thai Tofu from Lilly's pizza

Dinner:

Chicken tortilla soup with avocado:

Chop one sweet onion and 4 cloves of garlic.  Sautee until translucent.  (I'm going to make this sooooo easy for you!) Take a roasted chicken from whole foods and cut off half of the meat. Chop and add to onions.  Season with cumin, pepper, chili powder and cayenne pepper to taste.  Add the zest and juice of 1 lime.  Cover with a large box of organic low sodium chicken broth.  Bring to a boil.  

Serve over mixed greens and a half of a diced avocado.  Top with cilantro.  Throw in a lime wedge for color and class.  Who cares that you're eating alone!

So far so good.  Feeling cleaner.  And more willing to embrace the newness of tomorrow.

A New Canvas

January: Clean

Listening to: "Beautiful Things" Gungor

http://youtu.be/OR7VOKQ0xJY

Before any artist can begin a new work they must prepare their work space.  There must be a clean, inspiring medium on which they project their inspiration.  This month my goal is to cleanse myself and create a new canvas.  

I will wipe the slate clean.  

Ironically even in wiping a slate clean there is always the memory of yesterday, a lingering residue.  But some of the greatest works of art ever conceived were born onto a grimy surface.  The sistine chapel was around 30 years old when Michelangelo began his attempt at painting the grand structures vaulted ceiling.  That's 30 years of gathering dust, mildew, grime and pollution!  Yet Michelangelo took the less than perfect canvas that chapel offered and created a masterpiece.  Like the sistine chapel, I too have had 30 years to collect multiple layers of grime.  So much that my soul is beginning to resemble one of Dickens' street urchins.  

  In this month of CLEAN, I am not attempting to erase the past, rather let it go and allow my imperfect canvas the room for a piece de resistance.  

Obviously this idea of a january cleanse is not original.  I even unoriginally googled "cleanse" and found over 11 million search results! The unique part of this cleanse is the goal goes beyond fitting back into pants (although MAJOR alarm bells went off when even my strrrreeeeetchy pants seemed tight)it also aims to clean the mind and the spirit.  The tenants of this cleanse are as follows:

clean eating 

no alcohol

no tv/media entertainment

10 min of meditation

Thankfully I overindulged in all of the "off-limit" items prior to this cleanse.  I haven't had a TV for 8 years, but I do occasionally watch movies/shows on my iPad.  I am happy to say I binge watched Sister Wives on Netflix (don't do it, you won't be able to stop!) prior to beginning this journey and, whew, I finished it today.  So, I can walk into this cleanse with a little less trepidation!  

If you choose to walk into this cleanse with me I invite you with open (& dirty) arms, a shopping list in hand.

As organic as possible:

Large bag of carrots

Bunch of beets (greens still intact)

Bunch of Kale

Lemon

Lime

Honeycrisp Apples

Pineapple

Sweet Potato

Pear

Cucumber

Wheatgrass

Eggs

Sprouted grain English Muffins

Raw Almonds

Pearl Jasmine Green Tea

Quinoa

I know often it is difficult to find (or afford) organics so below is the Clean 15/Dirty dozen, which chronicles the produce that is the most critical for you to buy organic.  I am sure most of you are scratching your heads about now thinking how on earth is she going to utilize this seemingly random combination, but never fear tomorrow is near and making meals out of nothing is my superpower!  ( I mean really try me, give me a list of weird ingredients and I will make you a gourmet treat!)  Get excited for pics of wheatgrass shots and menus!