Fred Phelps is dead.

The news is running across my Twitter and Facebook pages as I avoid the mound of grading on my desk and my students try to hide the fact that they are watching NCAA bastketball tournamnet on their phones under their desks. (They are terrible at whispering, apparently OSU is currently loosing.

Fred Phelps is dead.

I am surprised at the sadness I am feeling. I am surprised at the idea that I could be sad that a man who has spread so much hate and anger, has finally gone to meet his maker. But I am, I am sad that Fred Phelps is dead.

I hush my students and re-direct them to their grammar quizzes. I wonder about this sadness I am feeling. Am I really sad that the man who came up with picketing funerals is now starring in his own? I am. I am sad.

I am sad because I secretly hoped that one day Fred Phelps would come around. It sounds naieve and stupid I know. But I did. I thought perhaps there would be a major press conference and Fred Phelps would announce that he was wrong, and he was sorry. What can I say, I long for redemption.

I long for redemption. It is hard and it is messy and it is so breathtakingly beautiful. I guess I was secretly hoping for a figure known for spewing hate to become a man who was marked by love. What can I say? I’m a dreamer.

And I am sad because I can’t help but look at the life of Fred Phelps and wonder what could have been, with a man as passionate and charismatic as him could have done if he was willing to hold his beliefs a little looser, and his love a little tighter. When I reflect on the public life of Fred Phelps I see just a tiny bit of myself. I am not saying the man was right, or that I ever believed what he proffessed. But I understand the road he traveled and I have more than once taken a few steps down it because I thought it was the right thing to do. 

 I see the relationships I ruined, or the people I hurt because I was absolutely sure I was right. I see the black and white of my teenage years. I see the picture of Jesus I had in the black and white days. The way I knew and the way I did not need to consult Him very often about that knowing.

I don’t pretend to know what happened after Fred Phelps took his last breath. But I am still longing for healing, for redemption. I hope that one day I will see a man who longs to right what he made wrong. I hope even Fred Phelps is not beyond the reaches of mercy, that he will one day fully embody God’s love.

I suppose I hope that I one day, people say that about me too.

A week ago, maybe a few may Twitter feed and Facebook wall were lit up with red Xs. Red X in permanent marker across the backs of the hands of my friends and acquaintances. The movement leaked into my classroom; many of my students had read lines crossed against the backs of their hands.

This is not an indictment of the End it movement, the organization that encourages people to draw these red Xs. I think the work they are doing is good. I think the organizations they partner with are legitimate. I think they do good work. I even had the opportunity to talk to my students about modern day slavery, what it looks like, how it happens. As an educator, I am aware of how powerful simple awareness can be.

I just hope those red Xs aren’t the only lines we draw.

The red Xs showed up in my classroom in the midst of me teaching a book about foster care. Have we drawn the lines? Have we drawn the lines in our hearts and our heads of the state of the foster care system and the sex slavery happening in our backyards? The state isn’t the only one keep track of the girls aging out of foster care. 18 and with no place to go, more often than not these girls are picked up by a pimp. Sometimes being a sex slave looks like the best choice.

And are we drawing the lines between the girls aging out of the foster care system and our own unwillingness to adopt older children? Are we drawing the lines between the human trafficking going on in our backyard and the fear in our own hearts? Are we drawing those lines too?

As we draw the lines on our hands, are we also drawing the lines in our closets? Are we drawing the lines to the products that we buy on a whim, without thinking about it because we love the color or could kind of use another one of those?

Are we drawing the lines on our hands to the lines in our Easter baskets? As we give up chocolate or coffee or sugar for a day, a week, the full fourty days. As we dream of the first taste of whatever it is we have given up, are we willing to consider that those treats have come to us by the hands of  a slave? Are we willing to sacrifice the thing that we always have for the holiday, or are we saying we should end it, as long as it doesn’t affect me?

Are we drawing the lines, between the education system, the drop out rate and those most at risk of being trafficked? Are we drawing the lines from the human trafficking to the drop out rate, from the drop out rate to the reading ability, from the reading ability to the legislation that keeps adding kids to elementary schools we have long since abandoned as we put our own kids in the new charter system?

I know that it is easier to ignore these problems, to think of slavery as something way out there, that it doesn’t happen in my back yard, that there aren’t things I am putting in my cart at Target that are the products of slave-labor.

It is easier to believe that the only thing we can do is swipe a red X across the back of our hands and cry for those women and children out there somewhere. It is easier to believe that we are an active participant in a culture that perpetuates modern day slavery. But those things aren’t true. We have to start drawing the truth on our hearts as we do with the lines on our hands.

I love the heart of the end it movement. I am grateful they are starting the conversation. I just pray that those lines we draw on our hands are only the catalyst to the lines we draw in our lives, on our hearts. Are we willing to draw the lines that link slavery to the choices we make?

The hardest thing I ever had to do, was show up at my job for 180 days straight.

I’ve birthed two babies with nothing but water as a pain reliever. I’ve written the first draft of a book at night, on weekends, and during the summer, one eye on my children, the other on the computer. I’ve spoken publicly. I’ve moved across the country with my husband. I lived a relatively normal life with a muscle disorder. I’ve poured my guts out on my blog for 446 posts. I’ve ended unhealthy relationships. I have done hard things.

But the hardest thing I ever had to do, was show up at my job 180 days in a row. Seriously.

It was my first year of teaching. I came in sure that by the end of the year, not only was I going to have changed the life of every single one of my students, but that Oprah would hear about it, ask me to sit on her couch, tell me I was special. It was my first year of teaching and I was totally confident that I was going to to do an amazing job.

That didn’t happen. By Labor day I hadn’t even learned all of the kids names, let alone turned any hearts. Three weeks into the school year and my list of failings was impressive. A stack of ungraded papers that I kept meaning to get to was threatening to take over the back seat of my car. I was too tired at home and too busy at work to actually grade them. I had no control of my classroom. Kids came and went and talked and ate and really did whatever they wanted to do, pretty much whenever they wanted to do it. The girl who had sworn that she would never yell or threaten her students was at the board at least twice a day waving a dry erase marker in her hand and completely losing her mind.

You can find the rest of this at my dear friend Marvia’s place. Marvia is the real deal y’all. She is funny and fiesty and my life is better because I follow her on Twitter. She breathes life and truth and beauty into everything she touches.

“The we once were, they’re coming back to us now.” –Brandy Walker

I still remember, I still remember the way that my hand would shoot up and my heart would start beating. I remember how sure I was that I would be picked, how sure I was that what I said mattered. 

I miss that feeling. I miss that the girl.

The one who came with shaky breath and shaky legs to say what she had decided she was not going to say, because she was sure the Spirit was calling her, whispering to her that someone needed to say it, and it may as well be her. 

I miss the feeling of annointing. I miss the sure but shaky breath. I miss the simple equation of He speaks, I do. 

When did things become so complicated? When did the equation become tangled with variables? With what ifs and how comes and can I trust myself to speak? I miss the girl who just did. 

I remember the way I used to pray fervently for healing. I remember how sure I was, walking away from that pulpit or stage that I was healed. And I remember how the sickness would slowly creep back again. I remember wondering why I wasn’t being healed. 

And I remember saying yellow was fine when my heart was really longing for purple, and purple was right there. Why didn’t I just say what I wanted? I remember hiding in my bedroom, doing things my mother would have approved of, playing with the old makeup she had given to us for this very purpose, but afraid to admit I was interested in. I wonder where that came from, in a house as loving as mine. I wonder how the lies of the world leaked in through the thick armor of parental love. I wonder about the lies that will get to my girls….as much as I try to protect them. I wonder if I always believed that I was too much. 

I remember crying in my bedroom my senior year. I had come home from the state speech tournament empty handed again. I had already missed the cut for nationals. I was devestated. My best was not good enough. I remember the note from my mother, waiting for me on my bed. She had placed it there before the tournament even began. Before I came home, empty handed or elated, she wanted me to know just how proud she was of me. How talented I was. How much she loved me. 

I still can’t talk about that letter without crying. Of course my mother knew my deepest fears. Of course she knew how much I long to be picked. 

And I want to take that girl I once was, hiding in the bedroom, hiding her desires, crying over dreams that did not come true. I want to cup her face in my hands and breathe the truth into her. This world is harsh, and your heart is built for feeling. It will seem easier to tuck pieces of yourself away. It seems like if you stop dreaming big you will stop hurting so badly. Don’t do that. The dreaming is worth it. Even if they don’t always come true. The believing in the impossible is part of who you are.

Your fears are founded. You won’t always get picked love. I wish that you were, but that isn’t how these things shake out. Your heart will break more than once over dreams that are not to be.

I want to warn her, to promise her: You won’t always be picked. But I promise: You are always chosen. 

This is a a post for The Story Sessions Girls We Once Were link up. I hosted an annonymous entry here. Get your hankies and head over. The submissions are truly beautiful. 

This is an annonymous post for The Girls We Once Were link up. There is some explicit language; sometimes those are the only words we have for the darkness of this world. But there is always light, and it is always coming. I think this woman handles that beautifully, and I hope you will hold her heart carefully. I am so honored to host her story here.

Before there were fairy tales, before there were courtship manuals, before there were dating horror stories, before marriage was made an idol, before there were wedding night promises, before I learned to expect my first crush to last forever, did I once believe in true love and that I deserved it? Was I once that naive?

 Before there were small hands playing at grownup pleasures, before they whispered “it’s just a game” and taught me how, and I so small, and I so young; before there were dark daydreams and darker lusts; before the screen was filled with chiseled biceps groping and bruised breasts groped; before the deep, relentless shame, was I once innocent? 

Before there were clandestine garter belts and lace beneath good girl dresses, before there were muffled groans in the back seat on a country road, before there were unsatisfied no-really-it-was-goods, before there were the guilty sounds of pulling our clothes on after, before there were late-night commitments to never again, to this was the last time, was I once pure?

 Before he tried to make me some fantasy — thinner thighs and fuller chest; before I confessed to him all my former sins and he held me tender, heartbeat-softkiss-whisper tender — until he stopped holding me at all, until I wasn’t good enough, until he wanted me but not-me, skinnier and willing to fuck like the goddamn whore I felt like already; before he begged me to then blamed me when I did; before him, was I once whole?

 Before I learned the thou-shalt-nots and knew I’d already, long since broken them, before the Lord God cast me out and an angel barred the way of my return with a flaming sword, did I once dance in Eden, naked and glad, naked and unashamed? Before the Fall, was I once good?

 I don’t remember that girl I once was, maybe. I don’t remember the bright tall grass of Eden, a sweet, simple garden where I tended strawberries and hopes, grew snap-peas and trust. I cannot see my face there — was I smiling? did I laugh? was there no shadow of shame cast across me?

 And that tree where it started — that mean, forbidden tree. Is it fair the first fruit was sliced up and placed in my eager hand and they said, “taste, it is good,” and I didn’t know not to, couldn’t say no?

 I remember that fruit and its juices still stain me, but I can’t imagine who I was before I ate it. Naive, innocent, pure, whole, unashamed, good? Maybe I was. But that was before.

And now it is after, and who has that little girl grown up to be?

After the disillusionment, after the memories came back haunting, after the long grief; after I saw myself broken, and swore I would be whole again; after the “we’re through,” after I walked away, even when he followed me begging, even when he said “I’m sorry” and meant it; after I wandered the Earth, looking for Eden’s welcome; after I looked that angel of shame in the eye where he stood with his sword, cutting me with its hot edge, and after I noticed the shield in my hand, and after I noticed Another who’s fighting beside me; now I am healing, and laughing sometimes. Now I am trying. And I will be free. And I will be good, and pure, and unashamed.

The girl I once was, I believe she’s still here.

February started off with a bang. I hosted a Super Bowl party for anyone we knew, but mostly people in Christian’s department. I thought of it as a practice for the IF:Gathering the next weekend. Then, I accidentally set my oven on fire. Ooops.

The IF:Gathering went much more smoothly than I anticipated (I did not set my oven on fire. Though, I did accurately predict that one of my children would pee on the floor.) The conference was good, (I was especially partial to Jen Hatmaker and Sarah Bessey.) and I took everyone’s advice and tried to keep the menu simple. We had make your own grilled cheese and I can say with certainty that sharp cheddar, cherry preserves and bacon is a winning combination. A few of my Story Sisters came to join me and hang out by my fire pit with my actual sister and some friends from church. It can be scary letting your life collide like that, I mean what if everyone comes away hating you? They didn’t. It was fine.

Food
Breakfast Sandwiches– It isn’t the first time I have made an Egg McMuffin at home, but we have been on a kick. The kids love them too, so that helps. I even served them for small group dinner with a big bowl of fruit salad.

Steak and Pan Sauce- I have been loving everything I cook out of Shauna Neiquest’s Bread and Wine. She describes herself as “not a steak girl” and then raves about this steak and pan sauce. I am a steak girl, and I can tell you that the recipe alone is worth the book. The first time I made it without the pan sauce because “deglazing” sounded super complicated. (Spoiler: It just means dumping some alcohol into a pan.) The next time I made it I decided to give the sauce a try. If Christian and I weren’t already married, he probably would have proposed to me on the spot. It was that good. Buy the book, make the steak.

Wings- On the recommendation of my friends, Alison and Mary Beth I tried to make wings for my Super Bowl party. Mostly, it worked but there was the slight problem that I set my oven on fire right when the game kicked off. The wings were still fine, but I will stick with buffalo chicken dip next time. Same flavors, less smoke.

Reading

When I am feeling all the feelings like I was after the IF:Gathering, I like to read something familiar. I took the snow-week early in February and read Harry Potter 1-3. I am now half way through 4 and will probably finish them by the summer.They are, it turns out, still brilliant.

In my classroom I read Romeo and Juliet with my freshmen. I love teaching this play, it just never gets old. If your freshmen english teacher didn’t explain the dirty jokes to you, then you are missing out. Go back and read at least the first few scenes. You will be astounded you didn’t figure them out for yourself.

My tenth graders are reading one of my very favorite books, Another Place at the Table. It is the memoir of a foster mom and it is beautiful. I’ve written and erased about ten sentences that explain why this book is important. They just don’t do it justice. If you care at all about kids without families, or what safety nets are available and how and why they fail, just read the book.

There have been a few blogs that have been catching my attention recently. The Story Sessions website is always featuring one of the women in the community and they are always excellent. February featured poetry, if you missed it you should really go look. There was also the first installment of The Well, a Wednesday blessing written by Brenna. The first entry was truly water to my soul.

Speaking of my story sister, Suzanne Terry has been killing it lately, and I especially loved this post about where she stands. Osheta Moore has been standing her ground in prayer. I wish the church always did this hard work this gracefully. And Mary Beth Pavlik has been posting 5 awesome things on Fridays and I look forward to it every week.

Finally, if you haven’t been reading John Blase’s poetry you need to. Sometimes, his poetry gets delivered to my email box and I stop whatever I am doing and read it out loud to my class because it is just so beautiful. They particularly liked this one.

Television

Christian and I are slowly working our way through the second season of House of Cards. I am a little jealous of all of my child free friends who are done with the season already.

I still adore Downton Abbey and was grateful that this season’s finale gave me all the hopeful feels and not all the sad ones.

I discovered Don’t Trust the B in apartment 23 when I need a laugh. I love campy portrayals of Midwesterners. I just do, especially when juxtaposed against a stereotypical New Yorker.

When I need all the drama, I have been hitting up The Borgias. It is a crazy show about the Pope and Rome and the Pope’s illegitimate children. Murder, illicit sex, buying papal votes. Good times.

Beauty

Hair oil is changing my life. I know. I wouldn’t have believed it either. My hair has always been super oily and I would never in a million years think that putting more oil into it ever would be a good idea. But my friend’s insisted I try it when I was stuck at their house because of the snowpocalypse. Sure enough, that evening my hair was soft and beautiful. I didn’t even need to wash it the next day! My bangs even looked great. My hair is softer, shinier, and the color is even browner. You need the miracle that is hair oil. (Don’t buy it there though, it is only like five bucks at Target.) The more I play with my hair during the day the better it looks and the softer it feels. I know I sound like an infomercial. I can’t help it. I love this stuff.

Crafting

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you may have noticed people tagging me in what seemed like the same pictures, or a variation on the same picture. I made a bunch of banners out of old book pages and sent them to a bunch of the women in Story Sessions because mail makes people feel loved and remembered in a very specific and much needed way. This is the one I kept for myself.

I am cooking up a spring version, so keep track of Twitter and Instagram for a sneak peek. Or you can like me on Facebook.

E-Courses

I took my friend Nicole’s class, Love and Making It. Perhaps it is weird that I am telling the internet that I took a sex class, but the way that Nicole speaks of sex and the body is so holy and so freeing. She has a gift y’all, and in a world where the lies about beauty are coming at us from all directions, you probably need Nicole’s truth too. She is re-running Love and Making it, which is designed for the married woman, and is starting a course called Babes in Godland for women wanting to explore their own beauty and sensuality in all stages of life.

March is in like a Lion

I signed up for John Acuff’s 30 days of hustle, just to see what the big deal with him is…I don’t know where I stand right now. I’ll let you know next month.

I am doing a nine day writers boot camp with Story Sessions and have decided to concentrate on a round of edits on my book. Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear anything from me for a week and a half or so.

For a Lent I will be fasting following the guidelines in Jen Hatmaker’s book Seven. So, I will be eating seven things: eggs, chicken, spinach, apple, avocado, sweet potatoes and whole wheat bread. I will be drinking water. Yes, it is going to suck, but I feel called to it. I have some stuff, that is related to food that is jacking with my heart. I am sure I will have some blog posts working through this, this month.