When I got the prompt for SheLoves this month I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I did a little of both. We could choose from DETOUR or WHAT THE HECK? Both felt appropriate but I had been yelling the latter into my phone at various people when describing my life for about two months. So, I went with that.

We moved to Atlanta 10 years ago, pretty much on faith. We just knew this was the way and every step up the way, things opened up like magic. If it wasn’t miraculous, it was at least remarkable. I think of the ways this worked out for us a lot. Sometimes it gives me hope. Sometimes it leaves me giving God the side eye. I mean…I know you can do it God, what are you waiting for?

It is June 16. I still do not have my future totally sorted out. We are leaning one way, but could be swooped another. Had you told me this would be my life a year ago. I simply would not have believed you. My God is faithful, and would never do this to me.

When I heard the term “ghosting” I was like. Yes. That is what it feels like God is doing. God just stopped answering my text messages, my emails, my phone calls. God is just….silent where there used to be a lot of direction and easy banter there is just…space. So what does it look like to believe that God is faithful even though God is not doing what you thought God would do? It is hard, and I am writing about it at SheLoves today.

I quit my job on faith (something I have written about for more than a year) and no new job has risen up to meet me. My husband set a defense date for his PhD, no job for him on the horizon. I was sure by June, we would be having conversations about our new town, or his new job, or the books I need for seminary. Instead, we are figuring out when each of our last paychecks will go in, when the health insurance will run out, when is the last day I can tell the seminary I am actually not coming without having to pay for the semester.

We are trying to figure out where the line in the sand is. At what point do we pull the trigger on putting our house up for sale and moving into my sister’s basement in Detroit? What kind of crazy is the life plan of starting a YouTube channel about four adults and six girls, 10 and under, living in one house? I’d call it Half a Dozen Cousins. I even have the beginnings of a jingle worked out. Is it like, delusional crazy, or is it this just might work crazy? I don’t really want to find out.

You can read the rest here.

Somewhere in the spring, when I was having a particular time saying good-bye to the life that I thought I would always lead, and hello to the one that has still not quite revealed itself (we are getting there, but any prayer for the final puzzle pieces to drop into place I will gladly take) I needed a distraction.

And it seemed that everyone on the internet had been listening to Hamilton. But there was one problem. Surprisingly, at 6 months in, I am still more or less following my ban on buying new things. And Hamilton is new. In the shouts of just how amazing it was, I had somehow missed the fact that you can stream it free on Spotify, or on Prime Music.

Alexa! Play Hamilton Soundtrack! I got Christian a fancy Amazon speaker for Christmas and that is, I think, the only thing we have shouted at it since May. After about a week of my obsessive listening, my husband sat down with me one night as we listened to the soundtrack and followed along on the Genius article. I came home the next day to a husband that had half the lyrics memorized. It really is as good as everyone says it is.

With the constant listening, and the small children who can come in on the chorus parts (LA-FAY-ETTE!) and the googling of historical revolutionary war heroes because you are trying to figure out if there actually was a guy named Hercules Mulligan or if that part was just made up (it is true) comes the finding of every clip on the internet that has Lin-Manuel Miranda’s face in it.

Every single clip I have ever seen of Lin-Manuel Miranda performing Hamilton, from the White House to karaoke car pool to the clip of them in a high school cafeteria, his face lights up. When Hamilton comes on, Miranda’s face lights up. You would think by now he would be sick of it. He wrote it, workshopped it, performed, performed, performed. And when he gets somewhere and they play it, he does not roll his eyes and say “oh this again.” He doesn’t say “listen, I have done this a million times and I don’t want to do it anymore.” His eyes LIGHT UP and he delights in coming in right on cue.

I guess you could say, of course he does Abby – do you have any idea how much money Hamilton has made him? (Not enough. It is a work of genius and we cannot put money on that.) And I guess you would be right. But as much as he is enjoying the money and the fame, I don’t think he wrote it for those things. I think he wrote it because it came into his brain and he was delighted by the idea. I think he thought the hard work of working it out was worth it. I think every time he hears it, probably for the rest of his life, he is going to be delighted by what he created.

I believe in a God who is as delighted by his creation as Lin-Manuel Miranda is delighted by Hamilton. I believe in a God who is as delighted in ME as Miranda is delighted by the score of his play. I believe in a God who isn’t annoyed by me leaning into my gifts of writing, speaking, teaching. I don’t think God thinks, oh MAN, this again! I mean I created her and she is pretty great but…can’t she do something new and different?  I think God is all, OH YEAH! THIS AGAIN! I am totally delighted by how amazing this person I built is!

I think it is so easy to assume we are annoying other people, or even God. I think that it is easy to say “Oh man, this again? I am doing this again, saying this again, all about this again. No one wants to hear this anymore.” But they do. We are Hamiltons, people. We are a really amazing work and God loves us every single time.

I got to see, and then write about someone I admire a lot, who has recently become a dear friend. If you haven’t read My Name Is Not Those People then you are missing out. Buy it here.

I first saw Julia speak in an intimate setting, after the other twelve writers and I read her book in preparation for a week long conference: “Writing to Change the World.” I didn’t have the book on me for her to sign because I had already given it away to my mother for her to consider teaching at the local community college.

The faster I hand off a book, the more you know I like it. Julia’s lasted in my home less than 24 hours after I finished it.

Her work is unique in that she is the only voice I have read about poverty from someone currently experiencing poverty. Usually we hear from those who work with people in poverty or those who were once in poverty but have since gained middle class status. I knew my mother’s students would resonate with the frankness from which Julia Dinsmore discusses her situation and the forces at work to keep her there.

Here is the thing you have to brace yourself for, if you are going to meet Julia Dinsmore in the flesh: There isn’t an ounce of shame on her. She tells you this in her book, but it is something you really have to experience. I don’t know that I have ever met someone so fully at peace with themselves. She laughs and cries and sings and tells stories with abandon. That first time I met her, the person who arranged the meeting asked me what I thought of it. I responded from the gut, “it is just so rare for me to be in a room with a person who has feelings as big as mine.”

Read the Rest Here.

Meet my friend Katie. Katie and I were sort of like ships passing in the night, I was joining a church just as her and her husband were leaving to go start theres. Katie’s encouragement has meant the world to me as I applied for seminary. I hope you enjoy her voice as much as I do.

The conversation has come up before with my husband or my mom who are also pastors. Maybe it’s a day one of us is discouraged, or it’s just a theoretical conversation about what is the hardest thing about ministry. I’ve read lists on Facebook which include such items as not having set hours and congregations expecting the world and the changing nature of the church, and while all of those things are true, they’re not the hardest thing.

The hardest thing about ministry is that God is all wrapped up in it, so when something goes poorly there’s so much more at stake. Let me explain — say you’re a dentist and it’s a bad week. Nobody asks you, the dentist, well how much did you pray this week? How’s your walk with God? How’s your devotional time? It is understood that for the most part your job is separate from your spiritual life. This is not to say you don’t pray about doing your work well or pray for your patients or that you’re not a witness for Jesus in your love for others, just that if you have a day you’re a sub-par dentist, your brain doesn’t jump to “well I must be a sub-par Christian.”

In ministry it is easy to make the jump — sometimes we do it ourselves, and sometimes other people do it for us — low Sunday attendance for a few weeks in a row? You must not be praying enough. Feeling discouraged in your job? You’re probably disappointing Jesus. And the problem is — it’s partially true. If I’m not spending time in prayer and study then my job as pastor does suffer. But it isn’t always true, and that’s the rub. I know very faithful people who’s churches are not ‘successful’ and who are often sent to hard places with few victories. We also see ‘successful’ preachers on TV who have personal jets and are millionaires, and who definitely aren’t reading their Bibles (or maybe just not understanding them — see personal jet comment).

So our walk with God is both connected and not connected to our ‘success’ in ministry — what do we do with that? How do we keep a hard month (or a hard year?!) from making us feel like we’re letting Jesus down? I don’t think there’s an easy answer (clearly), but I do think separating out our personal faith journey from our church vocation is probably the first step. Again, easier said than done because they are so tied up together. I think my first step is to continually remind myself that it isn’t my church — It’s God’s church.

I love the All Sons &Daughters song “Come to Save Us” which reminds me “Jesus, you’re the One who save us…” Simple. Direct. To the point. Because the Kingdom of God is going to come with or without me (probably sometimes in spite of me). My supervisor when I was a chaplain resident use to remind me that I could not single handedly bring down the Kingdom of God (some days I was legitimately concerned).

I think at the end of the day, there is truth and ego tied up in the hardest part of ministry. Truth that my walk with God matters. It matters for me, and it does effect how I lead my sheep. But also, that it doesn’t matter in the big picture as much as I feel like it does because the outcome of my specific congregation or the church universal does not rest on me (Thank God!) If ministry isn’t going well or it’s a rough week, it does still mean I could probably pray more but not because God is waiting for me to earn back all my bonus point before I unlock the Holy Spirit in my church, but because my soul needs it.

It all comes back to the story a rabbi once told — that we are to hold in one hand that it was from dust we were made and to dust we shall return and to hold in the other, that even for you, the universe was created. The hardest part about ministry is that it is (not) about me. The hardest part about ministry is that what I do both matters greatly and yet God can move in spite of me. The hardest/easiest/best part about ministry? It’s all wrapped up in God.

Rev. Katie Lloyd is a pastor in The United Methodist Church in Kentucky. She also happens to be a pastor’s spouse and pastor’s kid. When not doing church stuff, she and her husband like to run, camp, garden, and play with their muppet dog Wendell. She blogs at http://reluctantprophets.com.

This one is from the archives. I did some light editing. I needed it today. Maybe you too?

Dreaming is for teenagers, people who have nothing better to do than lie on the hood of their beat up car and stare at the night sky. For people who can stay up late and not pay for it the next morning, with no one but themselves to feed breakfast.

Dreaming is for college students, for people whose parents still list them on their health insurance. For dorm rooms and coffee shops with acoustic guitars ever-present and couches pulled in off of street corners smelling vaguely like mildew and cigarette smoke.

Dreaming is for newlyweds, for couples holding mai-tai’s on a beach in Jamaica, or in their parents tent sipping a cheap bottle of gas station champagne as they talk about ten years from now when they will have a house and some kids and enough money in the bank for a real honeymoon the second time around. The grandparents will take the kids and the couple will fly to Hawaii, first class.

But dreams are not for me. The kids are in the patched up kiddie pool in the back as I stand at the kitchen counter typing with one eye on the splashing and shouting praying the duct tape holds for another 20 minutes, just until I can get the words out. They are naked again. Swim suits cost me too much time.

We are past that ten-year mark, my husband and I, and even my body seems to be fighting the dreams. Dreamers don’t have muffin tops, or full-time jobs, or kids that need health insurance. Dreamers aren’t supposed to be interrupted by thoughts of responsibility and who will pay the light bill. I need to go to the grocery store and the Goodwill; I don’t have time for dreams.

And, then someone asks me to dream. To put away the what-ifs and the how is that possibles. To simply sit, blank page in front of us and pour out the things that are hidden in our hearts.

I leave the TV on so I won’t become fully engrossed in this activity. I am afraid it is going to hurt. I know it is going to hurt. I think if I can distract myself enough I will be able to keep a part of myself protected. I underestimate the depths and volume of this calling of my heart, this thing they call a dream. It is loud, LOUD and big and a little scary. And now it is on a less than blank page, refusing to be ignored.

Who has time for dreaming? Not me. I have kids to raise, dinner to cook, groceries to buy, a school year to prep for. I have a book to write. I do not have time for dreaming, I have a children who won’t go to bed.

Moms aren’t supposed to dream for themselves. The dreams should be folded up and tucked away, replaced with onesies and swaddle blankets. For now at least, those dreams belong to your babies. That is the lie I have been believing: These dreams of mine have an expiration date; my dreams and my children cannot go-exist. My creativity must now belong to motherhood.  Here I am, two small children and a dream, none of whom will be ignored, all three shouting at me to be fed.

I write at the kitchen counter as the kids come in and ask for waffles for lunch. Waffles in the toaster, I realize we are out of syrup and spread some jam my friend made on top.  The girls clamber for more. Later, I am writing in the car in the parking lot of the grocery store, both of my children asleep in the back seat and I realize that while feeding my children and my dream I only managed to feed myself the bits of waffle my youngest threw on the floor. Will feeding my dreams will always leave me this hungry?

I’ve tried to pack away my dreams, to leave them folded carefully away in a plastic bin labeled, some day. I have tried to wait them out, to throw them out, to simply ignore them. It leaves me hungrier than coffee for breakfast and half a jam smeared waffle off of the floor for lunch. Like these girls I grew tucked safely in my womb, these dreams grown in my heart were given to me, and are demanding and impossible to ignore. It is part of their charm. I love all of them just like that. I’m a mom with a dream. I’m the mom of a dream.

Maybe dreams are for moms too. Maybe dreams are for people who go about their day at the grocery store, drive their kids in a circle in the mini-van until everyone’s head slowly drops to the side, maybe some days nap time is for dreaming cramped in the driver’s seat of the mini-van or standing at the kitchen counter just trying to get the words out. Maybe suppressing these dreams is a waste of my time and with everything on my to-do list I shouldn’t add that.

Maybe I don’t have time not to dream.

Dear Students,

I’ve told you since the beginning of the year that this would be it for me. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I will not be returning. But like due dates that I have repeated 3 times a day for a week, it seems this time has snuck up on all of us. You came into my room as I was pulling down the posters and giving away the various spray painted stools I have collected in my nine years of teaching. You looked at me and told me it looked sad in there, that you didn’t like the reminder that I was leaving. I shrugged my shoulders and tried not to cry. I don’t like it either.

I have taught over a thousand students in my 9 years in a classroom. I have thought a lot about you all, especially in these last few months. I found myself telling stories of my past students to my present students in ways I usually do not.

I want to make sure you know that I am not quitting teaching because of you, because I find you annoying, or disrespectful, or too much to handle somehow. Being with you is the best part of this job. I hope you know I like you, even if I don’t always like you as students, if I don’t always like having to be in charge of your antics, I find you delightful as fellow human beings.

If I have taught you anything, I hope I have taught you to be kind. I know I haven’t always modeled it perfectly, but I have always found you respectful and kind; I have heard this is because you feel the same way about me. You show people how to treat you by treating them that way, I hope you have learned how much easier it is to get through this world when everyone is kind to one another.

I hope I have taught you how to listen. You only need to be in my class for about ten minutes before you know exactly what I think about practically anything, but I hope you have seen me hear you out. I hope you have seen me answer your push back and your questions honestly. I hope you have heard and understood your classmates just a little bit better in my classroom. The exposure to diversity you have in your school is a gift, but you have to unwrap that in order to receive it.

I hope you have felt heard, and learned just a little, how to speak for yourself. Some people think that I am crazy, that I give you too much control of my class when I adjust my plans to the things you tell me you want and need. I hope you have learned to advocate for yourselves, to speak up when you need something, to suggest a better way when you see one. There will be people far more intimidating than me that you will have to suggest things to, I hope you have learned those skills in my class, for when you really need them later in life. .

I hope you have learned the value of a good story. You’ve heard a lot of stories in my class, ones I tell about my life, ones you read from famous authors. I hope you connected with at least a few stories, I hope you remember them, remember what you learned from them about humanity, power, laughter, love.

And I hope you learned the value of a good apology. I don’t do everything perfectly. If you are my student you know this better than maybe anyone. I make mistakes, I lose my temper, I screw up the grade book. Remember how much more you respect me because I am willing to own up to my mistakes. Remember that if you make a mistake in public your amends must also be public. This rule has kept me out of a lot of trouble. I have too much pride to apologize to a 15 year old in front of the rest of you. But if I speak out of turn in front of a group, it isn’t fair for me to apologize privately.

I have grown up, these last years, as you have grown up right before my eyes. Scrawny freshmen from a few years ago bump me in the hallway and apologize in voices so deep I laugh with surprise. Kids from my first year find me on Facebook, graduating from college, married, living full adult lives. No one has stayed the same. We have all grown and changed and hopefully, know a little bit more than we did before. It is cliche to say, but it is true, you have taught me far more than I could ever teach you.

I hope, with my leaving, I can teach you one more thing. I hope that I can serve as a reminder that you are worth so much more than any test could tell you. I hope you will remember that if you tried your best, and listened, and learned, and tried to fit but couldn’t that it isn’t you that is broken. I hope you have learned to look critically at systems that are set up so that not everyone can win, and I hope you can demand better ways, even if it is scary, even if it costs you something. I hope you know your whole self is worthy of bringing to the table. I hope you have learned in my classroom, there are places and people that want all of you, I hope I have taught you to find those places in the world. I am learning all of this myself. I am trying, in my imperfect way, to teach you how to live as your whole self in this world. I have seen those whole selves, this world needs all of you.

Much Love,

Ms. Norman

PS We can break my strict no touching rule for a goodbye hug. But just this once.

We have a week and a half left of school and this post from two years ago sums up exactly what is happening in my brain.

You would think when a girl writes this in September, she would brace herself for the end of the year. You would think wrong. Girlfriend did not have time to brace herself. She was too busy teaching her heart out, her buns off, like her hair was on fire. And now? Now girlfriend isn’t just tired. She is t-i-r-e-d. She is exhausted. She is typing in third person and she doesn’t even care, because she has 11 days left until she does not have to speak to or be in charge of a teenager for two glorious months.

You thought seniriotis was bad? I promise you the seniors have nothing, nothing on the way the teachers are feeling, and they aren’t allowed to organize pranks or walk out of class, or take a long lunch because they have never ever in their whole career done it before, and darn it they deserve it! No, we can’t do that. Because we have to be in charge. It is completely unfair. I mean, we have been the adults in the room every single day for 169 days. When is it our turn to act like the children?

Oh yeah. Never.

The only way I can think to explain the way that I am feeling, is that the giant toddler that lives inside of every one of us, is clawing to get out. I am about three seconds from letting said toddler be in charge. And everyone knows that is a terrible idea. You can’t put the raging toddler in charge of anything. You especially cannot put a raging toddler in charge of mostly grown, but seriously lacking in the frontal-lobe-development-departmet hormone surging teens. You may want to stand at the front of your room and just scream NO! nononononono! NO! at them, but as I tell my toddler, that is not a choice. So, how exactly does one loving teacher who is seriously at the end of her rope, manage to calm the toddler inside down long enough to keep her job for the clean slate that is next September, (ugh), August? By parenting herself, to the max. When the toddler is in a mood, everyone knows there is really only so much a person can do. And it IS that bad people, I am just trying to parent myself until I can get to beditme, I mean, summer.

Choose Your Battles – As I sing to my kids on a regular basis, You can’t always get what you want. I know you want to function like the fully grown up person that you almost always are, but right now, we are in survival mode. So, (as our van currently plays on repeat) let it go. Feeding your kids cereal and yogurt on the back porch and letting your dog lick them clean will not kill them. Your kids will love it. Wearing those pants that are pajamas but can totally pass as slacks is totally allowed. Drive-thru to get coffee four days this week, even if you and your car-pool agreed that was a Wednesday only activity. You can only tell the toddler no, so many times. Only say no to the desires when said desires will get you fired.

Check Your Schedule – Everyone knows a well rested toddler is a happy one. Take all unnecessary appointments out of your schedule. Re-schedule for June or July. For the love of all things holy, treat bedtime as sacred ground and keep it. Lie to yourself and tuck yourself in a half hour early for your own good. You really need it and it is in everyone’s best interest.

Make The Toddler Giggle – Sometimes, when you get ragey, the only thing left to do is distract yourself. Do whatever it takes to give yourself a laugh. Watch that video you love (again! AGAIN!). Do a dance, listen to your favorite song, run a lap naked and giggling around your house after bath time. Getting the toddler to giggle makes said toddler forget all her previous woes. When something stops working, try something else.

When all else fails, Bribe the toddler – Sometimes you have to, you are at a wedding, you are in public, you need them to take their medicine. EVery parent knows that sometimes you  just need to bribe your kid. Take this parenting advice and apply it like no tomorrow. Wine, ice cream, cold press coffee, access to Twitter, just bribe yourself. It is fine. It isn’t forever. Just until grades are due and you don’t have to worry about saying something that might get you fired. (For every hour you manage to not say anything questionable, go ahead and give yourself five m&ms.)

Pull it together fellow teachers. We are almost done. We can do this. We can be the adults for eleven more days. Then we can bribe ourselves with as much wine as summer can handle. Cheers.

A few days ago, a story came across my news feed that I was sure was not true. Apparently, a school district in North Carolina has changed their handbook so that high schoolers are allowed to carry pepper spray with them to school. This has something to do with pre-preemptive fear about who is in the bathroom, and there are a myriad of good articles discussing that fear. I would like to focus on the craziness that is allowing teenagers pepper spray in school.

If we can’t all agree that letting high school students carry weapons to school is a terrible idea, then there really is no hope for this country.

I do not care what the problem is, giving teenagers pepper spray is NEVER the solution. Ever. Not even one time.

I have been working in a high school setting for ten year, and I have a lot of hands on experience with the kinds of stupid that high school students exhibit on a regular basis. This stupid is not because they are stupid, or bad, or awful. The kind of stupid that is high school student stupid has everything to do with the fact that there is a critical mass of bodies that look fully grown being directed by brains that are not fully developed. This isn’t anyone’s fault, but it has been my professional problem for the last ten years.

Let me say, in my full teacher voice, with the kind of authority needed to keep two girls who have already taken off their earrings from going full MMA on each other in my classroom:

WE DO NOT GIVE TEENAGERS WEAPONS AT SCHOOL!

Teenagers do not think before they act. They just do not. When I took to Twitter and Facebook to ask my teacher friends what was the dumbest thing a student had ever done in their classroom, not because the child was bad simply because the child was a teenager, I got some doozies. These examples come from all kinds of kids with all kinds of backgrounds at all kinds of schools. The only thing these kids have in common, is their brain development.

Here is a selection of the responses I received from my veteran teacher friends:

A student stuck a paperclip in the electrical outlet just to see what would happen.

A student used the bunsen burner to “sterilize” a paper clip and pierce their own ear.”

There was the girl who made appointments in the girls bathroom and pierced multiple peer navels before she was finally caught. Think about that for a second. MULTIPLE teenagers decided that it was a good idea to let a peer pierce their belly button in a public restroom. Multiple.

There were more incidences of kids sharpening pencils super pointy and then stabbing themselves or someone else with than I want to believe.

The same goes for students who wanted to know if a staple would go through jeans and into a human’s thigh. Spoiler alert: It can if you press hard enough.

There were two separate incidents, reported by teachers who don’t even know each other, of a kid hot gluing another kid in the neck “just to see what would happen.”

Speaking of seeing what would happen, there were also multiple reports of a student somehow getting a hold of pepper spray (usually from a teacher’s key chain) and voluntarily spraying themselves with it, just to see if it really was as bad as the people on YouTube claim.

I, personally, once taught a child who sprayed his friend and when the friend started crying BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN PEPPER SPRAYED. The sprayer then sprayed himself to prove his friend was just being a baby. They both got sent to the nurse to get their eyes washed out, and then they had to go home.

One of my colleagues at a neighboring school system was knocked out cold by a stray textbook that had been thrown through the air. The kid who threw it wasn’t being malicious. It is just that he was wondering how far he could throw the textbook and his aim was off. A textbook. A kid looked at a text book and didn’t think, I wonder what kind of valuable information I can glean by opening this up and reading it. No, this kid looked at the textbook and thought, I wonder how far I can chuck this thing. So, he did that.

And, hands down, the most disgusting incidence of WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING IN YOUR BRAIN! A student, while dissecting a rat, dared another student to eat a rat fetus that had been preserved in formaldehyde. They of course recorded this epic incident and posted it on the internet for posterity’s sake. When presented with the recording and the sheer amount of dangerous chemicals ingested, the student shrugged and said it was definitely worth the five dollars he was paid. He ate a rat fetus and defends that decision to this day.

These are the same, looking grown, but for sure not grown,  people that a school district has agreed should be allowed to carry pepper spray to school. I have no idea how much the school nurses in that district make, but it is not even close to enough to deal with this foolishness.

Aren’t school districts supposed to be aware of what children are like? Who passed these changes? Surely not a parent with children in their own house! Parents of teenagers know better. Teachers of teenagers know better. Who does not know better than to let teenagers carry around pepper spray, and suggest to them they might need to use it in school and WHY ARE THEY IN CHARGE OF THE RULES?

Y’all. I have questions. But perhaps my most timely question is: Who is going to start the YouTube channel for all the pepper spray mishaps bound to be caught on camera? As long as I am not in charge of it, that junk is bound to be hilarious.

My computer died two Wednesdays ago. Just when it is becoming reality that I actually did quit my job to try to make some money at this writing gig, the one tool I needed. It wasn’t even that old. It for sure had the best copy of two books that I am working on. I for sure had been meaning to upload them to the cloud, but the machine wasn’t even acting funny. Until it wouldn’t start.

I met the kindest man who has ever worked on a Geek Squad and handed him my computer. No problem, he said. Let me try two other things, he said. I have one more person I want to ask he said. I am very very sorry he said. Is there anything I can get you? he said, as I sobbed uncontrollably into my dead computer.

My book is on there. In three weeks I quit job to be a writer (or seminary student) in two weeks. I rose up to my destiny and instead of rising up to meet me, the universe sucker punched me. I was literally doubled over and gasping for breath.

It was awful. That moment was totally awful. There was nothing left to do.

I don’t know why it takes having no other options to ask for help. But I know I am not the only one who waits that long. I started a GoFundMe page and went to bed crying. I woke up to 24% of my goal and by Friday evening I had met my goal. With Facebook often burying crowd sourcing links, many people I know hadn’t even seen it. I am still, even as I am typing this from my new computer, shocked at the support that was given.

If you are following along, you know that my family is living in a state of radical uncertainty. It is wearing on me. It is hard to keep faith, even the size of a mustard seed. I cry a lot. I worry I lot. I am mad at myself for worrying and that doesn’t really help anything. I still don’t have any answers.

I’ve been putting off writing this follow up post because I wanted this to change everything. I wanted your generosity and the speed at which you poured it out to be the first in a series of allthethings coming together. Instead, it has been the piece that I am clinging to. I am supposed to write. I am called to this life I am pursuing. My needs will be met, probably in ways I am not expecting. I should continue to swim into the deep end, instead of scurrying back to shore. With every stroke I am gasping for breath. I am not sure I am going to make it. But for now I swim on. I am choosing to trust that I will see the next shoreline any minute against the horizon. I am  choosing to believe that the rescue boats will come when I cannot take one more breath on my own.

If you donated already, and did not yet receive your thank you, expect one tomorrow. I can’t wait to skype with some of you! If you still want to donate, I would love to be able to update my website. Every kind word has been stored up just like every dollar. Thank you all, my rescue boats. 

You can find my GoFundMe here.