Why, You Ask?

Before every outreach, I like to pause and come back to the why.

Because what we’re stepping into isn’t just an event—it’s people. Real people, carrying real things, often unseen.

Life is tough, and there are so many people walking around with burdens no one realizes. Sometimes a smile and an open ear are exactly what someone needs.

As followers of Jesus, we have a beautiful opportunity to extend our faith through listening and prayer. Not out of pressure, but from a place of presence.

In 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul urges us to pray for all people—to intercede, to give thanks, and to trust that God desires for everyone to be saved and to know the truth. That kind of prayer isn’t small. It matters.

We can’t undervalue what’s been placed in our hands as believers. You are strong in Christ, and your prayers carry weight. When you sit with someone, when you listen, when you offer to pray—you are stepping into something sacred. You are advocating for them before the Lord.

I know praying out loud can feel intimidating. It’s easy to think we need the right words, as if our phrasing is what activates God. But the power isn’t in our performance—it’s in our faith and in who He is. He is willing, and He is able.

Hebrews 4:16 reminds us that we can come boldly to the throne of grace, receiving mercy and finding help in our time of need. That same invitation is what we are extending to others when we pray with them.

This is what outreach looks like.

Sometimes it looks like serving yogurt, sometimes it looks like a conversation, sometimes it looks like a simple prayer offered in a parking lot, but every time — it’s about showing up with intention.

At Untether Life, we believe creating space for these moments is where faith becomes action. Not because we have all the answers, but because we are willing to be present.

And presence matters.

Destroy ALL Paper Trails!

In the third grade, I had the meanest teacher you could possibly have! Ms. Murphy, bleh gross. She was an all work and no play pill of a woman who took us out to recess maybe three times all year. I don’t have a lot of memories from that grade; I remember what I wore in my dance recital that year with my friend Heather, who was in my class at school, and I remember we got a lunch room that year, too. My dad was in the military, and we spent the majority of the 80s living in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where I attended a Department of Defense school. The other very strong memory I have from third grade was this boy named Ty. Ty was a swarthy 8-year-old with a massive rat tail. I swear this kid had Big Rig written all over him. 

Being such a small base, our class sizes were also small, with no more than 17 kids in a class. So when it came to wonder year crushes, there were slim pickin’s. Apparently, I had a crush on Trucker Ty, and I felt it necessary to send him the notorious boxed questionnaire written by decades of students before me with the ever practical relationship survey of checkbox replies. 

On said day, I decided to execute my questionnaire to him despite the fear of getting caught by Ms. Murphy. 

Purposefully, I drew the boxes, making the lines in the box indicating yes just a little bit darker with my pencil, just to make sure he knew which box he should check. I folded the paper, passed it the two rows toward him, and waited for his response. 

As he passed the note back, it was intercepted by mean old Ms. Murphy. In retrospect, I bet Trucker Ty didn’t even look to see if she was paying attention before he started the pass back. Ms. Murphy held my precious note in her hand and unfolded it. She didn’t read it aloud as her normal practice. Instead, she quietly skimmed the words on the page and peered over the edge of the paper down her long bony nose at me. She turned on her heel, marched to the bulletin board by the door where we all lined up to go anywhere, and pinned the note open for all to see. 

My heart pounded as I realized what she was doing. Everyone would see the note as we lined up for lunch, and I didn’t even know his answer! I sat there in terrible anxiety, waiting until it was time to get in line to see what he had responded, along with everyone in my class. 

I can’t remember how long she left that note up on the board, but I do remember that he had checked no. Yep, I’d been turned down by Trucker Ty. Probably better in the long run anyway. Shame is a terrible way to teach, lead, or coach. We have a generation of people bound in shame they don’t need to be. I am over the embarrassment of the rejection from Ty, but the shaming by my teacher, which highlighted me and not him, has stayed with me. I have had to forgive her as an adult, and now I laugh at it, but sometimes I feel for the girl inside of me. She suffered some mean things and still came out in the end in love with herself through the grace of Jesus who put me in right standing. I’m grateful that I have been redeemed from shame, and I can laugh at things that mean to insult me. My one piece of advice is this: some questions are best asked face-to-face so there's no paper trail. 

Exactly, Why Guatemala? : The Summation

On a trip to Israel, I was sitting around a meal table in a kibbutz with a team of people I had come to greatly enjoy over the past six days, when someone asked the often-asked question when on a missions-focused trip: “Where do you feel called to?” 

I came into a personal relationship with Jesus on a mission trip to Frakes, KY. I didn’t understand missions at the time, but as my life grew with Jesus at the helm, I learned more and more that I wanted to go to different parts of the world. 16 trips later, I was at this table in Israel answering the same question I’ve answered on every other trip. I was called to the United States. 

This answer garnered questions, always, but it was true. I love my people and my country. I selfishly saw Jesus as an American God rather than a global God until I expanded my world view and sat in a church service in Vladimir, Russia, listening to a translator whisper what the pastor was praying from the front. It was just like we pray, same asking, same praise, same words and sentiment as my American church prayed in a corporate setting. It was in that moment I connected to my bias and understood that God was a global God and the hearts of men were the same who seek Him regardless of language or culture. 

The year following Israel, an opportunity to return to Russia with a team to work with ministry center we had partnered with for decades presented itself, marking my 16th mission trip. The following year, I had decided to earn a master's degree and was in my second semester of school when I looked through a list of trips my employer’s foundation was offering through its missions program. I looked at a coworker and asked, “Want to go to Guatemala?” I had never visited, out of the list, it was the only place I felt “willing” to go to. I hear the arrogance in that sentence as I share it, but it was who I was then, and it shaped how I made my choices. So in April of that year, I embarked on my 17th mission trip, but first to a country where it wasn’t illegal to speak about the gospel of Jesus. 

Guatemala, April 2018

During my five-day visit with the host missionaries, I was often moved by their spiritual depth. There were some days, they would gather and pray, asking the Lord to guide them where they went that day and who needed to experience the Lord. There’s a story in the New Testament where the disciple Philip was led to go stand near a cart where he was met with the opportunity to answer a eunich’s questions about Jesus because he was sensitive to the spirit enough to be led there. This is what I imagined the work in Guatemala looked like on those days. I was intrigued.

I come back and I am in my normal everyday life. It’s been a year and a half since my trip to Guatemala. I had no mission trips on the horizon, and I was facing some big life changes. I knew the Lord was shifting me; graduation was pending, and I could tell I  was going to move from Virginia Beach. The Lord had spoken to me during that first summer after Guatemala, calling me into full-time vocational ministry. Now, it’s the Thanksgiving holiday and on an impromptu trip to Texas to visit my brother, social media showed that some of the missionaries I’d worked with in Guatemala were in town close to me. We met for a coffee where during the conversation I simply asked, “What would it look like to come work in Guatemala full time?” 

That’s it. That’s how it happened. I was simply presented with an opportunity, and when I prayed about it, I felt like the choice was mine, so I took it. I didn’t make the choice for many more months, but I wanted to live like those missionaries were, for a season. I wanted to see what it was like to push yourself in more ways than one and learn to walk in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

Guatemala, January 2021

If I’m painfully honest, I wanted to walk in the fullness of God all day every day, like I did on short-term trips. On week three I started to realize there is a difference in life on the field and two weeks on the field…there’s a point when life becomes life after that two weeks, and daily life will start to march in. I think that’s one of the lessons I learned in Guatemala: long-term vocational ministry is not a missions trip. It’s a gritty dedication to something you know is where you’re supposed to be when everything else feels like it’s in the wrong place. It’s holding on to your why when you can’t remember it, and dedicating yourself to slowing down, sitting in the seeking, and changing everything you thought you knew about life before. 

Guatemala unfolded a lot of whys…too many to answer in one post, but enough of them to keep an open conversation. So, this one is “the why I went to Guatemala itself” in a summation. 

On the Other Side of Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and let me tell you that was a hard day! 

It’s been five months since I walked into my mom’s room while she was watching TV to find her already with Jesus, though for two more hours we hoped and prayed for a miracle. Five months of her gone, and I just figured out that I have been in that denial stage they talk about. Come to find out it’s not thinking she didn’t die, it’s being in that I-can’t-believe-she-died thing. The shock alone of the loss, then the loss itself, felt so big I equated it to a large triangle trying to fit through a circle. Now that it’s getting to a place where I can sort of squish it through some, it’s such a grody feeling. I had already put on 20 pounds through the emotional transition back from Guatemala, but then we hit the season of the cookie. Lots of cookies came through our house after she passed. It hasn’t calmed down, though, and 20 more pounds later, I recognized I was dissociating with my body and I needed help. 

This prompted me, a year after graduating from therapy, to reach out to the therapist who walked me through my breakdown to see if she could help me with this one. She’s taught me how to be present in my body, not disassociate, and manage my feelings. Having a lot of emotions doesn’t mean you properly know how to manage them, and she’s been extremely helpful in guiding me through ways to better manage them. I highly recommend finding a person to talk to, a professional is what I needed, but no matter who the trusted person you choose is; talking about your crap changes it from crap to fertalizer. 

Personally, I don’t find an advantage in taking myself to the lowest parts of the grief of this. I cry, I know I’m grieving, I know five months to 48 years with my mom in my life is nothing, but I want to so badly to be on the other side of this. It’s so deep, and it’s complicated in so many ways. I am just starting to truly miss her, and that triangle of grief pushing through this circle hole hurts. But letting all those emotions crash into me and sweep me up in their debris doesn’t feel like it adds for me. I don’t pull up out of that ocean of grief and think, “Whew, that was rough, but I needed to go through that one.” NO, I’d rather stand on the side, acknowledge its power in my life, give it the respect it needs for a bit, and then go back to the shelter. 

I learned also that this event will mark time going forward. This desire I have to always “get through” or “get over” something is unrealistic and adds this judged pressure inside, telling me I shouldn’t be feeling this way because I’m “getting through it.” It led me to near ruin before, I don’t have the emotional time or space to allow it to do it again. So with my mom, I will learn to mark the time before she died and after she died. 

It’s so permanent. Such a drastic and complete change in life…when she was alive here versus now that she isn’t. Just writing that truth stings my eyes with hot tears and creates this ache inside me that feels almost unfair, maybe? Now, I’m learning how to do life this way, to set timers to allow myself the time I need to cry and feel completely over all life can offer, set work goals to keep the projects I was working on before, moving along. I share this vulnerability openly because it’s what's in my hands to offer. 

I didn’t feel God too closely this week. I kept Him at the forefront of my mind, though. What I feel is often contrary to the truth when it comes to the proximity of the Father, but I kept the truth over the feelings. The last couple of days, there were moments when the grief would hit, and I felt like I was going to have a panic attack because there was nowhere to run to avoid the intensity of the pain. I did consider ways to numb the pain, but knew it was all counterfeit, so I embraced it and kept my words very clear. “The joy of the Lord is my strength…” I spoke about the deep sadness and grief over and over again. I only had to get through the harder days until I was on the other side of Sunday. And here we are, writing words of survival and comfort the day after. Another first without her survived!

Loss is hard, even with an eternal hope; grief is a way bigger beast than I ever expected, and it just keeps revealing different faces of itself. I am grateful for my crew, social media when it’s supportive and wonderful, for the tears that have finally started to fall, and knowing that they will again stop falling as frequently…one day. 

We are all in this. We all feel this, and death is a great equalizer. I know many have lost parents, friends, siblings, and lovers. It is such a permanent feeling on this side, but I said it at my mom’s service, and I’ll remind us here too…I know my mom got to heaven, and when I daydream about it, I  hear her saying, “I had no idea.” All the glory and wonder of being with the creator that fully, she didn’t have any idea, and even though I (possibly arrogantly) think I do, I find such great comfort in knowing that for her. 

The Climbing Tree

Charlotte is a soft-spoken 9-year-old who comes to our women’s bible study that meets on Tuesdays at 10 am. She’s homeschooled, so she has the opportunity to attend the study with her mom, and it’s such a wonderful group of women who seek the Lord so deeply that these kids are just drawn to hanging out with us as we talk about the Bible. At some point each week, the older children will sit down and join in to listen to the discussion. They don’t interject; they just listen and observe us. One week, we were discussing hearing from God, and as we wrapped up the meeting, I asked Charlotte if she hears from God. She quickly and quietly answered, “Yes.” I asked her what she hears from him, because I am so curious what a child hears from God. Unfortunately, that day, I’d put sweet Charlotte on the spot and she couldn’t answer me. 

A few weeks later, after I’d returned from a trip, missing a study, her mom asked her if she had shared with me what she’d heard from God about the tree…Charlotte comes over and begins to tell me about a tree that was near her house. She explained God had told her where to go in her neighborhood to find a particular tree and gave her a map of where it was. So, she drew a map of where it was according to what God had shared with her. She took the map to her mom, explaining that the tree was shown to her by God, and asked if they could go find the tree.

And they did. 

Off a walking path through their neighborhood, Charlotte’s map led them to a tree that was perfect for a swing and to play in. I loved the story. When she finished, I asked her, “Why did God want you to know where the tree was?”

“Because he loves me. I’m special, and he wants me to enjoy it,” replied Charlotte. 

WHAT?! I nearly cried at her response. Goodness, if we all knew that about our relationship with God. He wants to give us good things because he loves us, we are each individually and simultaneously His favorite, and he wants us to enjoy this life. Charlotte left the room, and her mom filled in that she had been praying and asking for a tree to play in, and one day she came out with a map. She said they followed the map on a walk and found the tree. 

I’m His favorite. Not His best employee, but His favorite child. I have spent so much of my walk with Jesus relating to God as my boss, not my father. I bring all my works to Him and present them seeking His approval, and His approval MUST be His love, right? I feel unworthy and unlovable until I’ve done something that makes me feel like I’ve been a good employee, and I can approach him again, because surely he’s pleased with me right now. Approval and love are different. Love isn’t contingent upon me. When I’m cranky, high maintenance, selfish and self-absorbed, not wanting to “perform” for God -  it doesn’t matter, love is still there. Regardless of how hard I work, approval won’t make me feel loved. 

When I stepped into this missionary calling a few years ago, I wanted all my works to be what showed His favor and blessing in my life. What’s happened is a long journey of reworking and rewiring my dogma and lies that put God in a box. It was so hard, but what I have learned is that all these things, all these challenges, all these blessings are because He loves me, I’m His favorite, and He wants me to enjoy this life. 

Charlotte’s hope for her tree, her open ears to hear God when He guides her to her blessing, and her simple but deep understanding that God loves her have impacted me. A 9-year-old who openly and sweetly loves God without the rules we strap on to who and how God is, is inspiring and a simple truth we all can tie over us as a banner over our lives. 

Things are never going to be perfect; current times and challenges prove that life will continue to do what it does in the good and the bad, but there is a truth for all hearts created by God: He loves us, we are His favorite, and He wants us to enjoy it. I challenge myself to hold fast to this truth. The more I do it, the more I understand God’s love for me. Paul writes more than once in his letters a prayer that we would have the power to understand how much God loves us. He continues to show me and guide me into that love. For all the “works” I can do, the better goal He’s got for me is to know and receive how much He loves me. This is the same goal He has for everyone, that we would know Him and that we would understand His great love for us.  

Plated Dignity

In 2019, I sat in on a nonprofit panel hosted at my university during the last part of my master's program to determine what avenue of full-time ministry the Lord was calling me into. Even writing that sentence makes me chuckle at how I used to think it was all up to me to figure out my paths…I digress. On this panel was an outreach feeding ministry called Mercy Chefs, which was introducing its new community kitchen launch in our area. 

Mercy Chefs was birthed out of an outrage at the food services offered to those who had survived Hurricane Katrina. There were cold meals, poorly prepared and plated, and offered out with an air of the attitude that one should be grateful they were being given anything. From there, they became an emergency outreach feeding organization providing chef-curated meals prepared and plated to feed the whole person. 

Since returning fully from Guatemala in June, I have been seeking ways to continue to build the ministry and empower others to act out their faith by loving their neighbor as themselves a bit more. One of the ways I have done this is by volunteering at Mercy Chef’s Portsmouth Community Kitchen. Weekly, we are preparing and packaging up hot and cold meals to various ministries, outreaches, first responders, veterans, and senior communities on a large scale. Recently, an impending snowstorm had us cranking out 645 meals for the community in one hour and 15 minutes. It was an amazing effort to be a part of. The entire operation is well-organized, efficient, and deeply dignified. 

As I see more and more meals being prepared to go out, meet the people who are coordinating and receiving the meals, and learn all the other ways Mercy Chefs meets the needs of hungry people, I am moved by the dignity. It’s easy to just give things out, meet basic needs, and feel like you’ve done something. But when you do something with thought, consider what would be a great meal to heat up on a cold day after all the rent has been paid and there’s $6 left from the Social Security, and package it professionally and cleanly, it shows that the person has been considered. It’s teaching me that when we do something with the end idea of being the act instead of the person it’s for, we are missing the whole point. Jesus stopped and considered the soul of each person in need who interrupted him. He answered that, and the need was met.

We meet the needs of others when we connect with them as a person, when we connect with another human soul with a heart that was created to know Jesus and is seen by him. Reminding people they are seen, meeting the needs of the suffering with dignity, and allowing that to break your own heart for others more is a three cord strand that, when braided together within us, lift others with great strength.  

There are many ways to get involved. There is need everywhere you look. Learn more about Mercy Chefs here.

Control Freak

I’ve been listening to the song, Manasseh by Anna Golden on repeat. I was introduced to the song through a bible study I attend and it randomly popped into my head Mansassah means to forget the suffering in my father’s house. It was the name of Joseph’s firstborn son. 

I am starting to have this understanding of how I have been walking out my faith with God. There’s a place in her song where she says, “You can let it all go, he will take it from here.” I am struck in recognizing that my doer's heart likes to be taken over by a control freak! I trust God, but I do all things in my own strength. I muscle through, I strong-arm things, and I keep up a brave face because that is what you do. You just keep going. 

I think there is a dependency that I am not leaning into where God is sovereign or above all. He has spent the last year teaching me about forgiveness. Not really asking for it, but offering it to others. He’s taught me that I cannot move forward in his power and might with bags of resentment, distrust, cynicism, and pride draped around me like water jugs balanced on a dowel across my shoulders. Then I add what I think I should be doing to please God and answer the call on my life and things bobble and sway and all that pride, resentment, and the like slosh out around me in large splash zones. Do I have a splash zone surrounding me? I do. 

The deeper I understand repentance and true surrender, the more I learn that I have been trying to control everything I do for years. I have thought, if one thing isn’t working then I clearly need to pivot and change my approach, and then that didn’t work either. Something in the song made me realize, somewhere along the way I keep picking the reigns back up and thinking I’m steering this roadshow. 

I am starting to see that it can only go so far and this season is required to get me into a place where I am either allowing him to be Lord or I will remain on this hamster wheel of striving and regret working with all my might to get to a destination that doesn’t exist.

I had no clue when He whispered to me he was calling me into full-time ministry what he was leading me into was a wilderness of a forest fire to burn off everything I thought, expected, and held tightly to. It’s been a slow stripping away, many tears, lots of hard questions asked over and over again. But on this end, all these years later, when things still circumstantially don’t “look” like what I want them to I see the exchange. I can see how He has gently steered me more into his image, he’s righted wrong assumptions and fears I carried about Him, and He’s healed me to know that He is good and worth the investment. I wanted to give up and quit many times, I questioned if I’d still be a believer when I got through the other side, but I have tasted and seen and I don’t know where else to place hope but in Him. Thankfully, He doesn’t let me forget how great He is and how wonderful I know him to be. 

Joy isn’t happiness. It’s standing in a hope you know you can trust despite the circumstances looking like an utter disaster. It’s taken me a long time to understand this, to allow the truth of who He is to be enough to sustain me and be my strength. He’s faithful to keep after you, even when you don’t know if you can keep after yourself. He’s never failed me, let me walk away in my seeking, or failed to answer me in His timing, which is always right on time. I’m still learning every day that I can let it all go and let Him take it from here, but at least I can!

Until the Shock Wears Off

Written December 18,2024

Two weeks tomorrow my mom died, and today it feels like I have a lead ball in my gut, and am just on the edge of biting someone’s face off in a rage that is surly not meant for them. 

I haven’t lost it on anyone, well the lady on the road who was in the rong but hoked at me, I honked back and yell’ed, “I GOT ONE TOO” to her through my rolled up windows. I guess grief comes out in ugly sometimes. 

It’s not even like I am terribly missing her as much as it’s just this terrible heaviness that is settling in that I know will have it’s own process and all I can do right now is allow it its space knowing it won’t be here forever. 

Depression was like that, I ignored things that were hurting me for a very long time until it nearly undid me. I learned not to partner with something as the way it is but to recognize that life is on a cycle and seasons come and go and though I don’t accept it as forever, I understand I need to allow room for the feelings for them to cycle through in a healthy capacity. Today, it sucks balls though. 

It’s gorgeous outside and not even that is relenting the hollow ache in the back of my throat that just sits there without moving, just weighted. 

Everything is just weighted. 

It’s heavy that she died, the unspoken questions are heavy, the what-ifs are heavy, and the reality of today is heavy. If I’m deeply honest with myself, I want to numb it all until it passes. I have had thoughts of ways to self-medicate, seek comfort in external desires, and get in my car and just never look back. I don’t know how I’ll do on all the things, thankfully there is grace rich for each day. 

Shall We Dance?

I stopped at a gas station to grab a drink and while paying the cashier I noticed a wisp of a young girl, pregnant, looking tired, and counting change her in hand. Back in my car, the pregnant girl caught my eye as I started to drive off.

For a moment I debated going up to her, but I had to. I drove over beside her car and asked if she needed some gas in her car as she’d only pumped $4.81. As I pumped the gas she looked at me and shared, “It’s been a bad day.”

“They happen,” I responded. She told me her boyfriend was taken to jail this morning, and it was the worst day. As young and pregnant as she was, I empathized that it probably was for her. I asked when she was due and asked a few more general care questions. Then we sat in silence as I continued to pump the gas. When I was done, I gave her my contact information and offered to pray. I invited her to church and shared that she was welcome anytime. If anything, I wanted to reassure her she wasn’t alone and that someone did care about her. Though I may not have the full resources to help, I know who does and places I can send her for help.

As I drove off I reflected on the tugged whisper to see her. I have learned that you have to train yourself to see people. Life is busy, and it’s very easy for our lives to turn inwardly to ourselves and not have time or eyes to see the needs of those around us. Needs can simply mean a friendly smile for that human connection. Then, the more you do it, the more you see them. It’s like when you buy a new car, all of a sudden, you see them on the road all the time; you have trained your eye to see them through the association of owning one. I have trained my eyes to see people through the association of being seen by a Savior when I was lost.

I have learned to just keep deciding to see people. I had to practice seeing people and the more I did it the more I saw people. I’m not great at it, I am rude to others at times, but I try hard to see all people as people and treat them as seen and valuable in my small encounters. The more I practice, the more naturally it comes to me.

There are many people roaming past you on a daily basis who feel let down, beaten, conspired against, betrayed, lost, afraid, and isolated. It’s important to learn to see people where they are. There’s something about the moments when we see the broken pregnant girls alone in their car, where the power of the everyday is elevated and illuminated. The power of the every day is generated when we take the time to stop and see others. Rise or fall, sink or swim, we are all tied together, and we shift and move each other by the actions we choose to take.

To Whom it May Concern

I’ve gotten to the place where I will hit skip if, the ever popular song, Oceans comes on a shuffle list. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that song, I just get over songs, eventually. Today, I let it play.

This song is powerfully written, it beckons the heart to go deeper, but if you listen to the lyrics they are really intense. 

Your grace abounds in deepest waters…
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the water
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I remember how ardently I would sing those lyrics, pouring my heart out to God in a desire to be on that water with Him no matter what. Come to find out I don’t love being on deep waters, but I need is grace so much that I actually find myself chasing its abundance and as that lyric says…it abounds in deepest waters. 

I don’t mean it to sound so terrible, I am loving being out here on the road, telling people about Jesus. I like the adventure of not knowing what each day fully holds and leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move and use me.

What I will say is this: I have half-assed my faith when it comes to coming out on deep waters. I pridefully and somewhat ignorantly figured I could muscle through and God would get the glory. What I have PAINFULLY learned is that you cannot walk out on deeper water without drawing closer because it requires faith and the presence of God to sustain you on that water. Even if you can keep your head above water, maybe even waist deep, you’re still going to drown eventually. It’s exhausting trying to do something so supernatural in a natural capacity. 

I am learning the first decades of my faith walk of following the ways of Jesus was deeply milky in sustainability. As long as the majority of my circumstances lined up, I had adequate bible teaching in church, and powerful corporate worship experiences that would sustain me in the deeper waters. None of these will keep you atop of the waves. I have found it is done in the privacy of my own heart before the Lord, allowing him to strip you little by little to look more like him.

I didn’t sell all my things in one day, I didn’t move to Guatemala over night, I didn’t come back in one fail swoop, and I didn’t heal all the broken parts that disillusionment, church hurt, and ministry isolation through my own strength. Accepting a missions call in my native country was a slow yes.

He’s so good, but I am a witness to you that it takes every bit of surrender and then repentance to start all over again the next day. New mercies and grace to start over from where I held on to my own ways, my own thoughts, ideals, presuppositions, or opinions that are contrary to what the scriptures say and what time in his presence can do. Don’t get crazy now, I am lazy, I wallow, I live a life that looks financially stupid, and I KNOW this ain’t for everyone. But it’s my deep waters. It’s where my faith is stretched and refreshed. It is in the deep waters I meet a face of Jesus I haven’t met before and each time reveals so much more of his greater plans, purpose, and beauty. 

So to whom this one may concern, I wanted to share with you to risk the depths to access his abundance of grace. If you don’t understand what the means, I encourage you just to ask him to show you who he is. This is my one promise…I have never sought him and not found him. He is faithful to all things and that one you can take to the bank! 

To Whom it May Concern:

To Whom it May Concern:

You can’t help where you were born. Why one is born into privilege and one in to abject poverty is only answered by the creator. We have a responsibility to the position we are in to serve the underserved in our spheres. Out of the abundance of the heart we give; compassion, revelation, fasting, religion are found and centered in serving the underserved regardless of station. I’ve met women with dirt floor kitchens open their homes as a village soup kitchen during pandemic. 

When we step out God will put the next step in front of us. When we acknowledge him in all we do he will order and straighten the steps of our paths. The abide feels like a great big ole sick, but so does the gym. When you stand in the reward of that gym suck you feel good! Same with the suck of the abide. Someone told me, recently, that God was going to sustain me in this season. I know that’s true, but on days when the suck is more pronounced than the reward I have to remind myself that sustainability is meant for these times and I can trust him beyond all measure, fear, or anxiety. He’s a breath away to my cries of, “Help me!” Even when I groan and grumble, feeling like a toddler inside and I want to have a full-out-on-my-back-kicking temper tantrum I know he sustains me even then. 

He’s a good Father and faithful to be trusted. To my pals in the suck, I see you!! We’ll get there. In the meantime, what I keep doing is seeking him for answers to the questions and responsibilities he’s laid in my heart and hands. I keep short accounts with other believers I trust, especially on days when the abide feels more like punishment. I also keep my prayer language active with worship in the background to keep my heart in a posture of praise and worship because even in the suck he’s still more than worth it, and honestly, so am I. I am worth the pressing in for his peace and his presence. I guess it’s about posture. Where do you posture your heart? When there’s seemingly famine do you pour out anyway and allow Jesus to fill you again? I’m learning it’s living waters and when you acknowledge him all you do the waters stir and flow and regardless of ebbs and wanes of life tides, there is life - and life abundantly - flowing through you. 

So, choose life. 

To Whom it May Concern

I don’t love Mondays. Who really does?  But if you were curious if a full time missionary who doesn’t have a “demand” of a time clock got the Mondays? I can say yes, yes we do. 

It could be that I struggle to release more than two decades of routine, but Mondays often feel like I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I need to set my week in some kind of order. Especially since my week is always flexible and I battle that feeling of wanting routine I feel out of whack as if on unsteady ground. 

When I went to Guatemala the first time, I was moved by how the missionaries would seek God for what they should be doing, who they should talk to, and allow his spirit to guide their daily lives. Now they had admin days of course, but many field days looked like that. I was so drawn to that life of being so led by the spirit on a daily basis that it in large part encouraged me to go to the missions field full time. I missed that opportunity of a lifestyle while there. Not because he wasn’t available for the seeking, but because I was in a different place. It wasn’t time for that quite yet. I had too much internal noise. I had so much to surrender before I could get to that place. 

Now I’m there, and I find myself just sitting and asking what’s next? Today, his answers have been “keep talking to me, I’m listening.” Nothing more right now, but I know he’s near. He’s molding my prayers to be less selfish. They are more of a collective gathering of prayers, a surrendering of heart searches within myself as I sit  asking him to show me. He’s near, I’m being obedient, and that means I’m right on time. It helps me battle off my melancholic Monday feels that really aren’t true, just lacking perspective. 

I’m making strides in the sitting and the seeking. Sometimes, I’m driving around town just focused on hearing. Sometimes, I sit outside in the shade and pen thoughts about it on my phone and see Him move in grace over these words. 

He’s for me, and I’m gonna win. Not because I’m good at anything, but because he’s showing me through revelation how much more full he is than me, and - more and more -  I’m dumping all my gunk out and letting him seek my heart. It’s work, and, at times, scary, but oh how he reveals himself! In and through, it is a deep rich wellspring of wonder and awe. 

To Whom it May Concern

I didn’t know a “nervous breakdown” was your nervous system breaking down and not being able to function as intended.. I didn’t know that eventually those things you muscle through  will show themselves. It’s been two years since the initial “breaking,” and it still surprises me that there are days when I don’t want to be here anymore.It's not a desire to die, per se, or even a lack of a will to live. It's more so a feeling of "I don't know how to do this anymore, and I would rather not be here anymore.". The more honest I’ve gotten with others about this feeling, the more I am hearing that the feeling is understood. Is this a normal thought in other people?  Or is this something of a plague we agree with and figure, “It’s ok we will just get through it?”

In experiencing my lowest days, I realized that when my nervous system is most stressed I start to get fuzzy-brained and do weird things. On one of those days, I left my iPad in the Denver airport bathroom, wrecked a rental car before I even got it out of the parking lot, and saw a project I’d dedicated my whole life to for two years go up in flames during  a three hour flight. I remember crying over how dark the day was. I had no idea how to manage all I was facing and telling my friend that I saw no tomorrows. 

I don’t feel like that today, thankfully. I think I am to the place where I know there are tomorrows no matter how dark today. I do feel deeply at times that I have very little worth to add to the world. It’s a very strong feeling that leaves me feeling loose and shaking all within my core. 

I really thought I was immune from mental health struggles, but I know that we are all the same. I know these things make it more relatable but being in the midst of days where I have to ask for help to hold myself together is very humbling. So humbling, I ALMOST don’t want to tell anyone, but the fear of keeping that in feels greater so I humble myself. I’ll be transparent…I don’t understand the purpose of this season I’m walking out, what I did or didn’t do to bring it on or exacerbate it, why I know He’s a real God but I also feel like He’s this distant judge and I just have to muscle through. My mind knows that He is not attached to how these relationships and circumstances diminish my sense of worth and life attribution, but my heart and my emptiness feels like it is. The “muscle through” doesn’t work, I’m fairly sedentary these days, and I want sustainable mental and physical health. 

So cheers to those whom it may concern, regarding our mental health and the battles we rage against and within. I’m asking for help, I’m being honest, and I’m full of faith (even if it’s a habit of faith) that nothing lasts forever and this too shall pass. You can join me, thankfully we aren’t alone. 

To Whom it May Concern

I had a very close friend for a season in my life who battled deep clinical depression. The kind there I would have to go over to her house and get her to simply take a shower. I would coax her for about 40 minutes to get up by starting with simply sitting up. It was something I didn’t understand, but I could see this weight on her and wanted to help lift its gravity off her if just through a clean PJ set. I learned a lot in that time, and it made me far more compassionate to those who battle different forms of depression. 

In 2009, I opted for a double lumbar fusion surgery in my lower back to have a chance at a less painful life. Thankfully, it brought great healing to my body at the cost of great illness to my brain. The anesthesia and drugs changed my brain chemistry sending me into an overwhelming depression. I thought I was under spiritual attack (I know it was and continues to be but there also is a definite chemical illness happening) if I’m transparent; I asked a pastor at church about it and she advised that she thought I was depressed. I had no frame of reference for identification it. 

Life continues to happen. As I pen this I am reflecting on the journey…that bout had me deeply anxious and paranoid where I only felt safe in my car. I spent weeks parking in large parking lots like Home Depot or Lowe’s, reading a book in my car all day long. I didn’t feel safe anywhere outside of that car. It was a strange time. 

In 2011 my spiritual father passed from cancer and I had an excruciatingly challenging job at the time. I found myself in the parking lot of work more than once hyperventilating and crying. I was barely sleeping and felt like I was coming undone. This time I went to a doctor and they advised I was depressed but it presented itself as anxiety. I was prescribed Xanax; that was a God send in that time and I finally started sleeping again. 

In 2019 after years of learning to manage anxiety, feeling that my bouts of melancholy were because I was a writer and it’s how artists are; I found myself getting through each day thinking that surely tomorrow would have to be better. The thing is, my tomorrows were not getting better. Then we have a global pandemic which changed all of us, maybe fundamentally.  Then, I graduate from graduate school and feel like I should move to Guatemala to serve for a year as a full time missionary. Couple that with a deep spiritual crisis over church, pastor behavior and treatment, and something stirring deeply within me calling me to bring change without specifics.

I packed all that together in three suitcase full of hope that I would arrive at the end of whatever this was I felt inside once I got to Guatemala. Let me tell ya, my whole world unraveled further. Three and a half years later, I feel like I’m still walking up sand dunes that give way regressing my progress to upward movement. I am still trodding along. Next is learning not to “muscle through” my long-suffering with the Lord. Cause honestly, I just bulk up and keep on trudging, but I’m getting tired on these dunes, y’all. Anyone else now what I mean?

To Whom it May Concern

Sometimes courage is like cardio, painful in application, but rewarding after the endorphins kick in.

To Whom it May Concern

To whom it May Concern:

Just because it doesn’t look like what you think it’s supposed to look like doesn’t mean it’s not exactly what it is supposed to be like. We align our lives to scripture and in doing that we offer our best yes and let it take us where it goes. The full Bible is truth or it is not, and if it is our steps are ordered, His plans are perfect, we will suffer for this gospel life we lead, and regardless of our opinion of presupposition it will also look like Glory that is to God, not to us. His glory is our glory and that is enough when we bend our knee. 

To Whom it May Concern

I can remember the first time I came into a larger chunk of money. I was balanced, had cash at the ready, and felt as if I had arrived and would never need money again. There was this arrogant naïveté in my thinking that I would always have an influx of money; not learning yet, that much like all things there are tides in life that ebb and wane. I am finding that my encounters and revelations of God are much the same. From mountaintop moments I will burst from within my heart thinking I will never be the same again. Though this is true, proximity of time changes the shine of high moments.

When I was younger still, I would chase the highs of God. I wanted dramatic supernatural moments that made me feel so good in a way I only feel in those moments. It was and still is the best high I’ve ever felt. But therein lies the issues; we must guard ourselves from chasing those highs. Frustratingly, I must admit, my greatest growth and maturation comes in the lows when I’m processing the highs, and sitting in whatever abide the highs have given birth to. 

I am learning, God never reveals himself just to show us Himself simply for the heck of it. He does it for myriads of reasons and the longer I sit in the stays,  I am finding how He deepens the relationships between He and I. The earlier highs were beautiful, but these new highs are deeper and more hard fought for. Not because He’s a God who doesn’t want to be with us, but because He’s a good Father who is in the process of making us into who we were designed to be. It’s not easy, but it’s a good leading. He’s faithful, he’s good, and he’s just as profound and elevating in valleys as He is atop the mountain. 

Street Foods and the Process of the Making

As I walk down La Calzada de Santa Lucia, the main street of hustle and bustle in Antigua, I smell tortillas being made on the street. It’s a distinct smell, one that makes me start to salivate. Tortillas in the states are nothing compared to here, how they make them, the sound of the hands slapping them flat and then dropping them onto the hot stove is a true cultural experience of street foods in Guatemala. There are beautiful views at every turn, the weather is ideal, and I am learning a new language! If I’m honest, I really don’t think I believed I could do that. 

There is a different pace of life here, I walk to the market and buy fresh flowers that overtake my house for pennies on the dollar, I pick out fresh vegetables every few days because they won’t make it longer, and I take a coffee break by walking two blocks from my house and grabbing the best iced dirty chai latte in town. There are also some things that slow the pace of life down because they aren’t the same conveniences I had in the States, for example, filling ice trays is a longer process. I have to keep my eco-filter filled with water so I have clean drinking water to fill the trays with. My filter is a literal five gallon bucket with a spout on the side that I use to open and close in 3 second bursts as I fill each cube with water. It’s not inconvenient or annoying, it’s just more time consuming than using the faucet. It’s micro-changes to my life that change the pace and rhythm of how things are done. 

I like it, but I have a hard time adjusting to it. I’m used to the busy paced hustle of American life and when I was there I longed for a simpler lifestyle that allowed me to explore the areas of life I felt were needing to be explored, but now that I’m in it, I have to make myself be ok with it. Trying to compare who I was when I was in America, to who I am and how I live my life here is a hard comparison. Transitioning to a new culture was a lot harder than a two week trip somewhere. I felt like I was in a fog for the first four months of being here. Now, nearly seven months in, at times I feel like I’m disappearing. Not sure what that means, but I don’t know who this Ginny is right now. She’s still the same at the core, I’m not running amuck and acting a fool, but the questions I’m asking in my heart, the laziness in my heart, it’s not who I’m used to being. I’m not sure if I’m in an undoing or just in a new thing, but this life I’ve taken on is weird and one hell of an adjustment. 

I’ve been walking this Way for a long time. In November, I will celebrate 20 years of intimate relationship with Jesus. In all this time, I have had seasons of “proofing” and they have always strengthened my faith in His goodness and faithfulness. That being said, I find it so beautiful that in my internal heart wanders right now, in the moments when I feel like I’m disappearing, I remember I am in the middle of the making. He is making me and though it may not always be tidy and attractive, it’s honest and in progress. I read something by Oswald Chambers the other day where it talked about how the destination is the process. I guess that means I’m here, I got to the destination because clearly I’m in process. 

I think even when we know the strippings and unlearnings are coming, we feel lost within them when they hit until the truths fill back into those places. Most of my lessons are an unlearning of something I thought was but, come to find out, was not. Being committed to the unlearning and the process of the making is as important as our “yes” when we first encounter Jesus. It’s what sustains us to the finish line of this great race we took up the baton in.

So, fellow friends who are in process as well, I hope you embrace it and let it truly mold and shape you. I am and though sometimes I don’t know why I keep going, I know it’s all worth it and Jesus is worth every lost feeling, every frustration of wanting my way and my own glory in the surrenders, and I know I can trust that He is busy in the making.