high-five friday.

It's F-F-F-Friday! If we were having a face to face conversation, I'd tell you in sign language (cause that's how this teacher rolls these days). It is indeed Friday; a day full of finishing up projects in the classroom, keeping learning fun (trying, anyway), gym class day (hooray!), and snack and a movie in the afternoon. Friday is my students' favorite day of the week, and I think it's pretty awesome, too.

I'm going to start something new on this here bloggy blog. Lately I have read some really good, thought provoking articles online; on blogs and news sites and websites found at random from lots of clicking . I figure, it's worth it to share what inspires me and makes me think. Truly, no idea we ever think of is one hundred percent original. We're always pulling from the different perspectives, ideas, opinions, and experiences of the people around us. So much of what I write on this blog is a combination of "this thing I heard here" and "this thing I pinned here" or "that thing that she said in the car the other day." As we take in the world around us, we use what we hear and see and experience to shape our own ideas, thoughts, and wonderings.

So from now on, I'm going to start some high-five Fridays. High-fives for the top five articles that I read in the week. High-five for good writing. High-five for thought-provoking. High-five for reading an article that points me to a bigger truth. High-five for a different perspective. High-five for bloggers around the world, writing and experiencing and sharing. High-five to you, too, for reading this blog. Just in general, high-five fridays.

Here's to the first every high-five Friday. Here's my top five articles of the week.

1. From the Men: What Decides How Much A Woman is Worth? Read it here.

2. The Before and After. Seriously, you want to read it here.

3. Confidence without guts. Seth Godin is a boss here.

4. Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect. Ok, so I read it a few weeks ago ... but it's so freaking good here.

5. Thankful Thursday. I also read this last week here, but it inspired and fueled my creation of the thankful list this week (more on that to come).


High-five Friday! Happy reading and happy weekend to you.




What has inspired you this week? Who, what, and where will you high-five today?

What do you make?

I saw this video last night during my seminar class. Whether you are a teacher, you know a teacher, you live with a teacher, or none of the above, I'd encourage you to take three minutes to watch it.

What do you make? Create? Do? Value? What kind of impact does it have on the people around you? 

"This season is ... "

Technically, it's still winter in Chicago. In reality, the past few days have felt like summer. Today I hit the beach after school, napping and reading in the sunshine. Certainly, an act that like is normally inconceivable in Chicago this time of year. Somewhere in the muddle of what is still winter but feels like summer is spring; sweet birds chirping, trees budding, reminders of life to come spring. I have been eagerly awaiting the day in room 104 when we can switch the "This season is ..." board to say "spring" instead of "winter." 


I am excited, yes. But with spring coming, I am a mix of bittersweet emotions. The season of life at Bethesda is dwindling. The days of college life will soon be long gone. The days of my sweet students in room 104 will soon come to an end. This chapter will close. This story will end. But with spring comes life; the hope that something is growing, something has been stirring all winter long. Something will bloom again. Something is coming. I will move into a new apartment. I will (hopefully) get a job. Life will change and move and something beautiful will spring up. 


As winter ends and spring approaches, I am both nostalgic for the past few years and hopeful for what's next. I am both scared and excited. I am a mix of emotions, feelings, and thoughts. I want to let spring work its way in me. I want to feel the season, in the least tree-hugger way possible. I want to let spring soak in, reflecting and remembering why it matters. I want to be aware and in tune with the hallmarks of spring; that life comes out of frozen ground, that there is something more to come. 

“In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.”  - Parker Palmer






How will you let spring work its way in you? What do you learn from spring? What are you reflecting on, as you move from winter into spring? Is it hard to hope, or easy to hope in what's to come?

we just wanna be loved.

Wow. So, go figure that I wrote this post a few weeks ago about writing everyday. Hmmph. I am staying consistently inconsistent with the posts that I am writing on here, but I can say that the past few weeks have brought about more intentional quiet time, more reading, more processing, more prayer ... which, in my opinion, is the heart of Lent. Returning. Resting. Remembering. 

Lately, I've been listening to Ben Rector. A lot. Have you hopped on the Ben Rector bandwagon? If not, then we probably can't be friends.

This song has been on repeat the past few days (let's be honest, so has this song). I love these lyrics from Ben Rector's song: 

And every move

Leads right back to

Our need for acceptance

Our fear of rejection

Oh, a little love

Yeah, that's what we want

So true. Insecurity is manifested differently in each person; from arrogance to shyness and everything in between. But we each have moves that lead right back to our need for acceptance, fear of hurt, and desire to be loved. As human beings, we have a deep desire to be known and loved, heard and valued. All of us. Every. Single. Person. No one is exempt from the desire for love, community, relationship. We're wired to know and be known, to love and be loved. It's the human condition. How will you choose to engage in that?

Are you honest with yourself? About your actions? About the ways you seek to be known and loved, heard and valued? Are you engaging in relationships that allow you to know and be known? Love and be loved? Are there people in your life who walk with you through insecurity and brokenness of spirit?

my hope is found.

This weekend was good. So, so good. It was good for my heart and for my soul; filled with rest and hope and sitting in uncertainty with an overwhelming feeling of peace about it all. It was a weekend full of conversation, both serious and silly. It was a weekend of fullness, exploration, and confrontation in my heart. It was a weekend both of feeling the heavy weight of living in the unknown and the joy of living in it, too. It was a weekend brimming with hope and promise and peace about what's to come. 

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." - Hebrews 10:23

rule breaking.

Did I ever tell you that I gave up the internet for Lent this year? Like, the whole internet. Except for maybe email, because that's a necessity these days. Oh and Pinterest, because there some seriously amazing teaching resources on there. But for all other intents and purposes, my plan was to kick the internet in an effort to spend intentional time writing, reading, praying, thinking, listening, and feeling this season. One of my deep desires is to truly, genuinely feel and experience each season and emotion in my life. I don't want to miss anything this lift has to offer.

And I'll be honest, I have a nasty habit of letting the internet steal way from experiences that are life-giving. I know I spend more time "connecting" on Facebook and Twitter than is actually necessary (and what's the appropriate definition of necessary, anyway). The decision to give-up Facebook and Twitter was fairly easy, but I went back and forth about taking down my blog for the next few weeks. At first I thought, Oh, great ... I'll blog about my endeavors to disconnect from the world. Then I realized that made no sense, so I decided it would be best to go completely silent and not write at all during Lent.

Clearly, that's not working either. Something I have realized over the past few months is that if it's not one thing, it's another. If it's not one distraction, it's another. If it's not social media, it's blogging. If it's not blogging, it's Pinning. If it's not Pinning, it's scouring ChristianMingle.com for hotties.

If there's not one thing distracting my attention, there's another. So, in my effort to give up the internet entirely, I've found myself not actually being intentional with my time. Instead of using my extra minutes to read, pray, think, write, and feel ... I use my minutes to panic, fret, worry, cry, rehash bad teaching moments in my head, frantically apply for jobs, and believe lies about myself and my worth. I have moved from zoning out on Facebook to zoning out while applying for jobs, while driving home from school, while sitting in my bed thinking about the next season but not actively praying through the process. I wrongly assumed that eliminating the biggest distractions in my life would automatically turn me into an intentional, thoughtful, and prayerful person. So, so wrong.

So, I'm deciding to break the rules. I am breaking my own promises to stay away from the internet. Just yesterday, in the midst of tears and fears, my sweet friend Kelly told me that I should write. She pointed out that writing and blogging really do help me to process the world as it's unfolding around me. Not to mention, it challenges me to think outside of my reality. I can pull together the pieces of my life and recognize that the story really isn't about me and my life anyway. Blogging is both something I enjoy and something that connects me back to truth. Although there are many facets of the internet that are a distraction, I really think that blogging can be a useful tool for processing. And that's what I need. Processing. Thinking. Listening. Wrestling. Grappling. Connecting. Preparing. Understanding. Reflecting.

So, here's to the new Lent. Here's to writing. Actually writing. Everyday. Here's to intentionally getting out my journal, bible, and computer for a few minutes each day. Here's to making sense and making way. Here's to publishing what's incomplete. Here's to returning. Here's to breaking the rules. Nothing great was ever accomplished by following the rules anyway, right?

prodigal magazine.

"Transition is a funny place because there's no real way to hurry it. It exists as long as it wants to, as long as it has to, before the next thing begins ... There's this awkward moment where no one knows which table belongs to whom - this sort of hold-your-breath piece of time where you hope everything works out the way it should. Things just seem to hang in the balance. Transition might not be cozy, but it's necessary. It's the only way. Think about it. There is no other way to start something new." - Prodigal Magazine

Have you started reading Prodigal Magazine yet? You should head over there and check out what they're trying to create. You won't regret it. I promise. 

In what ways are you experiencing transition? How are you handling it? Growing from it? Asking for help and support in it? 

As I sit here about to publish this post, I am realizing two things. One being that the tone on this blog has changed. My life these days is full of uncertainty and unknown, and I am fighting for space in my life to actually think and pray through what's happening. My days are up and down, high and low, and I am finding it hard to stay sunshine-y positive all the time. And I think that's okay. Healthy, even. Number two? I am very intentionally taking time and space away from the internet during Lent. I am no longer active on Facebook or Twitter, and debated about removing my blog as well. But blogging can be a very useful processing tool, and I don't want to stop writing just for the sake of following a rule. I will continue to post on here as it's appropriate and as I have time, but for most of the next month, I want to carve out space to listen, think, process, and decide. How are you making space to be more intentional during Lent?