Update

I've been the worst blogger in history, but I'm planning on actually writing in this thing more regularly, so stay tuned. I've been super busy, like a really large bee.

Until then, here are a few guest posts I've written in the last couple months, for your happy perusal. 

• A Christian Case Against Early Marriage
• Make a List of Things You Resent about Your Mother
• Is Balance Even Possible? 

Best,

Connecticut

It‘s been easy for me to separate myself from the events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I’ve closed my eyes at the footage, clicked out of online articles, and blankly replied to my grieving friends, “Yeah, this world is an evil place. It just is.” 

In my heart of hearts, I could not even process the evil that was committed, and so I just didn’t.

But Saturday night I got a text from my sister that changed all that.

“Hi family—in light of Friday’s events, there will be a required sign-in for everyone before Rach’s Christmas concert, so it may take a few extra minutes.”

You know. In case there's a shooter.

You see, tomorrow night is Eastview Elementary’s second grade production of The Nutcracker. My niece, Rachel, has a speaking part. (She's pumped about it, by the way.)

This will be the fourth Christmas concert I attend at Eastview—I have three nieces and one nephew, so it’s a yearly tradition. They’ve dressed up as barnyard animals, candy canes, olden-timey children, and bees. For years I’ve sat in the rows of folding chairs and taken pictures of my littlest relatives, intermittently cheering and waving at my sweet babies from the audience. It’s such a regular occurrence that I’d thought about skipping this one—it’s an hour drive out, on a work night, and sometimes it just feels like too much.

But never once have I worried about my nieces’ and nephew’s safety at this school. In my mind, it’s been their safe haven, a place where they’ve learned about the world while gaining the skills they need to successfully interact with their peers.  It’s been easy to take it for granted.

 Getting that text from my sister gave me pause. It made me realize that my nieces and nephew, with all their bright innocence and trust in the goodness of the world—even they aren’t safe. They live in a small town in the Midwest during a time of heightened security, of lockdown drills and SWAT teams.  Safety, in its simplest form, is just an illusion. It’s a feeble attempt to create a feeling of control in a world that is completely out of control.

And what it all comes down to is this: even now, even in this day with smart phones and panic buttons and safe rooms and fire drills and backup plans—even now, we are still utterly and completely dependent on our heavenly father. We are still at his mercy. And in light of recent events, we are still called to treat each day with our loved ones like it could be our last.

So today I will return to the Word of God with the trembling and a sense of urgency that I should feel each day. I will beg for God’s protection over my loved ones, and pray for the grieving families in Connecticut who’ve experienced the worst loss imaginable.

And tomorrow night, I will sit amongst my family with my five-year-old nephew, Micah, on my lap. I will hug him tightly and tell him I love him, and together we’ll cheer for Rachel and her fellow second graders. And I will refuse to let this commonplace event lose its luster.

If I’ve learned anything this week, it’s that every day that I am able to celebrate the lives of my family members, I’m experiencing nothing less than a miracle.

Connecticut, my heart and my prayers go out to you.

Sabbath Prayer

I crack open one eye and look at the clock. 12:30 p.m. Welp, there goes church, I think to myself as I half-tumble out of bed. I'm groggy. I pour water into the coffeemaker, eyeball some coffee grounds into the filter, and spend ten minutes staring as the dark liquid drops into the coffee pot.

I wander around my apartment in a baggy Cubs t-shirt and black pajama pants that are two sizes too big, recounting the events of the evening prior, giving myself ratings on my performance. Dress: B+. Humor A-. Biting Sarcasm to Kindness Ratio: C. I feel a heaviness settle on my heart.

Someday the kindness will win out, I think. 

Eventually I sit down on my couch with coffee in hand. I've decided that since I didn't manage to get my lazy rear end to church this morning, I owe Jesus some quiet time. I read A.W. Tozer, rereading each paragraph a few times to digest what he's written, and then turn my thoughts over to my journal, flipping through the entries I wrote over the summer before I find a blank page to begin a new chronicle.

I get halfway through a narcissistic retelling of my last week, begging Jesus for peace and direction, when I get a text from my niece, Maya. This is a big deal--she's texting me on my sister's phone, and at nine-years-old, this is one of the first texts she's ever sent. Lots of smiley faces.

She and I text funny faces back and forth for a bit and eventually she calls me, her voice sounding way too grown up when she announces that she's just calling to say "hey" and asks me how me and my roommate are doing. Good Lord, I think. Wasn't she just learning to crawl? Whahaaat is happening?

We talk for a solid twenty minutes before she hands the phone over to my sister, we talk for a bit, and then I hang up. Alone again, I finish journaling, ending in some desperate sort of "God help my stupid self navigate this life less idiotically" plea, and snap my notebook shut, wishing the feelings of heaviness would dissipate, but grateful I got to speak to some family this morning.

I spend the next few hours alone, eyeing the boxes that still need to be filled and stuff that needs to be put in them. I pack nothing. We're moving in five days.

 I don't handle alone time well. I can do it for about...oh, two hours, and then it's all over and I start desperately texting people, asking them what they're up to.

My roommate is the same way. When one of us is out of town, upon return we compare notes about how pathetic we began to feel as the week waned on with one of us returning to an empty apartment. By day three there's usually crying. I know. Ridiculous.

Eventually I pull on some leggings, a sweater, and boots--it's only one step up from pajamas, but it's enough to get myself out of the house, and decide to work on freelance at one of the downtown coffee shops. I try Caribou first, but there are no empty tables.

I curse Wheaton College for being back in session and slowly shake a lowered fist at the college students who've moved into my tables. I walk to Starbucks with no success, and then wander into the only independent coffee shop in town, only to find out that it closes in thirty minutes. 

I don't want to work today. I have no desire--but I have too much to NOT work. I can't seem to shake this feeling of grief, either, which isn't helping fuel my productivity.

I get back in my car and drive to another Caribou, one a little farther out of town, which is, oddly enough, full of Italian men sitting in large groups at tables, all wearing their coats and playing various dice games. I'm pretty sure I'm surrounded by the mafioso, but I've always wanted to be a part of a good mob fight, so I find a table in the back (where I'm safe from being whacked with a canoli) and open my laptop, searching for a recent interview I need to transcribe tonight.

I open my email.

It's not there.

Nay, it's absolutely nowhere. It's not in my Yahoo account, it's not in my work account, it's not backlogged in my Yousendit account...nada. It's sitting on my work desktop computer, and there is no retrieving it tonight. 

I feel a tinge of relief and smile at the irony that I've just been forced to actually observe this Sabbath, a spiritual discipline I LOVE to ignore. I pull out Jen Hatmaker's book, Seven, which I was supposed to have finished yesterday, when my book club met to discuss it, but like the procrastinator that I am, I rolled into book club with thirty pages still unread.

The thirty pages left are, as a matter of fact, devoted to observing the Sabbath. OF COURSE THEY ARE. Because this is the nature of my life. God knows I'm dumb, and that if I'm going to be taught something, I need to be smacked over the face with it. It's all very brutal.

And so I open to this: 

"During the first week of October, I suffered an inexplicable sadness for our Ethiopian kids, yet unknown to us. I couldn't quit crying. I couldn't stop worrying. I felt heavy and dark without knowing why...I threw my emotions up into the Facebook ring for some backup. From adopting friends a common thread rose up: 

'God is prompting you to pray for your children for some reason. You don't know them yet, but he knows they are yours. Intercede for them this week; then write the dates down.'" 

Jen goes on to write about how during her week of sorrow, in which she got on her knees in prayer for the child she was going to adopt, her future daughter had just been delivered to an orphanage in Ethiopia.

The child's first week surrounded by people she didn't know, missing her family, getting her head shaved, wide-eyed and fearful in the night in an unfamiliar place, was the same week that Jen felt she needed to pray for kids, even though she still didn't know who they'd be. Her prayers went to her daughter in a time of need before she even knew her.

Now, I know this all may sound a little bit Chicken Soup for the Soul-y, and if it does, then, gross. But to me, it sounds beautiful. It sounds like God cared enough for this child to have her lifted up in prayer by her mother long before she even knew her.

I'm reading this chapter on slowing down and taking time to pray and intercede for others when God places them on your heart, and my eyes start watering like crazy. I look up and realize that both (I'm guessing based on their awkward facial hair) seminary students sitting in the leather chairs across from me are watching me cry like an idiot, but seminary guys sort of creep me out, so I don't care. 

I feel again the heaviness in my own soul, and the person who I have to pray for comes to mind. It comes on so strongly that I have to stop mid-chapter to lift him up, silently crying a prayer to the Father who loves His children so desperately.

I pray for reconciliation, I pray for the Holy Spirit to move, and I pray God would show me the role he wants me to play in this person's life. I pray until I finally feel the heaviness lift.  

And now I find myself wondering how often God grants me with this same heaviness for this same reason. I've often taken this as a mood swing or a good reason to feel sorry for myself (and Lord knows that sometimes it's P.M.S.), but maybe, just maybe, God places these burdens on my heart not as another way to focus on myself, but as a means of lifting up someone specific. Someone in desperate need of intercession.  

I've decided I'll be damned if I miss another opportunity.

I want so badly to turn my grieving into joy by partnering with the Lord to lift up this world. Every day I meet another broken person, and I wonder at the epidemic of lost and the lonely people. It threatens to overwhelm me, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't at times handled it by hiding.

But standing in someone's place and praying for them with my whole heart...that's something I want. In John 17, Jesus prays for the world like that. He prays that God would protect His people and unite them in love. He intercedes.

On its own, it's a wonderful prayer.

But in context, it's so much more. It's the prayer Jesus prayers the night before He's brutally murdered. He spends the night before his execution using His own heaviness to lift up the sinful, selfish people whom He's grown to love so much. The people He came down to save: me and you.

Thank God.

Vacation Manifesto

I'm going on vacation. 

Let me say that one more time, in case you didn't catch what I said. 

I'm going on vacation. VAC-YAYYYYY-TION, if you will. (I'm sorry. I had to. I couldn't not.)

I'm not telling you this to make you jealous. That's just a benefit. I'm telling you this because this is a big deal for me. I haven't left the Midwest and taken a legitimate vacation in almost four years.  

So, in two days, I embark on a trip to a sandy island in North Carolina.

I will be on vacation for eight days.

For these eight days, I've made myself a few rules. These are rules that will hopefully untangle me from a bit of the ever-twisted Stockholm Syndrome I've developed over the past few years of constantly being plugged into everything, all the time, everywhere.

1. I can't check my phone. The world will be fine without me for a week and a half. In fact, it's probably ready for a break. 

2. I don't even have to glance in the general direction of a computer screen, unless I want to.

3. Wearing heels is not an option. Flip flops or gym shoes. That is all. 

4. I'm not allowed to twirl my hair. Hair twirling indicates anxiety which indicates that I'm worrying about things that are out of my control, and I'm taking a vacation from that particular brand of crazy for the next EIGHT DAYS.

5. I'm not allowed to talk about, think about, or even mention the word work. 

Instead, I'm going to lay on a beach and read this: 

I'm going to eat fruits and vegetables.

 I'm going to not set my alarm clock. 

And I'm going to re-learn how to interact with other humans--specifically my best friend, Steph, my sister, her husband, their friends, and their friends' five-month-old baby.

I'm going to drink tea.

And coffee.

And wine. 

I'm going to do yoga. I might even go running. (no. that last part is a lie.)

I'm going to get a real tan. (also probably a lie.)

I'm going to read entire books.

I'm going to eat ice cream.

I'm going to discover new BBQ dives.

I'm going to take walks.

And I'm not going to look at my phone. Ever.

I had a good summer--good, but rougher in some ways than I expected it to be. And sometimes, even though you've healed and moved on as much as you can, it takes going away for a little bit to find the space to fully recover.

What I'm saying is, this vacation could not have come at a better time.

Over the next eight days, I want to reconnect with God.

I want to read about Jesus again, get to know him again, study his face again. I want to spend a good amount of time reading the Gospels, not so I can come back with some sort of Holy Glow and tell everyone about how I spent a week reading the Bible while they slaved away at their desks.  No...it's just that I desperately need to re-read the life-giving words of Jesus.

I need to remember what it's s all about. I need to read about dying to myself...I need to read about the kind of love that Jesus has for me. And I want to pour my heart out to God. I want to ask him questions, confess my most recent bouts with stupidity, give him my worries, and plead, face to the ground, for direction.

...

I also want to write.


I will write creatively.

I will write without an audience.

I will write because I have to write. Because writing is my own personal catnip. It's the thing that makes everything else quiet down...it's where I can actually use that daydreaming dipstick inside me that I fight on a daily basis, and instead, put her to good use.

....

And lastly, I will spend the next eight days filling my words and my actions with gratitude. I have a good incredible life. I am more than blessed. But sometimes it's hard to see that, and instead of giving thanks, I complain and I criticize. It's exhausting.

What's especially stupid about it is that most of the time, I'm criticizing myself.

You see, when you're me (or maybe when you're you), you're never good enough.

Every misstep seems like a downfall. Every pound seems like a ton. Every new day becomes a new chance to self-deprecate.

And what I forget, over and over and over again, is that God didn't make a mistake when he made me. He chose to make me a neurotic dreamer. He looked and me and said that it was good. Not perfect, mind you, but good. Good for his purposes.

So for the next eight days, I'm going to unabashedly embrace who God made me to be: spacey, creative, sarcastic, direction-ally-challenged, zero sense of time...a little offbeat....I'm going to thank God for all of it. Even the stuff that annoys the crap out of my family and friends.

...

I'm going to thank him for my life, and for the people in it.

...

I'm going to thank him for the salt in the water, the wind on the waves, and the sun on my face.

...

Oh, and for the wine in my glass, too. I will thank him for all of it.

And I won't look at my phone.

Bela Karolyi Will be My Life Coach

I had one of those months that I'd like to redo, from top to bottom. Best/worst of times. And naturally, through it all, I failed to write a single word in this blog of mine. I'm just that on top of things.

In other news, my roommate and I found ourselves a new apartment last night, which I am exceedingly pumped about. It's fancy, and way cheaper than my current place, and it will hopefully smell a lot less like pot brownies, dead cats, and movie theaters. Here's to hoping.

A bunch of my co-workers are at the Summit at Willow Creek today, listening to Condoleezza Rice tear it up while I sit at my desk and continue to email people W9s and request book permissions from various publishers. At some point soon, I will experience the glee of running to Kinkos. Please stand by. I know you're jealous.

                                                     Sigh.

Epic

Can we just give it up for this? Repeatedly? Thanks. 

30 Things I Want to Tell My 18-year-old Self

Life Lessons...and Things I Wish I'd Known Before College 
[Things I would say if I could pull my young self aside and tell me what's what.]

1. First of all, Little Ashley, the reason you started crying at the sight of your empty P.O. box today is because you are very, very tired. You were up until 4 a.m. hanging out with your roommate at a diner, and you are not functioning properly. The truth is, you suck at life when you're tired. Take a nap, kid. You will need more naps in college than you did when you were a toddler, and you will be able to take them. Don't miss this window of napportunity. Ditch Western Civilization, climb into your lofted bed, and pass out until dinner. You will still pass that freshman gen. ed. with flying colors.

2. Your college experience will not be just like Keri Russell on Felicity. I mean it. Skip buying the giant sweaters and finding a friend to send your recorded self-obsessed messages to. That's what blogs are for. Give up on this tv show dream; it is fake.

3. If you go on a date with a guy who tells you he hates reading books, do not go on another date. 

Unless he's a really good kisser.

No not even then. Don't listen to me. 

4. Learn how to drive in the city. Soon. Not knowing how to drive in they city at 18 is precious and endearing, but not knowing how to drive in the city when you are almost 26 years old is sad and pathetic. This cannot be your crazy cat lady quirk.

5. Jump in a lake with your clothes on with that one crazy guy who takes you on that one crazy date your junior year. It will be fun, and it will not get weird. 

6. You also need to get over your fear of old people. They will always be there and you should be nice to them. They are not trying to lure you into their homes in order to eat you, like the witch from Hansel and Gretel, and the odds of them dying of old age, mid-sentence, while talking to you, are very slim. 

7. Sit your butt down and write your uncles two thank you cards for collaboratively buying you that laptop for high school graduation. I know you think the appreciative email you sent them was enough, but it wasn't. I know, I know, we hate thank you cards. But if you do not do this thing, they will vibe you/me for the next seven years. Write them cards. It is not hard, and it will save us from years of awkwardness.

8. This is selfish, maybe, but switch banks now. If you don't, then I will have to take care of it this week, seven years later, when all my direct deposit and withdrawal stuff is set up. It's super annoying. Please do this thing. Do it for me, your elder self. 

9. Don't cut your hair super short your sophomore year of college. You will hate it, and yes, you will look like a mom. 

10. You're not going to find your husband in college. I don't care what all of those games of M.A.S.H. said. Feel grateful for this, and don't worry about it. You will be tempted to worry because you will surrounded by girls who are worrying about this, but don't get sucked in. Life goes on after college. As a matter of fact, it gets better.

11. DO NOT. AND I REPEAT, DO NOT try to dye your hair Gwen Stefani blonde by yourself at 2 a.m. in your dorm suite bathroom, with a $5 box of hair bleach you bought at the grocery store. You know the guy who hosts Diners, Drive-ins and Dives? Yeah. You will end up looking like him. Don't go there.

12. Figure out the difference between a boring guy who is super responsible and a non-boring guy who is completely irresponsible. Find out the character traits of a happy medium between the two. Do it now. They exist, I promise.

13. You are not a failure at life because of whatever currently overly dramatic crisis you are currently facing. Stop telling yourself you are. You're eighteen, for Pete's sake.

14. Everything you own does not have to be from the Gap. In fact, owning trendier clothes will prevent you from dressing like a teacher or a little boy every livelong day, which, unless you change your ways, you will, until you turn 24.

15. Take your sister up on her offer to teach you how to cook. Someday (it will come very, very soon) you will have to cook for yourself, and you cannot live off of peanut butter, yogurt and grapes.

15.b. I know you think your inability to cook is a cute and interesting fact about you, and that it makes you mysterious and independent. Unfortunately this all goes to crap and ends up making you look rather pathetic by around age 23. Learn to cook. Do this thing for me, Young Ashley. I would love to know how to make lasagna, and it all depends on you.

16. You don't have to like Wilco. You can find them boring and pretentious. It's okay.

17. It is also okay that you like Alfred Hitchcock movies, painting things, reading books, folk music, and going to flea markets with your mom. I know you are a dork now, but in seven more years, this will be super cool. You're basically a trendsetter. Keep dorking it up, sister.

18. You live in a world where the bank closes at 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Denying this fact will not make it open when you go there at 3 p.m., so please learn this very important, harsh life-truth right now.

19. People are not always mad at you. Sometimes their mood has absolutely nothing to do with you. I promise. On the same note, Jesus is never mad at you. Stop thinking he is.

20. Start a savings account right now. You don't pay rent, you don't pay utilities, you don't pay for a car, and your student loans haven't kicked in yet. We could be so rich by the time we are my age. We could buy our own chef and then you wouldn't have to worry about my instructions in number 15.

21. Call your parents more, especially your mom. I know you don't want to call your her right now, but you need to. Seriously, though.

22. Keep being best friends with Steph. Treat her like a rockstar. She will be your pillar of sanity and loyalty through all of college and your early twenties. Be nice to that guy she starts dating your junior year. He never goes away. As a matter of fact they get married. But you will continue to refer to him as Smelliott, and Steph will continue to find it just as funny as you do. This is why she's your bff4life. 

23. When God says he'll provide, he means it.You will re-learn this everyday.

24. Don't change your major four times. I know you will get super freaked out when you go to your first journalism class, but it's the only thing you've ever wanted to do. Don't let it scare you away. You do not want to be a social worker, a teacher, or a professional communicator. (What do communications majors do, anyway?) Study the Chicago Manual of Style. Study good writers. Write all the time. You love writing--you want to be a writer.

Do not make a pros and cons list that tells you otherwise.

25. Buy tickets to go see Nickel Creek EVERYTIME they are in town. I hate to tell you this, but shortly after you graduate from college, they will break up. You will continue to stalk Chris Thile and his new band, but it will never be the same. Don't waste this precious time with them.

26. Hang out with your college roommate, Alyssa, more. She kicks butt and someday soon she will marry a Swiss rocket scientist and move to Boston. No, I'm not kidding. Make sure when you are working on a paper at 3 a.m. in your dorm room, you don't wear headphones. You will accidentally be much louder than you think you are, banging your coffee mug on your desk, etc., and you'll keep her awake, but she will be too sweet to say anything. Do not do this. Preventing one from sleep is a form of torture. Have some social grace.

27. Be ballsier. Just in general.

28. Don't be such a snob about music, movies, or books. Someday, you will harbor a very intense love for an 18-year-old Canadian popstar who looks strikingly like a woman. And you will think that this fact about you is very awesome.

29. Your sisters are always right. So is Steph. Get used to this now and you will save yourself a lot of wasted time.

30. Life will not end after college, just like it didn't end after high school. You will like your early twenties an awful lot. You will, dare I say, have even more fun than you are having right now. I promise.