Finding Joy in the Rain.

For good news to be good, it has to invade dark places." - Matt Chandler August 9th, 2016.  As they wheeled me through the double doors and into the operating room, I remember pure joy radiating throughout my body. I was not nervous, I was not afraid. The Lord had given me a peace beyond understanding and I smiled as the anesthesia took a toll on me and I drifted to sleep. Some hours later. My eyes pop open and I look around. The nurse pushes something into my IV that she says will help with the pain, but I don't feel any pain. I'm in a big open room with lots of medical supplies. I look to the right and I see a man in bed. And then I remember. I use every ounce of strength in me to mutter the question, "does he have my kidney?". The nurse smiles and says "yes" as my eyelids fall heavy and the dilaudid sets in. I wake up again. My mom is in the room. I have no idea what she's saying to me because all I can think about is the man that ha

I remember the first time I decided I was fat. I was sitting in theater class in 9th grade and one of my classmates told me to hold my arm out in front of my body. When I did, they hit the skin under my upper arm and laughed as they watched it jiggle. In that moment, I gained 50 pounds. That 5'3 110 pound high school freshman died, and a hypersensitive and self conscious version of myself peaked its evil head for the first time. Although that was the moment my eating disorder (which I'll call Ed) took over, it wasn't the only thing that sparked an unhealthy view of myself. Years of comparison, losing a relationship with my father, and the decision to define my worth in the words of other people, collectively lead me to believe that I was fat, unloved, and that the worldly standards of beauty defined me. For the next 8+ years, Ed defined me. Above my relationships with people, and above my relationship with the Lord, Ed was most important thing in my life. When I firs

On August 13th, 2007, I spent the day in the hospital with my best friend Spencer before he passed away from cancer. It's been almost 9 years since that day, but the impact Spencer's life had on me has not faded in the slightest. In the years of heartbreak following, I made these decisions: 1. Take more pictures with the people you love. 2. Donate your hair 3 times to help girls with cancer get wigs [finished in 2014] 3. Share the love you have for Jesus with others in radical, life changing, and everyday ways. Decision number 3 has become more than just a goal for me, it's become my life motto. This is one of the ways I've prayerfully decided to live that out. About a month ago I asked y'all to pray that I would be able to donate a kidney to my friend Mariela who is in kidney failure and desperately needs a transplant. More specifically, I asked you all for, "prayers that there will not be antibodies that prevent me from donating, and that if there

Hello friends. (: I'd like to introduce you to my wonderful friend Mariela. Mariela is full of joy, and her steadfast faith encourages me to love Jesus more. It breaks my heart to know that she is currently in kidney failure and struggling to do the things that she was once was able to do so easily. For the past month and a half, I have been undergoing testing to be a living kidney donor for sweet Mariela to help give her a chance to once again be healthy. So far, the testing has gone well, and I have been cleared by the doctor to be a living kidney donor. The only thing that separates my ability to donate is a little bit of blood work to ensure that she does not have antibodies built up against my blood. I'm asking you all for prayers that there will not be antibodies that prevent me from donating, and that if there are, the Lord will remove them. Y'all. I fully believe that God can move mountains. There are just a few little antibodies. (: I've been hesitant to

My alarm goes off and I wake up feeling like I just finished a 5 mile run. My t-shirt is wet and yesterday's shower seems like it was a week ago. Night sweats are a consistent part of the side effects medically induced menopause that my medicine Lupron has given me, so I've learned to roll out of bed, take a cold shower, and move on with my day. I suppose that might gross some of you out. I suppose you might think I'm sharing a little too much on social media. But for the past three months and for the next three months, this is my life. I can't do anything to change it, so I'm not ashamed. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here to read about it.) Someone once said, "From the outside looking in you can't understand it, and from the inside looking out you can't explain it." I feel like that pretty much sums up my life these days. On the worst days, I wake up feeling like I have the flu. It's the exhausted, headac

You graduate college and you're excited to figure out adult life. You hope for that dream job, you hope to move to a new city, or you're eagerly counting down the days 'til you get married. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. Right? But it's inevitable. It's inevitable that at some point in the months after your biggest accomplishment in life yet, things crumble. Expectations aren't met. Hardship arrives. The dreams you were once so determined to accomplish seem to slip further and further away as reality sets in and adult life doesn't seem as exciting anymore. And it's in these moments that you create your future. It's not your circumstances, but the way you approach them that will define the quality of your life. So what's your vice? What are the circumstances that caught you off guard and tried to crush your dreams? For me, it's this evil little disease called endometriosis. Let's be real. I had never heard of endo befo