Bones, Books, and BBQs

City of Hope-Bone Marrow Transplant Celebration of Life-10,000 lives SAVED

I had the honor to celebrate life with Naomi Larsen this weekend! Jordan and I got to join her come together with thousands other cancer survivors! I hope to never forget how precious life is, and how cancer has affected EVERYONE. I could see it in everyone's smiles and hugs, they know what their lives cost and they live everyday in praise of miracles and medicine.



Naomi, Lance, and Jordan took a photo here 12 years ago! Never knowing they would be here years later to tell their story!


(Naomi with her Doctor and Jordan)

Book Club- The Good House and Brainwashed
So I took the leap and joined a women's book club and there is no turning back! My mind was so stimulated in conversation and laughter, I forgot what I had been missing. Its like the best parts of school, you get recommended great books without the grades or homework. The women in my group are amazing and very insightful. Our group reads african american authors and it leads to always interesting and layered conversations. It was nerve racking to go and meet strangers but totally worth it!

Small Group BBQ-Married and Lovin It
The third new edition to our lives is married small group. The nerves were a little less since this is a small group you get to start together, but Jordan and I had low expectations. We were once again AMAZED, we were welcomed into such an amazing group of couples. With a range in age and experience, I have grown to love each person. So to show our commitment of course I volunteered our house for the BBQ. The weather was great, the food perfect, and conversation just natural. I have been so humbled to be a part of couples intentionally doing life together.

So hi to all our family and friends, we still do miss you each. Sending our love!

Ballet is back

I remember performing in my first big ballet, The Christmas Carol. I was too young to be anything more than an extra village person, but to be in the production along was unforgettable. The process took months with staging and late night dress rehearsals. I fell in love with dance all over again. Now ten years later I finally got the courage to go back, hoping to fall in love again.

Something was different this time, I felt even more aware, even more nervous, much less fearless, but even more committed. I was deeper in love than I realized! Sounds, movements, timing, and a language came flying back to me. I had to push against my body but my feet fell right in place. I have no goal in mind, no expectations, just giving into a passion that hasn't slept. I feel brand new! Adult ballet, I feel old and young at the same time.

I am so grateful, God has met me here, right where I am. Letting me get into grad school, letting me care for my husband, letting me have space. I know these are experiences never to be taken for granite. Everyday I wrestle with these great things in perspective with the out of place mundane things, that just never go my way. You would think by now I would stop fighting.

In ballet class my mind was focused and my heart was racing yet the silence was warming. I remembered I am taken care of. I feel the grace of God letting me sort through my life and letting me decide what I will hold on to. Giving into ballet classes is hopefully only the beginning!

Whether Flying or Fishing

BUT NOT FLY FISHING!

We just watched "The River Runs Through" which you don't need to rent or add to your netflix queue. I will tell you now, its one movie that if you weren't feeling stir crazy before you will definitely be feeling that way after, where your measure of salvation is the same measure as your technique of fly fishing. And then for a person like me...who's in "the wait" period of life, the LONG LONG narrations of the movie were just to LONG.

Oh "the wait" its got me. I knew waiting to hear back from Claremont University would keep me in excited anticipation until April 1st...but its April 5th and the days seem way to long!

Then I got a great email from my friend Lynn about something she heard about waiting "He talked about how the seasons of wait are not so much about our circumstances but our posture of worship...God hasn't forgot about us...in reality he is bringing us closer to himself."

Well...here I am waiting, of course, when I was wasn't expecting to wait. Here I am pushing myself everyday to rejoice in my worth God has covered me in. Here I am able to give my full attention to my husband and house and friends. Here I am uncomfortable after a few too many hours of silence. And here I am constantly wanting to make this time about being close to God.

I want to know that I choose God whether I am taking off into flight for a brand new huge adventure or whether I am sitting in a cold river waiting for my bait to be wanted by the next on comer.

Friends and Family, I have been so encouraged by your daily lives and the way you are living them, please keep it up, at least for my sake.

Just some lose thoughts that I hope encourage you too

Until then keep high-fives coming!

Reconiliation

Loma Loma Loma

(A Forward: I love Point Loma and admire all who choose to work there and add their passions to each student’s lives. My voice in this entry is vague and means no harm.)

It will be almost one year since I graduated from Point Loma and I find myself still trying to reconcile what happened to me over those four years. What was lost, what was gained? I think about those students just about to be sent off, another batch into the wild. Have they lost their religion, will they ever stop drinking, do their parents know who they have become, will they be the next president or CEO, did they find love, do they fear their passion even more now?

I know when I started Loma I was determined to lose my religion, travel as much as possible, make as many friends as possible, learn as much as possible, and I think I just wanted to be convinced of myself. I was dying to see myself outside my families’ perception and outside my small town’s narrow choices.

Today I have real friends (kept about fifteen). I have been to eight different countries, while living in Paris and India. And I have taken enough liberal arts classes to finally understand and care about the news.

But when it came to religion I was not sure of the outcome. Loma had an easy time of disemboweling me of whatever notions of Christianity I came with. First the creation stories, then acts of justice and injustice, then moral laws traditional and modern. They brought everything to light, AND then I graduated. I felt left out in the street after a tornado comes through town and moves everyone’s house around. I get it; this institution wants us to consider what it is that we say we believe. Maybe four years is not enough time to find your theology while studying everything else, but I guess I wish one question had been answered. How vital is my theology to the rest of my life? Like a Theology in Life 101 senior year would have been amazing. By then most of us were in the business world, interning for places that will never hire us after graduation, and we want to know. When my boss asks me to lead the campaign for Sarah Palin, how will this decision change my theology? How will I see God, how will I reflect my morals and beliefs?

I know what most of you are thinking, these are decisions you need to figure out on your own. No school class could teach you what life experience can.

You are probably saying, everyone is different and they need to come to their own conclusions in their own time. Maybe you are thinking Loma did affirm your theology, so sorry to say otherwise. All I am saying is that I wish for one moment Loma would stop questioning and using critical rationalization and simply affirm God is Good. Have you seen the world today, God is Real and Good. Sometimes I wish there was more praise after so much contemplation. Maybe I asking for a dream world, a place where questions are welcome and fostered along with confidence to enter into the high places God has creates for us.

I was in chapel on Monday and for the first time I felt SAFE. I felt overjoyed being surrounded by the potential of every student in the room. Maybe having Jordan by my side spurred it on or the fact that I didn’t have a test to take after, but the spirit was alive and I was free to worship. I was finally thankful for all the hours staff and faculty put in just for this one hour to be held sacred. I sat in those seats and thought of those who have come before and those who will come after, and which professors and staff will see it all through.

I had to work for years to know my family will not define my future, they can shape it but God and I are the designers. Just the same, Point Loma will not define my life in Christ, I want it to shape it and pare it, but today I am responsible for the way I treat others, the world, and my talents. I am responsible for how much I continue to invest in my life in Christ. I guess that’s what I finally felt free to do, humbly decide what life in Christ was going to look like for ME.

I know the majority of my graduating class is either teaching English in a different country or going back to Graduate school. I wonder what their life with Christ looks like. I wonder how long they will hold resentment towards Loma and let that define them. I wonder how long before they decide what they stand for. I wonder of their potential, and how many people they touch.

I personally feel like I was picked up and am resting in the arms of Grace. I really put all my hope in our last move and it really did not work out. The feelings of failure and disappointment remind me that my plans are so finite and limited. The feelings of security and provision remind me that Gods plans are courageous and all knowing. I have never felt this, always heard about it. But it makes me what to praise, it makes me want to ring a bell and tell everyone, God is here, God is here!

I hope to reread this entry months and years from now with more confidence and more stories of God’s faithfulness, but until then I hope this finds you in peace and joy!

A Real Time for Everything

Today my heart is with Japan and the families that are survived by children or many no one. Today I want to let myself feel the poison of natural disasters, while still glimpsing a hope for our world's future. We can only talk and send so much money before we let ourselves feel disappointed that any number of people had to die. (jack johnson says...)

A billion people died on the news tonight
But not so many cried at the terrible sight
Well mama said
It's just make believe
You can't believe everything you see
So baby close your eyes to the lullabies
On the news tonight

Who's the one to decide that it would be alright
To put the music behind the news tonight
Well mama said
You can't believe everything you hear
The diagetic world is so unclear
So baby close your ears
On the news tonight
On the news tonight

The unobtrusive tones on the news tonight
And mama said

Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?
At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes
Mama said
It's just make believe
You cant believe everything you see
So baby close your eyes to the lullabies
On the news tonight

Japan is a strong beautiful country, history will show you nothing less. But we just saw even strongest land can be moved 8 feet from its axis!
I am thankful that my family in Hawaii and California were safe. But for the moment when we didn't know...I felt in one accord with the Japanese, Hawaiians, Chileans, and the rest. This re-sparked a familiar feeling I felt while in India, when we would get word that some Christians were bombed just one state away. I am not sure if I can even articulate the exact feelings. All I know is I find myself filled with grace for all of humanity and I just wish we could all hug.

The pictures, stories, and news from these past couple days has brought me to say "Inshallah" in God's time, if God wills it. I trust that we are here for this time for some purpose beyond myself and my limited understandings. I trust that God will renew Japan and its people to a place of rest. Above all I trust that God's will is better than mine. I don't know why I am apart from my best friends. I don't know why my friend pasted away before me. I don't know why diseases spread the way they do. But there has been too much good, too much faithfulness, too much provision, too much grace for me to question if God is God.

I hope these thoughts find you in a place for contemplative joy, collective sadness, and a deep unexplainable hope.

Until next week, smile.

Wed, Honeymooned, Moved and it's only March!

Hey Family and Friends,

We are finally catching our breath and breathing out deep!
A lot has changed in the last 4 months so enjoy the picture journal...November:

Camped at Big Sur

Got married in San Diego

December :

Got back from Honeymoon in Laie,Oahu-Hawaii

First Christmas as Mr. and Mrs. Frye

January:

Caught up on sleep
...

February:

Got a new VW Golf

Applied for Claremont Graduate University (Arts Management)

March:

Moved to Upland/Claremont
Jordan started his new job as Worship Leader at Inland Hills Community Church
(www.inlandhillschurch.com)

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We are so HAPPY! We could have never planned these opportunities or the timings of these changes. But we are firmly standing in the grace of God and only looking ahead. Life is always interesting like that, we can plan for years and then an even better person or door or window or story is welcomed into view. I have been nervous, excited, timid, but above all amazed of how much God thinks of me. We have seen our friends and family truly come to our aid and we will never forget it! And all the friends and family we have left and moved from, my experiences only confirm that you will be well taken care of.

Married life has been so much fun! I didn't know I needed to learn so much more about myself. I have no advice yet, but I do find it quiet humorous that God put two people together who want to get the same goal two different ways!

Our new move and new life direction may seem rash, but we are mostly writing to let everyone know it was a combination prayer and serendipitous occurrences. We missed the city, culture, art, music, being on the cusp of life! We now live 30min from LA, 30min from Pasadena, 1hr from Forest Home, 2hrs from Ventura or San Diego!

Please forgive us for the lack of communication or encouragement. We miss our friends and families we haven't been able to catch up with. But with this move we hoping for a slow but great transition! You are in our prayers and thoughts.

I plan on updating every week...so keep checking back for updates!

Sending our love from the Inland Empire!