over guilt, just looking for grace.

The guilt that you cause in others.

That isn’t love, friends. That is just a cheap shot.

It leaves people questioning if you are for them…

Guilt doesn’t even come from love.

Guilt is a coward.

If you really love someone you aren’t going to respond by harboring guilt.

Because guilt says that your loves, that they aren’t enough.

But who are we to get the final word over someone else’s life?

Who are we to say if they are enough?

People need a break, sometimes, you know.

It’s okay to need a break.

And instead of giving people a hard time when the only strength they have is to get back in bed, I want to be the kind of person that says they understand and that really means it.

I don’t want to make people feel guilty for not spending all of their time with me.

I understand that people are not mine to stow away for keeps.

I can’t hold onto people forever. 

They aren’t mine.

People come and go, just as the seasons.

I choose to be for them.

I choose to love them

I choose to understand them.

And with these choices, it means, that guilt has no place.

Guilt has no place.

So the next time you find yourself questioning why someone has faded away, the next time you find yourself questioning why your loves have gone silent, don’t carve a space for guilt.

Don’t you dare...

You don’t know the battle that rages inside of them.

You probably don’t even know the pain that sits at the depths of their soul.

Because they are the kind of person that doesn’t want to be a burden and here you are, acting out selfishly, making them feel like their break somehow caused you pain, when all they wanted to do was shelter you from their burdens. They didn’t want to cause you any harm.

But when you carve a place for guilt. You know what that does…it causes the person you love to want to give in, to give up for good.

Whether you were jokingly trying to get that person to say that they loved you, that all was well, that they were going to try harder to be there. It causes pain.

Guilt causes people to shut up.

Guilt causes people to lie down.

It doesn’t get embraced with ease; it’s not a quick fix for relationships.

It’s actually the contrary.  

Guilt leaves no room for grace.

And grace, my friends, grace is what keeps us here.

I sailed the seas of life with guilt for twenty-seven years. I made that choice.

But now, I refuse to make a home for guilt.

And now, I realize that love isn’t guilt-causing. Love is redeeming.

And to the ones that set out to settle down for the long-haul, always reaching for guilt, I’m going to be quite honest and tell you, I can’t handle guilty love, anymore.

I’m fragile and I’m in need of people who are honestly for me.

And if you aren’t, I’m going to go absent, until I can stand on my own feet and I’m going to surround myself with truth-speakers and deep lovers. I am going to look for loves who are promise-keepers and who understand when my heavy heart needs a break.

Breaks don’t mean you don’t love your loves, anymore. Breaks mean that as a weak, fragile human you recognize that you have reached the breaking point and that there is no turning back.

You need a break and your true loves will understand, others will fade out of the picture, but that’s okay. You just need a faithful few to keep you standing, because with God, it is enough.

With God, there is no guilt, there's only room for grace. 

and that is the way it should be, loves, just room for grace. 

a little late, but this is for Lamar & you, too:

Where do we find meaning when life steals the very breath out of us?

Where do we find meaning when our dreams become something fleeting?

Where do we find meaning when the ones we love cannot be reached?

Where do we find meaning when life feels absolutely meaningless, left destroyed by pain and overcome with heartache?

It's not in the hands of a love. It's not underneath the covers.

It's not succumbing to invisibility. And it definitely is not in giving up.

We look about every which way and we search, we search for meaning amidst the meaningless.

It's a desperate search when our eyes fall upon everyone and every last thing, but Him.

Our hands might be fragile and empty and our arms might be tired of carrying the weight.

It might be so.

But life will forever remain meaningless, if we seek to find our meaning in someone, somewhere else.

I'm done with trying to make sense of brokenness. I'm done with trying to gently place a pile of bandaids on a gaping wound. I'm done with telling myself and everyone else that we have to be okay.

Let's be done.

Let's stop becoming convinced that we have to have all this together, that our lives have to be a painted picture of perfection because, last time I checked we hear more stories of the famous untouchables, being just like us.

The ones we assume that have life all together and money in the bank are the ones being found by their loves broken, hiding underneath the covers.

They are not untouched by pain. No not even them, they are not untouched by pain.

And yet, we criticize them for caving in under the pressure.

But just like you and I, life to them feels meaningless at times, and meaning is sought to be a material, someone, or somewhere else.

I cave.

You cave.

They cave.

We all cave.

It's heartbreaking to think that we convince ourselves that the broken need to man up and become stronger, because we have no idea what their battlefield looks like; we have no idea that they might be contemplating an easier way of surrender, a way out.

That famous untouchable is someone's son or daughter, father or mother, best friend or lover. And their life is being tossed aside by open criticism; their life is being taken too soon by depression.

No one is untouched by pain.

No, there is not one.

come & go

My life has been one of coming and going, since I was an awkward fifteen. The going of course was always the hardest part, because my sunburned cheeks were marked with traces of tears and the walk to the van always seemed like an eternity.  

And I know there were some capable of leaving the goodbyes to the moment, but I was always the one who took the goodbyes with me. I was the one who would find an open seat in the van to sit still in my tears. I was the one who contemplated the return in the very moment, I was leaving.  

It wasn't ever understood. It's not even understood, now.  

People have always raised their eyebrows when I tell them my first love wasn't a man, but my God. People have always questioned my lack of a boyfriend for twenty-plus years and my crazy love for a country.  

People have never attempted to stop questioning and with time, I have never attempted to stop answering.  

But I know all the questions and answers in this world cannot suffice to depict the call, the call to move.  

I know it isn't normal, but I never asked God for normal. I asked God for more.  

Thirteen years spent living out of a suitcase and failing to pack lightly. Thirteen years spent captivated by a country and at times, content with being empty-handed and unattached. 

Thirteen years spent being affirmed that Mexico wasn't just a place on a map, but a place I was made for.  

Thirteen years and over thirty short-term trips have turned into a little house on Cerro de Punhuato, four houses up from where I spend all of my days and nights.  

Five years spent being affirmed that Morelia wasn't just a place mentioned in a book, but a place my heart was meant to call home, for however long my God chooses to see fit.  

But in the coming and going, my heart hasn't stopped trying to hold onto goodbyes...it has also tried to hold onto people.  

I haven't just packed my own bags, but I have tried to pack the bags of the ones I have met along the way to join my journey, but my journey is not theirs.  

I might have the purest of intentions to want their sweet company along the way, but it doesn't matter. They weren't meant to be mine, forever, not even for a time. They were always HIS.  

But I have tried my hand at packing their bags, too. I have tried to take them with me and live in the state of unending goodbyes. However, it's in the unending state of goodbyes, when I lose myself in the present.  

My purest of intentions are faulty and unwarranted, at best. The results are always unsuccessful, because some people are only meant to stay for seasons and they cannot be securely kept under lock and key.  

I cannot take people with me. 

Sure, I can steadily stay and sit with them, but I cannot pack their bags and force their hearts to move, when it isn't their time.  

I cannot take them with me. I must understand that their journey is not the same as mine.  

I cannot live in the state of unending goodbyes. I must live in the present.  

I cannot pack their bags. I must only pack my own.  

Peace has started to come in waves, because for the first time ever in my twenty-eight years: I am realizing that I was never meant to carry the bags of others, I was never meant to take anyone with me, I was never meant to dwell in the state of unending goodbyes.  

I, alone, was made for my journey of coming and going, packing and unpacking, loving and losing, teaching and learning.  

And I'm beginning to walk into a new season, a season that comes with being misread and misunderstood, because I'm finally claiming what is mine. With this season comes a surrender, surrendering the ones I have always tried to take with me, and understanding that with walk-outs and wildnernesses, my love doesn't become lost on them. It just results in a realistic recognition that the ones I love cannot be taken and innocently placed on a shelf, always within my heart's reach, but instead sometimes I have to give them up and over to the one who they truly belong to. I have to trust that Jesus has them. He always has.  

And so I realize that this season isn't one of striving to hold onto people or pack up their bags to come alongside me; it's a season of beautiful surrender. It's a season that God has written just for me, a season that I spent years longing for and denying simultaneously, for fear that I was asking too much of Him.  

I hear him calling me to come further and He's gently whispering to my heart, "you maybe the most misunderstood of all, but I understand you. You may only hear the harsh critics, but my voice will drown out their blatant noise. You may find the promised support to be a ghost of years' past, but I am with you and my love lasts. Pack your bags, love, there is more to the more you asked for those thirteen years ago. There's more than you know." 

And my trembling hands still and my heart stirs at his voice of truth, because I know that He has understood me long before I knew...