Marriage Did Fix My Life Problems

I was always told marriage won't fix your problems.  We are talking sat down again and again by women older than me saying something about how marriage didn't help their issues of insecurity, faith or living.  Maybe this was just a tactic to prepare for the commitment that marriage is, debunk any beliefs that the Hollywood movies portray about how sweet marriage is or whatever,  but I am back, to say screw all of that.  While I love every dear person young and old that like broken record told of marriage not fixing anything, I think it's time someone told the single girls all the ways marriage will fix you.

*All things considered we are like less than 365 days into marriage.

1. Marriage fixed my issues trusting anyone. 
Before getting married to Mr. DK there was a whole roller-coaster of events that one day I will write about (so help me God) and from it all, I trusted no one. NO ONE. Not the guy pouring my coffee because he probably would be a jerk and give my decaf, the people I worked with, etc. When your heart goes through a cheese shredder, you wouldn't either.  All trust is gone.

We are talking I went on dates and would ask men what the worst thing they ever did was just to see how big of a lie they'd likely tell or avoid.  I avoided people at all cost because they'd likely break trust too and make your life a disaster.  I didn't go on 2nd dates because what's the point, they'll break your trust and break your heart. #NoThanksSucker

After meeting Mr. DK things changed.  Honestly, I don't have another way to explain it except by God's grace alone from the day we met, I just trusted him. No other explanation available. My heart just felt safe with him.


2. Marriage fixed my faith and it's translation into reality.
It's really hard to be a Christian, can we just say that and not judge? Sure before marriage I had a faith and belief in the gospel, hosted a community group in my living room and served when you needed it.  But when you're married it's different - it's not a solo faith. There's you and him on this journey together.  It's a lot easier to be a Christian with someone else, probably why Jesus says "its not good for man to be alone" LIKE DUH.  There's someone else to read you truth when you don't give a crap about anything or anyone. There's someone else to tell you "we have to be bigger than that" when the world is unfair.

I've met a lot of women who have said you have to idolize Jesus more than your husband (truth, I don't disagree with you on that)... but I think all along that truth and broken record message was missing the entire point.  Hear me out.

I'm still sorting this one out.  I don't want Mr. DK to be my savior, he would really suck at it. But I don't think that the "don't idolize your husband" banner hanging over every girls church conference really got it right either.


3. Marriage fixed my bank account.
I work under my own LLC and the food on my table has always come from contract work with clients. Risky eh? Ya. But it's not like you can't make it work.  After getting married, there's 2 incomes. It makes saving and traveling much more attainable.

Marriage also makes me responsible and keep to a budget. There's no more buying all of the Gap spring collection and eating cereal for weeks to make up for it. You have someone else to be accountable to. This fixed a lot of my issues. For myself, I'd wreck a budget and not care... but to face Mr. DK and have wrecked the budget, no way. I hate letting him down because he's always too nice about it. No way, I hate it too much when he's so nice like that. It's like reverse psychology and he knows it works.


4. Marriage fixed my belief that I'd be stuck with terrible in-laws. 
Despite my prior experiences, I have the most loving, caring and normal in-laws on planet earth.  I got your back women of the world who say all the hail Marys and beg for peace when your in-laws come in town. I have got your back with your in-laws who don't talk to you and obviously don't like you or want you to be around and think you're the evil one who is wrecking their childs life... I've got your back when your totally a nice girl and there's actually no freaking reason on planet earth to not be BFF with you, but they just are whack and don't see that.

Just 2 weeks ago my father in law stayed for a week, cleaned our whole house, fed & walked the dog and is NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL.  I would trust my mother in law to not feed my child sugar and shit. I would leave my kids with them and not worry about their existence.  I would show up at their front door and stay with them by myself and not feel weird or not welcome.  Say your hallelujahs with me cause these people you get forever, and luckily, I got good in-laws. Ones that are just like another set of parents who actually talk to you, make gluten-soy-nut-quino free dinners for and are more than bare levels of respectful with you, but actually include you. #ShockerImNotEvil


5. Marriage fixed my lack of and hatred of making new friends in new cities.
Plain that simple, it's easier to make friends when you are married. There's always your BFF with you to keep things from going way awkward and to help tell you it's really not you when dinners go weird and you think something is obviously wrong with you and you're never going to make friends.


6. Marriage fixed my relationship with my parents and gave me independence. 
After said roller-coaster my parents were basically the lifeline of my existence.  Where they went, I went. You guys, sometimes I would just go sit at their work so I didn't have to be without them (GOD BLESS THEIR BOSS).  We are talking like an infant who did not leave their side, went to dinner with them on their anniversary and so on.  The day I moved out of their house again, I remember setting a countdown on my phone until the days I would be done with my lease and could move back in with them.

Thank the God above my parents showed up and hosted a neighborhood BBQ for my street so I could try and meet some friends. All jokes aside, I met a BFF at that BBQ my Dad held, because sometimes you need your Dad to make friends.

When the world is bad to you, parents seem so safe - no shame if you've cried yourself to sleep in their bed before too. #HOLDME I really needed to get married so they would experience some freedom from their 20's something child and get back to their empty-nesters life.

The Gospel: It Holds

I'm confident in this, We can press extremely hard on the gospel and it will hold.  You can ask deep questions. Questions that don't bottom. You can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear all evil and it will still hold.  You can run, hide and ignore... and it will still be there, holding for when you're ready to press into it again.

You can sit in a mud hut in the middle of Africa with heart run through a cheese shredder and question the existence of a God that you thought you once knew and it will hold.

You can pace hospital halls and walk the valley of the shadow of death waiting for last breaths from one and experiencing deeply a cut and hurt that cannot bare weight with words and it will hold.

You can roll out of bed in the morning with hopelessness as your anthem from perfect opportunities failed and it will hold.

You can smoke weed and it will hold.

You can sit in doctors offices and be told you will never birth a child and it will hold.

You can go bankrupt on complete sin and it will hold.

You can plead guilty of murder, theft or whatever you think it the most awful of awfuls, and it will hold.

You can quit going to church, plain and simple, and it will hold.

It will not bend. It will not sink. It will not dip. It will not change. It can hold the hard pressing. And then some.

It can hold the crawling through valley-highs plagued with hurt of all creations, questioning whatever and it won't stop. Run into it one by one over and over and it won't waver, move or budge.  It holds.

It's still holding up and it's not counting you out.  

I've spent quiet some time in church circles and it was a blank hush hush about pressing deeply into our darkest disasters for grace to flow up.  I can't remember ever hearing someone say to press hard, because it will hold.

Might I be the first to send you an open and endless invitation to come and abandon, question, doubt and sort the confusing among the valley of the shadow of death, hopelessness, sin, your awful of awfuls here at His feet.

If not one person on planet earth explains that Jesus never once sent away a seeker, then how much more are we to run when we assume the bottom to fall out. 


To a watching world how silly am I to not press with all my everything and show that it will hold. To a watching world why would a seeker seek on when the ones who proclaim their entire life secure upon this gospel's hold won't even press to an endless bottom themselves and see its hold.  

He is prepared and able to hold your press.  Your deepest won't bottom out, He goes deeper.  He can keep up.  Your deepest pressing into this reality and your disbelief of His existence does not make Him flee your side.  Never once has Jesus sent the seeker off to sort and overcome the disasters of life alone.  His sacrifice was for our pressing deeply into his security.

It's the safest of safes. The gospel.  It is good to press deeply into it. It holds. It's the one thing for certain of all certainties I know will hold.  It can bare the weight of all your yes and nos and I don't knows. Confusion. Doubts. Theological Messiness. Fear filled. Hurt. Disaster. Hopelessness. Valley-Highs.

All the problems and things you should never say because the church taught you else-wise. It won't bottom out when you do.  It won't fail, it will hold.  It will remain.  Press deeply.

The Reality

The reality is, I didn’t really give two shits about Ferguson exploding until my plans got all kinds of messed up and I got stuck in traffic from a riot happening down the street of where I needed to be.  I watched a little on the news for a few nights, but whatever.  

Call me not idiotic or careless, I know I'm not the only one.

This is St. Louis by all means.  Has nobody seen that we constantly rank on the top 10 most dangerous cities TWICE because St. Louis is in Missouri and Illinois so we are all kinds of special getting two markings on the list??  

It was just about the most annoying situation of 2014 to be frank.  Dressed in a skirt that cost more than $100, cold coffee and a car that doesn’t have a darn thing wrong with it because let's be honest about how I really get clogged up in the head about what's totally not important and about my mornings getting messed up and becoming a serious treat of over-dramatic, I was minding my own world.  A meeting with a client and needed to be there, but in that moment was stopped -  I think I actually screamed “move out of my way” at one point. 

If you’ve ever lived more than about .5 seconds you know twitter has got your back when you need answers to all the important things happenings- the news is useless, and when you are annoyed out of sanity that you're running late twitter can help calm things. I promise you. 

Racist murder.  The photos you’ll scroll through on #Ferguson will take you right to Iraq.  I think 25 minutes passed by as I read all the strangers tweets. I can't really do it justice to try and tell you about what’s really going on in this city that’s bursting at the seams.  It's too much. It's too awful. 

So there I sat, in a jam of traffic, car engine turned off, because is was a real long wait I’m talking, and a real long lull of selfishness. Car after car backing up, being turned around. The kind of jam that was taking so long I pulled out my macbook and started working because RUINED MORNING. Late to meetings. 

I just see it time and time again, I’ve become so numb to it.  Numb to the pain of the world. Compassionless. Careless really. 

Maybe the problem with all the chaos in this world is that my own heart didn’t give two shits about what seems to be racist murder until I couldn’t get to my meeting on time because of a riot and today, the Hoda & Kathie Lee show being interrupted by the president addressing this issue of breaking news and I am clueless on how the last ambush lady's makeover turned out at the end of today's episode...

This really isn’t an issue about white or black, Christian or jew, child or adult, employed or criminal. Or maybe it is. But really, for the most of us, it's an issue of ourselves. 

The issue is giving two shits about one another. My little heart beating now inside me with a $4 dollar latte flowing through is what needs to be fixed. Not the riots, not the protest, not the obnoxious media or whatever.  My own heart is the real tragedy.

And to you, Momma Brown. I see you all up on my TV screen in your white blazer and bleach blonde hair over and over. I see you next to your man with tears streaming down your face being brave and telling your story - but mute have been my ears. I think I heard you talking 10 times before this morning when I stopped and HEARD you. Sister, dear one, I have heard you -  and Sobbing my own tears over you, your baby, your broken heart, your life has been inconvenienced more than missing a meeting and stuck in a traffic jam from a riot - your life got flipped upside down.  I hear you asking for peace.  I hear you, I hear your every word begging this world to stop and realize a little more than just themselves.  

I hope your face stays engrained to my mind forever more.  You deserve two shits of my heart, and all the rest of it for that matter. You deserve grace. You deserve more. You have been brave. You have surpassed all the rest of us women sitting in our $100 skirt sipping lukewarm coffee annoyed at life. You've showed what really matters - one another. 

The Pendulum is Swinging

Right now? I'm in bed, still in my pajamas, sipping tea and writing. It's 10:19 am. I declined a friend's invite to the gym because I needed to get some work done, and in a few minutes when I'm done “working”, I'll search inner country flights throughout Africa and read one friends grant proposal and give my two-cents. Then later, I may walk down the block to my favorite little boutique and see what's on the sale rack. Or rummage through Urban Outfitters to hopefully find the shoes my Mr. Coach man wants. And at some point, I will maybe work again today. But all pending on what the sunshine does. 

And there we have it. The pendulum flying across. 

In the mist of all opposites - happy and depressing, purpose and profit, must do and get to, selfishness and sacrifice, necessity and complete luxury, hard and easy, me and them - seems everything to be going from one extreme to the other in a matter of seconds. My life is really weird these days. 

I cry about babies in Africa on Monday night and paint my toenails on Tuesday morning like it's nothing.

I raise money for non-profits and spend money on a non-fat $5 dollar lattes.

And I've made a scene about social justice while wearing clothes that were made by children in sweat shops. What? Yes, ain't nobody ever heard of American Apparel?

Back and forth, back and forth. The world keeps going by, a blurred streaky mess, filled with offers and opportunities and enticing engagements. Some days I can't even keep up. From Guatemala to LA to that East Coast of Africa, from the suburbs to the strip clubs, from the digital writing and promo world to The Gap Outlet and back again, I ride the pendulum - just holding the freak on for dear life. "I'm trying so hard to reconcile the gross with the good, that sometimes I forget to look, instead, for the still, unmoving places, smooth spots in the landscape of life where God can be seen clearly. It's only when I see Him in the chaos and confusion that I find clarity and rest." (-Jamie)

Life probably won't ever make sense. If you stop and look at my daily calendar it's just weird. But Jesus sovereignty at its' work- hell will freeze over before I have a traditional lifestyle that's something like a 9-5 gig. 

"Try as I might, I can't seem to put it all together in a nice neat package. But maybe that's because I've been trying to make vanity and materialism fit neatly into my life, right next to selflessness and generosity. Maybe I shouldn't want arrogance smooshed up against humility, or ignorance tucked in with wisdom. Perhaps anger wasn't supposed to be given a spot with Grace at all." (-Jamie)

The opposite ends of a pendulum aren't meant to come together. They never were. Perhaps, the tension among the two is probably where we all should want to be. 

Psalm 56:13

I’m telling you feet sunken in reality, that life moves on.

… And Jesus He will take you back to the darkest places of life you’ve ever known and let you just run victory laps around and around the darkness casting light onto the misery you once knew so well. He can do this. He does do this.  

He mends. He dumps grace into the most empty of spaces- the gaps the size of the grand canyon. And it satisfies.

In all my denial and fears, life moves along. Day after day. As sure as the hairs on my head and hot as the coffee I’m sippin’ in this seat, Life. Moves. On.

Those first minutes, and then hours passed with the kind of I’m 20something and laying in bed between my parents because that’s the only possible thing that seems safe in this world - kind of utterly dark and miserable hours, they went on one by one. 

Days passed right along walking dirt roads in Africa begging a savior whose existence I questioned. He began to sooth out the cracked and dry clay broke parts of me. To mend, to show Himself so clearly and to claim back this heart that He would make so whole once again.

Weeks go on as commitments made, new dreams made- healing comes and life normalized. It all moved on, life.  

And with all those times my Momma promised to me that it would be ok, that somehow in the midst of weeks passing, happened.

Life goes on – healed, I tell you.  That we may take time and remember and rejoice, to celebrate that He has rescued me from the cliff-edge of destruction and sunk me feet into grace.

It’s with ever fiber of my being I tell you that Jesus can heal. My heart beating hard for you too to believe this truth. He can remake. He can redeem. He can make life move onward. New dreams come. New hope. New identity. Newness is His anthem. Mercy is the banner He’s been singing over me.

I have been relearning, redoing, rehoping, reprocessing, remembering, rebelieving, relearning, reversing, RE: My heart got run through a cheese shredder and it continues to be the best thing that ever could have happened in all my days and in all the land – brokenness was good... Life completely fell apart. It shattered to beyond the point of disaster, hysterical crying in public places for days on end, and my parents being the real rock stars of this show, somehow making their not so baby’s life become ok again. Better than ok.  And at their exhaustion, friends filling in to constantly birth hope and promises that this little heart of mine would want to love again.  And it sure does. 

The kind of gut wrenching when I tell you the details of my story in a book that’s coming to a store near you (hint!), it will make you sit in disbelief.  Humanity. Sinners. This world is far from fair. And it’s an ugly lesson to learn.

And it hurts., the RE of it all hurts. Him, my savior, taking the things my heart wants and detaching them and attaching them onto Himself so He can change my everything - It hurts. Pain. Doubt. Confusions. Chaos. There is no right way to walk through the seasons of ‘my whole world fell apart.’

He has held every single moment.  To the smallest details my mind could never comprehend, He has made life move on.  He has calmed my raging seas and walked with me through the fire.  He has proved Himself worthy even in my disbelief.  He has never once let me walk alone.  With each string of my heart cut off and re-sewn back to himself – he did it all, carefully making the stitches. He promised renewal. He promised to take my shame and walk it right out of the grave…. And tears in my eyeballs, I’m telling you He did.

He has been my portion, and far more than enough for me. He has provided my everything. He has made me brave. Bracing the unknown and that completely terrifying reality that is brokenheartedness. He is with you, carrying the heart that’s been rubbed up and down a cheese shredder.

I tell you.., God, you did everything you promised, and I’m thanking your with all my heart. You puled me from the brink of death, my feet from the cliff-edge of doom. Now I stroll at leisure with God in the sunlit fields of life. (Ps. 56:13)

An Open Ended Letter To People Like You.

Thank you for giving me back that great semi-terrible job of filing papers that I had done years before so I would be forced to get out of bed and learn to overcome. To throw my feet on the floor each morning and be a fighter. Thank you to you who without me even asking wrote checks and purchased my flights to Africa in belief that Jesus would show up on red-clay dirt roads and meet me in my mess, and did He ever. Thank you one who sat on the bed next to me in Africa and dreamed this whole thing up- for telling me it’s not crazy to believe in having a job that pays the tab for flights and visits to other nations who need the gospel- because we now know that it’s possible. Thank you for crying next to me at the dinner table thousands of miles from home and for standing on a beach late into the night praying God’s supernatural healing into the dry and cracked parts my soul- that healing happened.

Thank you for letting me keep that boring job for far too long in a safe office where all you people were gracious and let me sort out the most terrible of days while scanning papers and listening to endless podcast which resurrected my dead and hopeless soul once again.  And thanks for on some days just acting like you didn’t see my tear filled moments. I love that about you people.

Thank you, to you business owners on the east coast, west coast and everywhere in-between who let me make and create for you. I love what we get to do. I love that we are not just clients, but I know your stories and your dreams- I’m glad we get to chase together.  Thank you for making this, THIS.

Thank you friends parents who passed my name and number along to the people you do life with, because they just might need what I can offer. Thank you for believing in me before I even knew what was about to happen here in this season of life. 

Thank you to the couple who has hand wrote and mailed a card every single month since June of 2012. Your grace on paper steals my heart over and over. You consistency has proved love greater than most anything tangible.

To the women who have held me in mall parking lots, living rooms, gap dressing rooms and everywhere in between all across this world these past few years - I like that you are an overcomer, you've become part of my overcoming. You taught me to press onward.

Thanks to the strangers I’ve been on dates with and realized you’re far too old or the “I just can’t, no” and the “why the freak does he not like me?- I’m so awesome” ones. Thank you for the drinks and dinners; for walking through fears. Let me publically thank you on behalf of my future husband, we needed your help in overcoming… Bless it.  

Thank you to the ones who didn’t mind my tears in church week after week when we didn’t even know each others names and to the ones who now sit in my home each week and beg salvation for business owners I work with. I love you deeply.

Thanks for listening endlessly to my absurd ideas and for not laughing. Thank you for a lot of things…. For forcing me to get out of a bed and figure it all our again. Thank you for keeping me close by your sides and on speed dial making sure I found my way again... And for understanding that season of life when I didn’t go further than a 2 miles distance from my parents for weeks on end.  Thank you for sitting on their kitchen floor and telling me ”it’s ok”. Those words, I can hear loudly in my head still, they mattered much.  

Thank you for all this…THIS, the dream happening in real time. Thank you to the ones who understand what chasing dreams does to your soul and for fighting with me. Thank you,  this is really a fairy tale.  For the ones that have just been part intertwined, distant and neighbor - I've loved this little thing we call sorting out my twenties. 

Valley Highs

I've walked valley highs. It's just the life part of life.  

There’s a mystery about the life of life. How it all flows and sews into valley high sequences. Over and over. 

I’ve read His promises on the valley highs. I’ve heard the mystery loudly among the saints singing for years on end. I’ve felt His promises in my soul. I’ve seen them over the life of life. He’s just been good. His mercy has been forever. He’s never once left my anything orphaned among the mystery of life of life that is valley highs.

His boundless love has never faded. My anthem on His consistency, it is ringing. I really can't get loud enough about this one. About how He does not fade away. In the mystery of valley highs that bring the life of life. 

He’s holding on. He has got us- the you and me, tightly. Firm. Never letting go. Carrying through the muck. Safely guarding. Intentionally gracing onward. Over mountain high and whispering praise in my ever valley low. The same, always carrying. Holding with a grip that is the tightest I've yet to compare. 

I tell you His promises, they are like none other. He is carrying still, in the darkness. Carrying still in the brightest of sunlights and among silver lined stars shinning. Carrying onward, He does this.

From age to age, He has been. The oceans have no room to hold His love. No scroll found long enough to contain the whole rhyme of his faithfulness even if stretched from sky to sky. He holds measureless. In valley high. In the life of life. He has yet wavered. 

My doubts. My every fear. He is carrying what I can’t carry- my life of life. Carrying what’s big and small. Carrying what He never told me to carry. Carrying what happened 50 minutes ago, what’s happening right now and what’s happening in 5 billion years.  Carrying.  The mystery, the flows and sews, he’s still carrying. Holding onto the moments of forever then and forever to come.   

We trust His promises because He carries the mystery of valley high that is the life of life. Faithfully He carries.

We carry hope in our sufferings. We carry light. We carry grace, mercy, joy, peace, understanding and the power that conquered the grave - we carry that. Life is ours to carry. All else is His to carry. He carried the rest to the cross thousands of years past and to this moment present. He carried and still carries. 

We carry because He carried. We carry His promises so that a watching world can see that HE is enough, HE carrying us is sufficient. We carry so little. He carries all.