Beautiful Eyes

(7:11)

There are days.

There are days when you wipe blood off of the walls of the dodgeball pit and the kids point out the places that you missed.

There are days when you pass out bandaids.

There are days when it is all just another brand of normal.

When the seventh grade boys press in close and the one girl in the group tries to maintain her space in the squirming puppy pile of boy.

When ten seconds of intentionality can be enough to mend broken connections.

When they smile and grin and sometimes say exactly the opposite of what they mean - but it's okay, because we both know it.

When it isn't that it's easy, but rather that it works.

Days when sorry and forgiven are done without ever speaking the words. Where I have to go them, some of them, rather than the other way around, but, when I do, when two hands go down on tense shoulders, all is forgiven, forgotten, and they settle in close, determined, for this week, to be mine.

M*t** sits first, not quite center, not quite back. Not his normal spot. My spot. The spot where he angles each week so that he can see, but only occasionally sits.

M*tt** and K*r*n settle on my right, the rest of the kids follow, and we play a game, together, with another leader.

(Well, first the room descends into the chaos that can only come when you give 100+ middle schoolers pool noodles for a game of ninja, and the careful mask on my anxious one falls. 

People are hitting each other - hurting each other - and laughing, and he dislikes it with an intensity that I did not expect. An intensity that I last saw when the youth pastor showed them a video of a lamb being led to the slaughter.

He can't keep track of who to defend or how. And, he hates it.

Hates it enough to do something.

So I watch him fall to the ground and curl up in a ball. Let them hit him so that they are not hitting each other.

And, my heart leaps a little for this amazing kid.

This brave, scared, jumbled mess of thirteen year old thought and emotion who has glued himself carefully within the sphere of where my arms can reach.)

Worship. Music. Where they jostle again like puppies, and a few of them come and go and come back. Always come back.

"I'm glad that you don't make me spin and stuff any more."

J*yd*n says it, and we talk a little about how I used to lift him by the elbows until he was "jumping" or spin him around in the circles he wouldn't make on his own. He's getting too tall for that now, easily to my chin or higher. 

But, when the song ends, and his slow clap goes on for too long, I lay my hands over his, make them stop. And, he smiles.

We're all distracted. But, we smile a lot.

The tired, sullen looks that they came in with slip, and every antic is met with a grin and a glance that cranes around to meet mine.

For today, although they are antsy over the God thing to come, these kids have beautiful eyes.

Beautiful eyes that look at each other and see something worth protecting, something worth noticing and celebrating.

Beautiful eyes that see my presence with more clarity than my frazzled hair or my awkward attempts at this thing that we call church, that somehow instinctively know that this is a thing that we do together.

That let this be a new week to try again after we got our wires crossed.

That put my phone away without prompting.

That sit still and quiet and close to listen as a ninety-five year old man tells the story of salvation.

And, this is normal.

This blood and fear and laughter and courage. This is middle school. But, it is also magic.

Conflicted

Conflicted.

It might be the word of the week.

As if our insides were tugging in two different directions at once. Fighting against ourselves. Losing as often as we win.

The fifth graders feel it, talking over the top of each other, serious in the same moment that they are goofy. 

Racing to see who can come up with the most things to be thankful for, but writing down real things nonetheless - friends and grandparents, warm homes and supportive parents. Retelling Bible stories while the person next to them interjects with unicorns and rainbows.

Wired on an extra hour of sleep but discombobulated with the change.

And, I tend to forget how carefully we have choreographed the steps to our dance - until something happens to throw it out of sync.

There's a kid who has been making a habit of waiting for me in the children's wing, where we both teach first hour classes. We walk together to middle school. Two minutes, perhaps, that are all his.

This week, I leave early.

I'm watching some kids between services.

It's simple. Thirty minutes, maybe forty. Myself and another leader. We're scheduled to be finished before middle school even gets really started.

But, as we walk down into a game that is already underway, I can tell that I have thrown him for a total loop. Whatever his plans were for the intro time, I messed with them. Messed with the steady security that he thrives on.

Enter: conflict.

Because, for all that he doesn't have the words for it, for all that it wasn't intended to have anything to do with him at all, he feels betrayed.

And, when the kid who would jump in front of a dodge ball before he let it hit me begins to throw Sweet T arts at me - hard - I can see it in his eyes. Because, it's just this side of the playful roughhousing that makes up so much of middle school with these boys, and it's the only way that he know right now to communicate.

Barely thirteen is a rough age for words.

There isn't a right way to say the ones that he needs and still look cool, collected, in control.

"Where were you?" The girls manage to find the words, clinging to my arms - a little roughly, as if it is both accusation and lifeline. "No one knew where you were."

Some of the ones who ask barely do more than say hello on a typical Sunday, but it is a steadiness that they trust, a step to the dance that was missing, that threw off the rhythm of their morning.

The one with the Sweet T arts is daring me to fix it. Daring me to come and hold on until it is better - but also daring me to feel how he feels.

So, he stays close. But, not too close. Barely out of arms reach. Not smiling. Not looking me in the eye.  Only glancing over when he thinks my head is turned. Still. So very, very still.

We are close, but I am not forgiven.

It roils inside of him, in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head, this conflict of desires.

Reconciliation or retribution.

The speaker talks about the Fruit of the Spirit, and the girls in breakout group are brutally honest.

Sometimes, if I believe that I need patience in my life, it makes me feel patient and forgiving, BUT, sometimes, believing that makes me feel angry and impatient, anxious and worried. If I believed that and felt any of those things, I could always pray, but I might also de-stress - go on a run, spend time thinking, talk to someone, or sleep on it before acting.

I believe that I need love in my life, that I ned to be loving, and that makes me feel challenged and puzzled and confused, so I do something about it. I pray or ask someone or think about it or read the Bible.

They know that they want these things, but they know that they aren't these things. Not naturally. Not all the time.

There is this conflict, the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of the flesh.

I love that they are safe enough here to speak truth, even when it isn't pretty. Safe enough to feel honestly, even when the feelings are not happy. Safe enough to act genuinely, even when the actions are not always on task.

These are my kids, my conflicted, messy kids.

I am not perfect, and neither are they. So, we dive deeper into grace, and, next week, we might come up on the other side.

Haiti Again

It's the first week of November, and, already, we're talking about Haiti.

They are juggling dates for next summer, trying to ensure that it will fit, pushing to see how much leeway they can find in the other bits and pieces that make up their lives.

Somehow, this is that important.

Not that it defines everything, but that it is somehow there, just under the surface, waiting to be woven into the fabric of who they understand themselves to be, who they understand God to be.

A God who lives in poverty and wealth. Who is always on time, even when the actual time isn't important. Who provides and comforts but allows for sickness and pain.

A God who soothes fears but pushes them beyond the limits of comfort. Who exists in community and in solitude. Who paints the night sky and the sunrise.

A God who allows for destruction but trains hands to rebuild.

A God who has made them.

Made them bold and brave and strong and scared. Who watches them laugh and dance and cry and grieve. 

Who has built them for honesty and late night talks on the roof. Who has designed them to help heal each other's hurts and stand guard over each other's fears.

A God knows their name and remembers their faces.

A God who delights every time that they come to Him and who cares deeply for a deeply broken world.

So, it's barely November, three months earlier than last year, but it is Haiti season.

Not yet the all consuming everything that will tinge every conversation and every interaction, but the rumbles are building, next year's team already beginning to sort itself out.

Because, it is in their blood. Deep enough in the fabric of this youth group that, if we choose, everything can be drawn back to Haiti.

It could be named as a strength, but also as a weakness. Whatever it is, it is infectious. And, not four months after we came home, they are talking about going back.

Even kids who have never been before use that phrase, talk about "going back." 

It is that much a part of who they are as a youth group. VBS in Haiti is something that "we" do. 

A week and a half that lasts all year.

Ravenclaw

4th and 5th grade fun night.

This group of them, at this age, are still so easily entertained.

We can keep them in the same room, for two solid hours, playing carnival type games, decorating backpacks and pumpkins, and they think that it is the best thing in the world.

And, it has more to do with it being this class of them, this group, than it does with their age.

Because, there are kids here, middle schoolers who are helping, who would have chaffed at this so badly. Kids from classes who would have had the marshmallows in their mouths or in the air, but not on the tables to construct. Who would have had sharpie on each other just as soon as on the pumpkins. Who would have scribbled rather than deal with a drawing that didn't turn out.

These guys are calm. "Easy." Talkative. Questioning. Careful. Thoughtful.

Every three years or so, there is a class like this, one that plays with words and ideas like they are toys. One that examines everything, picks it apart and tears it down to it's tiniest pieces and then decides what to do with the results.

They will go wherever there is knowledge, information, just as happy to sit as to run, and they spew forth stories, words, ideas.

Loyal, but tentatively, testingly so.

A strong sense of systemic justice, "This thing (idea, way of being or doing) is broken; We should think of a way to fix it," and, a careful counting of fairness.

Everything is thought through. Everything is considered. And, if they act, it is because they have decided that it is the right thing to do and the right time to do it.

There are rules to their worlds, and, unless those rules are proven to be unjust or unfair, they will follow them largely without comment. An unjust rule is simply brushed aside, considered and then ignored as if it never existed.

Out of control doesn't feel good to them, and, although they will use it occasionally to test unclear rules and boundaries, they are the most likely to ruefully apologize for it later.

This is the class most likely to shadow and mimic behaviors in order to learn. Most likely to be astoundingly capable and confident when they finally step out on their own. Most likely to write a letter, make a craft, play music, express themselves by creating something tangible.

We have them as our fifth grade, eighth grade, and eleventh grade classes. In theory, our second graders and preschoolers as well, although I don't know the little ones well enough to say for certain. Every third class, up through, at least, the class above mine.

If Hogwarts students were sorted by year, by group, these classes would be Ravenclaw.

Bird Song and Old Steps

There is a certain kind of hoarse shriek that I am convinced only the middle school male is capable of producing. Some of them with more regularity than others.

It is unique. Identifying. And, I can tell without looking which sound belongs to who.

Other people learn bird songs. Jessica learns the piercing sounds of middle school boys who shriek like they are trying to use echolocation to orient themselves in space.

Some weeks it is quick, announcing their presence as they come running in or jumping over or hurtling down. Other weeks, like this one, it continues until I am sure that their throats must be raw with it.

Over and over and over.

Not quite echolocation, but almost. 

Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play. Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play.

Bump. Run. Catch. Torture. Release. Bump. Run. Catch. Torture. Release.

Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play. Shriek. Look up. Catch eyes. Play.

He's in seventh grade, starting to get long and lanky, and the walk from one end of the church to the other was punctuated by greetings from the kids that he teaches, little boys who adore him.

And, maybe it is because it doesn't seem like so long ago that he was that size himself that I indulge the repetition and the patterns that we haven't used quite this way since elementary school.

Or, maybe it's something in the kids.

He brings up stories from our small group. *bby talks with me about when she was a baby. *nn* compares only knowing me since 4th grade. The girls huddle close but don't blink when I go to chase the shrieking one.

J*m** sits beside for the first time in forever, and J*m** rubs coins across the carpet until they are hot, pressing them against the tops of my bare feet, challenges me on our mini basketball hoops. There are no breakout groups. And, it's one of those weeks where growing up means going back, just for today, to being little.

So, when our pattern is interrupted by a game, he makes sure to tell me what side he is going to be on, makes sure that I see him during music (even when I break old patterns and don't come over), maneuvers his space during the lesson until we have a clear line of sight.

Because, these are steps to a fourth grade dance.

It's been three years, but we were once very good at this.

It gives us something to fall back on, something known. Something other than those messy questions that no thirteen year old wants to answer in a room filled with dozens of peers. "How are you doing?" "What's wrong?" "Are you okay?"

Not honestly, at least.

But, there is something raw and honest to the shrieks that never stop, to the running and the catching and the chasing. To the little boy who never gets up until I do, who asks that we not add other leaders into the game the way that most weeks allow. Who stops when I am talking to another boy and allows me to reach out and snag him.

Right to left. Back and forth. Rhythmic. Steady. I talk and swing him in a loose basket hold that he doesn't fight. 

And, I am reminded of the fourth grader who used to run wild circles, watching me out of the corner or his eye. Until I caught him. Reached out and snagged him in the circle of an almost basket hold. Let him stay there until he finally melted.

These patterns. Seasons. Fourth grade steps in a seventh grade dance. Grown up and little all at the same time. These are the languages that we speak.

Languages where shrieks are sometimes just as good as words.

Because, well, that's just middle school.

Cluster

For four years, I have co-led a high school girls' group with two other people, one of whom was actually my high school leader once upon a time.

Every week, the girls are incredible and insightful and thoughtful and oh so very funny, and I wish that I had the freedom to write more. But, what happens in cluster stays in cluster.

Unless, of course, we put it on YouT*be for all the world to see.

Because, yes, in what has to be the most exuberantly truth and information loving of all the clusters, this is the sort of thing that we do… talk about the eight sections of the Old Testament and how which of the things that we are reading fit in where.

And, then we make up hand motions to help remember them.

Enough?

"He was talking about you [at school]and he said that, 'my church leader has a phone on her app.'"

It's a simple phrase, the fore spoken 7th grader looking sheepish at my other elbow, and I don't want to put too much into it. She's only telling me because of the flip flop of words. Phone on her app instead of an app on her phone. It's gentle mocking. Nothing more.

But, I do anyways.

Between the quiet laughter and the half listening to game instructions that leaves all of us uncertain of what we're supposed to be doing - I over think it.

My brain spins a million miles an hour when I'm with this group. We've made four years' practice of sifting through every word and flicker of action in order to find truth that has always been buried in a certain level of noise and chaos. And, I'm not about to be able to turn it off now.

These are my kids.

Or, they were, but they aren't, but they are. And, it's as mixed up in real life as it sounds on paper.

As mixed up as it sounds in K*r*n's rendition of J*d*n's story. His church leader, even though this is the second year that I am not officially his leader at all.

But, I am.

Some weeks they are as close as my own skin, like someone forgot to install the normal space between our elbows, feet, knees. And, some weeks they remember that there are other people here, other leaders, other adult - or nearly adult - humans who want to teach them and love them and learn who they are.

Some weeks they forget in one moment and remember in the next.

Some weeks I am intentional about giving them space, about letting another leader step in to handle it, whatever it is. Some weeks they are intentional about not letting me do so.

Some weeks it is relatively clear that I am a sixth grade girls' leader.

Other weeks, a quick scan of the kids around me would make that distinctly less than clear. Because, there are still weeks where I am surrounded mostly by seventh grade boys.

Sometimes I think that I am as mixed up about it as they are, like a mom who can't decide if it is better to let her child cry for a few weeks in the nursery until he gets used to it or just not bother bringing him in at all.

I may have become that mom who just starts working in the nursery with her kid instead.

Over thinking.

Over thinking because church is meant to be a place where we can come to feel safe, known, steadied against the instability of a broken world. But also pushed, grown, challenged.

And, I have to wonder if we're finding the proper balance between the two.

Am I pushing them hard enough? Would they learn more if I stepped back? Or, would the lack of connection just be an excuse to disappear?

Since forth grade, I have trusted, we have trusted, these particular kids to self select, to put themselves in the groups where they need to be. They moved around a little, at first, but they stopped here. For the fourth year in a row, they have largely stopped here.

Is that okay? Shouldn't the boys have males at church that they look up to more than me? How much does shared history outweigh shared gender?

Is it enough? It must be enough. Surely it is enough. Is it enough to teach them how to be human and trust that, once they know how to be human, they will be wise enough to figure out how to be men?

Is enough to be slow and gentle, to let them learn to trust other leaders at their own pace, without breaking their trust in the process?

Is it enough, for the boys and the girls, to just do life, and trust God to take care of the rest?

These kids have a marvelous ability to set my head whirling, to bring up constant questions that might not have any answers. To turn ecclesiology back into a pondering of this situation, with these people, right now.

And, when ecclesiology turns to eucharisteo. When eucharisteo turns to chario. When the study of church turns to gratitude and gratitude turns into a greeting, a cause for joy.

That might just be enough.

Spinning Sabbath

Sabbath.

First day back to fall Sunday school, and I am reminded to breathe deep and make each moment count, reminded of how short the time is that we have them here.

It is a specials week. Music. Gym time. Four speakers. Twenty minutes of small group time carved down to ten, and we notebook at the speed of light. They're learning, but I don't think that they realize it yet, these girls who love to draw and cut and glue. They're having fun, and, as they close up their folders, they tell me so.

5th graders now. The smallest group that I've ever had in children's. Six girls this week.

And, yet.

This day of rest spins around me like an overzealous puppy.

Fifth grade. Fourth grade.

Boys. Girls.

They'll settle soon, divide up, begin to sit with their small groups. But, for now. For now, they sit close and play with my lanyard or the ring on my finger. For now, they take half a dozen pictures, not of themselves, but of me. As if I might cease to exist when they stop looking.

I won't, but they don't know that yet.

And, it's okay.

We're setting patterns for the rest of the year. Patterns that they are seen. That they are known. That every moment is precious. Patterns that might just carry us through the tempest that comes as they get just a little bit older.

Because, the middle schoolers are raw today. Antsy. Close. Coming out of a rough week.

Remembering last Sunday's video and quiet tears.

Last week, the boys miscalculated and ended up separated from us in a game. This week, they flop down into tight spaces, this messy muddle of different friend groups who all claim to be mine. 

"Your kids are misbehaving," one of the girls teases me as they jostle and talk and play with my phone when they should be listening to instructions. 

They should be listening.

But, truth comes out in spurts, blurbs that I want to hold on to, go back to. Honest words from the sad eyed one who almost always choses to speak to me with actions instead. Words that I would delve deeper into. If only we had the time.

So, I am listening instead.

Because, these moments are few and precious. These minutes where they pretend to still be a small group.

We split for game, girls on one side, boys on the other. Separated again. And, it does nothing to ease the restless hurt in their souls.

One of my quieter ones connects himself elbow and arm for music, nonstop chatter and fidgeting like the slow release of a pressure valve. He bounces his knee over mine during the lesson and finally spits part of it out as we transition to small groups.

Not all of it, but part.

Enough.

And, I am in the middle of a whirlwind. But, there are patterns.

Patterns that allow them to scramble close at the beginning of the lesson, because, during last week's video, they were too far away. That let them move back to where they were when it becomes clear that this week holds no such surprises.

Patterns that tell stories about soccer games, football, volley ball. But also about boy problems, friend problems, people that they miss, hard things at school.

That make it okay to just be close without needing to talk.

They are raw, and it isn't pretty or smooth, but there is a trust here that has taken long years to build.

Hours in trees and busses and storage rooms. Semi's filled with shoeboxes, kayak rides on a river, and frozen fingers out in the snow. Donut fights and crayon wars. Honest conversations and a thousand holds and catches.

There is a beauty here and also a sweetness. A sweetness in seventh grade boys who offer me m&m's or tuck pieces of gum inside my phone case; in kids who feel no hesitation in referring to me as one of their "best friends;" in girls who lay on their bellies around a piece of paper and allow me to see a glimpse of their hearts; in shouted goodbyes across the parking lot, and in a phone that, almost every week, carries a mark of their presence.

In kids who take pictures of themselves, because they know that I am not going anywhere.

And, even the nomad longing in my soul can find the beauty in this. 

Steadiness. Consistency. Trust.

Sabbath.

A day to rest and to heal.

Loud and raw and spinning.

But, good.

Broken

It's one of the "older" kids who vocalizes it, one of the sophomores who have put in enough hours that they finally feel at home here.

One of the Haiti boys who speaks truth at our tiny evening youth group.

Under twenty kids. Eleven leaders. 

The numbers don't matter. But, they do. In this church of thousands, there is a quiet purpose to the smallness of this thing, a reason that this steady dozen get themselves here week after week after week.  These twenty are no accident.

And, I think that he begins to speak it out.

He talks about brokenness. Not in the way that adults in the Church are using it now, as a buzzword for sin and depravity, but distinctly the way that a high schooler would.

Brokenness: pain, fear, the unknown that whispers a need to cut into flesh, to abuse your own body. Brokenness as a wound needing to be healed, a hurt that can be soothed, a pain the shouldn't be but is, that one day will no longer be.

Brokenness, not as sin, but as a symptom of it.

He talks about the church as a hospital. As a place to come each week to begin to heal.

This is what they understand this place to be.

What it will turn out to be depends on any number of variables, a terrifying ratio of which are in the hands of those of us over the age of twenty. But, for now, this is their hospital.

This is where they trust themselves to limp in each week and find a measure of safety, of security, of sameness and rest.

This is where they expect to do the hard work of helping to heal others and of stepping back and allowing themselves to be healed.

Because, like most high schoolers, they understand themselves to be broken.

They feel the emotions in their souls that refuse to be silent, and they know that they need a place where they can be at peace.

They mean it the same way that every generation of teenagers has meant it, each with their own vocabulary and set of shared understandings. But, they also mean it differently.

Not very differently, but enough.

Because, he means it in the way that they have spent the last year discovering, the way that they found on winter retreat and on summer ministry trips.

Not as a place to hide, but as a place to be changed, a place to become strong enough to change their world. And, if we can find the self control to leave that alone, to walk with them and let their understanding shape what we see and how we explain, I think that it has the power to become, to continue to be, a very powerful thing. 

Wide Eyed. Humble. Curious

The sermon is gentler this week and the kids are quieter, exhausted after a second week of school, drooping in their seats and all too ready to be calm.

Or, as calm as we ever get.

The 1st-3rd graders last less than five minutes on the games that we have been given, so I send them off to find rocks and sticks instead, and they spend quiet moments creating land art, piles and swirls of careful color on the sidewalk.

Twigs snap and they relax in the sunshine, consumed with the act of creating.

Time finishes, and they put the pieces back where they found them without complaint. It didn't need to be permanent. It simply needed to be. To be a mountain or a tower, a tree or a Minecraft figure, a face or a mandala. To be something made, even if only for a moment.

4th and 5th graders join in just as quietly, finishing a quick game of tag, curling themselves under my arms and settling against my side.

They want to know when we start back to small groups, and the answer is two weeks from now. One week of training and then we'll be back into our fall schedule.

I have notebooking planned out for them, things to color and glue and cut and write. We have memory verse sheets, books of the Bible cards, and ways to look at Spiritual gifts. I have a box almost prepped, almost ready to go.

But, for right now, it is enough to simply be consistent, to know their names and their stories, to let them twist the promise ring around and around my finger and drape my arms over their shoulders like a cloak. 

It's not a running week or a manic week, but a tired week to simply be.

The seventh grader who has had a made up a identity on his tag every week for over a year is finally wearing his own name. It was a joke at first, a test to see how long it would take for leaders to really learn who he was. 

As far as he can tell, they haven't. And, he's ready to be known.

They're quiet. Even as balls fly and bodies chase across the room, they're calm.

Younger siblings stick just-close-enough to older ones, and kids who don't always sit with us settle down close. My phone trades hands as they add me on Instagr*m, take goofy pictures, or simply try to stay awake.

We talk and sing, and one of the girls nudges my hand up into the air during One Thing Remains. My sixth grade girls get down on their stomaches, heads together around paper and markers as we use our triangle method to dissect the lesson. 

It's the first time that we've used it since camp, our twisted version of a CBT process, but they love it. And, I love the truth that it draws from their lips.

"If I believe that Jesus died for us," they tell me, "then I will feel spectacular, awestruck, and blown away, and, if I feel that way, then I will be wide eyed, humble, and curious."

Crazy Grace

One of those days, where I am left dizzy by the grace that rushes past us, surrounds us.

The sermon is gentle rebuke, and the kids respond to it viscerally, these 7th graders who have always had their spiritual nerves so raw and close to the surface. They didn't have to hear it to know, to feel that something is going on.

They are noisy and wild and close, filled beyond the capacity of growing minds and souls, letting off steam in bursts of sound and movement. And yet, I am reminded all the more clearly of Grace.

Grace that covers. Grace that soothes hurts that haven't been spoken and pulls us ever tighter under its wing.

Grace for the tears that they shake off before small group. For the holding on to that keeps them grounded, the lifting to their feet or out of the octagon. Grace for mixed up small groups and conversations that cover more ground than ought to be possible.

Grace that is enough when I am not.

Not enough hands to hold on to them all. Not enough ears to listen. Not enough moments to dig into truth. And, not the right gender to follow my boys to small group and hear the things that are bubbling up behind their eyes.

Because, they are heavy with it today. Their own mess spilling out of cups that are too full with what is happening in the sanctuary.

But, there is grace.

Grace for the exhale that follows each deep breath in.

Grace in kids who gather at night and use Haiti as the lens through which they interpret their world.

Grace.

Because, it has been long years since the high school group has felt this safe. Long years since we have had one of these seasons, where they let their guard down and, together, we speak the words that build trust.

It's not perfect. Not without its flaws and its missteps. But, it is new and growing and vulnerably strong.

It is an exhale.

Safety. Trust. Memory. Grace.

Crazy grace that highlights our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

Crazy grace that would sacrifice everything to set us free.

And, it is ours.