This weekend I set out to tackle a bunch of projects around the house that I have been seriously neglecting: uninstalled laundry room doors, an incessantly buzzing fan, a lady bug infestation, a swivel-y toilet seat. The biggest project though was attacking the small jungle that had taken root in the yard and was starting to grow over the sidewalk. 

Weeds are funny, aren’t they? The first day you spot them, you make a mental note: I need to come out here and get them while they’re tiny. When you make this observation, you’re likely holding 18 grocery bags on one arm because you don’t want to make another trip and as you begin losing sensation in your fingers, you forget about the weeds. 

In what seems like two seconds, the weeds have grown from tiny little sprigs to full-on vegetative monsters. The monsooning in Georgia these last few weeks sure hasn’t helped and now the solution that makes the most sense is burning your whole yard and just starting over. Or making a rock garden. Or embracing the weeds like a good townie and starting a garage band and begging the neighbors to DEAL WITH IT. I went to Lowes instead and bought some weed killer and a pair of yard gloves and set to work. 

My parents would be mortified if they saw my yard. Growing up, my siblings and I all helped take care of our yard, rotating the mowing/edging/weed-wacking duties and were always on call for pulling unsightly weeds at first notice. My we had a garden and a few citrus trees that needed constant love and attention and huge magnolias that dropped their leaves all over the driveway like dollar billz in a rap video. There was always something to be mowed, raked, or pulled, and as a team we did a pretty good job of it. In the summertime, my arms would be toned and tanned from the work and I’d take breaks to grab an orange off the tree and dangle my feet in the lake. My mom always said that a farmer’s tan was a good thing… that the absence of tan lines meant you had too much time to sit around inside or, heaven forbid, lay out in the sun whilst appropriately rotisserie-ing yourself. 

Saturday afternoon was sunny, but deceivingly cold. My yard in Athens is a fraction of a fraction of the yard I grew up tending, but somehow when you’re not earning allowance for it, it seems daunting. I tore into the jungle, numb fingers and runny nose, remembering my Dad’s words to make sure to get deep enough to get the root or it wasn’t going to do anything. As that thought resonated in my mind, it brought to mind the sermon from church the following weekend— how if we aren’t killing the sin in our lives, it’s killing us. You can’t just rip out the top, but have to get deep and get to the root in order to remove it completely.

At first, the weeds didn’t seem like a big deal. And before I knew it, they had bloomed out of control. The roots were deep. There wasn’t actually much left of my yard that could be called Grass and not Weeds. It was a laborious process… a never ending exercise of see the weed, find the root, pull hard, dig it out, move on to the next weed. I worked the whole afternoon only to have it look like I didn’t even do anything. Those weeds started out tiny— like gossip or a small lie. And before I could even take those 18 grocery bags off my arms, it had sprouted, choking out the good grass and overtaking the whole yard. It occurred to me that I treat my “little sins” that way… that I ignore them and think “I’ll get to you later when I’m not so busy.” And soon they’re overwhelming and all-consuming and there’s nothing left of my yard that can be called good. It wasn’t even a yard anymore, just a garden of weeds and sneaking, creeping tendrils.  My heart feels that way sometimes.

I read a book last summer by Jerry Bridges called The Disciplin of Grace where he addresses what he calls “refined sins” or “acceptable sins.” 

The acceptable sins are subtle in the sense that they deceive us into thinking they are not so bad, or not thinking of them as sins, or even worse, not even thinking about them at all! Yes, some of our refined sins are so subtle that we commit them without even thinking about them, either at the time or afterward. We often live in unconscious denial of our “acceptable” sins.

It was time to bust out the weed killer. I sprayed my entire yard with the stuff and I am just waiting, like a predator to its prey, to see if it kills everything. I was like a madman out there spraying… I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED BY YOU, WEEDS HAHAHAHAAAA! Achy back and a little dizzy from the fumes, I stood sweating in the cold Georgia sun, thankful that we have the One who took our weeds and our sins and killed them once and for all and made our entirely horrible yards into something beautiful. 

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

It was my mother who first alerted me to the concept of summer camp, talking fondly of her many years in the magic realm of a place called Matollionequay in the wilderness of Medford, New Jersey. It was, however, the repeat viewings of The Parent Trap and my American Girl Molly Saves the Day book that lit within me an insatiable desire to become one of those vibrant creatures known as a Camp Girl.

I wanted it all: the month-long slumber party, the mountains, the fresh air, the nightly competitive games, the singing, the dancing, the friendship bracelets, the tie-dyed shirts, the battle scars, the blurry disposable camera photographs, the year-long pen pals, the sun-kissed and freckled skin, the smell of campfire in everything I owned… nothing save for making the 4^th grade kickball team neared the importance of my becoming a Camp Girl.

Though it would seem we randomly picked Merri-Mac out of a stack of VHS camp tapes one afternoon, the choice of that particular camp was nothing short of a divine act: Camp Merri-Mac’s green rustic cabins and the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains would come to mold and direct the path of my life in inconceivable and immeasurable ways.

I became a Camp Girl the moment we rolled our Suburban onto the graveled driveway of that North Carolina property. I remember peering out of the car window at the large, white house that guarded the front entrance and imaging what adventures awaited me just on the other side of her rocking-chaired front porch. I jumped out of the car when we rounded the first corner and saw the beach of Lake Doris, not being able to control the anticipated excitement of cold mountain water on my bare, Floridian feet.

In many ways, that’s where it began: a semi-awkward, Umbros-clad 10-year-old dangling her feet in the water of Lake Doris. But in reality, it’s a much more storied history, and one that begins with a man named Spencer Boyd.

Many people set out to Change the World or Become Famous or Be Wildly Successful.  In my experience, the most impactful people I’ve come across in my short life have neither been World Changers nor Famous nor—to the world’s standards—Crazy Successful. But if success and notoriety can be measured by the weightiness and depth of impression a person can have, than Spencer was surely one of the Greats.

The man had a dream to be a camp director, and he made it happen. He helped create a world where girls could go and be what God had created them to be: just girls. No phones, no TV, no boys, no distractions… just sunshine and mountain air and late nights and campfires and singing loudly and painting faces and playing games and serious talks and caring deeply for one another. Somewhere through all the constant activity and adventure… Spencer created a place where we grew up and fought like mad not to grow up too quickly.

When I was 13, Spencer turned the camp over to his son Adam and Merri-Mac thrived, still relentlessly breathing life into girls often beaten down by the pressures of teenage life and the whims and expectations of the world. Simply saying that being a 13-year-old girl is difficult would be quite an understatement, but each June when I returned to camp, all of those realities faded into the background as starry skies and canoe trips and headdresses and morning bugles came crisply into view.

I consider it a high privilege to have been able to experience summer camp at Merri-Mac, with her gravely roads and steep mountain pathways and blooming rhododendron enveloping my senses.  My memories from that place are entwined in my soul, hushed and ever-present even though I am hundreds of miles and many years removed. It is those memories and formative experiences of friendship, teamwork, heartbreak, adrenaline, glory, adventure and delight that inform most of the decisions I make even today. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank the Lord in all earnestness for allowing me to grow up a Camp Girl.

When I think of camp, I often think of ol’ Spencer on his white horse, circling around camp to witness the splashes of water at the diving well, to hear the echoes of tiny voices from the drama room, to smell the ‘smores charring on the blazing fire. I can’t possibly imagine all of the women today who have been formed and molded by Spencer’s camp over the years and whose lives will forever proclaim the sentiments of camp’s motto: First, Last, and Always.

Many of you reading this are younger Merri-Mac girls who might not have gotten the privilege of knowing Spencer before the Lord welcomed him home this past weekend. But the next time you’re behind the gate, inside the haven that is good ol’ Camp Merri-Mac… travel up to Spencer’s Green, always remembering the man that helped make this rapturous place a part of your life.

From this haven they say you are going.

I will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile.

For they say you are taking the sunshine

That brightens our pathway a while.

Come and sit by my side if you love me,

Do not hasten to bid me adieu.

Just remember this place we call Merri-Mac,

And the friends who have loved you so true.

Hesed. 

I didn’t know what this word meant until this weekend. Not in some metaphorical way… like “I didn’t know what Love was until I met you” sort of thing. I literally had never heard of it. 

Which is strange (even though it’s Hebrew) considering I have experienced it so many countless times. I am often blown away by new words… words that until the moment of hearing, I only knew of their meaning, not the name. Words like feuille-morte, crepuscular rays, petrichor. (Look those up if you don’t know them!) Hesed is one of the most beautiful examples of that.

I’ve studied the book of Ruth before, but only in the context of Relationships and Boys and Waiting For a Boaz Kind of Man. Never in the context of Hesed. Sunday morning at Adult Sunday School, studying Ruth, I learned the word I’ve spent my life discovering. 

Hesed is a quality that moves someone to act for the benefit of someone else without considering “what’s in it for me?”

The word hesed is usually translated “kindness” or “lovingkindness.” Hesed is difficult to translate because it stands for a cluster of ideas—love, mercy, grace, kindness. It wraps up in itself all the positive attributes of God.  Hesed is one of the Lord’s most treasured characteristics.

But it is not merely love, but loyal love; not merely kindness, but dependable kindness; not merely affection, but affection that has committed itself. It is steadfast, strong, and good. 

By all accounts, the last few weeks have been some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time— wonderful birthday, crazy Thanksgiving with the family, a youth mountain retreat with some of my favorite teenagers, unbelievable Sufjan concert, Georgia Football, supper club, community group, Halloween, fall leaves, hot beverages, pumpkin spice everything… but understanding this word is maybe the best. 

God’s act of hesed leads us in a chain of hesed for others: We love because He first loved us. If I can remember one thing from this season of my life, I want it to be that. 

I can remember checking the temperature on the thermometer just outside the kitchen window in the mornings before school— was it a jacket day or a shorts day or a sweater-over-a-tee-shirt day (so that running around on the playground was feasible but the chilly classroom couldn’t win)? Now it seems I do the same thing, only from the comfort of being warm under the blankets whilst checking weather.com and Swackett on my phone. 

This morning as I was walking through downtown on my way to work, there was a guy about 30 feet in front of me also making his way through the streets. He had a quickened gait, not of someone late or hurried, but cold. It seems his long-sleeved shirt wasn’t enough for the brisk 48-degree Georgia morning chill. He had his hands stuffed deep into his front pockets and was wearing these shoes: dark brown bucks with a electric sole.  His stride was long and deliberate and with every step I would see a flash of the bright blue from the bottoms of his feet. 

I wondered who he was; where he was going. I wondered if he was meeting someone for breakfast or headed to work himself. I wondered if he checked the weather before he left… making the decision to brave the cold in order to enjoy a jacket-less walk home later in the warm afternoon. Of if he made no habit of this, simply walking blindly out into the wilderness, armed with nothing but the seasonal knowledge that usually, October in Georgia is Not That Cold. 

I wondered what it would be like to know a man like that… who was either too stubborn to wear a coat or so hopelessly optimistic about the afternoon sunlight baking the earth that he didn’t need one. I wondered what it would be like to love a man a like that… to be able to check the weather for him and tell him it is cold outside and insist, despite his stubbornness or optimism, that he should wear a coat. 

Eventually he turned the corner ahead of me where I continued straight, losing sight of him and his electric soles. I looked down at my own feet on the street at my bucks with the hot pink sole and wondered when there would be a blue pair to match. 

There’s a lot of love for the month of October. You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t also enjoy the changing color of foliage, pulling out the sweaters, drinking the pumpkin lattes, drinking the pumpkin beers, eating the pumpkin foods, carving the pumpkins, talking about pumpkins, camp fires and flannel and boots and scarves and crisp air and hot chocolate and football and mittens and the crunch of leaves under your feet and picking apples and baking pies… 

But October always feels like a time of renewal for me. Moreso than even the beginning of a new year in January or the growth of new blooms in spring… October, at least in my mind, is the start.

I was born in October, so maybe that’s where it’s rooted. But there’s something about so much visual change— leaves, weather, clothes, food— that feels fresh. Maybe it’s morbid to feel like the beginning of death is the truest of beginnings, with the leaves changing colors before falling off and branches becoming bare in the cold… But this season is exciting to me for that reason. 

I think it’s easy to be inspired about a “new beginning” in January… or even when the tiniest little shoots of green start appearing on the vines. I’ll be better this year. I’ll run. I’ll eat more veggies. I’ll send better Thank You Notes. I will actually write Thank You notes. I will be intentional with my time. I won’t sleep too much. I’ll stop watching Real Housewives. I’ll learn to sew. I’ll not be jealous of Pinterest. But to really begin to do something new, to BE something new in fact… the old has to die. That’s why I love fall. It’s such a beautiful death. 

Every October I am reminded of what it means to put off the old self and put on the fullness of Christ. It’s a death to the old ways of thinking and living and trying to be good by my own determination in order to make room for the new blooms of holiness. 

My parents are off cycling through the Julian Alps in Slovenia for 2 weeks (these are the athletic freaks of fitness I have to deal with) so hopefully they will take a break from their adventures and read the bloggy blog (afterall… they are my two most dedicated readers and sometimes I wonder… my only readers…)

My Dad is the bomb. I mean that in the most teenagery, 1999, sincere way. When something was The Bomb in 7th grade (TLC’s No Scrubs, The Matrix, sparkly belts, etc.) it was all you could do to surround yourself with as much The Bomb stuff as possible. (Don’t even get me started with how badly I wanted a Gameboy Color.)

My Dad’s love for grilling out, making things in the woodshop, playing basketball with me and singing the falsetto parts of songs are some of my favorite things about him… even if I never did get that Gameboy Color. He knew it was better for me to be outside, building forts and singing The Four Seasons until I was much to old to be doing so.

Thanks, Dad, for teaching me how to mow the lawn and pass biology, for taking me “fishing” and letting me read instead, for telling me my shorts were too short for school and making me shoot free throws correctly.

Just don’t try to pick me up like this any more: I’m afraid one of us is currently NOT riding bikes through the Julian Alps but instead eating waffles.

Happy Father’s Day, @DrCogs! (Taken with Instagram)

I don’t have many regrets in my life. I have a vivid but very random memory of choosing to watch an episode of Full House instead of going to the playground once and whenever someone mentions regret, that’s the memory that usually pops into my head.

But for some reason, today, this one did instead:

Four of my friends and I piled into my car at 3am and drove 17 hours straight from the mountains of Western North Carolina to the coast of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.

We adventured one day to the cliffs along Lake Superior.  We scaled rocks and dipped our toes in the freezing water until a few of my friends decided they wanted to jump all the way in. Off one of the cliffs.

I blame it on my fear of heights and the fact that I had completed a wilderness first aid course just a few months earlier in the summer and all I could think of was broken backs and fractured ribs… but I couldn’t do it. 

I instead took my place along the edge of the cliff, camera poised, and documented the free falls.

It’s one of the only times I really regret choosing photography over being brave.

I will re-post this every year until it stops being true… which is never. So get used to it, Internet. My Mama is the bomb. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, even though I should tell you this every day and not just some random day in May.

Thank You, Mama.

Thank you for letting me wear overalls way after it was fashionable (was it ever fashionable?) to do so.

Thank you for letting me wear my Chuck Taylors to high school graduation and for coming to every single one of my sports games my entire life, every sport, no matter how boring or bad I was (I’m looking at you, Tennis.) 

Thank you for not making me get my ears pierced and for getting me an American Girl Doll even though you originally said they were too expensive. 

Thank you for letting me climb trees and ride bikes in dresses (because they were my favorite) even though I was going to ruin them.

Thank you for braiding my hair in pig tails even though I would inevitably make you re-do it because of The Bumps.

Thank you for watching Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman with me and for not allowing me to watch Dawson’s Creek because I was too young.

Thank you for always wanting to know where I was and waiting up for me to come home at night and for making my lunch every morning.

Thank you for teaching me how to do cool things like build boats out of cardboard that I could actually ride in and how to play music and that going hiking was more fun than going to the mall.

Mostly, thank you for loving me and allowing me to grow up at my own pace, even if I do occasionally still wear overalls.  You knew I’d eventually get my ears pierced and learn to wear heels.  Thanks… for letting me be Me.  I really hope I’m a lot like You.

Last weekend I went on the Women’s Retreat for my church up in the North Georgia mountains. The weekend— in addition to being a sweet time of rest and fun with friends— was filled with truth and incredible wisdom from our speaker on the subject of Finding Contentment. Contentment is something I think any person who is alive struggles with and if they don’t they are lying.  

The truth about contentment is that it isn’t resignation to your situation. It isn’t forcing yourself to be satisfied by your lot. It isn’t even pushing away emotions or focusing only on the good. Contentment is trusting and believing that in Christ, you have all that you need. 

It’s easy for me to get caught up in the Have-Nots and Wants of my life. It’s easy to look around at my friends and even here on the Internet (especially you, Tumblr and Pinterest) and think Whoa, my life would be so much better if I had That Boyfriend and could throw That Kind of Party and wear Those Types of Clothes.  

But that’s just simply not true. Those longings will only be replaced by other things in the future and I’ll constantly be chasing this elusive idea of What It Means To Be Content. Unless I learn that contentment comes from somewhere else. 

…for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:10-13

Here’s to learning… 

I used to have a romantic notion about the laundromat— I think I listened to that song “Coin Laundry” one too many times. Can I be the girl that you met at the coin laundry…

I’m young, I’m living in a fun city, of course I’m going to meet some handsome guy at the laundromat on a Thursday night! I mean, come on! We’ve all seen the movies. We’ll strike up a conversation about my Harry Potter t-shirt or how we use the same hypo-allergenic detergent! Or he’ll ask me what I’m listening to on my iPod like I’m female-Joseph Gordon Levitt and he, my dashing male-Zooey Deschanel in “500 Days of Laundry.”  To die by your side, what a heavenly way to dieeee… 

And that gets me thinking. No. Laundromats are not romantic. They are the worst. THE WORST. There you are sitting on a pea green pleather sofa, alone, tethered to this rumbling machine until it’s done its duty for fear of a stranger stealing your clothes or—worse— seeing your underwear when they go to remove your forgotten garments. This is when the imagination takes over. Irrational thoughts take hold. Laundry is not safe. I’ve seen one too many Lifetime movies to know that the creepy music will kick on at any moment and… 

I will surely die here. By no one’s side, without The Smiths playing along in the background. I could be murdered, never hearing the approaching footsteps of the maniac over the persistent WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP of my smelly tennis shoes banging against the metal box. I shall die here in the midst of Downey dryer sheets, the only witness to my demise the change machine that doesn’t take 5’s. Where is my dashing co-Thursday night launderer? Is there no one else in this town who realized at 9pm that if they didn’t do laundry RIGHT THIS MINUTE they would have quite literally nothing to wear and no time to do laundry until next SATURDAY (unless of course I woke up at 4am and we all know that’s not happening.) 

It’s amazing I ever complained about washing clothes from the comfort of my own home—rolling my eyes as if doing laundry 50 feet from my bedroom was so beneath me. 

So, if I die here… don’t judge me for not separating lights and darks and please don’t write on my Facebook wall. It’s creepy. 

Also, I have cookies in the oven, so I hope the building is still standing.