like a bridegroom and a bride.

a week ago today was our second anniversary, which i realize sounds like child's play compared to forever, but to us, two years is a big deal and definitely worth celebrating. our tradition (if you can call it that... we've only done it twice now) is to split fajitas at our favorite mexican place since that's what we did on our first date. last year, we followed that up with year-old wedding cake, but this year we indulged on my favorite dessert in town -- chocolate cobbler at blu. so delish. then, the best part of the night is watching our wedding video and crying our (my) little eyes out. i love reliving everything about that day. (side note: if you haven't gotten married yet, let me very strongly recommend that when you do, you invest in a stellar videographer. i'm so glad we did. thanks, whenitclicks!)

needless to say, i was extra sentimental last week about all things love, wedding, and marriage. i think i even said to chris at one point, "my goal in life is to figure out how i can wear my veil again." totally normal, right?

so, one morning i decided to look up all the different times in scripture where wedding imagery is used. having just seen our video and looked through our photos, these verses completely came alive for me. i would love to share a couple with you. they're just so good, y'all.

"I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!

For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation

and draped me in a robe of righteousness.

I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit

or a bride with her jewels."

-- Isaiah 61:10 (NLT)

isaiah says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags (isaiah 64:6), but God clothes us in his righteousness, which is far more beautiful than wedding clothes and jewels. and the best part is that unlike that beautiful veil that i only got to wear one time and desperately want to wear again, when we are in Christ, we will always be clothed with his salvation and adorned with his righteousness. when God looks at us, he doesn't see our filthy rags -- he sees Christ's stunning righteousness.

okay one more:

"...and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."

-- Isaiah 62:5 (ESV)

it's the best part of every wedding -- watching the groom's face when he first lays eyes on his bride. when you imagine what God's face looks like when he looks at you, do you imagine a look of frustration? annoyance? disappointment? indifference? according to isaiah, if we imagine God's face to look like anything other than a groom's looking at his bride, we are wrong... just flat out believing a lie.

he is not frustrated or annoyed with you. he is not disappointed in you, and he's certainly not indifferent toward you. when he looks at you, he can barely hold it together. he cherishes you. he sees you as beautiful and radiant -- clothed in salvation and adorned with Christ's righteousness. 

we have to quit believing the lies so easily. we have to quit trying to dress ourselves in filthy rags.

let him clothe you with his radiant righteousness. 

let your heart believe he is captivated by your beauty.

know that because of Christ, God is so pleased with you and so proud of you.

when he looks at you, it is a look of sheer joy and utter amazement. 

psalm 94:17-19.

If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

When I thought, "My foot slips," your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

sometimes when i'm having a hard time believing God in my present tense, i have to remember who he's been in my past tense. i like to think that's what the psalmist is doing here -- verses 17 and 18 are in past tense, and verse 19 is in present tense. so, the way we would finish that past tense sentence ("If the Lord had not been my help, ______________.") should add at least a tiny bit of strength to our present tense faith, right?

also, i'm thankful that "when the cares of my heart are many," the one who paul refers to as "the Father of mercies and God of all comfort" cheers, delights, and comforts my soul. what grace that though he commands us not to worry, he provides loving-kindness when we do. though he commands us throughout scripture not to be afraid, he provides comfort when we are. whatever our cares, worries, fears, anxieties are, we can look to the Lord's steadfast love (how good is the word "steadfast"?!) to hold us up when our feet are slipping.

i'm pretty terrible at remembering these things and pretty great at letting fear run the day. but that's not how we were made to live. we have the Spirit of power inside of us -- the same one that raised Jesus from the dead -- so at the very least i think that Spirit can help us to remember who our God is and how he's been faithful in our past tense, then strengthen us in our present tense to punch fear (anxiety, worry, discouragement, whatever) in the face.

thankful thursday.

a few things i've been thankful for this week...

1. football season.
college football is back, y'all, and the bristers are SO happy about it. currently, the auburn tigers are 3-0, the texas tech red raiders are 3-0, and the baylor bears are 2-0, so we're sitting pretty. i guess i should note that the oklahoma sooners are 3-0 as well, so our friends here are happy, too. below is a pic of us trying to be contextual or something. two things about this shot should concern you: i'm wearing crimson ("stripe the stadium" made me do it) and chris is wearing a visor. bless it.

{great seats at the ou/west virginia game -- thanks, houghtalings!}

2. texas trip.
when some of our norman friends moved to spring, texas (you might remember them from this post), we promised them we'd visit before the end of baseball season so chris could catch an astros game. we really miss them around here. we loved getting to see their new world, hear about kristian's new job with love146, play with their sweet little boys, laugh a whole lot (kristian + chris = a hilarious combo), and, of course, eat plenty of ice cream (it's what they do).

{how did we not get a picture with kristian and katy?}

on saturday, we drove from spring to longview for my cousin's wedding, so clearly we had to make a stop in lufkin to see two of our favorites. it was quick, but we'll take any time we can get with katelyn and walker. so thankful for them.

3. wicked.
my favorite musical is in oklahoma city right now, and i got to see it with a few girls on tuesday night! i've been singing and dancing around ever since. "so if you cannot find me, look to the western sky..."

4. pie.
my mom and brother have been raving about this pie place in the bishop arts district in dallas, so when i found myself down there for work this week, i knew i had to try it. i may or may not have gotten two slices -- one for dessert last night, and one for breakfast this morning. it was hands down the best pie i've ever had -- and it came in super cute packaging, too!

{my breakfast slice: "drop dead gourdgeous"}

5. sunrise.
when i opened my hotel room curtains this morning, this is what i saw:

{if you zoom in, you can see the state fair ferris wheel!}

are you kidding me?! sunrises are the most incredible. every time i see one i wonder why i don't wake up every morning to see it. donald miller tweeted one time that if the sunrise happened once a year, the whole world would wake up to watch it. i agree. it's so unbelievable that this stunning beauty happens every single day and we act like it's no big deal... and yet, God keeps making them happen. such a picture of his beauty and grace, and his new mercies -- every single morning!

what have you been thankful for this week?

thankful thursday: vacation edition.

a week ago today we got back from spending a full week in colorado -- half of it with my family for a friend's wedding in winter park, and half of it just us in denver. it was a very much needed, very much enjoyed getaway. i've been looking at pictures all week trying to pretend like i'm still there. funny how life doesn't really let you ease back in from time away; it forces you to jump back in full force. it's been a crazy week back, so with this post i'm remembering how incredibly grateful i was for our time in colorado. the 5 things i was most thankful for on our colorado vacay...

1. time with my family.
thankful for four days in a row with my favorite people in the whole world. i just can't get enough of them.

 2. the great outdoors. 
i think the only person on this trip who enjoyed being outside more than me was whit. being outside with a two-year-old boy is the BEST. who knew finding the perfect stick could be such a blast?! sticks, dandelions, rocks, flowers -- his hands were never without at least one of these things. thankful for time outdoors with this little explorer.

3. our hotel pool.
thankful for some down time -- and thankful to learn how to say "no" to seemingly fun things, like going out, and "yes" to seemingly boring things that are actually better for you, like laying low by the pool... because... rooftop pool in downtown denver. what?!

4. breakfast.
we've decided our "thing" when we travel is going to be finding the best breakfast spots in town. i think we nailed it in denver. we found so many good places, but the denver biscuit company was our favorite by far. thankful to taste the best cinnamon roll of my life.

5. time with chris in the mountains.
thankful for so many days away with the one i love in a place i love. i hope i never get over the beauty and just sheer awesomeness of mountains. they leave me speechless and practically force my heart to worship. i so enjoyed us experiencing that alongside each other.

gosh, it was such a great trip. so thankful! can we go back already?!

expecting, looking, and longing.

"And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!"
-- Isaiah 30.18, Amplified Bible

i love that the amplified version translates "waits" as "expecting, looking, and longing." waiting can have such a negative connotation. when i read that he's waiting to be gracious to me, it's as if he's tapping his toe, annoyed at my continual failures, just impatiently holding out his grace until i get my life together. but expecting, looking, and longing? that paints an entirely different picture -- one of inexplicable mercy and loving-kindness -- a picture much more in line with the character of God we know to be true from scripture.

i do that way too often. i create a picture of God in my head that just isn't true. i imagine God reacting to things as i would -- impatient, inconsistent, annoyed, indifferent. well no wonder i don't want to spend time with that god. no wonder i have a hard time trusting that god. i think this is why A.W. Tozer wrote, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

so, what if i truly believed -- not just in my head, but deep down in the core of who i am -- that the God i worship is expecting, looking, and longing to be gracious to me, to have mercy on me, to show me loving-kindness?

i think only when i understand that will i be able to spend my life expecting, looking, and longing for Him. because why wouldn't you long for that God? why wouldn't you look to a God who Himself -- His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, His matchless, unbroken companionship -- is better than anything this world has to offer?

i want to live like that. i want to believe it in the depths of my soul and let it transform my life.

these are my thoughts this morning. i have no doubt i'll forget these things by tomorrow morning -- or even this afternoon -- and have to remind myself all over again. thankful for grace.

"My only wish and desire, the one thing I humbly crave to have is the grace to love God, to love Him alone. Beyond that I ask for nothing more." -- St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

adoption in scripture.

one of my responsibilities at work is to manage the blog for buckner's be a family website. i recently wrapped up a series on that blog entitled, "adoption in scripture," where i walked through various places in scripture where we see adoption themes and stories. i really enjoyed writing it. i don't miss late nights in the library, but i do sometimes miss researching and writing for seminary classes. i loved being a student (nerd alert). it was fun to use those skills to write about something i care so deeply about -- and to do it for my job! what a gift!

so, if you're interested, i'd love to share the "adoption in scripture" posts with you. i hope you enjoy them and are encouraged by them. i also hope you appreciate how many capital letters i used.

part I: before creation
part II: abraham
part III: moses
part IV: esther
part V: jesus
part VI: paul's letters

thankful thursday (on friday): texas tour & people i love.

i know i'm a day late, but i had to write this thankful thursday post. i've been especially thankful this week for time with people i love.

1. hefners.
last week, i got a call from my bff: "hey, are y'all busy on thursday?" when your friend who lives 11 hours away asks this question, your hopes skyrocket. "please tell me you're coming, please tell me you're coming!" sure enough, she and her little family were passing through norman hoping to see us. we dropped everything, cleaned up the apt, and were thrilled to host them for less than 24 hours. it was such a quick trip, but i'm thankful for any time i can get with the hefners -- especially little john john!

2. both families.
on friday, we drove down to duncanville to surprise my father-in-law for his birthday. this is a man who is never surprised and is always in control of the plan. not this time! we completely surprised him. there may have even been tears, but if you ask him, he'll probably just say his eyes were sweating. his birthday dinner of choice was a low country boil... YUM! and, of course, we also enjoyed time with our little sitting-up-and-crawling nephew. what a cutie! we were both so thankful for time with the brister/hardy clan -- it had definitely been too long!

then, on saturday, my brother flew into dfw from a summer overseas in "the sandbox." my family took over the international arrival area and eagerly awaited his entrance through those big double doors. i know he loves his time over there, but selfishly, i'm thankful he's back in the same country as me. whit was pretty excited to see "uncle dew," too.

3. foster families.
one of the services buckner offers our foster/adoptive families is an annual retreat at camp buckner. it was nice to spend a few days in the beautiful texas hill country (a nice respite from the flat land i call home!), and fun to be back in camp world -- blob, sunburn, eating contests, pie throws, and all. more importantly, i was super thankful to spend time around these families. i completely fell in love with the kids, a couple in particular, and loved getting to see what i spend all my time working for -- children placed in loving families! such an incredible sight!

4. grandmothers.
i got to see both of my grandmothers in the same 24 hours! what a treat! after the foster family retreat, i made a quick trip down to san antonio to see gigi, then "on my way home" to norman, i made a detour off of i-35 to see grandmother in longview. i'm realizing more and more what gifts they are, and i was so thankful for time (though brief!) with each of them. also, my grandmother is moving and having to get rid of some things, so i gladly picked up this 1970s (i think?) shot of my dad. too good!

5. the husband.
when i FINALLY made it back to norman, the husband and i celebrated with a night out to our favorite fancy restaurant (thanks, groupon!). it's good to feel missed and even better to be with the one you've been missing. five days is just too long, y'all. (we're such wimps.) thankful for a special night with him.

bonus: less hot weather!
i'm including one more this week, because i checked my timehop app this morning and saw this. last year on this day i tweeted this picture:

what?! how did we live like that?! i'm thankful that for whatever reason, this summer has been mild -- still hot (highs in the upper 90s this week), but much better than 115. hello, perspective. get outside, people! enjoy it!

what (or who!) have you been thankful for this week?

weekend reading.

a few blog posts/articles caught my attention recently and i can't seem to stop thinking about them, so i wanted to share them on here so you could think about them, too.

grab another cup of coffee and enjoy.

rain down revival
beth moore

"I'm tired of giving God an inch and expecting a mile. I want to go with Him wherever He's going."

when you're done with pundits, soul wrestling & looking at the sky: {25 things i learned from staying with katie davis}
ann voskamp

"Our actual theology is best expressed in our actual hospitality. // And I don't mean that hospitality is one quaint ministry for those good in the kitchen and keeping their house picked up. Hospitality isn't for the good housekeepers -- it's the grid of life for anyone keeping company with Christ. Hospitality is meant to shape our churches and politics, our work and our schools, our home and our faith and our schedules and our meals and our lives."

get ready for all those babies
and the follow-up, revisiting "all those babies"
marv knox, editor, the baptist standard

"If Texas' conservative moral values prompt our state to implement one of the nation's most stringent abortion codes, then we should accept the responsibility for all those babies we will bring into the world. We need to do right by them."

and because all of those are quite heavy, here's something to make you laugh...

happy weekend!

thankful thursday: celebrate.

if you know me at all, you know i love any reason to celebrate anything. lucky for me, the last week or so has provided multiple opportunities to celebrate, and for that i am thankful.

1. july 4th.
in the 24 hours surrounding the 4th of july, the husband and i went to three different cookouts, complete with pool parties, cookie cake, blue bell, and fireworks. that, my friends, is a successful independence day.

i've always wanted to take one of these pictures. thank you, nicole, for finally making that dream a reality. 

2. twister relief concert.
on july 6th, moore's own toby keith hosted a massive, all-day concert to raise money for tornado relief efforts throughout oklahoma. somehow (God's favor, i'm convinced), our friend, amy, scored tickets on the THIRD ROW. it was so hot, and so long, but it didn't matter, because GARTH BROOKS. garth freaking brooks, y'all. also, WILLIE. and ronnie, and trisha, and carrie, and toby. and to top it all off, the night ended with fireworks -- all around the stadium. it was magical. this day for sure goes down as my favorite day in oklahoma so far. so thankful to spend it with fun friends, too!

3. ice cream.
yesterday i discovered july is national ice cream month. thank you, ronald reagan, and thank you, blue bell, braum's, chickfila milkshakes, and my new favorite, talenti gelato, for giving me so many ways to enjoy my beloved frozen treat. i plan to celebrate every single day, especially sunday, july 21st, which i now know is national ice cream day. mark your calendars, people.

4. emails.
when i checked my email first thing this morning, i had emails from both my mom and my mother-in-law waiting for me. i wish i could somehow let you read both of them in their entirety. they both gave me reason to celebrate! mom's was a rundown of a normal day in her summer work life at buckner -- ESL classes, nutrition classes, summer feeding programs, job trainings... you know, just changing people's lives. no big deal. my mother-in-law's was full of stories from the apartment ministry she leads with her church. she's so faithful every week -- even when it's a hot summer in texas. it's been kinda slow recently, but she said last night she had kids piling into her suburban wanting to go to church with her. so fun! i'm so proud of and constantly inspired by my mom and mother-in-law. i'm so thankful to have such incredible examples of godly women in my life!

5. 7-11 day.
today is july 11th, or 7-11, which means you can get a free slurpee at participating 7-eleven stores! and by participating i mean, every 7-eleven store except the ones in oklahoma. after work today, i called my friend, shanae, and convinced her (it wasn't hard) we needed to introduce her 3-year-old, davis, to slurpees (right before dinner... oops). we raced to the nearest 7-eleven, mouths watering, only to discover 7-elevens in oklahoma "are under different ownership and don't participate." whatever that means. so maybe we had to pay for our slurpees, but we still got to celebrate 7-11 day!

what have you been thankful for this week?

a morning invitation.

"I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love does. It doesn't come in an envelope. It's ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. It's the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this amazing life for one more day. Nobody turns down an invitation to the White House, but I've seen plenty of people turn down an invitation to fully live.

Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-faked into thinking we haven't really been invited. But you see, we have been invited -- every day, all over again."

-- Bob Goff, Love Does

reminder in the sky.

after a weekend in arkansas, we were welcomed home last night in typical oklahoma fashion... with severe thunderstorms. hooray! thankfully, we were able to take alternate routes on our drive so that we missed the worst parts of the storms. we finally pulled up to our apartment and were doing the "we made it" full body stretch that just instinctively happens after you've been in the car forever, when we looked up and saw a stellar rainbow peeking through the clouds.

maybe God knew i needed a little reminder of his faithfulness yesterday. it was my seventh father's day without dad, which is almost impossible to believe. it was easier than most since i was just on the road all day with my best friend, but it's just not a fun day -- and on those not fun days, it's easy to confuse emotions with truth, for "the heart is deceitful above all things" (jeremiah 17.9). so again, i was extra thankful last night for that little miracle in the sky reminding me that God keeps his promises and does not forget his people. he loves us and is with us.

he is faithful, he is glorious and
he is jesus and all my hope is in him.
he is freedom, he is healing right now,
he is hope and joy and love and peace and life.
-- bryan & katie torwalt

niagara falls in a teacup.

"Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you? I believe that this question is at the core of our ability to mature and grow spiritually. If in our hearts we really don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross. ...

When I conclude that I can now cope with the awful love of God, I have headed for the shallows to avoid the deeps. I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a teacup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God."

-- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

{source}

thankful thursday: tornado recovery.

here are a few things i've been thankful for in the last week or so since the big tornado in moore:

1. pretty skies.

if i have to hear tornado sirens go off almost every afternoon, at least i get to see pretty skies at sunset. it's probably the only good thing about all these crazy storms. 

2. chick-fil-a.

the corporate chick-fil-a folks sent their big red truck to norman this week to help with tornado recovery. this truck can crank out 800 sandwiches an hour, y'all. isn't that insane?! some friends of ours own the Chick-fil-As in norman and moore, and they were asking for volunteers to help distribute the sandwiches to families and volunteers in moore. i was so thankful for the generosity of chick-fil-a and for a practical way to serve and love people. i mean, who doesn't want a hot chicken sandwich?

"food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate." -- alan d. wolfelt

3. oklahoma pride.

i've always been an obnoxiously proud texan (and still am), but this week i tried to channel some pride for the okie state. we threw an oklahoma-themed party on wednesday night with our missional community to watch blake shelton's healing in the heartland concert. let me back up. we desperately tried to get tickets for the concert, but they sold out in seconds, so this was our best effort at a plan B. our party was complete with a soundtrack of songs about oklahoma, every oklahoma t-shirt we own (thank you, thunder) hanging in our living room, arrows pointing to oklahoma on our giant wall map, a garland of famous oklahomans hanging in our kitchen, and oklahoma-shaped cookies, of course. home sweet 'homa.

we googled "famous oklahoma food" and fried chicken was the answer... who knew?

4. community.

i've been extra thankful for community recently. on a macro level, it's been so cool to see churches from all over the okc metro come together to serve moore, and on a micro level, i've loved watching our prov road community love each other well through all this craziness and seeing the different ways everyone has used their skills and connections to serve our neighbors to the north.

this picture has nothing to do with the tornado recovery, but everything to do with community. the saturday before the tornado, a lot of us ran the super fan 5k that our friend's work put on. it was a great way to support her and all do something fun together!

5. skype.

this doesn't really fit the tornado recovery theme of this post, but i just got off a skype call with one of our favorites that just moved down to houston, and i'm just so thankful for skype. whoever invented it is a genius. we already miss them so much, but somehow it makes it a little bit better that we can see their faces and get a virtual tour of their house. i wish i had taken a screen shot. oh well. thanks, skype!

ways you can help.

we are still reeling from monday's tornado and the complete devastation just a few miles away from us. much of our spare time and energy this week has gone into figuring out how we as individuals and we as a church can help our neighbors to the north. most needs are very immediate at this point, changing daily, even hourly, but for now, here are a few ways you can help...

donate money & materials.
giving money may seemingly be the least fun way to help, but let's be honest, it can often be the most effective. especially in the early days, like right now, dollars are desperately needed.

our church has set up a disaster relief fund. we'd be honored for you to give to it and allow us to steward your resources. we're committed to serving moore for the long haul however we can, but a few of the specific needs we'll be focused on include:

• andrew burkhart and his family, who lost their house and everything they own. andrew is the pastor of love & justice, an acts 29 church in moore, and serves on our board of advisors (functions as an elder board until we have one in place).
• love & justice, as they serve the people and needs in their neighborhood. they also have a relief fund set up that you can give to here. 
• chick-fil-a of moore, as they serve their community and team members in need. a couple at our church owns this chick-fil-a and they've already done a fantastic job of assessing the needs of their team members and serving up their delicious chicken to volunteers and families in moore.

if you're interested in donating materials (like holding a drive or collecting items and shipping them this way), let me know and we'll coordinate with the right people. the materials most frequently requested are baby items (formula, toddler food, diapers, wipes), medical/hygiene items (gauze, bandages, neosporin, shampoo, soap), and work items (gloves, trash bags, sunscreen, bug spray, duct tape, flashlights, tarps). journey church is the main drop-off/distribution site in norman, and they're great at keeping their list updated with the most immediate needs, so you might check there as well.

volunteer.
if you're interested in rolling your sleeves up and volunteering in moore (whether you're local or coming in from out of town), i would highly recommend connecting with @servemooreok. it's being led by frontline church in okc and functioning as the hub of several churches in the area (including ours!) coming together to serve moore. their website is continuously updated with needs. be sure to check it out!

also, if you and some friends need a place to stay, let us know! if you have a team coming, check with fbc norman. they're hosting teams in their family life center.

buy a t-shirt.
this is the most fun and easiest way to help. there are tons of shirts being made right now, so here are my three favorite. ALL of the proceeds from these t-shirt sales will be donated to relief efforts. you can never have too many t-shirts, so just go ahead and add one of these to your collection!

this shirt is being sold by touies design, a small business run by one of my friends from syrup. (fun fact: she designed our christmas card!) super cute shirt. buy yours here!

this shirt is from shopgood, a fun little local business in the heart of okc. the best part about their store is that every single item is socially responsible, fairly traded, and connected to a local or international community development project. so great, right?! get their shirt here!

a friend's coworker at old hat designed this shirt. it comes in several different color combinations, so pick your favorite and buy one here!

//

again, thank you to everyone who has been checking on us and asking how to help. please continue to pray for those affected by the storm and for those volunteering in the recovery!

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." -- psalm 46.1

heavy heart.

i just really don't do storms well. this is our second spring (read: tornado season) in oklahoma, and i haven't gotten any better at it. if it even thunders, i assume a tornado is coming.

i was glued to the tv sunday evening as storms passed nearby us. a tornado touched down in edmond (about 45 minutes north of us), then moved on to do greater damage in shawnee (about an hour northeast of us).

i knew we were supposed to have bad weather again monday night, but surely it wouldn't be tornadoes again, right? surely it'd just be a thunderstorm? maybe some strong wind and hail?

i didn't think the weather was supposed to get bad yesterday until around dinnertime, so yesterday afternoon i was in my little home office working as usual. chris had come home for lunch and was working in the living room. i was on a phone call with my boss, and it wasn't even raining outside, when seemingly out of nowhere the tornado siren went off. chris immediately started watching the weather coverage while i stayed on my phone call (shocking, right?!). he came in and updated me a saying, "it looks like there are two storms. one should pass just north of us, and one should pass just south of us. everything's gonna be fine." it still wasn't even raining outside my window. my boss and i were nearing the end of our phone meeting when the sirens went off again. that was it, i had to go.

about the time i walked into the living room to figure out what was going on was about the time the massive tornado was doing its damage in moore... literally just 10-15 minutes away from us. we couldn't take our eyes off the screen as they showed live footage of the horrific destruction. pretty soon after that, our tv cut to the black and white fuzzy screen and our internet dropped. we made our way to a friend's house who still had cable and internet, watched some more coverage, realized we weren't in danger of any more storms, and resorted to pizza and parks&rec for the rest of the night. i never cried. i wasn't emotional. i think i was in shock and selfishly just thankful we were okay in norman.

today has been a different story. i've been wiping tears all day. my heart is just so heavy. i'm trying to work, but it's raining and thundering again outside which is disturbing to say the least, and i can't seem to turn the news coverage off in the other room, so my background noise all day has been stories of people just up the interstate from us whose lives were forever changed in a matter of minutes yesterday. the vastness of the destruction overwhelms me. the individual stories break me. those children -- it's just too much.

i'm not trying to pretend like this is my story to grieve or that i'm in any way a victim of this tragedy. please don't hear that. please don't be sad for me. i'm just trying to process by writing, and i guess "process" is what you call trying so hard to wrap my mind around this new reality just north of us and wrestling with this looming heaviness in my heart.

i'm heavy from the stories -- the children, the teachers, the parents, the first responders.
i'm heavy from trying to figure out how we can possibly help when the need is so great. no option seems like enough, but doing nothing isn't an option.
i'm heavy from feeling guilty that i want to act like it's a normal day and go for a walk on campus when it gets sunny later, but i'll be walking passed dorms where families are staying who are now homeless.
i'm heavy when i consider that the God who created the universe shares in our grief and suffers the impossible with us. it takes my breath away.

even in the heaviness there is hope.

a pastor friend of ours in moore survived with his family, but they completely lost their house -- i mean, everything. a friend of ours went and bought them underwear and other immediate necessities this morning. underwear, y'all. they lost everything. he posted a photo this morning of the remains of his house and his caption said, "jesus is better than everything i used to own."

today, we sit in heaviness. tomorrow, we start meagerly attempting to help with recovery efforts. thanks to all who have asked how to come alongside us and our church as we try to help. we'll keep you posted as we hear of opportunities. above all else, please pray for the people of moore!