Category Archives: Get to know us

The blinking curser & a new year

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Happy New Year.

Yes, I recognize that it’s January 23. I get it. I’m behind. I am aware that it’s been 2014 for a few weeks now, but I’m still living in the past — frantically trying to keep up and stay on top of things. I really had impractical expectations for my life from mid-December until … well … until today, really. Although life has been lovely, adventurous, and fun in some expected and unexpected ways, I’m finding that I’m just not quite caught up.

My heart, my life, and my brain are still processing 2013 — a lot went down last year. I’m doing that thing (maybe you do it too) when I have so many many many things to say that I rehearse thoughts and sentences over and over again so I can share the experience with you, but then I get all overwhelmed. I end up saying nothing. I keep it to myself because so much time has passed that the story has lost its luster. Besides…something, someone, someplace has already happened. There’s already a new story to share.

I’ve been staring at the screen of this neglected blog for months; watching an achingly depressing analogy unfold before my eyes. I was too busy, life was moving too fast, and other things were just too important for me to sit down and write.

There was so much to tell but I didn’t have time/take the time to feed words to the blinking curser flashing back at me. Too much to do. I didn’t leave space for me to write the words so I could actually live in the joy of the adventure He was allowing me to experience.

Much of my life — my relationships, my passions, my rest — took a backseat to my job these past few months. As much as I love my job there’s more to me than “Courtney, Cru staff.” And you may say, “Court, I know that!!” And thanks. Thanks for knowing that. I really do appreciate it. But honestly, I lost a bit of myself there for a bit. It was touch and go there for awhile.

I need me to know that there is more to me than this gig on staff. Yes, much of who I am is laboring with this ministry of college students. They are some of the most creative, passionate, real, and courageous people I know — these men and women show me Jesus and they speak so deeply to my soul. I LOVE that I get to see them every day as part of my job. I’m blessed. Truly. But my ministry — the life God has entrusted me with — is more than just them.

It’s my walk with Jesus, my service to the Savior who saved me and gives purpose to my life. It’s my sweet and brilliant husband. It’s the gifts God has given me to write, and create, and design. It’s relationship with friends who don’t live in my city and have known me for years, and it’s relationship with a friend who’s known me for just a few months and is just beginning to see the real story.

That’s my ministry. That’s His ministry. And I confess that I haven’t been the best steward.

So in the spirit of grace, a desire to pursue holiness out of a deep desire to make Him known to the world, and to share the stories with you, here’s a massive, rambling post about all the things that I may or may not finish talking to you about. 

I’ve planned at least 10 posts in my head — on finishing our support and reporting as full-time senior staff this fall, something we’d dreamed of for years; on moving into a house from our tiny apartment (it’s a great story, I’ll tell you eventually); MC’ing a conference, one of the favorite things I’ve done on staff with Cru; the end of the busiest five months of my life (seriously, never been busier); learning more about my emotions and how I’m discovering more about my temperament and why I cry so easily; my youngest brother graduated from college and is signing up for the Army, so many emotions; Christmas and how our life is changing and flowing and how it just felt different this year and I haven’t put my finger on why yet; the craziness and blessings of TCX and how much I love my job; parties in the new house, so many parties, and I’ve loved every moment; coming back to our staff team, only to leave soon after for a sunny, warm and lovely adventure to Los Angeles to visit some very very dear friends and hang out with 400 Jesus-loving Asian Americans who know they were made to be known and make Him known.

That’s the cliff notes version.

I think I’m ready for it now. 2014 is gonna be a good year.

Life around my table

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I recently read a book and I felt so understood. Not that I walk around the world feeling misunderstood on a regular basis, but when I read Shauna Niequist’s words from her latest book, “Bread and Wine,” I knew I wasn’t alone in my belief that the kitchen table is the most important piece of furniture in my home.

There is a sense of peace you experience when you read another’s words and know you have a connection. You understand the joy she’s talking about because you’ve experienced it. You understand the sacredness she’s referring to because food and family and faith are indeed things to be cherished.

And honestly, I didn’t know how deeply I treasured, adored, and needed people around my table until I read this book. I’ve always known that I loved it — but, oh my friends, it is so much deeper than that for me.

“Food is the starting point…,” Shauna says. I couldn’t agree more.

I love community. There is so much beauty when we can come together to slow down, open our homes, sit at each other’s tables listening to one another’s stories for hours and hours. We push our plates back, but then laugh as we reach for just one more bite of pasta puttanesca. I care about loving what we eat, sharing the food with people we love, and gathering people together; whether it’s for store-bought cookies or homemade pie. The gathering is most important. The community is of great significance.

My dear friend Shanti bought me this book. In her sweet note taped inside the front cover she said she couldn’t read this book without thinking of me. She quoted that exact same statement from Shauna. “Food is the starting point … the currency we offer to one another.” Apparently Shanti already knew I embody this truth — she knew me more than I did. Best friends have the ability to discern things like that about us. Thanks for understanding, Shanti.

It’s more than just about the food set around that table. It’s about life. And that pretty much means it’s about everything.

I love food. I love people. I love when the people I love are sitting around my table eating food. It creates a joy in the depth of my being. I love the sounds and smells and textures of life at my table. Bread being torn, beverages being poured, forks clinking the side of plates. The warmth. The community. Joy is all I experience.

There is something so beautiful about a houseful of people. There is something comforting about men and women who feel the freedom to come over to my home and make themselves at home. I want you to invite yourself over. I want you to help yourself to my cupboards of glasses and fridge full of food. It tells me I’ve done something right. You feel welcome, you feel safe, you feel cared for and loved.

As Shauna says, “Life at the table is life at its best for me, and the spiritual significance of what and how we eat, and with whom and where, is new and profound to me every day. I believe God is here among us, present and working. I believe all of life is shot through with God’s presence, and that part of the gift of walking with Him is seeing his fingerprints in all sorts of unexpected ways.”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I think I was meant to be a host — in every sense of the word. I want to cook you things. I feel alive and connected to God’s voice and spirit by creating opportunities for the people I love to rest and connect and be fed at my table. What’s your favorite food? Come over to my apartment and I will make it for you. I feel confident saying that it would bring me more joy to serve you than it would be for you to eat whatever is on your plate.

Thank you for your words, Shauna. For many years I didn’t understand nor have the words to tell the truth about what I really love.

Living life around my table is my favorite place to be.

Grace

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Grace is when you finally stop keeping score and when you realize that God never was, that His game is a different one entirely.

These are Shauna Niequist’s words. She’s an author who’s wit, honesty, courage and writing style intrigue me. I read one of her books more than a year ago but then randomly picked it up this week, flipped through the pages, and stopped on this quote. I really appreciate her words, and if we knew each other through more than just twitter, I think we’d be friends.

These past few months have been all about grace. Have I ever fully understood it? I honestly don’t believe so. Grace isn’t a new idea at all, but it is a big theme in my life right now. It has been for awhile I think, I just wasn’t paying attention. But like anything, once you start looking for something, you find it, or you find the lack of it, everywhere you look.

I think I’m just coming around to the realization that I don’t really want to need grace. I don’t really trust that people will show me grace. I don’t show it to myself well, and when I’m doing poorly, I don’t show it to anyone else well, either.

I’ve chosen to live life grace-less. I’ve chosen to live in a way so that everything is an opportunity to achieve or fail. It’s exhausting to live like that, where everything’s a performance, and you can’t trust the people in your life to give you a break or to give you a second chance or to give you what you really are longing for, which is grace.

If only I would learn.

If only I would learn to rest my entire case on the work Jesus Christ did on the cross.

If only I were so gripped by the magnificense and boundless generosity of God’s grace.

If only I would respond out of gratitude rather than out of a sense of duty.

These are my thoughts. Praise God that the story doesn’t end here. These days, I’m on the lookout for grace, and I’m especially on the lookout for ways that I withhold grace from myself and from other people.

Love came down and rescued me. To my gracious God, clean me. To you I give all my thanks and praise.

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. – Romans 4:8