places

My beautiful and dearest friend Olivia tagged me on instagram to list 10 things about myself. So I'm going to put 10 places I've fallen in love with and been shaped by:

1. Cadillac, MI--My childhood home, my base camp, my roots. My family lives here and this will always hold a large part of the word Home.
2. Batchawana Bay, Canada-- where I lived for a part of my childhood, and fell in love with Lake Superior and grew an imagination. Where I was a nature girl and lived in a way that amazes me now.
3. New York City, NY-- if you've been here, you get it. It just pulls you in and you belong. I was made for the city and the city made for me.
4. Birmingham & London, England-- my first independent adventure. Flying across the ocean for 2.5 weeks isn't normal, but completely encouraged. England stole my heart and we'll leave it at that because if I say more I'll cry.
5. Cedarville and Dayton, OH-- college. Where I learned who I am and how to love that person. Where I had my first real social work experiences and learned about what my passion for life can look like. Where I met my dearest friends and had my first apartment and felt like life was really happening.
6. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic-- first overseas mission trip. This trip helped me see that the world is big and full of need. And I get a little sphere...so I better make something out of that.
7. Fremont & Grand Haven, MI-- also home. Growing and memories and learning to love and live. Also so much sunburn and pronto pups.
8. Wales, UK-- because that day driving to the coast and admiring the miles of emerald hills and standing in the salty water won't be easily replaced.
9. McBain, MI-- the rebel south planted in the cornfields of the north...where I went to school with some of my best friends, where I met my love and where I rode in trucks.
10. Grand Rapids, MI-- my future home with Tim. So excited to make millions of new memories here.

There's so many more places I love and people that have made them sacred...but that's all for today.

#fourpartpoems

I’ve taken a break recently from typical blogging to write some poems instead.

Will I probably look back at them in my thirties and grimace??

Yes.

But that’s not the point; the point is that they make my heart feel cleaner and my eyes clearer. Writing these silly little poems helps me to take the burdens off of my heart and wind it into something that I can say and feel and handle, as opposed to just fall back in fear.

So if you’re looking to read these thoughts go to my instagram…http://instagram.com/langtonlady/ and read there.

Thanks for sticking with me and letting me go through my writing poetry phase.

Measure Your Life in Love

Year 20 was a great one. It brought so many highs and some lows…but it was truly one of the most beautiful years that I have gotten to experience and I am so thankful I could burst. So, to try and put those thankful thoughts into words I have come up with 20 extra sparkly moments from year 20. (all thanks to Miss Sarah J Darling for the inspo.)

Also some of these will be short and sweet and some will be longer, some will have pictures and some won’t, it’s vaguely in chronological order but not totally…I’m sure you can keep up.

1. Started the year being in two places at once, which you know, is only every girl that has seen A Walk to Remember’s dream. Thanks Louisville for having a bridge that goes between Indiana and Kentucky. 
   
2. I had my first grown up all school year internship at the Artemis Center in Dayton and loved each moment.
3. I made The Village and watched it grow and evolve with some of the greatest people I’ll ever know.
   
4. A small one, but still an accomplishment, I drove 7 hours all alone to school and didn’t die from lack of conversation, which was a serious concern.
5. My wonderful friend Heather that I’ve mentioned before turned 21 during finals week and we had the most wonderful dance party and just acted like fools but it was so happy and my heart smiled so big.
6. Liv, Caleb, Dane and I went exploring at the waterfall in Cedarville and took pictures and it is just a day that I look back on and feel happy and thankful, its also the day that Project Confetti was born…so it could be a significant part of my life in the future.
   
7. My social work bestie Ashtyn got married and I went to her wedding with Liv and Caleb and we road tripped and had a sleepover and I met and danced with Cole, so it was just a weekend full of love and joy.
8. I rode a plane all by myself. I feel like a little kid reading that sentence, but it was kinda scary and kinda awesome and it got me to England so I’m thankful for it.
9. I went to England and saw the Tower Bridge and Big Ben and explored Birmingham and rode on the Thames and ate fish and chips and saw Wicked on the West End and just lived so deep and filled my heart to the top.
   
10. I saw the actual studio and sets where they made the Harry Potter films and if you know me you know that was a big deal.
11. I went to Wales and stood at the top of a mountain and looked over some of the biggest and greenest valleys I’ve ever seen and then felt the salt from the sea on my face.
    
12. I saw Panic! At the Disco and my middle school heart just soared and I fan-girled so hard I think I may have passed out for a second or two.
13. I GOT ENGAGED! To the greatest man that I could ever love or be loved by.
    
14. On a little bit of a deeper side, I learned so so much about love and self-care and hope and how to treat myself with love.
15. Tim and I went to a Katy Perry concert together and she sang By the Grace of God and I cried and it was a wonderful night to be alive.
    
16. I had the best week ever when Olivia came to visit me for a whole week, which is the longest section of time we’ve had together since sophomore year and we adventured around Northern Michigan and talked about every inch of life.
    
17. I went on vacation to Washington DC and Philly with my family and laughed so much with my sassy siblings and walked absurd amounts of miles in absurd amounts of heat. But there isn’t much better than talking to your little sister about why you love Martin Luther King Jr so much and how important freedom and justice are.
    
18. I got an apartment with some the most amazing friends ever found and now we have a jank little apartment that leans but it’s home and I love them and it so much sometimes all I can do is cry about it.
19. I closed year 20 and sprung into year 21 dancing, screaming and singing at a Paramore and Fall Out Boy concert.
    
    
20. I had a birthday party and watched fireworks beside people that I love so deeply I can’t find the words to tell you all because you just have to feel that kind of love.

Time is crazy and life is fast, but taking time to think and love this past year has made me so thankful. This little list of 20 things doesn’t even begin to share all the blessings and love that I have found. Thank you friends, for loving me and supporting me through year 20, I will need you just as much in year 21.

My prayer is that whatever year you are in and whatever moments you are looking at, that you find love so deep it demands to only be felt. Here is to a new year…may we measure our lives in love.

Three Cranberry Suitcases: An Ode to June

My parents bought me three cranberry suitcases of various sizes that have carried me through this past month. In the month of June 2014 I spent 4 nights in my bed at home.

It was a month of new friends, new adventures and so much traveling. Those suitcases became home to me in the good and the bad and gave me one of the most exhausting and elating months of my life.

The month began with dancing.

Dancing in Xenia Ohio at the #beikerttobush wedding to be exact. I packed my suitcase for it’s maiden voyage and trekked down to my best friend’s house for the night and then over to Cedarville for the wedding. It was a great way to bring in the month and the summer. I stopped at my mom’s for a night on the way home and then settled back in Cadillac for a night.

After weighing and crushing and squishing my suitcase to make my belongings fit, two of my suitcases and I were off to England. I was able to go to the UK for 2 full weeks and see my dear friend Beth and travel about the country with her. It was one of the most amazing things that I have ever had the chance to do and the memories are worth more than I can explain. I met beautiful people that I could listen to for hours, saw some of the most amazing and awe-inspiring buildings and places that I had only ever read of in books, and fell head over high heels in love with English fashion. Check out pictures from my trip on instagram with #jgoesuk to see more.

England pulled me in completely and every night I would curl up on my air mattress and just smile to myself, in shock that I was really there. I was smitten with the accents, the social vibes, the shopping and the history. I tried to act like a casual local, but I’m sure the stars in my eyes and painfully nasal Michigan accent gave me away.

While my suitcases stayed at home for many of my day journeys they found themselves packed to the absolute brim by the end of it. I drug my suitcase into Heathrow’s Terminal 2 after about 12 hours of praying that it wouldn’t be too heavy to find that it weighed 22.6kg. My hands could hardly grab my phone to convert the weight fast enough, but I don’t know if anyone has been more relived than I was when Google reported that my bag weighed 49.86 pounds. So we trudged through security and got on another plane.

And then that plane left me stranded at O’Hare in a storm…but more on that in another post later. So I found myself in at my grandma’s house instead of my own bed. I was thankful for some familiarity but I was hardcore craving my down comforter and 4 pillows that surround me like a fortress of fluff. One night at home followed and then off to another friend’s wedding and another 2 nights at my grandma’s house…I’ve earned a key there after this month. I made it home again for a night and then went to my mom’s for a few days, which is home, but for the sake of a point, it was also traveling.

The next destination was Camp Lake Louise, a place that is essential to my heart and one of the best little spots on the earth. I got to make new friends and hug old ones. Hear about kid’s hearts for Jesus and pray for those that are still unsure. I also got to laugh like a fool at a talent show by 5^th and 6^th graders and have my hair styled with shaving cream, but what is camp without a healthy heap of crazy?

After camp I was home, and then July came. And now I am sitting on my couch thinking, “Where did my summer go??” It’s the fourth tomorrow and I feel like the swing of summer is just starting.  But then I read through this post and see that my summer isn’t on my back deck in the sunshine or at the beaches of Lake Michigan as it often is…but it’s in Ohio and England and Wales and Chicago and Fremont and Boyne Mountain.

It’s a scattered summer of a wandering soul packed into those three cranberry suitcases that stand like soldiers in my room, ready and waiting to take on the next adventure.

Golden Days

“Breathe it in, but then let it go by.

This life was meant to pass,

These days were meant to fly.”

-JL

This summer I’ve been really pulled toward Ecclesiastes and the idea of life being a fleeting moment and how everything is vanity; not vanity in the sense of looking at a mirror, but in the sense that life won’t last. This realization can make us live in fear or regret of messing up the chance that we have, or it can set us free.

When we realize that life is meant to go by us, that we aren’t meant to keep all the golden things forever, we see how precious they really are. A wonderful character on The Office, Andy Bernard, put it the best when he said, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve left them.”

And the good news for Andy is that there is. Each day from Christ is a golden one, a gift of grace that we should never assume. So our calling, our job, is to find each sparkling moment in the day and trap it. The fact that we don’t get to hold that moment forever makes it unique and exclusive. Eternity will be beyond our craziest hopes, but for now we have an opportunity to live in this world and take in the entire splendor it has to offer. The fact that we will never be our same exact age or at the same stage in relationships or education than we currently are is a terrifying and glorious gift that we have to embrace and then learn to let go. The fragility creates the magnificence.

As I sit here writing in my bed, all curled into my blankets and listening to my favorite band on vinyl I am overwhelmed with the realization that even though my days are simple lately they are still beautiful. Each day is filled with grace and so we only need to learn to look for God if we want to see him work. Whether your day is spent in an office, on a beach, in a bustling city or a sweeping countryside it is filled with purpose.

I think back to the last day of school this year when my dear friend Heather sang “You’re Gonna Miss This” by Trace Adkins and made Mary Ann, Amanda and I all howl in protest and start to cry (guys. saddest song of my life when you are about to say goodbye…I do not recommend listening to it in such an emotionally vulnerable moment.) But it made me cherish those last few hours with them so much more and go into my summer knowing that the good ole days are now.

As I look ahead at my future (I just got engaged y’all!!!) I am overwhelmed with the calling to make the most of these days. College, my young siblings, traveling to Europe, planning my wedding and summer break are all things that I will miss desperately one day, and so I want to take joy in each moment I am given, and then be strong enough to let go and know that better moments are ahead. As the wonderful Robert Frost put it:

Nature’s first green is gold.

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower.

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief.

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Embrace the Adventure

This summer is unlike any I’ve had for quite a while. It is the first summer that I have gone into unemployed in 5 years for one and it is the first summer that I have gone into without my sister at my side. It is the first summer and time ever that I have planned a trip without my family, and that is taking me to another continent. I’m scared and nervous and unsure. I am a type A person. I like plans that are made months in advance. I like due dates and planners and lists. Being spontaneous isn’t always my cup of tea.

So this summer is stretching…to say the least.

I got a card from my mom today that said:

“Grace and Peace to you…Embrace the Adventure. You are Loved.”

It made me pause, take a deep breath and think. When I decided to go to the UK this summer I knew that it meant sacrifices in other areas. But it is still what I want. I am so excited for the shopping, the food, the site seeing and the energy of going abroad. I am so ready to check items off my list of things to do and see.  

But adventure isn’t just the good times. It isn’t just the moments that grab your breath and make you laugh and jump up and down in pure happiness.

It’s also about the preparation, the sacrifices and the fear. It’s about the moments that make you clench your fists and lose some tears but fight for your dream. When you have toil attached to your adventure it becomes rounded, healthy, and real.

So we embrace the adventure. We throw our arms around the good and the bad and pull them close because they will become a part of our journey and story.

Reader, I want to challenge you.

I want to challenge you to know that you are loved

To know the good and the bad are intertwined.

To know that big risk leads to big rewards.

And to embrace the adventures that lie before you.