In life, we have seasons.
The season of Oh Beloved One (a blog and magazine I started when I was 12) carried me through some hard years as I grew up—learning big lessons about love and loss and letting go. I met so many amazing girls who wrote, drew, and did photography for God’s glory, and I’ll forever be grateful for those weekends where I got to sit and proofread all their entries. It was like a bimonthly spiritual retreat for my soul.
And I got to do that for over ten years.
But, like I said—we all have seasons.
And if my twenties have taught me anything, it’s that there’s a lot I don’t know. I used to see everything as very black and white. The church told me what was right and wrong, and I used my online megaphone to shout those messages into the world.
But God has brought people into my life that have made me ask—was I preaching God, or what people said God was? God has humbled me. And He has asked me to get to know Him more, instead of acting like I had all the answers.
I am forever grateful for that time, and I know my intentions were honorable. But I’ve grown into someone who trusts the Holy Spirit to work in peoples’ lives, instead of pushing myself into that position. I’m trying to apply Romans 14 to my life, instead of applying my personal standards, or making black-and-white judgment calls for everyone.
I used to think being a Christian was very cut and dry. There was a template that we all needed to fit into (especially women)—something like “long hair, floral dresses, and silence.” But now, I believe God celebrates our differences—how I have a softness that gravitates to white dresses and lace and mossy forests, while others may enjoy wearing black and don’t shy away from the subject of their own mortality.
I wonder if those people who demand we abide in The Template only do so because they worry, if we are Other, than that must make them Wrong. It is easier to believe that a genre of music is 100% wrong, than to accept that maybe it’s just wrong for you.
This post has been a long time coming. I honestly didn’t think my disappearance from Oh Beloved One needed an explanation, but I know now that some people are wondering.
So this is my declaration—I am learning to know my God. I am taking my big questions to Him, and I am deciding, as Ben and I begin our lives together, what is right for our family. Not for the world as a whole, or even for Christian families. But for us, in this stage, in this geographic region. It’s a much more divisive stance to take than I ever dared imagine, but I am not afraid of conflict or controversy anymore.
And I’m hoping, one day after (Lord-willing) many kids and many lessons and many hours spent poring over Scripture, I can start speaking about the Bible again. But from a place of truth and grace, weathered by experience and wisdom that only wrinkles or gray hair can back up.
Our faith isn’t as black and white as some people declare it to be. In fact, it’s not even gray. It is fullscale Technicolor, but you can only experience it if you let the light in. If you let love win out over fear.
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
Wallflower Garden 
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