An amazing calling

I was at Starbucks about two weeks ago wearing a shirt from my favorite band "Late Tuesday" when this older couple (he was 60, she might have been a bit younger) asked what it meant. I explained they were a band in Seattle, and then they wanted to know why I was down here and they found out I was in seminary. That was all it took to get them talking and talking and talking! They told me all about this experience they had in this Methodist church here in Burbank where they had a woman pastor who was so welcoming and embracing of them and their 12 year old autistic grandchild. This man told me that he takes his grandchild to church every Sunday and to their wonderful VBS program each summer and they just embrace this little boy there. He told me all about how he grew up Catholic and his wife grew up Protestant and that they were raised thinking blacks were unacceptable but here is this black woman pastor at this church who is truly amazing and they had never encountered that before. They wrote down the church address and their phone number and wanted me to come to their house for Thanksgiving and on and on and on!

I got to thinking that I feel like these things have been happening more and more since I’ve started Fuller. It’s like once people find out I am in seminary they start talking—even though they don’t know me at all, I am all of a sudden a "safe space" and they want to be heard. While it isn’t always convenient to listen to someone you don’t know for a ½ hour, it is such a gift! What a need the people of this world have to be heard, to share their stories to feel cared for. I think the fact that they are willing to spend a ton of time talking to some strange young girl that they don’t know speaks volumes about how desperate our society is to have their individual stories heard, respected, and honored. I am kind of overwhelmed with the idea, but I think God is calling me to spend my life really listening well to people and their stories, to just get to sit and let them talk because it seems like that need isn’t being met for so many people. What an amazing calling!

It is also interesting to me that once people find out I am in seminary, they want to tell me their own personal stories of being wounded by the church (I don't seem to get too many people excited to tell me their stories of amazing churches!). While at first I was uncomfortable hearing people's stories of things they thought were wrong with the church because I didn't feel like I could say anything in response to them (I mean, I wasn't there, how can I fix something a pastor said 25 years ago?!) I am finding that most people really don't need me to say anything, they don't expect me to respond, they just want so desperately for someone to listen to this painful story they've carried around for so long. An injustice was done to them and they don't expect me to fix it, they just want to be heard. What an incredible gift to be able to give someone--the gift of being heard. How often do we truly do that for our neighbor? We think we need to say the right thing in response to their stories or pain, when really, I am learning that often silence speaks ten times louder than any "cookie cutter" answer. May we all continue striving to be people that listen with our whole hearts!

Thanksgiving Cooking Adventures...

For Thanksgiving I flew to Colorado to be with my family, but I didn't leave until Thanksgiving morning, so on Wednesday night I helped some of our Presby group cook dinner that they would be enjoying together on Thursday. It was quite the adventure in cooking! :)






Here are Jenn and Sophie--Jenn was in charge of the cranberries and they looked like they were awesome, even if she had to cook them in a skillet because all the pots were gone! The other photo is what happens to the oven when you cook sweet potatoes--I think they are still trying to clean it days later!

I was put in charge of the apple pies, which is crazy because I don't know the first thing about making apple pies except that my mom uses this cool apple peeler/corer contraption which we didn't have. So Reese and I peeled all the apples with knives and vegetable peelers and he sliced them all--I think it took a little longer than mom's pies seemed to! But everyone said they turned out awesome, so that is good to hear! Here is Reese, George and I on Wednesday night.


And here is Reese on Thursday morning demonstrating his amazing apple-peeling skills, I was quite impressed--he tried teaching me to do that and I didn't seem to have quite the same talent that he did :)

Girls Nite Out

So a couple of weekends ago us presbyterian women got together for the first of many girls nights. We had a meal together and time to fellowship and then we had our wonderful friend Denise share with us. She talked about how we lead with our hearts, about protecting our hearts, and about recognizing that our true identity is in Christ, it isn't based upon what the world thinks of us. She shared an amazing song by Mark Shultz with us called Child of Mine, and the chorus goes like this:

You are a child of Mine
Born of My own design
And you bear the heart of life.
No matter where you go,
Oh, you will always know
You have been made free in Christ.
You are a child of Mine

It was an wonderful night of reminders and creating new friendships. So here are some photos from the night. I forgot to mention that the meal we ate was homemade pizza--including dough from scratch made my yours truly! I was quite proud of myself, I had no idea how it would turn out but it was awesome! If anyone's going to be in Minnesota over Christmas I'll make you some homemade pizza!

me, Sophie and Jenn Arnold

Ok, so the pizzas didn't end up being very round, but they tasted good!

Bowling with the Presby Group

Last weekend the Presby group went bowling together--it was quite an entertaining evening! Here's the whole group


Reese, Sophie and Denise giving Jenn bowling lessons--she got a 34 her first game and by the third game had over 60! Yay Jenn!


Sarah and Sophie

My team--you know you're bowling with Presbyterians when your team name ends up being "The Calvinists"

Happy Thanksgiving!

So we're officially in week 9 of the quarter, and I think all of us are ready for a break! I know I am! It has been a crazy first quarter here in LA, as I've been adjusting to being a full time student, living in a place where I don't know anyone really well, and getting used to how incredibly intense everything is in seminary. Academics are intense because each quarter is only 10 weeks and the professors have SO much information to give us, and the emotional side of life is intense too as God is constantly working through lectures, chapel speakers, conversations with people, prayer time with people, and one-on-one time with Him. The other day I had a couple of conversations with people and after walking away from my second hard conversation of the day I remember thinking to myself "I think I am officially a grown up now, these conversations don't happen unless you're an adult--am i ready to be an adult?! how did that happen?!" But I do LOVE Fuller and love being a student here--I have had it confirmed over and over again this fall that I made the right decision and this really is where I am supposed to be.

Midterms came and went, and I actually did really well--and then came the apathy and laziness of weeks 7 & 8 as we all kind of recovered from midterms and tried to motivate ourselves to get started on all the stuff we need to do before the end of the quarter! I leave on Thanksgiving morning to fly to Colorado to meet my parents and spend time at my grandparent's house which I am really looking forward to even though I have to haul a lot of schoolwork with me. Then in just a couple weeks I'll be back in Seattle with friends for 10 whole days--YAY!! I am very excited to be back in the rain, the cold, the coffee shops, and the company of people who know me so well. I get to spend time there and then get to head to Minneapolis for a week and a 1/2 for my first white Christmas--I think I might freeze to death though--it is about a 50 degree temperature difference right now between LA and Minnesota--my body might go through a bit of a shock!

The other AMAZING thing God has done this quarter is put me in the midst of a wonderful group on campus--the presbyterian students. We meet weekly for chapel together and have had several social events, and this is where I feel like a lot of my community is going to come from these next few years as we support one another through the long ordination process. Because the PCUSA ordains women, there are a great group of women in this group at varying stages of life and of the ordination process, and just in these few weeks I have already felt an incredible amount of care and support from them. Praise God for leading me to a group I connected with so well so quickly!

Ok, that's it for now, I need to go study some Greek! Check back in a few weeks--I'll write more over Christmas break :) Blessings on your holiday weekend!

Disneyland Photos!

My roommate, Alicia, my upstairs neighbor, Jenn, and I headed to the happiest place on earth the weekend after midterms to relieve stress, tackle rollercoasters for the first time, and pretend we were kids again!

Look how brave we are! (Jenn and I had never been on any rollercoaters before and we were terrified but quite proud of ourselves--in fact by the end of the night we'd ridden Splash Mountain twice, Matterhorn twice, and Thunder Mountain Railroad!) Alicia of course was an old pro and couldn't quite help hamming it up for the camera while Jenn and I screamed ourselves hoarse!

The beginning of a fabulous day! (Disneyland is WAY more fun as an adult by the way!)

Who I am

There are all kinds of ways we describe ourselves to others, and like most of you, I wear many different titles, roles, and hats throughout a given day. I am a student, a pastor, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an avid lover of books, coffee, wine, cooking, laughing and listening. That's the short version.

I grew up outside of Sacramento, CA in a great suburb called Granite Bay. After graduating from high school in 1999 I headed north to the beautiful Pacific Northwest to attend Seattle Pacific University. I majored in Educational Ministries and fell in love with the northwest at the same time. It was here that I realized how much I adore rainy days, coffee shops, hooded sweatshirts, and seeing mountains surrounding me. I grew a ton during my years in Seattle, made some phenomenal friends, and landed myself at a church that changed my life. Bethany Presbyterian Church taught me that as a woman, I could lead and serve in a church when others were telling me I couldn't. It was through working as a children's ministry intern here post-college that I discovered I loved being in pastoral ministry. Two years after graduating from SPU I headed south again, this time to Pasadena, where I began pursuing my Masters of Divinity at Fuller Theological Seminary.

While at Fuller I was stretched and pushed in ways I never imagined possible, and while I am certainly not in love with Southern California I have made some wonderful friends that have made this segment of my journey unforgettable. I met the man who would become my husband while waiting to cross a street in Old Town Pasadena and 10 months later he proposed to me on that same street corner. We were married in March of 2009 and hope to serve together someday in the areas of youth and family minstries--most likely in the Presbyterian Church, but we are open to wherever God is going to call us. It's my dream someday to return to the northwest, so we're praying about heading that direction, but really, we desire to serve God wherever he plants us over the next few years.

Midterms are SO not fun in grad school!

So it's officially midterms week--and I don't know if it is because I was a theology major in college or what, but I do not remember anything quite as intense or stressful in undergrad. Ok, so part of it is my own fault, I picked this past weekend to fly up to Reno for 3 days, which was 100% worth it, but definately not so conducive to academics! :) So when I got home yesterday I spent 7 straight hours writing a paper which was supposed to analyze my family and it ended up being about 24 pages--by far the longest paper I have ever written in one day. I had to look at my mom's relationship with her parents, my dad's relationship with his parents and my relationship with my parents--and I was really sick of analyzing my family by the time I was done! And this is only "chapter 1" of what will eventually be a huge paper analyzing my entire extended family...I have a long ways to go.

But as I said, I got to go to Reno this weekend to see people that I love!! I flew up there on Thursday and spent the afternoon/evening with my Aunt Ginny (and I got to see Uncle Mike too but he was in and out for the evening). It was wonderful to spend 1 on 1 time with Virginia, as it doesn't seem like we get much of that--there are usually a lot of other people around. So we got to chat and go out to dinner and enjoy looking at Brian and Julia's wedding photos. Then I got to spend the rest of the weekend with Jenn out in Fernley (THE coolest town in the world!) which was awesome. On Saturday we got to go down to Apple Hill to meet Silja which was an absolutely glorious day. The weather was a spectacular October afternoon, crisp, clear, blue sky, and it was so relaxing to be in the mountains with 2 people that I love and miss a lot. I haven't laughed quite as hard as I did on Saturday in a long time!

So only 2 more midterms to go now that this paper is turned in--Greek on Wednesday and Gospels on Thursday--wish me luck!

Life Needs a Soundtrack

I've always been a bit of a musical-geek--learning every word to dozens of shows throughout my childhood and youth years. Here's my list of shows I've seen, and I hope to continue adding to this throughout the next many years! (Bolded and Italicized ones are my absolute favorites that I would HIGHLY recommend--either the film or live versions!)

1. 1776
2. 42nd Street
3. Ain’t Misbehavin
4. Annie
5. Anything Goes
6. Beauty and the Beast
7. Bye, Bye, Birdie
8. Camelot
9. Carousel
10. Cats
11. A Chorus Line
12. The Color Purple
13. Evita
14. Fiddler on the Roof
15. Footloose
16. Funny Girl
17. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
18. Grease
19. Hello Dolly
20. Into the Woods
21. The King and I (yes, I am my mother's daughter, this is one of her favorites which she instilled in me!)
22. Kiss Me, Kate
23. Jesus Christ Superstar
24. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
25. Les Miserables
26. The Lion King
27. Martin Guerre
28. Miss Saigon
29. The Music Man
30. My Fair Lady
31. Nunsense
32. Oliver
33. Peter Pan
34. Phantom of the Opera
35. The Prince and the Pauper
36. Rent
37. The Secret Garden
38. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
39. Show Boat
40. Singin in the Rain
41. The Sound of Music
42. South Pacific
43. Starlight Express
44. Unsinkable Molly Brown
45. West Side Story
46. White Christmas
47. Wicked
48. You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown

Yay for procrastination!

So I kind of always thought I would never be one to be into the personal webpage thing, but apparently I have changed my mind. Part of my reason for creating this is because I am trying to procrastinate, and this seems like a very fun, new way to do so :) But I also realized the other day just how much I miss taking time to write, to share quotes I've found that I love with others, and to process thoughts and things I am learning through journaling. So, this seemed like a great way to update people on what's going on in my life and in my head--and if no one decides to visit it ever, oh well! :)

We're 4 weeks into the school year, and seeing as how midterms are these next 2 weeks, this seemed like a great time to create a blog--I could be studying my Greek flashcards, but really, who wants to do that on a beautiful Friday afternoon? Honestly, I am actually loving Greek, which totally has surprised me, but it just doesn't sound so fun right now. I'm also taking a Gospels class & a class on Family & Pastoral Counseling, which is AMAZING and VERY challenging.

So I'm going to head out to happy hour with some friends now, but check back for new updates and photos--hopefully I'll take a bit of time each week to post something new, so feel free to check back!

Dodger's Game with the Presbyterians!

The group on the field after the game--yay for firework night!

Jenn Moore & I--I'm wearing the birthday princess crown they made me wear that night

Sarah & Sophie eating dinner in the parking lot

First LA photos

My roommate Alicia & I on Rodeo Drive and in front of the Hollywood sign--I live in LA now! This is SO crazy to me!