On Pondering Laments by Walter Brueggemann

We celebrate your steadfast love.

We praise you for your mercy.

We count on your faithfulness.

We celebrate and 

       praise and

       count on.

And then the world does not work right.

We find ourselves unsafe and anxious,

      caught up in greed and selfishness,

      beset by a culture of violence and threat.

We wonder about the mismatch

       between you and your creation.

Mostly we trust,

        deep down we sometimes do not.

We risk truth-telling

        about your absence and silence and withdrawal.

We do such truth-telling,

       telling it to you,

you...absent, silent, withdrawn.

You we address, you, our only hope

       in this world and in the world to come.

Living in the Tension

The books on my bookshelf are divided into 10 categories:  Political Theory, Current Politics, Biography, Development Theory, Classics, Contemporary Fiction, Christian Fiction, Relationships/Self Help, Christian Living, and Baby Names. I have still more shelves for cookbooks, travel books, Favorite Books, and current devotional books. I find it unsettling when a book doesn't fit obviously into one of my established categories.

I'd like to be able to sort feelings, states of beings, and people the same way. Good feelings on the top shelf; bad feelings hidden behind the Obama-Biden 2008 poster propped on the bottom shelf. This person goes with the other No Good people, while you over here can be filed away with the People Who Are Awesome.

This journey through pregnancy loss has challenged my categories (anybody else find that far too many episodes of the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise have forever ruined the word "journey?" We may need a better metaphor). I cannot file my emotions into a convenient category. I feel all at once despair and hope and sorrow and joy and doubt and faith and fear and peace. When people ask how I am, "fine" seems the only reasonable answer because how do you describe feeling abandoned and loved at the same time? If there is a word for this state of being - a full life in the emptiest of places - I do not know it.

But here I remain. Both angry and grateful. Both hopeful and despairing. Both-and.

I am having the same trouble lately categorizing people. I'd rather be able to neatly place you into your proper space: Conservative, Liberal, Right, Wrong, Good, Bad, Friends, Enemies, Worthy, Unworthy.

Todd likes to use the phrase "living in the tension" - when we sit in the discomfort of two conflicting thoughts or feelings and refuse to try to rationalize one away or reconcile them dishonestly. Loving people involves living in the tension. Sometimes it's the tension of loving people who don't love each other when it'd be more comfortable to choose sides. Sometimes it's the tension of loving people who make me angry when it'd be easier to walk away. Sometimes it's the tension of loving people who I'm certain are wrong about The Important Things when it'd be more convenient to label them heretical or hopeless. It's even sometimes the tension of loving people who don't love me back.

There is a lot of pressure to create simple black-and-white boxes in which to keep people. Our political and media systems give people a label and expect that one word is enough for us to draw all of our conclusions about their character and ability to lead. You are "Liberal" so you must hate God and America and want to kill babies. You are "Conservative" so you must hate Muslims and progress and want women to sit down and shut up. Unhealthy Christianity does this too - teaching us that we can only love with "conditions and contingencies."

This isn't true.

I can adore both my friend who proudly wears his NRA hat and my friend who writes a blog that calls Mitt Romney an unkind word.

I can love both my recently outed gay friend and our mutual friends who have been cold to him.

I can think that the actions of a friend of mine are pretty heinous and completely opposed to the things I value and can still think that she is sweet, caring, and dear to me.

I get the privilege of loving all of these people, even when it's hard, even when I'm angry, even when it's awkward. My friend tweeted it to me this way: I feel like I have a true license to love. Anyone, anywhere, anytime.

I remember the first time I realized the both-and of relationships. Todd and I had been married for a few months and were in the middle of some over-the-top melodrama that seemed so desperately important at the time and probably wouldn't cause either of us to blink now. I was so angry I could have kicked him in the shins and so, rather wisely for my 22-year-old self, retreated to the bedroom to fold laundry instead. Epiphanies while doing laundry may be rare but it stopped me hard: I could both claw that man's eyes out and I am folding his underwear. This is love. Both-and.

I'm not going to make assumptions about where other people find the strength for both-and love. Here's where I'm finding it right now: in a deep (and new) sense of my own belovedness. I read recently that brokenness is sacred. This feels true. It seems to me that when we are brokenhearted, it's just that much easier for the divine, the holy, the love to get in through the cracks. Rich Mullins wrote a song that says it like this:

Joy and sorrow are this ocean

And in their every ebb and flow

Now the Lord a door has opened

That all hell could never close

Here I'm tested and made worthy

Tossed about but lifted up

In the reckless raging fury

That they call the Love of God

I'm not finding the Love of God to be sentimental or mushy. It feels fierce. It feels (here it is again) both like it might shred me to pieces and is carrying me with enormous tenderness. This incredible sense of divine love for me despite the weight of my imperfections and faithlessness and cowardice is making it that much harder to label people - with their imperfections and faithlessness and cowardice - Unworthy of Love. I think it's time to throw out the categories.

A Lot of Words About Being Quiet

I have never met a personality test that I didn't take and then try to persuade everyone I know to take. It may be deep, unbridled narcissism, or a healthy interest in people, or a gift from my hyperinquisitive mother, but I find pop psychoanalysis fascinating. My long-suffering grad school friends can tell you of nights at The Tombs where we sat at the bar and I illuminated to them one-by-one their personality types and subsequent issues. This weekend I actually emailed someone the words "A 9 with a 1 wing and an SX variant? That is SO you."  (I know. I'm just crying out for a "My name is Kim and I'm a personality test addict" moment.) 

The result of every personality test I take underscores a basic truth about me: I like to talk. The Myers-Briggs says "ENFJs have definite values and opinions which they're able to express clearly and succinctly (maybe not so much the latter). They enjoy being the center of attention." The Enneagram describes Twos as "demonstrative and people-pleasing" with a motivation to "express their feelings for others." The Gary Smalley Personality Inventory characterizes Lions as "demanding, loud, and extroverted." The APEST model explains that the Teacher Shepherd "believes that communicating wisdom and understanding is a way of deeply caring for others."

This weekend was odd for this Type 2-ENFJ-Lion-Teacher Shepherd: I was alone. My hubby, BFF, and mom were all out of town on various adventures and, with the exception of two coffee dates and a trip to church, I spent the weekend alone. (I just know all of the introverts reading this are thinking, you had two coffee dates and went to church over the course of three days and you consider that alone!?) The time alone was a gift, not just for the time to do laundry, and watch movies, and eat the mushrooms and sweet potatoes and blue cheese my husband would never eat, but just to be quiet. To think thoughts and not immediately speak them to someone (I did break down and post a few to Facebook).  I kind of enjoyed sitting with thoughts and quotes and words from other people and not feeling the need to add my two cents or explain what I thought about them. To just let the words be in my head and do what they will there.

The point of this post was merely to share some of the words I'm sitting with and I've now expounded for three paragraphs (I told you).  Regardless, here they are if you'd like to sit with them too.

"It is our job as ministers to 'first acknowledge the presence of God not with those who’ve been healed but with those who are suffering. To be healed in this world is to be abnormal. …Healing is wonderful, but weird; it is to be celebrated but not glorified… To suffer, however, is to be embraced by the crucified God; to hear no answer to your pleas for help is to find community with One crucified. …[W]hen someone suffers without healing, their perceived Godforsakenness is the very thing that assures us that they are with God and God is for them.' And when we hear word of a congregant healed, while giving thanks to God for the healing, our very next thought must be for those whose loved one was not healed." -Andrew Root via Scot McKnight

"You are God of our impossibilities...you have and will preside over those parts of our lives that we imagine to be closed. And we are grateful. At the outset of this day, we place our lives in your strong hands. Before the end of this day, do newness among us in the very places where we are tired in fear, we are exhausted in guilt, we are spent in anxiety. Make all things new, we pray in the new-making name of Jesus." - Walter Brueggemann

"Sometimes I wonder if I had been exposed to those laments earlier in my life, it wouldn’t have hurt so bad when I found myself vomiting up doubt as a twenty-year-old. What if someone had promised me that anger and disappointment and insecurity have always been part of pursuing God?"  - Micha Boyett 

"Nothing could surely convince me of God's unending mercy than the continued existence on earth of the church." - Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (oh, come on, that's just funny).  

"The Reformation was a time when men when blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year old, two hundred-proof grace - of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel - after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps - suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started...Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter the case." Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

The Holiest Thing

My friends Lisa, Will, and I are talking about writing a book about what not to say to people experiencing hardship of whatever kind. Chapters include Cancer, Miscarriage/Infertility, Divorce. I want to call the book STFU...Please, but Will and Lisa are holier people than I so I'm sure it will have a nicer title. As a little preview, here are some of my favorite examples of what not to say to a person dealing with pregnancy loss:

There was probably something wrong with the baby; this is nature's way of taking care of things; it's better to have a miscarriage than a disabled child:  Yes, the nurse at my doctor's office honestly said the last one to me. First of all, I know many parents of children with disabilities who would be tempted to punch you in the face for something like that. And second, like my friend Betty said to me just last night, "what about my life or my character has indicated to you that I will only accept perfection in my children?"

Now you have a guardian angel baby (or three): This one gets my friend Beth all worked up because the Bible does not say that people (or fetuses) become angels when they die. I'm less annoyed by the bad theology as I am by the thought that my babies are guarding me. That was my job at which I feel like a miserable failure. Don't remind me please that I couldn't protect my baby. Also, "angel babies," really? Are you trying to kill me with cheese?

There is a reason for everything; this is part of God's plan: I love a good debate about theology, so someday, when I don't feel like curling up on the floor clutching a bottle of Sauv Blanc every moment of the day, let's have a healthy discussion about predestination, free will, God's relation to time and space. It'll be entertaining and educational. Right now, however, it just makes me want to say things like "God's plan sucks," which tends to make nice people uncomfortable.

I miss the old Kim: Someone said this to me five days after I found out I was going to lose this last baby. I realize that grief-stricken Kim is far less entertaining/pleasant/accommodating than regular Kim, but seriously. I don't even have to explain why this is awful. You all know it's awful. Right?

I had ten miscarriages before I had my children: Um, awesome? Look, sharing our stories is so important and has been in so many ways my saving grace through all of this. Women who have been there and are now on the other side holding their children are my heroes and my hope. But I just had my third and sometimes I've felt like it might very well kill me. Seven more times? Are you freaking kidding me?

Let me know if I can help: I'm probably the only person in the world bothered by this. I say it to people all the time. Really, I said it to someone last night. And then to someone else two days before that. I meant it with the sincerest intentions. I really would love to help! Here's the thing. No one has ever taken me up on that offer. There are maybe only four people in the world I'd feel comfortable honestly responding to this kind statement and three of them are related to me. Asking for help is incredibly hard and requires tremendous courage for most of us. Putting the burden on the grieving person to summon the courage to ask seems strange. It's even stranger to show up to someone's house to wash their dishes or whatever, so I don't have the answer except to pray for courage and creativity when I want to help and when I need help.

So now that I've scared you and you're all making vows to never speak to me or any grieving person ever again, I'm going to drop the hard part. The worst, most hurtful thing any one has ever said to me in my grief?

Nothing.


There is nothing more hurtful than saying nothing. These other things that people say, 99.99 percent of the time I roll my eyes or chuckle and file it away for my chapters of our book. Because even if people say the wrong thing, it takes courage to speak. It takes courage and kindness to offer words in the face of grief, even if they are the wrong words. If you've offered me one of these platitudes or found yourself with your foot in your mouth to someone in grief, here's your absolution: you said something. Thank you.

I know how scary it can be to say something. None of us wants to say the wrong thing. After my first miscarriage when I finally learned how hurtful saying nothing is, I was devastated by the memories of all the times I had said nothing. Good friends of mine lost their very nearly full term baby several years ago. I went to the funeral, I sent a card, I cared deeply. But a year later we were sitting with them at a Red Robin and I so badly wanted to ask how they were and I chickened out. I didn't say anything. I let my friends think that I had forgotten their baby. My friend has since offered me gracious forgiveness because the truth is? I didn't know. I didn't know then that asking how they were wasn't going to remind them that their baby was gone. Another friend of mine lost her mom recently. She had people who were hesitant to wish her a happy mother's day (she is a mother herself) because they were afraid they'd remind her that her mom wasn't here. I promise. She remembered.

I read just last week that holiest thing you can say to someone hurting is I am so very sorry. 


May we all learn the courage to speak, the wisdom to speak only the healing things, and the grace to laugh at ourselves and each other when we speak the wrong things.

In Case You Were Wondering

I've attempted to be honest in this space over the last few weeks. I've cleaned up the language a bit (not enough for some of you, I know!) and said some things a little more nicely than I meant them, but otherwise, I've tried to bring the good and the bad into the light here. I don't believe healing often happens in the dark. But it's been bouncing around in the back of my head that this may be the most I've spoken of my faith to some of you and maybe I should explain where I'm coming from here.

Confessing yourself a Christian has different implications, I think, depending on where you sit. My friends who don't consider themselves Christians are mostly tolerant, liberal (in the non-political sense), postmodern people who have friends of all races, religions, creeds, and orientations and, while they may harbor secret concerns about my mental health and pity me for missing Sunday brunch, they have never made me feel shamed or outcast for my beliefs. I've never faced persecution of any kind for my faith. (Soapbox Alert: I'm sorry, but I do not believe many Christians in the United States in the 21st century regularly experience persecution for their faith. Someone saying "Happy Holidays" to you does not count. If you have been persecuted, God says you are blessed, so thank Him and forgive me, please.) The closest I've come to any sort of persecution is when a relative told me a few months ago that I was too smart to buy into this Jesus as God stuff. I think he meant it as a compliment, so thank you?

There are a lot of assumptions people make when you claim to be a Christian. I often feel the need to say I'm a Christian* and then footnote all of the things that does not mean. From Rachel Held Evans' recent record-breaking blog post: 

When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was "antihomosexual." For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images?: "judgmental," "hypocritical," and "too involved in politics.")

That statistic horrifies me in the deepest places of my soul. I do not want to wade into the debate about the Christian response to homosexuality here. I only want to say (okay, there is a lot I want to say. I only will say) that I'm sorry and this is not what I mean when I say that I believe the Jesus story.

David Foster Wallace gave the commencement speech at my graduation from Kenyon College in 2005 (read the whole thing here or better yet, spend $5 and buy it on iTunes - it's fantastic.)  In it he said:

Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, cliches, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth upfront in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Wallace is right, as I see it. We all worship something. I've chosen to worship Jesus. I was gifted as a child with parts of the Jesus story, and the more I dig in, the more true it seems to me. I cannot prove that Jesus is God or was resurrected from the dead. I am uninterested in apologetics or attempting to defend my faith to you (if you're interested however, there are hundreds of books that try this). I can only tell you my story. I can only tell you that this story, the story of God becoming one of us, of God experiencing humiliation and defeat in a radical act of love for humanity, this story has captivated me.

I believe because it has been my experience that because of Jesus God answers the question we ask in our agony: "where are you?" with the answer: "right here."

I believe because I find it compelling "how at the cross God can gather up all of humanity’s violence and abusive power and even gather up Peter’s own denial of Jesus into God’s own self and then respond with nothing but love and forgiveness" (Nadia Bolz-Weber).

I believe because I offer my dysfunction and deep sense of unworthiness and certainty that I am the center of the universe and am made new by the promise of a love that never fails.

I believe because this God washes my filthy feet and then asks me to wash yours, acts of giving and receiving that are appalling, scandalous, humiliating, and grace.

I believe because I'm crazy in love with the community of loving and imperfect people I find here (when they aren't just plain making me crazy).

I believe that this world is enchanted and find the sparks of love, hope, beauty, and truth that filter through the violence and fear and monotony to be divine.

"I believe because Christ's compassion is addictive" (Micha Boyett).

I believe because Jesus said his command was to "love each other as I have loved you" and that sounds like the truest and loveliest way to live.

I believe because I long for Jesus' declaration of the good news of the kingdom of God to be true: blessed are the poor in spirit. We who are lonely, we who are broken, we drunks, we who abstain piously and judgmentally, we abusers, we who are abused, we power-hungry, we weak, those of us so damaged and desperate we sell ourselves to the highest bidder, we who damage, we liars, we fakes, we hypocrites, we who enslave, we who are enslaved, those of us who are greedy and selfish and comfortable and too apathetic to care about our neighbors: God is for us.

I believe all of this is True.

In case you were wondering, this is what I mean when I call myself a Christian. A special thanks today to those of you who read this blog and consider all of this Jesus talk absolute nonsense and love me so well anyway.

Of Tribes and Faith and Promises

I went to a wedding this weekend. My friends Katie and Dave invited their family and friends - their tribe, if you will - to witness the two of them make some promises to each other. After the sweet ceremony and fabulous party, Becca (best roadtrip buddy ever) and I were discussing a sense I always get at weddings: Katie and Dave weren't the only ones making promises. It seems to me that we, their tribe, were making promises, too. As witnesses to their vows, I think we were promising Katie and Dave that we would remember their words, that we would do whatever we could to help them keep their promise, that we would honor and support their marriage as best we know how.

In the car on the way home yesterday, I was thinking about my own tribe. The first couple years of my marriage were hard and when I forgot what I had promised to Todd and was tempted to throw in the towel, I had people who very lovingly said to me, "Kim, stop being an idiot." By the purest grace of God, Todd and I have been in a wonderful season of marriage for many years now (seriously, have you met Todd Waggoner?! Jackpot.) but it's not impossible to imagine that one or both of us could be tempted to give up again. I don't think we can do this alone. We need people who will hold our hands and walk with us through whatever future hard times await. When I went through my first miscarriage and Todd and I were suddenly trying to love each other through grief for the very first time (not easy, it turns out), a beautiful friend of ours whose marriage had been through unimaginable grief gave Todd some advice that saved us. We cannot (and fortunately, do not) do this alone.  (A quick aside: I feel very strongly about divorce care, but that's a post for another day. But here's the gist: if people in your tribe do choose divorce, love them. Both. Period.)

All this thinking about needing people to walk with us when marriage is hard got me thinking about what we need when faith is hard. Frankly, if it took faith to make my car go, I'd be running on fumes right now.

Some of you will think me naive or foolish for this (that's ok), but I believe I worship a God of impossible things. I have no trouble believing that God could speak a word and my womb would be full of babies (or better yet, my arms would be full of babies). My faith is not shaky when it comes to whether God can give me children - that seems like a fairly easy thing for God to do. I believe God can do impossible things, but I also know that sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes beloved pastors die from ALS. Sometimes the cancer returns. Sometimes families are not healed. Sometimes babies die. I believe that God can, but I know that sometimes He does not. This is where my faith falters. My faith that God will give Todd and me children is thread-bare today. But here is where all of this talk of tribes comes in.

In Mark 2, the writer tells us the story of a paralyzed man who had four friends willing to carry him on a stretcher to Jesus. When this group arrived at the house where Jesus was, it was so crowded they couldn't get near him. So the friends somehow managed to haul their paralyzed friend up to the top of the house, cut a hole in the roof, and lower their friend directly in front of Jesus (cutting to the front of the line, I suppose). Mark 2:4 tells us what happened next: "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic: Son, your sins are forgiven" (and then he healed him and the guy got up and walked). Jesus doesn't address the faith of the man in need of healing (maybe the man thought his friends were nuts.) Mark tells us that Jesus was moved to heal by the faith of the man's friends.

Brian McLaren in Naked Spirituality (read this book) puts it this way: "The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers...[is] a call for people of faith to bear to God those without faith and simultaneously to bear God to them."

There will be times (now is one) when it will be hard for me to believe. When my faith will be weak or non-existent. Praise God that I have a tribe that includes many priests, who will believe for me, bearing me to God even if they have to drag me up the side of a house. I know there are people who are doing this for Todd and me right now. Thank you. Please don't stop.

There is a story of three young men who were sentenced to death in a fire for refusing to worship the Babylonian gods. They addressed King Nebuchadnezzar and said, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if He does not, we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:17-18). They believed that He could and would save them, but they promised that even if He did not, they were going to worship Him anyway.

During my most recent pregnancy, I really did believe that God could answer my prayer and give me a healthy child. But I repeatedly promised that I would praise Him even if He didn't. Despite the trembling and fragility with which I prayed, I did pray, over and over, "I will praise You no matter what. I will praise You no matter what." The day I found out that our baby no longer had a heartbeat, a sweet friend called to cry with me. I shared my prayer with her and admitted that I couldn't do it. I couldn't praise Him. I had no words to declare the goodness of God at that moment. She said one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard: I will praise Him for you. (I'm ugly crying over here right now. So much grace.)

I will praise Him for you. I will believe for you. I will drag your paralyzed body across town in a stretcher, dig a hole in a roof, and somehow, using rope or strips of cloth from my own coat, figure out how to lower you to the ground at Jesus' feet because I know that He will heal you. Thank you, sweet members of my tribe who are bearing me to God and bearing God to me right now.

Updated to include this song my friend Ben just posted in the comments. Exactly:

My Irritating Self

"My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable." (Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies).  

Yes. This. My head feels barely inhabitable. I find my thoughts and impulses and self to be especially irritating and obnoxious at the moment. An example of my irritating self:

I was driving to work this morning, praying along with Aaron Niequist's latest liturgy (do yourself a favor and discover him). I had no sooner gotten the line confessing the "pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of my life" out of my mouth before I was flashing my lights and grumbling at the driver in front of me who kept braking for indiscernible reasons. Lord, have mercy indeed.

Last night I was feeling especially irreverent. So I turned to my old friend Anne Lamott, who, while being wildly irreverent herself, ends up pointing me back to Jesus (and whose words don't irritate me as much as my own). She writes:

“But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home.” 

She also writes, "Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."

And, "I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore."

"Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic...but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned."

Anger, damage, and grief. Grim, bleak shit. Slimy, pathetic mud. Yep. I told you I was irritating.

But there's one more:


"You were loved because God loves, period. God loved you, and everyone, not because you believed in certain things, but because you were a mess, and lonely, and His or Her child. God loved you no matter how crazy you felt on the inside, no matter what a fake you were; always, even in your current condition, even before coffee. God loves you crazily...like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need."


Amen.