tonight, i breathe in that familiar scent

The past few days have been a whirlwind of emotions due to some unexpected circumstances. Though I don't want to get into the details of those encounters, I did want to note that it was that string of events that brought me to this spot on my bed where I find myself typing from at 2am.

I was tossing and turning about an hour ago, unable to fall asleep, thinking of the trauma my family has gone through over the past several years.  I was replaying memories, mourning deep regrets and painful losses, wishing that I could just do it all over again.  Mostly, I just wanted to rewind the clock and have a second chance at things.  I missed the people who we've said goodbye to and the way our family unit used to function.  I missed the sense of home that I used to know so well.

I got out of bed, determined to find a box of sweatshirts of my mom's that my dad had mentioned still lingered in the house.  After a rather short search, I found it.  Furiously shaking, I pulled out articles of clothing and stopped when I picked up a very familiar navy blue USA sweatshirt.  I held it out before me, images flashing across my mind, scenes from the 90's replaying in my brain.

Hesitantly, I brought the old sweatshirt to my nose and inhaled very deeply.  Mom.  I breathed in the scent of love which used to fill my nostrils every time that I hugged her, and collapsed in a ball on the ground, sweatshirt in my lap, silent tears streaming down my cheeks.  I thought of my unwillingness to hug people now and wondered if somehow, those things were connected.

The pain doesn't go away.  My life has moved on.  I'm four years older now.  I have a college degree and a real life job.  I've met Jesus and my life has been deeply transformed by the Gospel.  I have a new mom-figure in my life for all of those necessary mother-moments.  The reality of her being gone isn't as debilitating as it was when I was 18, but the pain is still the same.  It's still sharp and strong and at times very consuming.

Sometimes I wonder if people think I'm silly for still hurting to the degree that I do over my mom's death, and so I refrain from talking about it.  But what I remind myself of is that the majority of people in my life (thankfully) just don't understand.  I praise God that my friends didn't go through what my sister and I had to as teenagers.  A mom is so significant in a girl's life--especially at our age.  I long for her comfort at every difficult moment and for her celebration at every joyous one.  I wish she saw me graduate college and I wish she saw the births of our little cousins.  I wish she was going to be there at our weddings (if we get married, that is).  I wish I could have shared with her when I found a major to study that I enjoyed and a career that I was passionate about starting.  So many times things happen throughout the day and I think, "I wish I could call up my mom to tell her about this."

I miss her laugh and her constant involvement in my life.  I miss her telling me how proud she is of me.  I miss her cooking and her giving heart.  I miss her making up crazy stories about our neighbors at the beach.  Mostly, I just miss her hugs and having someone who would lay down next to me and hold me.

I just miss her.

I sat on the floor, heart aching from the loss of that comforting smell, lips quivering as they wished for one last chance to apologize and say, "I love you."

Eventually I pulled myself together and dug to the bottom of the box, where I found the sweatshirt that reminds me of my mom more than any other article of clothing.  Walking into my room, I slipped it over my head and gazed in the mirror.  I look like her, only younger and with longer hair and bigger glasses.  And now I sit on my bed, the scent from this sweatshirt I'm wearing rising into my nose.

For now, I smell like her, too.

But the scent will fade, just like it did from the other articles of clothing I've taken from her closet.  And I'm sure over time, the memories will fade too, just like they did of the other family members who have passed away.

And this pain?  Maybe one day it will fade.  But for now, for today, it hurts just as much as it did back then.

me (currently, at 2am)

to be grown up.

I didn't watch the 2013 VMA's over this past weekend, but like most Americans, my twitter and facebook feed blew up over Miley Cyrus' shocking and over-sexualized performance.  I wasn't surprised when I read the comments, knowing the direction her music had been heading in over the past couple of years and so I shrugged most of it off.  Usually when I hear gossip over celebrities I don't turn on the television, partly because I've never been one to follow celebrity drama and partly because I know that continuously immersing myself in our sex-loving culture every time a celebrity does something jaw-dropping probably will add up to be a stumbling block for my walk with Christ.

But for some reason, I youtubed her performance today.  And for once, the entertainment culture didn't beckon me to stumble and didn't make me day dream of a worldly life.

For once, I sat heartbroken, eyes glazed over with tears, feeling the heart of God for His daughter on that stage.

Not long ago, Miley was a Disney Channel superstar and a role model to so many young girls.  Now she seems to be doing everything in her power to let the world know that she's 20 years old and that she's all grown up.

I am a campus minister at The College of New Jersey, a missionary to students ages 18-22 years old.

Miley, at age 20, is the average age of my students.

I sat on my couch, cringing and mourning over the images that I was watching on my computer, thinking of the thousands of ~20 year olds that I see walk past me every day on campus.

Miley wanted to grow up and, in this culture that we live in, sex is the way to do just that.  She never heard the message that God created her to be a woman and that He has plans and a purpose for that womanhood.  She never heard the message that to be a woman, in the way God intended, is to follow Christ.  The message that is portrayed in this day and age is that if you want to be a woman, you must become a sex object.

So who can blame her, really?  Miley responded to the culture that she grew up in.  Sex, to America, is what draws the line between being a girl and being a woman.  Not the biblical Truth that God created man and woman in His image, to be like Him and to glorify Him.  Not the biblical Truth that there is a God who loves her and gave His life because He couldn't bear to not make a way for her to be in a relationship with Him.

And she definitely hasn't heard in this culture that even through the sin and the ways she's refused Him, He stands with open arms of grace, eager to welcome His daughter home.

The only difference between Miley and the average 20 year old in our society is that she was raised in the fame and money that allowed her to strut her "I'm a woman" announcement on stage at the VMA's.  The reality is that the average college student is raised in that same exact culture.  Maybe the women on campus aren't going to class in their underwear and promiscuously dancing on stage in front of the whole world.  Maybe they aren't as public or outlandishly jaw-dropping in their actions, but those once-little-girls are sent the same message as Miley that to be a woman and to be liked is to be about sex and fame and independence.

The average college student is a version of Miley Cyrus:  a person who was raised in a culture that tells them their value is based on their sex appeal and their independence is based on their ability to break every social taboo without caring what people think.  They are 20 year olds searching for ways to explore this new start to adulthood, wanting to be desired and loved and heard.

But there is a God who desires them and loves them and hears them.  There is a God who created them and yearns for them to turn to Him, and who delights in blessing them.

The culture we live in is rapidly progressing in what it considers to be it's sexual norms and ideals, which means that the average 20 year old experienced a lot more of this sexual revolution growing up than the average 20 year old five years ago did.  The culture we live in traces easy pathways for females to go from girls to sex objects in an instant.

I want to see them go from girls to women of God.

I want those 20 year olds to know that life isn't about what the media says it's about.  It's not about money and sex and fame and drugs and fun and success.  It's about saying "yes" to Jesus because He's already said "yes" to you.  I want to invite them into a deep encounter with God that will transform their lives, rather than watch them stumble into false promises of fulfillment that will instead leave them empty inside.

The average American receives the message every day that this Miley-pattern of growing up is good and normal.  I'm not talking about prostitutes or strippers or porn stars, but the average American 20 year old is on a trajectory that is headed toward spiritual death because of the lies that this culture feeds her daily.

Today I wept for Miley.  And for every 20 year old at TCNJ that thinks she has to be like her to be grown up.  Today, more than ever, I was reminded of why I am a missionary to college students.

[partner with the mission.]
www.donate.intervarsity.org/support/Alyssa_Dembrowski

You captivate me.

I'm here,
     Listening.

It took me awhile, but I'm here (now).

Simple obedience,
     how sweet it is,
To sit in Your presence,
And hear You speak to me.

That's what I live for, really.
     (I can't believe I resisted for so long.)
These moments with You.

Nothing more exciting,
     adventurous,
     and peaceful
          than hearing directly from my King.

You speak,
And every hair stands on the back of my neck,
     so aware of You.
The air is thick and beautiful,
     like it is when I hear a new harmony,
Chords blending and moving and I,
     am lost,
     in Your song.

Nowhere I'd rather be,
Than right here with You.

                    See, I am doing a new thing!

                         Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

                    I am making a way in the wilderness

                         and streams in the wasteland.

                                     [Isaiah 43:19]

the art of grace.

lately, i've been an advocate for creating.
     [newness in the debris.]

building friendships in the midst of brokenness.
piercing a nose through the sunburn.
cooking dinner with random scraps of leftovers.
receiving love from a Savior when my heart beats with rebellion.

i remember learning in chemistry about entropy,
that a system naturally goes from order to disorder over time.
meaning that unless energy is put into something, it just gets messier.

in this world, there's always going to be disarray.
and according to these laws of science, our environment is bent toward the chaos.

so i think there's something to creating in a world where there is always messiness.
i think there's something about picking up broken pieces and crafting something else,
not continued attempts at gluing back the original,
but designing something new.

i think, that maybe, that's what Jesus does with me.
He takes my heart that's so prone to messiness and continuously molds it into new artwork.

i'm not the same today as i was yesterday.
and i'll be different again tomorrow.

i'll be messy in another way from this entropy and sin that i live in.
yet i'll be more holy from the Potter always having His hands on me,
always kneading this clay of His.

i think that participating in my own acts of creation reflect my Maker's heart just a bit.
i think that's my favorite. and i think, just maybe, it might be His.
     [sculpting in the mess.]

crafting life from beauty is easy.
but life from the debris?
well, that brings Him the glory.
2 Corinthians 12:9

that's the art of grace.

what is grace?

Tonight I was sitting with Jesus as I journaled through my good friend Aletheia's comtemplative art journal.  I came to this piece where she prompted my thoughts with a question next to the painting:  What is grace?

Grace is
     having this dance with You,
     moving in step with this new routine of familiar patterns,
          as You hold me close in gentleness.

Grace is
     feeling Your heart beat in time with mine,
     sensing You flutter all around me,
          embraced by Your love so abounding.

Grace is
     the sea of love that swirls in Your eyes,
     vast shades of blue interacting,
     color with more depth than anything I've ever known.

Grace is
     us.
     this love story.
     and Your passion that never gives up on me
          with a magnitude that's incomprehensible.
     [You never stop loving me.]

Grace is
     everything that first brought me to You,
     and everything that keeps me where I am,
     and everything I live my life for.

Grace is
     this stillness,
          this love.
     it's here,
          and now.
     and there,
          and forevermore.

Grace is
     written in the story of my life,
     splattered in the paintings of my soul,
          the harmony that rings out as You pursue me,
          [undeserved and unending.]

Grace is
     beautiful.
     healing.
     enchanting.

Grace is the heart of my Savior.

I'm writing again.

The most vital piece of my connection with God was missing this year.  Lack of energy, lack of time, and lack of creative juices caused the longest writer's block I've ever experienced.

This year entailed a lot of transition, a lot of growing pains, a lot of being exposed to old wounds that I never let heal.  I did a lot of snapping at people that I love dearly and a lot of praying through frustrations that I have with myself.  And with this season, my soul felt dry a lot of the time.  I knew that I was growing, I saw the new-ness every time I looked into the mirror or chatted with a friend.  But I didn't know how to express it, to friends or to Jesus, and so I felt like I was the only one seeing growth.  I felt like friends were unable to see through my soul's dryness and pain, and I wasn't sure they believed me when I tried to explain that I was indeed being made new.

But I'm writing again.

And not just posting blogs.  About a week ago I started writing a book again, my favorite release since I was a little girl and my favorite way of connecting with the King.

Usually fresh notebooks would cause excitement and anticipation to rush through my veins, but this year, blank journal pages and word documents haunted my every moment.  They made me nervous and aggravated and worried about why I felt like I had nothing to say.  I forced blogs once a month and generally gave up on journaling in my own privacy.  I had nothing to write (or perhaps, too much to write to know where to begin).  Too many times I sat with a blank blog post open, hands poised on the home keys, begging God for something, anything, to say.

Nothing.

But now, my fingers can't fly over the keys fast enough for my thoughts and every day this week I've come up with multiple illustrations for this new book project that the Lord has laid on my heart.

I'm writing again.

These blogs and this new book are my prayers, my way of processing and praising the way Jesus is moving in me, my way of connecting with Him.

The words that have danced across my computer for this book over the past week have caused so much healing and redemption to already take place.  It's like there is a connection between my soul and my written words, a direct pathway that if broken, processing ceases to happen and my mind spirals into weeks of confusion and arguments with loved ones and strange, misplaced tears.

But by His grace, He's released me from this writer's block.  By His grace, I'm invited into closeness with Him via metaphors and word documents.  By His grace, I'm writing again.

So here's to renewed intimacy with God.  Here's to creating art.  Here's to the process.

Here's to writing again.

celebration series. [intervarsity staff.]

For the intro to this series, click here.

Celebrating the year.
That's what I'm doing in these recent posts.
Arms high in praise, eyes focused on Jesus, I am celebrating.

For those of you who don't know, I'm on staff with InterVarsity at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).  In basic terms, this means I'm a missionary to college students.  To tell my entire journey this year about coming on staff would entail me writing a novel, so I'll spare you the pain and keep it short.

I was a student in the Blue Ridge Region (The Carolinas & Virginia) but felt the Lord strongly calling me to staff in the NY/NJ Region about a year and a half ago.
*When it comes to InterVarsity, you apply to the region, and honestly switching regions when you come on staff is almost unheard of.

Joining a new region was hard.  Like really, really, really, really hard.  The cultures between the two regions were vastly different and while all regions have the same heart for students being transformed and leaders developed, I had to learn new methods and tools and even some new language.  I tried my very hardest to embrace the differences and engage myself fully in them, but as an ENTJ who needs tangible proof, I wasn't there yet at the cognitive level because I simply just needed more time to see the methods play out.

Not to mention I basically didn't know anyone.  I remember going to Basileia (the region's end of the year conference) last year and not being able to keep track of schools in Upstate New York that I had never heard of, let alone remember the names of all of the staff and students.  I felt lonely and confused and I wondered if I had heard Jesus correctly when he told me to go be staff at TCNJ.

Over this past year though, something shifted in me.  I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but about a month ago I could finally verbalize what I was feeling.

Wholeness.
Absolute, complete wholeness.

I realized that very quickly after stepping onto TCNJ's campus in the fall, I fell in love with those students.  Utterly, head-over-heels in love with them.  My heart broke over the lost on campus and rejoiced when I saw hearts transform and leaders develop before my very eyes.  Very quickly my co-workers at TCNJ became like family to me and very quickly my calling was confirmed that InterVarsity Staff was indeed what I am anointed to do.

That all?  That took place within the first few weeks on campus.  That was easy.
The switching regions was the hard part.

I can now say, with 100% honesty, that I am so glad the Lord brought me to NY/NJ.  Though it maybe took me a year to catch on, I'm in love with this region, too.  Every cell in my body jumps for joy about how well this region does mission, prayer, and multi-ethnicity.  As a person who was a student in another region, I feel like I can easily pinpoint that those are [some of] our region's strengths.  The students understand how to start new things and take ownership of mini mission fields on campus.  They seem so spiritually mature for their age and so in-tune with the Spirit.  And living in a diverse part of the county, we have students with so many different ethnic backgrounds and they all get the radical importance of that.  Also, I've grown so much as not only a staff worker by being in this region, but as a disciple of Jesus.  This region has equipped and stretched me and continues to do so and I count myself so very blessed to be hired here.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  I am so proud to be able to wear the NY/NJ hat!
[Figuratively speaking; I look terrible in hats.]

And what's even more, I now feel like I know staff all over the region.  Like really know them.  And they know me.  Yes, there are still handfuls that I have yet to sit down and really chat with.  But I've made so many good friends who know deep things about me and who I talk to even when we are hours and hours apart during an average work week.  I have such very good friends and I am a better person because they are in my life because they are friends who consistently point me to Jesus.  My last celebration post was entitled "koinonia part I" because this is my koinonia part II.  There is nothing like having deep friendships with people on InterVarsity Staff.  There's nothing like being in the same room as fellow co-workers and having people who really and truly get and understand the work you do.  There's nothing like having people who share your giftings and passions and quirkiness.  I love that I can turn around and say a statement that involves a student, myers-briggs, and theology and I don't have to give any background information.  We get each other.

But above all, I feel wholeness because I am right in the center of God's will.  I was talking to my friend who is still in college and I said to her, "I cannot wait until you start working in your career because there is nothing like doing the work that God has prepared in advance for you to do."  It's exciting and peaceful all at the same time.  Whether I'm discipling a student, filling out a google doc, giving a talk, or at a staff training, I feel whole.  When I'm working on InterVarsity things, I feel like everything is right in the world.  Like I'm swinging, eyes closed in a hammock and I could just rest there forever.

I feel such wholeness when I'm doing the work that I am anointed to do.

So I'm celebrating working with college students:  The population of people that I feel called to.  The population of people that get my heart beating faster and that I find myself constantly dreaming about and for.  I'm celebrating working for an organization that I so greatly love and affirm.  I admire so much about InterVarsity--our vision and purpose statements, the time we spend developing world-changers, and the way that we are so eager to learn and grow (which is something that the Church at large historically does not have a good track record of).  I'm celebrating working in NY/NJ, with so many new life-long good friends and so many people mentors on the Regional Leadership Team that have strengths in all different arenas.  I'm celebrating having a clear calling that stretches me and grows me.  A calling that gives me a sense of excitement and peace and wholeness.  I'm celebrating that Jesus saw it fit to use me to impact these students' lives.  I was and am the most unworthy sinner to work in full-time ministry, but by His grace I am here.  By His grace I get to wake up each morning, excited to go into work.

I love my students and my staff team.  I love InterVarsity at large and having the opportunity to work with college students.  And I love all of my partners in this--all of you who pray for me and/or financially support me.  You guys make it possible for all of this to be a reality.  You guys have so tangibly played a role in letting these dreams of mine come true.  You've said yes to Jesus and being used by Him and He's said yes to redeeming and using me.

And that discussion will be continued in my next post...