People plungers.

Friday night I had my friends Hannah and Austin over for dinner and a little backyard bonfire. We have all had crazy weeks, it was great to sit around and do nothing. Our conversation even brought up the question: What is the grossest thing you've ever had to work with or clean up or touch? (This question is important to the story, and is about to have a new answer.)

They left at around 10:30 and I came back into the house to the sound of rushing water. I peaked into my downstairs bathroom and my toilet was...I don't know how to put this...EXPLODING.

And I mean exploding. Like a dirty fountain filled with toilet paper, leaves, pine needles, and a number of other questionably mirky things.

It's great to get to the point where you don't know
how to thank your friends for being your friends.
Side note: we all had to throw our shoes away after
this event on Friday night.

I was standing in a few inches of water in my bathroom and thought: "What do I do?" I didn't even have a plunger.

I simply thought that one of my friends had blown up my bathroom and then high tailed it out of there. But now I have a mess. A HUGE, stinky, mess.

So I called Austin and said "EMERGENCY! Bring a plunger!" She and Hannah were at my house in 5 minutes.

To make a long story short, Hannah's dad had a carpet cleaner (thank God) and we spent the next few hours bailing out the mirky water and floating debris (that's what I am choosing to call it) and waiting for the plumber. Mike the Plumber showed up around 1 am with the tools for the job and some stories that have scarred me for life. (Note: don't ask a plumber about the weirdest thing he's ever seen unless you are prepared to be psychologically changed forever.)  Mike the Plumber's diagnosis is that one of the outside sewer lines had been cracked by tree roots and the pipe was clogged up with roots and debris, causing my toilet to clog up and eventually back up violently right into my house.

I have had some thoughts to think about this event. Strangely enough, it coincides with a hard reality that God has shown me this week. Something I have known for my whole life but am so afraid to admit:

I SUCK AT LETTING PEOPLE IN.

All caps. There, I said it. And maybe this is why I like keeping a blog. I can really bare my soul to everyone, but it's on my terms. In my words. Limited. My way. No surprises.

My back stuff has forced me to rely on others. It has slowed me down. It has made me examine myself and look in the mirror harder than ever. And Friday night was hilarious to me because I was like...embarrassed to ask for help. But I had no other choice. I had to call my friends and they had to come over and stick their hands in my shit (sorry, but seriously, that's what it was) and help me clean it up. There was no way around it.

Reminder: your texts are more
important to people than you think.

I called Austin and Hannah because I thought I just needed to borrow their plunger. That I only needed a tool from them. Austin said it pretty well at the end of the night: "The best part about this, is that you thought all you needed was a plunger."

What I needed was them. It's crazy how we use other people to get what we want, and don't even know it. But Friday, for me, was a funny reminder from God that I need people. And that's not always on my terms or the ways I want it to be. Sometimes people see the parts of me that I don't want anyone to see. And surprise surprise, they love me anyway! In fact, people seem to like knowing these parts of me!

Would I have preferred my toilet to have not exploded? Yes. But did God use it to paint me a picture of why it's necessary to let people in? Yes.

Newsflash: I don't have it all together. And neither do you. So can we stop pretending that we do?

-Liz

Who do you run to?

I've been watching my reaction to life changes lately. This is a sobering yet very necessary process.

The biggest life pattern I've seen is how I run to food in the midst of...whatever. Whatever emotion it is, you name it, I run to food. It's usually different foods for different moods, but it's still always food. A cheap imitation of what I am really looking for.

See, I think we complicate our lives and reason away our need for God. We run to other things simply out of pride. Because if I run to God instead, I am admitting that I am not the center of my universe and that I just might need help because I am out of control. Gasp.

I am kicking around this idea of writing down all of the painful food moments I have had in my life. All the ways I have used food as a comfort, an escape, a companion, a horrible friend. This list is long and embarrassing. Every day some other moment pops up that reminds me of how I have used food in the past to try and fill that God shaped hole in me. But don't fool yourself, you have that hole too. And I bet there is something that you try to fill it with. Maybe for you it's not food. Maybe it's a guy. Or a job. Or a sport. Or a religion. None of these things replace the relationship with Jesus that we were made for.

So why do we keep doing it?

Last week I was lucky enough to attend the Willow Creek Leadership Summit in Chicago. I still have a brain hangover from it. It also showed me some ugly things about myself and my reactions to pain. When people hurt me (and I feel so deeply that this happens more than you think), I don't run to God. I run to food. Because food never changes. I know exactly what those Cool Ranch Doritos will taste like, and I need to numb the pain of being hurt, even for a few moments with Dorito crumbs on my fingers.

I wish we would all stop being so tough. I wish we would all climb over these walls we've built. But I know that the reality is that I can't make that change for the whole world, although I will devote my life to trying. I will also commit to running towards the only permanent, loving, eternal person in my life. The person that knows me better than anyone and that will never change, never hurt me, and never leave me.

No one else has claim to that place but Jesus himself.

And to be honest, I could really use some running partners.

-Liz