reminder in the sky.

after a weekend in arkansas, we were welcomed home last night in typical oklahoma fashion... with severe thunderstorms. hooray! thankfully, we were able to take alternate routes on our drive so that we missed the worst parts of the storms. we finally pulled up to our apartment and were doing the "we made it" full body stretch that just instinctively happens after you've been in the car forever, when we looked up and saw a stellar rainbow peeking through the clouds.

maybe God knew i needed a little reminder of his faithfulness yesterday. it was my seventh father's day without dad, which is almost impossible to believe. it was easier than most since i was just on the road all day with my best friend, but it's just not a fun day -- and on those not fun days, it's easy to confuse emotions with truth, for "the heart is deceitful above all things" (jeremiah 17.9). so again, i was extra thankful last night for that little miracle in the sky reminding me that God keeps his promises and does not forget his people. he loves us and is with us.

he is faithful, he is glorious and
he is jesus and all my hope is in him.
he is freedom, he is healing right now,
he is hope and joy and love and peace and life.
-- bryan & katie torwalt

niagara falls in a teacup.

"Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you? I believe that this question is at the core of our ability to mature and grow spiritually. If in our hearts we really don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross. ...

When I conclude that I can now cope with the awful love of God, I have headed for the shallows to avoid the deeps. I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a teacup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God."

-- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

{source}

thankful thursday: tornado recovery.

here are a few things i've been thankful for in the last week or so since the big tornado in moore:

1. pretty skies.

if i have to hear tornado sirens go off almost every afternoon, at least i get to see pretty skies at sunset. it's probably the only good thing about all these crazy storms. 

2. chick-fil-a.

the corporate chick-fil-a folks sent their big red truck to norman this week to help with tornado recovery. this truck can crank out 800 sandwiches an hour, y'all. isn't that insane?! some friends of ours own the Chick-fil-As in norman and moore, and they were asking for volunteers to help distribute the sandwiches to families and volunteers in moore. i was so thankful for the generosity of chick-fil-a and for a practical way to serve and love people. i mean, who doesn't want a hot chicken sandwich?

"food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate." -- alan d. wolfelt

3. oklahoma pride.

i've always been an obnoxiously proud texan (and still am), but this week i tried to channel some pride for the okie state. we threw an oklahoma-themed party on wednesday night with our missional community to watch blake shelton's healing in the heartland concert. let me back up. we desperately tried to get tickets for the concert, but they sold out in seconds, so this was our best effort at a plan B. our party was complete with a soundtrack of songs about oklahoma, every oklahoma t-shirt we own (thank you, thunder) hanging in our living room, arrows pointing to oklahoma on our giant wall map, a garland of famous oklahomans hanging in our kitchen, and oklahoma-shaped cookies, of course. home sweet 'homa.

we googled "famous oklahoma food" and fried chicken was the answer... who knew?

4. community.

i've been extra thankful for community recently. on a macro level, it's been so cool to see churches from all over the okc metro come together to serve moore, and on a micro level, i've loved watching our prov road community love each other well through all this craziness and seeing the different ways everyone has used their skills and connections to serve our neighbors to the north.

this picture has nothing to do with the tornado recovery, but everything to do with community. the saturday before the tornado, a lot of us ran the super fan 5k that our friend's work put on. it was a great way to support her and all do something fun together!

5. skype.

this doesn't really fit the tornado recovery theme of this post, but i just got off a skype call with one of our favorites that just moved down to houston, and i'm just so thankful for skype. whoever invented it is a genius. we already miss them so much, but somehow it makes it a little bit better that we can see their faces and get a virtual tour of their house. i wish i had taken a screen shot. oh well. thanks, skype!

ways you can help.

we are still reeling from monday's tornado and the complete devastation just a few miles away from us. much of our spare time and energy this week has gone into figuring out how we as individuals and we as a church can help our neighbors to the north. most needs are very immediate at this point, changing daily, even hourly, but for now, here are a few ways you can help...

donate money & materials.
giving money may seemingly be the least fun way to help, but let's be honest, it can often be the most effective. especially in the early days, like right now, dollars are desperately needed.

our church has set up a disaster relief fund. we'd be honored for you to give to it and allow us to steward your resources. we're committed to serving moore for the long haul however we can, but a few of the specific needs we'll be focused on include:

• andrew burkhart and his family, who lost their house and everything they own. andrew is the pastor of love & justice, an acts 29 church in moore, and serves on our board of advisors (functions as an elder board until we have one in place).
• love & justice, as they serve the people and needs in their neighborhood. they also have a relief fund set up that you can give to here. 
• chick-fil-a of moore, as they serve their community and team members in need. a couple at our church owns this chick-fil-a and they've already done a fantastic job of assessing the needs of their team members and serving up their delicious chicken to volunteers and families in moore.

if you're interested in donating materials (like holding a drive or collecting items and shipping them this way), let me know and we'll coordinate with the right people. the materials most frequently requested are baby items (formula, toddler food, diapers, wipes), medical/hygiene items (gauze, bandages, neosporin, shampoo, soap), and work items (gloves, trash bags, sunscreen, bug spray, duct tape, flashlights, tarps). journey church is the main drop-off/distribution site in norman, and they're great at keeping their list updated with the most immediate needs, so you might check there as well.

volunteer.
if you're interested in rolling your sleeves up and volunteering in moore (whether you're local or coming in from out of town), i would highly recommend connecting with @servemooreok. it's being led by frontline church in okc and functioning as the hub of several churches in the area (including ours!) coming together to serve moore. their website is continuously updated with needs. be sure to check it out!

also, if you and some friends need a place to stay, let us know! if you have a team coming, check with fbc norman. they're hosting teams in their family life center.

buy a t-shirt.
this is the most fun and easiest way to help. there are tons of shirts being made right now, so here are my three favorite. ALL of the proceeds from these t-shirt sales will be donated to relief efforts. you can never have too many t-shirts, so just go ahead and add one of these to your collection!

this shirt is being sold by touies design, a small business run by one of my friends from syrup. (fun fact: she designed our christmas card!) super cute shirt. buy yours here!

this shirt is from shopgood, a fun little local business in the heart of okc. the best part about their store is that every single item is socially responsible, fairly traded, and connected to a local or international community development project. so great, right?! get their shirt here!

a friend's coworker at old hat designed this shirt. it comes in several different color combinations, so pick your favorite and buy one here!

//

again, thank you to everyone who has been checking on us and asking how to help. please continue to pray for those affected by the storm and for those volunteering in the recovery!

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." -- psalm 46.1

heavy heart.

i just really don't do storms well. this is our second spring (read: tornado season) in oklahoma, and i haven't gotten any better at it. if it even thunders, i assume a tornado is coming.

i was glued to the tv sunday evening as storms passed nearby us. a tornado touched down in edmond (about 45 minutes north of us), then moved on to do greater damage in shawnee (about an hour northeast of us).

i knew we were supposed to have bad weather again monday night, but surely it wouldn't be tornadoes again, right? surely it'd just be a thunderstorm? maybe some strong wind and hail?

i didn't think the weather was supposed to get bad yesterday until around dinnertime, so yesterday afternoon i was in my little home office working as usual. chris had come home for lunch and was working in the living room. i was on a phone call with my boss, and it wasn't even raining outside, when seemingly out of nowhere the tornado siren went off. chris immediately started watching the weather coverage while i stayed on my phone call (shocking, right?!). he came in and updated me a saying, "it looks like there are two storms. one should pass just north of us, and one should pass just south of us. everything's gonna be fine." it still wasn't even raining outside my window. my boss and i were nearing the end of our phone meeting when the sirens went off again. that was it, i had to go.

about the time i walked into the living room to figure out what was going on was about the time the massive tornado was doing its damage in moore... literally just 10-15 minutes away from us. we couldn't take our eyes off the screen as they showed live footage of the horrific destruction. pretty soon after that, our tv cut to the black and white fuzzy screen and our internet dropped. we made our way to a friend's house who still had cable and internet, watched some more coverage, realized we weren't in danger of any more storms, and resorted to pizza and parks&rec for the rest of the night. i never cried. i wasn't emotional. i think i was in shock and selfishly just thankful we were okay in norman.

today has been a different story. i've been wiping tears all day. my heart is just so heavy. i'm trying to work, but it's raining and thundering again outside which is disturbing to say the least, and i can't seem to turn the news coverage off in the other room, so my background noise all day has been stories of people just up the interstate from us whose lives were forever changed in a matter of minutes yesterday. the vastness of the destruction overwhelms me. the individual stories break me. those children -- it's just too much.

i'm not trying to pretend like this is my story to grieve or that i'm in any way a victim of this tragedy. please don't hear that. please don't be sad for me. i'm just trying to process by writing, and i guess "process" is what you call trying so hard to wrap my mind around this new reality just north of us and wrestling with this looming heaviness in my heart.

i'm heavy from the stories -- the children, the teachers, the parents, the first responders.
i'm heavy from trying to figure out how we can possibly help when the need is so great. no option seems like enough, but doing nothing isn't an option.
i'm heavy from feeling guilty that i want to act like it's a normal day and go for a walk on campus when it gets sunny later, but i'll be walking passed dorms where families are staying who are now homeless.
i'm heavy when i consider that the God who created the universe shares in our grief and suffers the impossible with us. it takes my breath away.

even in the heaviness there is hope.

a pastor friend of ours in moore survived with his family, but they completely lost their house -- i mean, everything. a friend of ours went and bought them underwear and other immediate necessities this morning. underwear, y'all. they lost everything. he posted a photo this morning of the remains of his house and his caption said, "jesus is better than everything i used to own."

today, we sit in heaviness. tomorrow, we start meagerly attempting to help with recovery efforts. thanks to all who have asked how to come alongside us and our church as we try to help. we'll keep you posted as we hear of opportunities. above all else, please pray for the people of moore!