Hot Tea, Muffins, and Shauna Niequest

This morning I went with my good friend Mary to see Shauna Niequest, one of my favorite authors!  She was having a brunch event at the Edgehill cafe, which is about 3 minutes away from me on Music Row.  I had never been there before, but it is an impossibly cute little area and the cafe itself was incredible.  They had out muffins, tons of fruit salad, and mini cinnamon rolls to munch on while we listened to Shauna read from her newest book, Bittersweet, and answer all kinds of questions.  There were only about 30 women there, young and old, so it felt more like a intimate conversation between friends than a big, impersonal event.  I even got to meet her and take a picture with her at the end.  I feel so inspired by her writing and I am so so thankful for this wonderful opportunity to see and hear her!

Oh, one last thing, she said she has a new book coming out next spring entitled Bread and Wine.  I can't wait!  Here is a short excerpt from one of my favorite chapters, which is about being 25:

"Move, travel, take a class, take a risk.  Walk away, try something new.  There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither.  This season is about becoming.  Don't lose yourself at happy hour, but don't lose yourself on the corporate ladder either.

Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal.  Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I'm living?  What have I tried this month?  What have I learned about God this year?  What parts of my childhood faith and I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey?  Do the people I'm spending time with give me life, or make me feel small?  Is there any brokenness in my life that's keeping me from moving forward?

These years will pass much more quickly than you think they will.  You will go to lots of weddings, and my advice, of course, is to dance your pants off at every single one.  I hope you go to very few funerals. You'll watch TV and fun on the treadmill and go on dates, some of them great and some of them terrible.  Time will pass, and all of a sudden, things will begin to feel a little more serious.  You won't be old, of course.  But you will want to have some things figured out, and the most important things only get figured out if you dive into them now.

For a while in my early twenties I felt like I woke up a different person every day, and was constantly confused about which one, if any, was the real me.  I feel more and more like myself with each passing year, for better and for worse, and you'll find that, too.  Every year, you will trade a little of your perfect skin and your ability to look great without exercising for wisdom and peace and groundedness, and every year the trade will be worth it.  I promise.

Now is your time.  Become, believe, try.  Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure.  Don't spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are.  Don't get stuck in the past, and don't try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven't yet earned.  Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life's path."

                                                                                                 Shauna Niequest, Bittersweet