you're never too old for an easter basket

growing up my brother and i would wake up easter morning to easter baskets on the kitchen table. we have so many pictures of us in our pajamas reaching into brightly colored baskets, as green "grass" came pouring out, to find big chocolate bunnies and a special present for each of us like a yo-yo or a sticker book. as we got older it became cd's and movies. normally, this tradition ends when kids leave the house and become adults. well...not the robey family.

i'm writing this blog because today i got an easter basket in the mail from my mom. well, not a basket. a package. and the cutest thing is that she hasn't stopped sending me an easter package since i moved out of the house 6 years ago. my package today consisted of A LOT of chocolate. i don't even really like chocolate, but for some reason today it really hit the spot. maybe it's because today i needed a little bit of comfort. today i needed a bit of home. and i felt loved because of a few chocolate bunnies and a note from my mom.

i understand easter isn't about the candy. i understand it is about so much more.

but today i am grateful for my easter basket.
today i am grateful for my mom, who loves me well and alway knows exactly what i need.

..living in a movie..

the other day i was walking down the street with my friend casey. we were walking towards the beach, blankets and books in hand, sunglasses on our faces and smiles all over the place.
and i looked over at her and said "living here has given me hope that you can have a life where you feel like you live in a movie."
casey is a joy. and casey..being casey..looked back at me, gave me her famous smile that is always contagious, and said
"yeah! yeah, it does."
and then we walked in silence for a bit. and then we were by the ocean.

i live in a movie.
what i mean by this is that there are days here in this santa cruz utopia that make me feel like i am living someone else's life. i mean..do i really live here?

examples:

-it's no big deal to get off work at noon each friday and nonchalantly say to your friends "beach?"
and then to go the beach IN MARCH with 75 degree weather, hippie moms and naked babies running around you, where you sit for hours soaking up the rays and having good conversation, because..well..you have no where you need to be until monday morning.

-my office is the redwood forest.

-i live, work, and play with some very passionate and wonderfully unique individuals. while this is also a downside to my life and brings about conflict and pain..i can't quite think of anything better than it. the good times far out cede the bad.

-i live on a mountain top, in a Christian camp, where the community is full of fellow Mount Hermon staffers who desire to see lives changed, who work very hard and without a lot of thanks, to do that very thing. i drive down the street and see families i know playing with their kids and we wave to each other. maybe on some days i drive and see someone who i don't really know well, but who i know works here, and we wave to one another and smile with a shared sense of unity. we both may be here for different reasons, doing different jobs, but when you really think about it...we're here for the same reason, doing the same job. (if that doesn't make sense to you, its ok. it makes sense to me.)

-i work very long days. but in those 14 hour days, i spend most of the time being witness to kids coming to a bigger understanding of themselves, their friends and family, nature, the world, and god. no big deal. just..my job.

-long days, yes. only a 2 and 1/2 hour break each day. but during that break you can usually find me up on my roof, with a beautiful view, relaxing and soaking up the sun with good friends nearby.

-santa cruz culture. enough said.

-and last but not least...my favorite part of this place. mount hermon is a place people come to heal. they may not know it when first accepting the job, they may not even know it a few months in. But time and time again i have seen people realize that they came to this place broken, and messy, and doubtful. and that god is doing something big.
this mountain is sacred. and it changes you. you leave transformed. it's almost as if god surfaces every painful thing you could possibly deal with and he lays it out on the table in the time you are working here. in my 3 summers at conference center and almost year and a half of working for outdoor science i have seen countless lives restored. i have been abundantly blessed with walking along side of people who are redeemed and set free. in fact, i would even go as far as to say that FREEDOM is the song of this mountain.

i could go on and on. the amount of amazing sights i see each day are overwhelming. but what i know is this:

i live in a movie. i feel like i don't deserve each day here.

and when things get hard, when im exhausted at the end of the day, when relationships are fractured and i don't think i can take another step, and when i am doubting everything ive been told to be true...i need to remember this. because in 2 months i won't be here anymore. a whole new world is already starting to evolve for the time in which i will be just a memory to the people that remain. it's almost time for a new girl to come in and take my place, and have her life transformed.

and i think i'm almost ready.

Girls rule, boys...drool?

in my job as an outdoor science school naturalist i have a different trail group every week. a "trail group" usually consists of anywhere between 12 and 22 fifth or sixth grade students, and normally it's one boys cabin and one girls cabin. however, there are weeks when it just works out to have an all girls or all boys trail group. some naturalists don't like this, they prefer having the balance that comes with both sexes in a group. i love that too, it's always fun to see the boys and girls interact. but for those of you that know me well, you know that there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING that makes me happier than hanging out with a bunch of middle school girls.

i have built up a reputation at my job of the one who would do anything to have an all girls trail group. im the first person they think of when they run into having to put 2 girls cabins together and im so grateful i have people working above me who know my passions and allow me to exercise them in my position.

here are some photos from a previous girls group

slug kiss pep talk
girly photo shoot
hands in


i have been blessed to have an all girls group 3 times since i started this job last year. they are always the most epic of weeks in my mind. the most recent was this past week. i had 17 fifth grade girls who radiated adventure, courage, and beauty. i think i loved them deeply the moment i met them.

i opened my intro class by saying "you girls have no idea how pumped i am that we are an all girls group this week. get ready to do things you've never done before, get ready to put dirt on your faces, get ready to experience what it looks like to be living in community with only girls for a week, and get ready to see and feel god in ways you never thought you would."

the girls start squealing/looking at me like im the coolest and craziest human being they've ever met.

the week looks a little something like this:
pushing them far past any limit their minds have ever perceived....CHECK.
talking about girly things....CHECK.
"hands in" 1,2,3 HARDCORE!!!!....CHECK.
talking to each and every one of these precious little babies about their lives and what they love....CHECK.
lots and lots of group hugs....CHECK.
lots and lots of dirt on our faces...CHECK.
getting lost and laughing it off...CHECK.
reminding them every day that they are special, beautiful, and loved....CHECK.






aren't they precious?

what i loved about this past week, and what i usually love about most weeks, is being at the front of the line, leading the group down a trail, and hearing the things that come out of their mouths. for example:

on night hike "there is no way anyone else but god could have created all this. i mean, he is so CREATIVE!"
at the climbing wall "sarah, im scared. i try to pray. i pray all the time. but i don't feel god"
after climbing wall class "i pictured us as the harness and jesus as the hook that connected us to the rope. because before jesus we weren't connected to god."
after finishing night hike "my parents couldn't afford for me to go to science camp. so people donated money. and im so grateful i was able to come, because ive learned so much about myself here this week"

those are just a few of the little nuggets of wisdom i got to be witness to this week.

it's not like i don't like co-ed groups, it's just that, when the girls are taken away from the boys, they are comfortable being totally themselves. parts of their personalities come out that i would never get to see if boys were there to make them doubt themselves. that doesn't happen every week. some weeks i get kids who grew up together. the boys know the girls and their families very well and vice versa, and they treat each other well and they actually care about each other's feelings. but usually when you put 15 sixth grade boys and girls together, chances are they won't treat each other very well, and those girls insecurities are gonna flare up faster than i can say "sticky toed circle".

so there you have it. thats why i adore pouring so much of myself into girls lives. because who doesn't love to see people be who they are and do what they do?

as cheesy as it is....girl power is where its at.

.scarred with remembrance.

i want to get a tattoo.

i've never wanted one until now. the permanence of it kinda scares me.
actually, it REALLY scares me.

but i've also never been at the place i am now.
the idea of putting something on your body, a physical reminder of a season of your life that produced large amounts of struggle and growth, a symbol of the place you were in before that season, what you have been brought out of, a memory engraved on your skin for the rest of your life that will always remind you of Him....well, i think I could jump on board with that.

for all 6 or 7 of you that read this blog (well thanks for sticking with me)...but you all know how influential this past year has been for me. january 7th, 2009 was the end of the beginning for me. i left an unhealthy life for a life of the unknown, in a new state, for a new job i knew nothing about, with a group of people that were so different than me. the past 12 or 13 months have brought me through the darkest parts of the forest, to places i never thought i would go, to a person i never thought i could be. those dark parts of the forest were long but i always saw a bit of light peeking through the trees. as i walked through the woods, God allowed people to cross my path that helped me to see His faithfulness of a bit more clearly.

i could go on and on about this, but i think psalm 18 sums it up perfectly:

"in my distress i called to the lord;
i cried to my god for help.
from his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.
he reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
he rescued me from my powerful enemy;
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
they confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the lord was my support.
he brought me out into a spacious place,
he rescued me because he delighted in me."

my distress was bondage.
my spacious place was santa cruz.
his delight is my freedom.

freedom will be the theme of my tattoo. not just for that time of my life, but for the beautiful reality that we will always be set free from things that bond us.

i'm leaving santa cruz in a few months, not knowing now where i'll be, but one thing is for sure. i never want to forget this year. i never want to forget his faithfulness. and there will be days when i do. and it's those days that i want to be able to look down at the permanent scar on my skin, look up, and keep walking.

An 80 foot indoor water slide in a Super 8?

Recently I made the drive from Tacoma, Wa to Santa Cruz, CA. I have done this drive before but it's always been with other people. This time I was flying solo.

My parents, who are so so good to me in times of financial crisis and emotional turmoil (they're just good people all around) offered to pay for me to stay in a motel for a night so that I could do the drive in 2 days, thus saving me from the obvious doom of mental, emotional, and physical breakdown.

I drove all day, with a stop in Portland to buy a Mac (yes, that's right folks. I've officially reached technological heaven on earth) and stopped in Medford, OR where my mom had made a reservation at the Super 8. Now, I feel like there is a certain stigma against Super 8's, but have you been in one lately? They are getting pretty swanky. It was 10:30 pm and I was exhausted. I was a weary traveler walking into the lobby, circles under my eyes, the only thought in my head being "How fast can I get to a bed?" and then I saw it.

An eighty foot indoor water slide. I mean, whattttt????? In a Super 8? All exhaustion left my body. My soul was uplifted. My face all smiles. Instead of " How fast can I get to a bed?" I was now thinking " Can I swim in my clothes?" "Would it look weird if I went down the slide alone?" "I wonder if they have water wings?"  and "Thank you, God for this little piece of joy you have put before me."

And then I saw it. WATER SLIDE CLOSES AT 10 PM AND OPENS AT 10 AM.

Shut up.

It was 10:30 pm and I was planning on getting on the road by 9 the next morning.

My hope and joy was gone. I grumpily checked into my room and dragged my bags up the stairs to my room. I didn't even have a buddy with me to jump on the bed with. I crawled in bed. I was just about to go to sleep and put the awful, exhausting day behind me, when I turned on the TV, and hope and joy and happiness came exploding out of the TV at me in the form of........



Thank you. I can now rest in peace.

.Happy Holidays.

The holidays always make me think a little deeper than usual.  This has especially been true the past five years, throughout college and beyond, as I have experienced living away from home and being physically and emotionally distant from my family. I think I can speak for lots of people when I say that coming home for the holidays can bring up some emotions, whether good or bad, going home brings up stuff.

Growing up as a Robey I was a part of a larger group of people called the Lookers. My mom is the only girl in a family of four brothers. We came together at my grandma's house for every single one of the grandkids birthdays (all 11 of them) and had huge blowouts for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We have our traditions of course, as all families do during the holidays. For Easter, from the time all us kids were little until just recently, we had a big egg hunt in the backyard. The eggs being filled with candy and such, with the occasional dollar bill in it. As we got older the bills got higher until one Easter the aunts and uncles put a $100 dollar bill in one of the eggs. It was a mad house. I didn't find it :( For Thanksgiving we would all say what we were grateful for, pretty typical I would say, and then we would eat. And eat. And eat. The boys of the family would all go weigh themselves before and after the meal, each coming out from my grandma's bathroom with stomachs pushed out and tough faces on, all wanting to be the heaviest. Then we would play Catch Phrase and eat dessert. For Christmas all of us grand kids had these stockings my grandma has made for each of us when we were born and all 11 of them hung in her living room and we would all tear into them. We would also do a white elephant gift exchange, a tradition that has become hilarious the past few years as the gifts have become more and more outrageous. Needless to say, my extended family's traditions and holiday get-togethers have been memories all of us have held near throughout the years.

My grandpa owned an asphalt business most of his life. The business was passed down to my uncles when my grandpa died, and my mom also works for them. So do most of my cousins, my cousins friends, my uncle's friends, and my brother. Our family was all about this business. It was their lives. Money has always been affluent in this family (the Robey side living a more simple life, which I have grown to appreciate, even though back then I was very jealous of the comfortable and spoiled lifestyle my girl cousins had). Money was always being discussed and debated. Money was very important to the Lookers. One day, about 4 or 5 years ago, we found out that one of my uncles had fired his brother, my other uncle, from the business. This was shocking. We were all broken hearted, devastated, angry, and confused. I can't count the times I heard my grandma and mom say "Your grandpa must be rolling in his grave right now." He would never have let this happen. My extended family was always close. My cousins grew up minutes away from each other, they all went to the same schools growing up, and many of them considered each other their best friends. But when this happened, all of a sudden people stopped talking to each other. Sister-in-laws wouldn't be in the same room together, cousins got in physical and verbal fights almost monthly. It got to the point where some families would call ahead to my grandma's house before visiting just to make sure there wasn't a chance they were going to run into the ones they hated.

My extended family aren't Christians, and while this has been a root cause for a lot of their greed, alcoholism, anger, and bitterness, it was never more evident than when nobody, absolutely NOBODY would forgive one another. My mom, a prayer warrior for her family for years, wept about this for so long. Well it's been 4 or 5 years and it's been a long, painful journey with thousands of "He said, she said" moments, gossip, run-ins with the enemy, formal sit down interventions from my mom to her brothers in the board room of the offices, physical violence, verbal abuse, and the deepest hurt our family ever thought was possible.

I set out to write this blog about the holidays. All of what I've written up until now is about to make sense. You see, everyone in this family has tried to be flexible, humble, and gracious when it came to attempting to keep things, like holiday family gatherings, as normal as possible. No one likes change. Especially the baby of the entire family (me) who has treasured her 24 years of beautiful family tradition. But it seems like everyone is just getting tired. Tired of the masks they're forced to wear. Tired of trying to make others happy. Tired of the greed. And so it's come to this. Thanksgiving is no longer a 7 hour day full of 40 people, board games. food, laughter, and love. It is now a 3 hour, maybe 10ish people event (the 10 people coming to my grandma's house simply to make her happy) where people eat and run. Christmas will be non-existent this year. All 5 family's will spend this holiday that is supposed to be about the love of our great God, grace, and giving....alone. It breaks my heart. I don't want things to change. I want to storm up to my uncles fancy million dollar offices and put my finger in their faces and tell them to quit being so immature and greedy and to buck up and do the right thing, to forgive "those who have trespassed against them", to think about what their father must be thinking, to look at the face of their mother and sister and try to feel a bit of the pain they must be feeling.

I am angry. But I refuse to be like them.

These holiday changes have forced me to think about what is really important about this season we celebrate each year. i want to remain thankful for the 24 years of great Looker/Robey family memories we've all shared. I want to remain optimistic, yet realistic about the future of our family. I want to make new traditions, with just my immediate family. I want to show my mom that the holiday's can be just as full of love and merriment as ever before, even though she won't be with her brothers and their families.

This season is about Jesus. That cold night in Bethlehem. Celebrating our King. Our Emmanuel. GOD WITH US. This shall be the song of my heart this holiday season.

I choose to love my family unconditionally, without expectation. I choose to make this Christmas one of life, not death of something we have been holding onto far too long. I choose Him.

I choose Emmanuel.

::power in silence::

for 24 years i thought i was an introvert.

when i was younger, i was a big fan of slumber parties. my friends and i had them all the time. we would make "candy salads" in which each girl would bring a different candy and we would combine all of it in one big bowl and well....you can only imagine the chaos. 10 girls bouncing off the walls, dancing on the couches to mariah carey, and really regretting renting that scary movie that sounded so fun at the time.

ive always been a "people person". most people are, i think. and those slumber parties are some of my fondest memories growing up. but what i do vividly recall is the post-slumber party sarah. i would be exhausted. so burnt out and overstimulated. i would come home and go upstairs to my room and literally be there for an entire day. "re-charging" as my mom called it. i needed to go be by myself in order to regain sanity again. i needed to do things i loved. i needed to read (baby-sitters club and sweet-valley high, of course). i needed to listen to the silence.

i have continued this habit my whole life. taking time away from people each day is what makes me a better friend, co-worker, daughter, sister, and teacher.

part of the outdoor science program includes spiritual development. my boss's husband, todd, leads us in bi-weekly exercises in which we learn how to pray in different ways, see scripture in a new light, talk about what we are learning about God, evaluate how we interact with those around us and how we can do it better, how to be more culturally aware with the groups that are in front of us each week and in our community's, what healthy community looks like, etc etc etc. such good stuff. most of us come away from what we lovingly call "todd time" with tear stained faces, a bit emotionally exhausted, but also with a new perspective. i always come away from my todd time loving God more.

one aspect of our spiritual development for last semester was to take some personality tests, the purpose being to understand a bit more about ourselves and those we live and work with. we all really got into it. there is an entire word culture to these tests. i started hearing conversations like "i'm an ISFJ. what are you?" "oh ok, i get it. it's because you're a Guardian. i am an Artisan."she is a Thinker. i am a Feeler." wait...what? for a while i started viewing my co-workers in these categories. i saw myself through the lense of these personality characteristics. i tested as an ISFJ (introverted-sensing-feeling-judging). most of these made perfect sense to me. they made sense to my friends. except for the "introverted" part. they all said there was no way i was an I. i fought it of course, explaining how much i ache for that alone time every day. how people wear me out. they said that i light up with people. that i am energized by them. that i have to be an "E". i decided to take a more detailed accurate form of the same test just to make sure, to appease them. i tested as an "E". i laughed out loud. really? me? an extrovert?

can i just not be labeled as anything? i would like to just be sarah. please and thank you.

the point of all this babble is that recently i realized that i was not taking good care of myself. i had felt it in my body for a few weeks, but it wasn't until 2 different people on the same day told me that i don't seem happy that i really started to think about it. my life here in this place doesn't allow for a ton of alone time. we have exactly 2 and 1/2 hours off each day to be alone. however, by the time that hour rolls around we are all usually tired and needing a nap, having to run errands, or want to take that time to hang out with people outside of our work environment. my break usually involves a slurpee with carissa, a nap in my room with emelia, time on facebook, and maybe..just maybe...a book. the bible if im lucky? rarely do i have time alone. and i know that its a choice. and i don't listen to my body enough. all i see are people in front of me that want to hang out, people i enjoy being around, distractions in technology in which i think i might be having "alone time" but really im looking at a computer screen peering into hundreds of people's lives and being quite overstimulated by the obsession of wanting to know what somone is doing that day.

and then i get smacked by my own bad choices. the joy i normally have fades. the smiles and laughs become a bit more fake because im just too tired. my eyes are glazed over when someone is talking to me. my heart aches because i haven't been in the Word in a week or two. i got smacked in the face on wednesday night. after the 2nd person that day told me i didn't seem happy, i lost it. its so easy to forget how much we are affecting other people by our mood. i hated that people could tell. could tell that i wasn't taking care of myself. calling my mom wrapped in a blanket on our porch as the rain literally poured down all around me made me feel better. 2 honest conversations with friends and many tears shed later i was ready. i went outside with my bible. the manna that i needed. i listened to the silence. i was quiet. i wasn't thinking about anyone but me. and god. and thats all who was there on that porch that night. me and god. i heard him. i heard my heart. lovingly reminding me of what i need. the importance of taking care of myself so that i have the strength to love someone else.

this is a long blog. and i really didn't even get to the point of why i wrote it until the last paragraph. but it was healing to write it.

i hope that if you are reading this (all 3 of you?) that you are reminded to take care of yourself. you are all you have. people need you. they need your cup to overflow onto them. fill yourself today. and then look for those people that need to be saturated with the overflow.