chiaroscuro

Chapter 1

A hand up…a hand to the left..she had learned to trust her strength as she felt her way along the ledge. More than her strength however, her intuition seemed to be telling her exactly how far the next minuscule outcropping was from the tips of her fingernails. Speaking of fingernails, she hadn’t had the time to inspect them, much less the stupid ambition to pull her hand from the face it was clinging to, but she could tell by the way they scraped against the baby pieces of gravel littering the ledges that they were most likely worn to the skin and in some cases, jagged as the day had been when that awful boy broke her heart with his.

The snake. He’d let her try to fill in all the cracks in his broken heart with hers, and just when he was to the point of being all healed up, he’d run off and torn it loose. He took the pieces she’d patched and left holes exactly that shape in her heart. Venom seeped in, manufactured from the essence of betrayal and angry sedition, eating at the edges until the mass that remained was bitter as 97% dark chocolate and its unpredictability was coursing like the chalk from the rock that was filling her lungs at this present juncture.

The anger lent itself to a cough (though that may have just been the chalk dust) and she shuddered at feeling the slightest variation in the position of her left foot. At this point in the game, there was really no room for variation. The slightest hiccup, literally, could be that catalyst to quicken her to death at the bottom of a ravine away from the face of the rock and probably away from her actual face…or at least some of her would be.

She eased her way to the next hand hold and gingerly began to test the vicinity for her foot's next temporary home. With this activity came thoughts of a longing to belong somewhere and to someone. A desire to have that niche to hold on to and return to when venturing out proved less safe than projected. To feel as though you were made for a specific belonging, as though your soul was a hand finding the one its fingers meshed perfectly with.

Putting her weight fully on the next step, she used her arms and legs to extend herself up to the next resting place. She felt the pleasant but taxing tightness as every muscle in her back strained together to bring her plan about. The tension and then the sweet release as she breathed into the space this new position created were tangible and simultaneously emotional. Finding a center to strike out into a great unknown, she set her body's compass by the top of the rock face and reached to Find something, anything to hold on to, since in her experience, rocks are unlike humanity in that they are steady, but similar in that they are overwhelmingly unforgiving.

At some moments she felt proud because she has climbed this high, but at others, she was stunned by the seeming impossibility of reaching the top. The unattainable top was an entity which could not be sensed by touching the rock or by calling out for it. The only way to get there was to keep striving, but even if some brave soul reached the top, there would be a taller peak to conquer somewhere and when you stand on the highest mountain top surveying the world, you are still dwarfed by those monumental galaxies of explorations you would give your soul to be able to access. The transcendence elevated her heart and crushed it at the same time. Though she climbs up infinitely, she will never reach the end of higher. This futility swallows souls, but the struggle becomes a purpose in itself, because apathy would slay you faster. She knew that she would never cease climbing and seeking that which is higher. Futility is no deterrent to the indomitable.

With all of this in mind, she turned her face to the highest point imaginable,  she gathered her resolve and reached out again. As these things sometimes go, the next grip she sought crumbled as she clutched at it, and though it was through no great fault of her own, she had not properly braced for a rocky betrayal. As her other limbs began to lose their grips as well, she felt the overwhelming peace of terror, a calm clutching in her throat, as if that was what her hand had grasped instead. Her back arched to try to save her, but to no avail. Her stomach leapt up to help, but he could do no good. She made one last effort to save herself, to keep the rock face close. It only served to, ironically, propel her higher for a split second before she was suddenly caught in a downdraft to oblivion.

Chapter 2

Aderyn opened her eyes. Her name meant bird and like a bird with a broken wing, she had plummeted right to this hospital bed. Indirectly of course, with an abrupt and painful stop at the bottom of a rock, she’d been told. The nurses were all whispering their amazement at the fact that a girl so young and from such a low class of society , characterized as hers was by disease and suffering, could survive such a fall with so few injuries. She sustained amazement that here in this cave, where all of civilization was contained, healers could be so adept with their fingers. In a society that dwells mostly in the dark, occupations requiring precision, generally suffer and cause suffering in others. In Aderyn’s case though, the healers had been able to prod out her broken ribs and set them. They’d bound up the gashes in her neck, side, back, forearms and thighs with skill and not too much pain after they gave her some of the darkest moonshine they could obtain.

End

Through her fluttering eyelids, the light poured in. A woozy sense of disorientation set down in the pit of her stomach, and Aderyn felt at peace. The light pushed past her lashes, it tickled at the edges of her lens and her pupil rejoiced painfully at its touch. Every nerve ending tingled and she felt as though all the cells between the front and back of her eye were struggling inwardly with whether to embrace this strange light and strain to drink in as much of it as they could, or to shrink back longingly, excited, but terrified of potential destruction from such unadulterated purity. Time since becoming aware of the presence of such a spectrum of wonder seemed to be standing still, eons upon eons of fullness, but at the same time as though these endless ages were contained in a single momentary sip from an ocean so wide it spanned eternity. Lying still in the kind of alone-ness that feels complete with no one else in the same universe that you are imagining, Aderyn absorbed the warmth, the orangey color seeping through her closed eyelids. It almost seemed as though her eyelids were blushing with joy in the presence of the light and could no longer contain their glee.

How does the light appear to you? Does it come in a form like a man? Like the face you’ve longed for all your life but never quite been able to dream into focus? Or is it more comparable to the softness of a puppy nestling in a fluffy ball by your side? Why would it come to you and not bring its warmth? Why would it not change everything. In the moment when the light illuminates every recessed cavern of your infinite being, your only choice is to give yourself up to this lucidity completely. Washing through her torrents, the light was transforming Aderyn as she saw that life had been only a shadow of everything that could be possible. Darkness can only fill to death, there must somewhere be something casting against the wall its every brightness, attempting to break down the walls containing the darkness so to better pervade all spaces with light.

superman

today i thought about

how many hearts are

breaking at

any given time

and then i thought in my overwhelmedness

that i’m glad i’m not superman

because he can hear all of that and more

and how much my heart breaks

for those whose hearts are broken

already

and then i realized

that Jesus knows the broken hearted too

in a real way and deeper than

any figment of superhero imaginings

and whereas neither

superman or i

could actually fix a broken heart

Jesus

can make them completely

new.

runaway

“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17

I have a picture in mind
I'm being lead in to a great wedding feast
My outfit is spotless
It's clean and brand new
The light around me glows with an
Incandescent quality
There is so much joy
And peace
But another picture presents itself
Inwardly as I see all this beauty around
I'm screaming at myself
"YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE"
The bridelike me sees the wedding food
Prepared to delicious perfection
But the being-reformed zombie corpse that's within me
Is trying to crawl on the floor scrounging up the most rotten foul scraps of imagination figments. 
Of things that I think will satisfy my hungers.
The zombie me is running full heat toward
The gates where I was carried in
Right after that Bridegroom started my heart.
The blood he caused to course through my veins
Is such a burning cleansing flow
That I try to avoid it
And the death that is still prevalent among my members cringes back and begins screaming and scrambling, trying to tear me apart 
Because clearly destruction would be better than this new foreign me that is being regenerated.
As I'm constantly running back toward that gate to the dung heap He dug me out of
The faltering beats of this heart that I didn't know existed
Keep stopping me knocking me down about face to the light that is changing the skin on my frame
When this happens with some slightly increasing rapidity
The glimpses of bride-me are clearer in mind
And although i'm running flat out for the door
He stops me and says "Death will not win any more."
And he carries me back to the feast
And day by day we repeat this retreat
But the other part I haven't told you about
He's taking the rock that he made start to beat
And he's cutting out chunks and it's starting to bleed
But the blood makes the next tiny part come to life
And each time he lets out his fierce warrior scream
He's dressing the kill that He gave a first life
And His song is a noble "here comes my bride."

Dear Girl

Dear girl,
Do you know that you are not incomplete?
Do you know that all you need
is the One who loves you forever and ever and ever?
Do you know that no matter the man
and no matter the time
and no matter the amount of children you may have
you will still be responsible to
love the lord your God with all your heart and soul
and your mind and strength
which means every fiber of your being?
Did you know that a husband will never satisfy you?
Did you know that you will always have to fight for contentment
and satisfaction in the one who deserves your soul.
The only confident joy we can have is when we are
running with wild abandon
toward our creator.
You have so much love to give, so give it.
You have so much life to live, so please go out and live it.
You were meant to be in relationships with everyone
whom God has put around you. Love them, pour out your life to them
for the One who poured His out for you.
I love love and I love marriage as much as any of us.
I hold that paradigm in highest regard
Jesus loved me and that is beautiful
Husbands and wives were meant to preach that beautiful gospel with
their love and commitment.
But even if I am never part of that earthly show
I'm a participant in the marriage of the Lamb.
This is the will of God, your sanctification,
not your earthly companion fixation.

flying over

What if the inner workings of the earth are a tree
and the canyons are marks of their roots reachingout
Clutching and straining to get to the sun
To grow up a tower to reach up to heaven
Fighting the clouds for control of the sky
Overwhelming the mesas that already died
With their thready needy arms of red
Flexing their fingers to push up again
Consuming our planet inside out

actually in love

I’m flying down this straightaway with the wind whipping me in the face

and I’m getting the bass confused with my heartbeats.

I can’t believe there are not more hearts beating

in the small speeding worlds around me known as cars for this

infectious fever that I’d like to call “Night Driving with the windows down."

Can you catch it?

It's where you see the ebullient lights flying by

and the bright headlamps of the cars behind you may actually

be the eyes of a pack of predators daring you to go faster, faster.

But there is more. As you focus to look through the maze

mapped out ahead with only your joy as your guide

you may begin to feel a smile spreading over your face.

If you let it get to the extreme of toothy, your soul may explode

out in a display of rainbowed mirth, only slightly discernible

at this point from the tendrils of hair

which the wind is caressing and playing with

around your face at 100 mph. 

Can you feel it?

It’s the screaming, tingling, dancing overflow of

getting to be here: alive and free.

Paper Airplanes (Or what they mean to me)

I'm only a paper airplane,

Crafted with clever design

Fragile and prone to be easily torn

Spiraling up through his air.

Launched for the joy of my maker

Carried on winds of His will

Unlike a paper airplane's breeze

My maker's will is strong

My altitude may rise or fall

His gale will bear me through

Unto the harbour he's prepared

With all my tears made new.

Jealous of the Stars {A Song}

I’m jealous of the stars because
They’ve seen your face far more than I
And I’m jealous of the girl who holds your hand
I’ve read the page that tells of love
and now and then I think about
how jealousy and love are not the same

How can I be expected to contain
All the things I feel inside when
There’s no rhyme or reason to your ways and I miss you all the time

I don’t know how or where or why
You stole my heart or how we’ll die
But you’ve got something mine still there with you
Please forgive me for the tears
I cried at night when missing you
I love you and I hope you’re doing fine

You stole my heart so i’ll steel my mind
And I’ll try to forgive you one last time
The words are easy but the rush is strong
No more jealousy I’ll love you ever long

Church scribblings

Your ways are far above me
I can't get to where you are
You far surpass my furthest reachings
But you came down to make me yours

 And I am weak but you are strong enough to save me
I am lost, you're a burning light to guide me
In my lowliness your righteousness has covered my disgrace
Change me, make me wholly run to you

A Song I wrote tonight

I’ve seen the snowflakes fall on Jerusalem
I’ve seen a change fall over the hearts of men
 I’ve seen the old men wand’rin while the young men die
Leveled mountains try to reach the sky.

 **
 Darlings run while their sweethearts cry
Dreams forgotten turn their faces high
 Coasts we knew turn and wave again
And the deepest woods pull our hearts to them

**
But we are the stately few
We run amok
as the Titans do
Our hearts are longing for our lightning days
for ancient zephyrs to take us all away

 **
We’ll come again in the harvest sun
Conquer the fears of the lonely ones
 The sprites and the pharaohs have passed along
Their dust has paved all the roads we roam

not worth forgetting

There are certain things I don’t think I’ll ever forget. The word for water bottle in Hebrew, because I was thirsty on a dig and the Israelis I was working with told it to me. The word for bucket in Hebrew, because on the dig, every ten minutes everyone across the whole site was yelling it so we would do a line tossing the buckets up to where they could be emptied. You don’t forget things that people yell about and throw at you. Hadassah Rosen. 5 years old. Poland. Holocaust victim. Heard her name in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel. Major impact. 5 year olds have been killed many times. The impact goes on and on, we pray, regret, remember, and hold out hope.

Excerpt from my most recent support update letter...

I love being in service here with my brothers and sisters, but I am so excited to go for His glory. My dad’s been talking about how we are all to be goers or senders for missions, and when that gets mentioned there is a great stirring in my heart to be the one who goes. As much as I am enjoying this stage of my life, working with the kids, meeting new people and reaching out, serving here in Florida, I have a great love for what God is doing around the world and truly desire to use my giftedness in Spain. When I get to do photography, I feel like I am doing something that I was created to do, but I have a longing to use it in conjunction with ministry. I am still awed that God has set up this opportunity to serve Him and spread His name among the nations with media. God is truly abundantly good.

As Christmas comes, I’m meditating on Isaiah 53. It’s always amazed me how this chapter was written so long before Christ, and yet could have been written from the foot of the cross. John Wesley said that when he heard the Gospel his heart was “strangely warmed.” That is what I feel when I read this chapter with its rich promise of a savior. In the spirit of Thanksgiving past, I am overwhelmingly thankful for my Savior, and as I look forward to Christmas and celebrating the fact that God was moved by mercy and love and became a man to die for me I am particularly drawn to these verses.

Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied;
by His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and He shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, 
and He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
 because He poured out his soul to death 
and was numbered with the transgressors; 
yet He bore the sin of many, 
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:11-12 ESV)

They are a promise to those under the old covenant that redemption would come, to us they testify that Jesus’ work will triumph, that he WILL be satisfied and have His portion…a people for His own possession. This encourages me so much as I partake in the local church, worship Him, and look forward to serving Him in Spain. 

life

bought by the king
my conquerer sings
blood bought and protected
majestically saved
the old one's been broken
but still I hear his dying screams of
lust and fear and apathy
i fall to its sound torture often
but less and less as i get
closer to my maker redeemer's
joyous arms full of
peace and grace and satisfaction.

What is the color of repentance?

So they say black is the color of mourning and that joy comes with the morning. What then is the color of repentance? My best guess is that it is all the colors of the entire journey from the darkest midnight of grief to the most ebullient of sunrises.

Sometimes

Sometimes I get hungry for the beauty of a wild coastline. I want to get lost in the fog and stand there with the cold wind blowing in my face. I need the fierce beauty that is terrifying but still so full of overwhelming joy that the smile on my face will grow into a shout full of wonder and awe. I am overwhelmed that the God who created such a dangerous loveliness has reached inside my heart to make me His.

thirsty

i'm desperate for your mercy
i'm hungry for your grace
i'm thirsting for your righteousness
come and turn my faith to sight

Journeys of Discipleship

Discipleship is truly all about God making you like Jesus, about sanctification, about how God is working in his people to continually reconcile them ALL to Himself.

Today I want to talk about several discipleship relationships I have been involved in over the course of my walk with the Lord. Some of them are formal, where we actually said “I want to meet with you for the purpose of discipleship,” some were more informal, and in those, so much of the time that we got together was spent in encouraging each other to run hard after Christ, be satisfied in Him and pursue His righteousness.

I believe that is the true purpose of discipleship, that it is part of the mission of the church, to bring each other to maturity in Christ. To LOVE each other in that direction.

My earliest and most constant discipleship relationship is with my mom, Myra. As I get older I see a lot more of the ways in which we are alike and I am so happy to see that. I blame it mostly on her constant involvement in my life and commitment to loving me the way Jesus would have her love me. Many people assume that discipleship is getting together and going through a book, and while we have at times done that, with tea and chocolate handy, so much of what I consider her discipleship to me is just her living her life in a way that glorifies God while having me around.

Something that I think she has done a wonderful job with is not giving up on being in my life, even when it was hard. In my early teenage years, for some reason it was incredibly hard for me to communicate with anyone, and anytime she tried to talk to me about anything serious I would end up crying and upset. She didn’t let that stop our relationship though, she got a journal and we would write each other back and forth about what was going on in our lives and what I was thinking and she would encourage me through that. She knows that often when I am up against a tough decision or some difficult circumstances and am not responding correctly, that I already know the truth, and the right way to respond, and that the best way to encourage me is to point me toward Christ and give me lots of hugs.

God has made her not afraid to show when she fails and she has demonstrated how she runs to her savior in these times and how to rightly treat other people when you have failed. I believe that this sort of transparency is incredibly important as we disciple and are disciple. As I have grown from just being her daughter to being her friend, God has allowed me to encourage her too, and I am very thankful for that.

Although my mom has been such a wonderful influence in my life, God has brought others along in my larger family, the church who he has used in my journey to love me toward Christ.

When we lived in Vallejo there was a woman named Deana, she is about 5 or 6 years older than me, got married at 18, has two kids and a husband in seminary. Though our lives to this point have been very different, all through my high school years we always connected and I always felt that I could come to her for encouragement and that I wouldn’t be judged for my struggles. We both were “officially” meeting with other people, but she was always someone I connected with. She took time to be interested in my life and listen to me. When I came back from two years away at college, she and her husband had moved ministries to our church’s college group and neither of us were meeting with anyone. She was still available to just be that encouraging presence for me and so I asked her to disciple me.

We started getting together and planned a book to go through. Although going through the book was great, the thing I appreciated was that she was not going to hold onto some program, but really try to be the encourager that I needed when I needed it. There were many times when we got together that we would just talk about our lives, pray, cook together, or take her kids to Costco. I appreciated that she was willing to just have me in her life and let me see how someone in a stage of life that I hope to one day be in loves Jesus. She was transparent, her kids were crawling all over us, it was real. She had things for me to pray for her about just as she prayed for me. She didn’t set herself up as an authority over me, but pointed me to the word in a loving way and was always interested if I knew something in an area that she didn’t. I learned a lot about how discipleship is a mutual encouragement.

God used her love, listening, and life experience to help me break a pattern of sin in my life. I was at a point where a sin was really disrupting my walk with the Lord, I was very depressed, and even asked God if He existed, because I saw my sin and knew how unworthy I was of a love like His. I was pretty broken and I was tired of pretending that everything was ok. I was tired of knowing the sin in my heart, but feeling like everyone around me was doing so well. Deana AND my mom knew something was going on, but both of them continued to love me and pray for me faithfully, even though I didn’t know it. God brought me to a point where I confessed my sin and doubt to Deana, fearfully, not knowing how she would respond, but I didn’t care anymore because I was so tired of it. She lovingly listened to me, let me cry, told me that she had struggled with the same thing before, prayed for me and pointed me to encouragement from the word about God’s love for me and His forgiveness. God gave me joy through that, and that led to even telling my mom about what I’d been going through and further healing. They didn’t judge me, they loved me and pointed me to the cross and the love of Christ as the answer for pain and sin. I knew those things, and I was saved, but this showed me how God uses people in His church to encourage others and help with growth and repentance and pointed me back in that direction. We are all equals in our sin and in the grace we receive, we are to show this to others when they fall and love them as fellow recipients of restoring grace.

Not too long after this, while I was serving in our church’s junior high ministry, God brought a girl in the ministry who wanted to start getting together with me for discipleship. It was a big answer to prayer, because while I wanted to be involved in discipling, and I do believe there were people I was involved with unofficially in this way, I wanted it to be at someone’s request. I wanted it to be because I had built a relationship with someone and they saw that it would be beneficial in their life. I didn’t want to try to manufacture that with someone. A discipleship relationship requires trust and transparency and if someone has no prior experience with you that shows them this, it’s most likely not going to work very well.

So we started building our relationship and she asked me if I would start meeting with her! This was a very different experience for me. I knew that I didn’t want to be fake, I didn’t want to set myself up as an authority in her life, I knew she already had Christian parents, so she didn’t need that sort of figure in her life. I just decided that my role would be to encourage her, love her, and point her to Christ. Basically I wanted to do for her what Deana and my mom had done in my life. We started meeting and it was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. Not because I felt like some great spiritual mentor, or that I was God’s great gift of wisdom to her or because we made it through a lot of books or anything. We didn’t make it through a lot of books, we started a basic theology book and got through about a chapter and a half of it in the whole time we were meeting. I often went to our meetings feeling like I was empty, like I had no idea what God wanted me to say to her, like a bit of a failure because I didn’t have some great thing planned to teach her. This of course was all silly, because God was working on my heart and He wanted me to share my life and the things he was teaching me with her.

I fully believe that God wanted me to KNOW how inadequate I was, because he was graciously teaching me exactly what she needed. As I met with her, committed to listen to her about her life and encourage her to love Christ above all, the answers came. I usually felt like I was maybe half a step ahead, because usually the advice she needed was something I had been struggling through applying to my own heart that morning or the night before. I had to face my own conviction in order to give her the encouragement that she needed. And it was hard, but I needed to say, “Oh, you’re struggling with an issue with your parents today? That’s funny, because I was really upset with my dad about basically the same thing this morning and this is what I need to do to be right with him and with God, and we’re in the same boat, so this is what we both need to do.”

That transparency was so important. I learned that we can’t set ourselves up to be some great Christian role model, because God will humble us until we remember that we are just sinners who He has loved. When he uses us in someone else’s sanctification process, it is really just another part of ours. I am so thankful that I have seen my dear girl, my friend, grow so much through the time that we met and even since then. She is such an encouragement to me, when we met, it usually just turned to praising the Lord for his goodness and for who he is. I truly believe that helping someone see the glory of a great God will change their hearts and lives.

I have had less than positive discipleship relationships. I have seen others have someone attempt to “be their discipler” but not be willing to be transparent. I've seen some who want people they meet with to only see the parts of their life that they have under control, but unless they can see how the grace of God is changing your life, how will they grow in that? Others expect “their disciple” to trust them with the deepest heart issues without wanting to really be involved in their life more than an hour a week. I have seen some who listen to issues and then give out 5 verses and expect the disciplined disciple to come back better next time. I have seen lots of people attempting to disciple others through a very academic process, assigning papers and books and books to memorize, though what the “discipled” needed was someone to see that they were struggling with school and with loving Christ at all.

A revelation that struck me while I was writing this all out is that, even though these experiences happen, God is the one who in ALL my experiences is discipling me. He is creating the heart of a true disciple and believer and in his sovereignty He gives relationships that may not be ideal, but which are used to show us pride in our hearts and to make us grow. So even though these may not have been the way I wish they had been or think would have been right, I am thankful for them.

I thank God for his process of conforming my desires to his and that He has allowed me to be part of His church, using others in my life, and using me in others’ lives. This is how he makes us grow.

Excerpts from my update letter

              This year has been a whirlwind in so many ways. I finished my photography degree, took a trip to Myanmar, moved to Florida with my family, and then God brought this opportunity to serve as a missionary! I am so humbled and grateful that He would call me to go do the things I love, photography and video work, in His service. It is such an amazing opportunity to further His kingdom in Spain. 
                I keep going back to the fact that God is in control of when I get to Spain, He will do it in His timing, and I am happy to wait on Him for my support and trust Him to provide it how He wants to. I feel that God is constantly teaching me to humble myself and put my trust in Him for everything. I fully expect Him to teach me this for the rest of my life. I know I have just begun, but I have already seen Him provide from unexpected corners. In The Chronicles of Narnia: the Silver Chair, Aslan tells Jill that she must keep ever watchful for signs of the way that He is leading her. Like Jill, I am striving to be vigilant for the signs of God’s grace and His mighty hand.

               I’m learning to lay aside my expectations of how He is going to work and just watch for the signs of His grace in my life. It’s not the easiest journey, but it is a good one.

Life thoughts

when you despair because 
we are so unworthy of the calling
remember, it’s ok,
because this life is not about us,
it’s about Him who is just
and our justifier
and He knows the extent of our unworthiness
far better than we do
yet He calls us anyway
and sets His love upon us
and commits to carrying us through
til we see His face 
with our eyes, not just faith
and He will have His
spotless bride.
And He just wants us
to surrender
to His loving arms
and 
hunger and
thirst
for His
righteousness.

journey

can we waltz in the rain

on this dark windy night

find the cold where it’s hiding

and turn on the light

there are evergreen shades

and sonderous hues

of a monstrous potential,

a cessna’s eyeview

spin through the skydrops

and fall through the woods

eat up the moonbeam dust

drink of the air

fly past the brandywine

into the east

dive through a comet trail

find us complete.