Hannah Koerner, Author at The Captivating Woman

January 21, 2016

10 Things I Wish I Would Have Known at 17

17 year old me knew a lot…or at least she thought she did. The older I get, the more I recognize she didn’t have it quite as together as she thought at the time, and that there was probably a lot of sage advice she should have paid attention to. The sci-fy nerd in me longs for the day a time machine will let me Back To The Future myself, giving that sage life advice that will save me countless hours of heartache, worry, tears and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Until that day happens, however, I’ve been given an ideal platform to share some of this wisdom in the hopes that it may save you a few hours of heartache, worry, tears and a maybe even a few of those pints of ice cream.

So without further adieu, here are:

10 Things I Wish I Would Have Truly Known at 17

Your mom is right far more often than she gets credit for, and has done so much more for your entire family than you ever saw. Give her more grace than you are inclined to be passing out: she’s only human, even with her flaws she is a truly exceptional mother, she deserves it, and you will come to treasure grace more than you realize right now.

Your dad is one of the biggest blessings in your life, you just don’t know it yet. Even when you do know it, you’ll have to fight through the discomfort to continue embracing it, because there will still be miscommunication, tears and heartache. It is one of the first relationships in your life (though nowhere near the last one) that will require quite a bit of work to repair a couple of decades of broken communication. The work is hard, and there will be times when you’ll want to throw in the towel, but I urge you…don’t give up. It’s worth it, I promise.

You’ll come to a place where you genuinely adore your too-large-family and all of their zany, often flat-out-weird ways, but you don’t always have to agree with them. Nor do you need them to always agree with you. Say it with me slowly: I don’t always need them to agree with me, to be doing something worthwhile. You’ve got to test out your own salvation (and life) with fear and trembling, and sometimes that means that you won’t always arrive at the same conclusions they do.

You were right about needing distance. Treasure your space, but don’t forget to invite people into it. You are just enough introvert that without a safe space to retreat to, it can feel like you are losing your mind. Don’t let people make you feel selfish or lazy for needing that, but don’t fully retreat into your own little hermit world either. Find healthy boundaries and stick to them. It’s lonely by yourself, and you resort to trying to be self-protective when alone too long.

It’s okay to love yourself. It’s hard, and it’s often exhausting, but it’s worth doing. It’s also okay to let people in on the fact that you think there might be something wrong with the way you love yourself. You won’t get the help you need until you start to let some people in on the murky parts that you can’t fix on your own

Some of the best opportunities in your life will seem entirely too big and scary for you to accomplish. You like being naturally good at things and tend to stick with the ones you excel at and shy away from the ones that make you feel lacking. Some of the stuff you attempt will fail miserably, but even more will surprise you with successes along the way. Do things that scare you, say yes to things (within reason) that aren’t totally comfortable. I am not at all advocating for throwing all reservations out the window and doing anything regardless of the consequences – your gut will save you an immense amount of potential trouble by avoiding things that are dangerous and laden with pitfalls. But there are loads of opportunities around you that are scary because you might not be good at them at first, or you might have to be vulnerable and end up getting hurt…consider doing them anyway. The list of things that is immediately terrifying to you is unfortunately long, but don’t settle for things that don’t make your heart pound a little. Be brave, and trust Jesus in scary places.

You will be one of those people who love Jesus and talks about him in weird ways. You can fight it for a long time, but eventually you’ll find yourself using “troll-jesus” in an entirely affectionate way. You get called to fast a lot (which if I know you, garnered an eye roll. It’s not what I would call fun, but it never fails to produce fruit), and you end up having conversations with complete strangers about things the Lord tells you to talk about. It will weird you out, it will feel entirely too charismatic, it will be uncomfortable, you won’t always see the pay off or purpose behind it, but this life with Jesus, even when it’s weird, is most definitely worthwhile.

You will also find yourself ripped from your very sheltered, comfortable existence when you actually let yourself see the agony and the joys in the rest of the world. Don’t avoid it because you are worried about who you’ll be when the chips have fallen – see it, recognize it and feel it. It’s hard and painful sometimes, but it’s the only way you recognize that God called you to be in it too.

Boys. You have this ideology at this point in your life that you will be married by the time you graduate from college. You are entirely too cynical to admit this out loud to anyone, and are currently on a year long fast from boys where you start to discover Jesus in ways you didn’t know were possible. You worry if there will ever be a boy who can see you, and love you for exactly who you are. Spoiler: There is no ring by spring in your college experience. But there are some really wonderful and really atrocious friendships with men (and a few funny stories about dates you didn’t anticipate too). They will shape what you think you want in a partner, and then God comes in and changes what you thought you wanted – time and time again. You don’t realize it yet, but much of what you believe to be true about the types of guys that will be attracted to you is wrong. There are a lot of lies you have to wade through to get down to the truth, and you’ll often be quick to forget the truth at first. There is nothing wrong with you if you make it to 18 without a significant other, or 21, or even 30. Yes it’s older than your parents were when they got married, but you’ll experience so many ways that you aren’t them in the years to come, and come to see that it’s okay to set your own pace on those things. Above all – wait on Jesus to bring the right one. You’ll spend too many hours wondering if this boy or that boy is the one God is preparing for you. When the time comes, you’ll know. Jesus isn’t going to leave you hanging on that – just be patient. Use that time to discover who you are, who Jesus made you to be, and the impact you can have on the world around you by letting him make your broken parts whole.

Finally, life in general pretty much ends up nothing like you thought it would. You aren’t in medical school, you aren’t a doctor. You end up in a field that has everything to do with healthy living, it just isn’t at all what you thought. You might as well begin relaxing that death grip on control now, because it’s going to be years of the Lord being far more in control than you’ll ever be, and it’s going to stress you out. There will be far too many “what comes next” moments for your comfort, but it all works out, even if you don’t see how until you’re in the thick of it. God doesn’t ditch you when things get tricky, stressful or complicated. He leads you through some questionable places, many a result of choices you made, but he doesn’t leave you to do it alone. You don’t get married as young as your original to do list said you should, but you travel, go to a bunch of concerts, eat incredible food, meet wonderful people and have so much to be thankful for. Don’t wish it away for a spouse or a job or a life in the hazy future. So many unbelievably crazy, hard and wonderful things happen in the seasons of your life that you have already deemed “wasted space”, set aside for nothing more than waiting for life to start. Work hard, appreciate your insatiable curiosity about everything, and above all trust that if you’re following Jesus, your life, even if it deviates far from your 10 year plan, is not wasted.

December 23, 2015

Advent – Day 25

We’re almost to Christmas! It’s easy for me to get caught up in planning Christmas festivities, making sure I’ve bought all of my Christmas gifts, making last minute travel plans, filling any time off with a laundry list of things that have to get done around my house – it seems like anything and everything that can distract me, will. Everything that is, except the story of Jesus and his birth.

Confession time: When I was a kid, my parents and grandparents always used to have us read the Christmas story in Luke before we opened presents. I learned at an early age that the birth of Jesus didn’t actually happen around Christmas, and that the cutesy version of the shepherds and the magi meeting up in the manger at the same time wasn’t historically accurate, so I admit I was a bit disenchanted with the story. Add that to the fact that I had such rampant curiosity about the gifts I hadn’t managed to figure out weeks before Christmas, and reading Luke was never at the top of my to-do list on December 24^th. It wasn’t that I wasn’t impressed by the story of Jesus’s birth. I had played Mary in enough church Christmas plays to think that the whole thing was pretty cool, I just think that 8 year old me had a bit of a skewed set of priorities.

Truthfully, it’s not difficult for 22 year old me to have a skewed set of them too, so I’m begrudgingly thankful when Advent rolls around and puts me in a position to think about more than just me. To read Matthew 2:1-12 and Luke 2:8-20 and think about what those meetings must have been like, regardless of the month of the year they actually took place. To meditate on the realization that both the Magi and the Shepherds brought treasures with them. The Magi, as most people know, brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh and they also bowed down and worshipped him. The Shepherds brought something that may have been even more valuable:

“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

The shepherds saw a group of angels who told them that a baby who had just been born was actually the Messiah who would save them all. They took an outlandish message from a cohort of angels in the sky, and they went on faith into Bethlehem to see Jesus. Once they had seen the confirmation they were told to look for, they went around telling everyone what they had been told about who Jesus was and what he would be.

I love the part that says, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” If she is anything like me, I’d imagine some of that thought process had to include a “Oh thank goodness, someone else believes it too. I’m not crazy. This is real. The Lord really talks to me, and he really said those things about this baby.” Maybe she never wavered, and if so I want to have faith more like that, but if she did, what a blessing it had to have been to this new mother to have these men say these things about her baby. To say these things that confirmed what she had known in her gut the last 9 months. That this baby was the Savior. That he was the Joy of The World. That her baby, this precious tiny baby, was the Messiah come in the flesh.

I want to follow Jesus this way. I want to hear outlandish things from God, and when I go and see the confirmation for myself, to be bold enough to talk about it, even if some people won’t believe me. To respond by giving God praise and glory. To say things that cause people to treasure them up and ponder them in their hearts, and let the Lord use me to confirm callings and words for other people.

To let my life proclaim: “Joy to the world! The Lord is come”

Joy to the World
Words by: Isaac Watts

Joy to the world! The Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room;
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing.
And heav’n and heav’n and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ.
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy

No more let sin and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness.
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders of His love.

Credit: Photo by Rachel K Duncan // http://www.rachelkduncan.com // Instagram: @rachelkduncan

December 14, 2015

Advent – Day 16

Lo! He Comes! Let All Adore Him
Words: Thomas Kelly

Lo! He comes! let all adore Him!
‘Tis the God of grace and truth!
Go! prepare the way before Him,
Make the rugged places smooth!
Lo! he comes, the mighty Lord!
Great His work, and His reward.

Let the valleys all be raised;
Go, make the crooked straight;
Let the mountains be abased;
Let all nature change its state;
Through the desert mark a road,
Make a highway for our God.

Through the desert God is going,
Through the desert waste and wild,
Where no goodly plant is growing,
Where no verdure ever smiled;
But the desert shall be glad,
And with venture soon be clad.

Where the thorn and brief flourished,
Trees shall there be seen to grow,
Planted by the Lord and nourished,
Stately, fair, and fruitful too;
They shall rise on every side,
They shall spread their branches wide.

From the hills and lofty mountains
Rivers shall be seen to flow,
There the Lord will open fountains,
Thence supply the plains below;
As He passes, every land
Shall confess His powerful hand.

I had never heard this hymn before sitting down to write this post. I debated on breaking down the definition of adore and lo, trying to change the way we read them in hymns. I searched the lines for something deep and revolutionary, trying to find something that would be brand new information. I can’t be faulted for missing an opportunity to try and reinvent the wheel – but as Jesus often does, what struck me about this hymn was not new information.

The second stanza says:

“Let the valleys all be raised; Go, make the crooked straight; Let the mountains be abased; Let all nature change its state;”

Go, make the crooked straight…let all nature change its state. What struck me most about this hymn is the reminder, yet again, that Jesus changes everything. The crooked, bent and broken parts of us are made new. All of nature is changed, because the Lord comes.

Nothing remains unaffected. Not even the driest, most barren of places can stay the way that it was when Jesus passes through.

“Through the desert God is going, through the desert waste and wild, where no goodly plant is growing, where no verdure ever smiled; but the desert shall be glad, and with venture soon be clad.”

We have hope because He came.

Death is not the end because He came.

We have victory because He came.

Our circumstances do not have the final say, because He came.

We are adopted into the kingdom of God because He came.

We can persevere because He came.

We are beautiful, worthy and have a purpose and value that cannot be refuted because He came.

Nothing remains hopeless, nothing remains unaffected, because He came.

Let these last few weeks of advent be refreshing, blessed and healing as you sit in the truth that Jesus changes everything.

Credit: Photo by Sarah Simon // Instagram: @themintgardener

December 4, 2015

Advent – Day 6

I adore the holidays. The air gets crisper, people are kinder, music gets merrier, and my car starts to smell like a Christmas tree; it’s the closest I think I’ll ever get to Hogwarts-level of magical.

It can also be one of the most packed and hectically scheduled times of the year. From mid September until New Years, I usually have 2-3 weekends that aren’t filled with events, parties or other time-commitments months in advance. When I am this busy, sometimes I think I’d lose my own head if it weren’t firmly attached. If I haven’t planned ahead to have stuff on hand that isn’t in the forefront of my mind, I’m almost certainly going to forget about it until it’s too late. Then because I needed those things and forgot, I’m scrambling to make it all work, and usually running late. This all converges to make me so much more likely to be stressed out, freaked out and very narrowly focused on what I need.

Unfortunately, this season is also one that is rife with opportunity to be selfless, thoughtful and generous – if we are being intentional about paying attention. I’m convinced that we miss out on dozens of opportunities to make a difference to those around us every single day, simply because we aren’t prepared and aware of what those needs look like.

As Christians, we know that we should be prepared for Jesus to come at a moment’s notice. We don’t get a calendar alert the night before, or a 15-minute warning. The Bible says that we should keep watch, because no man knows the day or the hour.

Matthew 25 tells it this way:

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

“ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

We know that can’t procrastinate with salvation, thinking we have time “some day” to get that taken care of. We’ve got to be prepared and aware. I think this concept extends far beyond just accepting salvation, however, and reaches into every facet of our Christian faith. If I go into a situation prepared to be selfless or generous, an opportunity will present itself to be those things, without fail.

That’s not to say that it always looks like we think it should or we picture in our heads. I remember once when I pulled up to Starbucks to work on some homework on a Saturday morning, I noticed a guy with a sign on the corner. When I went inside, I bought an extra breakfast sandwich and a coffee with the intention of giving it to him, but when I went back outside, he was gone. Feeling foolish for spending money I could have saved, I sat it next to me and figured if nothing else I’d eat it later, only to have a young guy walk in 30 minutes later who hadn’t eaten in several days. I was able to talk with him about who and where he was in life. After our conversation, the lady at the table sitting across from us had tears in her eyes and bought him lunch and several bottles of water.

I went in prepared to feed the man sitting on the corner, and nothing about that morning turned out like I thought it would, but the Lord didn’t let that intention and preparation go to waste. He brought someone else in my path that needed what I had to offer, and softened my heart and gave me the opportunity to speak life over him in the process.

I challenge you, in this advent season, to prepare yourself to be selfless, generous and thoughtful. Even if that just means committing to yourself to find one way to be kind to people who don’t deserve for you to respond that way, or asking someone about their story, or expressing gratitude – bring your extra jars of oil with you, so that when the opportunity presents itself, you won’t miss it.

Christian Children, Advent Bids You
Words by: Esther Wiglesworth

Christian children, Advent bids you
meet your Lord upon his way;
watch, for now the night is waning,
soon will dawn the endless day.

Christian children, Jesus bids you
daily pray “Thy kingdom come;”
watch, and wait for his appearing
till he come to take you home.

Christian children, he anoints you
with his Spirit from above;
see then that your lamps be burning
with the fire of faith and love.

Christian children, when we think not
we shall hear the aweful cry,
“Go ye forth to meet the Bridegroom;
haste, for Jesus draweth nigh!”

Christian children, they shall meet him,
faithful children of the light;
they whose lamps are trimmed and burning,
and their garments pure and white.

O how blessed to fall before him!
O how blessed his praise to sing!
Love him, serve him, and adore him,
in the city of our King!

Credit: Photo by Sarah Sandoval // Instagram @sarahhhvictoria

November 5, 2015

Meet Jessi Snapp

I first met Jessi through her Etsy shop Luminous Light Studio. I was going through a bit of a rough patch and was obsessed with Bethel’s You Make Me Brave album, especially “It Is Well”. I love the song as a whole, but the end of the song says:

“So let go my soul and trust in Him, the waves and wind still know His name.”

It struck such a chord in me and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I briefly considered tattooing it on my body, and upon further reflection, decided Etsy was probably a better option. I typed the lyrics into the search bar, and only one shop showed up – you guessed it – Luminous Light Studio. After a couple of days emailing back and forth about some personalization I was wanting, I found her website http://luminouslightstudio.com and fell in love with her work, her mission and the way she brings light into the dark. She graciously agreed to Skype with me and be interviewed for TCW.

Hannah: Hi! Thank you so much again for being willing to do this – I’m so excited! So first off, why don’t you introduce yourself? Who are you, where are you and what do you do with your life?
Jessi: Hi! My name is Jessi Snapp. I currently live in Indiana, I’m 27 and a full-time student and stay at home mom. I’m studying social work, and I finish this year. I own Luminous Light Studio and I’m a contributing writer for All That Love Can Do and as of October, I’m writing for Still Standing Magazine.

H: That’s so much! I’m so impressed that are managing school on top of everything else, and hooray for graduation being so close! Tell me about your family?
J: My husband and I have our son Ezra, who is 6 and Silas, who is in heaven.

H: That segues kind of perfectly into the next question. Tell me about your Etsy shop and how all of that got started?
J: Sure. The shop started in May. After losing Silas in August of 2014, I got involved in a community of women who had also lost babies to Tris, and it really became like a sisterhood to me. I started to paint their babies names in these watercolor memorials, and send them out to the families, hoping that I could bring even a little bit of a light to a dark situation. Eventually it got to a point where it was so expensive to keep sending them out for free that I didn’t know how I was going to keep doing it. Then we started the Etsy shop and a portion of our proceeds go to sending the paintings to the families who have lost their babies, free of charge.

H: That is so incredible. I read the story on the blog, so I knew a lot of that coming in to this, but to hear you tell it. So powerful. So on to a bit more frivolous question. If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?
J: Ah. That’s so hard to answer. If I could travel anywhere, I’d pick Heaven for a day. But within the realm of possibility, I’d have to say Australia.

H: Do you know any Captivating Women?
J: Yes! Rachel at The Heart Magazine is definitely who I think of when I think of Captivating Women. Her magazine is beautiful and celebrates women being real and honest about their own lives – the joys, the loss and the everyday things. Another is Carly Marie Dudley in Perth, AU. She does these really incredible sunset photos with babies names written in the sand. I have one for Silas, and I treasure it. Her website is full of beautiful art and you can follow her on Instagram @carlymariedudley. Also RaeAnne Frederickson – because she is amazing. She runs two support communities: one for parents who continue their pregnancies despite a fatal diagnosis and another for mothers living childless after loss. She lost her son Samuel & yet she finds it in her heart to support others. She is pure gold! And Lexi Behrndt of Scribbles & Crumbs. She writes avidly on large platforms about grief & loss. She is one of those beautiful souls who has a way with words and instills hope into the broken. She has quickly become a voice for so many. She also runs The Charlie Sawyer Project, which is a beautiful place for bereaved parents to share their children’s stories.

H: They sound like absolutely incredible women! It’s so cool to me the ways that people like these ladies are making the world brighter by utilizing their own gifts in such unique ways. Okay, so if you say anything to a 10 years younger version of you, what would you say?
J: That no matter what you face, there is always hope to be found. You can always find joy, even in the darkest of times.

H: I love that. It’s so true. What is your favorite goofy ritual or thing that you treasure doing with Ezra?
J: laughs He is such a silly little guy, that I think there could be a fairly long list there. One thing we are always doing: we love to scare each other, so we will both hide in the house and pop out and try and scare the other one.

H: That’s so precious! I love those kinds of traditions!! So the last of my silly questions, do you with all of your free time that you don’t have, have any favorite TV shows?
J: TV is a guilty pleasure of mine actually. I’m always doing other things while watching TV, but I love to watch it when I can. My husband and I love to watch Game of Thrones, it’s kind of our Sunday tradition, and we get really into it

H: I totally understand that. Leslie Knope is my spirit animal on so many levels and I’m still way too emotionally invested in Parks and Rec.
J: Oh! I love that show too.

At this point I hear a consistent knocking at the door to her office, and she calls out to Ezra that she’ll be finished in just a minute and then she will be free to play checkers with him. At the time, it made me giggle because he sounds like a really wonderful little guy, but the more I thought about it, the more that highlighted my impression of Jessi in general. Willing to take time out of a very full schedule and a very busy life to get to know the stories of others and share herself and her story in an attempt to let people know they aren’t alone in their grief and struggle. She has since published articles online with Huffington Post and Good Housekeeping, and is really wonderful each time at being very real and vulnerable without trying to sugar coat it or giving into hopelessness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone turn grief into such a thing of raw, honest beauty. Please check out her website at http://luminouslightstudio.com.

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