on life and death

I think we should be talking about a topic that, generally speaking, a lot of us tend to avoid.

We let the moments of our days burlap-cover and tuck underneath what fear says we can somehow protect. We force-feed ourselves with various remedies that we think will manipulate a kind of growth to make our heart superhero-strong from pain.

Just below the undergrowth that we use to camouflage the tender shoots of our heart is a unique, one-of-a-kind treasure that was specifically designed for this crazy, mixed up, wild-like world. Yet, we don't believe it.

Acknowledging death in the periphery of our vision, we shirk off any consideration that our hearts matter and we try to better ourselves with busyness, expecting it will actually give us life.

Fear partitions us from our senses, keeping us focused on protecting ourselves at all costs.

We sacrifice the gift we can unwrap in tasting flavors mixed together because we're so famished for attention and we have this idea that we need to look a certain way to have what we crave.

Engaging with our children or even noticing them as they play feels like a waste of precious time and we want to do things that really matter, so we sacrifice the gift of seeing and feeling all that play and the perspective of a child can give us.

. . . and the list goes on.

People have shared their experience with me of how quickly time goes and they have encouraged me to hold onto it and to treasure the moments before their gone. Though they've been well-intentioned in their advice, I've always felt like their comments were itchy, like a wool sweater. I want to appreciate it for its warmth and comfort, yet this heaviness I experience with this kind of advice is sometimes too much for me.

I'm discovering that time is not something we can control. The vulnerability of not being as strong as we would like to be is what scares us the most I think. We fear the imperfect of our humanity, that we will miss something about a moment, or that our choices in how we allocate our time will somehow be wrong.

I believe that we were created by God who fully knew that we'd make mistakes. To go a step further, I believe He purposely created us this way.

We would be wise to face the hard fact: we will always miss some. thing.

We were purposely created as imperfect beings. This may be simple truth to some people, yet for me I somehow managed to misplace my focus for so many years. I spent my living days aware of my imperfections and thinking that my purpose each day was to fix me, or at least make strides toward fixing . . . toward perfecting what isn't. I thought God tasked me with the responsibility of fixing His mistakes or what He left undone.

My fear of complacency has been like a worm that wreaks havoc on a body, including the neurological system. I was afraid that if I accepted my imperfections then I was resigning myself, giving up on what I could be, and that I won't have what I hope for if I don't put in the effort to get there.

Did I think that my hope was used as some sort of carrot to be someone better?

Did I think life was a cruel test of will? 

Perhaps it's the American way, or maybe it's just me, but somehow I thought success was a constant highway of always improving, always growing, always striving; while, maybe, someday, arriving . . . at least mostly.

In the Spring I was faced with a question that rocked my world:

     How have I spent my life so far?

Truthfully, my own answer made me cry. Because, for so long I wanted to be someone who I'm not -- at least not yet. I've held such hope in my heart that I'll be someone different or better and so I've focused on being her, instead of simply me.

I didn't consider Who gave me my hope . . . Who will lead me to see it fulfilled . . . Who wrote a part for me in the plan for this world.

When I stood at the altar nearly 14 years ago and committed my life to my groom, words stirred in me that have stuck with me. They were words that made me consider how limited my time with him will be and that is what I focused on more so than the other part -- the part that said, "I love you so much I am giving this man to you as an example of my love for you."

There weren't expectations that I be someone who I wasn't, just that I know I am loved. That I receive the gift.

Back then I was ten pounds heavier than I am now. I didn't think then that I had any weight that I needed to lose. Now, if on any given day I'm a bit squishier or pudgier than the previous day, I somehow think I need to hide from the man who said he'd love me until death and who shows it to me everyday with his steadfast stickwithitness. Because, I've learned to eat even more healthy and to take care of my body even better than I did before. Knowledge has side-swiped me from living free to living focused.

I've focused so much on the end -- on when our end will be and how it could be any time, or on what is good for me and will help avoid this or that disease.

I've focused on so much that I thought would protect me that I limited myself from simply falling into the moments and receiving them. 

Living free is vulnerable and scary. I've seen people have the proverbial rug pulled out from underneath them, gutted by utter surprise at death or disease and I've not wanted to be left in a lurch like that, so I've done everything I could do to prepare myself and protect myself.

: : : 

This summer has felt a bit more like winter to me in that it's been a time of restful sitting on the couch with a cleared agenda and calendar. That my family and I haven't had plans has actually felt refreshing, like the comfort and warmth of a blanket.

I've discovered that I actually want to be home, even though it's not exactly the way I want it to be. Traveling and hustling with plans to do this and that really is just one big headache and my typical attempt to avoid the discomfort of imperfection.

I've discovered that I'm loved, even though I'm a wreck a lot of the time and as much of a yo-yo emotionally as the weight of my body. I've felt like new life is hidden just underneath the burlap and that an unfurling will happen, even though it's not quite happening when I think it should.

In the midst of feeling like each moment I live is one step away from falling on an icy patch and feeling tempted to be timid even to breathe, much less walk, I've realized that like my legs, my heart actually feels better when I exercise it instead of focusing so much on keeping myself safe and secure.

I found that by accepting the conditions of each moment, I am able to really live. And by that I mean, to embrace joy in the midst of the jaw-gripping, fault lines of life.

There's a young man who died recently, sparking so many conversations about people's perceptions of other people, particularly of biases as it relates to race. So much of the world noticed because the killing seemed unfair, judgmental, and irresponsible. People have been angry and rightfully so, yet I wonder if they expected some sort of perfect that hasn't transformed humans in spite of the strides that have been taken around human rights.

There's another young man who died recently, sparking another kind of conversation about how experience and success should somehow making him exempt from incurring pain or harming another person.

And then there's a third young man who died recently, sparking attention from a smallish-size group. Though not a nation-wide news story, people stood in lines for hours upon hours yesterday to pay their respects to a roughly 40-year old young man's family -- a village bartender -- who suddenly died of a heart attack.

I feel badly for the families of these men. I feel badly for their having the weight of sadness and for how these deaths have affected so many other people connected with them. I even feel badly for seeing goodness in all of these stories, because declaring any smidge of beauty in the brokenness feels so trite and dismissive of the pain people are experiencing.

Yet . . . I believe there really is more beauty than there is brokenness in this world . . . and most especially, that brokenness always gives way to beauty -- that it's purposed, even though we sometimes can't fathom how or even begin to pretend that we agree.

In the winter-like summer that I have experienced this year, I have hibernated and learned to rest. While doing so, I have contemplated the fragility of life and the risk of love and life.

I decided that I want to live, even if it means I'll experience brokenness.

I decided that holding my heart hostage from joy is more torture than any loss could ever be.

Death will happen. I will likely come when I least expect it. And though I am sometimes tempted to consider which way is a better way or which is a crueler way, I want to stop doing that as often and instead just breathe -- while I can -- sipping, savoring, and sometimes even slurping down the moments.

I'll sometimes evoke all my senses and might even taste life as I drink it in, yet there will be times when I'll gulp it right down with the mindlessness of a 1,000-thoughts-at-once frantic human being.

Maybe talking about death more would help us to be more comfortable with the imperfect nature of how it comes upon us. Maybe it would help us not to be so consumed with the idea that we can somehow perfect our handling of it.

Like parents do with children, we will mess up life.

We will forget to watch our tone and we'll even forget to wash our hands. We will forget that we really don't want the cookie and we'll reach for vices that have become our habits.

Life isn't something we can perfect or get through without pain. Though we want to be better, the truth is that we will die and we will die imperfect.

I don't want to spend all my energy trying to perfect me (or others) when I'll never finish the job anyway. 

I've decided that if Someone decided this world was worth having me a part it, then I can trust that Someone knows better than me.

That Someone wants me to embrace what is, as it is -- even what isn't exactly right or how I'd like it, including myself and other people.

Who am I to question Someone's Art?

Linking with Jennifer and Bonnie.

where I'm at these days

I've been somewhat quiet for awhile now. Here and in life.

I had mentioned at some point on Facebook awhile back that I was on a "mini-sabbatical". I didn't have an explanation for it, all I knew was that it was necessary and needed to be immediate. I still go on social media every now and then, but only when I want to and mostly only for a few minutes, at most. I've missed most of what's on the feed and I'm less wanting to be in the know about all things.

Some friends have wondered if I even care about them anymore. Their questioning of my heart has wounded me and worried me. I do care quite deeply about them all, yet my heart has undergone some serious repair that has adjusted how much of it I parcel off. I need to honor this and take the time my body needs to not just recover (because I hope I never recover from a change like this), but to recalibrate my very life. I need to let God do what He wants to do in their life, too, and loose even them. God weaved us together and I need to trust that nothing is lost with Him, not even friendships.

After being so lookatmeish and longing for attention for so long, what I seek now is the quieter moments where there's more space for living. Some people call this the margin and some call it whitespace. Name aside, it's the wide open sky of life where there isn't anything clouding my personal view.

I've been waiting around for so much, so many unrealized dreams, and I realized that I could miss the importance of these days -- these glory-filled days.

     . . . these days when my quirkiness reminds me that I am creative

          . . . when my dreaming reminds me of uncertainties
          . . . when hardly anything I do or say is right, reminding me that all is redeemed

     . . . these days when my waiting actively perfects my patience.

God is so personal in how He loves us, speaking our language and communicating to us in ways He knows we'll best understand.

I've lived with a personal conviction to pursue excellence in all things. The thing with passions is that they can become tangled up in all we do, like a vine that chokes and strangles life itself when it's meant to support growing beauty. My passion to excel led to a tightly gripped life. For so long my muscles flexed to the point that they didn't know how to un-flex. I became stiff and rigid like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. More to the point, I became dry and brittle.

Relaxing was something I simply couldn't give myself permission to do and furthermore, is something I didn't know how to do.

And so began the year of doing nothing aside from living moment-by-moment. It was the year of not going to church. The year of sitting on my couch weekend after weekend when we weren't in the ice rink or on the road to the ice rink. It was the year of bi-weekly housecleaning. Of multiple days off from working out. It was the year of no baking and hardly any dinner guests. Of avoiding invitations from friends. Of saying no to just about everything.

Last year was about learning to stay put and simply be. It prepared me for this year, to accept what is and embrace who I am -- to learn to live.

Along the way I have faced a few things that needed my attention, like confession and repentance, surrender and patience, fear and joy. All throughout my journey I felt the invitation to "Come . . . Rest . . . Be." You'd think it'd be easy. And for some, perhaps it is. But God's shown me that we all have something. For those folks there's probably something that they struggle with that I don't, and so I can rest from comparing or shoulding myself to be better or different in any particular way.

There is a manuscript that I began and dragged my feet over finishing, stalling until I finally surrendered to the sheer pain of trying to resist it. At that point I so much wanted it to be done that I nearly bludgeoned myself to death with a self-imposed deadline that was more fear based than faith. I miraculously met my specific goal, only to find out that "it isn't done". Though I did all I could do, there's still time to be lived and a process to go through until all the words can find a rhythm to them that makes the message ever clearer. I have to wait on this part. I have to live. I have to breathe. I have to rest.

And so, when all around me I see people announcing book deals and launching their first, second, and even third or fourth book, I take a deep breath. I pray for them to fall deeply into rest, even as life whirls and twirls all tornado-like in front of them. I lift up their fears and anxiousness, and I intercede on their behalf to sip and savor the sweet moments of life, resting as they live.

As it turned out, writing the 68,800, or so words I puzzle-pieced together was the easy part. I actually siphoned off bunches and bunches of words and filed them away for other potential projects. What took the most out of me was the obedience part. The doing. The disciplined doing. The doing even though I feared. The doing even though I ached just to have it over. At the end, I'd had enough of it and sensed that I needed it out of my hands and so I shipped it to a few friends. My heart knew it was, again, all about obedience. Yet, my head wanted affirmation that what I did wasn't a waste.

Crickets. Just crickets.

Silence from my friends was a clear gift of grace, actually. Through my wondering if all my effort was junk or if I actually made sense, I discovered a whole new element to my senses that I hadn't ever experienced. At first I thought maybe I was all mixed up, but God taught me that sight isn't just reserved for the eyes, and hearing isn't just reserved for the ears. The same with tasting and touching, they aren't just reserved for the tongue and the nerves. We teach our children that there are restrictions and rules to the senses, defining them so matter of factly. Yet, imagination and creativity were a part of God's design. He gave us a heart and a soul that defines in ways Webster and others couldn't ever. I'm learning this.

And so, these are the days when I'm breathing differently, sleeping differently, and overall positioning my life differently. These are the days I'm learning to experience and not exploit or explicate. Our family calendar is practically blank, though it doesn't mean that we aren't dreaming and discussing ideas and options. We're careful in our considering, letting time settle our thoughts and sifting them together at an unrushed and less frantic pace. I'm really not nearly as busy as people think I am, and for now I'd like to just keep it that way . . . they with their preconceived notions about me, and me with my little secret.

Sifting always gives way to hidden things. We're finding glitter in our togetherness of sifting. We've not been panhandling for gold, it's more that we've been panhandling for grace, my groom and me.

I'm craving community, though honestly I'm not ready for it yet. And so, we sift and stir and sip and savor these moments, these things of which glory is made of . . .

     . . . the all day long smiles and belly-busting laughter
     . . . the reach-up-my-skirt-while-I-cut-the-peppers-and-make-me-giggle moments

I'm forgetting to bathe the dog and instead learning more about how to throw the lacrosse stick . . . I'm folding laundry and reading novels instead of pounding out miles upon miles in a run . . . I'm listening to The Boy-Man read his own work-in-progress book and pondering all we've gained from our choice to keep him home with us all during his fourth grade year . . . I'm preparing for community in our son's return to playing for our hometown youth ice hockey club and all the politics and personas and particulars that will come of that . . .

These are the days of saying no, thank you to potential job opportunities and moves. The days of learning to stay and be still and let things just settle -- for the wind to die down and the clouds to part and the storm of life to streak beauty across our horizon. The days of hearing a song on the radio and knowing so fully just how much I am loved, of finally getting it and falling in love all over again.

These are the days of tasting again all that delights me and realizing I honor Him when I choose the things He gave me pleasure for and not restrict myself from joy. Of waking up later. Of whispering and saying less because my mouth would rather rest and my eyes would rather feel.

When I say these are glory days, I don't mean to imply these are grit-free days, because they aren't.

It's painful to learn to rest. My legs literally ached for two weeks straight as they developed the muscle-memory to trust more and try less. It hurt my body to simply be. The process has taken time and I still haven't arrived. I'm still quiet and less about making plans.

I still fear people will think I don't care about them and it pains me to even consider their potential thought, yet I know that my honor belongs to One . . . and by learning to rest and not be all things to others, maybe my void will give Him room to move in their life, too.

And so, I'm living these days without a plan or even an inkling of what's next. All I know is that these days I'm living . . . in joy.

Linking with Jennifer and Bonnie. 

on stepping back and submitting to rest

Two weeks ago I thought I finished a manuscript for a book that I'd actually initially avoided working on for a long time and eventually dove into heart deep.

The words came easy and I knew I had a message to share, though when I stepped back to examine what was there, I noticed that there are pieces missing.

I still believe that I have a message to share, yet I also believe that it isn't quite time.

In a fit of exhaustion I had sent my messy manuscript to a handful of friends, in spite of the fear that they'd cough and say, This? Seriously? This? 

I knew that I had to get what I had away from me.

          The work needed to cease, so I could rest.
               I needed space, so I could see. 

Fear wanted me to keep the words back and hold them tight. I sensed it wasn't quiet time for there to be a book yet, however, I knew without a doubt that my writing on this was complete.

I needed to get what I had in the hands of a few trusted friends. I just didn't know exactly why.

All along, my writing wasn't about the book. It was about honoring the story that I've lived and my heart knows I need to share. It was about honoring who I am and that as a person who processes with words, this writing of what I did was necessary.

Yet, fear told me I needed to know that my hours upon hours of early morning writing wasn't wasted. That the huge amount of space this smallish project took up in my heart and my mind wasn't foolish or meaningless.

Fear gave me a longing to know that it wasn't wrong for me to be sharing so much of myself, to be so divided like I was, so taxed and consumed by the writing for pieces of me to have been so partitioned off from my groom and our son.

Fear wanted me to forget about faith. It wanted me to get my answers from people instead of from Him, so I shared my words with the few people who were with me on many parts of my journey and waited for a response. I tried to tell myself that whatever they thought didn't matter, but convincing myself to wait patient didn't dismiss the restlessness.

I was fighting rest and the fight has left me dogged and ragged. I've been disappointed that I still have a process to work through to see this project through. I worked hard at getting to this place. I wrote and obeyed and honored the call. Still, I can't make it be time for the end product to be.

This is the place in this book writing where I've done all I can do.

I now need to submit to rest and simply let it be.

               I can still pursue hope, but it needs to be as I rest. 

: : : 

Just this morning I said no, thank you when invited to apply for a new job at a big-time university where I'd likely learn a lot and be positioned to really grow my career. I did this because I can't stand the thought of how exhausting that all would be.

What I know is this moment, right now. Not today as a whole, but right now. And right now I know that I feel exhausted even thinking about pursuing something like that.

Tomorrow is a different day and only God knows what feelings it will bring. In this moment, I feel incredibly achy and heavy. I literally have side effects from a fight I've fought for too long.

Fear has had its way with me far too many times. I could portray myself as the victim, though I'd be lying. I've had a role. I enabled it. Nearly every single choice I've ever made in my life has been led or guided or informed by fear.

I've fought the rest God has wanted of me. And . . . now is the time for me to yield to it.

          Now is the time to accept the pain
               . . . to face it head on and to submit to it, as it is. 

For too long in my life I've lived a white-knuckled existence -- fingers gripped tight around everything. If I couldn't control it, I'd try to cajole it or contain it . . . using whatever word I could think of that ultimately still meant control.

I've rushed in making decisions and found my way first in line, standing tall and pretty and all put together, just so that I'd have the opportunity if I wanted it. I didn't actually give much thought to whether I actually did want it until after everything was all positioned just in case.

Yeah, I know how messed up that sounds. Because, it is. It's also exhausting to have to go back and re-position and make adjustments like that.

My biggest fear is that I'll stay this way and never know how to really live.

A leader takes a step back and lets others go first. She carefully considers before she chooses. And she chooses for her first, quietly and contemplative. She doesn't need to tell everyone her process or procedure or predicament. She doesn't rush to conclusions. She comes to her own contentment through making good choices for her-self first. She isn't guided or pushed around by fear.

I have a message to share -- a community to lead. And I've been sharing a bit of it as God leads, but I know now that I need to contemplate it more. Truth tells me that I won't ever fully or perfectly get it. But still, there's a process I've yet to go through and that God's yet to work through in me.

          My worship right now is in the waiting. 
               In the stepping aside and submitting to the rest. 

On the other side of this there will be something richer and fuller, and that is when the message will be clearer and credible.

The only way I know how to loose the grip fear has had on my life is to step back and let me be. And that means to let the pain be, too.

“When you lean into that pain, and lean into the questions, and stop pretending that they’re not there, and stop pretending that everything’s fine, when it’s not . . . there is the release that’s waiting on the other side of that. It’s a new birth all over again.” (Sarah Bessey)

And so, I'm stepping back. I'm putting the manuscript on the shelf, though I assure you I am not boxing it up. And also? I'm putting the crazy, God-sized dream I have of developing a magazine on the shelf, too.

Hope says these things will be . . . as He leads . . . just not today.

I want a faith-driven life instead of a fear-forced life. So, today I'm choosing rest.

Amen.

Linking with Jennifer and Bonnie.