Hope unfurled

Through a long and painful journey, I learned that if I wanted a life of rest I would need to be patient. Trouble was, patience wasn't my thing.

For so long, if I wanted something I would go get it.

Even my groom told me once I'm a "Go-Getter". I took pride in that. And part of me still does.

If I saw a problem, I would niggle my way to a solution, or at least do something to make it work even if it wasn't the right way.

Answers to my questions weren't solid in my mind. I'd niggle until I was a little more satisfied, as though there is always a compromise to be made.

Rules were always negotiable to me; guidelines for the general population. I always assumed once people told their own story, there was wiggle room for adjustments.

Being patient seemed like a waste of time to me.

     How can I sit still and wait when there might be something I could do? 

It seemed utterly ridiculous for me to just wait and see. 

     If there was a house I liked, I'd jump on it for fear it might pass us up.
     If there was a job description I found interesting, I'd apply for it.
     If there was a dream I held, I'd pursue it.

Yet, tucked underneath the surface of my sometimes admirable "Go-Getter" personality was a fear-based way to my approach of life.

All my trying hard to get what I wanted, or what I thought was right, was really because I feared life would pass me up . . . that maybe I wasn't good enough. And so over and over again I tried to be.

I didn't really consider God allows certain experiences to occur for purposes we'll never understand. I didn't grasp Him wanting the "best" for His children and consider myself as one of them.

When I realized just how anxious I was living and how I'd constructed a tight-gripped life, I was at the bottom of myself -- suffocated in feelings of exhaustion from trying all I could muster to make things happen and discovering I simply couldn't.

I asked my groom and a few close friends how else to live, because I knew no other way but the try-hard way and finally had discovered that really is no kind of life.

Finally, I decided to test God.
     If He really is real, then I could stop trying so hard. 

If He really is real, then I could sit back and sip a cuppa, even in the mist and the fog, and even in the whirl and twirl of the storm. I ventured to believe He would hold me, and even if something bad-seeming happened, He would make beauty out of it.

This consideration overwhelmed me and gave me courage to see aspects of my story in different ways. So I choose to stay on my proverbial porch and loosed my ideas and plans for how life should be.

     I let Him do what He wanted to do and I chose to trust Him.

I surveyed my life as it was and determined that no matter what happens, I could trust Him. After all the choices I'd made and all the awfulness I'd put people through, I was still treasured and beloved.

For years I held a deep seeded belief in my heart for two dreams.

     I hoped we would have another child.
     I hoped my father and I would have peace.

On the baby I hoped for, it felt ridiculous in every way when month after month of begging and cajoling evolved into years -- nearly a decade worth.

On the relationship I hoped for, that too felt ridiculous in every way when month after month of no contact evolved into years of tense, awkward, distant, and tangled communication -- much more than a decade worth.

I ached for these dreams because I believed it was God's will. Yet, mostly, I wanted to see it all come true so then I could know for certain He really is real.

I imagined all sorts of things, including a script which wasn't mine to write. I nearly convinced myself these dreams weren't going to happen and hoping for them was a waste of time.

Still, deep inside my heart stirred the words: Chase. Hope. 

     It seemed so silly. So foolish.
         
          After all this time? Still? Why? What's the point? 

The journey was long and finally I surrendered to the possibility that I could be wrong. I was exhausted from trying to make these dreams happen and even from anxiously anticipating that they might come true. I considered that maybe things wouldn't turn out the way I imagined or the way I thought it should be and it was then that I realized He is real. He showed me there is great purpose, even for pain.  

I could have made the choice to trust Him and still come up empty handed so to speak. Even that wouldn't have been true, though, because the true Rest I experienced in surrendering my life and patience to Him was so much more than any dream could ever fulfill.

It wasn't because I chose patience and loosed the dreams that they became true. 
     It was because of God's plan, period. 

There's so much more I could say about all of this. So much more I want the world to know and understand, mostly about God than about my story.

In the process of loosing these dreams and choosing to trust Him, God taught me a new definition of strong:
   
     To bravely choose to trust Him for Now, as it is
          . . . even though we hope for something more.

God taught me to Chase Hope -- as risky as it is. 

He taught me to pursue it with reckless abandonment of fear that I might be wrong, that I'm not good enough, or that it just might never come to be. He helped me realize I will never be "good enough" to get everything I want to be just right or just how I would prefer it to be. 

My story involved a lot of waiting and wondering and wrestling. I learned the important of patience and most of all, that I can trust God no matter what. He helped me understand that He loves me, that I am good enough, and I can rest. These aren't just cute sayings, they are truth. 

Ultimately, I didn't even need the dreams anymore. 

     Yet, after all the sojourning, my hope has been unfurled. 

The peace I hoped for between my father and me has come. Shame and fear no longer have a grip on our relationship. We have been freed to accept each other as we are. Love between us has been birthed. Truly I tell you, this is no small thing. 

Within days from now (or perhaps even hours) our long-awaited and much hoped for child is expected to be born.  

This story is not about the baby or a righted-relationship, or even about being patient or letting go of all the trying. It's about what God did in the process and the truth that He is so very real. 

Chase

There was a time when I thought I knew what it means to be "fit" and nowadays I'm embarrassed to even say how I defined it to be:

Ripped abs.
Eight-mile runs.
Sugar-free eating habits.

Those were the days when I was convinced that I was broken and need to be fixed. Everyday involved taking a fine-tooth comb to my very existence and identifying everything that needed to become better about me.

I wasn't enough.

All the ideas I had of who I should be seemed so attainable, yet just far enough out of reach to keep me occupied all the livelong day with trying and trying and trying harder to become who I wasn't.

Restlessness had its way with me. Anger, too. And eventually, exhaustion.

Because, something's gotta give. Always.

It could've been my marriage. And it almost was. The number of times I nearly destroyed it all and threatened to leave are too many to count.

The number of times I quit trying and resorted to saying things that just reflected a cold, bitter, exhausted, lonely, and sad heart are quite possibly equivalent to as many steps as it'd take to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

: : : 

One day last year my groom said something to me along the lines of how much happier I'd be if I would just stop trying so hard. He encouraged me to be content with me, as I am -- now.

While in a store he even pointed out a small sign that read: "happy girls are the prettiest girls."

Those words, combined with the ones I had heard him say just days before, nearly made me explode in a million different pieces right there in front of him.

Just how is a person supposed to stop trying and start being when all she's known is a pursuit of working harder to be better? 

I felt naked and helpless. And truthfully, quite embarrassed.

My groom had called my bluff. He had known all along how completely miserable I was in my life and he made it known that I hadn't succeeded at hiding my true discontent from him.

Happiness was never something I pursued; I knew it was fleeting. I resigned myself to a lifestyle that gripped everything tightly and assumed that muscles get strong when they're flexed and so therefore, I was "fit".

It turns out that muscles actually get weaker when they're constantly constricted. They forget how to even work. Chronically tightened muscles signal to our body that we're in danger and keeps us in a constant state of defense, eventually exhausting and depleting our whole selves.

This isn't fitness. This isn't even wellness.

I tried to find out "how" I was supposed to fix what was indeed broken about me, only to discover that trying to further control myself was not the way.

I needed to learn flexibility and discover that being vulnerable -- raw and real -- is actually what is means to be strong.

I needed to learn to be patient with myself, and ultimately to be kind to myself.

I needed to actually face the real truth about who I am and not be shocked by my humanity.

I needed to become more aware of the beauty of my life, as it is.

: : : 

Once I reeled back from the realization that my groom knew the deepest truth about me all these years, I realized the most powerful part of the story: he stayed.

My groom was deliberate in his intention to fulfill his commitment to love me, and the best part is that he chose to love me as I am. I didn't need to change in order for him to love me. I didn't need to become someone different.

I still don't.

My groom didn't choose to love me because of a vision I had for myself.

The most powerful thing I realized is that I am loved for being me -- a sometimes messy, hypocritical, talkative, deceiving, angry, conniving, cajoling, questionable . . . and other times gentle, graceful, kind, sensitive, generous, encouraging, creative person.

For so many years I tried to be the best me I could possibly be. Perfection has lots of colors and though I never considered myself a "perfectionist," it eventually became obvious to me that my tendencies clearly fit the definition.

My Creator deliberately crafted me with imperfections and I have come to believe that He uses those rough and jagged edges of me for purpose; most especially, for me to realize that I am enough. My strength and abilities can't accomplish all I want or envision that they might someday; still, I am enough.

It took a long time for me to consider that I am perfect, as I am.

Where I don't measure up, God fills the gap. And what He wants to shape differently about me, He will reveal in due time and work with me to accomplish.

I can trust that God doesn't make mistakes and that He will guide this deliberately-crafted-imperfect-human-being on the journey that He has designed uniquely for me.

: : : 

I've been chased: hunted down and deliberately pursued.

God knew how far He needed to go for me to see His love for me. As I've seen His love, I've learned to chase hope with that same deliberate intention.

I've learned that the thing that I envision might not be the thing at all, yet I can still deliberately pursue that which niggles at me day and night, while actively living in a state of rest.

Now is enough, as it is . . .
     and I am enough, as I am.

For years I connived and cajoled to have a second child. I thought that not conceiving another meant that I wasn't good enough.

I learned the hard and painful way what real surrender is all about.

Eventually, I humbly discovered that what I wanted most was peace -- a life of rest.

I learned to hope when nothing makes sense.

And now, after seven years of begging . . . one year of pretending to surrender . . . and one year of real surrender . . . I've been given a most remarkable gift of grace: the news of a second son to be arriving in the middle of this year.

This gift didn't come because I surrendered and "stopped trying". God did this.

His timing, purpose, and providence is His alone.

The waiting and wrestling was never about a baby . . .
     it's clear to me now that it was about things so much bigger and better.