also only/even if

my mount moriah

2010-08-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, my friends. We each traverse such divergent paths now. Since the last post, so much has happened in each of our lives, and so much more is happening. I send this out to you with tremendous humility, knowing that each of you carries her own burdens, is the thick of her own trials, and in each a different way, is walking through her own dark night.

This is mine. I'm not going to go back and edit, because I really don't care right now how this sounds as a piece of writing. I just need to spill and be raw with you.

bathed in love & light // selfportrait by kirsten michelle (2010)

The closer we get to Ewan's birth (in less than 60 days, I'll be 40 weeks pregnant), the more nervous I am becoming. I am waiting for God's provision, and wondering just how down-the-wire it will get before He unleashes His provision. I am ready and waiting.

I feel this morning like a truck has run me over. Last night in bed, my thoughts turned to that not-so-distant point in time, in a future so near it's impossible not to think about -- Ewan's birth and the seeming madness that will follow. I cried and I wept in a soul-deep way and my face shows it this morning. I feel hung over from it. I feel as though I cannot shake this cloak of dread, no matter how lightly it touches my skin.

I mentioned it very briefly in my most recent post here, but the reality is this: if we do not have another source of income by the time Ewan arrives, I will need to return to work much sooner than taking full advantage of my leave would allow. I'm not talking about returning at eight weeks after his birth, or even six -- but two or three at the most. There is no financial way possible for us to keep our apartment, maintain our current financial obligations, and eat without both streams of income. Assuming Ewan arrives around his due date, I will have about two weeks of personal time that I can apply toward my leave, allowing me to have another full paycheck. After that point, I am eligible to apply for six weeks of disability pay at 60% of my current pay. After that, we are on our own. With bills still to pay, with a child recovering from major surgery (and all the medical bills that go with it), we still have to pay my part of our health insurance premiums ... and the list goes on. That 60% is all well and good and in different circumstances, I'm sure that would feel like a godsend. But it's not enough. It's just not enough.

The job market is dismal. James has networked in a variety of circles, he's talked to recruiters, he's had his resume revamped, he's put himself out there on job search sites. The lack of work is not for lack of trying, nor for that matter, for lack of considering options that we hadn't previously considered (everything from fishing to nursing).

Before we became pregnant, it was always our plan (and our hope, our expectation) that James would have work by the time the little bean arrived on the scene, allowing me to stay home. This was the desire of both our hearts, believing it to be God's ideal for the family and as such, our faith that God would make that possible. In the past several months, it became apparent that I'd need to return to work at least briefly to allow maintenance of our benefits. The cost of Ewan's care is likely to reach into the millions, and now is not the time to lose our benefits.

And now it's becoming apparent as we get closer and closer with still no prospects for James's employment that unless something miraculous happens between now and Ewan's birth, I will need to return before my body has had a chance to settle, while (in all likelihood) he's still in the hospital. Said simply, my heart cannot handle this. My heart absolutely CANNOT handle this. It was with enough grief that we realized me returning to work at all seemed inevitable. And now, this. This ugly reality, this double-knife to my heart.

I wonder just how much God expects me to give up, anyway? How much will he demand of my mother's heart while my firstborn lies in the NICU for weeks on end recovering from heart surgery (HEART SURGERY!!) -- am I really supposed to return to work in the thick of that? No time at home at all with my son?!!? I can never get that time back. Is that really what He wants for our family? The thought that God might be asking this of us puts me so far beyond angry and resentful. I am positively furious, in fact, if this is what God is asking us to do.

It made me think of Abraham and Isaac, God asking him to sacrifice his own son, the evidence of the fulfillment of God's promise to an aged man and his wife. Isaac was a miracle, and more than that, he was a promise: many descendants will come from this son. But descendants don't come from a corpse.

I wonder what Abraham went through emotionally when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac -- to take him up Mt Moriah and hold the knife over him. I can imagine a litany of objections rising in his mind instantly, a host of questions. We're told that he reasoned God was able to raise the dead, and so he obeyed.

I wish it was as simple as all that for me. I wish I could reason that way. I want to have the faith, to trust that our needs will be provided for -- but I also am aware of the reality that some kind of plan needs to be in place before this birth happens -- something needs to be in place so we don't get swept up and lost in the chaos of it, so we don't find ourselves facing mounting expenses with no idea as to how to pay them.

I wonder how long I'll have to hold that knife, how close it will have to get to piercing the skin of those I love most in this world before God will stay my hand.

Or will He? Will He stay my hand? I guess that is the real question I have, the real bone I have to pick.

So many other family things are going on the midst of this, too -- Peder and Annie moving away just in time to miss the birth of this child (I know this is not meant to be intentionally hurtful and I know it has nothing to do with us specifically, but I don't mind telling you since I've already told them: the timing totally, completely, and in all respects stinks), and others in my immediate family are each in their own dire places. It's too much. I find myself falling apart already, and really ... we haven't even gotten to the hard part yet.

And so I put this out here in our collective space -- it has acquired some dust I see, but I know you are still here. I appreciate you reading this when I know each of you is in the thick of her own pain, climbing your own mountains and I'm sure, holding knives of your own. We've found encouragement and strength in the collective before -- just like the three who faced Nebuchadnezzer's flames did. I'm hoping maybe we can find that again.

miss you*

2009-07-28T14:54:00.001-07:00

I just do.

I love these girls.

consider this

2009-02-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

Since I saw this, I've been wondering:

In what ways might grace bring about contentment?

cup of grace, canon 40d

an answer in winter

2008-12-24T07:07:00.000-08:00

Greetings, my lovelies!! I know it's Christmas Eve and it may be awhile before you get a chance to see this, but the month of December was looking rather lonely on this blog of ours. I don't have much to say, but there is something I wanted to share with you.

As much as I don't love how the snow impedes my ability to go about my life as I normally do, it somehow allows me a creative focus above and beyond what I typically possess. The following poem is a fruit of such a time this last week. I still consider it a working draft and have not yet discovered its title, but am still fairly pleased with this current incarnation.

Merry Christmas, my loves!! Hugs and warmth to you.

* * * * *

Silent
but for the hiss of snow
melting on my cheeks,
Still
but for the fog of breath
exhaling from my lungs,
a gust of steam in the frozen air.

All is calm.

The landscape is thrown into sharp relief;
hues of brown, green, and blue
each look as black as the other
taking on the weight of white.

All is bright.

I look up:
crowned with the weight of snow
the tops of evergreens bend,
bowing earthward
like magi at the nativity.

Revision-ing

2008-11-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

You know how sometimes you think and think and think on something and in the end you still can't quite see it because...well, because you can't SEE it? That's how I feel, like it's time to make all of this more real. So here it is.

I'm beginning to wonder if God has more for me than just writing.

At the end of last week, I spoke to a group of undergrad girls about grief and loss. Not the most...um...winsome of topics and kind of a long story about how I got there speaking on that, but overall a positive experience nonetheless. Usually I start shaking when I speak, and I didn't. Usually I care a lot about how I came across, and I didn't. Usually I feel a deep responsibility that the people I'm talking to really get what I'm trying to say, but this time I felt like I could speak the words I had and let them be received however and leave knowing that I'd done my job. Overall, it was really, really cool.

After that experience, though, I couldn't deny some of the thoughts that have been creeping up on me since I started thinking about this whole writing thing seriously. The thing I keep coming back to is this: I won't be happy just putting words on paper.

For me, the writing that's most life-giving isn't about me putting words on paper. It's not even about me being creative, though I love the fact that I get to be creative when I write. It's about communication, about getting to give other people ideas in ways that might help them see what's true. It's about giving love and grace and growth to hearts that need it. It's about synthesis and packaging things differently than they've been done before and making metaphors that lead others to a deeper understanding. I LOVE writing those things, and I really don't love writing much else. Now, I have a pretty broad understanding of those things I love, but there are still definitely categories of things that don't fit.

And the thing is, speaking to those girls the other day led to similar feelings. It wasn't the same as writing, but I left that small auditorium feeling more full and content and satisfied than I feel when I think about writing articles I don't care about or advertising copy that's supposed to get people to spend their money whether they have it or not.

So I'm beginning to wonder about speaking, about leading retreats and small groups in addition to my writing, about how that would look and how I'd ever get something like that started.

The truth is, I've been resisting some of the parts of the writing career I keep saying I want. I keep wondering why I'm not querying as many editors as I can or approaching more companies about hiring me as a copywriter. And the answer to those wonders seems to be that my heart feels like going after those things would still sell it short. If I'm going to go after my dreams, it says, why not go all out? Why stop at being self-employed when there's really more that I want to do?

"Money," is the first thing that comes to mind, for a lot of different reasons. There's a lot in there--validation, success, and the fact that I can spend more time writing if I can make a living at it, for starters. And there's some truth to that--money is some indication of how many people I'm reaching and how deeply they're being reached. At the same time, I have a decent job that doesn't usually stress me to my limits. If there's a better place to start something when you're not sure where the money will come from, I don't know of one. And money is just money...making more of it doing something that doesn't make me happy won't in itself make me happy.

And then there's the desire to not be pigeon-holed as a Christian. I mean, I am a Christian and I don't mind people knowing that, but I think that I have things to say that can touch non-Christian people as well, and maybe even lead them to a relationship with Christ. I want to be able to say those things and be heard, not stuck in a corner with the other Christians. Many of the things I want to say are Christian-ish or Christian-ly but they don't all apply just to Christians, and I really don't want to wrap myself up in the Christian box and tape down the lid.

And it all sounds so hard. If what I can almost see is really where I'm going, it's quite a trek to get there. Really? That mountain? Are you sure? Because the little foothill I was thinking about before seems plenty big for me. I fear I'll only get halfway, that I'll wander around and get distracted and lost, or that I just won't be up to it and will have to come down in defeat. I wonder if God remembers who he's dealing with here, who she is and what she can do and what she's good at. And part of me dreads the journey. I don't like being wet and cold and stumbling over boulders any more than the next person.

All my mind can do in response to these new thoughts is to generate questions. What does this all mean? Is the call to forego some of the "easier" ways to make money as a writer and put myself fully into this...whatever it is? Does it mean (and this is scary!) that the call isn't just to be a writer but to start a ministry? How do you even DO that? What would all of this do to the timing I want and what would it mean for Dave and the future and everything else? And how long is it going to take me to figure this all out, already?

And thus I'm in a swirl...excited and scared and hopeful and confused, all at once. I feel like I can't even look at it straight-on yet, like I'm seeing something out of the corner of my eye that would be fantastic if it all worked out but I'm not quite ready to give myself to it. Sure, I don't have to figure it all out right now, but I want to. I've gone haring down so many paths in the last couple of years and I'm ready for the one that's really mine. It kind of sucks to feel such intense fear of and desire for something; then again, maybe that's just part of the process.

the grateful ache

2008-11-12T11:28:00.000-08:00

Sometimes my lungs can't find enough air. Sometimes it feels like half of my heart stopped working.

As the days between today and my move venture further from distant future and closer toward imminent reality, as my state of health continues to be volatile and unpredictable, and as I attune myself to interior shifts in my own heart, I've felt increasingly like I just want to give up. I want to take a big cloak of black by the corners, tuck my knees and my chin in toward my chest, cover myself, and be done. No more trying, no more fighting just to keep my head above water. Just stopping, sinking, being swallowed by cool black water. Nothing.

Prayers and tears are simultaneous now, and have been for months. I can't remember the last time I experienced one without the other. The tension that exists between the faith I have that God is good and will deliver on His promises and the overwhelming feeling that He's holding out on me is almost too much. I wonder how much further that tension can be pulled. I've prayed and wondered aloud if God is taking things from me in order to prepare me for future blessing. I'm scared to examine this hope too closely for fear that it will prove false and send me reeling. So I drop it from my hand, wiping my palm brusquely to remove any trace evidence that I held that thought at all.

I feel trapped. I know God too well to doubt His reality and His active presence, but in my own worldly estimation of this situation, I can't see that He's up to much at all. On the days these thoughts and feelings are at the height of their poignancy, I cover myself in layers of numbness so that it does not look like I'm falling apart.

But I still pray. I return to prayers of deliverance from time to time, even though I have little hope they will receive the answer I desire most. I've been asking for what I can see of Him in this place, what I can learn, knowing that these things may not be evident until there is a span of some physical, emotional, and chronological distance between a then I cannot envision and the now that threatens to cripple my heart.

My prayers have gotten a bit crazier, and perhaps what I'm about to share is evidence that my sanity is something less than intact. I've been thanking Him for these things. Opening my hands and asking to learn contentment. I'm thanking Him that though I feel shredded now, He can and will use this. I'm thanking Him because this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for my own good and for the good of His kingdom. I'm thanking Him because He's present and because I believe Jesus knows exactly what this feels like. I'm thanking Him for how this is shaping me, even though I feel like an amorphous blob right now.

There are a lot of tears with these prayers. The words catch in my throat; I can barely think them without my eyes becoming red-rimmed and wet. But I don't know what else to do. He's not changing the circumstances, so I'm asking Him to change me.

Have mercy, Lord Jesus.

God in the Launching, in the Leaping, and in the Landing

2008-10-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

For a little while now, I've been experiencing an interior shift that I can't quite name except to say that it feels like a gentle nudge to move from a posture of primary preoccupation with myself toward one of giving, offering, and pouring out for the benefit of others. Things I once thought I'd never live without, such as the chronicling of daily life and interior growth on my personal blog, have become less urgent while an awareness of impending participation in the greater mission of Christ has intensified.

As this sense has percolated the past several weeks, I've been content to simply notice its arrival and prepare myself to receive the change it carries. I have felt no need to clutch stubbornly to the way things have always been, and I have felt ready to receive what is new. Slowly, impressions began to form about what those changes could be. Opportunities began to present themselves. Much of this was open-ended and preliminary, and I found myself in a posture of prayer and thoughtfulness about what could eventually emerge.

Then, about a week ago, I found myself feeling confused, frightened, and alone. I found myself feeling small, helpless, and certain of failure. I sat in bed and told Kirk just how little I knew to do. I cried a lot of tears.

The next morning, I met with my spiritual director. I told her I wanted to explore this shift taking place in me and why I had begun to feel so scared and alone in it, when it had been growing quietly and painlessly for weeks. Why had my stress level spiked?

We talked about my experience of God in these places. I felt confident that God was in the nudging, in the preparing of me for this shift in posture, in the ushering in of something new . . . but in the decision-making and the planning and the moving forward, I couldn't sense him at all. I found myself believing he had left me alone to figure it out and make everything come to life. I found myself believing he expected me to get there on my own.

As K. and I kept talking, I discovered this is actually a familiar pattern. I could recall several transition points in my life that I attributed to God's sanctifying work, a prompting toward his intentional growth for my life. I embraced these movements of God in my spirit . . . and then proceeded to "work out" that sanctification process in my own power. When I involved him in the process, it was primarily as though reporting to a figurehead: him a superior to whom I told where I had been and what I had done in the accomplishment of the operation, as though defending just uses of resources given to me and the utilization of my own strong mind and constitution.

K. asked, as she often does, if I could recall a similar circumstance in my history of life experience. Had I ever been entrusted with responsibility and then left alone to carry it out?

While I knew there was likely more than one occasion in which this had happened, one in particular kept presenting itself at the forefront of my mind. In that instance, I'd accepted the responsibility to care for a situation without fully understanding what that responsibility required. In that instance, things got out of control and I was alone in trying to handle it. In that instance, I failed to keep the situation stable, there were dire outcomes, and I was held responsible. In that instance, the situation warranted greater strength than I actually carried, yet I was still entrusted to have been adequately equipped to handle it.

The challenge for me was then discerning where God was when all that happened. I went back into that moment and tried to get a sense of God's presence there. Where was he, and what was he doing? Why did he leave me there? Why did he let that happen?

In my mind's eye, I could see him sitting there with me in the aftermath, listening as I received the reprimand. I could see him nodding at me, telling me he understood the situation was unjust. And yet he did not intervene. He let things crumble around me and did nothing to save it. He let me take the fall and didn't put the truth in place. I carried the burden alone. God didn't lift a finger.

How could I trust he would lift a finger now?

I had to face God's passivity in that moment, and so I let him have it. Why didn't he rescue me that night? Why did he let that burden get handed to me at all? Didn't he see what became of it, how many lies I believed about myself and the rest of the world after that, how many years I believed everything would fall apart if I didn't hold everything together and do everything right?

Maybe we only serve a passive God, a God who spins circumstances into motion and then lets us deal with the rest.

I sat in K.'s living room with my eyes squeezed shut that morning, tears streaming down my face and my thoughts racing with anger and sadness, wondering what God could possibly say to me, wondering if he could possibly say anything at all that would begin to help me understand, that would begin to make anything better.

And slowly, like an onion, I felt him unraveling the cloth strips that were wrapped around my head, covering my eyes, the cause of blindness. Slowly, slowly, he unwrapped them in order to let me see. The weight of the cloths began to fall away. Dots of light began to shimmer on my eyelids. And quietly, gently, I heard him say to me: "My daughter, it is true. I did allow that to happen. I was there, and I did not lift my finger. But you see, I had a greater scope in mind. I saw a vision beyond the story you could see. There is the greater story of your life, and how I've planned to use you. Because of what you've carried, you can come alongside those who also carry these burdens. You can touch them, because you know how they feel. You know what it feels like to be where they are."

It isn't that God was absent. It isn't that he was uncaring. It's that he had a different aim in mind entirely.

In light of this revelation, K. is helping me see that perhaps now, too, I am not alone in what is coming. God does not prepare me for a great leap and then go back to his comfortable house while I make a jump for my life. He is here, the whole way, with me. He will be working his purposes in ways only he can know, in ways that may never be revealed in my lifetime.

As I prepare to take a jump into a whole new realm of being right now, I don't have to figure it all out ahead of time, in order to guard against failure or devastating outcomes. It is not all up to me. I am not alone in this. I can trust that he is with me not just in this preparation to launch, but also as I actually leap across the giant chasm, and eventually as I land on the other side.

Here's to the leaping, hand in hand with God, not having to do it perfectly, not having to do it alone.

The Plague of Self-Doubt

2008-10-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

It would make me angry, the way so many women doubt themselves, except that every time those feelings rise I think, "But is that right, I wonder? Maybe I just see that pattern because I want to see it." Soon my anger's vigor gets swallowed up by that giant sea of uncertainty and I don't say anything.

I've doubted myself for as long as I can remember. I don't pretend to know why, but I do know that self-doubt seems endemic among the women I know. Even the strong, secure, safe ones look at themselves from time to time and say, "Or...well...I don't know." Almost every serious conversation I have with another woman entails some degree of wavering about our perceptions, our feelings, or how we interpret the world in general. I don't even know if this is truly a woman's problem or if I don't hear it in men because it comes out differently.

But I do know a few things.

The ideals of femininity expressed among today's evangelical Christians often reflects values more medieval (or victorian...some of them strike me as exceedingly victorian) than biblical. I don't want to go through the list of "feminine characteristics" here, though I'll allude to a few later on, as examples. It seems sufficient today that most christian girls grow up with an image of what it means to be a christian woman, and they feel like they never attain it.

This seems even worse when girls are influenced by contemporary society. Girls get one message at church, another at school, and sometimes even another at home. What it means to be a woman who loves God fiercely and is willing to work and fight for Him isn't clear. There's not one mold, but several, and what fits in one doesn't fit in the others. What a ripe place for confusion!

Doubt seems to help us walk the lines between the molds. Instead of heeding the call to war and girding our loins to fight the enemy in our own ways if we're so called, many women walk around the house wondering if the desire to go is good or bad. In the end, we don't go because that debate is never over, and in staying home we meet the expectations of the Christians around us. While we don't stay for the right reasons, it's the staying that's important and no one sees the restlessness in our hearts. At the same time, having had the desire to fight and wrestled with it can please a more contemporary mold. We thought about taking our place in the lines, but golly, the fighting was over before we could get there.

Along similar lines to the ones above, self-doubt makes life easier. If we're not sure what to do, self-doubt lets us stick with the status quo. If I'm unsure that God is calling me somewhere that I'd like to go but that is more risky than where I am now, then I don't have to step into that until I'm sure. If I'm never sure, well, then I never have to change. Since following a calling like that often means fighting some non-biblical images of what Christians think a woman should be, and that can be an incredibly hard fight, it might just be easier to remain unsure.

Maybe it's also easier to live unfulfilled lives if we have the reason (excuse?) of not being sure what to do. Dreams are powerful things. They can change the world, if we give them a chance and follow where God leads. They're fulfilling, but they're also dangerous. And, as christian women, we're pretty much taught to avoid danger. So sometimes we face the dillemma of breaking the mold and facing censure for that, or living unfulfilled lives. Maybe having doubt about the call or the dream makes the unfulfillment more palatable, because we're not sure we should have been fulfilled in the first place.

As you think about these things, please know that there are several things I'm not saying here.

I'm not saying that every woman needs to break the mold. If a woman's life is within the mold and she's happy, then I'm happy for her. She's fulfilling God's call on her life--what more could I want for her? On the other hand, I hear more and more frustration about these things. There are enough women wanting to somehow, please, find a new mold, that it seems worth writing these things for them (...for me).

I'm also not advocating a reckless lifestyle or living without discernment. God's voice can be hard to hear, particularly when our own souls make such a racket that we couldn't hear him if he yelled. It's definitely worth it to take the time to hear his heart before we move forward.

Finally, I'm not pretending to know every heart. I'm sure there are a million reasons to doubt oneself, and if these don't fit for you, let me know what does. In fact, I feel more like I'm raising questions than offering answers. Why do women feel this way? Why do we hesitate, hold back and shuffle our feet in the name of uncertainty?

So, friends, women of God, what do you think? Why do we doubt? Because I haven't just heard this from women at large, but from our own mouths. I heard it as we sat around sharing our stories in the middle of the night, as we shared coffee, and as we talk on the phone. It breaks my heart to hear some of the most gifted, beautiful, amazing women I know doubt themselves and their ability to hear God. I want to love others in the name of Jesus as I'm called, and I know you girls do, too. So why does this hold us back? Any thoughts?

"the seduction of safety"

2008-10-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

Note: I thank you for continuing to respect my request not to offer advice or proffer solutions regarding the decision I have to make. I love you girls so much!

I can't get those words out of my head. They are haunting to me.

You may remember them from the John O'Donahue poem that Christianne shared here. I can't get them out of my head because I know they matter for me now. I imagine they will keep swirling through my heart and brain over the 27 days in which I have to make a big decision about how my life will change.

I'm vacillating somewhere between reasonable certainty and paralytic ambiguity when it comes to the choice before me. But in the midst of all the confusion, there is something that is crystal clear to me: whatever choice I make, I'm not going to be unequivocally sure that I made the right or best choice. I'm wondering if this is one of those times where God says: it's choose your own adventure time, and I'm going to bless whichever path you choose.

But I don't even know that for sure.

No matter what I choose, there's not necessarily any safety waiting for me. Going will be an adventure; staying will be one in its own right also. Neither will be particuarly safe. Each path comes with its own share of hazards that I will be responsible for managing.

Something else I'm sure of is that if I should become lulled into a half-conscious state by something that is safe and comfortable, but not where He's going -- if the path I take is going in the opposite direction of where God is headed -- He has a way of turning that around. I think of Paul on the road to Damascus and Jonah in the belly of the whale. Neither of those methods of grabbing my attention seems particularly gentle, and I do want to be attentive to His desires for me. With so many layers of uncertainty, I'm just not sure if there is a "correct" direction and if so, which one it is.

But somehow I know that wherever I end up is where I need to be. Maybe all I can do is embrace the adventure and watch as the world unfolds as new before me.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

[Gulp.]

treading on mystery

2008-09-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

building an ark when there's never even been a drop of rain

going out without a destination in mind

holding a knife against the throat of the life that was promised to you

leaving a life of privilege for one of perceived disgrace

stepping into the flames

offering praise in the lion's den

"This is what the ancients were commended for."
Hebrews 11:2

resistance & strength

2008-09-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

We've been talking about and thinking on this idea of standing lately, how standing matters when the only other option is to bow your knee to a false god. Standing is glorious when all the evidence says that to stand up is to invite your own demise, and you stand anyway. I heard a line in a song recently where the singer was asking God for the "strength to stand." Standing requires strength; it demands that we hold ourselves upright even when our strength is assaulted and challenged. It requires that we encounter and engage with those things that resist us.

Standing also means resisting the enemy. We plant our feet firmly, standing strong and erect in the face of his onslaught. He shakes the earth we stand on in an effort to topple us. He brings the elements against us: a strong wind to knock us over, heat to make us faint, or the cold to cause us to fold in on ourselves. He surrounds us with big-mouthed and sharp-clawed creatures who threaten to devour us. He does everything he can to get us to crumble, or to turn coward and run the other way.

Speaking in simple physiological terms, remaining in a standing position requires dynamic balance on part of the stander. There is nothing static about it. In order to stay standing, she has to contend with inner shifts and perturbations (like respiration) and with external ones as well (like wind). She must make adjustments, respond to those shifts and disturbances from within and from without in order to remain upright. To be static means she will fall, that the shifts that occur inside her and in the surrounding environs will ultimately render her unable to maintain an upright position.

Paul is rather emphatic about this image of standing when he discusses the armor of God in Ephesians 6. He speaks of "taking your stand against the devil's schemes" and exhorts believers to put on the full armor of God "so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand" (v. 13). Can you hear the strength and the victory pulsing through Paul's words? The believer is to be covered in armor, battle-ready and standing. The believer, whether or not she knows it, is engaging in battle simply by standing. And she really incites the enemy's anger when after stumbling, she bravely picks herself up, daring to resist him again.

In resisting him, she becomes stronger. Make no mistake: getting stronger hurts. It is a slow process. If we look at this from a physiological point of view again, getting stronger requires that we deliberately engage our muscles against the weight we are lifting. It requires that we repeat the motion of lifting or pressing, engaging our muscles repeatedly to the point of fatigue. In so doing, muscle fibers are broken down and we become sore as a result. In the days of rest that follow, the fibers are built back up, stronger than they were before. And we do it again and again.

What does this mean for us? It could mean any number of things, really. But I think it means that when the enemy comes against us, we remain vigilant and aware, engaging our strength and the power of God in us. It means we deliberately and intentionally don the armor of God to defend ourselves against the enemy and use the one tool of offense that we have in our arsenal with cunning and skill: the sword of the Spirit, the word of God (I have to wonder: could this also be the Word of God -- Christ Himself?). It means that it will happen again and again; there is no line we will cross in this life which, once past it, signals an arrival for us or a total defeat of the enemy. He will flee from time to time, but he always comes back. Sometimes it will mean that it will feel like we're being torn apart, that we will need to wait on God to tend to our wounds and rebuild us, making us stronger.

At the end of the day, I think remaining upright will mean staying attuned to the movements within ourselves and the disturbances outside of us, to balance ourselves dynamically against them all, engaging ourselves in such a way that those movements and perturbations won't make us fall. Even though we don't appear to be doing much, standing may require every ounce of strength we possess.

I had a dream last night, something like the one I had about six months ago. Though this one was not nearly as intense, it did bear a resemblance. The enemy came against me while I slept, pushing and pressing hard against my body and trying to move me by force out of my bed (why he's so fond of my bedroom, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something to do with the vulnerable state of sleep?). I knew it was him, even with eyes closed. I resisted with all my strength and even in the depths of sleep, my spirit cried out Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! In truth, it felt more like worship than it did like weapon-wielding. The enemy kept at it for awhile, but eventually he left.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the encounter, nothing dramatic. The enemy came, I resisted, he left. It happens with us every day and it will happen again. But it struck me this morning: that was standing. That's what Paul enjoins us to do in Ephesians: stand your ground, and after you have done everything ... stand. We've said it before, but it bears repeating: standing is victory. It's Christ's victory in us and ours over the enemy. It's not the final word, but it is something, isn't it?

Standing is victory.

And so we keep standing. You are among the strongest and most beautiful women I know and I'm thankful to be sharing in the journey with you. I'm proud to stand with you.

To God be the glory forever and ever.
Amen.

Standing

2008-09-11T08:33:00.001-07:00

We've been talking a lot about the victory that comes through standing. I think we've all echoed our thanks to God that, sometimes, all we have to do to beat Satan back is stay on our feet through the storms and the wind and the rain that he uses to bring us down. Sometimes, just doing that feels like doing the impossible.

On another note, I've been thinking some about the Bible verse from which we culled the "even if" part of this blog's title. The fact that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego went into the furnace knowing that God might not save them there still blows my mind. They knew they might die, choking and writhing.

In light of these thoughts, I'm sure you can all imagine my surprise when my pastor told us to turn to the book of Daniel for our sermon on Sunday night. "I've heard a lot about Daniel lately, " I thought. "I wonder what part he's going to teach on."

"Oh...that part. It figures."

You know how, sometimes, when God really wants you to get something, he repeats himself? And you say, "Yeah, God...I got it now," and he says, "No, I don't think you do." Well, that was the case here. My pastor spoke on the three men in the furnace, just like Kirsten's pastor did three weeks previously, in Bellingham.

As I listened to the story this time, the "even if" rolled over me without so much as a stir. Though it fascinated me before, that message wasn't for me that day. Instead, something else hit me.

Do you know how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego overcame Satan?

They stood.

First, they stood when everyone else bowed down to the idol. In refusing this bow, they acknowledge God's rightful place. Satan found himself beaten there before he even started. I can see his fury in the king's choice of punishment for not bowing--death in that horridly hot furnace. "You think you can stand?" Satan says. "Try standing here."

And then, through the grace of God, they call his bluff and remain on their feet in the face of heat that killed their guards.

The king looks in the fire and sees them standing, walking and talking and having a grand old time. Someone is with them, one who is clearly not of this world and who is sustaining them when they should be overcome. He stays until they step out of the fire, by their side the whole time, helping them stand when they should fall.

When I look at this story through this lens, I see how clearly our victory comes in standing. Sometimes we do it for him and other times we do it with him, but the standing is the victory and indicates our victory to others looking on.

Keep standing, friends.

Humility Required

2008-09-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, I posted about "birthing Capri." I wrote about experiencing increasing intimations of a coming birth and of the entity God is creating through me slowly separating itself from the birthing wall of my insides. I felt God gently touching my hand so my fingers would slowly release their grip on what is coming, choosing a loss of oneness for the health of its life.

Then yesterday happened.

Yesterday I read a book by Ronald Rolheiser called The Holy Longing. The first chapters of this book explore the human conundrum of pathos. We are, each one of us, he says, carrying an energy, a fire, a passion, an eros, even a madness that fires our insides and propels us forward through our days. It is a longing we seek to fill, through good or ill means, to create a meaningful life.

How we channel that energy is our spirituality, Rolheiser says, and all of us has a spirituality of some making because we all, by virtue of living and making choices each day, channel that energy in some specific direction that is continually forming us into integrated or disintegrated beings.

The trouble is, we underestimate the power of that fire. When we play loosely with it, it can burn us. Destroy us, actually. He uses the example of Janis Joplin, who was full of life and passion to experience as much of life as she could . . . and died of exhaustion and a drug overdose at age 27.

The remainder of the book is an exploration of what it means to have a specifically Christian spirituality.

I guess the experience thus far of reading this book has really sobered me. I think about Storychange and what I have imagined it to be: a channeling of inner longings toward some sense of understanding and resolution about who we are and what we're made for. But if that is undertaken lightly, what kind of damage could be done? And if it is not done in a specifically Christian context, will I lead people further into their own destruction?

I'm not sure. I guess right now, all I have are questions, an increasing humility, and a gratitude for this path I'm walking that will, at some point, begin to help the clouds clear away so I can see God's gracious face without obstruction.

Faith

2008-09-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

This quote has been knocking around in my head ever since I read it the other day.

When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.

It comforts me to think that it's the leaping that indicates faith, not how you leap. Of course, how you leap says something about the faith, but the faith is there no matter how you leap.

Sometimes, continuing to stand, or even putting one foot in front of the other occasionally, feels a lot like leaping. If I didn't believe, I think I'd just sit down and curl up or run away and anesthetize myself until it was all over. I stand up, putting my head into the darkness I don't know, or I walk forward when I can't see where I'm going, because I trust that there's something more out there.

Maybe when we stand or walk, no matter how slowly or how much we struggle, we have more faith than we think we do. It's easy to say, "Where are you, God? I can't see you and I can't feel you and I may as well pray to the wall," but when we keep standing and keep going in his name, there's faith underneath all that doubt.

Birthing Capri

2008-09-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

Lately, the birth pangs of this season push hard against the birthing wall of my insides, the new heart birthing out of my own heart moving closer to the surface of this life. Thoughts swirl, feelings surge, revelations alight, and then I wait. Birth pangs.

The song below by Colbie Caillat voices my experience of this unconventional motherhood: of carrying a growing life with gentleness and tender intentionality, of trusting that this life grows toward a life that is all her own, of shepherding her with love and someday releasing her to the world.

Capri

She's got a baby inside
And holds her belly tight
All through the night
Just so she knows
She's sleeping so
Safely to keep
Her growing.

And oh, when she'll open her eyes
There'll be no surprise
That she'll grow to be
So beautifully,
Just like her mother
That's carrying.

Oh, Capri:
She's beauty.
Baby inside
She's loving.
Oh, Capri:
She's beauty.
There is an angel
Growing peacefully.
Oh, Capri:
Sweet baby.

Things will be hard at times
But I've learned to try
Just listening
Patiently.

Oh, Capri:
Sweet baby.
Oh, Capri:
She's beauty.
Baby inside
She's loving
Oh, Capri:
You're beauty,
Just like your mother
That's carrying.

Things I'm Thinking About

2008-09-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I finally finished Brian D. McLaren's More Ready than You Realize: The Power of Everyday Conversations - an excellent book, by the way. In his afterward, he quotes (and this may get a little convoluted) Thomas Merton (trappist monk) from Jim Wallis's book Faith Works: Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher. Here are the pertinent parts:

"Do not depend on the hope of results," Merton said. Being involved in God's work requires us to face the fact that our work will at times appear to achieve..."no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect." Far better than being obsessed with results, then, whether in social work or evangelism, is to focus on the value of the work itself, and on the value of being genuine friends with those we serve....

Merton has it right: "All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God's love." With this in mind, we can stop trying to prove ourselves, and instead be channels of God's power, which can work through us without our even realizing it, Merton affirms.

So neither a dependence upon results nor loyalty to a cause nor the need to build an identity for ourselves can motivate us and sustain us over the long run. Rather, he advised, "If you can get free from the domination of causes and just serve Christ's truth, you will be able to do more and will be less crushed by the inevitable disappointments."

...Merton concludes, our hope is "not in something we think we can do but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see."

McLaren is writing in the context of evangelism, but the quotes from Merton, especially the parts in bold, made me think of our Wild Goose chase. I find freedom in thinking this way. Freedom to just pursue God's calling without the weight of expectation.

I am also reminded of God's calling to Ezekiel. God basically tells Ezekiel to go tell Israel God’s word, whether or not they listen. In fact, they are not going to listen, but he is to go tell them anyway and God will equip him for the task. (cf. Ezekiel 2:7; 3:4-11)

Second, here is the passage I am currently working on memorizing:

May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord!

I can pray this because his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence. Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith excellence, to excellence, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, brotherly affection; to brotherly affection, unselfish love. For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately. But concerning the one who lacks such things – he is blind. That is to say, he is nearsighted, since he has forgotten about the cleansing of his past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to be sure of your calling and election. For by doing this you will never stumble into sin. For thus an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be richly provided for you.
2 Peter 1:2-11 (NET)

I am currently just working on verses 2-3, but I am struck by the entire passage. I love the language of the NET Bible - "may grace and peace by lavished on you." I don't know about you, but I need a lavishing of grace and peace. I am also struck by the way grace and peace are tied to "the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." I take this to mean knowing God leads to grace and peace.

Also, I find courage and comfort in knowing that God's divine power has already bestowed on me “everything necessary for life and godliness.” I know I've been taught this concept before, but there is something more in the reading and meditating on the passage itself. Anyway, there is much more there there, but I will leave it for another time.

For a New Beginning

2008-09-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

A new friend of mine shared this poem on her blog, and I couldn't help but see how true it is for all of us here who are embarking on this new part of our journeys, where the questions that have been silently hidden in the folds of our hearts are surfacing, where we're taking small and tentative steps forward in the fuller embrace of our lives, where we're feeling more alive even in the thick of self-doubt and fear. Walk on, my friends. Let's walk on together.

For a New Beginning
by John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

all this beauty ...

2008-08-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

for you, my friends ...

The Scripture passage I have clung to during this season of life and my prayer for us

2008-08-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects - bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light. He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:9-14 (NET)

cobwebs & questions

2008-08-28T12:10:00.000-07:00

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Mark 9:24

I’m asking a lot of questions lately. I’ve got a fairly analytical personality as it is and some days, question-asking seems something of a compulsion. Ever since I possessed the abilities of cognition and speaking, I have been asking all sorts of questions starting with words like: Why? What? What if? How? and so on. Usually these questions give rise to even more questions. This is particularly true of my walk these days.

As some have said, this season is very much akin to walking through a thick and impenetrable fog. We put our hands out in front of us, trying to find our way through the thick vapors that surround us, hugging our skins like a heavy shroud. We can’t see the next step and we wonder: is this the one that will send me tumbling over a cliff and land me on jagged rocks a thousand feet below? We’re learning to trust in this place, occasionally pausing to ask God where He is, if we’re moving in the right direction, if we should keep moving at all, and if He could (please? now?) extend His hand to cut through the fog and guide us by the light of a clear day.

Where, God? And when? Do I sit still and wait? Or do I keep walking?

And then the silence. We remember His promises which, though they are not the answers we’re seeking, basically boil down to trust me. I am faithful. Trust me. And though I do not like it, it is a kind of answer.

But the tangle of questions persists: How will I know if I’m supposed to keep walking, or if I’m supposed to sit and wait for God? How can I move forward when my body is so frail and tired and yet, physical frailty has not limited the saints of God from ministering in their areas of giftedness in the past, so is this something I need to learn to push through? If I push through, it seems that I’m not honoring my body’s need for rest and yet, if I honor my body’s need for rest, it seems that nothing at all is happening. What if in my stillness, I’m not being obedient? But then again, does my stillness limit God?

I get frustrated and confounded with this line of reasoning.

Could it be that what I see as a fantastic mess is really a single thread in a larger tapestry? Could it be that one day, this will make sense in an expanded context, as a chapter in a larger story? Could it be that what I think of as a desire to serve God is really my own desire to be relevant, to provide something meaningful?

Truth is, I just don’t know. That’s as honest an answer as I can give. These questions still cling to me like the fine strands of a cobweb. They irritate and irk and annoy me, I want to brush them off but they persist in their clinging. Sometimes I can’t see them, but I can feel them touching my body: covering my eyes, tickling my arms and legs, tight around my belly. Despite my persistent brushing and slapping and clawing, they cling to me. The questions kick and scream with life in spite of being starved for answers. My internal dialogue goes round and round, ending where it started, and starting yet again.

And so I keep doing what I know: asking, waiting, and opening my hands. I keep feeling like the questions are holding me back, keeping me frozen and unable to make any meaningful progress toward that for which I was created, at least not the kind of "progress" as I'm accustomed to thinking of it (how very modern-western-thought of me!). It could be that in God's eyes, I'm exactly where I need to be. I just wish I knew. I just wish I could be sure, or at least more certain than I am.

It's easy to think that my faith is just fine, thank you in a place where there is clarity and certainty. Then I remember: just like a muscle does not get strong without resistance, neither can faith increase without it. Certainty and answers are easy and do nothing for my faith; in fact, certainty and answers are faith's opposite. But it's in places like this where the fog is heavy and thick, where the fine silky strands of the cobwebs are knit around me so tightly that removing myself from them is impossible, that my faith muscle is being tested. And it hurts. It is work: there is sweat and strain and soreness.

Maybe I just need to trust that God is handling this, that watching and waiting is all He's calling me to in this moment. Maybe I just need to remember that God knows His plans for me better than I do, and that He will clear a way when it's time for me to walk in it.

I guess part of what frustrates me is that I feel like a got such a clear glimpse of what that is when I was with you this past week: I see it and I trust it. Finally. And I want it to be now.

But it's not time and the questions thrive and multiply inside me exponentially. I want both: I want to trust God in the midst of my questions, and I want to take each question and tie a scarf over its eyes, string it up, tie a noose around its neck. And then I really want to be the one that kicks out the stool on which the question stands and watch while it flails and finally, dies.

But I don't think that day will ever come. I think I'm learning what it is to live by faith, not by sight or answers or certainty or a clear blueprint laid out in front of me. It's unnerving sometimes. But He is here. And He knows. And while I don't know what or when or how, I know Him.

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

It was a Dark and Stormy Night

2008-08-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

Gals, I just have to tell you, last night was awful. I almost called one of you or all of you but I couldn't bring myself to it.

I don't even really know how to explain what happened. I felt like wave after wave of hopelessness and discouragement came over me. Everything from, "I'll never see them again," and, "We'll never be able to keep in contact online," to, "I can't possibly start the business I've been thinking about, and even if I do I'll never be able to get any clients," and, "I'll be stuck in this life forever and never get to build what I want to build," to...well, you get the idea. I felt like every insecurity that I'd felt over the last week or so paraded out and they all had a big party in the street. Yeah...it was bad. I don't know if this is true, but it felt then like there'd never been another time when I'd felt like the world and myself in it sucked quite that much.

I didn't know what to do, and it felt so scary, so I prayed, then picked up a book and turned on the television and tried to, temporarily at least, fill the space with something other than that howling wind. Not the world's best solution, but I felt like I just had to make it stop.

And the worst part was, it's all lies. I know that. I knew it then, and it didn't even seem to matter. The feelings and the fear had latched onto my heart and wouldn't let go, even when confronted with truth, and even when cried into my shower.

This is new territory for me and I'm not sure what to make of it. Is it Satan (that jackass!!)? Did our time together open up some places and things in my that I don't even know about yet, but that manifest themselves this way? Is it the fact that I messed slightly with my pills this month?

My best guess is that it was some combination of at least the first two, and maybe the third as well. I do know that our time together touched me in ways I don't know what to do with yet. My tears are so close to the surface this week, you'd think I rubbed my eyes with onion, and that's unusual for me. And when things open for me like that, Satan tends to try to climb right in, too, to poison the growth or at least make me wonder if it's worth it (though it always is).

So I guess I'm walking through the fog with y'all. What does it all mean? Where do I go from here? I don't know, but if last night is any indication (you know, in case anyone was still wondering), our time together was deeply important for me, and where I go with it today and tomorrow is, too.

Walking in the Fog

2008-08-28T01:24:00.000-07:00

We've been talking a lot about standing in the crucible, feeling the fires of purification burn over us as we withstand the heat and cling to God's grace to keep us whole and firm in the midst of it. But the past couple days, all I can think about is walking in a fog. Do you remember the post that Sarah wrote about standing in a fog, her hands outstretched and trusting that Jesus was there somehow, even though she couldn't feel Him? That's kinda how I feel these days. I'm at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, and any second now I know I could amble right over a thousand-foot cliff . . . and yet I trust that He is there, guiding me, even if He is silent and even if His directives seem slow in the coming. He knows what He is doing, even if I don't.

I think this goes back to what we mentioned a couple times during our time together about each of us having a reason to feel we don't belong to the group. When you asked me what mine was, I told you it was having lived so much more life in the past 10 years than most people in their 20s ever do. I'm the only one of us who got married in college. I'm the only one of us that's been divorced. I'm the only one of us who has been married twice. Not just in our circle, but in most circles: these facts make me feel like an oddball.

But on the plane ride home, I considered this question further. I realized there's a more present way I feel a sense of aloneness inside our supportive friendship. It has to do with the path I've chosen. It's not just my decision to walk away from the security of full-time work, though that plays a part in it. It's not just my decision to complete two grad programs during this time apart, though that's a part of it, too.

Really, it's what these incremental decisions have to say about the larger scope of my life. I'm being called to create something. When I left the working world, I had a sense that this thing I'd be creating would be Storychange. About halfway through my business program, my confidence in this began to falter. I started thinking this thing I'd been called to create would be a ministry of some sorts, instead of a business. Perhaps a private practice for spiritual direction. Perhaps a retreat center of sorts. And as I finished the demands of my business program, which included an actual business plan and investment pitch presentation for Storychange, some of that initial fire I had for this idea crept back in. I still wonder . . . is Storychange the path I'm meant for?

I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know is what it felt like to offer words at graduation that extended a sense of dignity and wholeheartedness to the lives of those who listened. It made me feel alive, an electrifying pulse flooding through me as I braved speaking some vulnerable moments of my own story and locked eyes with individuals in the hopes that my life would connect with their life and somehow make a measure of difference. I know what it felt like to receive the smiles, tears, and stories of those who were brave enough to tell me what it meant for them to hear those words. Those women who approached me on that day were Storychange women. I just knew, deep down in my heart, that Storychange, if it ever came to be, was for them.

I know, too, what it feels like to finger the keychain fob prototype that I carry in my purse, sliding it open to reveal the question cards inside, rubbing my thumb along the "Awake" logo I affixed to the front of it, all of this reminding me about how everything begins in the Storychange process. First, we awaken. I think about all the women out there who are on the cusp of an awakening. I wonder when and how they will begin. I wonder if they have the support they need. I wonder if they even know how to start.

The truth is, it's all pretty fuzzy to me. Am I meant to create Storychange? And if I am, what on earth does that mean? It means walking people through a process of growth, but can a process for that be created?

As I told you girls on the trip, I really do think the process of growth, large or small, always comes down to the three elements I've identified for the Storychange process: Awake, Attend, Embrace. But can you create a process that walks people through the awakening, attending, and embracing phases of their growth? Can it really be nailed down for people, and even small groups of people, to walk through, intentionally, together?

I'm still not sure. This is part of my fog. This is where I'm stretching out my hands in limited visibility conditions, asking Jesus to reveal Himself in this. I pray that indeed He does.

Plunged into a Whirlwind

2008-08-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

So, my time of getting back home has been strange for me. It mostly feels like the timeframe for everything I expected to experience when I got home has been pushed back in unexpected, vaguely unpleasant ways.

First there was the delay of my flight home. The first leg was delayed seven hours, and then I had to fly four hours only to spend the night in Memphis. I had intended to spend the night in my own bed and getting to reunite with Kirk and Solomon and Diva. I was disappointed to be spending the night alone in a grungy hotel room with a dying cell phone and without a change of clothes, a comb, or even a toothbrush.

As you girls know, we didn't get much sleep during our time together. This is something I am pretty happy about because it means that time was spent talking with you girls, getting to hear the real deal about what's going on in your lives and hearts. Those late-night conversations are what I think God most used to bring us to this point of walking together through this season of ebenezing.

But it also means that limited sleep and two days of travel translates into one very tired girl who has no concept of a sleep schedule. I got home and crashed for several hours. When I woke up, it was 8:30pm and I felt like I was ready to start my day. I discovered my Spring Arbor community had cropped up online and so I began to orient myself to the online interface, the orientation syllabus, and the discussion board forums. Later, I got the idea to create the photo montage of our trip and worked on that for several hours.

All of this was a lot of fun, but it means I didn't go to sleep until 5:30 this morning. When I woke up at 1:00, I felt sluggish and slightly behind. This was compounded by my discovery that there was much more taking place in the Spring Arbor interface than I'd realized last night. I had found the orientation module, but there was also a whole other module for my first official class that had been posted and active for about a week.

I don't know how it happened that I wasn't clued in to this first class module before today, but somehow the announcement for it had never shown up on my school portal homepage. It felt overwhelming to realize that I need to navigate through two class interfaces right now (the orientation module and the first "real" class module), making sense out of both of them, getting to know both professors, and trying to figure out what is expected of me and when for each.

But beyond that, it feels distressing to discover how far behind I am in the discussion board forums with my classmates. Whereas last night I was flying high and totally thrilled to have discovered the orientation forum and get caught up on all the introductions and discussion threads, today I feel totally behind and lost and out of the loop. I'm struggling against a message in my heart that says I'm going to be left behind and that it's too late for me to be part of the group.

None of these things could have been helped. I couldn't control what happened with the flight delays, and I couldn't control the need for sleep. I couldn't control, either, when I found the information online about my classes, because I had contacted the school before the trip and thought I had all the information I needed already.

What this means is that I'm having to learn how to sit in the whirlwind that is now surprisingly swirling around me. I'm having to be gentle with myself and take things one baby step at a time. I'm having to trust that I will not be forgotten and that my classmates will want to know me once I finally get caught up and can enter into the fray. I'm having to trust that everything is just as it should be and there will be grace for me in this place.

Little, Tiny Landmarks

2008-08-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

Wow...I'm almost scared to post here. It's like this new, pristine space and I don't feel like my words can quite measure up. Yeah, I should get over that.

My soul is sad today. Yesterday it was pissed, but today it's sad. Part of it is the missing of each one of you and all of us together, and the fear that we'll grow apart. I keep reminding myself that God is in this, that distance can be something of an illusion, and that nothing negates last weekend.

Another part of me, though, is sad because, after stepping into my life here again after all of our conversations last week, I've realized just how much my life isn't what I want it to be. Like Christianne talked about in her book (and if you haven't read it yet, you should), my life is not speaking my truth. Right now, it's a jumble. Bits of it are about me. Bits are about Dave and Dave and I. All of those bits seem good. It's the other bits that I'm really struggling against. They're the things that seem necessary even though I don't want them to be. They're realities that I wouldn't have signed up for had I known what I was getting into at the time. They're sturdy and hard, and I feel like mud thrown up against them.

Then again, rivers carve canyons, so maybe there's something to the mud thing.

In the midst of all of this, though, I see new light, and it's light that I've only seen since I returned from Bellingham. What I feel is, finally, a permission to start doing something about my situation. For a while now, I've felt like I need to be here, like there's more for me here than I've seen. And, honestly, I still feel that way. But, for the first time, I feel like it's time to take some real, serious, concrete steps toward making my life look more like me.

This change in me is tiny. I might even have missed it, had I not felt so sad yesterday that I went searching for it. But sometimes it's the tiny changes that push me the farthest. Because, honestly, the difference between "almost" and "ready" can be infinite or it can be so miniscule it's almost non-existent. I needed permission to start realistically looking at things in a new light, and I found it.

I don't know if this new permission comes from God, or if something released inside of me, but it's there, and it's new, and I think it's worth celebrating.

ebenezing

2008-08-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

10 While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. But that day the LORD thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. 11 The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Car.

12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, [b] saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." 13 So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again.

~ 1 Samuel 7:10-13 (NIV)

Setting up a place of remembrance. This is a little bit of what this space is about, isn't it?

I'm so sad you girls are gone. And I can already see how the enemy is trying to thwart us, discourage us, turn our attentions away from the outpouring of grace we experienced this last week.

There is so much from our time together that I'll remember. Snippets of conversations, the song lyrics we couldn't get out of our heads. Tears, prayers, laughter. Realizing that our very coming together was nothing short of a miracle. Experiencing the lavish and detail-oriented love of God.

I think I told you how I never listen to the radio. But Kaari turned it on during our long drive home yesterday (that drive was a crucible moment in and of itself; perhaps I'll save that for another post). And it was still on when I went to Starbucks for my second cup of coffee this morning. What song should be on the radio but "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", the song whose lyrics we were considering closely just a day or two before. And what verse should be sung just as I pulled out of my parking spot, but:

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.

I hope you have arrived in safety, my friends. There's so much I want to say, but I don't know where to start. It is a good thing that we don't need to say it all now.

Much love to you, my fellow sisters and sojourners.

photo courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net