Truth Telling

Being thirty-nine has somehow managed to suck and be amazing at the same time. I made a commitment to myself this year to tell the truth more than ever. To myself, as well as to others. When I hurt someone and even more difficultly, when they hurt me. It isn't so much that I have gone out of my way to seek out these conversations--in fact, I have had to take a sit and wait stance on a few I would rather just go ahead and be done with--but I will say this: be careful what you say you are ready to do and be because what you will find is that you are scared and laid bare. And that is only the beginning. And yes, it sucks. But there is peace in speaking into the light the stuff that grows in the dark. 

The following is something I read that speaks loudly to my laid bare heart this morning:

"I believe that by being the best and most healed version of ourselves we can truly make a difference in the world. I’m not an activist or politician, and I’m not able to have any direct impact on the areas of the world where help is needed. But what I can do is make a difference in the small pocket of the world I call home.

I can live with integrity and be honest about my feelings, even when they hurt. I can put my whole heart into my work and pay forward the generosity that was shown to me when my world fell apart. I can look after myself, knowing that by healing my own hurts I won’t be passing them on to anyone else. In a society like ours, filled with so many emotionally wounded people acting out their pain, this is possibly the most important work we could ever do—heal our hurts so we don’t pass them on."

--Susannah Conway

Walk on

I am stubborn. This shouldn't be much of a revelation to those of you who know me well, but I've been doing some internal housecleaning lately and this is one of the aspects of my personality I am wrestling with the most.

My hardheadedness has served me well at different times of my life. When I was working my way through college and a four year degree was taking all of eight years. The first five years of married life when we were trying to figure out married life, each other, and ourselves. When I was marathon training and everything in my body would want to stop running, but my mind made me continue. My stubborn streak is what has always made me push through. When life pushed, I pushed back. But I'm realizing more and more that we can only keep pushing for so long. It is exhausting. Frustrating. And often, gets us nowhere. Or even worse, sets us back.

It is no secret that I have taken up yoga. I still find this fact somewhat amusing. But a few days ago I was lying on the living room floor trying to push through the nasty ball of tightness in my hip. I kept telling myself that I could push through the pain until my hip surrendered and opened up. But after a few minutes of pretty intense pain, I gave up pushing. Lying there on the floor, I realized that pushing was what got my body in this mess to begin with. Several years of running with no attention to stretching and balance had gotten me to this point and I was going to have to nurture my way out of it. And before you think this is going to get all warm and fuzzy on you, know that this realization ticked me off in a major way. I got downright mad. But after a little conversation with myself, I decided if I couldn't force healing in my body, I could willingly walk toward it, and maybe I could use my determination and stubbornness to stay on the path and just keep walking. And if everything I'm learning about yoga is true, this is going to be a very, very long walk. Good thing I love a journey.

Open Hands

It is a funny thing, perspective. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift and all of a sudden, the world looks very different than it did just moments before. Yesterday was not exactly an easy day. I was feeling the stress of waiting for the results of a medical test before my dear husband even started it. And when he walked out into the waiting room, I knew it had hit him too.

The ride home alternated between him trying to find the words to express what he was feeling, me trying to find the words to encourage him when I didn't feel so encouraged myself, and silence. Lots of silence. And in a twist of really bad timing, on a day when I was doing the very best I could at showing up, I received a pretty ugly text from a hurting person who wanted to hurt someone else. Bullseye.

Those words cut straight through all of the surface courage I had managed to muster that morning and hit me at the core of what I suspected might be true: Nothing I do is good enough. I am not good enough. Those feelings sat there like a heavy rock on my chest. And then I did the thing I knew I needed to do. I reached out to someone I knew would speak truth and healing to my heart. She listened and she reminded me of the things I knew, but had forgotten in that moment. Sick people--people with addiction and the brokenness that goes with it--can't love people. It isn't in their skill set. And as much as we could use their love--especially when we are hurting--we just can't expect it. They are doing what they can with what they have. I listened for several minutes to these words that spoke the truth of people I love who can't love me back. And I listened to her speak my truth. I am hurting, but I am loved. And it is a deep, deep love filled with grace and mercy.

 You can't be reminded of that kind of love and stay the same. That love--the words of God on the lips of a person who has let themselves be changed by that love, changed me. It helped me unfurl my fists. And that rock that had been sitting on my chest, so heavy and suffocating, began to move. I learned once again rocks can be moved and our wounds healed when we pray with our hands open.

Upside Down

It has been one of those weeks that takes a lot of all the stuff I need more of.  We are in week two of the low iodine diet and the thought and preparation that has gone into every single meal is starting to wear on me. My patience is thin. I know it could be worse, but I long for the opportunity to not have to think about every meal and every ingredient.

On Wednesday night I taught a lesson on The Beatitudes. We talked about the idea of each beatitude bearing a double blessing. The blessing of current condition--which is not necessarily a pleasant state, and the future blessing--the reward. I love The Beatitudes because they teach us what we don't really want to know: suffering or struggle can be a blessing. Little did I know how much I needed to hear myself speak these truths out loud.  

On the way home that night I stopped by the post office to get the mail. I pulled two packages out of the box. I sat in my car and looked at the first one addressed to me from the District Attorney. I felt my heartbeat begin to quicken, my stomach begin to turn. I knew what this was. Finally, after a lot of deep breathing and a call to my courage, I opened the package. Inside I found a letter detailing the arraignment and May court date of the man who robbed us before Christmas. There were forms instructing me of my rights as a victim, there was information regarding a possible subpoena to testify, there was a form for me to fill out detailing the impact this crime has had on my life. And it all came flooding back. 

Later that night, when I couldn't sleep, I opened the second package. It was a book of blessings I had ordered and didn't expect to receive until next week. In the introduction to his book, The Space Between Us, John  O'Donohue writes "...God is omnipresent, and life itself is the primal sacrament, namely the visible sign of invisible grace. The structures of our experience are the windows into the divine.When we are true to our call of experience, we are true to God." I breathed in those words and welcomed, at least for that night this blessing of experience. 

Of course, everyday is a new day, and when I awoke yesterday, I woke with a heaviness. As I went through the day, I found myself feeling more and more lonely, more and more angry, but only because I didn't want to let myself feel what was trying to surface again: fear. I had almost talked myself out of yoga class in the evening until I realized fear was what brought me to that class in the first place, and I couldn't let it take it away from me. Needless to say, by the time I got to the mat, I was a ball of issues. I struggled the entire time. Nothing came easily. Blessedly, our class was small last night and our teacher talkative with all of the stuff I needed to hear, so by the end of class when it was time to go to the wall and stand on our hands, I remembered why I was there. When Aaron asked me if I was ready to kick up on the wall--the thing I have always refused to do--I said "I don't want to, but I think I need to." And here is what I realized: When we have to call on our strength, we immediately feel weakest. When we have to be brave, we feel the most fearful. With the help of a compassionate teacher, I went up on that wall even though everything in my body told me not to. The moment was brief. I cussed. And then I cried. But I did it.  

On the way out of class, I found myself in conversation with a sweet soul of a woman. I had never known her name, but she has always been one of my safe people in class--she has an easy smile that she often directs at me. We stood in the parking lot talking for awhile. She asked me my story and spoke sweet, sweet words to me. She told me some great stories and shared her heart with me. She hugged me when we parted, and I was thankful that after being willing to be upside down for a moment, when I stood back up, there was someone standing there and that was where I found my blessing. In a parking lot, in the space between us.

"Who am I that You are mindful of me?"

"Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain." Isaiah 4:5-6

Almost every run in my short history of running has started on this street in the picture. It is my safe place. My warm up lasts the length of this street and whether I am anticipating a great run or a difficult one, whether I start out carefree or budened, it is my favorite place to begin. In the heat, the canopy of old oak and pecan trees offers me dappled light and respite from the sun. In the rain, it is a giant, old umbrella of sorts, only letting through a fraction of the storm raining down on me.

And isn't that what it is like to sit under the protection of a Savior? I think I finally understood this idea for the first time last week. As I started down Avenue J, I voiced in my head my thankfulness for the shade. And out of nowhere, I was suddenly struck by this scripture from Isaiah that I couldn't even completely remember.  I was completely humbled to truly understand for the first time what it means to sit in the shelter of God. I have always thought of God as holding me in the midst of storms. I could wrap my head around that thought. I could accept that I would have to bear everything that rained down on me, but at least I could do it if I was being held. It had never occured to me that what I actually experience is just a fraction of the storm. I am protected because I sit under the canopy of God's Glory.

I used to think I had to protect myself, that God had too many other people to protect. And just as dangerously, I thought the enemy wouldn't bother to mess with me because I wasn't worth messing with. I am humbled by the thought that I am worthy of both attack and protection. I have been attacked in the last couple of years in very specific ways. Ways that played on my fear of violence, ways that dragged up hurts I thought were healed, ways that made me feel vulnerable and unsafe, ways that played on my fear of loss and the unknown. But worst of all, ways that made me feel like I had to bear it all alone.

But I am realizing more and more that I am being protected in ways that are making me no longer lean on my understanding. Ways that are making me redefine security. Ways that are making me grateful for the present and vulnerable in the way God wants me to be vulnerable. Ways that are forcing me to rise up when I want to hide. Ways that give me courage and strength and humility. Ways that make me sit in awe and speak with hope. Ways that make me seek refuge. Ways that remind me daily that His ways are not my ways. And for that, I thank God.

Annie

I have a confession to make. I have a tendency to read sad books, watch sad movies, and listen to sad songs when I am already sad. There, I said it. I'm that girl. Everyone knows her. You might even be her.

There is a series of young adult books by Lurlene McDaniel that were popular with many (meaning most) of my female students when I was teaching. I called them the "death books" because someone died in every book. I heard so many booktalks that tearily began, "This is the best book I have ever read." I watched student after student cry through page after page and yet, they could not tear themselves away from the series. I laughed about it, often with crying girls, about the fact that we enjoy being sad.

Maybe it isn't so much that we always enjoy it, but when we let ourselves be sad when we need to be sad, we understand a little better what it means to be happy. I've had a lot of conversations about sadness lately. If a person is going to be sad, the holidays with their sense of necessary joy and fuzzy-edged nostalgia can bring it to the surface. There is a lot of mourning that happens at Christmas. And I'm starting to think that is okay as long as we keep walking, purposely moving through it, firmly grasping hope on our way through.

I read a story a couple of days ago that made me cry the ugly cry while I read it. It is a story of pure grief.  A heartbreaking story of deep sorrow, but deeper hope. We need these stories at Christmas. We need these stories. Period. To remind us that when we are lost in our own thoughts, independently living with our own hurts and griefs, there are others out there doing the same. And thankfully, some of these people let us walk with them, in a small way, through their pain, showing us that hurt is universal. But so is hope. And it is easier to grasp when we hand it to each other.

Here is Annie's story. I hope you read it and share it. May we all hand someone the hope of our Savior this Christmas.

Be Still...

from Sue Monk Kidd's When the Heart Waits:

"…I sat beside her, unable to resist the feeling that we shared something, the two of us. The wounds and brokenness of life. Crumpled wings. A collision with something harsh and real. I felt like crying for her. For myself. For every broken thing in the world.

That moment taught me that while the postures of stillness within the cocoon are frequently an individual experience, we also need to share out stillness. The bird taught me anew that we're all in this together, that we need to sit in one another's stillness and take up corporate postures of prayer. How wonderful it is when we can be honest and free enough to say to one another, 'I need you to wait with me,' or 'Would you like me to wait with you?'

I studied the bird, deeply impressed that she seemed to know instinctively that in stillness is healing. I had been learning that too, learning that stillness can be the prayer that transforms us. How much more concentrated our stillness becomes, though, when its shared…."