Thought

Optimism

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I don’t want to be here. This place, my soul hates, this void of existence….but here I am. People talk from the outside about who I should be, who I am, the next moves I should make in this existence that is my life. What do they know?

This place is a place of pain, of heartache and grief. No one else knows the ache. Similar stories are of no relevance here. This moment is mine and I am alone in it.

So a word of advice from the depths of a bleeding soul…don’t say you understand. Don’t say it’s okay. Don’t try to minimize or trivialize. Just be there. A person with skin on who actually cares is all that’s required.

Grief takes many forms and actualizes for many reasons. You probably can’t fully understand so be someone to lean on. Empathy takes many forms. At the end of the day, we’re all different. We’ve had different histories, different struggles. What feels one way to you may feel entirely different to me.

Embrace the difference. Hold in your hand the willingness to not understand but care anyway. Humanity brings its own version of struggle and wholeness. Don’t try to assess mine based on yours. Just be there.

Tomorrow will be better and even if it’s not, life goes on. We grow. We learn. We change. Tonight I’m not settling. Tomorrow I may be a pool of self loathing. The next day, I might be a warrior. We are human.

God sees. He knows. He heals. He helps us grow. Don’t shirk from the hard things. Don’t minimize them in others. Be kind. Bring truth. Love without abandon. And just like that the world is a better place.

Sincerely, a broken hearted optimist.

Fear is a Terrible Driver

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It’s been a hard year. It seems like we’ve all said that so many times now, it’s become an anecdote. The reasons for its sting are different for everyone. I wish for me, it were simply the work of a pandemic and its’ resulting madness, but it’s been so much more than that. The darkness of all the broken parts of my story threatened to undo all of me, everything I’ve built, and the woman I’ve become. I am so grateful for the light I’ve found in spite of it, that lifts me.

The hand of God still reaches for me. His fingers lightly nudging the stony parts of my heart until it beats again with softness. I am slowly ambling my way out of the deep into the deeper, truer, reasonableness that is faith.

I read a quote this morning from Ann Voskamp, “He who is driven by fear delays the comfort of God.” I can see it so clearly now. I lost sight of truth for a time…of all the wonder and goodness. I let fear take the wheel and drive. It drove me in circles in a vacuum of sorts. I was unable to find the air that fear had stolen from me. I gave it away. I was just along for the ride until I remembered it’s my car and took back the keys.

Now the comforter is near, wrapping me up once again. He never left but I had kicked Him off when the room got too hot. I forgot that He alone is enough. Isn’t remembering the things we too often forget, one of the greatest things in life?

The hard stuff can either make us hard or draw us to Him. Choose wisely and don’t let fear anywhere near your car.

The Light

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When the light turns on, the darkness becomes inconsequential. The glory appears in the brilliance of the light. It’s all in your perspective.

I confess, I’ve been lost in the shadows for awhile. I can’t explain why I let the light hide. I can’t explain why I couldn’t find it, but I lost track of it somehow. I let my pen fall silent. The same pen, I’ve so often prayed to “be a pen in the hand of a ready writer”, as the Psalmist says (Psalm 45:1), I tucked away deep inside of myself. I soaked it in tears. I allowed my story to become a side plot in someone else’s book.

I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t know that we ever really possess that capability. We’re all walking through our journeys with different points of reference, different experiences, different packs strapped to our backs carrying the remnants of yesterday’s climb. That’s where empathy comes in. When our understanding falters, we can choose to hear. We can choose to dig deep with compassion and find the eternal spark in each other. The humanity veiling divine destiny in another person can lead us to love deeply even when we don’t get it. But I digress.

I feel like I’ve, too often, used the phrase, “It’s been a hard season.” It’s a great Christian cliché to hide behind. Mainly, because this time, I’m sick of it. I don’t want to say it all again. I don’t want to admit that I’ve been wandering around in the desert for forty years in the same shoes. Now I’m realizing that maybe I needed the desert to find the sun.

If the eye is the lamp of the body (Matthew 6:22) and Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12), and He lives in me, shouldn’t I be seeing things through His perspective and not my own limited one? Shouldn’t I be shining the same light to others instead of closing my eyes tight and thinking if I don’t look, maybe it will all disappear? Shouldn’t I be holding my head high in the middle of the struggles, knowing that He’s got me?

Maybe I can stand again, pull up my socks, lace up my boots, and continue walking. Maybe I need to stop and rest and breathe in the moments that make me human. Maybe I need to trust. I am surrounded by light.

So I throw these words into the air defying the silence. They may not mean anything to you, but to me, they mean I’m alive. To me, they mean I’m done wandering. To me they mean, I will fight for myself, strengthened in weakness, until I become who I really am. To me, that’s enough.

Under Construction

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I realized something about myself this morning. As much as I hate to admit it. I can be a bit short-sighted. My husband and I have had big plans for our property since we purchased it and remodeled it a few years back. He is a dreamer in every sense of the word, but he’s so much more than that. He is a mover and a shaker. He tends to have several projects in the works at a time. Me, I can get stuck. He thinks big picture, long term, how amazing it will be when it’s complete. I think “right now” and get caught up on the demo.

The first step in a remodeling project is planning and dreaming. Then you move on to demo. When we started remodeling our home, I would stop by to look at the progress and inevitably more had been taken out, more walls were gone. I remember walking in the kitchen one day and seeing nothing but daylight streaming in from the open concrete wall where my sink should have been. I understood the interior demo, but looking at my backyard through the wall was enough to make me panic.

Kitchen Before

My Kitchen Before the Demo (It was pretty bad!!!)

It’s a dumb thing actually. I completely trust my contractor husband, especially in matters of construction, yet there I was panicking over a hole in a wall. I know nothing about construction, other than what I picked up during our project, and what I’ve heard from his mouth while managing the office of his company since he came into my life. Yet, here I was standing in an empty, soon to be kitchen, panicking at the chaos, instead of dreaming of what it would one day become.

Kitchen

My kitchen now. 

I did it again this morning watching a worker rip out some old brush and clean up the back yard. He really made a clean canvas for us to create something beautiful, but I sat there thinking “he’s tearing up my yard”. It’s a character flaw I suppose. But what matters most is that God does the same thing in my own heart sometimes.

This last year especially has been like that. I’ve been in a demo phase and that should excite me.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

I should be grateful and happy knowing that when God begins a good work, he is faithful to complete it. (Phil 1:6) and the end result will be better than I can even begin to dream. But I get lost in the moment. I get stuck in the chaos from time to time.

Here’s the thing though, I will gladly take every moment of chaos, every tear, every trial, if it makes me more like Christ. I will gladly walk through the craziest internal construction project if it’s necessary to make me into a woman through which His glory is revealed.

Nothing we go through is wasted. 2 Corinthians 1:6 says, “Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”

There is always a reason even in suffering. I’m not saying God is smiting us with afflictions. What I am saying is that in suffering and affliction, He is there with us, not only comforting us, but also strengthening us. If we’re going through something, He will cause us to grow through it. It is grace and His unfailing love that always advocates for us and calls us to dig deeper. If it takes a bit of demo to make something beautiful out of me, I’m in!

I don’t know what you may be going through right now. But if you find yourself like me, panicking at the demo phase, I encourage you to trust the contractor. God knows what He’s doing and He’s got you! Try not to fear the process, but rather try to envision the finished product.

Identity

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My kids teach me something everyday. Life with children is certainly an adventure. Last night as I was giving my last round of snuggles to my five-year old and tucking him in for the night, I said the words I so often say to him. “Goodnight mighty man of God. Do you know you will change the world someday?” His response was a simple, sleepy, “Uh huh”. It made me smile. There’s a sweetness to the simplicity of their honest responses. He simply said, “Uh huh,” and closed his eyes.

I began to realize something as I thought about our exchange throughout the rest of the evening. Every night I tell him he was designed with a purpose and a destiny and that he will do great things. It’s become our bedtime mantra. The thing is, he has come to believe it. I’ve spoken it over his life so many times that it’s not even something he questions or longs to understand. It’s just the truth…his truth.

How many things have I spoken of myself that I’ve come to believe as truth? How many lies have I told myself over the years that, though in my head are known for what they are, in my heart have played on repeat defining who I am? When will I become fed up enough and know who I am? The answer to that one is NOW!

I was created with purpose and destiny. I am enough. I am loved. I am beautiful. I am strong. I am forgiven. I will change the world. I am changing the world everyday. I am uniquely, fearfully, wonderfully made. And so are you!

I am honest enough to reveal these things about myself because I know I’m not alone. I know so many who seem so totally put together on the outside, but inside, are filled with doubts. We doubt so much about our greatness. We doubt it’s okay to even admit that we are destined for greatness. Our successes and failures play out like a Netflix original series, all the while, we hide the reality of who we are behind the approval of the crowd.

We crouch and minimize our achievements so we aren’t embarrassed by the criticism of others. Or we amplify and scream them to the masses in an attempt to prove that we are actually capable and worthy. Both are the same. Both are our insecurities blaring like trumpets that we are unsure.

I think the truth, the real truth, is in the ability to rest…in the ability to stop and settle once and for all that who we are is who we are meant to be. This spot in our journey is exactly the spot where we will learn what we need for the next mile. We may not have attained the goals we are working towards yet, but that doesn’t have to mean we won’t. Sure, we need to continue to grow. That’s part of the beauty and if we can rest and be at peace, and finally silence that inner voice who’s lying to us, then man, will it be beautiful. Don’t listen to the crowd. Listen to the one who calmed the seas, who hung the stars, who created you with purpose and destiny.

You were created for greatness! You will change the world! It’s up to you to decide how. It’s up to you to decide to live, I mean really LIVE, your life. It’s up to you. You are more than enough. Can I get an “Uh huh”?

 

Reflecting on the Absence of Me

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Look up

Let me start with an apology, despite the fact that my husband tells me frequently to stop apologizing. I apologize far too frequently for things I shouldn’t, but that’s a story for another post…

I apologize for allowing my head to stop my heart from living. I apologize for allowing circumstance to dictate my perceptions. I apologize for allowing myself to become missing in the haze of chaos rather than being present and available. I apologize for being absent from my own life.

This season I’ve been trudging through has been…I’ll just say…hard. I’m naming it, in my own nerdy way, “The Transitional Positional”. Without getting into the details, I’ll just say, I’ve been going through a lot both personally and professionally. The ground I often expected to remain solid beneath my feet has been shifting and cracking and quaking. At times, it’s been a lot to take in. With that, I’ve had a few realizations that I thought I’d share.

The first is that I am ultimately responsible for my life. Of course, I knew this, but not I KNOW this! I can be highly reactive and deal with things as they arise from a reactive posture rather than a responsive posture. Everything must be handled simply because it’s happening but I forget to stop and think and respond appropriately. I forget to delegate and acknowledge that I do not have to do it all and be everything for everyone. I have the power to say what I’m thinking, to feel what I’m feeling, and to find gratefulness in the process. The two letter word, “no” is not a four letter word and I can use it when necessary. I can choose to be happy when everything around me seems to be falling apart. It’s all a part of the journey. I get to be who I choose to be, plain and simple.

I’ve also realized that perfection is a myth. I’ve spent the majority of my life trying to attain the elusive, self-proclaimed, standard of “good enough” not realizing that I have been good enough all along. The only “perfect” out there worth attaining is “perfectly myself”, with all my flaws and failings. “Perfect” is the acceptance that God made me to be the best me I can be (forgive the Dr. Seuss-esque rhythm of the preceding). It is good and perfect to embrace the process of growth in my life rather than constantly feeling less than in the pursuit of perfection. I refuse to listen to that lie anymore.

The thing about transition is that I can choose one of two perspectives. I can look at the things I’m leaving behind and feel sting and loss. Or I can look to the unknowns ahead and feel anticipation for the good I know will come. Which perspective I choose, again, is ultimately my responsibility. I choose to believe my best days are ahead. I choose to get up each day and walk, and sing, and dance, and laugh, despite anything that life hurls at me along the way. My response is my choice.

Somehow along the way, I allowed myself to go missing into myself. I held back. I hid in the corner. I forgot how to use my voice. I forgot that I have something to offer. I admit, part of the reason I’m writing this post is to force myself to come back to the world of the living. It’s kind of like releasing the hatch on the bunker I’ve been hiding in and stepping back outside. But, it is also, because I’m realizing that I’m not the only one. I see it in the faces of others who struggle and fight to keep their heads above water, and I know the whole time, they are strong, and beautiful, and perfectly “enough”. They just can’t see it from the middle. In the middle of the haze and the chaos, they’re clouded. I was clouded.

There is this light though…it shines and breaks darkness to pieces. There’s this grace that reaches through the thickest fog and finds us. It shows us the way home. It wraps us up wholly. It carries us back to solid ground. I think so often, I turned my face away from the light thinking I was not worthy to be seen. In truth, the light was inside of me the whole time and the light of the world was using this, and every trial, to guide me into the “me” He designed me to be.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come. And the glory of The Lord rises upon you.” Isaiah 60:1

So I apologize for hiding. I apologize to myself for letting my heart be taken captive by “busy”, and fear. I write this now, my resolve to live on purpose.

I am alive and I am grateful.

Morning

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Morning always comes a little too soon yet somehow carries promises of newness, mercies, and hope. I carry with me habitual optimism so the breaking dawn looks to me like joy and vision spanning the gap between darkness and light.

I travel inward, deeply, as the colors move and change before me. I ready myself for the coming blaze of fire, sometimes obscured by cloud. It’s an ever present reminder that the world still turns and all things give way to the maker who spun it all into order and motion. I revel in the wonder and watch for the romance. I hold my breathe still, my heart soft, my hands out, searching for fulfillment of purpose. I know destiny lives in dreaming with eyes wide open.

There, I find you. There, I can do anything.

I’m not Complaining

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snapped tree

The truth is…

There are too many thoughts rolling around in my head to make anything fully coherent

The truth is…

I’m watching the things I’ve worked so hard to build crumble around me

Knowing still, it will all be okay and we will rebuild

We will be better than before

I live in hope

I am an optimist

My glass is half full always

Still I wonder, why does it never seem to be full?

Maybe that’s just life

Maybe the trials of this present time aren’t worthy to be compared with the joy to come

Maybe light and love trump darkness every time

Still I watch in helplessness

Water dripping from my broken roof

Drywall sagging and stained

The beauty of a home remodeled in need of restoration again

Irma was a punk

It hasn’t been fun

I haven’t complained…at least not really

A call from others pulls my husband away to make another roof blue in the aftermath of the storm

It temporarily stops their further damage but mine remains

As so often is the case, we are last on the list of our priorities

So we wait

Dinner cooks in the pan near the spot where the water pours

My kitchen a wet, sopping, disaster zone

My living room in disarray as the furniture sits in foreign places avoiding the inevitable spill

Why is it still raining?

Why does the sight of the trees fallen and dead all around my yard bring me sadness?

We are alive

We are whole

We are grateful

Still my patience runs thin

Oh how spoiled I’ve been

Oh how I long to be more than I am

To be who I was made to be

To leave behind the mundane and steadily place my hands to the plow and sow

But here I sit in a kitchen cooking dinner and maybe that’s enough

The Squeeze

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Skinny Girl Squeeze beginning

All I can seem to think about the last few days is what it is to be squeezed. Maybe you can relate. You know that feeling when the walls, the ceiling, the air above, and the floor beneath you, seem to be closing in. It’s that sensation of not knowing if you’ll make it out…not knowing if that elusive light at the end of the tunnel will bring warmth to your face. It is the season of the uncertainty, the uneasiness of tight places, the wondering in the wandering.

When my husband and I were on our honeymoon, we spent some time among the rocks and trees in the Northern Alabama. The wonderful man from whom we’d rented the cabin we stayed in took us out on his land one afternoon to explore, hike, and get lost in the majesty of it all. In the spirit of adventure he talked us into going through a few tight places where the rocks barely gave access. First, we wriggled our way through what he called, “Fat man’s squeeze”. It was a little tricky for my husband to maneuver, but my scrawny frame didn’t object so much.

A little further down the path, we came to an opening in the rocks that he informed us was “skinny girl’s squeeze”. He didn’t fit so he’d never been that way, but one gentlemen who worked for him had made it through and told of the gorgeous view from the other side. Maybe the wonder and majesty of the journey had awakened a bravery and sense of adventure in me that had been dormant for a while, but I thought, “I’m a skinny girl…bring it!” and decided to give it a shot.

Everything was fine until about halfway through. The walls of stone around me had narrowed a bit and I wasn’t sure if I was as skinny as I thought I was. Size zero or not, it was getting tight in there. Then my shoe got stuck. By this time, my feet had to be turned sideways, as if I was ready to plié my way through. There was no room to turn in any way. In an effort to free my foot from its prison, I leaned a bit toward the end of the crevice until I was almost lying down. I heard my guide from behind yelling for me not to lie down or I’d never make it. They wouldn’t be able to go in after me either and help wasn’t a possibility. I HAD to keep going, upright; there was no other option.

I’m not quite sure how I did it, but I eventually got free and made it to the other side, an inch and wiggle at a time. It was beautiful there. There was something magical about knowing I was one of very few who’d been where I was standing. I felt alive in a new way standing there in the open, knowing I’d made it through the squeeze. I drank in the beauty surrounded by stone that had kept so many out. There, in the openness, where the sun shone free, I was a conqueror, a warrior who’d fought through the obstacles and made it to freedom.

Lately, I’ve been in a place that reminds me of the rock. I’ve been squeezed, hard-pressed on every side as scripture describes it. I know now, just as I did then, that God will never put me somewhere without providing a way out. There is a light on the other side. But, I have to keep moving forward to reach it. If I lie down, I’ll end up stuck. Even when my feet seem wedged into the rock, there’s a rock that’s higher than I that is faithful to bring me to freedom if I just keep on standing. I have to keep moving forward, there is no other option. He, my guide and comfort, is faithful, and He calls to me words of instruction and encouragement even when I’m beginning to panic.

On the other side, there is a beauty I’ve never known. On the other side, I am stronger. On the other side, the sun is shining and I am wiser and more prepared for the next obstacle. I will never forget the squeeze. I will always keep moving forward. The other side is so worth the journey.

squeeze

Peace Out!

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peace

“Praise the Lord!  I will praise the Lord with my whole heart.” Psalm 111:1

“Life’s full of tough choices isn’t it?” Ursula in The Little Mermaid

Let’s be real…life can be hard! We live in a culture that seems to chant the mantra, “Whatever makes you happy must be right.” Where did we get the idea that we were meant to be happy all of the time? It’s an unrealistic expectation to put on ourselves. Life will hit us with all kinds of tough stuff. Job loss, divorce, sickness, pain, relational drama, car accidents, stress, the list is long. The reality is that the good stuff is often born in our response to the bad stuff. We have a choice to respond in faith or in fear.

When we allow circumstance to drive us, we end up fractured. We kick and scream against the pain. We worry. We lose sight of the light in what appears to be overwhelming darkness. We forget that the light doesn’t ever stop shining even when it is blocked by the storm. Even when we can’t see it well, the sun is still shining. Our trust and faith should allow us to find it regardless of the current view.

I choose to live my life from a whole heart. I choose not to allow circumstance to dictate my joy and my compass. I don’t have to be happy, but I can choose to be whole. I WILL praise the Lord with my WHOLE heart. My heart is full even when my world seems empty. My heart is whole though the world seems broken all because I choose to believe in a God who sees me, who loves me, and who makes a way for me when there seems to be no way. He has always provided and He won’t stop now.

If life hits hard today, just keep moving. Realign your focus and choose to praise when you feel like panicking. Adjust your eyes to find the light. You have the choice. Peace isn’t the absence of trouble. Peace is the knowledge that trouble doesn’t win, doesn’t define us, doesn’t get to control us. Peace is found in praise and trust. Peace out everyone!