Lately I've been noticing the small things. And each noticing has led me to this simple thought: God cares about me.
Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
I love this verse. It reminds me, in my own smallness and often pervasive feelings of unworthiness, that God sees me and cares for me.
It is not as if I operate under an ideology or a theology that says God doesn't care for me, but that is often just the message that my feelings inform me of. I am not worthy to be cared about, by anyone.
Why is that?
Well, a year of mandated therapy (for a masters program in counseling psychology) as well as 8+ years of spiritual direction have led me to more than a few reasons and origin stories that answer the question as to why. And having walked down those paths a time or two, I have been able to move past some significant roadblocks and ascend a spiral staircases or too (more on that later).
But still, sometimes, something happens and the feelings they creep up rather cunningly and I am left with the feeling of once again being a disappointment and feeling utterly unworthy of anyone and anything.
Part of it is my normal. It is almost my own way of being...to live in "unworthy", accepting the idea of being a perpetual disappointment and perpetually disappointed.
As I am a people please-r to the core. I want (for the most part) people to feel happy with me. And when I get that isn't what's happening, my automatic default is: "What have I done?!?!"
Reality would most likely point to nothing. However, my own false self and her grand ideas would say, "you most certainly have. It is all your fault that he/she is not happy. How dare you?!"
And so, I struggle with defining the reality of the situation. It is hard to understand how much responsibility I hold and how much weight should be placed on that responsibility.
Lately it seems I am on a great track of disappointing people and they have let me know in subtle ways. And in truth, the greater issue has been not knowing how to remedy their disappointments, because I feel unable to appease them or give them what they need. Which then leaves me with wondering whether I am at fault for not being enough for them, or if it is their demands that leave us at this impasse.
Regardless of the answer, I found myself spiraling down deep into an ocean of desperately disappointing. And I couldn't breathe. And I couldn't see straight. And I had to reach out and admit that I couldn't swim to shore on my own. I would drown if I hadn't cried out.
And that is where the light often breaks through. When I realize I cannot make sense of the mess on my own, I cried out. I stopped trying to fix and please and repair and appease and instead I simply whispered in defeat, "I can't."
"I am so, so sorry, but I can't."
And worse yet, that "I can't" was followed with the unknown of why. There is no explanation to offer. And trust me, I need an explanation, even if you don't.
But I cannot explain. I have to sit with and in the truth that I may be an utter disappointment to myself and to you and perhaps to a myriad of other people. And the admission that I cannot fix it, any of it, it is when I think I am at my worst that grace invades the space that I am in.
All because of GRACE, I find my way.
All because of GRACE, I move toward wholeness.
All because of GRACE, I can move out of the disappointment, beyond the unworthiness, and determinedly toward healing.
Grace, this majestic and wondrous gift. Grace, a gift I do not often marvel at nor appreciate. And yet it is worthy of endless contemplation and adoration.
Grace allows me to receive criticism without it defining me.
Grace makes it safe for me to longer hide when feelings of unworthiness pervade. Grace speaks worthiness over me.
It is easy to hurt others or ourselves when we don't let grace do its work.
To Him, the Grace Giver, I am worthy and I am whole and I am seen and I am
loved.
As I grasp His hand and let go of my need to control and be controlled by the negative, I walk toward a life that is increasingly free
from the need to please and ever filled with the kindness of His grace.
06 February 2017
12 January 2017
11 January 2017
love//the first time around
Love, the first time around, is messy and fast and all together muddled and perplexing.
Love was the first time you put your hand on my knee and and I forgot entirely how carsick I was. It was the last time you really looked at me like somehow I was magic as we sat together in the front of your Tacoma. I had spent so much of our conversation looking out the window, only to turn and find you staring at me smiling. That smile with those ever deepening lines around your eyes, it always got me.
Now, I can't seem to remember the very last time we spoke. I don't think I etched that moment into memory, probably because I was too hurt and bitter after everything happened. What I think I remember is one of the last times we spoke, when you broke our coffee date because you forgot you had class that night. I remember wondering how it is you could have forgot such a thing as having class? However, it would be the same excuse I would use only weeks later to break a date myself.
I remember clinging to your grey sweatshirt when we sat together in the nosebleed bleachers of the baseball park about four months after we first met. Everyone else we knew was spread out in the rows in front of us chattering away. You had made your way back up to sit with me and my friends dispersed. There we were together, in the beginning of it all, among a crowd, but feeling like we were the only two people in the world. I pretended to be into the game, saying something about the runner on 2nd, and you said you didn't care about the game, you just wanted to talk to me. You said, with your face turned toward me, while my eyes were fixed on the field, that you wanted to know everything about me. My heart raced as I felt the intensity of your gaze and the weight of those words. I smiled and pulled your arm into mine because it felt like such a very safe and natural thing to do.
The moment I got home that night, I penned those words in my journal. They felt too important to not record. No one had ever said anything like that in my whole 21 years of life. I didn't ever want to forget them, no matter how things would unfold from there.
Two years later, I threw that journal away, when the idea of us was no longer in question.
I heard about you recently. You found a wife that you met online. You have a son and a daughter. You work hard to provide for them. You do the things you love while building that little family of yours. When I heard the whole story, I smiled. I was really, truly glad for you.
A year after it ended, you told me love was a choice. You had a beer in your hand and you were acting so nonchalant. So many people surrounded us and the music was loud. I felt dizzy. I wanted you to come outside with me, but I couldn't muster the courage to ask. I imagine you would have. But you continued to wax poetic saying that we get to choose who we love, and I remember thinking, how do I un-choose you? You went on to lament the many girls who had walked away recently. I wanted to ask why you didn't care that I was happy to stay, but instead I slipped out of the party and drove to the lake and parked in the dark of a late Wednesday night and cried. I must have cried for over an hour. I put way more hurt on your words than you probably ever intended.
The first time you asked me out was to a bbq at a friend's apartment. We barely spoke the whole night, but I remember you watching me from the balcony as I sat with the other girlfriends in the living room. And I thought, this must be heaven to hold a man's eye like this. Every time I would glance up and catch your eye, you would wink or smile. It was nice to be seen and known by you. It was assuring in a way I had never known before. I loved when you told the other girls you were going to "steal me away". I took your hand knowing I would follow you wherever you lead.
Last night I tried to find the one picture I have of us together. I started to cry when I thought I might have thrown it away by now. But I hadn't. It was buried in the bottom of a box of pictures from college. We are in our graduation gowns. You are wearing your cap and I am wearing my hair full and swept to the side. My smile seems a bit sad but you seem genuinely happy. Your arm is around my shoulder and your hand lays across my chest. My hands are holding your arm. We appear at ease with each other. My head is resting against your neck. I suddenly am startled by the memory that it was moments after this photo was snapped that you told me you couldn't come to my graduation party. You didn't give a reason and I didn't ask. I just accepted the broken promise all the while thinking that was when I was supposed to introduce you formally to my parents with the thought that you may just be the man I might someday marry.
I stared at your face a long while last night searching to find the man that I thought I loved. I recognize now that love stories digress in their course and sometimes they don't end with getting the guy.
I suppose it was the picture she posted on MySpace that shifted everything for me. You and her and them. Sharing a meal. Playing games. You had told me the day before I saw that, that pursuing me was the best choice you had made that year. And yet, those words spoken by you did not fall on my ears the same way. There was always another her. The whole way through. I was just too naive to see it.
My therapist said it probably wasn't love. But let's call a spade a spade and say it was. It was for me because it was life-altering. My therapist mostly heard about the ways in which what we had was so debilitating and crippling for me, so I can't really blame his conclusions. But for you, I always wonder, maybe it was love, and you were just able to love many at the same time.
I don't actually know what to call that. Maybe such an idea strips any authenticity from the love, but I can't discount the good memories.
I am pleased to hear that you have become the man that I think I always knew you could be. I am pretty sure if I had to do it all over again, I might not even change one thing, if it means we both could end up in this same place and take the same paths that we did to get here. I'd say it was worth it.
Love was the first time you put your hand on my knee and and I forgot entirely how carsick I was. It was the last time you really looked at me like somehow I was magic as we sat together in the front of your Tacoma. I had spent so much of our conversation looking out the window, only to turn and find you staring at me smiling. That smile with those ever deepening lines around your eyes, it always got me.
Now, I can't seem to remember the very last time we spoke. I don't think I etched that moment into memory, probably because I was too hurt and bitter after everything happened. What I think I remember is one of the last times we spoke, when you broke our coffee date because you forgot you had class that night. I remember wondering how it is you could have forgot such a thing as having class? However, it would be the same excuse I would use only weeks later to break a date myself.
I remember clinging to your grey sweatshirt when we sat together in the nosebleed bleachers of the baseball park about four months after we first met. Everyone else we knew was spread out in the rows in front of us chattering away. You had made your way back up to sit with me and my friends dispersed. There we were together, in the beginning of it all, among a crowd, but feeling like we were the only two people in the world. I pretended to be into the game, saying something about the runner on 2nd, and you said you didn't care about the game, you just wanted to talk to me. You said, with your face turned toward me, while my eyes were fixed on the field, that you wanted to know everything about me. My heart raced as I felt the intensity of your gaze and the weight of those words. I smiled and pulled your arm into mine because it felt like such a very safe and natural thing to do.
The moment I got home that night, I penned those words in my journal. They felt too important to not record. No one had ever said anything like that in my whole 21 years of life. I didn't ever want to forget them, no matter how things would unfold from there.
Two years later, I threw that journal away, when the idea of us was no longer in question.
I heard about you recently. You found a wife that you met online. You have a son and a daughter. You work hard to provide for them. You do the things you love while building that little family of yours. When I heard the whole story, I smiled. I was really, truly glad for you.
A year after it ended, you told me love was a choice. You had a beer in your hand and you were acting so nonchalant. So many people surrounded us and the music was loud. I felt dizzy. I wanted you to come outside with me, but I couldn't muster the courage to ask. I imagine you would have. But you continued to wax poetic saying that we get to choose who we love, and I remember thinking, how do I un-choose you? You went on to lament the many girls who had walked away recently. I wanted to ask why you didn't care that I was happy to stay, but instead I slipped out of the party and drove to the lake and parked in the dark of a late Wednesday night and cried. I must have cried for over an hour. I put way more hurt on your words than you probably ever intended.
The first time you asked me out was to a bbq at a friend's apartment. We barely spoke the whole night, but I remember you watching me from the balcony as I sat with the other girlfriends in the living room. And I thought, this must be heaven to hold a man's eye like this. Every time I would glance up and catch your eye, you would wink or smile. It was nice to be seen and known by you. It was assuring in a way I had never known before. I loved when you told the other girls you were going to "steal me away". I took your hand knowing I would follow you wherever you lead.
Last night I tried to find the one picture I have of us together. I started to cry when I thought I might have thrown it away by now. But I hadn't. It was buried in the bottom of a box of pictures from college. We are in our graduation gowns. You are wearing your cap and I am wearing my hair full and swept to the side. My smile seems a bit sad but you seem genuinely happy. Your arm is around my shoulder and your hand lays across my chest. My hands are holding your arm. We appear at ease with each other. My head is resting against your neck. I suddenly am startled by the memory that it was moments after this photo was snapped that you told me you couldn't come to my graduation party. You didn't give a reason and I didn't ask. I just accepted the broken promise all the while thinking that was when I was supposed to introduce you formally to my parents with the thought that you may just be the man I might someday marry.
I stared at your face a long while last night searching to find the man that I thought I loved. I recognize now that love stories digress in their course and sometimes they don't end with getting the guy.
I suppose it was the picture she posted on MySpace that shifted everything for me. You and her and them. Sharing a meal. Playing games. You had told me the day before I saw that, that pursuing me was the best choice you had made that year. And yet, those words spoken by you did not fall on my ears the same way. There was always another her. The whole way through. I was just too naive to see it.
My therapist said it probably wasn't love. But let's call a spade a spade and say it was. It was for me because it was life-altering. My therapist mostly heard about the ways in which what we had was so debilitating and crippling for me, so I can't really blame his conclusions. But for you, I always wonder, maybe it was love, and you were just able to love many at the same time.
I don't actually know what to call that. Maybe such an idea strips any authenticity from the love, but I can't discount the good memories.
I am pleased to hear that you have become the man that I think I always knew you could be. I am pretty sure if I had to do it all over again, I might not even change one thing, if it means we both could end up in this same place and take the same paths that we did to get here. I'd say it was worth it.
02 January 2017
belief//2017
This year I am choosing to believe. I am deciding that belief is a path to a better life. The idea itself seems so basic. After all, I often refer to myself a believer and I often attest to the many things I believe in. Yet I find what has really shaped the past year of my life is a lack of belief.
As the Christmas season rolled around, I revisited the story of our Lord's coming to earth as part of an annual tradition of preparing my heart for the Christmas celebration. And once again, the Lord revealed this story, His story through a new lens. And I don't take this lightly or for granted. Because a story, one that you've known since childhood, one that you've read over and over and over can grow quite dull. And after 25+ years of consciously reading it and understanding it, one might be hard pressed to find something new in it.
But alas...
But alas...
this Christmas season, I prayed for new eyes to see and experience the story, yet again.
I examined Luke 1, I watched The Nativity Story (2006) for the first time, I sat and listened to the Christmas story presented in our Christmas Eve service, I went to a Christmas concert in which one of the Jazz musicians took a break from his saxophone to wax poetically about the true meaning of Christmas (that is it being reflected in the belief of Mary and Joseph) and all of these experiences tied together lent themselves to once again reshaping my Christmas experience.
I saw the Christmas story through the lens of belief.
Simple? Yes. But new. New for me, anyways. A new way of seeing it and a way that I needed to see it, because it convicted my heart so.
I recognize that this idea of belief is so essential to living a full life.
Belief is a part of a courageous and meaningful existence.
A lack of belief equates itself with a life that is fear filled, full of doubt and more than likely some kind of self-hatred.
I can attest to this.
My lack of belief is shaped so much in being my own worst critic, in being doubtful and afraid.
Mary, a humble young woman was given an unbelievable promise that could only be fulfilled by Christ. She did not let fear, doubt or self-criticism shape her response. Instead she believed and her soul magnified the Lord: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name." (Luke 1:46-49) She pondered the promises in her heart. Blessings came to her and those around her as well. Eventually everyone who believed would believe because of her belief.
Belief can have a transforming impact on those around us.
Our belief can shape the belief in and of others.
My belief is a response to trusting God at His Word, even when I can't understand how it will all work out. This is my deepest prayer in 2017. I pray that the Lord will help my unbelief. Because it is there. Constantly. In all forms. I trust that stepping out and believing God at His word will cause my life to take an entirely different shape, and I welcome that.
I know it will not be easy. Because belief is easy to talk about, but it is much harder to do.
I know it will not be easy. Because belief is easy to talk about, but it is much harder to do.
I am believing in God. I believe in His Son who was sent to earth, who lived and died for me to know Him and share Him with others. I believe that the Holy Spirit is my guide. I believe in myself because of who God has made me, in His image.
I am actively, moment by moment, choosing/praying to not let fear, doubt and self-criticism define me and my choices.
I am aiming higher because of belief. I am not settling because I believe there is something greater as I follow closer after the Lord. I want, like Mary, to be a humble servant of my God and know that He can tell, ask, allow whatever to befall me and know I will walk forward in unabashed belief.
Luke 1:45~"And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
To live in brazen and blatant belief in full view of the world around me is what I want.
It is what I need.
It is what I will honestly and openly pursue.
To believe, not out of naivety, but faith. I want the Lord to find me at any moment, candidly, unhesitatingly willing to follow His call. I want Him to know, no matter what is said or done around me, that I will believe and follow after Him.
I want Him to find me, without pretense, ready and willing, not crippled by self-doubt, but standing on my own two feet, saying "wherever You are, that is where I want to be."
To live in brazen and blatant belief in full view of the world around me is what I want.
It is what I need.
It is what I will honestly and openly pursue.
To believe, not out of naivety, but faith. I want the Lord to find me at any moment, candidly, unhesitatingly willing to follow His call. I want Him to know, no matter what is said or done around me, that I will believe and follow after Him.
I want Him to find me, without pretense, ready and willing, not crippled by self-doubt, but standing on my own two feet, saying "wherever You are, that is where I want to be."
02 October 2016
him
"and then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. the dream dies. which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream." | nora ephron
he exists.
i believe with all of my heart he does.
i never wanted to be someone who just waits. so i decided to live with purpose, to build a life of my own and to be okay with wherever the path of solitude lead me.
and so i've arrived on this day. and my heart is hurting and longing and feeling unexpected feelings. they are feelings i didn't know resided deep within my heart.
it was a look, a touch, an asking that caused the bubbling up and then the overflow.
i could not stop it even if i wanted to.
i won't lie anymore. i won't say that i am okay when i am clearly not. i am not okay. one pinch, a slight tearing and i am a mess again.
and while that is my truth today, the bigger truth is that i will be okay. and my worst "what if?" still equates to, in the end, being okay.
i will hold on hope.
i will find strength in pain.
i will be okay.
and that is a truth i can speak with a no matter what tacked on to it.
His desire, His intent is for my good and i am trusting in that even when it hurts.
11 September 2016
This New Life of Love//Never Forget
(The Freedom Tower mid-construction circa summer 2011)
(Fallen beam in the shape of a cross-since moved to the WTC museum)
But I DO remember and I will never forget.
September 11th is such an important day to me, but even more important is September 12th. It is a day I remember and cherish since 2001.
I was a senior in high school when the events of 9/11 took place. I remember the outfit that I wore that day. It was pre-planned. I was a stickler for preparation in high school. Everything: lunch, backpack, sports bag, outfit was planned and packed the night before. I had laid a black shirt with a sequenced New York skyline across the chest that held the twin towers in its midst on a wicker chair in my room. I wore a red, black and white nylon skirt with it. I did not know when I got dressed that morning what had already occurred. My parents told me. They had the news on as I was getting ready to leave for school. I remember my mom saying something like, "The pilot must have had a heart attack." Because well, at that point in time, events such as these must be accidents. We never even considered the unthinkable answers that were minutes away from unfolding.
No, no...wait. The second plane hit. This was intentional. It was deliberate. We are under attack.
I went to school still. And that day was strange. We prayed together. All of our teachers halted their lessons. We just talked. We brought in televisions and watched the news. I was numb. How was I supposed to feel? What might happen next?
My friend was a mess that day because she had received a call from her father that he would be flying to New York to help out. He was a firefighter. She was so scared. I had never seen anyone so scared.
But it stopped.
Thousands died.
T-h-o-u-s-a-n-d-s.
We, as Americans, we grieved.
But on 9/12 we got up. School was cancelled that day. We were urged to stay at home with our families. So we did. My friend came over. I remember we watched Christmas movies to help her feel comforted, and really for me to feel comforted as well.
I looked to our President for guidance and hope, and you know what, he brought it. If anyone speaks ill of George W. Bush and his presidency, I stand by the fact that no other President could have possibly led us the way he did when these attacks happened.
And soon, if not immediately, we were a nation united. We stood together. And my heart, which had never really known or understood patriotism, so suddenly did. My heart swelled with national pride and a deep and grounded belief in a sovereign God.
Today we remember these events that took place 15 years ago. As I pore through my instagram and twitter feeds I find comfort in those that lived and saw and grieved and still remember and appreciate and believe that we can be united.
When news channels are consistently covering Clinton and Trump and the great divide within our nation, it is refreshing to take pause and replay what happened 15 years ago in spite of the tragedy, utter beauty unfolded.
We stood united. We believed in who we once were and who we could be again.
This morning at church we talked about the tragedies taking place all over our world today. A simple mention of a word or phrase can evoke in our minds and hearts the sights and feelings of the horrific events taking place in our world today. ISIS, Syria, mass shootings, race, war, violence, distrust, hate...it can get pretty overwhelming. I, for one, know that I often like to run from where these stories and events pervade the most. So I turn off the t.v., I don't look at the paper, I avoid the conversations, because it is all too painful.
But something about today draws my attention back. And it isn't scary. It is sacred. It is a reminder of a sacred call on my life. You see, this morning at church we were talking about prayer that moves mountains! I look at the world, I think about 9/11 and I often wonder. God, can it get better? Will it? I sometimes don't pray because I don't hope for it. But today I am reminded that we serve a patient God. We serve a God who is merciful and just.
We serve a God that wants us to pray!
Wow. I serve and love a God who wants me to pray. He wants to interact with me. He doesn't call me to look at the world and analyze it according to my own expected outcomes. Instead, I am called to "a new life of love" this Christian life, in which I am chosen by God and called to live differently from the rest of the world that does not love and serve Him.
Sometimes I get muddled up in the world. I know I am a daughter of the King. I know He loves me and hears my prayers and sent His Son to sacrifice His life for my sin. I know I love Him. But.
But.
Sometimes I get muddled up in the world and I forget. I forget to align my heart to His. I forget to begin each day knowing I am a daughter of the King. I don't actively pray. I don't wait with the expectation that the God of the Universe is going to move and do more than I can ask, think or imagine. Instead, I wait rather impatiently and disgruntled and more often than not in confusion.
But that is not living in the new life of love.
And this is where I find myself today. 15 years since the attacks of 9/11. 15 years from a day I will never forget. I won't ever forget. I won't forget what happened on 9/12 and the days thereafter. I won't forget that God brought light out of pitch black darkness. I won't forget that when everything seemed dismal and darkness seemed without end, He pierced through with the light of His love.
So, even today, 15 years later when much still seems broken and our nation feels so very fragmented, I believe the Lord can heal and restore and unite as he did 15 years ago. His patience does not grow thin.
I pray, as I continue to press on, I will never forget, and walk the days that follow September 11, 2016 in this new life of love with a prayerful and believing heart.
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