On telling the truth about myself
It's taken me time to become more fully myself.
I wrote a post when I first arrived to Phoenix in 2015, just days after landing on the airplane and beginning to get a sense that EVERYTHING felt different, the culture, landscape, people. Yet, I also felt like I was supposed to be here.
I feel like I left out part of the story. I don't know why. I was writing about my thoughts and what it was like stepping foot on arid, desert ground, how I would have to start from scratch again as a 31 year old. New job, new home, new friends.
I didn't talk about trying my hand in love. The fact that moving here was like jumping into a deep pool of water, when before I was only dipping my toes into a relationship that had started many months before from long-distance. Totally opposite parts of the country long distance, not just your friendly neighboring states long-distance.
I didn't talk about what it was like to be in love. To learn to love someone up close instead of on the phone.
My relationships aren't something I write about, but this was different. It was part of the whole story. I was talking about MOVING across the country and I never spoke of why. No real specifics. No real mention of love.
Maybe I didn't want to glorify it too much, maybe I didn't want to jinx it. Maybe I had to learn the hard way that a move and a life can entail a lot of things, but when a relationship is involved, you might as well call a spade a spade and talk about the love, even if just a little bit.
I feel like a different person now, looking back three years later, but I am realizing, I am the me I am supposed to be now. I'm still unfolding. Still growing.
So much happens when we look back. I don't know how to put it into words now. I wish I could more clearly communicate when I feel something strongly, but it all sounds muffled.
But, so what? I am not immune to needing a little extra time to process my feelings or to come up with the right words to speak, or rambling time for this external processor to seek clarity.
***
On running when we're scared
I thought that I was someone who did pretty well under high pressure situations, but tonight, the heat was turned up at a Circle K when I found myself needing to stop for gas after my car was worked on in a not-so-great-neighborhood.
At the gas pump, my car was smushed between a huge truck doing maintenence work, complete with orange cones all around him, and a van to my right side, with a guy shouting obsenities to a group of people lingering outside the Circle K. In front of me at the gas pump was a homeless man asking me for money and who placed a notebook in front of my face because he said he wanted me to read what was on it. Normally, I have a heart for homeless folks but under the circumstance, it seemed like a fight could break out while I was still in the middle of pumping gas. I knew I needed to BOOK IT out of there.
The homeless man continued to walk beside my car as I preceded to jump inside and turn my car on. At that time, the van next to me started moving, too, and I became flustered, so I tried to back out of the pump station, hardly realizing I was about to get myself into a bigger jam by nearly hitting van guy.
Thankfully, we didn't crash. Van guy was too distracted to notice me as he drove off, while the homeless man, clearly concerned about my safety, turned to me and said 'I know you're nervous but don't run in a situation like this before looking all around.'
I scanned my car for some money to give him before thanking him and was on my way. That could have ended up a lot worse. I don't know the homeless man's story, but I do know that it was beautiful the way he seemed to take a moment to pass on a life lesson. We can't discount what someone has learned throughout their life. 'I'm 60 years old!' the man shouted to me as I drove away. I smiled and nodded. 60 years of living has taught him to pay attention and look around before you run off, even when you're scared.
***
On loss and risk
It doesn't always feel good to have my life here be associated with a relationship because it feels a little bit like having people's brains hard wired to think that's now your only reason for continuing to live on desert soil, which in fact, it's not. Whether or not the relatonship lives on, you as a person and your actual full and complete life do. MIND BLOWING, right?
I (think) I can understand people's thought processes so I try not to be sarcastic, however, a healthy dose of humor could help all.
This is all part of risk and doing risky things. Life is boring otherwise.
Keep telling yourself this, keep telling yourself this, I think.
Even when I think back on all of my hardest fought battles and how risky they were at times, I know taking a chance and living life to the fullest is the ONLY way to live life.
Friend, I don't know where you are today, but all we can do is just one day at a time, one thing at a time. I hope this encourages you. I know we each are living our process. It's amazing how life can trip us up no matter who we are. One of the best things we can do for each other is to accept and let people have their process. To walk beside them as they walk their journey, too.
The other day I was journaling and some tears were running down my eyes, down my cheeks slowly, the the drip of a faucet, until my whole face felt wet.
I thought I was becoming stronger? The familiar ache that I had been feeling for a little while was going away, so what was this?
I know it's normal, that it will likely happen again.
The beautiful and un-flashy truth of me comes to the surface during hard times. Maybe the beautiful and un-flashy truth of you does the same? We can try to hide it, stuff it, or distract from it, but it's there nonetheless. Loss, pain, grief, it shouts loud enough at points that if we're lucky (yes, lucky) we will hear what it is trying to tell us.
I hope you, friend, who may be going through this, too, find a way to go where you are grieving or where your heart is breaking or where your love has been and let yourself go there.
Sure, it won't always be this way and life is lovely and if anyone can find reasons to laugh it is me, but this is all showing me that I CANNOT escape it, even though I wish I could. I must practice surrendering to the process and even to let others have their process, too, as much as it's going to be different. I really don't know if I'm any good at this sort of thing. I wish there was a gauge for it, like am I getting close to getting through it, whatever 'it' is? Grief? A
All this feels like telling you a secret. I haven't had it together for awhile, and even though it feels like like it's coming back together, how I'm getting stronger, I don't want to tell you I have been really weak.
I pray to be strong all the time, and I don't know if that's the best prayer or not. If it's not God's strength, what's the point? I'm learning that if I fall on my face a thousand times but I am clinging to the one who is holding onto me, it's not for lack. Sure, I don't like the hurt, and seriously, can we do something about how hard the asphalt feels when you fall on your face??
I've got to keep my humor after all.
And, I'm learning maybe the best I can do is keep giving myself more grace, and others, too. Everything feels better when we give grace.
***
On writing for a different reason
I thought it would feel a lot better to write all this out, but it just feels the same. I guess I have been kind of neutral, which is okay right now. Sometimes I think with the work I do, I should be able to model processing a difficult experience and facing my feelings, but right now, I feel okay with where I am. There were so many feelings and so much to go through earlier on, that right now, I just am happy I'm doing pretty well overall.
It's amazing you can hold two truths at the same time. I am doing well and yet, there are still many things I miss.
I am being opened up in my writing, and unstuck, perhaps. I've been stuck for a long time. Stuck in my writing and even perhaps in my storytelling. It was hard to prepare work for a long time, because I didn't feel like I was offering my truest self. Maybe there were a lot of emotions going on that I couldn't graple with fully, and didn't want to push away, but wanted to get past them somehow.
It's amazing how God does work and brings a lot of healing in places where we think we need but maybe don't even know how to get to ourselves. I am excited to see what new adventures will spring forth in my writing.
Peace on your journey, friends. Cheers to you, and love as you go.
Monday, September 3, 2018
Sunday, September 2, 2018
September redux
It will be year number three living in Phoenix as of tomorrow. I can't believe it. Timbler can't believe it -- yes he's coming out from the shadows! He has been in hibernation for a long time.
I've had a love/hate relationship with fall for as long as I can remember. Who are my friends who do not care about pumpkin spice lattes? Anyone else?
Even while living in one of the hottest places on Earth, my heart still beats for summer. Everyone's laid back, flexible schedule, taking beach days, wearing swim suits as my main wardrobe for three months are my favorites. I am sure deep down I belong in a water town but somehow, I am living and trying to thrive, rather than just survive, in a desert.
This year, summer brought changes and transition when usually I think of fall that way. We're never immune; change comes when it wants to. And it will surely come again. On the plus side, while the summer months threatened to crash into me, emotionally and spiritually and physically at times, summer, in all its glory, was also healing to me. The sun and the water (where I could find it) and the beach (when I traveled to it).
September, I am ready for you. Phoenix, year three, I'm not afraid of you.
Phoenix sometimes feels so homey and sometimes feels completely fresh and new even though I am now coming on three years here.
I am so thankful for the ways I am digging in roots and ways that people and places feel way more familiar than it ever did, that day in September three years ago. Isn't it cool to look back, to gaze ahead with hope, and yet to still be where we are today?
I am learning where I am is the ONLY PLACE I CAN REALLY BE. I can try to fight it or wish for something different, as believe me some days I have, but God is teaching me to have a still heart before Him. Does that ever happen to you?
Calm yourself, child.. I feel Him putting His hand on my shoulder, just guiding me toward rest and guiding me toward finding peace with where I am, letting me know it will all be okay. And you know what, it really is. Just keep going, day by day.
It is so good of God to help us with the thing that is hardest for us, almost like looking back in the rear view mirror and seeing that He was there, because in our hard times, we may not be able to put the right words to what's happening or what we need or even what exactly is the thing that's hardest for us. We just know He is there during the hard times.
That's all I have for now, except, that the adventure continues.
Also, I guess God knows the thing that is hardest for me after all which is trusting in the unknowns. I'm realizing more and more that our lives are not defined by the outcomes, even when that would be so convenient and neat, wouldn't it? Like neat, cool, but also, neat, tidy. I'm guilty for looking for an outcome, but the peace I really want is not the peace that would provide. I know God offers a peace that surpasses understanding. Do I want understanding or do I want Jesus?
I've had a love/hate relationship with fall for as long as I can remember. Who are my friends who do not care about pumpkin spice lattes? Anyone else?
Even while living in one of the hottest places on Earth, my heart still beats for summer. Everyone's laid back, flexible schedule, taking beach days, wearing swim suits as my main wardrobe for three months are my favorites. I am sure deep down I belong in a water town but somehow, I am living and trying to thrive, rather than just survive, in a desert.
This year, summer brought changes and transition when usually I think of fall that way. We're never immune; change comes when it wants to. And it will surely come again. On the plus side, while the summer months threatened to crash into me, emotionally and spiritually and physically at times, summer, in all its glory, was also healing to me. The sun and the water (where I could find it) and the beach (when I traveled to it).
September, I am ready for you. Phoenix, year three, I'm not afraid of you.
Phoenix sometimes feels so homey and sometimes feels completely fresh and new even though I am now coming on three years here.
I am so thankful for the ways I am digging in roots and ways that people and places feel way more familiar than it ever did, that day in September three years ago. Isn't it cool to look back, to gaze ahead with hope, and yet to still be where we are today?
I am learning where I am is the ONLY PLACE I CAN REALLY BE. I can try to fight it or wish for something different, as believe me some days I have, but God is teaching me to have a still heart before Him. Does that ever happen to you?
Calm yourself, child.. I feel Him putting His hand on my shoulder, just guiding me toward rest and guiding me toward finding peace with where I am, letting me know it will all be okay. And you know what, it really is. Just keep going, day by day.
It is so good of God to help us with the thing that is hardest for us, almost like looking back in the rear view mirror and seeing that He was there, because in our hard times, we may not be able to put the right words to what's happening or what we need or even what exactly is the thing that's hardest for us. We just know He is there during the hard times.
That's all I have for now, except, that the adventure continues.
Also, I guess God knows the thing that is hardest for me after all which is trusting in the unknowns. I'm realizing more and more that our lives are not defined by the outcomes, even when that would be so convenient and neat, wouldn't it? Like neat, cool, but also, neat, tidy. I'm guilty for looking for an outcome, but the peace I really want is not the peace that would provide. I know God offers a peace that surpasses understanding. Do I want understanding or do I want Jesus?
Monday, July 30, 2018
Writing as the next right thing - part 2
God hasn't gone anywhere.
This sentence keeps coming back to me as I sit down to write.
Maybe tonight is a redux of my post about writing as my next right thing. The post was in September of last year but I have been so sporadic in my writing on the blog since then.
Cheers to 2018?!
In honor of my sporadic-ness and fully embracing my free spirit ways, I know that my writing these days is going to be far from perfect, unedited and honest.
***
The concept of forgiveness keeps coming back to me in time with God and in reading the Bible lately AND in listening to some sermons/podcasts (podcasts are my favorite thing). When I see an idea pop up in multiple places, I realize God is trying to get my attention.
In the parable in Mathew 18, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
The master cancels and forgives the debt of the servant but then the servant does not have mercy on his fellow servant. Jesus says that each person ought to forgive their brother or sister from their heart. It can't just be an outward behavior but it has to be an inward sign of a changed heart, someone who knows that they have been forgiven much.
This is so hard in real time even if understood logically. Left to our own devices, when the stakes are high, why would we forgive? And why would we forgive over and over as Jesus instructs us to do?
When the servant who had been forgiven by his master goes to his fellow servant who owed him a hundred silver coins, "he grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.'
This seems disturbing as I read it and hard to believe I could get to this point of demand with another human, but as I read it, my heart hurts, because I see how it could be possible. I see how in my own ways I have been like this servant, demanding justice, wanting things to be made right as I believe right to be.
You may never get an outcome you want but you can treat people with love and forgiveness in the process. You can learn to see them the way Christ sees them, fully loved and forgiven.
Aren't we all sinners and don't we all sin against others as we brush up against each other in this life?
I know I am a sinner and I am sure I have sinned against those close to me, and those not close to me as well. But, isn't it easier for it to happen with those close? I am hopeful for their forgiveness as well.
Letting go feels like exhaling to me. It feels like I don't have to keep everything as tightly wound as I have been before. And it feels like trusting God more, when trust is so hard. It feels like surrendering, giving up control. It is a deep and painful truth to admit that when I feel hurt, I don't want to completely let you off the hook until you've earned the right to get off the hook. But this is not how God loves us! I can trust God that He knows best and I can choose the gift of love and forgiveness. I say it again and just let it sink into my life, hoping that as my heart embraces this, that everything else will slowly follow.
***
Things take time. Love takes time. God heals and works in hearts slowly.
I wonder if it's grace that happens quickly though.
***
I want to believe that God is continuing to bring renewal even in times of great un-knowing. That the unknowing will open wide a chasm of even more love and grace and seeing the beauty that is in the world. God is the source of all of this beauty.
When I finally become more aware of the goodness of God, my heartbeat that is writing, becomes more fully alive. I miss this when my vision is blurred. I know my calling is to spread wide the hope for all He is doing in the world.
He is so big and what a gift it is to be alive in the world today.
It feels right to believe this and to feel joy in the Lord and ALSO I know what it feels like for everything to feel small and like hope is dwindling, how the sharpness of pain can distort the meaning of the things you know to be true.
Life moves in waves. Always waves, like the ocean.
I've been here before, how will it not topple me over. I can swim better now as time has gone by, but am I not still me?
I shift and change like the waves. I move through the waters even when they are rough, ending up in a new place, someplace I didn't know I would be at all. When somehow, the most treacherous waves cannot break me. Waves plunge into me, still the same me, but I do not break into pieces with each crash. I am surprised by this.
***
What a beautiful thing it is to be alive. To still have hurt and to know pain and to move through pain and to know there may be other crashes but it is just WAVES. Maybe the waves are not meant to push, but pull you along to where you're supposed to go? I
I find so much beauty in the water. Water is a force but does not intend to harm. It has a way of leveling the bumps in the water. May it be so in our lives.
May God work in us to chisel away the rough edges.
***
I can't stop with the metaphors. I can't stop thinking about butterflies, too.
I read a story called Hope for the Flowers and it made me realize everyone needs hope, even butterflies. The butterfly has just transformed. But what is this? Becoming something new. It could be totally appealing to want to go back to the old life. And still...
Look how far you've come, little butterfly -
keep going.
This sentence keeps coming back to me as I sit down to write.
Maybe tonight is a redux of my post about writing as my next right thing. The post was in September of last year but I have been so sporadic in my writing on the blog since then.
Cheers to 2018?!
In honor of my sporadic-ness and fully embracing my free spirit ways, I know that my writing these days is going to be far from perfect, unedited and honest.
***
The concept of forgiveness keeps coming back to me in time with God and in reading the Bible lately AND in listening to some sermons/podcasts (podcasts are my favorite thing). When I see an idea pop up in multiple places, I realize God is trying to get my attention.
In the parable in Mathew 18, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
The master cancels and forgives the debt of the servant but then the servant does not have mercy on his fellow servant. Jesus says that each person ought to forgive their brother or sister from their heart. It can't just be an outward behavior but it has to be an inward sign of a changed heart, someone who knows that they have been forgiven much.
This is so hard in real time even if understood logically. Left to our own devices, when the stakes are high, why would we forgive? And why would we forgive over and over as Jesus instructs us to do?
When the servant who had been forgiven by his master goes to his fellow servant who owed him a hundred silver coins, "he grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.'
This seems disturbing as I read it and hard to believe I could get to this point of demand with another human, but as I read it, my heart hurts, because I see how it could be possible. I see how in my own ways I have been like this servant, demanding justice, wanting things to be made right as I believe right to be.
You may never get an outcome you want but you can treat people with love and forgiveness in the process. You can learn to see them the way Christ sees them, fully loved and forgiven.
Aren't we all sinners and don't we all sin against others as we brush up against each other in this life?
I know I am a sinner and I am sure I have sinned against those close to me, and those not close to me as well. But, isn't it easier for it to happen with those close? I am hopeful for their forgiveness as well.
Letting go feels like exhaling to me. It feels like I don't have to keep everything as tightly wound as I have been before. And it feels like trusting God more, when trust is so hard. It feels like surrendering, giving up control. It is a deep and painful truth to admit that when I feel hurt, I don't want to completely let you off the hook until you've earned the right to get off the hook. But this is not how God loves us! I can trust God that He knows best and I can choose the gift of love and forgiveness. I say it again and just let it sink into my life, hoping that as my heart embraces this, that everything else will slowly follow.
***
Things take time. Love takes time. God heals and works in hearts slowly.
I wonder if it's grace that happens quickly though.
***
I want to believe that God is continuing to bring renewal even in times of great un-knowing. That the unknowing will open wide a chasm of even more love and grace and seeing the beauty that is in the world. God is the source of all of this beauty.
When I finally become more aware of the goodness of God, my heartbeat that is writing, becomes more fully alive. I miss this when my vision is blurred. I know my calling is to spread wide the hope for all He is doing in the world.
He is so big and what a gift it is to be alive in the world today.
It feels right to believe this and to feel joy in the Lord and ALSO I know what it feels like for everything to feel small and like hope is dwindling, how the sharpness of pain can distort the meaning of the things you know to be true.
Life moves in waves. Always waves, like the ocean.
I've been here before, how will it not topple me over. I can swim better now as time has gone by, but am I not still me?
I shift and change like the waves. I move through the waters even when they are rough, ending up in a new place, someplace I didn't know I would be at all. When somehow, the most treacherous waves cannot break me. Waves plunge into me, still the same me, but I do not break into pieces with each crash. I am surprised by this.
***
What a beautiful thing it is to be alive. To still have hurt and to know pain and to move through pain and to know there may be other crashes but it is just WAVES. Maybe the waves are not meant to push, but pull you along to where you're supposed to go? I
I find so much beauty in the water. Water is a force but does not intend to harm. It has a way of leveling the bumps in the water. May it be so in our lives.
May God work in us to chisel away the rough edges.
***
I can't stop with the metaphors. I can't stop thinking about butterflies, too.
I read a story called Hope for the Flowers and it made me realize everyone needs hope, even butterflies. The butterfly has just transformed. But what is this? Becoming something new. It could be totally appealing to want to go back to the old life. And still...
Look how far you've come, little butterfly -
keep going.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
New Beginnings -- #1
My beginning here in Arizona is not-so-new anymore, but was important nonetheless. Beginnings of all kinds signify change, and most of us have encountered them.
The messiness of it, how confusing it is to stand on the edge of basically your whole life as you know it, and on the other side, an entirely new life, which hasn't been built yet.
To be in the chasm between those places, is to be no place at all. Like being sucked into a vacuum.
Okay, I never got sucked up into a vacuum, but beginning again with a blank slate can almost feel like that. It was over two years ago so I'm not in that space anymore, but I remember the feeling when I moved to Phoenix from Raleigh. One night, I remember thinking that there was no one in the world that I knew still awake; it was about 11 PM in Phoenix, so that would make sense with almost everyone living on the east coast. Still, something about the time zone shift was throwing me off. Perhaps I always liked the feeling of knowing that there were people in the world that I was connected to, on a daily basis. Then when they were far away, they just seemed, far away.
I kept having a similar feeling that I had early on in my move to Raleigh nine years before. Who would really know if I fell into a ditch on a drive home? Surely, my boyfriend would know. But, it was just the point that I didn't really have people yet that was strange and eerie. In Raleigh, I quickly developed odd connections that I later realized were a little quirky, and I wonder if they somehow relate to the idea that it helps me to have a wide community. I like to know people and have people know me. Maybe it's the fact that I've lived on my own and in different places for over a decade, but there's something to the folks at Whole Foods knowing you enough to know that if you're not there for a month (or let's face it a week), something's wrong.
In Phoenix, I didn't have any routines yet, any places I frequented. I wanted to give myself time to get adjusted, and part of me also felt like there was adventure and excitement in the anonymity of it all, but in reality, it was actually lonely. That word carries a lot of weight and maybe even stigma, so it's hard to say and talk about, but I guess it\is probably true.
New Beginnings by their nature, being new, carry with them a lot of white space, like the blank page of a new year or a fresh calendar that is both inviting and freeing but also can be a little frightening and lonely if you're not sure what will fill the pages.
A new beginning, of course, also can carry with it the joy of the opportunities it brings and the sense of wonder with where life will lead with the new start. We humans are good at editing everything, and there is something to be said for beginning something, a journey or a project, or another chance, and being willing to see it for what it is, fresh and unedited.
On New Beginnings and the threat of busy--
My calendar did that for me when I moved to Phoenix. While I'm not the best at keeping up with plans, I remember that I used to (and still do to an extent) but tons of dates in my phone of appointments and events and especially social activity. Then, all of a sudden, the plans stopped. I still had a life when I moved here, but I moved here in early September, and I didn't have a job or really any appointments to keep, so in essence there was nothing in my calendar. I went from having a flurry of activity and I'm-so-busy (AKA so important...) to I am not busy at all, let me see what ONE activity or hobby I would like to have in this new life. I remember talking to a good friend from college who knows me well, and we were brainstorming, and she was saying, "I'm sure there's one new thing you could do. Letsee..." As if, the hardest thing in the world was figuring out how I could possibly add one thing to my life consisting of no set plans.
Now, I haven't gone to the other extreme, thankfully, but I am once again a very active person. It would not cross my mind that I have to think of how to find ONE thing to ADD to my life; if anything I would think once again, am I doing too much?
I don' know if I think about it on a conscious level, but moving here made me consider, in an almost existential way, how everything we try and 'build' for ourselves is really smoke and bubbles when you stop and think about it.
I'm not saying this is a story about loss, because I still have a lot of the friends I had and I didn't need to hang onto my busy life and all the things I built in my old life anyway. I guess this is a story about letting go and then it is a story about starting again, but that this process happens a lot in our lives, in different ways.
I am learning to hold things loosely. That's not so easy, but so many different aspects of my new beginnings have taught and are teaching me how to do this.
I got rid of most of what I owned because I had a lot of crap I didn't need to lug across the country, and I don't miss one thing. It was a cleansing process, even as the process itself was weird because I had to go through so much of what was part of my life for so long and then it was just so physical, letting it go.
I remember more than anything I just wanted to know what it was going to be like being on new ground, so different, this Arizona soil, so far way. Would I feel the same? It sounds so silly writing this two years later.
God puts me in positions where I have to grow and change, even as it has been a challenge for me. I don't know if I saw life with new eyes when I first got here, or if I wanted to keep the same vision I had from before; it was difficult to adjust my senses to what was in front of me.
On New Beginnings and Love --
There's a lot to say about new beginnings and love. Much of it I have resisted saying in writing over the past couple years. I am doing whatever I can, while at the same time realizing a lot of it isn't even doing what I can, because this love journey is also about letting go, too. That is the hardest part.
Like I said, letting go has felt like a hard thing, until I realize there can be beauty in it, like letting go of old stuff from my house and holding everything loosely. Softly.
Part of that, I wonder, is being soft with myself, and truthful. About what new beginnings have meant for me in love.
How can love be about letting go?
Love is starting to be more about letting go and surrendering than about holding on, even though my first instinct is to hold on.
Love can be consistent. Love can keep moving and flowing. Love doesn't have to force. Love can be brave, even in the face of uncertainties and starts and restarts and fears and when you clean out all the weight you left behind from your previous life and you're not yet feeling light because you're wondering where it all went -- love is patient.
Love is not perfect, because all these things are from God and shown to us from God. So I realize I'm going to do them not right sometimes. I am so thankful for the journey and really thankful for writing it all down now.
As I've seen before, writing lights the way.
The messiness of it, how confusing it is to stand on the edge of basically your whole life as you know it, and on the other side, an entirely new life, which hasn't been built yet.
To be in the chasm between those places, is to be no place at all. Like being sucked into a vacuum.
Okay, I never got sucked up into a vacuum, but beginning again with a blank slate can almost feel like that. It was over two years ago so I'm not in that space anymore, but I remember the feeling when I moved to Phoenix from Raleigh. One night, I remember thinking that there was no one in the world that I knew still awake; it was about 11 PM in Phoenix, so that would make sense with almost everyone living on the east coast. Still, something about the time zone shift was throwing me off. Perhaps I always liked the feeling of knowing that there were people in the world that I was connected to, on a daily basis. Then when they were far away, they just seemed, far away.
I kept having a similar feeling that I had early on in my move to Raleigh nine years before. Who would really know if I fell into a ditch on a drive home? Surely, my boyfriend would know. But, it was just the point that I didn't really have people yet that was strange and eerie. In Raleigh, I quickly developed odd connections that I later realized were a little quirky, and I wonder if they somehow relate to the idea that it helps me to have a wide community. I like to know people and have people know me. Maybe it's the fact that I've lived on my own and in different places for over a decade, but there's something to the folks at Whole Foods knowing you enough to know that if you're not there for a month (or let's face it a week), something's wrong.
In Phoenix, I didn't have any routines yet, any places I frequented. I wanted to give myself time to get adjusted, and part of me also felt like there was adventure and excitement in the anonymity of it all, but in reality, it was actually lonely. That word carries a lot of weight and maybe even stigma, so it's hard to say and talk about, but I guess it\is probably true.
New Beginnings by their nature, being new, carry with them a lot of white space, like the blank page of a new year or a fresh calendar that is both inviting and freeing but also can be a little frightening and lonely if you're not sure what will fill the pages.
A new beginning, of course, also can carry with it the joy of the opportunities it brings and the sense of wonder with where life will lead with the new start. We humans are good at editing everything, and there is something to be said for beginning something, a journey or a project, or another chance, and being willing to see it for what it is, fresh and unedited.
On New Beginnings and the threat of busy--
My calendar did that for me when I moved to Phoenix. While I'm not the best at keeping up with plans, I remember that I used to (and still do to an extent) but tons of dates in my phone of appointments and events and especially social activity. Then, all of a sudden, the plans stopped. I still had a life when I moved here, but I moved here in early September, and I didn't have a job or really any appointments to keep, so in essence there was nothing in my calendar. I went from having a flurry of activity and I'm-so-busy (AKA so important...) to I am not busy at all, let me see what ONE activity or hobby I would like to have in this new life. I remember talking to a good friend from college who knows me well, and we were brainstorming, and she was saying, "I'm sure there's one new thing you could do. Letsee..." As if, the hardest thing in the world was figuring out how I could possibly add one thing to my life consisting of no set plans.
Now, I haven't gone to the other extreme, thankfully, but I am once again a very active person. It would not cross my mind that I have to think of how to find ONE thing to ADD to my life; if anything I would think once again, am I doing too much?
I don' know if I think about it on a conscious level, but moving here made me consider, in an almost existential way, how everything we try and 'build' for ourselves is really smoke and bubbles when you stop and think about it.
I'm not saying this is a story about loss, because I still have a lot of the friends I had and I didn't need to hang onto my busy life and all the things I built in my old life anyway. I guess this is a story about letting go and then it is a story about starting again, but that this process happens a lot in our lives, in different ways.
I am learning to hold things loosely. That's not so easy, but so many different aspects of my new beginnings have taught and are teaching me how to do this.
I got rid of most of what I owned because I had a lot of crap I didn't need to lug across the country, and I don't miss one thing. It was a cleansing process, even as the process itself was weird because I had to go through so much of what was part of my life for so long and then it was just so physical, letting it go.
I remember more than anything I just wanted to know what it was going to be like being on new ground, so different, this Arizona soil, so far way. Would I feel the same? It sounds so silly writing this two years later.
God puts me in positions where I have to grow and change, even as it has been a challenge for me. I don't know if I saw life with new eyes when I first got here, or if I wanted to keep the same vision I had from before; it was difficult to adjust my senses to what was in front of me.
On New Beginnings and Love --
There's a lot to say about new beginnings and love. Much of it I have resisted saying in writing over the past couple years. I am doing whatever I can, while at the same time realizing a lot of it isn't even doing what I can, because this love journey is also about letting go, too. That is the hardest part.
Like I said, letting go has felt like a hard thing, until I realize there can be beauty in it, like letting go of old stuff from my house and holding everything loosely. Softly.
Part of that, I wonder, is being soft with myself, and truthful. About what new beginnings have meant for me in love.
How can love be about letting go?
Love is starting to be more about letting go and surrendering than about holding on, even though my first instinct is to hold on.
Love can be consistent. Love can keep moving and flowing. Love doesn't have to force. Love can be brave, even in the face of uncertainties and starts and restarts and fears and when you clean out all the weight you left behind from your previous life and you're not yet feeling light because you're wondering where it all went -- love is patient.
Love is not perfect, because all these things are from God and shown to us from God. So I realize I'm going to do them not right sometimes. I am so thankful for the journey and really thankful for writing it all down now.
As I've seen before, writing lights the way.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
On love
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Hebrews 6:19.
Writer Allison Fallon wrote a blog post about not giving up when things are hard.
She says there's really only two choices when it comes to keeping going... to give up or not give up.
Seems so simple, yet a lot of life comes back to this question. No one can truly decide for you what is right. But what she says is helpful.
"The time we need hope the most is when it is most tempting to let it go. Hope is dangerous. It threatens to make fools out of us. It threatens to make a mockery of the life we choose for ourselves. Will anything we’re doing ever matter? Will our circumstances ever change? Well, there is really no way of knowing. So are you going to do it anyway?
That’s hope."
What Allison talks about in many of her blog posts resonate with me.
After reading it, I have more questions than answers. Questions just create more questions.
What does it mean to live hopeful if I continue to choose not giving up?
What does giving up look like? Is there a time when that is actually a good thing?
Then I go back to love being soft, like Allison says. Letting love be like the ocean, for instance, which is so powerful and strong, yet it is soft. Think about it.
Yes, love hurts sometimes. But, despite that, I want to be soft. I don't want to harden. Yes, sometimes I protect. But, I don't want to go so far with it that I can't lay my armor down.
I can go gentle. I can agree to move together and flow together with another person and let it be light. I can't do that if I'm geared up for a battle, or geared up to protect myself at all costs.
Love can be a mixture of real fears and real uncertainties and real growing pains.
Yet, we can still be in awe of it, still find it magical, and surrender to the process. When we are in awe, we likely aren't in control.
I am someone who, deep down, thinks things will go smoothly if I am in some kind of control, thank you very much, and if I'm not, secretly wishes I was a little more in control. Deeper down, I know it's better for me not to be in control. Complex, I know.
I love what Allison says about the ocean, how we might go into it thinking, we've got this thing. But it's THE OCEAN. The ocean is actually in control, even if I think 'oh, it's just a little water.' What happens when the tide pulls me under? Maybe love is like that? Maybe there's more going on that we can't even control that we get to be in awe of. The good and the bad and everything in between.
To soften like water is counter intuitive. But also, love is so counter intuitive to begin with.
Basically, if I love well at all, it's because God first loved me. He showed me His love and grace, and I now I am able to love back.
It's really a risk. I'm starting to think risk is also the opposite of control.
It feels like everything I'm being asked to do is the opposite of control.
Risk. Love.
I can sugar coat the process in a lot of ways and say it's fine and I'm good but a lot of times it's terrifying and I go back and forth between emotions but love is also amazing overall, because I am part of something bigger that myself, that God orchestrates. Telling the truth about love has set me free in a lot of ways, though.
I am mostly talking about romantic love here, when you start to get close in new ways to a person and it's all very weird and new, but really, being open to love in all different ways and telling the truth about it is freeing.
Allison says so much of love, really, is about letting go.
Maybe love is about letting go because love is really about surrender.
I am trying to listen to what this means for me.
Right now, in my life, I think it means to keep coming out of hiding more and more. Not trying to control. Acknowledge there are days I want to give up. Acknowledge there are days I would like to be in control. Remind myself that God has done so much and it is good. Remember to listen to my own voice and the voice of God. Remember that where I am right now is where I am right now and that's where I am supposed to be.
"Sometimes we need to pull ourselves together and try harder and go faster and longer. Other times we need to soften, to give in a little, to give ourselves permission to take a break. Strong and soft."- Allison Fallon
Sometimes you have to work your way through the questions, even if there are no immediate answers, to remember who you are (for me, someone who asks a lot of questions), and remember who God is (a God who can handle all these questions).
I remember I have what I need in this moment, I remember God may not reveal everything at once. I remember that I can do the next right thing in love.
Writer Allison Fallon wrote a blog post about not giving up when things are hard.
She says there's really only two choices when it comes to keeping going... to give up or not give up.
Seems so simple, yet a lot of life comes back to this question. No one can truly decide for you what is right. But what she says is helpful.
"The time we need hope the most is when it is most tempting to let it go. Hope is dangerous. It threatens to make fools out of us. It threatens to make a mockery of the life we choose for ourselves. Will anything we’re doing ever matter? Will our circumstances ever change? Well, there is really no way of knowing. So are you going to do it anyway?
That’s hope."
What Allison talks about in many of her blog posts resonate with me.
After reading it, I have more questions than answers. Questions just create more questions.
What does it mean to live hopeful if I continue to choose not giving up?
What does giving up look like? Is there a time when that is actually a good thing?
Then I go back to love being soft, like Allison says. Letting love be like the ocean, for instance, which is so powerful and strong, yet it is soft. Think about it.
Yes, love hurts sometimes. But, despite that, I want to be soft. I don't want to harden. Yes, sometimes I protect. But, I don't want to go so far with it that I can't lay my armor down.
I can go gentle. I can agree to move together and flow together with another person and let it be light. I can't do that if I'm geared up for a battle, or geared up to protect myself at all costs.
Love can be a mixture of real fears and real uncertainties and real growing pains.
Yet, we can still be in awe of it, still find it magical, and surrender to the process. When we are in awe, we likely aren't in control.
I am someone who, deep down, thinks things will go smoothly if I am in some kind of control, thank you very much, and if I'm not, secretly wishes I was a little more in control. Deeper down, I know it's better for me not to be in control. Complex, I know.
I love what Allison says about the ocean, how we might go into it thinking, we've got this thing. But it's THE OCEAN. The ocean is actually in control, even if I think 'oh, it's just a little water.' What happens when the tide pulls me under? Maybe love is like that? Maybe there's more going on that we can't even control that we get to be in awe of. The good and the bad and everything in between.
To soften like water is counter intuitive. But also, love is so counter intuitive to begin with.
Basically, if I love well at all, it's because God first loved me. He showed me His love and grace, and I now I am able to love back.
It's really a risk. I'm starting to think risk is also the opposite of control.
It feels like everything I'm being asked to do is the opposite of control.
Risk. Love.
I can sugar coat the process in a lot of ways and say it's fine and I'm good but a lot of times it's terrifying and I go back and forth between emotions but love is also amazing overall, because I am part of something bigger that myself, that God orchestrates. Telling the truth about love has set me free in a lot of ways, though.
I am mostly talking about romantic love here, when you start to get close in new ways to a person and it's all very weird and new, but really, being open to love in all different ways and telling the truth about it is freeing.
Allison says so much of love, really, is about letting go.
Maybe love is about letting go because love is really about surrender.
I am trying to listen to what this means for me.
Right now, in my life, I think it means to keep coming out of hiding more and more. Not trying to control. Acknowledge there are days I want to give up. Acknowledge there are days I would like to be in control. Remind myself that God has done so much and it is good. Remember to listen to my own voice and the voice of God. Remember that where I am right now is where I am right now and that's where I am supposed to be.
"Sometimes we need to pull ourselves together and try harder and go faster and longer. Other times we need to soften, to give in a little, to give ourselves permission to take a break. Strong and soft."- Allison Fallon
Sometimes you have to work your way through the questions, even if there are no immediate answers, to remember who you are (for me, someone who asks a lot of questions), and remember who God is (a God who can handle all these questions).
I remember I have what I need in this moment, I remember God may not reveal everything at once. I remember that I can do the next right thing in love.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Writing - my next right thing
Sometimes the best thing for me to do when I don't know what to do is to put words on paper. Writing makes my words and thoughts come out clearer.
I am about to see one of my best friends from Raleigh in two days. I can't wait. It seems like so long ago I saw her. When she came here to visit, we painted and we let Scripture speak to us. We also wrote down words and those words on the canvas became an inspiration for us to draw from over the next year. My word was embrace. I still look at it on the wall in my living room.
***
Today was an emotional day. We all have those from time to time. I think of how God is sovereign even over our feelings. He made them, after all. They help point to something going on inside. It is important still to consider that feelings don't have the final say, yet to acknowledge their place and to hold them up against truth.
Solomon said that our hearts are the 'wellspring of life.' The heart overflows into thoughts, actions. It holds so much. It is of value.
Even when life is hard, I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 2: 16-18. It is one of my life verses. It reminds me to keep going no matter what.
"We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
God is always at work, doing something internally in us that is far bigger than meets the eye. He is good all the time.
We must be remembering what is true even if something doesn't feel true. Our life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). I LOVE this. We are hidden with Christ. We do not have to hide anywhere, or be anything we are not, except who we really, truly are, and that is always enough.
***
I have been listening to The Next Right Thing podcast by Emily P. Freeman. Today's happened to be called "Expect to be Surprised."
She talks about how we can do the next right thing even when the path leads somewhere we didn't totally plan for.
That is something I might groan about and wrestle with, but again, whatever road is from God, I will follow Him. I know He gives me His hand.
I can write these down and still in practice I am working them out. I know in writing them down, each time, it is an act of surrender and rest on my part. And an act of faith, and hope, that I can and still will 'expect to be surprised,' whatever that looks like in real time and space. As Emily described in this particular podcast, it was paying attention at the scenery outside as she was traveling and seeing a musician she liked appear years later at an unlikely restaurant. A musician who once inspired her in ways that this singer probably had no idea, because she just kept doing what she was called to do, and showed up to sing for a room full of youth group teenagers. How amazing that Emily was in that group and later would go on to write books, and now is inspiring people like me herself. Expect to be surprised at how God works, often through people, often in unlikely ways.
You never know how the next small step or next right thing can lead to something else, even if it's a road you didn't plan for.
It's hard to release your sought after plans. I know this. It's hard to not wish for tomorrow to come now. It almost feels like a joke to still expect to be surprised sometimes. But, I know there is good everywhere and in the daily-ness of life. I am so thankful God keeps showing up in the funny and mundane and crazy parts of my life and reminding me He is there. He hasn't gone anywhere.
I am about to see one of my best friends from Raleigh in two days. I can't wait. It seems like so long ago I saw her. When she came here to visit, we painted and we let Scripture speak to us. We also wrote down words and those words on the canvas became an inspiration for us to draw from over the next year. My word was embrace. I still look at it on the wall in my living room.
***
Today was an emotional day. We all have those from time to time. I think of how God is sovereign even over our feelings. He made them, after all. They help point to something going on inside. It is important still to consider that feelings don't have the final say, yet to acknowledge their place and to hold them up against truth.
Solomon said that our hearts are the 'wellspring of life.' The heart overflows into thoughts, actions. It holds so much. It is of value.
Even when life is hard, I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 2: 16-18. It is one of my life verses. It reminds me to keep going no matter what.
"We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
God is always at work, doing something internally in us that is far bigger than meets the eye. He is good all the time.
We must be remembering what is true even if something doesn't feel true. Our life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). I LOVE this. We are hidden with Christ. We do not have to hide anywhere, or be anything we are not, except who we really, truly are, and that is always enough.
***
I have been listening to The Next Right Thing podcast by Emily P. Freeman. Today's happened to be called "Expect to be Surprised."
She talks about how we can do the next right thing even when the path leads somewhere we didn't totally plan for.
That is something I might groan about and wrestle with, but again, whatever road is from God, I will follow Him. I know He gives me His hand.
I can write these down and still in practice I am working them out. I know in writing them down, each time, it is an act of surrender and rest on my part. And an act of faith, and hope, that I can and still will 'expect to be surprised,' whatever that looks like in real time and space. As Emily described in this particular podcast, it was paying attention at the scenery outside as she was traveling and seeing a musician she liked appear years later at an unlikely restaurant. A musician who once inspired her in ways that this singer probably had no idea, because she just kept doing what she was called to do, and showed up to sing for a room full of youth group teenagers. How amazing that Emily was in that group and later would go on to write books, and now is inspiring people like me herself. Expect to be surprised at how God works, often through people, often in unlikely ways.
You never know how the next small step or next right thing can lead to something else, even if it's a road you didn't plan for.
It's hard to release your sought after plans. I know this. It's hard to not wish for tomorrow to come now. It almost feels like a joke to still expect to be surprised sometimes. But, I know there is good everywhere and in the daily-ness of life. I am so thankful God keeps showing up in the funny and mundane and crazy parts of my life and reminding me He is there. He hasn't gone anywhere.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
You brought your fire?
Tonight I was cooking and my potholder caught on fire. Not only did I have a de ja vu moment from college, all of a sudden I felt like I was back in my college days as well because my downstairs neighbor had just been inside my place using her computer. I told her I would be right down in a minute to borrow her vacuum (we like to live communally)
Well, since we share so much and we had been together 30 seconds before, when my potholder caught on fire, my instinct was to take the potholder to my friends place. Why I don't know, because it really looked bad; it had just caught on fire. I knew I probably should take it outside or put it in water in MY apartment, but no, why not knock on her door. It seemed innocent enough but then it started smoking more and when she came to the door she looked at me funny and said, "You brought your fire here??"
I took it outside and we put the rest of the fire out. It turned out okay, of course. And we laughed a lot after that, of course.
Rule #1 of the apartments is now: don't go mobile with your fires.
Seriously, fire safety is IMPORTANT.
Still, this song came to mind, and in favor of being super sentimental about fire even though the whole thing was actually quite ridiculous, I think you all might enjoy it. This is actually a song I like a lot by a singer I like a lot more.
Are there people you have sat with in the burn? I sit with many who are in this space daily, even though a lot of the time I don't think of it this way. I remember the first time I heard this song was a few years ago, and it put to words what was happening around me. It felt like a truth-telling message.
This was a time when I was working with kiddos who were being abused/neglected in foster care and it was one of my first experiences with that within my job. Needless to say, my heart was breaking for them. I was feeling the angst of desperation of no answers coming after many trials they had endured in the system and not being able to find permanency. As their counselor, I tried to stay objective, but also as a follow of Jesus, I kept seeing the brokenness of it all and was hoping there would be deliverance and change.
Do you ever want to but find it difficult to 'come close' like this? What was my place in all that? It was several years ago, but sometimes I am reminded of this feeling. There is only so much we can each can do, and yet, there are times we are called to brave the heat. It is a gentle reminder.
Well, since we share so much and we had been together 30 seconds before, when my potholder caught on fire, my instinct was to take the potholder to my friends place. Why I don't know, because it really looked bad; it had just caught on fire. I knew I probably should take it outside or put it in water in MY apartment, but no, why not knock on her door. It seemed innocent enough but then it started smoking more and when she came to the door she looked at me funny and said, "You brought your fire here??"
I took it outside and we put the rest of the fire out. It turned out okay, of course. And we laughed a lot after that, of course.
Rule #1 of the apartments is now: don't go mobile with your fires.
Seriously, fire safety is IMPORTANT.
Still, this song came to mind, and in favor of being super sentimental about fire even though the whole thing was actually quite ridiculous, I think you all might enjoy it. This is actually a song I like a lot by a singer I like a lot more.
Are there people you have sat with in the burn? I sit with many who are in this space daily, even though a lot of the time I don't think of it this way. I remember the first time I heard this song was a few years ago, and it put to words what was happening around me. It felt like a truth-telling message.
This was a time when I was working with kiddos who were being abused/neglected in foster care and it was one of my first experiences with that within my job. Needless to say, my heart was breaking for them. I was feeling the angst of desperation of no answers coming after many trials they had endured in the system and not being able to find permanency. As their counselor, I tried to stay objective, but also as a follow of Jesus, I kept seeing the brokenness of it all and was hoping there would be deliverance and change.
Do you ever want to but find it difficult to 'come close' like this? What was my place in all that? It was several years ago, but sometimes I am reminded of this feeling. There is only so much we can each can do, and yet, there are times we are called to brave the heat. It is a gentle reminder.
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