Tales of beauty from the rubbish heap: When redemption looks a lot like a daughter

 

For more than four years, this blog has been my space of storytelling. Where I come and lay out the trail of crumbs from Then to Now, evidence of beauty emerging from what I like to call the rubbish heap of life. But it's always been in the back of my mind, how I want this space to be more. I long for it to be a home for your stories, too, somehow, not only in the comments section. I envision this grand, limitless book where we're all contributing pages of our redemption stories-in-process, witnesses to the pain and the glory, the searching and the finding. And I'm so happy, dear friends, to tell you that I'm starting something new this month of May. I've invited four writer friends to contribute stories each week of the month, their tales of beauty from the rubbish heap. I hope it's only the beginning of a bigger story being told here on this blog.

And now, I want you to meet someone I greatly admire, for the beauty and resilience of her spirit and the way she sees and loves and makes art. The first time I met her, we were in the fifth grade, still climbing trees, playing dress up and creating worlds with our imaginations. The next time I found her was in this online world, and she was a gorgeous grown woman with a breathtaking daughter and a burgeoning photography business.  This woman exudes grace and weaves stories through photography that stir a place beyond words, drawing out the magical and majestic essence of everyday life through the eyes of an artist who doesn't miss what the real treasure is. And to top it off, she is also a compelling storyteller with her words.  You can lose yourself for hours in her work over at Simply Splendid, but for now, it's my honor to introduce my friend, Marla Cyree.

* * * * *

Mother’s Day 2014 was a lovely and relaxing day spent with my daughter on one of the prettiest days of the year we’ve had yet, but it was also a day rippled with internal conflict.  Why would I be conflicted on a glorious and relaxing spring day celebrating mothers across the nation?  Reason: in no way did I want to connect with my own mother on Mother’s Day.  Admittedly, I did send her a little note card the Friday before. In it I wrote, “Happy Mother’s Day Mom.  I hope you have a nice day.  Love, Marla.”  Basically the most generic of greetings lacking in personal tribute or sincerity.  After writing it out, it sat on my desk and I wrestled with myself internally about the whole thing.

--You must send it.  It’s the right thing to do.

--On the other hand, is it unkind to send such a note?  Is there anything better I could have said instead?

--No.  Anything else would be forced and contrived.

--If you don’t send it, surely you will have to call her on Mother’s Day...

So off to the post office I went with my little card that contained a pathetic attempt at a nice Mother’s Day greeting.  But my duty was done and she would be appeased.

This isn’t how I really want my relationship with my mother to be at this point in my life, but it is better than it has been in times past.  I’m actually not even sure if better is the right word, but surely to the standards of others, the sort of contact we have is better than no contact at all?  It feels lacking in honor though.  So I grapple with how do I extend honor to a woman who has been hurtful and hateful towards me the majority of my life.  How do I protect myself and have safe boundaries, yet have affection toward her when just days before she tore into me about what a horrible, unkind, selfish person I was... that she would almost rather that I was never born than be the person I am today?  The woman who sent me 20 text messages at 2:30am just nights before, angry about a thing I said to her 30 years ago (I’m only 32) and what a trial I’ve made her life since I was born.  I’m still hearing the same story about how I ruined her life... the one I’ve been hearing since I was 4 years old.  What do I do with it all at this point?  I still don’t know, after all these years, I still really don't know.

One of the first commandments was “to honor your father and mother.”  Over and over again the Bible offers verses and commandments where God has told us to honor and obey our parents.  It even promises that when we do honor our parents that life “will go well for us” and that it is pleasing to Him when we honor them. The Bible also offers many consequences for when we don’t--like trouble and death for instance.  How do I honor her? I feel as though I’m in this stalemate position.  I know God sees her hurt and my hurt and is broken-hearted for us.  I know this is not His vision or desire for us.  Yet it remains and I feel that any way I turn is at the point of a knife nearly piercing my flesh.  It hurts. Being her daughter hurts... even at 32.  Perhaps what I have to offer at this time is honoring.  I don't know really.  It isn't how I'd like it to be, but maybe it's enough.  It's certainly all I have to give at this time.

How am I managing our relationship right now?  First, I choose to peacefully not engage with her when she is hurtful.  Do her words still hurt?  Yes.  Is it effective?  I'm not sure.  Secondly, I pray for her and for us.  It is hard.  I have found it to be a struggle to sincerely pray for someone who feels like my enemy.  It’s not easy and I tend to get easily distracted during that time, so I could be better at this.  Third, I try really hard to have grace for her.  Over and over and over again.  I remember where she’s come from, what she struggles with, I have compassion.  I  I try to extend little olive branches at arms length, even if I don’t feel inclined or want to.  Lastly, I forgive her.  Forgiveness seems like a sticky thing.  I have to keep doing it--for things she’s done, things she hasn’t done, and things she continues to do.  But the forgiveness has been the most life-giving part.  It has kept me from bitterness and has allowed me to be different than her, thanks to God’s grace.  I am so glad He can see my heart and that He loves me, that He saved and rescued me from my despair so I can be who I am today.  I am beyond grateful that He has sustained me and helped me see beyond my circumstances, beyond my mother.  I am grateful for His redemption, that the enemy hasn’t won despite attempts to break me.  I am grateful for the hope He has given me since I was a very small girl.  And I am grateful that He has always been with me, that He has held me through all my hurt, that He caught every grief-stricken tear.

I used to wish for a different family, a different mother.  I would imagine myself as a new person and create a whole new life for myself.  I fantasized about what it would feel like to belong to that different family, to live in that life.  Each imagined family was peaceful and loving, uplifting and kind.  These fantasies brought momentary solace to my shattered heart, but only offered a short-lived peace, as fantasies do I suppose.  

As much as I’d just love a really great mother, the birth of my own daughter has felt like the realization of my dream for a new family.  I see my beautiful, healthy, and very special relationship with my daughter as a sort of redemption.  I am far from perfect, but I am a great mother.  I have learned so much from watching other great mothers and by knowing what not to do by my own mother’s example (and if that is the only positive result, I'm content with that).  My daughter is so very loved, and not a moment in her life has she ever thought otherwise. Our family is peaceful and loving, uplifting and kind, and she is completely secure in those values.  It brings me true joy to know that she will never feel what I have felt and I praise God there is a new legacy starting from the two of us!  And deep down I know it is God’s heart for true healing between my mother and me.  I’d love to see that also.  I honestly don’t know what that looks like anymore, but I’ll continue to hope for it.

 

* * * * *  

For more tales of beauty in this series:

Karmen's story
Kelly's story

Eleven years down the road from Compline

We step into the semi darkness of St. Mark's Cathedral, fifteen minutes before Compline service begins, and slip into a pew near the front. My husband has never been here, and we're both swallowed in the grandeur of high ceilings, the curve of windows lighting this beacon on the hill above our city. On the stage in front of us, a woman lies on her back near the altar, her legs and arms falling open in a meditative posture, completely still. College students and couples trickle in carrying blankets to spread on the marble floor and across the steps. A young man with tattooed sleeves on each arm settles in on the steps with a backpack, pulling out a notebook and pen, poised to reflect.  Coupled women sit close, speaking in hushed voices. A group of gay men sit on the steps in front of the yoga woman and make themselves comfortable in the waiting.

It's been eleven years since I was here. And while it looks much the same as I remember, I see it through such vastly different eyes it doesn't look the same at all. The building, the service itself, have not changed from how I remember them. 

But I have.

* * * * *

Eleven years ago, I came to Compline services on occasion with a few college friends from Seattle Pacific University. It felt like a radical move for me, this former pastor's kid, this girl coming of age in a wildly Pentecostal church, now darkening the doors of an Episcopal cathedral, and one in particular that ordained gay ministers. I wasn't at all familiar with liturgy and I'd been taught most recently that it was a lifeless form of worship. And honestly, I wasn't comfortable with gay people, let alone gay clergy; I had no clue where they fit into my faith.  I stepped inside, and while I found the atmosphere and the monk-like voices chanting liturgy soothing, I would look around and inwardly shake my head in discomfort, in pious sadness. Where is God in this place? All this pomp, this grandeur, and I don't feel him here. They're missing the point.

I didn't understand it.

I was so afraid of what I didn't understand.

* * * * *

Each time I think I've scooted out to the edge of God, I find, 
once more, 
he is vaster than the ocean. 
I cannot see how far he extends beyond the horizon, 
only that he does.

* * * * *

Eleven years later, I worship among Presbyterians with my Catholic husband and delight in the culmination of the service in the Eucharist.  I love my Common Prayer pocket-sized book
sitting on our makeshift altar with candles. When I play my guitar in the solitude of our apartment, that free-flowing, Holy-Spirit-loving spontaneity of my Pentecostal days is unleashed. There are weeks and seasons when we hunger only to participate in Mass, in Spanish or English - sometimes both - and I know much of the liturgy now by heart.  I love to visit St. James, the Catholic cathedral near downtown, when Mass is not going on, so I can wander the edges of the sanctuary and slide my hands along the benches, breathing worship in the intricate artwork, lighting candles below Mary's statue and whispering prayers that float high above these stately ceilings. 

* * * * *

Sitting in St. Mark's, soaking in the mens' voices as they chant the last prayers of the day, I let the words wash over me. I'm familiar with them. They are lullabies to my soul.

It feels like home.

Tonight, as I steal glimpses of the others who have come to receive whatever they are hungry for, my eyes see them differently.  I am moved, not by pity or youthful piety, but by a love that surprises me with its tender fierceness.  Many of the faces I see here remind me of ones I've seen before, voices I've heard through the years, of those don't feel welcome in many churches.  This music, ancient word and prayer in acapella voices, may be the only morsel of bread for some of the hungry ones who find their way here each Sunday night. The only time they hear something akin to the voice of God singing over them, whatever name they may call him by. 

Compline seems to be one watering hole in the desert for those who may not see a place for them at the table of Church, and it happens to be in the neighborhood with the largest gay presence in the city.

* * * * *

I find my eyes drawn to one of the gay men sitting on the steps and I can't help but watch him. The beauty of witnessing a fleeting moment of vulnerability and I am undone.  I don't know what's being sung at this moment in time of the liturgy - was it after Psalm 23 and before "Into Thy hands O Lord, I commit my spirit"? - when he lifts the sleeve of his cuffed shirt and wipes below his eyes. His lips are not moving, but his eyes are closed, and I see his hands cupped so gently near his feet. An open cup, lifted to the one who sees him and knows every square inch of him, every cell in his being. Whether or not he knows this, he is a son and he is utterly and completely loved and accepted by a Father. I feel this knowledge seep into me, not for his sake, but for mine - for this heart that is ever so slowly being wrenched from the grip of judgment and freed to love. 

We are not all that different, he and I. We are empty cups held out to be filled.

All the years of being pulled into debates of who's in and who's out, theology of what God thinks of people who fall under the church's label of "controversial," devising strategies for "loving" people who make us uncomfortable while keeping them at a safe distance, it hits me with the force of a bear hug in this moment: I'm not uncomfortable with the same people anymore.  I've known this for a long time, but here in this place where I once sat, it settles on me like a pronouncement.  And I recognize this tenuous dance, where now I'm less comfortable with the types of religious folks I used to be like, and I know I need to watch my heart so I don't swap one kind of self-righteousness for another. I don't want to take my finger and point it in the opposite direction. 

That is missing the point.

But I dare say, I don't even care to know those answers that once mattered so much to me, to the stability and credibility of my faith. They're not mine to know.  And I know this, God is bigger, vaster, wider, deeper than I can wrap answers around.  I've been growing and stretching out into this bigger place in God these past eleven years, and now I see the change through eyes that are changing the way they see.

What this man is hoping to receive, with tears, I dare not guess. But watching him, I find my own tears to wipe away, for he has touched me profoundly. I'm shedding tears - of what? Joy? Wonder? Gratitude? Sober awareness? - for my heart that is being enlarged; for my eyes that are seeing through new pupils; for my small and fragile self that still has so far to go to journey to the core of God's love, if that is even possible. 

Here in this cathedral with its rainbow streamers draped from the stately ceiling, among all types of lovely and diverse people, I sit back and rest in the collective sigh of peace that seems to emanate from our souls. With my brothers and sisters, I have come to drink, and we have sat in mutual thirst, and we have been filled. And this is a mystery to me, so sweet, I can barely contain it.

I am forever being changed.

And please don't read this as my implying that we all need to change in this way or that way. Really, please. This is how I have needed to change, and that road stretches, twists and turns in ways I cannot see from where I stand. The same is true for you. God will take us where we need to go to come to the end of ourselves and the glorious reflection of him - can we all agree on this?

We are walking each other home.

But this, this is the path he has me on. And I know it by the way it makes my life and God less small, less safe, less contained, like the wings of a thousand birds taking flight from an open field.


Joining Kelli for Unforced Rhythms, Jennifer and Emily.

Tales of beauty from the rubbish heap: Sucker punch (a story of openness and vulnerability)

For more than four years, this blog has been my space of storytelling. Where I come and lay out the trail of crumbs from Then to Now, evidence of beauty emerging from what I like to call the rubbish heap of life. But it's always been in the back of my mind, how I want this space to be more. I long for it to be a home for your stories, too, somehow, not only in the comments section. I envision this grand, limitless book where we're all contributing pages of our redemption stories-in-process, witnesses to the pain and the glory, the searching and the finding. And I'm so happy, dear friends, to tell you that I'm starting something new this month of May. I've invited four writer friends to contribute stories each week of the month, their tales of beauty from the rubbish heap. I hope it's only the beginning of a bigger story being told here on this blog.
 

This week, it's a pleasure to introduce you to Kelly Chripczuk, whose writing I gratefully stumbled across several years ago. Each time I pull up a seat next to this intelligent woman, hearing her stories of wisdom from everyday spiritual practices, I leave pondering life in a fresh way. Over time, she's endeared herself  even more to me with her beautiful prose drawn from a love of birds, land and nature, descriptions reminiscent of Wendell Berry. Please give her a big, warm, open-hearted welcome? 

* * * * * 

Sucker punch: 
A story of openness and vulnerability
 

We wrote an offer on a big old farm house – a solid, happy looking place with great bones, two acres and a “tenant house” – the day after Christmas 2013.  Then we waited a week for the bank representative to return from vacation and reply to our offer.   

This was the fourth house we bid on over an eight month period.  We'd been through enough ups and downs to be cautious, but this time around we were very, very excited.  We tried to simmer down about it, but one day I brought home a stack of Organic gardening magazines I found on the free shelves at the local library, then my husband started researching chickens on-line.  Soon I was scanning Craigslist for the cabinets and fixtures needed to bring the place up to speed for a family of six.  

But it wasn’t until the last day, the day before we would hear back, that I really let myself get excited.

It felt so right.

 

It was the first house we hadn’t had to make a list of pros and cons about – just one walk-through and we were certain, yes, this will work.  Despite the old oil heating system, the paneling on EVERY wall and the half bath that was more like a corner closet with an accordion style door – despite all of that, it felt right. 

It felt like it did when we found our first house, too good to be true and everyone we consulted seemed to feel it too – it’s time, surely this one will work. 

The day I got excited was the same day I started writing about my OneWord for 2014.  This is what I wrote about my word, ‘open.’

Open.  

I picture feet planted firmly, a good solid stance – open body language. 

Arms hanging down long and lose, hands turned out toward the world. 

Open.

There's no defense in openness, no closing off, no fear maybe too, which tells me that openness is rooted in something wide and life-giving, like love.   
The posture of ‘open’ leans back a little, open can take a hit and stay standing.  

Feet planted, hands open, embracing what comes.
 I’m open to 2014 and whatever it brings, “Let it be unto me.”

I was prepared to wait an extra day – I told myself it might drag out through the weekend ahead, but underneath it all, I figured the house would probably be ours.

So I didn’t expect my husband to call, near nine on Thursday morning, with that heavy sound in his voice.  The one that makes me think he must be kidding, because he’s so terrible at delivering bad news.  

There was another offer.  It was cash, no contingencies, not even an inspection.

At the word “cash” we knew we’d lost and by one that afternoon it was all wrapped up.  The house went to another buyer.

The news hit me like a sucker-punch, right square in the gut.  I felt literally sick to my stomach.

I walked around crying silent tears that whole day long, I felt the grief of that loss in the way one does when one has been vulnerable, open.

Not long after, I read this on my friend, Shawn Smucker’s blog,

. . . choosing hope is difficult because it involves opening myself up instead of closing myself off. Hope requires vulnerability. It insists that we get back up, no matter how many times we’ve already fallen. To live in a place of hope means to live in a place where pain, should it come, finds us defenseless, with our hands down at our sides, our most sensitive areas unguarded.

Looking back I can see that we embraced hope during that week of waiting – a careful cautious hope, but hope none-the-less.

We opened ourselves to hope and it caused our hearts to flit and flutter in unexpected ways, awakening anticipation, leaving us vulnerable and exposed. 

It was painful, it was awfully close to heart-breaking.  I cannot remember now how exactly we recovered from that blow, except that we also opened ourselves to the pain, acknowledging and grieving the loss as it came.  Then slowly, slowly we picked the pieces up and moved on facing again with openness and vulnerability the possibility of another place, another dream. 

Reading my friends words I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Breathing deeply again, I chose to open myself again to whatever might come, I chose hope.

I hesitate to tell you this, because some of you may also be in the middle of a difficult wait.  Maybe you also know the sucker-punch of vulnerability, the heavy weight of lost dreams.  My husband and I took a hit to the stomach and stayed standing and that in itself is story worth telling because, from where we stood, we had no idea where our story was going. 

But what I think you also should know is this: One month later our realtor called back.  “Sit down,” he said, “I’ve got some good news.  The offer fell through, write another bid just like the one from before and the house is yours.”

That dream? It came back, it was given back and we stood there with our hands open and overflowing.

I can’t explain the why of it all, but I do know that the loss of that dream made its return all the sweeter.  I do know that I learned the cost of “open” early this year when the wind was knocked out and I know that “open” is worth choosing despite the possibility of pain for with it comes also the possibility of deep joy.

* Kelly writes at A Field of Wildflowers or follow her on Facebook @ A Field of Wildflowers.

Grateful: A partial inventory of odd and unexpected gifts

With each passing year, it seems, I notice how many gifts in life come wrapped in ugly, prickly, mismatched, ill-fitting paper. Paper that is stretched too taut, with the tiny gap in between where the edges don't quite meet up, and this is where the tape tries to cover it all. Paper with designs that hurt to look at, they're so hideous. Paper that cuts your fingers as you struggle to open what's inside and makes you bleed.  It can be so tempting not to open the package at all. Most of the time, though, we don't have that choice. It falls open one way or another, and in the opening and the beholding, we choose whether or not to view what's inside as a gift.

* * * * *

The week rent is due is almost always, without fail, a stressful time for us. This week was no exception. And so, by the time it was all said and done, I slipped away to walk down by the lake near our apartment. I set off, initially, to walk fast and long - I needed a workout, I said, to release some pent up anxiety - but I quickly recognized what I really needed was to slow down and sip the air. 

God knew this, of course.

He caught my attention by the shore near the rowing center, where a tiny flock of ducks, crows and Canadian geese were winding down for the day. I tiptoed to a picnic table close to the birds, with a sweeping view of the I-90 bridge stretched from shore to shore and the clouds reflecting their images in oil paintings across the surface of the lake. 

This bench along the lake shore with the birds and the water and the clouds was the door to losing myself. 

I lost myself, in the sound of buffleheads skimming graceful landings with their tiny feet across the water. In the quiet gurgles of the geese sipping water. In the simplicity of the robin submerged in a pool of water in the grass, the feathers around her neck fluffing, shaking the droplets from her wings. The crows scouting the grounds for food, flying away with morsels in their beaks.  The oil painting of the evening sky, fluid, ever-changing color right before my eyes.

One of the geese, nibbling at the grass, gradually moved closer to the table where I sat, lifting her head to regard me with tourmaline eyes. For a moment, we held each other's gaze. I held my breath and she came closer, continuing to feed. Soon, she was underneath the bench and I dared not move until she'd had her fill and moved away.

 

"You're so beautiful," I whispered to her backside, and my soul's cup filled with peace.

I lost myself there, in the evening rhythms of bird life along the water and the trees waving leafy hands while swallows danced in the sky above. I lost myself in a moment suspended in time, outside of time, where I saw God in the eyes of a goose who let me into her home.

It was here I heard so clearly, words so ancient and dear: "God, my shepherd! I don't need a thing.  You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from.  True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction. Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side... You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing. Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I'm back home in the house of God for the rest of my life" (Psalm 23, from The Message).

  

If I could only trust him like the birds who bathe nightly in puddles, who feed in the grasses and nest alongside still waters. They seem to know something I am only just now grasping the edges of.

 * * * * *

Two years ago, I was lying on my back in bed, leg propped up in a clunky cast on a huge red pillow, full of pain. I didn't know, then, how much injury would be my teacher.  How two years later, I'd still be wondering if my calf muscle would ever return, but I'd be marveling at the way I'd learned to walk again.

Not only how to physically walk, but to walk through life at a slower pace, with hands open to gifts of pain and wonderful beauty.

When you're a runner, it can be more challenging, I think, to notice the beauty around you. Your mindset is different. At least when I was a runner, I rarely stopped to admire things that caught my eye. I had a route, a workout, a destination and often a time constraint. I didn't care to be interrupted on my runs. I was in training mode. 

  

But then came the day I couldn't walk. Not for four months. And even then, I was limping for another two or three. And yet, I didn't care how long it took me to get from point A to point B. The point was, I could walk. My heart has not ceased, two years later, to stoop and kiss the ground for this gift of walking - and sometimes running - that I'd taken for granted my entire life, wrapped in the paper of injury.

My pace of life has changed. I'm more in step with a pace of wonder, and this, I've found is a slow pace. We can't catch hold of wonder in a blur.

* * * * *

April was a month of anniversaries. My injury. Our wedding. Physical and spiritual breaking apart, joining together; pain and love, rest and revelation.

We sat recently inside a chapel, all to ourselves, in quiet reflection as these anniversaries bore upon us.  A canopy of translucent lights bathed us in this urban sanctuary of green velvet-covered benches stretching from wall to wall, our green pastures, where God lead us to lie down and drink from the stream of presence.

I lay my head back against the wall in a room all to myself, staring up at a tree, tall and curvy, growing from floor to ceiling. A single lantern hung down, amber glass, illuminating words on stark white wall.

And I was filled with the full force of my hunger in this moment, pondering another year gone by and let the tears flow their streams down my cheeks. How I live in a perpetual state of not enough, hungering for love and so afraid to hunger - for if I eat of it today will there be any for tomorrow? And God's wordless whispers answered my whispered prayer:

Yes.

My love is enough to sustain you,

today

tomorrow

always

come what may.

With me, you will not starve of love.

I lifted up my broken cup and let this Love pour in, spilling over the sides.

* * * * *

For all these gifts with all their odd and unexpected packaging, I am learning to unwrap, behold and receive. 

And friends, I have no other word to utter but this: grateful.

* * * * *

Joining Lisa Jo and the Five-minute Friday community of writers, to the prompt of "Grateful." Please note: I clearly could not have written this all within 5 minutes. I am fully guilty of taking the prompts and writing as much as needs to come out. Thank you for your graciousness with this long post today!

 

Tales of beauty from the rubbish heap: When you question your calling

For more than four years, this blog has been my space of storytelling. Where I come and lay out the trail of crumbs from Then to Now, evidence of beauty emerging from what I like to call the rubbish heap of life. But it's always been in the back of my mind, how I want this space to be more. I long for it to be a home for your stories, too, somehow, not only in the comments section. I envision this grand, limitless book where we're all contributing pages of our redemption stories-in-process, witnesses to the pain and the glory, the searching and the finding. And I'm so happy, dear friends, to tell you that I'm starting something new this month of May. I've invited four writer friends to contribute stories each week of the month, their tales of beauty from the rubbish heap. I hope it's only the beginning of a bigger story being told here on this blog.

And now, it's such an honor for me to introduce the first storyteller, Karmen Madan. If you visit her writing home, you'll find one of the most honest, soul-searching voices I've read. She writes of her healing journey with raw clarity, courage and the eyes of one who sees beyond what is right before her, who is honest about her struggles in this trust walk with God that she is on.  She paints her journey vividly on canvas as well. Please welcome her here and, if you resonate with her story, show her some love in the comments section.

* * * * * 

Karmen's painting

Four years ago come August I started a blog.  I wasn't sure who was going to read it, if anyone, but I knew I needed to write.  My heart was locked behind a tower and writing was the crack in the wall through which it could find a means of escape.

I named my blog, Praise the Lord and Pass the Calgon.  Praise the Lord, because faith is a large part of who I am. Pass the Calgon, because the thing I wanted most of all was to be taken away... Calgon, take me away!... mostly from myself.

The more I wrote the more I let my heart slip through the crack in my wall.  I shared hard things.  I wrote of depression, abuse, self-harm, and counseling.  Always keeping the hope of faith intermingled with the hard of life.

And then I fell.  I fell hard.  And by fell, I mean like running straight towards a cliff and jumping off of it without a parachute.  

I fell from faith, "You made me screwed up! I suck, therefore I think you kind of suck and if I am sinning it is Your fault for making me this way!"  

I fell from hope.  "After 34 years of trying I am done trying!"

I fell into all the lies I had ever told myself and had been told.  "No one is ever going to love you - this is your purpose (sin) might as well fulfill it." 

I free fell down that cliff of anger and lies for 3 months before I hit the rock hard realization of the nothingness that it held.  And when I hit the nothingness, I felt like I was nothing.

It has been a three year climb out of the anger and the lies.  As I began my climb back up I felt God leading me to be transparent.  Even more transparent than I had already been. In November of 2011 I wrote:

"I feel God calling me to be transparent, because without it their is darkness 

and in darkness shame and evil thrive. Transparency is not pretty. 

It is painful. It is soul wrenching. It is admitting to both the good and the bad,

 the beautiful and the ugly, it is being fully human. It is putting yourself on the altar of other peoples judgement. It becomes their choice then to slay you 

or accept you and you have to be willing to accept both. 

(Wow, God, are you sure you want transparency from me? 
I am not sure I can take it.)"

And then I only wrote two posts in all of 2012.   Who was I to write?  I was a piss poor example of Christ and His love.  Any credibility or usefulness that I may have had prior to my fall had been left on that cliff top when I jumped, hadn't it?  I had willingly jumped and now I was covered in sins debris.  God had called me to transparency and I went silent. I locked myself up tight in my prison of shame and guilt, a prison of silence.

I knew that God had forgiven me, but I wasn't sure how to forgive myself.  In my self imposed prison not only did I quit writing, but I quit listening for God. I was too afraid of what He might have to say, because I knew it would not be, "Well done my good and faithful servant."  I was also still not over the anger that sent me jumping off of the cliff in the first place.     

In January I waded back into the blogging waters. I was feeling the call to write again, and so I wrote:

"There will always be people who will judge and condemn 

and not hear the hurt behind the bravery or who will look to add shame 

to the already shamed. Those people might hear the words, but they are deaf

 to the cries from the heart of the one being brave. Those people will always exist.

 They are the ones who keep people from bravery, from being able to share. 

But there are others too. They are the ones who desperately need to hear those

 heart cries of the brave, so that their own heart might be able to cry out with them 

and in the process both can begin to heal. And then there are those whose hearts

 don’t necessarily cry in the same way as the brave ones, but they need 

to hear those words so that they might understand and help other crying 

hearts heal. It is for those who cry and for those who need to understand 

that we should be brave; that I should be brave. Give me grace Lord to still love 

the ones who judge and condemn and give me the strength to 

not live in their condemnation."

It is often in my writing that He speaks the loudest and I can hear Him the clearest.  It was time for me to start listening to Him again - directly, because He was still calling me to write and to transparency. 

In this last year, I have tried my best to comply.  I was beginning to question the why of it though.  Why write God, when only a handful of people even see it?  Why share when It feels much too transparent?  Who is it helping? Am I mis-hearing? Am I merely being self serving in the sharing?  Can people even see You through my struggling?

After several such questions and some painfully transparent posts I went to bed with this prayer on my lips: "Lord, it isn't about the numbers.  It isn't about my popularity or my "talent".  Lord, make it about You.  I don't know why you keep asking me to write, but I know You are calling me to continue, so if it is only for one God, if it is only one who needs to hear this journey and know that they are not alone, I will keep going.

The next morning was Easter.

Before I had even climbed out of bed I checked my phone and there was an email from a reader I do not know.  She was telling me how much my sharing had meant to her and how much it was helping her in her own journey.

It was Easter morning and He had heard my prayers the night before of doubt and of "why's" and He awoke me with hope and with validation.

He had been crucified with my broken, He had laid in the grave with my despair, and He brings me restoration with His resurrection.  

He is using my brokenness and despair to bring me into restoration.  Through that restoring process He is using me to not only share my own story, but ultimately to share His story.

I want to encourage you, all of my fellow bloggers (both little and big) - it isn't about the page clicks or the comments.  It is about using our stories to share His story and helping to set other captives free.  Your words, your heart, your stories of broken and of healing, they are all important.  They all matter! Your words, they matter, keep trusting!

If God can painstakingly clean off this debris covered girl and use me He can surely use you as well.  We can change the world.

"Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples"  

Matthew 28:19

Our blogs are more than just a place to fill with words, they are our mission field and we really do make a difference.

Life in the house of God

I grew up within the four walls of many churches, without ever knowing, for several decades, that the real house of God extends beyond, in the expansive quilt of starry skies, the otherworldly elegance of birds, the chorus of wind through a forest of trees older than any living human, the roar and the stillness of seemingly endless ocean, the prose of soul-searching poets and philosophers and musicians, the tents of flesh of all colors, shapes, sizes and affiliations.

Intimate, holy presence, dwelling in all these rooms of one great house, yet never contained.

In every place, all across the face of the earth, where a vacancy sign advertises empty space - inviting habitation - the Holy comes and expands the rooms of his house. And who are we to say what that house must look like for him to set up an outpost there?

* * * * *

My Papa taught me to appreciate stories, invoking curiosity in the world around me. I will forever remember him saying, more than once, how he often wished he could sit with strangers and ask, “Are you having a good life?” From him, in part, I credit the skill of asking probing questions, then sitting back and enjoying the person giving the answers. It wasn’t necessary to agree. In his company, I began to learn the gift of shared silence, of sipping tea side by side on lawn chairs, listening to the breeze.

And while we didn’t always see eye to eye, he helped expand my way of seeing. And now, I have his binoculars.

I asked Mom recently if she still had Papa’s old binoculars, and after some digging in the closet, she found them. When I first pulled them from their case, they felt holy somehow, an artifact of his life, bearing invisible fingerprints, so that in wrapping my hands around them, I nearly tingled at the memory of him.

My husband and I take them with us now when we go for walks by the lake, or visit the cathedrals of birds, in churches like the marshlands of Marymoor Park or Juanita Bay. This is where we went on our second wedding anniversary last week, and though I could see the birds and turtles with my naked eyes, I wouldn’t have known some of those birds far in the distance were Green Heron.  I wouldn’t have seen the red stripes so clearly on the turtles stacked like dominos on logs in the sun or marveled at the way the stringy plumage of the young Great Blue Heron gently tossed to and fro, paper ribbons from his chest, as he caught and swallowed a fish.

* * * * *

One morning this past week, I awoke to make myself a waffle and brought it back to bed.  There I sat alone, cross-legged, with the window cracked and bathed in the praises of birdsong at the rising of dawn. These songs, they’re as ancient as the scriptures I love to read from, but their words are not in a language I speak. I simply receive. These bird choirs are as sacred as the cathedral choirs whose songs can move me to tears, and they preach the gospel to me through seeds of wonder sown in the soil of my heart.

In the church building where I worship most Sundays, we sing songs mixed with our liturgy. At the end of one song we stop, and then we begin a new song, and the transition has the same effect on my experience of worship as an abrupt change of conversation at the dinner table. I want the songs to flow into each other, one seamless conversation on related topics, deepening with each stanza. And no matter how it sits not-quite-right-with me within these church walls, I walk outside to the world and botch up most of my transitions between songs, treating them as separate entities instead of one, diverse flowing liturgy. I stop and pause, breathing deep the beauty of God in a row of trees raining soft pink blossoms, and then I continue on buried deep in my thoughts of rent and work and marriage and friendships and what we’ll have for dinner, rarely recognizing they’re connected by the same sacred thread.

* * * * *

It’s taken a few decades, but I’m learning to attend to and participate in the liturgy of God in the world. On a crowded, stuffy bus ride, seated next to a lovely stranger who shares pieces of her life with me for fifteen minutes. In the conversation with a homeless woman who is also a regular customer where I work, where making her americano I am caught up in the sorrowful beauty of her piercing blue eyes and gentle smile. In the washing of a sink full of dishes for a friend, the listening to a deluge of rain pelt the pavement outside our apartment, the prayers lifted in the wail of sirens all up and down the streets where we live, the simmering of a pot of beans on the stove, the tickling of tummies and peekaboo under blanket forts, the running around with my friend’s little boys on my back and small arms wrapped around my neck, the warm satisfaction of a dog leaning his head against my legs as I stroke his ears.

It’s my husband’s laughter, too, which filters joy in like the street lamps streaming light through cracks in our bedroom blinds.

And I know in my being, I love the family of God and the many communities within these four walls; and I know, too, it is vastly more than can be counted in the walls of our churches, more colorful than our cleaned up versions of faith, more diverse than human presence alone.

If trees could speak - or maybe they do, but at a frequency our souls cannot hear? - what liturgies they would utter from the ages of history.

If we are silent, we just might hear the rocks cry out and be drawn to our knees in the dirt, joining them in praise.

If partitions would crumble and everyone were our neighbor, our brother or sister, the roof on these old man-made houses of God would blow right off and we could look out together and see the sun and moon and stars.

* * * * *

I want to give credit where credit is due. This whole reflection came out of my picking up Barbara Brown Taylor's gorgeous book, Altars in the world. I'm only a few chapters in, but it's already awakening more of my imagination.

 Linking up with Unforced Rhythms at Chronicles of Grace.

Confessions from the front lines of mess

I used to embrace messiness, back when my own life seemed neat and clean enough. By neat and clean, I mean I had the "usual" young adult messiness of wondering what I was supposed to do with my life, when or if I would marry, the occasional heartbreak and growing pains.  I was in university at the time my heart first turned toward the mess of injustice and oppression in the world, when my eyes first looked and saw and wept at horrors greater than what I'd known. 

Gary Haugen, the president of International Justice Mission, came and spoke to us about women and children sold into prostitution, about indentured servants and tiny kids being forced to carry bricks for twelve hours a day with their families. He spoke about IJM's mission to physically rescue the suffering from places of slavery, offer safe places for the wounded to heal and relentlessly seek justice on their behalves. I sat stricken, peered into this mess, and my heart began its headfirst tumble in. 

After he finished speaking, there was no one around him, and I went up to him with tears in my eyes. "What can I do?" I could barely choke out the question.

He looked at me, compassionately, as he must look at so many young people with big dreams, almost as if saying with his gaze, pace yourself, child. And then he encouraged me to sponsor one of the children from Compassion International, whose pictures were on display that evening in conjunction with his talk. This action, he explained, can help provide for a child who might otherwise be sold into prostitution due to extreme poverty.

And so I looked through all their faces, and I chose Swathy, four years old, from India, with some of the most soulful eyes I'd ever seen.

From then on, my feet turned with my heart, year by year, more toward seeking justice. I volunteered with refugee families through World Relief, and then after graduation, I got a job with them as a caseworker. After a year of this nearly 24/7 work, my young self burned out. But I never lost the passion. I reached out and made friends with homeless women near the cafe where I worked downtown. I ate with them, prayed for them and invited them into my home. I scoured my bible for verses and passages about God's heart for justice and I incorporated these into the worship I led at church those days. When I enrolled in a grad program three years after college, my sole vision was Africa, trauma and social justice. I could think of nothing else. In my hazy picture of the future, I was living in the slums of Nairobi, working among refugees outside the city, likely not married, and dreaming of partnering with the right people to start a nonprofit organization with the intent of striking at the wheels of injustice. 

And then, in one fell swoop, all that passion, all that forward movement of the last seven years, was taken out with the blow of my Dad's unexpected death. It wasn't just his death that knocked me over, but the timing of it in my life, how it launched me into a quarter-life crisis, emotionally and spiritually. I was perched on the edge of launching out into all that I'd been training and preparing for, all I believed was my "calling."  And in one surreal phone call, in one week in the ICU, I watched it all slip away with Papa's final breath.

I've never gone back.

* * * * *

Life has been so messy since that day I lost my Dad. There were tremors of messy building in the year before, but his death unleashed waves I'm still riding out; those further out waves I feel I can ride now without being tossed about, yet they're still there. Almost six years later, life has continued to send wave after wave of quiet heartbreak, a flurry of loss compounding loss, and I'm treading water, barely breathing at times. In all this mess of my own, I feel less able to step into the messiness of others' pain and stay for very long.

And I've wondered, in all this, where did my heart go? Where did I go?

I have no desire for my life to be defined by losses, nor to be so consumed with my own heartaches that I am rendered incapable of reaching out to others who are suffering. I don't say all this in search of pity or sympathy, for we all bear our own quiet heartaches. Sometimes, though, in the mess of things I cannot control, I know I've responded by trying to insulate in daily life. Protecting my schedule, reaching for routine and some degree of comfort in the midst of unpredictability, not wanting to be inconvenienced by the needs of others, for fear they want more than I can give. I push away some of the mess of the world, stare at the suffering from a distance, because I cannot bear to go there again. Now I'm the messy one, I think. What do I really have to offer? Back in my younger years, I had endless energy, infectious passion, huge dreams and relatively few complications. I was also desperately afraid of vulnerability, so being the helper, the rescuer, the one providing the comfort, was much more comfortable than being the one on the receiving end.

It's so hard, so humbling and scary, to admit these things to you. But I can't let anyone think, for one moment, I'm more than I am. My heart is still drawn toward those who are hurting, suffering, on the fringe, oppressed, broken, poor, lonely, forgotten. And I have also learned how to walk past them with an empathetic smile and silent prayers, to tell them with my actions, I don't have time for you. I don't have emotional reserves for you, I'm just trying to survive myself. I come to Jesus with my cup, practically begging to be filled so I have something to give. Yet, in all my knowing of how many gifts I have in my life and practicing gratitude, I've felt so battered by the seasons it seems my cup is too holey to hold him in and I never have enough love to go around. I come up dry, more days than I care to admit. 

I'm obviously still learning to live as one who is unconditionally, extravagantly loved, as I am, and that this is what fills me, the grace that plugs those holes and and allows love to spill over the sides.

* * * * *

For so many years, I drew a great deal of self worth from these dreams I held so dear, from my ideal self, from how others affirmed my sense of purpose and passion. As I gained distance from this former life of mine, I began to better understand the brokenness in my heart, but I'm sure I also began to revise past memories of myself. I was sincere, this I know, but the lines have been blurred between sincerity of passion and mistaken striving for identity and approval. However, in my resolution to evict this performance-perfection driven faith that had taken over so much of my life, I also evicted some of the beautiful things that had made themselves at home in my heart.

It wasn't as simple or straightforward as that, friends. It rarely is. I just felt I had no choice but to walk away from my old life and embrace the rubble, the reconstruction, the 'new' me. Much of this was for good, but I didn't see everything I was leaving behind.

I haven't known, until recently, how I'd thrown that metaphoric baby out with the bath water. How I'd operated with an all-or-nothing mentality when it came to pursuing a life of justice and compassion.  If I could no longer pursue those 'big' dreams, I must not be qualified to pursue any of it.  With dreams that large, there was no place to go but downsizing, and that felt like giving God second best.   

My prayer became something more like this: All you have is ordinary, run-of-the-mill me, God. I don't have much to offer anymore, but here I am. Put me back together and I'll run after you the best I can. It might be with a limp, but I'll keep running. Over the years, I've grown to redefine 'big dreams', to value the small things, the mundane, the unglamorous. I started this blog where I write all about that. And still, I've felt something is missing, that I'm still grieving crucial parts of me that were lost.

And I'm standing here with weak knees and tears in my eyes, confessing, I want those parts of my heart back. I want them restored, friends. I want to be willing, once more, to let go of my comfort, to stop insulating myself from the world's pain because of my own. I want to not be afraid of letting God's desires for justice back in my heart, to stay, looking the same and altogether different than six years before. 

This is who I am. It's who I've always been. And maybe my being on the 'front lines', as I thought I would be, in the pulsing thick of peoples' pain, will look more like my own home, my marriage. My mother and sister, niece and nephew. A handful of close friendships. My customers and coworkers. My church community. My blog community. My neighborhood. My little girl in India. My family in Mexico.

The pains of life will come and go, and they may stay here with me for many more seasons, staunch and unmoving, but I resolve in my heart that I will open the door again to the messiness, the terrible beauty of the world, and I will offer them Jesus in the form of imperfect me. We can be messy together, not just from a distance. Somehow, like the tiny bit of yeast through a lump of bread dough, God will work his kingdom ways into my heart, gently, once more. And it will spread and it will rise, and it will be enough, for that is how the Spirit works his ways of redemption. 

* * * * *

Linking up with Lisa Jo to the prompt of "Mess" - and oh, dear friends, this was so far out of the range of five minutes. But I needed to write it out. 

Also, linking up with Jennifer.