chasing the sun...

my dear friend, nicole, celebrated another year on this planet yesterday. this fascinating woman and i spent some timeless years together in norman, ok...writing (rarely using caps, you see), laughing (seriously good, deep, hurting the next day laughs), singing (i don't mind the sun sometimes), circling (repetition, repetition), traveling (nine states in four days...still a personal best), reading (from george's dante love to smashed fairies and all that fall in between), walking (down railroad tracks for a diet dp so early in the cold cold morning), dreaming (of knitting nations and salt like sand for miles and miles and miles)....

friend, 

you have lived beyond everyone's hopes for you - taken on the big city, taught the masses (i will sit on the hill, the children will come to me, and i will teach them...), shared your unique view of the world with the world, helped the grounded to fly, given voice to the silent, wed, and found a baby in your belly... and we find ourselves so far apart. but please know that i admire and love and miss you. i am thankful for the pieces of me that i remember when we do connect. i hope that you had a magical birthday and got there smiling, just as the sun went down....

here's to here.

and i you.

happy birthday. 

a good night....really

I wrote this entry in my journal late last night:

Tonight I found myself in the midst of precious friends, a beautiful night, fantastic food, sweet fun conversation....and I left feeling sad. This deep, beaten down sad that has hung onto me in one way or another for as long as I can remember - like a strange summer weed being plucked away just to pop up again while all the world is sleeping.

But tonight there's this little bit of hope tagging along - this sense that I can see the root for once. Dig through the dry dirt and catch a glimpse of the life source twisting and plotting underneath. 

It's idolatry. 

I have made an idol out of too many things to count, too many things to even know. Happiness, marriage, babies, love,money, appearance, friendship. relationships, opportunities, experiences...and they are all knotted up there at the base of my sometimes sadness. Things I don't have. Things I long for. Things I don't long for but still envy in others. Things I believe will make me better. Things I believe will make me whole. 

God help me. 

I know the "answer" is to leave all of this worldly weight behind and long for only my Jesus. I know these idols will not, of themselves, bring me that elusive peace. I know that the grass is always friggin' greener over there...I know. I know. (Sing it Levi!)

But the weed still grows. 

So tonight I am going to bed asking God to forgive my wants, but to please remember my needs and even my desires. I am asking Him to change my heart in ways too big for me to believe in. I want to enjoy nights like tonight as the perfect and loving gift that they are and quit seeing myself in comparison to the rest.

....So, see, it really was a good night, in more ways than one. I had a wonderful time, and had the roots of my sometimes sadness revealed to me when i didn't even ask. Now they can start to become untangled a bit...less choking... and maybe even pulled out all together some sweet day.

dear jesus,

mahalo.

amen.

for em...

...because the running stripped and free along the water's edge will come soon enough.

...because you deserve to feel the sunshine.

...because finding the balance between comfort and freedom is tricky but necessary.

...because I've got your back, even when it's up against the wall.

...because this will only make sense to you, mbt.

hug it.

just look at this face....

songs i'll sing someday...

There are songs we sing at The Village that I just can't choke out, not quite yet:

my chains are gone, I've been set free...

sin has lost it's power...

rid me of myself...

no more my God, I boast no more...



And songs I simply force out due to the truth of them:

i could run away, you would never leave, you will always stay right by my side. And I need you - every step of the way...

come and listen, come and listen to what He has done...

God of my hurting, God of my healing...be my everything

Fear not, I will pilot thee...


They are all swirling around in my head tonight as I have thought these past few days about worship, about why I can't seem to sing all of the songs, why I can't get through a church service without the tears, why I can't comprehend the blessings of life and community and being His...

It only seems to make a speck of sense to me tonight in the songs:

I want to sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hand, lay back against you and breathe, and feel your heartbeat...this love is so deep, it's more than I can stand... I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming...

the question...

The blessing of beautiful white snow that fell last night covered over a pretty tough day and also managed to reminded me of the exact moment when I realized I needed to let Jesus love me. Quite a job for just a little snow, right?

It was last spring when I was in Colorado for a conference -enjoying the mountains and the music and the people and the air, but not being too sold on the weekend's intent. There was this focus on asking God questions, then just sitting around on the side of a mountain waiting for Him to answer. Covanents of Silence, these moments were called. Go ask Him if He loves you and then just sit there and get your answer...I was annoyed, It wasn't fitting with how my relationship with Jesus had been up until that point. It was all too, well, spiritual for me.

So, not wanting to disturb all of the other women actively engaged in their silences, I would go out and dutifully sit. I did actually ahve some sweet moments with God during those times, I praised Him for the view and the rest and the beauty He was showing me...but I never quite got around to asking Him that question:

"Do you love me?"

Of course He loves me, right? I am His daughter, His child, His princess, His joy. I see now that those words, for so long, had been just words to me. Just answers on Sunday morning. Just empty encouragements heaped on friends feeling down. Empty. Oh, how I have realized this year the power in the words of the Lord! These words that I always quoted, memorized, used to sound right and good and wise. There is this immeasurable power in the words of the Lord, and I never caught on to that. Never caught on to the weight of the truth of being the daughter of the King. Daughter of the King. They kept telling me that there in Colorado. Kept telling me that He whispers my name and wants to tell me secrets about how much He loves me, but I wasn't ready to hear it. I wasn't even ready to ask the question.

On the final night there I woke at 4:30 to something tapping on the window near my bed. I looked out to find a covering of fresh snow so thick, I could see nothing else. It sat like a blanket over everything, shining in the moonlight. It was a stunning scene. I put on my coat and boots and walked outside. The flakes were falling huge and gentle all around me. I could here nothing but the falling of snowflakes through the trees, seeming to sizzle as they landed. I will never forget that moment. I suddenly realized that I was the only one taking in this incredible view. I suddenly believed that Jesus had tapped on that window to call me outside. I suddenly did not think things were too spiritual there in the mountains. He wanted me to be in this unbelievable moment that He created just for me. He told me, right then, that He loved me. I stood there on the porch, literally surrounded by nothing but pure, clean, whiteness,,,overwhelmed. See, He wouldn't let me get away with being too afraid or too cynical to ask the question. He just pulled me out of my bed in the middle of the night to give me the answer before I could even utter the words. I told Him right then, in my typical fashion of running away when things get a bit close, that I was a bit nervous and not really sure how to accept such a gift...

It was then that He asked me the question that I am only now starting to form an answer to.

He asked me if I could just let Him love me.

maybe....

So I opened this blog site back in October, apparently. I remember writing a few things - something about strange dreams and bad habits - and then later deleting them all in a fit of humiliation. What if someone actually read my words? Made a comment? Knew my thoughts? What if?

Maybe, just maybe, this time I will leave things alone and just write...because I have some things to say. Seriously.

I am in what I have decided to call Honesty Group Overload this semester. Between my home group through church, group counseling class (which includes two hours a weeks of actual group therapy), and my Recovery step study group, I am being exposed at every turn. Thirty-something years of hiding are being rapidly overturned in such a short season. Now, I have been in small groups for years, even been in individual therapy two different times, but nothing has come close to the stripping away that I am currently experiencing.

It is miserable. It is wonderful. It often gives me tired head.

People so often say that the Lord had to hit them upside the head- or some other similar reference basically meaning that the really dark days had to fall before they could begin to see the light. Well, I am realizing here this spring (ah...so ready for the spring...I need flowers and flipflops and cool sunny days...) that the Lord just had to rearrange my schedule. He made sure that all of these groups lined up during the same 18 week period because He knows me so well. He knows that I procrastinate, that I do things halfway, or even just enough to get by. He knows that I love to talk about what I want to do more than I actually do it, and He knows that I am not disciplined enough to do things well and deeply and fully....on my own. He arranged for me to be bombarded with honesty. I feel like I have been pushed (not even so gently) into this moving river and this time I want to experience it all, do it well...

Two and sometimes three times a week I am finding myself sitting, exposed, in a circle of other fallible, miserable, wonderful, tired-headed folks sharing all of our...stuff...

And I am surviving. Learning even. Getting better. Seeing what healing can feel like, if only just hints of it here and there. Catching glimpses of where I hope to be. Being taught how to get there. And it all begins with letting the God of the Universe love me.

And that is for my next post...