There has been much whirring and stirring and washing my feet right out from under me. My thoughts and tumbling words turned to pen and paper.
There needed to be some space. Though I’ve missed this space too!
Remember in January when I decided my words for 2015 would be Prayer and Courage? I had thought of “Be Brave” and “Courage" for a couple of years, but every year I bypassed it because handing God the word courage seems dangerous. We all know what happens when we ask for patience. There are all of a sudden a plethora of circumstances that will stretch our weak definition of patience until we want to just cry and go home. I knew these words would likely turn my world upside down and shall we say, my expectations were not disappointed.
I look at this blank space and the blinking cursor wondering where to begin – words don’t seem capable of explaining just how full the last couple of months have been. And I mean full not so much in the really busy schedule way (though that applies as well), but the full like a rain cloud sagging and bulging at the weight of it all. Waiting to bump into mountains with the relief of loosing the load and floating free.
-March-
Change.
Through many conversations, prayers and confirmations Nick and I realized that it’s time for movement. That moving back to Colorado seems like the next step. However, all those details in between? Foggy and overwhelming. How? When? What will we do? First was the decision to try and sell our home – see if there was confirmation in our choice.
March was DIY.
March was hard work. Scrubbing, ripping, painting, installing, helping hands and sweat.
-April-
Sensitive.
Last September I started seeing a therapist. Things felt knotted up – tangled, and I was looking for some undoing. Self-discovery is a wild beast. A sometimes painful, exciting, overwhelming trek through the dark.
My therapist handed me The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron and my world quickly flipped upside down. For the first time things were making such INCREDIBLE SENSE. I am a Highly Sensitive Person and how I experience the world is different than approximately 80% of the population. This in itself deserves a few posts, but I’m still understanding, learning, observing so I will leave the eloquence of explanation to a few articles that help explain the HSP (here and here). Articles that I read while nodding my head and tears welling in my eyes. Yes, yes this sounds so very familiar.
{Meanwhile the DIY madness and packing 75% of everything we own into the garage happened.}
-May-
May was hard. And hard is such an inadequate work.
May was suffocating.
May was revelation after revelation. Compounding on April’s discovering, I also began to understand the intensity of some of what I feel and have felt for years and years. Except that, I never named what I felt. I barely let myself feel it without scolding myself and shoving it in the bulging closet. May was essentially opening the closet door and allowing it to all come flooding out. I felt like I was drowning for most of it. While I felt thrashed and pummeled, God sat close:
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble
Therefore we will not fear
Though the earth gives way,
Though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though mountains tremble at its swelling
Selah
There is a river whose streams
Make glad the city of God,
The holy habituation of the Most High
God is in the midst of her;
she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
–Psalm 46: 1-5
As I sat wrecked – I came to understand the incredible people I am surrounded by. The words, wisdom and comfort provided during this time are invaluable and not quite worthy of words. And another voice that has long been lost - my whole voice - is coming through too. The silencing is giving way to whispering.
“Another aspect of that process is listening specifically to those voices or parts of ourselves which we have shunned, despised, ignored or denied. These “shadow” parts…are always needed in order to become a strong, whole person, even if we live half our lives as though knowing about them would kill us…The best way to handle shadow aspects is to know about them and form an alliance with them…” –E. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person
“Here the shores meet, here all contradictions live side by side…a lofty mind begins from the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the Ideal of Sodom…the devil struggles with God, and the field of battle is the human heart.” –Dostoyevski
“Your purpose in life may be to become more of who you are and more engaged with the people and the life around you, to really live your life. That may sound obvious, yet many people spend their time avoiding life. They are afraid to let it flow through them, and so their vitality gets channeled into ambitions, addictions, and preoccupations that don’t give them anything worth having. A dark night may appear paradoxically as a way to return to living. It pares life down to its essentials and helps you get a new start.” – T. Moore, Dark Nights of the Soul
“I am convinced ABOVE ALL THINGS that God’s faithfulness abides when all else fails. ‘Stength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.’ How can this be?... He is ready to meet us with the sorrowful embrace of a friend. He is ready to meet us in the boat, waking from sleep in the middle of a chaotic storm saying: ‘Peace!’ And He is ready to meet us in the heart of battle, saying: ‘I will fight for you, you need only to be still’… We come as we are, with trembling trust.” –Sandra McCracken, SheReadsTruth 5/26/15
Once again, my unattended garden brought its own wisdom and parallel journey. At the end of last summer my mystery bush emerged with one beautiful giant hydrangea bloom. My favorite.
Fast forward to one brisk wintery afternoon, Nick and I went for a walk and as I passed the side of our house I almost FELL OVER because WHAT DID THE HOA GARDENERS DO TO MY PLANT?
I almost burst into tears. Nick consoled me and said its what needed to be done. But, oh Lord, I felt like that bush. Dried up, bare, exposed and chopped nearly to the roots.
And then spring.
Spring growth was rapid and full and bursting. Tears again, but mostly gratitude as I soak in the blossoms that just won't stop. There's a spring emerging in me too. And perhaps its every bit as painful as the pruning was. But it too, is necessary.
And in the middle of it all, we staged the house and posted our home for sale and within a week had an offer. Nick and I sat stunned at the timing and provision. The door opened and we tentatively stepped through trusting that this, right here, was where we were supposed to be.
-June-
Acceptance.
Step by step.
Signing our names on endless dotted lines. Trusting. Wondering.
“There was only stillness and silence of that water: what a mountain and a wasteland and an empty bowl turned into after the healing began.” –Wild, Cheryl Strayed
“Forgiving works incremently…as we gain the freedom to accept ourselves, we can be reasonably sure that we are healed of shame. Accepting ourselves is difficult. It is not a one-shot cure. It is rather like a long & wonderful passage. We accept ourselves when we take responsibility for writing our life stories out of whatever raw materials we were given. We do it when we own the depths of ourselves even when what is going on down there scares us some. We do it when we take a grateful pride in what we do with our lives, in snippets or in full cloth. These are the makings of self-acceptance.” –L. Smedes, Shame and Grace
The greatest revelation this month? I need space. I need additional time. The steps were SO CLEAR that this was the time to sell our home. The steps to then rip ourselves up by the roots and crash-land back in Colorado were less clear.
I feel an overwhelming need to come up out of the water and take a big gasping breath of air. So we are. We’re resting in the warmth and beauty of the PNW a bit longer.
Everything is ‘to be determined’ right now. There are no facts or things set in stone. Because if I’ve been paying attention, stones break and crash and because you’ve etched plans on them means nothing. Step by step, day by day, trusting and moving. Or sometimes resting. Or sometimes taking a detour or a few steps back. Facing fears and falling apart and slowly gathering the pieces and trying again. That is life, written in the dusty footprints down meandering dirt paths.
And now we're in July. July deserves its own words and space. It's rich and hard and exciting and exhausting.
Stand still. The trees
ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are
is called Here. And you must
treat it as a powerful stranger,
must ask permission to know
it and be known.
--David Wagoner
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