Time for Tea?

Courage. 

I spent 2015 trying to dive into that word. I thought courage would feel like never being afraid. Always being sure before charging ahead, full of confidence. Assured.

Instead I found courage to be about trust and faith. Courage is hard as you stand still shaking in your boots with questions bouncing around your head. But you take those shaky steps forward trusting yourself and trusting God. Even if you meandered down a detour. Courage is showing up and living in the face of fear, even though you are still afraid.

I am proud of what focusing on this word has pushed me to do this year. I took some risks, faced the dark corners and learned that night has its own beauty. Nick and I sold our home which was the hardest and best thing. I still feel a bit lost at sea - bobbing around hoping to catch a glimpse of a palm tree. I thought finding courage might mean finding solid land to stand on, but I think courage is accepting that being lost at sea has things to teach me too. It's still a mysterious word, a daunting word - but I am grateful for the journey so far.

The last 4-5 months I built a bit of a cocoon around myself exhausted from the first half of the year. Letting the darker days and longer nights lull me into a bit of hibernation. A different kind of courage - a courage to allow myself this quiet. Allow myself to withdraw from the noise and lights and parties of the Christmas season. The quiet of grace surprisingly took some courage.

Heading into 2016, I've again chosen a word. This continues to be one of my favorite traditions - recognizing that each word stitches itself into my being - continuing to unfold, but God always takes the word I've chosen to focus on and waters it and nourishes it so that I am never prepared for what it has to teach me.

Selah. 

Selah is a Hebrew word, it's meaning debated. But it is usually thought to be a musical instruction to pause. It is found in the psalms and in the book of Habbukuk. I think it's a beautiful reminder to stop and reflect. Let what you're reading, doing, seeing actually sink in. 2016 will be about pausing - go slow as the world continues to grasp for lightspeed. To pause as days seem to slip by faster than ever. To encourage mindfulness, intentionality, compassion - all things I tend to run right over in the attempt to hurry up. Which mostly leaves me irritated, hungry and bone-weary.

To help my focus and attempt to embrace Selah I want to do another picture-a-day project. But this time I plan to take a picture of what I'm sipping each day. It is incredibly rare that I don't have at least one steaming beverage a day and I like the symbolism of pausing to make a cup of tea or savor a cup of coffee. It's a natural pause - heating water, steeping, sipping.

As December bounces along, I wish you lasting peace and joy and a very Happy New Year!

In Between

July is easily one of my most favorite months. It includes my favorite holiday, our anniversary, it's usually deliciously HOT and sticky,  and without argument the middle of summer. You don't have to think about fall or transitions. That's what August is for. July is all-in.

As I reflected on the wild waves the first half of 2015 offered, I found this July to be about the in between. An eye of the hurricane? Perhaps. Bobbing in the rolling ocean before the next swell threatens to sink? Maybe that too.

We spent the beginning of July soaking in family and celebrations. My heart swelled and rested there.  Vacation is a magical space that we do not take advantage of enough.

However, the journey home mirrored how I feel life looks like right now. Too close for comfort timing, racing through airports bags flopping awkwardly behind, begging and pleading, losing hope and watching miracles unfold and literally being the last two to make it on after doors already closed. And always surrounded in the kindness of others.

We returned and the next morning signed papers. Our home no longer officially ours. The relief and sorrow and excitement and grief all came barreling in.

We wrapped up and packed the rest of our fingerprints from that space. It was checking off to-do lists. And the incredible help from Kurt and Jack got us through because moving day was a hot mess. Literally, a hot paving project outside the door mess. Moving, I don't think, is enjoyable for anyone but I seem to have a special VIP backstage pass into Are You Kidding Me? kind of moves. But we all survived. Even Nox who took it upon herself to christen the new place with lots of vomit.

And when I was completely unraveling and pleading with Nick and the dining room table that it MUST fit in the spare bedroom {don't ask} I realized how lucky I am to have him beside me on this trek into the unknown. He maneuvered the heavy table past reason and then talked me off the ledge and ultimately solved the feng shui problem that I was about to lose my mind about. Bless him. {He also cleaned up lots and lots of cat vomit while I stood there and cried}

In all the craziness I ended up back at the house by myself to collect the cats and perishables from the fridge. Closing the door behind me without a key gripped my body so tightly in grief that I almost couldn't do it. It was all wrong - I envisioned more time, more something so saying good-bye wouldn't feel so...hard. But the door closed and I didn't have any other choice but to move forward.

Good-bye 5417. 

July so clearly introduced me to holding the tension. I was overwhelmed with peace and joy, fear and heart-wrenching unrest -- all at the same time. I can't explain it, but one of the most important lessons I began to learn is to let them come. All of them. Don't try to explain how I feel joy and unrest so distinctly at the same time. Just let them in and move through. This in between-ness is exhausting.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day." ~Rainer Rilke

Waiting. Waiting for what? When will we know? Good luck to anything that crosses my path because I grasp it wild-eyed and hold it up close: "Are YOU it? Are you what's next?!"

"There's only one thing worse than a no - it's an unknown. It's this hanging in the balance that can make you lost your equilibrium...waiting can feel like an insane asylum of it's own...In the dark, in the middle of the night, it gets very clear: he who is hurried by worry, delays the comfort of God. You can want someone to reach over and touch your unspoken broken, your thin bruised places and smooth out the pain you can't hardly speak of: Pain begs us to believe that only action can end our ache - which actually only God can...And the making on one's whole life takes time. Goals take longer than you think; the ways of God take longer than you want. It takes time, a lifetime, to turn the ache of our longings toward Him." --Ann Voskamp

This season is no less painful and no less blessed. It's harder than not, but the bright spots shine that much more when in the middle. And the important thing - there's movement. Slow and wayward? Perhaps. But still moving.

"I don't know where you are these days, what's broken down and what's beautiful in your life this season. I don't know if this is a season of sweetness or one of sadness. But I'm learning that neither last forever. There will, I'm sure, be something that invades this current loveliness. That's how life is. It won't be sweet forever. But it won't be bitter forever either. If everywhere you look these days, it's wintery, desolate, lonely, practice believing in springtime. It always, always comes even though on days like today it's nearly impossible to imagine, ground frozen, trees bare and spiky. New life will spring from this same ground. This season will end, and something entirely new will follow it." --Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet 

"Babe, there's something tragic about you

Something so magic about you

Don't you agree?

Babe, there's something lonesome about you

Something so wholesome about you..."

~Hozier, From Eden 

An Update

Though there’s been silence, the silence has not been empty.

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

2015 in a few words

Instead of listing/making resolutions (which turn into overall achievement-focused stresses for this INFJ) I have chosen a word or phrase the last couple of years and am amazed how God unfolds that in ways I usually never expect. {2014: Be Still  / 2013: Grateful} I usually look ahead at hopes and goals for the year and focus on a word that will draw me near to God in the midst of crazy and challenges and joys. And then God usually shows me His definition of the word(s) and how much I don't know about them.

For 2015 I chose two:

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
~2 Timothy 1:7

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
~Psalm 27:14

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.
~Lamentations 3:22-24

Most often I feel timid. Doubtful. Fearful. Not enough. And it was laid on my heart that I am allowing those words to be louder than what God has to say. What God calls me. Courage kept coming around as the word. And ironically, that made me nervous. God has been faithful in responding to my words. In using them to shape me, challenge me, teach me. Do I really want to throw courage His way?! And it became so clear that the only way to tackle this year and this word is being steeped in prayer. Something I'm not so good at. Something I feel forced and strained and self-conscious about. But there is no other way I know than to abide in Christ and stop trying to do it my way...driven by my knowledge and motivation.

I've started this little adventure by picking up Prayer by Tim Keller. He so aptly reminds us:

"All prayer is responding to God. In all cases God is the initiator -- "hearing" always precedes asking. God comes to us first or we would never reach out to him...The power of prayer, then, lies not primarily in our effort and striving, or in any technique, but rather in our knowledge of God."

And because I'm a fan of writing and words and the art of stringing thoughts to paper I thought of something with a nice ring to it...courageous prayer...and other silly workings. Until I sat there and realized that this is about the power of the words and the point of choosing them. I felt inadequate and unprepared with just courage so prayer must come first. Prayer precedes the strength and courage to face whatever this wild world throws in your path. Prayer and courage. Plain and simple.

So here's to a year of courage only made possible by how much I am willing to abide in Christ - learning to pray without ceasing.