Thoughts after Dark.

Good evening from my patio, I feel like this is the nightcap version of Penny Thoughts since I pretty much always post in the mornings.  I'll paint you a picture of my moment so that you can feel like you're across the table from me.  It's all the way dark outside and the moon is on the other side of the house so you can't see it.  The stars are out and the oil rig just beyond our wooden fence is squeaky and annoying.  We are trying to tune it out.  There is a beautiful breeze blowing through the rose bushes and some used sidewalk chalk nubbins scattered beneath our feet.  There, now you feel like you're right here with me.  

I am sitting here with some wine and I decided to write after another attempt at getting into Anita Shreve's "Sea Glass" failed.  I usually like her stuff but this one is slow and it's not hooking my interest.  So I put it down, partly because I don't love it and partly because I feel like God has something bigger for me out here, something I need to hear or maybe smell.  No, not smell, I have sniffed several times and I can't smell anything significant.  

I have been scrambling for perspective this week and I still don't have a firm grasp on it.  I have been desperately wanting to be fine with my Mom's death but as the anniversary of it gets closer the events of last October get brighter and more vivid.  ALmost like it is here all over again.  I think about the unpleasant details a lot, the nuts and bolts of her death.  I wish I didn't, I wish that I could make this season pass unobserved but something about it demands action.  So I bought a plane ticket home today, and I will be leaving a week from tomorrow to navigate my way through this gray anniversary with my family and friends back home.  I want to be with those who knew my Mom directly.  It will be a comfort to go through this side by side.  

A few days ago I was finishing a kitchen rug project when I snipped the tip of my finger with my sharp fabric scissor.  It was the tiniest snip but it left a small hole on the top of my left pinkie.  If I look very close I can still see the scab, but for the most part it has already healed up.  Are you ever just astounded at the human body's ability to heal?  I didn't have to do anything about that cut.  I just went about life as usual and it scabbed over and mended, soon to be indistinguishable from the rest of my finger tips.

I really wish that emotional pain was that simple.  There is a lot of truth in the fact that time heals emotional wounds, it plays an unarguably important role.  However, if you have ever experienced pain, tragedy or loss.  If your life has ever suddenly been altered for the poorer, you will know that you have to move through the pain almost tangibly.  You have to do more than just allow time to pass.  You have to shed tears, talk through feelings, put up pictures and perhaps go to counseling.  Sifting through deep pain is some of the hardest work on the planet.  It is exhausting on every level.  However, I truly believe that if you don't grieve you can't heal fully.  You have to "do grief."   There is no easy band-aid, believe me I wish I could tell you that there is.  

So tonight finds me coming to the stark realization that I will have to find ways to continue healing over these next two weeks.  Two weeks from right now, almost exactly, will be the one year anniversary of my Mom's suicide.  I have to deal with that.  It will make me think through who I am as her daughter, as my children's mother, and as a woman dealing with life on this earth.  I will continue to reject the dangerous lie that I will share her exact path.  I will not.  I am my mother's daughter, but I am not my mother.  

I don't want to face this milestone, but the hard part is, if wholeness and freedom is my goal, then dealing with it is my only option.  Pray for me, and if you are facing something hard that you wish that you weren't facing, talk about it with your support people.  They love you and that love will be there for you as you deal with your junk.  Don't deal with your burdens alone, I'm not going to and neither should you.  Heavy things were made to be carried by a team.  

Two Gather

For the past few weeks at our church we have been doing a series called "Two Gather."  A good sermon doesn't always surprise you with new information, sometimes it just puts words to a feeling that you already had inside.  This was the case for me, for months my heart has been processing openness and community.  You may recall the saltine diet post, and I am still thinking along those lines, and I am gaining depth. 

To check out this series please visit here and you'll be so on the same page with me it's not even funny.

The promos for this series make me laugh outwardly but cry inside.  They depict a lonely guy trying to do things on his own that just aren't right.  Such as water ski or ride a tandem bike, only catastrophe can ensue. Those are the parts that make me laugh.  The part that makes me cry a little inside is this picture.  

This is a guy, all by himself on his birthday.  Blowing out candles alone. Suck pill...

If that picture doesn't make you a little bit sad inside, go get your heart strings tuned up a bit.  We all know from personal experience that loneliness sucks, especially on birthdays, holidays and times when we need a friend the most. 

A million years ago (or so it seems) I heard a talk by Rob Bell at Mars Hill about community and how it was not really created, but discovered.  Here is what this means:  Lets say that you are lonely in your life and longing for community, you may be thinking that you need to go through a series of elaborate hoops and scour your city to find people to connect with.  Or you may be looking for someone else to form community for you.  Here is the sneaky secret that I want to let you in on.  The odds are very good that at your work, school, gym, etc are people.  And the odds are even greater that those people are struggling with life.   Stuff like marriage, temptation, kids, addiction and loneliness.  These are the sort of things that people deal with every day and it could be the same stuff you are dealing with.  So there you are, surrounded by people who are silently dealing with heavy stuff alone yet side by side

So back to the concept of community being discovered rather than created.  People are all around you and there is connection waiting to be solidified.  One thing that I have learned over the summer is to stop waiting for community and friends to come to me, but to get out there be a part of it all.  I had to start connecting with and supporting the people who are already in my life and allowing them to go deeper into my life and do the same for me.  I am not saying that there is anything easy about this, it takes guts and gumption and a big long jump outside your comfort zone.  It is not easy at all, but I can guarantee 100% that it is totally worth it.  


Here are a few things that you were not designed to do:
1) Go it alone (Read all about it in Genesis, God said it point blank:  It is NOT good for people to be alone.  Period.  finitio. Ad Nauseam. 
2) Figure it out for yourself (There are people who have been where you are, who want to pull you along and teach you the next steps, just reach out your hand)
3) Pretend like you have it all together (no one does so I say this with great confidence: cut it out)


We were designed for community, support, and opening ourselves up for wisdom and love.  Again I know that this isn't easy, because you may have been burned and inside you are resistant to try again.  I am sorry people hurt you, I hope you can take a step toward wholeness.  I promise that I'm praying for all who read this, because believe it or not, I love you and I want your life to be big, beautiful and full of community.  


Some Action Items to try: As to you without excuse.
1) Start a group that shares your interests or check to see if one exists
2) Check out a church that seems to be full of honest, on fire Jesus people.  They may have something all lined up for you to walk into.  Bring brownies!  Everyone loves brownies.
3) Volunteer- Nothing builds strong connections faster than cleaning up trash, dry-walling or serving someone a glass of lemonade side by side.
4) Call some friends over for dinner, turn the TV off, look them in the eyes probingly (but not creepily) and ask them how they are really doing.  I will even plan your menu for you, I want you connected THAT BADLY! 


Please don't stay lonely another day, I pray that something brave is stirred up inside you and your desire to connect finds feet and walks toward something real.  Thank you for reading, I pray you have at least one real deep and soul quenching conversation this week.  We all need them.


Those are my thoughts, a penny for yours?

What I learned in Waco

Last weekend I had the gift to be able to attend the David Crowder Fantastical Church Music Conference in Waco, TX. It took me about three days to unpack our clothes and get our suitcases put back in their assigned spot. It has taken me a week to find the space to go through my notes and unpack what I took home in my heart. So in summary, suitcases are easier to unpack than 2 days of profound insight into worship. But profound insight is a more rewarding unpacking experience by far.

I have given it some thought and I think that the best way to write about it all is to give it to you in quotes and personal thoughts. So what you are really getting is what Leanne took away in her suitcase. Hope you don't mind.

Regarding Worship: "Sing a song with some people who really believe it instead of just mouthing words & critiquing the guy at the front" ~Francis Chan

Well I know for certain that I am guilty of an occasional session of worship critique. What I thought was profound about what Francis Chan said what that he discussed Worship as something we do for God, not something that we do for us. Duh. I almost always go for me. I almost always focus on if I like the song, the delivery, who just walked in and who hasn't walked in yet. Corporate worship can be a real struggle for me, me who is so easily distracted from God by social settings. And so the moments where I feel what I am singing and then actually relate it to using my lungs to tell the air how good God is are rare. Too rare. Worship is about God not my personal preferences. So maybe my best worship and exaltation happens when I am alone.

But here is the other key component: worship is about community. We gather to sing for a reason. What was so beautiful about this weekend was that it gave me a chance to be in a room with other people who has been stripped of their busyness and agenda and were given space to sing to God together. And believe it. And mean it. We were singing words and feeling them inside and then putting them out in the world to tell the truth about our God to the space around us. It seems like we have far too few moments where we realize that we aren't the only ones. We aren't the only ones striving, we aren't the only ones struggling, we aren't the only ones relating to God, there are thousands of us. And we can get together and sing something together and feel closer to each other and to God for it. And this is what God thinks is really good when it comes to worship. He sees our worship as "really good" and this is far more important than whether we had a good experience.

So yeah, that was Francis Chan.

And then there was Gungor, who sang instead of spoke.

They sang this:

All this Pain

I wonder if I'll ever find my way

I wonder if my life could really change

At all?

All this earth

Could all that is lost ever be found

Could a garden come up from this ground

At all?

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things out of us

I heard this for the first time sitting in the very back of the balcony in Waco Hall. And I cried because I knew again, I wasn't the only one. So often on a Sunday I feel like I can go out and make the following week into something drastically different than the week before. I am going to reflect, rest, read, and truly be with people when I am with them. I'll marvel at the beauty of a toddler learning to navigate her world. I'll walk outside and be reminded of the beauty and steadfast love of God. And then Wednesday hits and I'm so often irritated with my life, dissatisfied and weary.

And then I'm reminded of Sunday, and how this week didn't shape up as I wanted. There were fleeting moments of beauty, but more ungrateful discouragement than small wonderful moments of thankful reflection. But wait, he makes beautiful things out of, dust? And ground that has been longing to be tilled and cultivated can grow life? Yes. True. He does. He can. My life CAN change at all. Wow. Tears. Thanks God for bringing me here, not giving up on me. For waking up with me each morning at whatever time Noelle chooses and giving me another chance to open myself to you making my life into a beautiful thing.

That's enough for now.