leaning in

It's been what I like to call a Habakkuk season in my life.  In fact, last night I reread Habakkuk along with 1 Thessalonians.  Here's the Cliff Notes version of Habakkuk:

H: God, what are you up to?  These people who claim to know you are acting awful, and you don't seem to notice.
G: That's okay, I'm going to raise up even more awful people to destroy those people.
H: Ummmm... God?  That doesn't seem very righteous.
G:  I'm really awesome, and let me tell you how much I hate sin.
H: Wow.  I don't get it, but I'll trust you anyway.

When I get to the point when life doesn't seem to make sense, I always come back to Habakkuk.  I read it a lot.

Adjusting Quinn back to early mornings for school is like trying to wake an angry bear two months early from hibernation.  Every day.  It's emotionally exhausting.  Add to that jumping back into teaching high school, which can best be described as interactive improvisation with a captive hormonal audience, and I've been exhausted.  Then throw in an intense personal life that has me feeling drained of every last smidgen of emotional stability, and it's no surprise that I've cried multiple times every day for the past two weeks.  You know it's bad when I'm crying at Taylor Swift songs at 6:30 in the morning and reruns of The West Wing while running on a treadmill.  There's no chance I'm going anywhere near the Hallmark card isle right now, that would invoke reactions too embarrassing even for me.

So what is up with Habakkuk?  I didn't like that book the first time I read it.  If you just read the words, then it doesn't really make sense.  Why would Habakkuk suddenly become okay?  I thought he had a pretty good point that God's actions don't seem to make sense or really fit into his character.  But what really gets me is that God never really answers his questions, and I don't like that because I have a lot of questions, and I want answers, and they need to be better than the ones he gave Habakkuk.  For sure.

Brene Brown (just had to work her in again) talks about the need for certainty being one indicator of our fear of vulnerability.  Bet you're squirming in your seat after that sentence.  Wholehearted people have learned to live without certainty.  Another ouch.  But she also talks about leaning into the difficult emotions of fear, grief, and uncertainty as being healthy.  That is the tension of Habakkuk, leaning into the fear and uncertainty while accepting that there is no good answer here.

For months after we lost our daughter, my only prayer was to know that God loved me.  I knew there were no satisfying answers.  No matter how God redeems grief, there is no good answer for why things like that happen.  Ever.  And anyone who tries to give you an answer should be immediately punched in the face.  Immediately.

But knowing there isn't an acceptable answer is exactly why I need to press into God and ask the questions.  At some point it occurred to me that Habakkuk's answer isn't in God's words, it's in his presence.  God doesn't say anything particularly different in Habakkuk.  In fact, God spends most of the Bible repeating himself.  But God shows up when people really ask, maybe not immediately and maybe not how we expect, but he shows up.

Sometimes asking the questions, though, feels like leaning off the edge of the roof and hoping the wind holds you up.  Just asking the questions often feels like opening the whirlwind of crazy hiding out in my head.  And if I open the door to my crazy, I may not be able to close it again.  I'm not always willing to take that risk.

So I read Habakkuk and shake my head and pray for God to show up because I just don't understand a whole lot of things.  This crazy joy that floods my heart doesn't push out the grief.  In some strange way it makes the grief deeper and harder, even though those emotions coexist with joy in some bizarre harmony.  It's the joy that helps me lean into the grief, like an anchor that helps me know that even if I fall off that roof and unleash my crazy, God will show up.

feeling 12

Sometimes I'm convinced life is a bad imitation of middle school.  I had one of those moments this week where I felt like I was the awkward girl in a Mean Girls movie.  So I've been channeling my awesomely awkward middle school self that shrinks away in shame whenever that happens and giving her a little extra love.  She convinced me to buy the latest Taylor Swift album.  Judge away.  I won't be able to hear you anyway because my middle school self is singing off key and dancing around the house.  Three cheers for learning to take myself much less seriously.

  I've been reading this book lately.  Go buy it.  Now.

In fact, you can go buy it here.  Seriously.  Buy it and then keep reading.

Read this.

Notice my great little earmark labeled blog.  Yep.  I'm a nerd.  I've been photographing pages and sending the pics to friends, posting them on Facebook, and pulling out the book and showing it to pretty much everyone I meet.  I'm going to have considerably fewer friends in the future.

But seriously.  This book is like the manual to the last 17 years of my walk with Christ that I needed but didn't have.  And it's not even a religious book.

On the page prior to the one above, she goes into the difference between the Greek words for happiness and joy.  Happiness connotes the freedom of the wealthy from the cares of everyday life.  Joy is defined as the culmination of being that comes with virtue and wisdom; Joy is the most difficult of virtues to achieve.  Now reread he page above with those definitions.

Mind blowing.

The connections between joy, vulnerability, gratitude, and courage are so obvious.  At least in hindsight.  But being vulnerable and grateful means facing our fears of failure, scarcity, not fitting in, and not finding certainty.  Maybe that's what Jesus means when he says you have to lose your life to find it. My last seventeen years have been an exercise in losing control over my life, and I'm in love with what I'm finding.

A friend of mine in Chicago runs these great workshops called Fear Experiment. I love the premise of getting strangers together to push through their fears.  It is amazing how leaning into and embracing your fear can be transformative.  The past few years have forced me through a number of personal fear experiments I would never have chosen, but lately I've embarked on a few of my own fear experiments just to see what happens.  I'm sure I'll write more about those as I learn from them, but for now I'll just leave you wondering what they are.  

In a previous blog I talked about the tender shoots of joy beginning to poke up out of the soil, but I was greatly mistaken.  Joy, when it takes off, is nothing like the tulips poking out in the spring ready to whither at the first hint of frost.  No, joy is like that %#@&! virginia creeper that springs up everywhere and seems to live off air.  Once rooted, it can be clipped and trimmed by the mean girls, but never eradicated.

So bring on the cheesy middle school songs and my awkward middle school self and ridicule all you want.  I won't care because I'll be the one dancing.

11

Nothing can undo seventeen years worth of sanctification like teaching your son to ride a bike.  All I have to say is that there were lots of mutterings at God for making me do this alone and lots of praises when the task was complete because I didn't want to revisit that part of myself anymore.

Saturday would have been my 11th wedding anniversary, and though I sat down to write something, I couldn't find any words.  The day passed with lots of cleaning and some hang time with a dear friend, and I almost forgot what day it was.  Almost, but the day wasn't sad, in fact it was more characterized by wholeness and deep joy.  Unlike when I tried to open a pickle jar yesterday and nearly had a meltdown at God for taking away my husband because now there was no one in my life to open the pickle jars.  At least I have my grief priorities figured out.  Sheesh.

Earlier this summer, I dropped by to visit Emmett's grave and wept when I found the Cheerwine bottles I left last year still there, one empty and one full.  Sometimes life gives you metaphors so obvious an English teacher would cringe at the tackiness.  But it occurred to me that in reality I was the empty bottle, not the full one, and that fullness doesn't come here, at least not completely anyway.

Lately I feel surrounded by a number of friends who are under attack. I find myself coming to God in prayer, simultaneously deeply burdened yet completely helpless.  Sickness, divorce, single parenting, depression, grief, money problems, loneliness... these are just a few of the things weighing heavily on some of the people I love most.  One friend recently joked that it felt like a quarter-life crisis.

In another conversation recently a different friend said something like, "I guess people just aren't as nice as I thought they were." I can't escape the haunting idea that we carry a deep grief about the injustice of sin in the world with no idea how to process it, starting when we realize that this life isn't what we hoped for or what we were promised.  My own grief has been so great for so long that I'm only just now feeling able to breathe for the first time in years.

I suppose we don't have to process this grief. We could ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist or try to cover it up or medicate it away with careers, money, alcohol, etc...  There are plenty of distractions or excuses to keep us busy.  Only I had no choice.  I was given grief so staggeringly large that I had no choice but to face it head on.  And I'm just now realizing the deep mercy in being forced to face what I would rather have buried.

People had told me the second year of grief would be worse, and I think I finally understand why.  The second year of grief is when you grieve the expectations you had for your future: the children, careers, anniversaries, and lives you hoped to have.  I kept reciting Ephesians 6:13 to myself: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."  I have been to the point where all I could do was stand.  In the past year I have been emptied of every hope and longing.  Not that I don't still have hopes and longings, but I have given up my delusions of control and my expectations that I will get what I want.  And I find in the emptiness an inexplicable joy.

I'm newly obsessed with Johnnyswim, and I love their latest single, Heartbeats.  My favorite line is, "I've got Heaven locked up in these bones, Oh I feel you coursing through my veins like fire."

So when I am forced to confront my old self, like teaching Quinn to ride a bike, I can honestly say I no longer want to return there.  Egypt no longer holds any appeal for me.  I have stood.  And in standing, I have found that if you stand long enough, there will eventually be space to dance, especially in your kitchen while you're cooking.  It feels good to be made into the new me and to see the promises of scripture being fulfilled in my heart.  For the first time in my life, I can say I love the person God made me to be, and I'm excited to be better acquainted with her.  That has been my hope in grief, and I have not been disappointed.

wholenes

Sometimes I marvel to think how much less crazier I am than I should be.

In many ways this summer has been a breath of fresh air, providing the kind of deep restorative healing I haven't felt in years - maybe ever.  How does one write about healing? Grief I understand with its wrestling and longing, its ups and downs.  But healing is so delicate, so fragile, you don't want to even hope the word for fear it might get skittish and retreat back into hiding.

Grief leaves no one completely unscathed, yet healing is so tenuous, so fragile, that I cannot possibly see it happening without grace.  Like some hidden path along a mountain precipice, no power or wisdom of mine couldn't recreate these steps, they have simply appeared at the next turn.  Perhaps that is faith, to trust the path leads somewhere even when you haven't seen a trail marker in a while.

This summer I've negotiated an insurance settlement, stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, taught Quinn to ride a bike, started allergy shots, bought a car, and picked blueberries.  I started cooking again, purged different rooms in my house, and finally, after eight years in this house, I put things on the walls.  Tomorrow Quinn begins his first day of first grade.  Next week, I begin working full time again for the first time in a few years.

And nothing at all seems to have changed except the mysterious lifting of some weight over which I seem to have no control.  So I'm forging ahead, without any clear trail markers, trusting the map and enjoying the cool breeze this summer has brought in my life.  I'm reading and collecting thoughts to store up in my heart that should spill over some day soon.  but for now I'm just treasuring this wholeness.

just in case.

sweetness

When I wrote the last post, I sincerely struggled for words to express grief without expressing a human-focused neediness or a desire to be fixed.  I didn't even really need people to read it, and I almost didn't publish those words because I knew they may be mis-read.  But Emmett and I had always committed to honesty with each other, and when he got cancer, it seemed only appropriate to extend that honesty.  In the last few days, I've been humbled by the notes I've received publicly, privately, first-hand, and sometimes even second- or third-handed about people who are struggling finding comfort in the fact that there is at least one other person out there trudging through the mud of life.

A few weeks ago, on a particularly sinful day, I let my sin nature walk right through the gate of my heart and take over.  Heck, I practically invited it to stay, fed it a meal, and made it a bed.  I ended up saying some downright awful things to a friend and then padding my smug sense of self-righteousness so I wouldn't have to feel the shame of being a grade A jerk.  But the prick of the Holy Spirit sent me on the path to reconciliation, and as we talked things through things a few days later, I was humbled and led to worship by the reminder of the sweetness of reconciliation.

I was reading through The Letters of John Newton this week, and yes, I will probably quote this book as obsessively as I did the last one I read.  One of his letters was subtitled by the editors as "spiritual blindness," but I think a more appropriate subtitle might be, "The distinguishing mark of a believer."  You see, sometimes I get in my head that the distinguishing mark of a believer is a certain level of annoying combination of perkiness and unfailing optimism, usually accompanied by charming good looks, well behaved children, and a casually held coffee cup from Starbucks.  But a comparison Newton made keeps resonating with me - that the highest level of human attainment cannot rival the lowest degrees of grace.

whoa.

The mere desire of salvation with no actual spiritual enlightenment of grace may flourish for a while but will always waste away in the end.  But even the lowest degree of grace, as granted through divine enlightenment, will be a continually progressive work no matter how small the steps, how slow the progress, or how feeble and weak the person.

I kind of wanted to dance for joy when I read that, and it occurred to me that the distinguishing mark of a believer is someone who always returns to the sweetness of reconciliation in Christ.  I love that when Christ prayed for Peter in the garden, he prayed not that Peter wouldn't sin, but that after he sinned, he would return.  In other words, he prayed that sin wouldn't hold dominion over Peter, but that grace would have the final say over his life.  The mark of a believer is not the absence of sin, but the continual longing for and returning to a relationship with God through his mercy and by his grace - no matter how ugly or broken or feeble the return appears.

I'm finally grasping what Christ meant when he told the pharisees that the woman washing his feet loved much because she had been forgiven much.  When I finally realize the complete worthlessness of my own smug sense of self-importance and seek true reconciliation with Christ, I find myself free to be honest without needing to be fixed, free to love and laugh and dance like Elaine from Seinfeld.  But the best part of reconciliation is the sweetness of not needing to be fixed, of being accepted and loved and welcomed as my broken, repugnant self.

4 a.m.

I find myself up at four a.m. having another brain dump and knowing I will regret this tomorrow about three in the afternoon when I'm staggering around the house more useless and ornery than a drunk person.  I don't suppose we always get to pick the most convenient times to process our lives.  Sometimes I stay so busy this is the best time for me to hear God and work through my issues, of which there are enough for a lifetime of sleepless nights.

Sitting on my back porch at four a.m. (I'm going to keep saying the time so you'll pity me as you read this) I am overwhelmed by how achingly beautiful this summer has been.  Cooler than normal temperatures, an almost six-year-old boy, and a really terrible year in my rear-view mirror have left me with an achingly beautiful kind of brokenness.  Even now as I sit in the cool night air, the bugs are asleep and the birds are just beginning to wake up somewhere far away from here.  And I feel in love with all of creation.  Except for ticks.  That's where reality hits, and I remember we live in a fallen world.

It was just a few days ago when I realized how awful this year has been.  Just over a year ago I sprained my ankle so bad I thought it was broken.  Two weeks later my refrigerator leaked into my sub-flooring, which led to a year of fixing, replacing, and updating that just ended about three weeks ago.  I had a tough year at school with very little encouragement.  Quinn broke his arm twice in two months. I had a four-month long sinus infection that never really went away.  But the saddest parts of the year have be things like completely losing interest in cooking (seriously, I even dread going to the grocery store... I think I need a culinary intervention), not even wanting to pick up a fiction book for months at a time, and an incredible spiritual and moral lethargy that has left me thoroughly mired in sinful habits.

I'm not whining.  Really, I'm not.  I just need to communicate without exaggerating that, in some ways that are very hard to explain, this year has probably been the worst of my life.  Having lost a child and a husband over the last years, you  might think I'm nuts to say that about a year in which no one close to me has died, so I've just avoided writing lately while I've tried to figure out why I feel this to be true.

In the random Internet wanderings that inevitably precede any middle of the night conscious thought, I came upon this lovely little blog post, entitled "God Does Not Owe Us A Happy Ending."  If you had a choice between reading that blog post and finishing this one, then go ahead and stop reading this and head on over there.  It's that good.

I have watched and fervently prayed for friends as they bring their husbands home from the hospital and children home from the NICU, and thought why didn't I get to do that? I have deeply rejoiced rejoiced with friends who have bought new home and new cars and found new jobs and had more children all the while thinking about how I would have been doing these same things if God had written my story differently.  I've sat in a beautiful barn surrounded by wonderful people watching the sun set over the hills of Tennessee while people played a concert.  And while I loved every minute, I also grieved deeply because this is exactly what Emmett and I had thought our life would look like when we retired to the family farm one day.  Just the other day at the pool I watched Quinn watch as one of his friends saw his dad far away and ran toward him, screaming, "Daddy!" He just sat quietly and watched his friend break off their conversation and run to his dad.  My already mangled heart broke into a thousand more pieces for the happy endings he won't have.

This year I have watched everything I've prayed and hoped and imagined for my family come true when I have prayed it for someone else.  I can honestly say that I have thoroughly and without reservations prayed for and rejoiced with and tried to serve each one of my friends without interjecting my own baggage.

No wonder I'm soul-crushingly exhausted in a way that no amount of rest or vacation can cure.  At 4 a.m. this morning (had to remind you one more time) I finally got it.  I have been a magnet this year for people who want to tell me God is good because he got their kids into a certain school or they found the perfect house or he kept their child/spouse/refrigerator from dying.  And I have smiled and said, "why yes, He must be." But when you tell me that God is good because he did something you wanted to make your life fit your idea of a happy ending, it reinforces the lie in my heart that God is here to make my life easier and I must be doing something wrong because my life is so freaking hard.

I need to be reminded that God is good because he is God and not because he fulfilled the next step in your happy ending, and that being holy is about knowing God instead of putting in your dues to get that happy ending.

And I wonder if my preoccupation to happy endings is really standing in the way to my experience of God.  Okay, I really don't wonder.  I'm pretty sure it is true.  Another blog I stumbled upon recently reminded me that the most satisfying worship comes in the midst of emptiness, not plenty.  But emptiness is so hard and so painful, that I cringe to go there.  In fact, I won't go there, so God has dragged me there kicking and screaming and blogging the whole awful way.  And so help me if another person tells me not to worry because surely I'll get remarried, write a book, watch Quinn live a happy life, and bounce fat grandchildren on my knee, then I might just say something inappropriate.

Because it's not those things I want.

Honestly, I want to stand with Job and Moses and Habakkuk and ask God questions and have him answer me.  I want to face the mystery and power and emptiness and not have the answers and be okay with not having the answers.  I want to find the energy and strength to fight the fights that won't necessarily have happy endings just because they're worth fighting. I want to find other people who don't have happy endings and tell them it's okay and walk life with them.  Because so many of the battles I fight aren't really worth it, and I'm still having a hard time telling the difference.

So I'm raising my cup of tea in salute to the sunrise and praying for fewer happy endings and more fights worth fighting.

fireflies

Sweat pants on my back porch in June.  Just over two years since Emmett passed.  The big dipper hanging overhead.  A firefly trying to court my computer screen.  My life feels a little surreal at the moment.

A couple dozen elementary school children effectively dulled any sense of loss I might have had last week.  Random stories that made no sense, trips to the bathroom, reminders to wash hands,  dozens of balloons, and the phrase, "Miss Wendy," repeated at an unnaturally high pitch until I was teetering on the edge of crazy was probably the perfect distraction this week.

And then the fireflies came out.  Quinn and I got home this evening and he danced and twirled in the fading light trying to catch fireflies and probably murdering more than he managed to capture alive.  We took a walk and he maintained a continuous stream of chatter that makes me wonder how he has time to breathe sometimes.  His endless chatter ranged from questions about the exact meaning of the word dusk to how to make a firefly rocket by attaching a bottle of diet coke to its rear end and dropping in a mentos (and I'm not making that up).

I'm not exactly sure where the bottom dropped out, but with all the distractions gone, and so many reminders around me, the wave of grief finally crashed down.  In the past few years, I've found that embracing grief somehow makes it easier.  So I caught fireflies, listened to sad songs, cleaned, baked, and somehow came right back around to alright.