Category: Motherhood {At-Home}

The not quite believable Miracle: there is Power to Change

I have a big problem with trust.  It’s as if I’m expecting a colossal

smack down from Life.

The question I’m always asking myself is do I make it happen, with my fear and negativity? This existential question cannot be decided simply, not today.

I do know that I often withdraw from life.

I’m afraid of things, of humans. My long ago voyage into stay-at-home-mother-dom only worsened even determined this quality in me. I’m a hopeless introvert.  I feel like misfit in the world. I hate that I’m afraid all the time. (This is one of the reasons I chose FEARLESS as my word for the year.)

And here’s the funny rub, people like me.  People seem to generally want to be with me.  People find me interesting, worth listening to and engaging with, they even find inspiration in my art.

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Recently, my eighty-eight year old neighbor, confined now to a small 11′ x 11′ room in a retirement home called me.  She’s expecting a visit.  And I don’t mind, but I’ll drag my feet. And when I do call, and when I do finally go, it will be lovely and wonderful.

And I’ll wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.

Friends, acquaintances reach out and I’m scared.

I put on a strong face, as a mother you must. And I don’t really have any trouble keeping up with others since life is being forced into endless interactions, but I don’t like it. Until I’m in the middle and then I’m fine, I guess

Our children cannot know how fearful we really are.  They need our strength. So we are strong, when we feel weak.  It may not be fear for you, it may be something else but there is an aspect of parenting that is simply about white knuckling it through.

My son has asked me, endlessly it seems this week.  “Why am I so afraid to talk to others?” – In class, to teachers, to any adult figures, to grandma, to a stranger, even girls.  And I don’t know.

I don’t have answer. Did I somehow do this?  That’s the perennial question.

I hurt for him.  I do not want him to feel what I feel. I don’t want him to be like me, endlessly afraid to open his mouth out of perfectionism, fear of failure and the judgement and condescension of others.

How can you help an introverted child learn to find their voice?

When I started in the workplace as assistant to the director of missions, I came out of myself, in order to pick up the phone, make travel arrangements, set appointments, and interact with folk. Now some twenty years later, I’m still hopelessly introverted unless forced.  And I don’t know how to help my son.

If you had power to and could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? 

And would you really do it?

I’m shy.  I come across as aloof.  It’s because I’m a fearful person.  I’m expecting a hard slap from life – and if I’m being totally honest, kind of think the rug will be pulled out from beneath me, by God.  

Especially this last year, when many things in our lives have been hard, even horrible.  It is without doubt, one of most difficult painful years of our lives full of challenge and struggle.  I want to blame God.  I want to be mad

but what I know is that rather I need GRACE, daily grace, AMAZING GRACE.  In me, deep down,

Into my pores, and deep within, where my heart got broken as a little girl, such a long time ago.

Truth is, Jesus loves us,

me.  And gave his life. And Jesus

has the power to do miracles.  The woman in Luke 8:40-49, only and simply

touched Jesus cloak

and believed.  And she was

healed.

I need to touch Jesus’ cloak today.

I need to believe it’s possible to be healed.  I’ll always be an introvert, okay.  But I don’t want to live afraid, a perfectionist, aloof and proud.  This isn’t free.  This isn’t grace.

There’s a song sung at our wedding which has ministered to me for twenty years. It’s words so sweet.

Amazing Grace! (How sweet the sound.)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
and grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine,
but God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

It is not simple.  It is not easy.  It isn’t magical.

It is about touching Jesus cloak and believing.

(This is a part of five minute Friday.)

{Life and Death in 25 Lines}

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His homework was to write a poem.
Tell us a childhood memory. He wrote,
The Week my Grandpa Died in 25 lines.
Over two sautéing onions, tears.  I’m choking on them and the meat and spices,
Mom, is this too hard?
Mom, do you need a hug?
Mom, I need to give you a hug he says coming around the stove. He is kind
like his grandpa, I want to say. A grandpa he’ll never know and I cannot be
the Memory Keeper,
but if not me, whom?

Taco casserole is easy.  I can do this dinner while the world’s crashing,
Spirits and hearts cracked open, still but beating
on and on.
This wasn’t life as I expected, messy and smashed
down like our fifty year old house, neglected
and falling down.  We’re patching souls, daily.
Kissing away tears.

A warm bath washes gone the youngest’s stinky boy smells and the heaviness of weeks and months of strain,
we’re rinsing off sorrow again.
How are you faring, I ask.  His shrug says more than words.  “It’s okay.”
He finishes quietly.
“Sometimes I want to yell, …”

Oh, how I want to yell and holler at God, What are you thinking?  If you’re thinking of us at all.
I’m waiting,
in this mixed-up, broken space
lost in time.
Wishing, sick dizzy from the spinning!
And knowing,
it won’t end. Knowing I must let go my fear, the idea that God
isn’t listening;
fearful that life is
emptiness, pain and endless sorrow.

Henri Nouwen says, we long to be occupied.
We fear our endless emptiness. YES.

The snow outside reflects a cold calm I don’t feel.
Inside I am holding, still.
My emptiness an offering
to the Holy Spaces of In Between
(belief and disbelief)
I do not understand.

He sits down hard by the sink, in the way kids they often do.  Asking
“Mom, do you believe in heaven?”
What he’s asking I cannot know – is there a space there outside of time and cosmos.
A space where we will see Grandpa again?

This, the place
of unknowing, is uncomfortable for me, for him.
It sits down hard between us,
the air thick and heavy with our mutual wondering.

We stop, just for a moment and look into each other’s eyes.
Comforted by the solidity of his teenage boy body, I take from him.
Another hug and wait.

Uncertainty,
pain,
fear,
all a part of the human condition. Not even this
can I keep from him but I long to teach him too.
About trust, surrender and continued openness

to the Unknown.

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{Nightmares and Day Dreams: For Our Children}

bad dreams
we free fall together.

an enormous wall, grows looming.
the waves rise and fall

the pull
of the tide, a wall

in the distance threatens drowning.
i grab for her,

shouting
“raise your head.”

and still, it comes.

8462158314_6dd9b2ae32“Childhood: that happy period when nightmares occur only during sleep.” (Unknown)

I have always believed that a parent’s job is to protect. 

Our children come squalling into the world, bloody and innocent, at risk.  As we push them out of our body we are committing to make their world safe.  We make a promise that we will provide every opportunity for them to thrive.

I have always believed; I was wrong.

We cannot protect our children fully.  At a certain point this safety net we so carefully construct around them hurts them. As they flail, or run away from us, as they pull and long to soar, our net of safety, it constrains them.

On the other hand, I always understood that scrapes on the knees were important.  The physical scars that come from running hard, playing insane and wild in the backyard, from jumping off the swings as

just for a minute, they imagine

they can fly!

These experiences toughen up a child and teach them about life.

In real life, you cannot fly.

My youngest wears a tiny, centimeters long scar on his chin which has lasted when other scars have faded.  He was running through, round and round in an utterly maddening and charming way, in my parents Colorado kitchen.  As a toddler, he was curious and strong. unafraid. Chubby, teetering, always about to fall, he loved to run the circuit of their kitchen, dining area, living room and back to kitchen driving my father mad!

But there was a rug and it tripped him.  Down he went. Down, with blood spurting from his beautiful chubby chin.

No stitches only a scar, which sits on his chin today to remind me that I cannot keep him safe even when I know the dangers.

I’ve walked the path of life; I know well certain things that are sure to trip them up.  That tiny, sliver of a scar reminds me, though I want to ignore it, that

children need to fall down.

It is Elizabeth Stone who said the truest of words, “Making a decision to have a child is momentous – it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

When your heart is hurting because children will get hurt, there isn’t much you can do.  I mean, these hard times of adolescence come quickly. 

I blinked and the wonderful days of stinky diapers and toddler-hood, learning first words, proud scribbling on paper and walls, putting blocks in the right shapes; those days of innocence are so quickly gone.

Overnight. They become small adults, a scrawny teen wearing pants the long length of a man and I wonder at it.  How did we get here?  I’m still holding on so tightly, trying to keep that net of safety around.

It constrains.

Our children need to run, to let go of the sweaty grip of our hand, to fly away from us little by little.

We cannot hold them, at a certain point.  We cannot choose for them.  We cannot do the hard work of homework, and friendship, and the heart searching for God in a big and wide universe, or for young love, and we cannot even do the work of mental and physical health.  We cannot do it for them.  In many ways, we must step aside and

let them fly;

Up and out the door of our hearts, taking our heart with them.

I feel the time slipping.

: I learn to be open-handed,

I must teach them to look up and out, not fearfully down.

To lean forward, toward life, hopeful.  To be filled, fully taking life in, not afraid.

And only then, we become – ears to hear them, when the troubles of life overcome. Eyes to see them when the world seems to not value how unique and incredible they are,

And then,

Less and less, we use our

Mouth to shape, advise and teach but from time to time, still we are doing the hard work of instilling day dreams.

Being a parent is difficult. What was once intuitive and charming becomes jagged and painful, a tidal-wave, the stuff of bad dreams.

Even as I dreampt of drowning, of not being able to pull my daughter from the waves

I woke, and knew that I cannot save my own children.

I have done the work of preparing imperfectly, of praying much less than I should, and now in many ways I must begin

again, by letting go.  And getting on

with day dreaming of my own.

{Apart and Away}

I’m worn-out; tired as I’ve never been before.

Weary in a

not sleepy frantic hungry and hysterically wild frightened,

nothing-is-working,

everything

is

falling

Apart and away.

Restless and abysmal

[unable to talk because some problems are not for public consumption.]

I lay arrested, in the midnight hours, whispering

Jesus, what are we going to do? 

Some problems are so profound, causing the scary-monster-in-the-closet

kind

of

fright

that you cannot

cry enough tears.

The universe isn’t large enough to contain these fears. I cannot pray

long and hard enough, for there are no words

for this kind of tired.

Comfort, Jesus

where’s the comfort?  No pithy assurances.

No words.

Except soul weary, bone aching, wretched

tired.

(On Being Human — A Prayerful Poem)

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We will go soon, and I’m afraid.

I laid awake last night, wondering. 

And in the meantime, since.

I thought and thought.  My brain hurt for thinking so hard. When does rationality belay trust in God? Our souls churn, the crushing

Weight of heart ache. We are sore from it.  Sleep won’t come

And it’s 3:30 in the morning.

Then you must pause.

As I waited I said to the Holy One, “So. I’m here now.

This.
It’s just you and me.  What is your plan?”

And now

We will go,

Soon.

Into the future

Yet untold, unwritten, unknown

Looming.
I’m afraid.  I’m undone, weary.

And yet I gave it to God. And my sweaty grasping hands and my heavy heart are open and free.

Still,
There is fear in the uncertainty as I long for assurances

That haven’t yet come nor will they

Perhaps ever.  For that’s the way of it,

Being human.

I’m Not Gonna Lie, I’m Depressed

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I’m not gonna lie, I’m depressed.  Not that I was lying before

when I pretended that I wasn’t.  Life is a silly game, and a beautiful dance,  It takes skill – to weather life’s storms.

(And we’ve been in a blow-your-mind-knock-you-down kind of hurricane!)

It’s a special skill to endure, to survive, to not

get

depressed.  Even for people who aren’t inclined, as my doctor so kindly said.  I’m inclined, thank you very much.  My mind and body, the know well the slippery incline toward this sink hole.

Still, no matter what I know, no matter what I am told, what I tell myself or read, or have in my head from doctors, the evil voices in my head say – FAILURE.

I’m doing my best.  I’ve walked fifteen miles this week and let me tell you it took me a whole month at least to gather up the energy to dust off the treadmill, plug it in.  To only do that.  Just to start, to begin again when I’m so damned tempted to give in to this beast,

the dark nights, the soulless thoughts, and the depravity which is my companion,

depression.

It’s a sinkhole.

Lordy, if there weren’t so many counting on me, I think I might collapse.  You see I don’t care about myself and that’s a big part of the problem.  I don’t care about me.

I live for others, mostly my kids, my mother, this house, and our life.  I know this is wrong.  And I’m not lazy, though the voices tell me I am.  I know money doesn’t equate success, or my value as a person, and yet still, I quake in my soul as I lie in bed, hiding away under the heavy down comforter, with quick glances at the clock.

4:30 am is too early to get up, 5:00, 5:40, finally dragging my sorry self out of bed.

I don’t want to get up.  I don’t want to take care of everyone.  I don’t want to be an enabler.

 And I am angry.  Angry to still have an adult child freeloading living in my house sleeping till noon.  Angry to have a teenager whose beautiful life is spiraling out of control into a major anxiety disorder.  Angry because my husband still enjoys things, wants to be with friends and in this case spends a few minutes of music making downstairs.  I don’t enjoy anything right now. I am angry that we cannot figure out what’s going on in my little boy’s brain. Angry that my teenager cannot, will not, does not read books.  Angry that everyone gets hungry, on schedule, three times a day.  I’m even angry that I have the space and freedom to go the three-hour doctor appointments with my mother up to three times a week. I’m angry about my priviledge.  I am so sick of being angry. 

This is simply part of the thermometer of my spirit telling me I’m

far gone, depressed.

And so, machine like, for a week now I have put on my workout clothes and the beautiful running shoes I earned this summer. I walk downstairs, set the machine to three miles, turn on the book of Hebrew, or Luke, or Matthew. and I listen for themes of Jesus seeing or hearing women.

I listen hard, I listen angry about this too, feeling that this is also something stupid that I accept, something about not caring about myself.  Angry that the Church pretends women aren’t fully human, made in God’s image, just like men.  I’m angry as I quickly jot a note on a piece of tape I’ve attached to the treadmill, looking for themes from the creator God, the Holy One.

It is a scribbled prayer,

Jesus sees me.

Jesus hears me that I’m angry

and depressed.

Jesus cares.

And people care, so many good people who reach for me.  Know me.  Care.  And I’m not so far gone that I’m oblivious or ungrateful.  And I’m not so far gone that I won’t get up when the alarm goes off and continue.  I’ll continue to pray, because the anger is the depression speaking and I need to know

what it’s going on and on about.  I know this — it’s not the kids, it’s not the so called problems, it’s not my  hubby (for sure). It’s not a friend sick with cancer, or a child with mental illness, or an aging mother, or an elderly neighbor being committed to a home, or the sexist church.

This is about me.  I’m not gonna lie, depression has come knocking. Now I have to listen.

Melody

Thanks, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, for this. 

[BE FEARLESS]

4559My word for 2012 was ABUNDANCE.

Even as I chose that word — abundance, I wasn’t totally sure; seriously, what was I thinking resounded the echoing voices?

I have never lived a so-called abundant life.  Was it even possible?

Most of my childhood, and early adulthood, I spent afraid, crouching. And I’ve been unable to choose joy, as I’ve cringed and cried my way through recent years, even while overcoming, learning, and growing, I’ve been afraid. Even as I have healed  Even as I’m being birthed into someone I don’t recognize and it is sweet and good, more and more fear.

I came from a Daddy who was sometimes hard, sometimes mean, mostly lacking the sweetness a daddy ought to bring to a child’s life; just hanging out and loving on his kids.  Simple enjoying one another, like what I see between my kids and their dad. It’s not perfect, but it is affectionate and safe.  My father meant well, I’m sure that he did.

“He didn’t mean to” I used to tell myself.  And he could be sweet, sometimes. Affirmed beyond your wildest dreams, speaking out loud what felt like a prophetic word.  “You’re going be something.  You’re doing to do things.  You are going to do great things.  And, if by chance you don’t, well I’ll still love you.”  Yes, he said those words whispering dreams into my soul, of “big things” as he crushed my spirit with his rages and cruelty.

I suffered and staggered my way into adulthood afraid of living.

I could explain it all away — it was his insecurities, his megalomania, and his extreme self-centeredness   But never mind.

My spirit was crushed along the way and it wasn’t until he died that I began to really breathe in and exhale enough air, to live, to grow, to let go of the grip I had on trying to control everything.

And Mother, she was cool, soft and sometimes tender, but withdrawn and far, far away from us most of the time. She was expressively absent, though present physically.  He was absent physically but Always There looming, controlling, hurting.

It has taken me a long, wandering road of building trust with God, believing – truly that Jesus loves me.  Daddy has had to be dead a long time.  Trust of any kind, is hard-earned. And hard-won.

FEAR: an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger usually accompanied by a desire to flee.

That was my life.

I choose these annual words now like an elixir, a Magical idea, that will heal my broken soul.

I want abundance, brazenly.

I want to be fearless.

I want laughter. I want to have more fun.  Dare I say it, I want JOY,

audacious, defiant and powerful solace!

I want to create beauty, unafraid.

I want to believe in life’s possibilities, impudently.

I want to write unique and beautiful things, boldly.

So this year, 2013, is about being fearlessness.

I don’t know how, even now. I am sick with it.  Stomach and heart burning inside, where there are still big voices saying it is impossible for me. And brick walls surround my heart.

I am terrified to give up my fear.    But that’s the journey, that’s the tiny bit of trust in the Holy.  That’s what I hear — be fearless.  That’s what I need.

To be

FEARLESS, yes, that is what I want for 2013.

(Perhaps not surprisingly, but it did shock me, I have written 175 items on FEAR.  I’ll be collecting them to see what themes arise, but this is one:  Let your Fear Fly Free

{Stretching the Canvas of our Imagination}

Silence
Silence

I’ve tried to sit down and read all day.

Instead I’ve placed phone calls to doctors, waited impatiently for return calls from nurses about supplements and medication’s interactions, and run twice to pharmacy and grocery store.  And, on it goes. One child threw up this morning. Another is dealing with headaches of the magnitude that you or I would be in bed – a 9 on a scale of 1 -10.  Children should not have to suffer so and as I deal with the litany of doctors, I am trying to be the advocate for the whole person who is my child. And be gracious.

I ate my third meal in as many days and just for a minute sipped ginger ale and will write this, Though I’m not technically sick (Moms don’t do that) I am unwell.  The headaches and body aches with this particular virus are awful.  Eating feels like an X sport.

I’ve been trying to read all day and life keeps getting in the way.

As the holidays come rushing, with the “extra” everything on the calendar, this small task will only become more difficult – there will be concerts, school projects, plays, shopping, and parties,there will be more of everything.

And I’ve tried to slow down and read because I know its important to make IT stop. 

It’s essential, I think, to get up even earlier or stay up little later, just to BE. 

We need it. To read that something, or to pray a little, or to write a poem or whatever we do “to stretch the canvas of our imagination”. We need to listen to meaningful music or place a phone call to an important friend or stop and say I love you. To write that letter of appreciation to someone that you perhaps wanted to do at Thanksgiving but didn’t get around to. It’s important to do those things in a whirlwind life full of obligations and duty, or service to others, or personal illness, or whatever our life entails.

It’s essential to make it all stop, especially during December to slow, and celebrate. Advent is about waiting – anticipating, leaning in, listening, and keening toward the Holy One.  This takes intention.

All day, I’ve been trying to start a small little book by Enuma Okoro, Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent.   And finally, I have begun.  In the introduction she reminds us what it means to cultivate patience. We walk along side Zechariah and Elizabeth and learn from them.

In Silence, she says: “The hard work of Advent reflection and waiting is mingled with the gift of time and space to dream new dreams, to bathe in pools of hope, and to stretch the canvas of our imagination wide enough for God to paint God’s own visions for our lives.”

What one thing are you trying to do this holiday season to slow yourself down, reflect and do the holy work of waiting?  How will you wait?

Will you allow the Holy One to paint a new vision for your life?

Melody

Advert: To purchase this book in Kindle or print, go here.

Why So Silent? (And My New Superpower)

I have a super power — Invisibility.

I’m having a difficult time sorting things – knowing that I want to be writing, but accepting life, which includes very little time for creativity. My camera has fallen silent and well as this blog.

I have done a little writing, including a piece for my church on the Eat This Book challenge this year, which I will share a link to soon. It’s a beautiful little magazine, entitled Illuminate and I’ve written and offered my photography for it often.

These days our lives are all topsy-turvy; more than you could know.  I cannot write everything.  I can barely process it myself, before the next day begins and we do it all over again, sometimes worse, sometimes with a little reprieve. It seems it has been this way for months and I do not know when things will end. Some days I feel as if I might break in a thousand pieces of sorrow.

And then a dear friend gets cancer and I’m thrown into a whole new perspective — at least we have our health, at least we have one another.

There are some stories that are not mine to tell. Somehow telling my story (or the impact of my dead father on me, which I have done a lot of) is okay. But writing about my kids is complicated and I wonder whether I even have the right?  I want to protect them – to make life safe and to not talk about them.  But their needs are necessitating that I write less, work a part-time job, schedule and attend a million appointments for their academic and emotional and physical travails.

I feel invisible sometimes. I live now for my children and I don’t know if that’s right?  It doesn’t feel entirely right, but I know no other way to do all this, for now.  I just don’t want to become invisible. (This setting aside of my dreams feels decidedly unfeminist, to say the least.)

All the while, my mother is aging and I am helping her, more and more.  A widow, she lives independently and happily on her own but she doesn’t want to go to doctor by herself.  It falls to me, the daughter who is close by and doesn’t have a “career.”  I don’t mind.  My relationship with my mother has never been all that strong so I am grateful that I know her better than I ever have.  Her stories, her endless remembering which once annoyed me, are treasures to be stored away.  It’s a gift to be here for her.

In the meantime, I’m having a hard time being disciplined.  I haven’t gone for a run in two weeks, or is it three and it’s not just because the cold of early winter has set in. It’s because I’m exhausted and confused.  I’m crying a lot which is so ironic because for years I longed for the ability to cry.  It was shut off by emotional pain, medication, and God knows what else.  Now I just hope I don’t embarrass myself with the level of emotions that are bombarding me, flowing free for the first time in my life.

I’m sleeping very little which makes me certifiably crazy!

And in the midst of this I hunger for and lean into God; depending on and knowing the unknowable God better than at any time in my life.  I pray for deep belief, evidenced through my actions, through my life.  Belief in the Holy One’s faithfulness, love and peace.

But I’m so tired. And honestly I’m just surviving.

I’ve alluded to some of the challenges in recent weeks, but I cannot say specifically what we are dealing with. Not just to protect others, but I don’t want this to be a place of emotional vomiting.  I want it to offer the hope that I depend on, and to express my dependence on the Holy One.

One day I will find the moments, enough hours in the day (or night) to tell my stories and put them in a manuscript, one day. One day I will become a solid form for others to know and read.  But not today.

These days are about invisibility — mostly silent, these days are serving and giving.  And in many ways about receiving (learning to do so) from the amazing community of people we have in our lives.

In the meantime, thank you for being faithful readers and friends, for your occasional comments and for staying with me through a busy and mostly silent summer and fall. As I learn I become more visible, prodded by the Spirit and growing.  And I hope to have the energy to share it all with you.

{We Are All Dying}

The crawl of fear,
of losing, is close.  It licks me,
as if I am a salty wound.  Everyone dies.

Of course.

But lately, I am aware
of Life all around me

healthy or otherwise.

Tiny birds are singing a sonnet, high up in the tree.
Cancer cells are growing inside a dear old friend.
Dementia and life-stealing pain overtake a sweet elderly neighbor.
Depression and anxiety crush the once glowing spirit of my child

Meanwhile I cling
to sanity, to sobriety
and to Faith, there is Peace.

We are all dying,

and yet without the thought of imminent loss,
of the Ultimate loss, death

we haven’t appreciated our life as a gift.

Everyone dies.
Everyone lives.

Won’t you choose to live?

Choose joy in the midst of sorrow and grief?
Choose peace when hope seems dim?
Yes, fear circles around me like a flame, curling and

enveloping me in those early morning hours when

fear wakes me with a vice grip on my heart, blood pulsing.
Aware, that I am alive.

Everyone lives.
Everyone dies.

They are bitter, these days and nights.  Acrid, this
awareness

of life. Pungent,

and in this Pain,
there is a Holy Awareness.

Life’s aroma is sweet.

A Crack in Your Life, That’s How the Light Gets In

I spent most of my life numb and afraid.

I spent the next while trying to fix myself.  Then, I began to let go of control.

Now life is a daily letting go.

“Maybe you have to have a crack in your disbelief, that’s how the light gets in.”

I am fighting, kicking and screaming inside where I am sadly still a (spiritual) child. I pray to be wise, resilient and strong, spiritually mature and faithful. I pray to live completely without doubt.

I pray, but I do not always live that way. And I am not any of those things today.

Today I am stewing in doubt.  I want proof of a benevolent God, I want it so much I could scream.  (And spiritual tantrum ensues.)

I am fighting, full knowing life has no guarantees.

I am who I am. I am a person who questions everything.  A cynic and pessimist who is perpetually asking why. Why? Why? Why? I never grew up out of why.

Why pain? Why suffering?
Why random illness, ill will, ignorance?  Why random kindness?  Why health, or wealth, or poverty?  Why high IQ’s or low?
Why an Old Boys Club?  Why gender differences and exclusion? Why are people born into privilege? Why are people living in garbage dumps?  

Why Anger?

Why joy?
Why is there depression or anxiety, in children?  In anyone?
Why are some parents cruel, angry even controlling.  Why is it easy to be kind when you have everything? Then I reckon that’s not even true, the kindest gentlest people I have heard of have been materially poor — Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Jesus.
Why illness? Why alcoholism? Why cancer?
Why Facebook and Twitter?
Why hunger, why sexism, why homophobia, why racism? Why are they all in the Church? Why is “the Church” the most despicable place sometimes?
Why is the Word of God so mysterious?  So difficult to understand.  Why is it used as a club to hit people over the head?  Why is it used as a “Club” to exclude?

Why is prayer, this prayer, any prayer just a cry of the soul for help?

Hear me.
Meet me.
Answer me.

Life stripped down, naked.  Past all pretenses. Past and beyond to the heart.  Our belief or disbelief, the Truth; does it really come down to choosing?  What is the alternative?

Chaos and Randomness.

But when your child doubts, it throws back in your face all that you have held dear. Now that is a different kind of awakening.

Because I cannot defend intellectually the comfort I have found in knowing God.   I only know that I am a different person, down deep inside where I was once shattered and broken.  I have been rebuilt into a strong and empathetic person that believes in loving others, as the greatest and highest aspiration one can have.

God has helped me to love, to stay sober, to be a good and much less selfish person. I am in myself corrupt — bankrupt, broken, angry, jealous, bitter, self-centered and self-indulgent, an addict, sarcastic, judgmental and so sickenly insecure.

And then I recognize fully who I have become.  I realize with sterling clarity, suddenly that it is not that I doubted God exists but that I don’t understand why doesn’t God  act?

Change more people.  

Heal more sick.

Help more.  Restore us all.

Now.

In her new new book, Help. Thanks. Wow. Anne Lamott says:

“Sometimes pain can be searing, and it is usually what does us in.  It’s most indigestible: death, divorce, old age, drugs; brain-damaged children, violence, senility, unfaithfulness.  Good luck figuring it out.

“It unfolds and you experience it, and it is so horrible and endless that you almost give up…. But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.”

And so, the cycle of life unfurls and this time around it is full of heartache and anguish — for parenting is so hard, friends get sick and may die, people become self-destructive and addicted, kids suffer mental illness, people we love and pray for kill themselves.

And even though all these things are true,

we go on.

I prayed and asked God. Just “help.”

God answered my prayer, but not in the way I had in mind.  The answer was complex and forced me to face some hard things.  To take a deeper breath.  To hold on to God, hard and fast. To acknowledge that I’m not drowning tho I feel as if I am.  God is my life and buoys me in yet another storm.

My child coming to church perhaps isn’t the answer to my prayer.

I cried to God to show himself to my child and in doing so also to me.

And now I wait, …

MHH

“Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It’s like the tide going out, revealing whatever’s been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.”  ― Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

Who’s listening? On writing and living a Story

The fog crept in steadily.

The morning was dreary, unusually dark; so much so that my son asked if the sun was coming today.

As I began my morning run I felt the drizzle soaking through the cloth on my arms, but it is unseasonably warm so my legs, bare to the elements, felt refreshed by the thick moist air.

I ran.  And I keep running not because I intend to win a race.  I ran, and I keep running not because there is anyone encouraging me along – though people are cheering, in my head and in my life.

I ran, and I keep running because I love myself.

Even as I have learned that I love myself and that I am quite beloved by God, I have my days.  Bad days when this doesn’t feel true.

The other day a reader said my writing “lacked heart.”  At first, it shook me.  The voice in my head murmuring and cloying, “You thought you had come so far.”

Sunday I heard the words again, the source Brennan Manning and a piece of a puzzle fell into place.  The first time I heard the words “I am the one Jesus loves” I physically recoiled away from the idea.  My heart, dry and rigid like clay left too long in the sun, broken into pieces already.  Those words didn’t offer solace, then.

Today I know they are true and I argue back.

I am loved!  I have a heart, soft and malleable.  I am full of passion and I can put my heart into words on the page and move people. 

But that cannot be why I write – for others to be moved, for others to approve, or for others to be impressed by my supposed ability.  And I cannot write what I am not living every day the passion and pain of motherhood, of being a Child of God, of being healed even as I am still broken, of God nursing me back to health over the last decade of depravity and addiction and a lifetime of sorrow.  I write my story not out of some psychological need, either.

I write what I am living even as I know I cannot write everything.  But write I do because I believe it will reach others in their inner dark spaces of which I know nothing specific, but I can imagine because the life I have lived; because I have walked the road of depression and a shaky unclear disbelieving heart.  I have lived the days, even years of not wanting to be alive.  I have been there and I am not there now and so I write.

I spoke it aloud to my husband, asking if he had read the piece.  What did he think?  Crushed, momentarily by my apparent “lack of heart” Wavering, slowly then I remembered the rest.  The fellow Redbud who said it was “brilliant” and all the rest who read and were moved and who wept. And I knew.  And I learned.

I cannot write for the reader.

I cannot write for my own personal health.

I cannot write for glory.

I must write because of the story inside, the story I have lived and still live daily.  The story is the gift and the sacrifice.  And if God is glorified in my weakness, this is why I write.