Category: On Writing

The Writing Life, the Power of Voice

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Life is pathways that become our Story; where we meet the Holy One and God renews us.  These realities run parallel to one another, making life unbelievably complex.

I am a woman, a mother, daughter, and sister while being a life-partner and friend.  And I’m a writer, a creative photographer, a poet, bringing logic and imagination together here, all which engender Me–this follower of Christ. I am also a sometimes runner, forever an alcoholic who is sober with gratitude and Grace, I am so many things.

I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s hand all these roles and trajectories, this my first year of being an intentional writer, finding my voice, my story, my purpose.

For me, one pathway has been as a stay-at-home parent and homemaker, a role I haven’t liked, more like suffered through, but that’s a part of my story of resistance to what is.

Another part of my story is working solidly on perfecting writing as a craft, including relentless reading and writing; finding and accepting my style, my voice, which is different from others, but these are the ways and words that God puts in me. Again, I resist this discipline. 

I’m also a person drawn to studying scripture and this year I’ve been rethinking How I read the Bible, learning the big Story of the Bible, reluctantly accepting both the patriarchy of organized religion, and the most incredible fall-down-on-your-knees awe for a good and loving God.  Time and again the stretches I spend, the more of a contemplative I become, brings a craving for the quiet whispering voice of the Holy One. I have sought the life of the Spirit in new and ancient ways. This is discipline.

Another path I have been on is learning what it means to be a woman in the evangelical church and being healed; coming utterly unstuck from years of bitterness over women’s roles.

I was feeling ignored, unheard, and even unimportant – lacking a voice, while being gently chastised for being so outspoken and for clinging to Feminism.  I was simply keen to talk with others about their experiences as women.  I felt alone, except for some community I found online.  Writing “Why I Stay” (as essay in Finding Church by Civitas Press) brought a healing that I couldn’t  have experienced any other way.

Being at home, being a contemplative, being hungry for the Bible, being a women, being a writer, I have had years of feeling very alone in all respects of my spirituality—Joining Redbud, I experienced the affirmation and community of women. It is a place of healing, growth and affirmation for me if I allow myself to enter in.

More than a year ago, at a time when I was crying out for my life’s purpose (or even just a job) what I wanted was to believe that my life could make a significant impact. I was challenged by my husband and a pastor friend to write, ahem, TO BE A WRITER as my vocation.

I remembered all the others over the last year or two, and over the course of my life, who affirmed this in me. I was full of arguments “I don’t know how.  And you cannot just do it. You need a plan, a proposal or idea for a book or two, and connections eventually to an agent or a publisher.”  This was more of my resistance.

But I also knew, before all those lofty goals, if you want to be a writing you must simply write—write often, write everything, write it all down learning to collect words and ideas, putting them together in your individual way, finding your voice.

I have learned this year too, that you must occupy your own Story and portion out your life experiences with care and discretion.  You will be exposed and vulnerable, and yet you’ll learn to trust yourself and your story to others, as you engrave your story on the “page,” sharing it with a community of readers, it deepens your character.

There is an excavating of the soul as you stay vulnerable and open to the Holy Spirit, to evolving in your faith journey, to sighting places where God’s work in you—and God does and it is the most miraculous, deeply challenging thing. 

There will be times of feeling abysmal, but always the promptings and the difficulties that seem to come are a part of life and if you allow them they will be your writing life. 

Writers must grow!  Lean in to your troubles, to your pain, to the heartache and write it all.   This year of intentional writing has been one of the more difficult of my life and yet, I thank God for the panics, the gaffes, the worry, the heartache and the pain.

Even as I often feel alone in a desert of fear and solitude, and worry that perhaps my writing will be forever done in obscurity, I know that God doesn’t ever turn away from me and my story.  The story still matters with or without the accolades. If you believe that you are on the right pathway.

This writing life has become about remembering and living My Story, no one else’s, and acknowledging the power of God in Me.  Believing deeply and knowing with certainty in the midst of heartache, that God is good, and God is Present and God is okay with the fact that I’m quite imperfect.

And as each of  these paths run parallel, of being a writer and living this imperfect yet Spirit filled life, the challenge is to not allow the writing to overtake the emerging  of your Life Story.

I cannot let my writing out shout the Holy Spirit’s whispering and the narrative of scripture’s truths and all that God is doing inside me.

This is the tension filled place of living the writing life, which is less a place of perfection and more a place of being perfected into the image of God.

The writing life does this in me.

{Waiting — An Advent Reflection} Melody Harrison Hanson

3199548898_394e14a38b_oI’m pleased to be a part of an Advent Series a friend is running.

Most of my life, I have been waiting for God. It’s a spiritual waiting

for miracles. Waiting

for answers. Waiting

for healing in me and in others that I love or have loved. Waiting

to feel mercy. Waiting

for peace.

You can link to the rest of the post here.

I Found Love {The Challenge of “Eat This Book”}

I’ve never read the Bible from end to end. I grew up in the church but biblical literacy was not encouraged, until Blackhawk. Reading the ancient books I wondered—does God love me? Who am I to question God? And yet, I regularly bring questions and doubt to my reading of scripture.

I cringe reading the Old Testament, at times embarrassed that it is a part of my religion because the God of the ancient stories seemed appalling to me. As I open up the text, doubts loudly dominate as I wonder: Is God full of wrath, as ruthless and destructive of cultures as these stories seem to convey? More vital personally, does God look down on and limit women, or simply ignore women’s existence like so many of the Old Testament stories do, or worse, does God consider me less worthy because I am female? This is a topic I’ve dedicated a lot of time and thought to, with questions I bring to the text because of their application today.

As a result, for months I quit reading the selected texts for Eat This Book. Dejected, I felt heavy-hearted, even bogged down with discouragement, that this ancient, patriarchal, violent religion was connected to my faith and church, thoughts I have dodged for most of my adult spiritual life.

A wise friend suggested I read it differently, and listen for themeta-story of Yahwehwhich is told and retold over many generations. Still questioning and wondering, still doubtful, I tried to understand what the God of the Old Testament has to do with me, or you, the 21st-century followers of Jesus. In time, through God’s gracious gift of connections, I saw that we, followers of Christ are part of this innumerable family! The Story matters because of the character of God whose faithfulness and love is clear throughout the generations. We are a part of a community of faith — the whole line traced through the Old Testament. Believers are connected, continuing forward. This is our inheritance. This story, the promises and covenant and love of God is for us all, the Story a continuum, toward Jesus. And now I see grace, even back in the ancient stories with the care for the poor, the alien, the widowed, the barren, even the environment.

All my life I’ve been yearning to be a part of something, and finally I understand fully that I am! I know; I see in the Story that God’s faithfulness is infinite, and as it touches each of us, God’s love transforms us through atonement of our sins, actively reconciles people to God and one another.  That’s the promise for you and me.

I read the ancient stories with different eyes now, knowing that we are each a treasured part of the Story. I have intimacy with God in a new way, for the first time.

Strangely this came from knowing the Story. This is utterly awe-inspiring. Yes, God is formidable, to be revered and feared. But “fear of the Lord” is a reverence that strengthens and fills us through our dependence on God. I am significant to this God, who is and was and will be, for all time and outside of time.

Frequently in the ancient texts I noticed people fell on their knees before God when in His presence. I believe this is to be our posture too, awe. Revel in His presence, His affection. I have been both wrecked and healed.

The religion that caused me pain as I began to read the text over time has healed me, bringing reconciliation and restoration to my life.   I am part of that story. It is also my Story, which is breathtaking and devastating, from beginning to end.  Soaking in the big story of the Bible faithfully, as I was truly listening, truly pursuing understanding and wisdom, the Holy Spirit revealed a gift, God’s love.  It was there all along, but I was so caught up in and caught off guard by cultural differences and my assumptions, out of ignorance and naiveté. How difficult it is for us to hear the Truth. And this limits God’s work in me. Now, humbled and convicted, I open the word of God differently—on my knees. Sure of his acceptance and love, in faith that there is something in it for us all no matter our background, our brokenness, our gifts or abilities, or our gender.  There it is, hope for us all.

MHH

This article was originally published in Illuminate, a magazine of Blackhawk Church.

Something else on Eat This Book: Imagine my surprise, I read the Bible Wrong

{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.

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.

{a house comes tumbling down}

Strange how life works, I didn’t sleep – and because of it I am in a bleak, dark place.  I’ve had two nights in the last few weeks where I quite literally lay awake all night long – not awake enough to do anything productive, but not resting deeply either. The result is I’m sick at heart and physically shaky; short-tempered, and irritated by everyone.

Old and ugly insecurities are having their way, messing with me.  This makes me sad, so very sad.

I ran this morning out of pure conviction, blaming and shaming myself the entire way.  You should be running longer, you should be faster by now, how silly to be your little 2.5 miles, why do you bother? What’s 27 pounds, when people will always be younger and fitter than you!? To them, you are fat.

I can tally my mistakes so quickly when I am tired.  I am full of self-doubt, as a writer certainly and especially.  I wish for a career again.  Or even simply an office to go to or perhaps a paycheck to make me feel I’m making a contribution to something tangible on the planet earth   I wonder why I cannot ever feel resolute and worthwhile in my role as a mother, caretaker, home maker?

My chest is heavy with fear and doubt about my path.

My chest is also heavy too for my children.  I want so much for them, but I am learning that they must be “allowed” to question, make their choices, voice their doubts, express their ideas, have problems that I do not solve for them.  I cannot always defend them to other or be defensive about their choices.  I have to let my children become.  I have to let them fail, perhaps.  Bailing children out isn’t the answer. Pushing is okay, at times.  Encourage and buoy up, even reward and bribe, a carrot, for a future which is full of possibilities they cannot yet imagine.

I am learning about boundaries, mostly that I am terrible with them. I do for others until I resent the doing ending up with no time to write or think or pray or sit with the Holy One.

I resent those that have been to seminary and are clear in their understanding of theology and can write out of those assurances.   I resent those who knew early on who and what they were.  I resent that I lived in a gray, lost fog for much of my life, and then that I became a drunk, and then … just managed to survive.  Yes, I am a survivor but what else am I good for?

Yes, most days I just persist on, hoping that the future is better than the past. Today I’m having a hard time believing in anything.

I feel empty and invisible in a world where stature, and statuses, and lists and mentions matter. And then I feel utterly ridiculous for looking, for caring about those things at all, for being the sort of person that needs assurance of others, the esteem of men in authority, the likes and tweets of writers whom I admire.  Perhaps if I get another degree I will finally feel okay.

I sit in church and I am filled with doubt; traversing into the land of agnosticism, as my husband likes to say – he takes day trips, I am living there today.  I feel angry, skeptical, pessimistic, fearful and tired.

No, I cannot prove there is a God to satisfy my children.

No, I do not know why some people are so happy, successful and life seems to be so easy, for some.

No, we do not live in the perfect house like so and so, nor am I the perfect homemaker, like so and so’s mom. Nor am I handy, to create the perfect anything.

I need sleep and some days that’s all that it takes to push me over the edge into an ugly place of fear and skepticism.

I read this morning in the book of Psalms, David asked for a sign of God’s favor to help against his enemies. 

Who are my enemies?  Today they are self-doubt and lack of surety about the purpose of my life. My faith is weak but does this mean God has failed me?    My children doubt, push on my beliefs, even fail to thrive, does this mean we are failing them? I look at newborn babies and I am filled with dread.  For we all grow up and live lives full of disappointment.

 It is amazing how sleep holds one together or lack of it brings a house tumbling down.

{I Believe}

I believe in God.

I believe in God, and  what Jesus did, being human.

Living fully, dying to atone for my messes,

of which there are many.  That Jesus

lives and now is with God the Father.  It is at times confusing and

other days

simple.  Just believe.

Or choose not to, that is your right.

I believe God speaks — within time, even to me

as God has spoke to many throughout the ages.

I want my life, the writings and images that I capture in time

to be

worship.

Revealing both the goodness and the devastation of this one life I have. Because

that–is–real.

I hope in God.  I hope in God to reveal

him or herself to me.  And then

what I share might help others as much as it has

utterly transformed me.

Running Toward Life

Writing the first words, after being gone is a little terrifying. I am

out of sync. And that’s the greatest crime, the cardinal rule. Bloggers write.  Regularly, with precision and passion

without pausing.

But I took time off.

I had to do it and I know that I was doing the right thing.

I did it in order to learn, to read (I read half the Bible), spend time with my kids, and figure out why it is so hard for me to just be.

For it is more important who I am than what I think. 

It is more important how I treat people than how I lay down words on a page.

It is most important that I am being the person. than that I am writing about her.

Now I feel creaky, rusty even to even put these few words here.  To begin the offering of myself again to others.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve had thousands of words come.  Most still a jumble

in my head.  And heart, as I ran more than 180 miles this summer the words came.

My head and heart and soul are full.

And I’m hopeful, for I am a gentler, (hopefully) wiser, more circumspect and certainly more confident person

after taking a break.

I look forward to joining up with you again soon

with chapters of the book, more poetry and ongoing spiritual musings. And some of the hundreds of photographs that I enjoyed taking.

MELODY

{“Advice” to Friends Getting Hitched: Things I’ve Learned Along the Way}

I don’t like to give people advice, but here are a few things that I have learned along the way, working on year nineteen of sharing life with Tom.

Life is a process of becoming who you really are.  This is amazing,  and sharing it with another person is an incredible honor and joy.

Joining two lives in marriage is hard work.  The best thing about our marriage, I think, is that we have active, respectful, honest and loving communication. Keep talking!  Tell each other the truth in love. Say I’m sorry.  Be able to say I was wrong.

Forever is an amazing concept. If you believe that there is no “out,” then you can and will work through anything with God’s help. And don’t be afraid or too proud to ask for help from others.

Pray for each other. Affirm each other.  Say what you like about one another out loud, because it matters.

Know that you cannot change the other person, so accept them unconditionally. 

Know that you should never stop growing and changing yourself—spiritually, physically, and emotionally. You have been given a partner that is right for you but not perfect.  You’re going to annoy the hell out of each other!  And you will sharpen one another, becoming better people, if you are willing to continually grow.

Respect one another’s family of origin, but hold it loosely and do not be imprisoned by it.  You can make any family culture that you choose. You are not bound by the family you came from but you will bring all of that into your marriage.  This too must be valued and understood.

Keep your own interests, friends, avocations and vocation.  Your differences will make life more interesting. You don’t have to like or even enjoy everything that the other one does, but be willing to try new things together.  Anyone can change (their interests and what they enjoy doing!)

Cook together. Clean together. Divide chores by abilities and interests not by conventional gender rules.

Children will not solve any problems. 

Live within your means.  And do not go into debt to have vacations, toys, or anything physical except eventually a house. Take the Dave Ramsey course and stick with it!!!! Living within your means could be the most important thing you do together as a couple.

Experience God’s community with people further along in life, so that you can observe and learn as well as receive love and encouragement.

Remember the power of scripture to breathe hope, peace and healing into your lives.  

Always be patient and kind (in words and actions), not jealous.

Don’t be too proud to admit you are wrong.

Don’t rudely demand your own way.

If you are irritable, figure out why.

Don’t keep track of the wrongs, yours or theirs.

Celebrate and be happy when truth wins out.

Never give up on each other.

Never lose faith in one another.

Always be hopeful about your relationship.

May your love endure through every circumstance.

 {1 Corinthians 13:4-6 paraphrased by me.}

Like I said, advice is just words—there are no easy answers.  Every marriage is different, the challenges and joys that you will face will be as unique as the two of you.

Pray often. Stay in community.

With all my love,

MELODY

July 30, 2012

{A [Love] letter to the little girl still inside me}

This post was written as a part of the SheLoves synchroblog: A Love Letter to my Body.

(A “synchroblog” simply means people writing simultaneously on the same topic.)

Dearest Child, I wish you knew when you were still young and free that the world isn’t out to get you — in fact, the world doesn’t care much about you at all. This knowledge would have been your sweet, honeyed redemption.

What you needed saving from child is my hate. For as long as I can remember, yes that’s how long, I have detested you.  

A daily incantation.

Eyes that don’t work, pale freckled, dimpled skin that burns all too quickly in the sun, unruly hair. And soon enough came along your body plump and frumpy, then shapely hips, eventually budding breasts. But the worst was …

your lips shriveled, withered from disuse because fear gripped you, self-loathing frothed up, a bitter gaseous belief that you are hideous and unlovely.  You believed that you don’t deserve love.  You were told not to speak without first finding perfection.  And you feared, if you spoke you would voice out loud your own dread and the hatred that boiled within.

No, I couldn’t tame you, no matter how much I tried.  I couldn’t stop

the thoughts that sprouted in your head, pouring out of your mouth, only to be told to shut up often, with a languid intensity SHUT YOUR MOUTH you sassy, impetuous, cheeky little girl.

Darling, it’s not your fault that no one taught you tenderness or the sweetness of grace. So, every day since then, I have looked in the mirror and thought you are hideous and enormous, you take up too much space, because Mamma, she lived that lie too and so we always knew it was true.

YOU TAKE UP TOO MUCH SPACE IN THE ROOM.

So I tried to make you small; have small thoughts, be the smallest in the room.

JUST LIKE MAMMA.

For she always hated

most of all,

herself,

so how could you ever hope to be all right? She was always trying to be small too.

She tried diets, fasts and near starvation; then binging, secrets and humiliation. Constant shame and mortification, your body became repulsive and massive, wrong.

Shrink it.  Starve it.  Loathe it.

JUST LIKE MAMMA.

And what of love?  Or grace?

Do you believe they are real? Believe that this body of ours is fearfully and wonderfully made by a perfect creator God. Perhaps we are exactly what he intended?

And if you find absolution or even tolerance, what then?

At forty-five, bone weary and sick, tired of hating you, I woke up. And understood finally, my persecutor, my father,

is

long

dead.

And if he is dead, why don’t you live?

Open your heart? Open your mouth?

So I took a long hard look at you and knew, if I hated you, dear girl, I hate myself.

But I can do something about this.

I am strong and getting stronger. I am in control of these pudgy arms and legs, all inherited. Did you hear me dearest, we are strong! Do I love you? I don’t know. Not just yet, but I can wake up knowingly.

I’m beginning to believe that we are worth saving. 

I open my mouth, my brain; my heart is quaking in unsteady disbelief that these thoughts of mine are worth hearing.  I wake up more each day, dreaming

word upon word, I scribble them down.

And I run.  Just months ago I woke up and knew  I can run.  And so that is what I do!  And as my body shrinks down, my mouth opens wide, with a shout.  I want you to know, I know you! I see you!

You are powerful my sweet young self – you are worthwhile.  You are understood and acceptable, yes, you are loved.

Your mind, your heart, this

mouth deserves to be opened wide. So scream, howl and roar, take up some space!  Because even if the world doesn’t care about you, I do.  And that is what matters

for now.

Your eyes were made to see a hurting, broken world. Your heart feels pain because it is alive. Your mind and mouth were made for voicing something.  And you will do it, in time and well. Your body was made for loving and being loved, so let some love in. You are fearfully and wonderfully, even perfectly made.

You are loved, by me.

This post was written as a part of the first ever SheLoves synchroblog: A Love Letter to my Body. (A “synchroblog” simply means we are writing simultaneously on the same topic.)  You can read others by going here.

{Enough, Continued …}

Part One of processing the book Enough is here.

I read the book “Enough” by Will Davis Jr and wrote my review.  I kinda thought that would be the end of it.  Lesson learned – my More Than Enough, my Plenty, my Abundance can be or IS someone else’s Enough. Such a neat  idea in theory, but what that means in a daily way didn’t fully sink in – not at all.

That book is messing with me!

I read in “Enough” that we are to be giving our ten percent to the church, but in reality for us we’re giving about five percent to our church and about one percent to other organizations.

I cannot stop thinking about that principle that is all over scripture.  What will it mean this month to give ten percent off the top, at the beginning before we pay our bills, and sort out how to live afterwards? These are things that we don’t really want to think about or do.

I woke up this morning thinking about this again, that we’re instructed in scripture to give ten percent and we’re to trust God to provide for our daily manna.

That means honestly taking a look at how we spend our money, where does it all go in a month? Many times for us it is frittered away on more video games, and frozen yoghurt, and iced coffees for the kids; on the conveniences of modern life, like dry cleaning and lawn care and mobile phones and eating out a few times.  For me, on buying books and not requesting them from the library.

What does it mean to take a cold hard look at our monthly spending and at the beginning give to God off of the top and then sort out the rest?

The first thing I remember from the book is that Davis suggested we look about our home for all the things we haven’t used or worn in the last year.  That job, to clear our home of these things so that they might possible become someone else’s Enough, is the task for this week. (Even though, I REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO IT! I’m so lazy.)  We’re going to photograph all the things we don’t need and use, things that are just taking up space in our basement and garage, and give them away.  The task just as it stands is a daunting one and today with the sun shining and a long  empty day looming ahead, what I really want to do is hang out by the lake or something, anything but go through our stuff.  But I think this act of obedience is the thing that needs to be accomplished, today.

Davis spoke of slowing down, listening and being open to God speaking. 

Yesterday, I found out someone I know is sending their kid to a Shakespeare away camp.  (It feels like everyone sends their kids to summer camp away, except us.) And another person is sending their kids to Grandma and Grandpa for the duration of the summer.  When I heard that I felt envy and anger that we haven’t take our kids on a vacation in several years; although it is out of an act of obedience, where we decided we would never again live on credit.  That was a baby step of financially growing up, that we took a few years ago.  This means we don’t travel if we don’t have the cash the bank.  Yes, I wish to be able to take the kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa, that but for now this is not possible.  We have a child in college and we have many other obligations.

As I woke this morning I was angry and to be honest kind of thought I was mad at God.  Then I realized that we’re just being smart.  We save for retirement, we live within our means, we give (like I said not ten percent yet) and we try to respond to needs as they come before us.  Right now there is no margin for vacations.

It’s not God that is to blame for an unsustainable American Dream.

And if I feel angry that we don’t have Enough to go on a vacation with our kids this summer, I should focus that emotion toward clearing out of the house our More Than Enough so that others can be blessed.

MELODY

A part of the Patheos Book Club on the book “ENOUGH: Finding More By Living with Less” by Will Davis Jr.