Control

Writing always freed me in ways nothing else could.  My fingers got to moving and before I knew it I'd stumbled across truths that had been festering within and aching for an exit strategy.  Today I'm realizing I'm nervous to see what flows forth as I've finally taken the time to sit and just be.

I don't even know what to say.  Is it possible that I'm in a season of life when processing emotion is just a luxury I don't often have?  When I search myself all I come up with is, "It's just a lot right now".

A tear falls and I say it again as I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly, the kind of breath that you hope will deter an impending breakdown.  It's just a lot right now.

A precious friend recently grabbed me by my shoulders and squared up right in front of my face and I knew whatever she was going to say would send me off with more turmoil than I had come to her house with.  But I knew it would be the good kind (can turmoil even be good? Hmmm... just go there with me!).  Turmoil means "a state of great disturbance, upheaval, confusion", and I suppose I sometimes ache unknowingly for someone to come in and greatly disturb or confuse my way of thinking.  Well she did, and she spoke truth to my heart in the innermost parts.  She said, "God trusted you with Levi (long pause).  God trusted you with Dani (long pause).  And God trusted you with Kai (long pause)".  And I whispered through my tears, "And all at the same time".  That was it.  Simple truth.  Yet for my weary soul it was that great disturbance that I needed.

I bravely shook my head nodding in agreement as the deep breaths ensued and I avoided the ugly cry scenario.  As I drove away I was quieted in my soul, but it wasn't until this morning that I deeply pondered this truth.  He trusts me.  With them.  All of them.  And in this season. 

A wise woman told me a few days later that Jesus is heaping grace upon me during this season, and my husband is covering me with grace hourly as I walk through a life of unending service to a 4-yr old with cerebral palsy, a fiery toddler and an infant.  She asked me why it was so hard to give myself the same grace.  What's with all of the guilt and the "shoulding" you are living in? 

Perhaps seeing things in disarray rattles me to the core because keeping everything controlled is who I have made myself.  The savior, the peacekeeper.  Take away my control and the true object of my worship is revealed.  

What am I without the things I can produce?  The clean house, the folded laundry, homemade laundry soap, 3 meals a day 6 days a week, fresh baked bread, outings to the park, crafty projects, homemade learning activities, and on and on... when it's all stripped away - who am I?   Where do I rest?  How do I find value?  Where is my identity?  In the work of my own hands.  The things I do to feel proud.  And accepted.  Not in my Jesus, or the price he paid for me. 

I am someone who continues the battle of performance and pleasing, even when no one around me requires it.  A life addicted to control because it's tangible proof that I did well today.   A mama who is experiencing what happens when life is impossible to clean up and the mess is staying for a good long while.  A mama coming to the end of herself, yet again. A mama who is beyond thankful that Jesus is sitting down beside her, there in the thick of the mess. 

I'm All-In!

A few times in the last 6 months my husband told me, “Babe I think you are here, but you’re not really here.  I feel like you’re not all-in, like your heart isn’t really present.  All you ever wanted to be was a mom but you just don’t seem happy”.  So I became reflective and thanked him for his honesty and asked if he’d watch the kids while I went to pray and journal through some of that stuff. 

Actually, I did not do anything of the sort.  In reality, I promptly replied with a laundry list of all the things I did from sun-up to sun-down and grumbled about the trials I engaged in every… single… day.  I would clear myself of any soul-searching and turn the tables on him immediately… guilting him and elevating myself, because that’s what mature, healthy adults do, right? 

But when my mind became quiet, against all of my efforts to maintain the noise, I knew he was right.  I was missing, and not in a small capacity.  I was going through the motions every day and fooling myself thinking no one would know I was empty. 

I began surveying my life.  For awhile I retreated far within myself and covered up with “poor me” blankets and drank “I deserve more” tea.  Months maybe.  This was no short siesta.  A wondrous pitty party hosted by… me, attended by… me, and entertained by… me.  But God was there too… quietly meeting me in my mess, as He always does. 

I got to process and say goodbye to the parts of my life that I’d been striving to hold onto… like cross-cultural work, refugees, dreams of overseas missions.  And the picture-perfect marriage relationship that I had in my head for so long that poisoned my ability to accept real life and love through it.  And to my dreams of parenting, which certainly didn’t include 3 children under the age of 4 and one with the challenging special needs of cerebral palsy.  I believe that God was very good to me in the time of self-reflection because I was able to pinpoint the root of my wars within and really wrestle through some tough things.

And what was on the other side?  What it looks like to live fully right where I am.  Where it’s messy, and hard, and ever so stretching.  But where passion, vision and joy are eager rewards from the One who fashioned our family together before the beginning of time.  The more I accept life as I know it, with the fits and runny noses and merry mess-making and diaper blow-outs, the more I am able to forget myself and give beyond my means.  Contentment is turning into thankfulness, and thankfulness has an uncanny way of producing joy.  Deep, deep joy. 

A New Dance - Reflections on 5 Years of Marriage

 

Marriage. 

There was a time (a long period of time) when that word made my stomach hurt.  Literally.  And then it would make me feel joy I never thought would end, and then in a flash it would end and I’d feel the complete opposite of joy again.  Over and over we’d go, dancing together and nailing each step perfectly yet unaware that we were equally participating in a painful and premeditated dance with each other.  A dance we’d learned the steps to decades ago and perfected together over 5 years of time.  A dance of brokenness and of really good intentions coming from handicapped hearts.  Hearts that didn't know a different way.  A hurtful dance that we know too well.  All too well. 

A dance that is winding down more and more each day, thank you Jesus. 

It’s being replaced by an imperfect set of steps reminding us constantly that we don’t know what we are doing but we surely are not going back to the deceivingly comfortable memorized patterns that decayed our covenant for years.  It’s a dance that often causes us to stumble and fall… but now we lend a hand to the one who is down instead of walking away feeling justified and secretly vindicated that the other is sitting in their mess.  A dance that feels wrong in so many ways, but when we search deep enough we see a love that is becoming more and more void of self.  A dance that is beautiful and freeing yet painful in the best ways possible. 

A Jesus kind of love. 

A love that costs a lot, but without strings attached.  A love without motives.  A love that accepts with warmth rather than with stipulations and unspoken expectations.  I am good at that.  A love that doesn’t keep track and doesn’t keep asking the same secret questions, “When is it MY turn?  Haven't I given enough?”.  An other-focused, I’m all in, meet-ya-where-you-are kind of love. 

Ya know, the love God has for us.  Everyday.    

I’m learning slowly that even though we have handicapped hearts with tendencies to revert to patterns we’ve practiced for most of our lives, there is a simple yet profound realization that the love of Jesus is enough.  It is. 

His love, recognized, pondered, received and penetrated into the hearts of people can love impossibly.  And not only that, JOY will flow forth.  Joy.  I’ve been missing a lot of joy. 

Serving one another instead of standing our ground produces joy.  Realizing the other’s deep soul needs instead of cataloging my own neediness produces joy.  Remaining silent and praying produces joy.  Wisdom and discernment to have hard conversations at the right time produces joy.  Waiting on God to fix the problems only He has control over produces joy.  Releasing each other to Jesus produces joy.  And a whole lot of freedom. 

And that God kind of love, that which is natural and other-focused and an outflow of our deep reliance and desperation for Him will penetrate one another’s souls.  Because it’s not our love for one another, it’s God loving us well through each other.