I didn't leave Bible College midway through my second year. But i should have.
I stayed because i thought i should. Because someone told me to stay unless i knew exactly what i should do next and i believed them even though it went against my deep knowing that i didn't belong there anymore.
One quote rang in my head over and over and that was "you need to get up from the table when love is no longer being served."
Its strange to think of love not being extended at a bible college. But thats the way it was for me. At that table, the one where i tried so hard to sit at, love was not unconditionally served to me. The appearance of love was. But not love itself.
Not after i came out as a jesus loving yogi. Not after i disclosed to a few friends that i was gay affirming. Not after i publically said i was a feminist, and what that meant for me.
Lately the body of christ has been making me really uncomfortable. I've had many conversations with friends and pastors and other people in my life about injustices in the church and how in all honesty it makes me not want to be the church. How because of it i don't strongly identify as christian.
Within the church i've seen so much injustice. I remember sitting in church a few years ago when they announced the demomination my church is a part of would not allow women pastors and feeling angry and broken hearted. If my church wouldn't allow women to speak for God what about me?
I remember anger rising up in me when the bible college i attended spoke about the dress code and how it put men's lust on my shoulders (i am sure unintentionally) and body shaming me by regulating what i wore and said and did and putting it out there in the name of protecting our brothers in christ.
I remember all my years of youth confrences and church services and bible school chapels and how i don't remember a woman preaching, or a person of color, or a person with a disability or who didn't identify as cis gendered and straight.
I remember listening to my sister talk about black lives matter and realizing i don't live out black lives matter. The world i live in doesn't live out black lives matter.
And it makes me angry.
When we do this, we are silencing the voice of God. We are furthering the message that God only speaks through and looks like certain people. We are saying only a select group of people get to sit at the table of divine love. We are making an us and a them. We are making others.
Personally i love my others. The people who have spoken God most clearly to me have been women and people of color and gays. In my experiences these people, the people we routinely shush in church services and religious circles, best get what the gospel was trying to say. That it is for ALL of us. That we are ALL in. And there are no others.
I'm still working through my thoughts on these issues. In no way is this my perfect compiling of my thoughts. Its messy, and raw, and real. It comes from a place inside of me so filled with the knowing that the way it is isn't how its supposed to be. God is bigger and more than we've made him or her out to be. And everybody is in.
I've always said i'd rather be wrong in the name of love than right in the name of drawing lines and i agree with that whole heartedly. I want my life to be love, to reflect divine love.
I want to continue talking about this issue because it matters. I want this to be the start of the conversation around equality in the church, and in the world.
"I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers, the ones with arms wide open, the courageously vulnerable, and among even—or maybe especially—the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough."
Friday, October 21, 2016
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
"It's not time to worry yet"
This past weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the wedding of my childhood best friend. It was beautiful (Seriously, my friend and her new husband are two of the coolest people ever and they are way more artistic than me which sometimes makes me jealous but mostly makes me so happy because I get to enjoy their beautiful art) and I cried more than a few times.
This is the girl I used to sit with when we were just 4 and 5 and 6 and we would dream about the future. We would dream about babies, and being teenagers (which at least in my mind seemed like a big deal to 6 year old me) and play pretend. We decided when we were just little girls that we needed to marry brothers because we just needed to be sisters (which, of course, didn't happen. We've settled for being friends instead, though I still haven't given up hope on being related to that sweet family through marriage some day. We both have single siblings!)
My weekend seemed to be full of marriage related things. My soon to be brother-in-law announced his engagement, and my fiancé and I spent Sunday afternoon on the couch of the couple doing our premarital counselling talking about serious things and less serious things about our special day, and the rest of our lives together.
I remember on Saturday night walking out of my friend's wedding reception feeling this overwhelming sense of love. Because I had just seen such beautiful love between these two people I care about deeply who had just promised to be each other's person for the rest of their lives, and because of this amazing man beside me who will soon be my husband and the way he takes such good care of my heart.
This weekend was full of so many moments that gave me confidence in the decision I have made to engage in this sacred relationship with this human being. I spent most of the weekend in tears, but it was the healing kind, the kind that once they dried left me with life in my bones and the return of this spark, this feeling of rightness for the direction my life is going.
I remember one moment during our premarital counselling on Sunday where we had to walk through the last fight/argument/disagreement we had. It was something I was rather worked up about, for various reasons, and even as we were acting out this argument again, I was struck by his calmness, his steadiness. I wanted this to be a big deal, to be so strongly moved by emotion, for him to share in my dramatic waves of feelings on this particular subject. And during our acting out this argument, someone said the words or something stirred up the words in me that brought an end to all my internal struggle. My mind was still. I got it.
He's confident in us
I was reading a quote by Glennon Doyle Melton today where she talks about To Kill A Mockingbird, and how there is this fire that creeps closer and closer but Atticus remains calm. His calmness tells his children "It's not time to worry yet."
It takes me a while to feel sure of a good thing. I am quite introspective, and if there is something to worry about I probably will. But that day, and this whole weekend, as I watched the man I love and his steadiness and his confidence in things, I was reminded that its not time to worry yet.
Everything is still ok, or it will be. I can do hard things, uncomfortable things, and not be broken by them. Come what may, life is about loving more and not less. Even in the face of fear and doubt, even in the face of circumstances you really wish weren't there.
It reminds me of the Joan of Arc quote I've clung to this whole engagement: "I'm not afraid. I was born to do this."
I am afraid, but that doesn't change that I was born to do this. I was born to love, and be loved. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it isn't beautiful and worthwhile and good.
I feel so profoundly lucky to be in this kind of sacred relationship, bearing witness to each other's lives, reminding one another to lean in instead of out, that its not time to worry yet, that there is so much goodness and beauty in the hard.
This is the girl I used to sit with when we were just 4 and 5 and 6 and we would dream about the future. We would dream about babies, and being teenagers (which at least in my mind seemed like a big deal to 6 year old me) and play pretend. We decided when we were just little girls that we needed to marry brothers because we just needed to be sisters (which, of course, didn't happen. We've settled for being friends instead, though I still haven't given up hope on being related to that sweet family through marriage some day. We both have single siblings!)
My weekend seemed to be full of marriage related things. My soon to be brother-in-law announced his engagement, and my fiancé and I spent Sunday afternoon on the couch of the couple doing our premarital counselling talking about serious things and less serious things about our special day, and the rest of our lives together.
I remember on Saturday night walking out of my friend's wedding reception feeling this overwhelming sense of love. Because I had just seen such beautiful love between these two people I care about deeply who had just promised to be each other's person for the rest of their lives, and because of this amazing man beside me who will soon be my husband and the way he takes such good care of my heart.
This weekend was full of so many moments that gave me confidence in the decision I have made to engage in this sacred relationship with this human being. I spent most of the weekend in tears, but it was the healing kind, the kind that once they dried left me with life in my bones and the return of this spark, this feeling of rightness for the direction my life is going.
I remember one moment during our premarital counselling on Sunday where we had to walk through the last fight/argument/disagreement we had. It was something I was rather worked up about, for various reasons, and even as we were acting out this argument again, I was struck by his calmness, his steadiness. I wanted this to be a big deal, to be so strongly moved by emotion, for him to share in my dramatic waves of feelings on this particular subject. And during our acting out this argument, someone said the words or something stirred up the words in me that brought an end to all my internal struggle. My mind was still. I got it.
He's confident in us
I was reading a quote by Glennon Doyle Melton today where she talks about To Kill A Mockingbird, and how there is this fire that creeps closer and closer but Atticus remains calm. His calmness tells his children "It's not time to worry yet."
It takes me a while to feel sure of a good thing. I am quite introspective, and if there is something to worry about I probably will. But that day, and this whole weekend, as I watched the man I love and his steadiness and his confidence in things, I was reminded that its not time to worry yet.
Everything is still ok, or it will be. I can do hard things, uncomfortable things, and not be broken by them. Come what may, life is about loving more and not less. Even in the face of fear and doubt, even in the face of circumstances you really wish weren't there.
It reminds me of the Joan of Arc quote I've clung to this whole engagement: "I'm not afraid. I was born to do this."
I am afraid, but that doesn't change that I was born to do this. I was born to love, and be loved. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it isn't beautiful and worthwhile and good.
I feel so profoundly lucky to be in this kind of sacred relationship, bearing witness to each other's lives, reminding one another to lean in instead of out, that its not time to worry yet, that there is so much goodness and beauty in the hard.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Bitter Water (On Marriage Part 2)
There are days this season of my life feels like drinking bitter water. When for so long I anticipated sweetness, I am met with the bitterness of this drink that doesn't taste like I thought it would. Yet I know this too has something for me.
I'm the girl who never wanted to get married. I'm sure I did once, when my head was filled with Disney princess ideals, when I was a little girl still craving that fairy tale romance. But as I was thrust into my teen years, I decided I didn't want to get married. Because I didn't see the point of signing a little piece of paper saying that I would spend the rest of my life loving somebody when I could just spend the rest of my life loving them. Because I had seen so many marriages around me fail, and in some place inside of me that still believed in love I held marriage too high to willingly enter into something I had seen fail so many times before. Because of the negative talk I had heard about marriage, the way I had seen it played out and knowing I didn't want to enter into a union that looked like anything I'd seen played out. And because in those early teen years I was already so distrustful of love and the goodness of my own heart.
I can recall a number of occasions, even as young as 13, swearing off marriage because I had lost my belief in the goodness of love. And looking back on that now, my heart aches over the jadedness of that little girl. Looking back everything makes sense, but of course things always do in hindsight. In the middle of it all I felt alone, and like there was something wrong with me and my heart.
This engagement season for me means revisiting a lot of those girlhood thoughts. It means reopening old wounds and letting this bitter water wash them clean. Even if it stings. Even if my first instinct is to pull away in pain. Even if the healing scares me almost as much as the pain does.
I've been forced to re-evaluate what I think and believe about marriage. Because there is this man that I love more than I've ever loved anyone before and he still thinks marriage is good and that love can be trusted. He believes in standing up in front of people and celebrating love even if I don't. And if there is one thing, I'm finding, that can change my beliefs on love it is being loved right, and good.
So in planning my wedding, and in planning for my marriage, it looks a little untraditional. Because I don't feel like I fit in the world of the stereotypical bride. But I also don't fit in the world of women who have sworn off marriage anymore. I am in this rare place in the middle of not being sure what I believe about marriage but being sure that I believe in love. And that's what I want. To enter into this forever kind of love with my person.
In my quest to reshape what marriage looks like for me, I have become very protective of my ever changing views, and of my relationship itself. I need space to grow and purge and grieve old things and be excited about new things, and this changes daily as to how it looks.
I knew fairly early on that I wanted to be honest about this transitional process. I want to tell the truth, with my words and my life and my love. Mostly because I spent so long not telling the truth. I want, and am experiencing in this stage, brutal honesty. And I want my wedding, and my marriage, to be built on the same.
At the same time as I am simultaneously deconstructing and rebuilding what marriage looks like to me, I am trying not to let myself be swallowed whole by the fear. The fear that threatens to leak my unworthiness all over this relationship, that whispers to me that my heart isn't good, the one that says because I have this beautiful love I need to build higher fences. At the same time its drawing boundaries, and showing up to the hard work of my own heart and surrounding myself with so much love, because I finally believe my heart is something worth loving.
It's a tough balance, and more often than not I find myself stumbling, not so gracefully, through this hard and holy work I am being called into.
I have been reading and listening to podcasts on the Israelites lately, about their encounter with bitter water, and how what tasted bitter was ultimately meant for their healing. That's the best way I can describe this season. It feels like a season of bitter water.
In one podcast I listened to on this topic, my beautiful friend Stephanie from Jesus + Yoga talked about how we belong to each other. "Ubuntu," she said, quoting Mark Nepo, "I am because you are. You are because I am."
One morning after a particularly hard trigger that dug deep into my healing, I was listening to a talk from Gabrielle Bernstein, where she talked about this same sort of concept. She talked about how you have this deep love for this one person, and how the challenge lies in taking that deep love for this one person and spreading it to the world. The same level of love you have for your spouse, have it for that person over there. In this, there is no room for ego. And I can't say I'm there yet. I still cling to my love as this precious flame that cannot be touched.
I remember the story of a candle kept under a covering as to not be disturbed by the world and to be kept burning, while it was the covering that ended up burning the candle out.
When I think about marriage, though, I think about this. Ubuntu. I am because you are, you are because I am. This idea of belonging to each other. And then I think about this love that burns so brightly there is no room for ego. Wishful thinking, maybe. But what I'm trying to get at is I don't want love to begin and end with the two of us. I want to enter into the flow of all the love there is and was and will be. I want to be a part of something bigger than myself.
By entering into marriage, I decided, I am entering not into a legal contract or a lifelong commitment. I am entering into the flow. I am surrendering myself to love. And with everything in me I want the entry into that journey to be sacred, and intimate and beautiful. I want it to be Ubuntu.
In this engagement process, I am letting old wounds be washed clean by this bitter water. I am healing, so I can enter into the Promise Land clean. And I can feel the sacredness of it all as it happens. The purging, the washing out of old wounds, the reopening of hurts, the deep dig into negative beliefs I have about myself and love and marriage and sex and relationships. I am making space, making peace. I know this which is painful is for my healing. And it is good.
I'm the girl who never wanted to get married. I'm sure I did once, when my head was filled with Disney princess ideals, when I was a little girl still craving that fairy tale romance. But as I was thrust into my teen years, I decided I didn't want to get married. Because I didn't see the point of signing a little piece of paper saying that I would spend the rest of my life loving somebody when I could just spend the rest of my life loving them. Because I had seen so many marriages around me fail, and in some place inside of me that still believed in love I held marriage too high to willingly enter into something I had seen fail so many times before. Because of the negative talk I had heard about marriage, the way I had seen it played out and knowing I didn't want to enter into a union that looked like anything I'd seen played out. And because in those early teen years I was already so distrustful of love and the goodness of my own heart.
I can recall a number of occasions, even as young as 13, swearing off marriage because I had lost my belief in the goodness of love. And looking back on that now, my heart aches over the jadedness of that little girl. Looking back everything makes sense, but of course things always do in hindsight. In the middle of it all I felt alone, and like there was something wrong with me and my heart.
This engagement season for me means revisiting a lot of those girlhood thoughts. It means reopening old wounds and letting this bitter water wash them clean. Even if it stings. Even if my first instinct is to pull away in pain. Even if the healing scares me almost as much as the pain does.
I've been forced to re-evaluate what I think and believe about marriage. Because there is this man that I love more than I've ever loved anyone before and he still thinks marriage is good and that love can be trusted. He believes in standing up in front of people and celebrating love even if I don't. And if there is one thing, I'm finding, that can change my beliefs on love it is being loved right, and good.
So in planning my wedding, and in planning for my marriage, it looks a little untraditional. Because I don't feel like I fit in the world of the stereotypical bride. But I also don't fit in the world of women who have sworn off marriage anymore. I am in this rare place in the middle of not being sure what I believe about marriage but being sure that I believe in love. And that's what I want. To enter into this forever kind of love with my person.
In my quest to reshape what marriage looks like for me, I have become very protective of my ever changing views, and of my relationship itself. I need space to grow and purge and grieve old things and be excited about new things, and this changes daily as to how it looks.
I knew fairly early on that I wanted to be honest about this transitional process. I want to tell the truth, with my words and my life and my love. Mostly because I spent so long not telling the truth. I want, and am experiencing in this stage, brutal honesty. And I want my wedding, and my marriage, to be built on the same.
At the same time as I am simultaneously deconstructing and rebuilding what marriage looks like to me, I am trying not to let myself be swallowed whole by the fear. The fear that threatens to leak my unworthiness all over this relationship, that whispers to me that my heart isn't good, the one that says because I have this beautiful love I need to build higher fences. At the same time its drawing boundaries, and showing up to the hard work of my own heart and surrounding myself with so much love, because I finally believe my heart is something worth loving.
It's a tough balance, and more often than not I find myself stumbling, not so gracefully, through this hard and holy work I am being called into.
I have been reading and listening to podcasts on the Israelites lately, about their encounter with bitter water, and how what tasted bitter was ultimately meant for their healing. That's the best way I can describe this season. It feels like a season of bitter water.
In one podcast I listened to on this topic, my beautiful friend Stephanie from Jesus + Yoga talked about how we belong to each other. "Ubuntu," she said, quoting Mark Nepo, "I am because you are. You are because I am."
One morning after a particularly hard trigger that dug deep into my healing, I was listening to a talk from Gabrielle Bernstein, where she talked about this same sort of concept. She talked about how you have this deep love for this one person, and how the challenge lies in taking that deep love for this one person and spreading it to the world. The same level of love you have for your spouse, have it for that person over there. In this, there is no room for ego. And I can't say I'm there yet. I still cling to my love as this precious flame that cannot be touched.
I remember the story of a candle kept under a covering as to not be disturbed by the world and to be kept burning, while it was the covering that ended up burning the candle out.
When I think about marriage, though, I think about this. Ubuntu. I am because you are, you are because I am. This idea of belonging to each other. And then I think about this love that burns so brightly there is no room for ego. Wishful thinking, maybe. But what I'm trying to get at is I don't want love to begin and end with the two of us. I want to enter into the flow of all the love there is and was and will be. I want to be a part of something bigger than myself.
By entering into marriage, I decided, I am entering not into a legal contract or a lifelong commitment. I am entering into the flow. I am surrendering myself to love. And with everything in me I want the entry into that journey to be sacred, and intimate and beautiful. I want it to be Ubuntu.
In this engagement process, I am letting old wounds be washed clean by this bitter water. I am healing, so I can enter into the Promise Land clean. And I can feel the sacredness of it all as it happens. The purging, the washing out of old wounds, the reopening of hurts, the deep dig into negative beliefs I have about myself and love and marriage and sex and relationships. I am making space, making peace. I know this which is painful is for my healing. And it is good.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
On Marriage
I've been wanting to write for a while now. For a week I've wanted to sit down with a keyboard and my thoughts and tell the world the scary inner thoughts I have on things like marriage. Don't ask me why.
A week ago today I was in a room full of my people. A year ago this month I stepped into the big room at Choices Seminars a little bit afraid, looking for a reason to run. I didn't find one. Instead I found 85 reasons to stay. I found faces that looked at me with such love and wonder. They looked at me like one looks at a caterpillar emerging from a chrysalis. It was like they knew the miracle was going to happen. They knew it, and they held their breath in anticipation, and when it did they let out a little gasp of wonder. They taught me the joy of sober dancing. And it was in that room that for the first time in 18 years I clued into the fact that maybe, just maybe, I was worthy of love. Of being loved by others, and of loving myself.
A week ago I stepped back into the big room at Choices Seminars and it felt like coming home. It felt like a breath of fresh air, like just by walking through the doors a bit of the magic was put back on my skin. And in that big room I got to see some of my favourite people in the whole wide world, being some of the other amazing humans that went through that crazy journey with me.
A few days before I walked into this room, I had written in the memo notes on my phone "I want to be anointed for marriage. To be found worthy of this calling and blessed into it. I wish for the affirmation of my heart."
The words didn't even make sense to me as I wrote them, but I knew that was what I wanted. When people ask me how I feel about being engaged I smile and say I am excited. And I am. I am so excited and have so much joy about embarking on this new journey with the man I love with every piece of me. I am also afraid. I am so afraid of marriage and I've said to multiple people that I don't know if I believe in marriage anymore and its not because I'm having second thoughts about the person I'm marrying or if I want to spend the rest of my life with him. It's because I look at marriage, at what I want marriage to be and think marriage is, and it is a calling I feel unworthy of.
I'm the girl with a bruised heart. I fell in love (or infatuation) with the wrong boy a few too many times and gave away pieces of my heart. I failed so greatly to take care of my own self, to provide for my own basic needs. More often than not I found myself deserving of punishment rather than love. It was easier to starve or cut away the pain than to sit with it. And always I have found it easier to run than to stay. And when I look at this wonderful human being in front of me, the one who wants with his whole heart to enter into this forever kind of commitment with me, I feel unworthy. I feel distrustful of my own heart, and how strongly it wants this and him because of all the other times my heart has led me down the wrong path, and all the other times (which is far too many to count) that I have seen marriages fail.
I walked into that Choices room a week ago today and saw my friends who have become family. And they hugged me and congratulated me. And then, ever so gently, they poked at the tender places of my heart. The places that doubt marriage is a good idea, that doubt myself. At first I was a bit taken aback, because I had forgotten how well these loving humans know my heart just from looking at me. Because I thought I was doing such a good job hiding behind the masks and not telling the entire truth with my life but only living in the positive glow. And then I realized they were right. I had a conversation with a good friend about my fears, about all the negative thought patterns I have around marriage. And she told me that it's ok to be afraid. She asked me what I was willing to lose. Would I hold so tightly to the old thought patterns I had about relationships that I sabotaged the real and beautiful one right in front of me. Would I let fear win? And like a prayer, a blessing, another friend of mine whispered the words over me "You are strong enough to accept love."
It felt like the affirmation of my heart I had been waiting for. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the only thing standing in my way was me. My heart was good. And despite my past mistakes, or maybe including them, I was worthy of love. I was strong enough to give and receive love.
"I am not afraid. I was born to do this."
A week ago today I was in a room full of my people. A year ago this month I stepped into the big room at Choices Seminars a little bit afraid, looking for a reason to run. I didn't find one. Instead I found 85 reasons to stay. I found faces that looked at me with such love and wonder. They looked at me like one looks at a caterpillar emerging from a chrysalis. It was like they knew the miracle was going to happen. They knew it, and they held their breath in anticipation, and when it did they let out a little gasp of wonder. They taught me the joy of sober dancing. And it was in that room that for the first time in 18 years I clued into the fact that maybe, just maybe, I was worthy of love. Of being loved by others, and of loving myself.
A week ago I stepped back into the big room at Choices Seminars and it felt like coming home. It felt like a breath of fresh air, like just by walking through the doors a bit of the magic was put back on my skin. And in that big room I got to see some of my favourite people in the whole wide world, being some of the other amazing humans that went through that crazy journey with me.
A few days before I walked into this room, I had written in the memo notes on my phone "I want to be anointed for marriage. To be found worthy of this calling and blessed into it. I wish for the affirmation of my heart."
The words didn't even make sense to me as I wrote them, but I knew that was what I wanted. When people ask me how I feel about being engaged I smile and say I am excited. And I am. I am so excited and have so much joy about embarking on this new journey with the man I love with every piece of me. I am also afraid. I am so afraid of marriage and I've said to multiple people that I don't know if I believe in marriage anymore and its not because I'm having second thoughts about the person I'm marrying or if I want to spend the rest of my life with him. It's because I look at marriage, at what I want marriage to be and think marriage is, and it is a calling I feel unworthy of.
I'm the girl with a bruised heart. I fell in love (or infatuation) with the wrong boy a few too many times and gave away pieces of my heart. I failed so greatly to take care of my own self, to provide for my own basic needs. More often than not I found myself deserving of punishment rather than love. It was easier to starve or cut away the pain than to sit with it. And always I have found it easier to run than to stay. And when I look at this wonderful human being in front of me, the one who wants with his whole heart to enter into this forever kind of commitment with me, I feel unworthy. I feel distrustful of my own heart, and how strongly it wants this and him because of all the other times my heart has led me down the wrong path, and all the other times (which is far too many to count) that I have seen marriages fail.
I walked into that Choices room a week ago today and saw my friends who have become family. And they hugged me and congratulated me. And then, ever so gently, they poked at the tender places of my heart. The places that doubt marriage is a good idea, that doubt myself. At first I was a bit taken aback, because I had forgotten how well these loving humans know my heart just from looking at me. Because I thought I was doing such a good job hiding behind the masks and not telling the entire truth with my life but only living in the positive glow. And then I realized they were right. I had a conversation with a good friend about my fears, about all the negative thought patterns I have around marriage. And she told me that it's ok to be afraid. She asked me what I was willing to lose. Would I hold so tightly to the old thought patterns I had about relationships that I sabotaged the real and beautiful one right in front of me. Would I let fear win? And like a prayer, a blessing, another friend of mine whispered the words over me "You are strong enough to accept love."
It felt like the affirmation of my heart I had been waiting for. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the only thing standing in my way was me. My heart was good. And despite my past mistakes, or maybe including them, I was worthy of love. I was strong enough to give and receive love.
"I am not afraid. I was born to do this."
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
redemption story
It's been a while now since the first day he slid this ring on my finger. And I haven't yet been able to write about it because its a story filled with so much hard, holy ground, with the twinkling hope of redemption and also the bravery that comes with being afraid. I don't know why I am sharing this sacred story now, only that this story is telling itself whether I share it or not, so intricately woven into the very fibre of my being, and I am so grateful to be living it. This story is something I feel I am not enough for, that I keep waiting to be snatched from me. It has opened up my heart in new ways, and brought with is so much healing and redemption. The season I find myself in is a strange mixture of grief and gratitude, of a heart aching from fullness. It's a story so sacred and beautiful I need to tell it, even if I fumble through it at times, even if at points in the journey it doesn't make sense, even to me. So, here it begins with the story of how I got engaged.
I haven’t yet shared the story of how I got engaged because
it is something that I am still processing, something that still feels so raw
and big and monumental that I haven’t yet had the time to ponder in my heart
the way I want to. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be ready. I wonder if
people are ever ready for the events that change their lives, or if maybe we
all spend every single day waking up and realizing we don’t know how we got
here.
I got engaged on the
first of July, under the summer heat, just down off a busy highway by a creek
that ran with murky water. I knew it was coming but the moment caught me off
guard, perhaps as all big and grand moments do. Despite my desire for something
small, lacking in the grand gesture department, I felt the shift the moment
when he came to me by the water and took my hand. Maybe in that moment I knew.
I knew my life wouldn’t be the same. I knew I was walking towards my future in
a way that most women feel when they are walking down the aisle. Perhaps that
is why I lingered by the water a moment longer than necessary, whispering to
the man soon to be my fiancé, “Come, look at this. Do you see?” Do you see this
snail and this slug and this frog, this life that exists within murky waters,
that is thriving in this place that looks like a wasteland? Do you see this
water, flowing, carrying with it everything I’ve left behind?
I remember once,
during my first year of college, going to the river. I had this burning desire
to create a ceremony for myself, to let go of this heavy pain I had been
carrying since the death of my cousin, the confusion and the inner turmoil and
the desperation that had been etched into my body by his hands before they
turned ice cold. I needed a release for myself, a cleansing ceremony so I could
finally feel forgiven, so that I could stop looking for affection in strange
men and food and self-hatred, to be free of the ghost I was carrying along
behind me like it was my birthright. By that river I begged and pleaded to be
clean. I had forgotten, or perhaps I didn’t know then, that suffering isn’t the
birthright of any human on earth. That to let go, all I needed to do was let
go. I wanted to be clean, free, but what I didn’t know was that I already was.
I remember in my late
teenage years bringing with me a jar of sand and ash on a family vacation. That
vacation was a purging time for me, when I brought so many toxins into my body
it made me sick, and when I exhaled them with just as much ferocity and
weeping. The jar of ashes represented this grief that I was carrying around
with me, this mournful howling that filled my bones ever since I became so ill
I thought I was going to die. I collected this ash and howled and wept over
this empty space in my body that had once been full, over what had been taken
from me while I was sleeping. And on this particular trip, after having arrived
with grand intentions and my jar of ashes, I slipped out to the pond with the
water that flowed and was recycled and came out new, and I let my ashes slip
between my fingers. In the days that followed I shook and bled and howled, but
when I left I felt the work of refinement that had taken place.
The water, that had
represented so much pain and heartache for me, where I had released and burned
and purged and wept and vomited and begged for forgiveness, the same water that
flowed at the river and at the pond because everything is recycled and flows
and moves, flowed before me in the moments before he took my hand. And I sat
there, with my feet dangling into the coolness, on the edge of a log, and I had
a feeling that this meant something. I didn’t know what, only that this moment
and this water and this log and that slug inching its way across a rock and him
and me and the flow all meant something. I could feel the newness on the wind,
and I wanted to savor the now. I almost had a moment where I didn’t want to go.
I didn’t want to get off the log. I didn’t want to leave behind the water, the
slug inching its way across a rock, this breath. I didn’t want the startling
entry into something new, to be birthed into a world which I didn’t yet have
language for, to enter the flow.
But I did. And I
remember that last breath, the sharp inhale before I rose off the log and took
his hand, following him up away from the water. I was stepping into something
new.
I followed him up the
steep incline of shifting rocks and pebbles, the ground shaking and giving way
under my feet. And then I saw it, the words he’d written on the side of a
bridge, the words asking me to be his wife. And I felt the rebirth. In that
split second between my recognizing the words and what they meant and my yes, I
felt the starting over. And I knew I was ready. And I knew I was afraid. And I
knew with every fiber of my being that I was born for this. And I knew that the
water that had always flowed and carried my pain and hurt and agony was still
moving, and I must too. It was time to step away from the old and enter into
the new. It was time to enter into the flow that was all around me and in me
and through me.
My hands tremble with
anticipation and fear and promise and wonder as I stare down at this ring on my
finger, the one I never wanted but am becoming so grateful for. It reminds me
that redemption runs deep, that the old passes away and the new comes, that I
must be willing to step into the flow, that love wins. Love wins and love wins
and love wins and I am and I am and I am.
Adjusting to this new
season has felt thick and hard, and at times I wonder if stepping into new
waters was too much. My legs tremble and leave me aching for the shore, for
what I knew. This engagement season has felt so full of redemption and healing,
the kind of healing that cuts deep and burns through, the kind that purges the
soul and washes clean, like flowing water. It is bitter at first taste, yes,
but it is sweet. There is something for me here, and I am as sure of it as I am
sure of the wind. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. I can feel it deep
within my bones, in the places that I once thought of as void and empty.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
The Lion in the wilderness
I've been in a season of wilderness for a while now.
It started when I was beginning my second year of Bible school, maybe even a bit before that. But it was during my second year that it really began to sink in. I ached, daily, with a hurt so deep I didn't know what to do with it. I yearned to hear the voice of God in this place that was seemingly so full of it, but I was met with silence. In fact I was met with more than silence, I was met with people telling me God wouldn't answer. That my way of coming before God didn't fit inside the neat box of Christianity. In this place that was where people came to meet God, I was felt like I was standing in a desert. And I wanted to leave that place. With everything in me I wanted to walk away from that institution and I almost did. A number of times I almost packed up and left because I was craving God in such a deep way and it seemed like He wasn't there. It seemed like His people weren't there. I was hurt, and I was lost in all the confusion and the chaos. And I was deep in the wilderness in a place that I was told, and a place that I thought, should be an oasis.
When I did leave, when school rolled around to a stop and I packed up my dorm room along with my hurts, I thought things would magically get better. I would walk out that door and into the outside world where God seemed to alive and vibrant and real to me, and I would get on my yoga mat and write and love and connect to God in the way that I did best and everything would be fine. If I could exit the physical location that had housed so much wilderness for me perhaps I could exit the wilderness itself.
But I came home, and I found myself still in the wilderness. I struggled to find a job. Suddenly I had no community whatsoever (Finding that forced connections made better noise than silence) and long distance was putting strain on my heart. Here I was, thinking I would now hear the voice of God, and I didn't. At least not in the way I was expecting to. It was only me, and the quiet, and the space.
And it was here God began to speak. In whispers at first. It was here that the things I believed about God that had been moving and shaking while I was at college began rumbling and shifting, and I discovered teachings and ideas and concepts that made everything click for me. I stopped pursuing Christianity and "a personal relationship with Jesus" the way I was told personal relationships with Jesus look, and instead entered into the flow. I redefined things for myself instead of trying to fit into someone else's version of Christianity. Frankly I don't know if I fit into Christianity at all anymore. But I do know that I fit into the flow more than I ever did before, fit into God and what He's doing in the world and what He's doing in hearts and that openness and connectedness makes more sense to me than years of pouring over the Bible and trying to fit into conservative evangelical Christianity ever did. (I'm not saying that any of this is wrong. I am grateful for the things I was taught growing up in the church. I'm just finding things that work for me where I am right now with the truth God is revealing to me.)
Still, in the midst of all this coming together, I ached for the things I didn't have. I ached for the stability a job would provide. I longed to be in the same city as the person I love most. I missed community. I remember clearly one morning as I spread out my yoga mat to practice speaking the words "This is a good road. My heart is good." over myself and weeping. Because this doesn't feel like a good road. My heart doesn't feel good. And it's taking so much work to believe it. I keep speaking the words over myself because I know they are true even if I don't feel it. Over and over I am proclaiming this as good.
I am making space for these stories inside me to exist, for these old wounds to be healed. And as I look back I can tell that all this time I was slowly leaving the wilderness. I couldn't leave bible college and immediately be thrust into this world of blessings because I wasn't ready for that. I don't know if I'm ready now. I had to learn how to listen to God's voice first, to be slowly led out of that place. I had to realize that nothing was chasing me out of the wilderness. I had to leave clean, to leave behind me all of the things that didn't serve me anymore. And I am in the process of doing that.
Honestly in the last couple of days I feel closer to that than I have in a long time. I am beginning to see the light as I stumble into it, knowing also that I have not fully left the darkness behind me. I am emerging into something good, and I am leaving behind something that was good in its own right.
And now, as I look back, it is only in retrospect that I see He was there all along. He was the lion. Even in those hours that I begged to see Him in a place that I thought to be so rich of Him, He was there I just hadn't realized.
Maybe this road doesn't make sense to you, and I am only beginning to realize how it all fits together for me. but I know one thing. This is a good road. my road is a good road. your road is a good road. This is holy and hard work, friends. If I can encourage you one thing, let it be this: He is the lion.
“I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mill so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
It started when I was beginning my second year of Bible school, maybe even a bit before that. But it was during my second year that it really began to sink in. I ached, daily, with a hurt so deep I didn't know what to do with it. I yearned to hear the voice of God in this place that was seemingly so full of it, but I was met with silence. In fact I was met with more than silence, I was met with people telling me God wouldn't answer. That my way of coming before God didn't fit inside the neat box of Christianity. In this place that was where people came to meet God, I was felt like I was standing in a desert. And I wanted to leave that place. With everything in me I wanted to walk away from that institution and I almost did. A number of times I almost packed up and left because I was craving God in such a deep way and it seemed like He wasn't there. It seemed like His people weren't there. I was hurt, and I was lost in all the confusion and the chaos. And I was deep in the wilderness in a place that I was told, and a place that I thought, should be an oasis.
When I did leave, when school rolled around to a stop and I packed up my dorm room along with my hurts, I thought things would magically get better. I would walk out that door and into the outside world where God seemed to alive and vibrant and real to me, and I would get on my yoga mat and write and love and connect to God in the way that I did best and everything would be fine. If I could exit the physical location that had housed so much wilderness for me perhaps I could exit the wilderness itself.
But I came home, and I found myself still in the wilderness. I struggled to find a job. Suddenly I had no community whatsoever (Finding that forced connections made better noise than silence) and long distance was putting strain on my heart. Here I was, thinking I would now hear the voice of God, and I didn't. At least not in the way I was expecting to. It was only me, and the quiet, and the space.
And it was here God began to speak. In whispers at first. It was here that the things I believed about God that had been moving and shaking while I was at college began rumbling and shifting, and I discovered teachings and ideas and concepts that made everything click for me. I stopped pursuing Christianity and "a personal relationship with Jesus" the way I was told personal relationships with Jesus look, and instead entered into the flow. I redefined things for myself instead of trying to fit into someone else's version of Christianity. Frankly I don't know if I fit into Christianity at all anymore. But I do know that I fit into the flow more than I ever did before, fit into God and what He's doing in the world and what He's doing in hearts and that openness and connectedness makes more sense to me than years of pouring over the Bible and trying to fit into conservative evangelical Christianity ever did. (I'm not saying that any of this is wrong. I am grateful for the things I was taught growing up in the church. I'm just finding things that work for me where I am right now with the truth God is revealing to me.)
Still, in the midst of all this coming together, I ached for the things I didn't have. I ached for the stability a job would provide. I longed to be in the same city as the person I love most. I missed community. I remember clearly one morning as I spread out my yoga mat to practice speaking the words "This is a good road. My heart is good." over myself and weeping. Because this doesn't feel like a good road. My heart doesn't feel good. And it's taking so much work to believe it. I keep speaking the words over myself because I know they are true even if I don't feel it. Over and over I am proclaiming this as good.
I am making space for these stories inside me to exist, for these old wounds to be healed. And as I look back I can tell that all this time I was slowly leaving the wilderness. I couldn't leave bible college and immediately be thrust into this world of blessings because I wasn't ready for that. I don't know if I'm ready now. I had to learn how to listen to God's voice first, to be slowly led out of that place. I had to realize that nothing was chasing me out of the wilderness. I had to leave clean, to leave behind me all of the things that didn't serve me anymore. And I am in the process of doing that.
Honestly in the last couple of days I feel closer to that than I have in a long time. I am beginning to see the light as I stumble into it, knowing also that I have not fully left the darkness behind me. I am emerging into something good, and I am leaving behind something that was good in its own right.
And now, as I look back, it is only in retrospect that I see He was there all along. He was the lion. Even in those hours that I begged to see Him in a place that I thought to be so rich of Him, He was there I just hadn't realized.
Maybe this road doesn't make sense to you, and I am only beginning to realize how it all fits together for me. but I know one thing. This is a good road. my road is a good road. your road is a good road. This is holy and hard work, friends. If I can encourage you one thing, let it be this: He is the lion.
“I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mill so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Thoughts on Sobriety
I've been thinking the last couple of days about being sober.
I'm in a place right now that's pretty alright. And by that I mean I'm not constantly being tempted to fall back into my addictions.
It's like after a storm, when the rain begins to let up a little bit. And you look to the sky and the clouds are beginning to part and the rain is still falling but not nearly as heavily and you turn to the person next to you and you say "I think the worst of it is over."
I don't want to say the worst of it is over, because it feels like knocking on wood or something. I still have struggles in my life but they feel minor compared to the hell I walked through a few years ago, even a few months ago. It's this moment when the rain is letting up and I'm looking to the sky and thinking maybe the worst of it is over. Maybe I get to be happy now, for good.
To be honest, that phrase both completely thrills me and completely terrifies me. Because I don't know how to be happy. Because there is this lull, the break in the clouds, and things get scratchy underneath my skin and I look to the sky, almost begging for there to be another hint of a storm cloud. Because I don't know how to handle being happy. All of my life, I was trained for chaos. One crisis followed another, head over heels, and I got good at dealing with it. And the stillness, the silence, the lull, scares me to death.
I look at my life now, and I feel the squeeze of normalcy tightening around my chest and I want to run from it. I don't ever want to forget where I came from. I don't, for a second, want to forget the hell I fought through to get to this point. The label of being in recovery is one of the ones I am the most proud of, and I never want to forget what I went through to earn it. I want every word I speak, every move I make to be a living memorial to the hell I went through and survived. I don't want to be detached from the pain that made me who I am. I guess in essence what I am saying is that I never want to forget where I came from.
Where I am now, the pain is mostly fallout pain. It's the aftermath of death, the aftermath of my body fighting against me, the aftermath of the addictions. The fog has cleared just enough that I can see where I am going and live my life without being acutely aware of all these things that happened to me. I'm working out and I'm not constantly being sucked into the hatred I had for my body. I'm in my relationship, happy and loved, and not constantly thinking about all the times when I wasn't. I'm sifting through the aftermath and finding out what I believe and seeing the truth about things and it is good and hard and it is all part of recovery. But sometimes it seems the farther down the road of recovery I get, the more I want to turn and run the other way. Back to my addictions, to my self hatred, to the deep dark depression that clouded my days. Because it was comfortable. because in the thick of it all there seems to be an air of worthiness.
I heard a comment by Russell Brand in an interview he did once where he was talking about addiction, and how no matter how far you went there's always the one thing you wish you'd done, the one drug you wished you'd taken. Because then it might make recovery feel a little more earned.
I'm in a place now where I'm finally reclaiming my voice. I'm telling the truth about my story, even if my voice shakes. Even if finding out the truth sometimes reveals cracks in the solid foundation I thought I had. Even if it makes me uncomfortable and I have to draw boundaries where there wasn't any before because I am finally learning that what I want matters.
I guess what I'm saying is that this is recovery too. And I never want to forget the hell I fought through to get here. I always want in recovery to be one of the labels I am most proud of wearing. I also want to learn how to be grateful for the good moments, to enjoy the beauty that I have. And I never want to take for granted what I have, to think that I have reached a spot where I can stop being insistent upon my recovery and being brutally honest about what I feel, think, experience and need. There's no recovered for me, always in recovery. There are ups and downs because that is life, and its a journey. A journey that matters more than the destination. There's always more stories to be told, more layers to be shed. And I never want to stop being in recovery.
I'm in a place right now that's pretty alright. And by that I mean I'm not constantly being tempted to fall back into my addictions.
It's like after a storm, when the rain begins to let up a little bit. And you look to the sky and the clouds are beginning to part and the rain is still falling but not nearly as heavily and you turn to the person next to you and you say "I think the worst of it is over."
I don't want to say the worst of it is over, because it feels like knocking on wood or something. I still have struggles in my life but they feel minor compared to the hell I walked through a few years ago, even a few months ago. It's this moment when the rain is letting up and I'm looking to the sky and thinking maybe the worst of it is over. Maybe I get to be happy now, for good.
To be honest, that phrase both completely thrills me and completely terrifies me. Because I don't know how to be happy. Because there is this lull, the break in the clouds, and things get scratchy underneath my skin and I look to the sky, almost begging for there to be another hint of a storm cloud. Because I don't know how to handle being happy. All of my life, I was trained for chaos. One crisis followed another, head over heels, and I got good at dealing with it. And the stillness, the silence, the lull, scares me to death.
I look at my life now, and I feel the squeeze of normalcy tightening around my chest and I want to run from it. I don't ever want to forget where I came from. I don't, for a second, want to forget the hell I fought through to get to this point. The label of being in recovery is one of the ones I am the most proud of, and I never want to forget what I went through to earn it. I want every word I speak, every move I make to be a living memorial to the hell I went through and survived. I don't want to be detached from the pain that made me who I am. I guess in essence what I am saying is that I never want to forget where I came from.
Where I am now, the pain is mostly fallout pain. It's the aftermath of death, the aftermath of my body fighting against me, the aftermath of the addictions. The fog has cleared just enough that I can see where I am going and live my life without being acutely aware of all these things that happened to me. I'm working out and I'm not constantly being sucked into the hatred I had for my body. I'm in my relationship, happy and loved, and not constantly thinking about all the times when I wasn't. I'm sifting through the aftermath and finding out what I believe and seeing the truth about things and it is good and hard and it is all part of recovery. But sometimes it seems the farther down the road of recovery I get, the more I want to turn and run the other way. Back to my addictions, to my self hatred, to the deep dark depression that clouded my days. Because it was comfortable. because in the thick of it all there seems to be an air of worthiness.
I heard a comment by Russell Brand in an interview he did once where he was talking about addiction, and how no matter how far you went there's always the one thing you wish you'd done, the one drug you wished you'd taken. Because then it might make recovery feel a little more earned.
I'm in a place now where I'm finally reclaiming my voice. I'm telling the truth about my story, even if my voice shakes. Even if finding out the truth sometimes reveals cracks in the solid foundation I thought I had. Even if it makes me uncomfortable and I have to draw boundaries where there wasn't any before because I am finally learning that what I want matters.
I guess what I'm saying is that this is recovery too. And I never want to forget the hell I fought through to get here. I always want in recovery to be one of the labels I am most proud of wearing. I also want to learn how to be grateful for the good moments, to enjoy the beauty that I have. And I never want to take for granted what I have, to think that I have reached a spot where I can stop being insistent upon my recovery and being brutally honest about what I feel, think, experience and need. There's no recovered for me, always in recovery. There are ups and downs because that is life, and its a journey. A journey that matters more than the destination. There's always more stories to be told, more layers to be shed. And I never want to stop being in recovery.
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