Life -a straight up punk.
Isaiah 54
Bring on the laughter,and bring on the tears.
yeah.. about that line in my last post...
I have cried more tears in the past few months than I would have ever liked to, and I am SO OVER IT!
I’ve been told by numerous people what it feels like to see me sad. People have gotten familiar with the way I cry, and the way I often don’t want to allow myself to, leading to other physical reactions like the shivers, or stomach tension, or unexplainable, possibly hilarious if it weren’t for how I felt, facial contusions. This spring has been a season of worried eyebrows and tilted heads. Sympathetic how are you really’s and constant reminders that its okay to be upset, or scared, or anxious.
It makes me feel overly vulnerable and uncomfortable.
And weak.
And broken.
In high school, I don’t think I ever let anyone see me cry, like ever.. or almost ever. Yes, I would mope. And yes, I very much let people know my feelings, as well as I knew how. But it was all behind the cover of an ice cold, apathetic, couldn't-care-less, so-above-emotions shell. Mostly, I think, I was trying to play strong. I wanted to know I was resilient, and I convinced myself I was through swallowing emotion whole.
Last month my teenage apathy would have been a warm welcome. I do not like all this feeling and awareness of hurt and anxiety and fear. I hate chewing my emotions. Sometimes they taste bitter.
Truly I want to be defined as a woman who is graceful with all circumstances. In both the shallows and depths of emotions, in all walks and seasons of life. But you know what I’ve found about trying to be that woman? It’s hard. And when you want to be that woman -when you pronounce yourself in transition toward becoming that woman, life takes you up on the challenge.
It throws you curve balls. You run headlong towards it, embracing a spirit of adventure and Life slams on the breaks. You stand, confidently looking Life square in the eye and it questions you, challenges you -asks you if you’re good enough, strong enough, smart enough.
Life tells you you can hope. You can hope -there’s room for it. But as you do, as you begin to stretch your wings and hop toward the edge of the nest, Life shows you that hope too can be just as fear inducing as anything else. Hope too has you staring down the possibility of the ground coming ever closer as you ferociously pray your wing flailing will save you from crashing to your death.
Hope is the prayer. Life is the constant of the ground getting continually too close for comfort as you shake your little arms in hopes that it can be somehow be defined as flying.
Life turns you around and points you toward your own reflection, asking you to be honest with yourself. Life might ask you to be way too honest. And there’s a chance that honesty will turn to something blunt and brutal. A thing not much like honesty at all, but you hold to it as your new personal truth nonetheless.
Over the past year I had a dream, a hope, a wish. I knew from the beginning it might be financially improbable, but was encouraged to continue regardless. Not only from my own personal iron will, but from outside, trustworthy people who very well would know whether or not this improbable was possible.
I pushed against so many people, stubborn to make them see my way, my heart, my reason.
So many conversations in which I met the edge of patience.
So much effort in finally getting people to back my heart for this cause.
So many prayers.
So many months of pushing, pushing, pushing...
against an immovable force.
The improbable didn’t happen.
And yes, I am disappointed.
I am heartbroken.
Both sacredly and selfishly.
Sacredly, because I know that I have an honest desire and pull in my heart for this specific thing that I saw crash down this past year.
Sacredly, because I was trying to follow His heart, His call.
Selfishly because it is also my pride and personal will that took a beating.
Selfishly because I am mourning the loss of things happening in my way, on my time.
Selfishly because I am mourning the loss of opportunity to be out on my own, providing somehow for myself, the semi-concious notion of finding a way out of the web of being burden of, and burden to.
Selfish, selfish, selfishly...
Now I still get to do the work I am passionate about, the work that has made my heart so fulfilled and happy. But there was still a dream shattered in the mix.
It feels a bit like a phoenix in the ashes.
Dirty, ridden with the death it emerged from. But a phoenix nonetheless.
When you get to do the things you dreamt of doing in ways that fully conflict with the way you imagined -when you have a stubborn, prideful, highly expectant, controlling heart like mine, it tears ya down a bit.
I had grown over this last year to almost curse the Buffalo land I stood on.
Staying makes me feel like I’m returning to a spouse I’ve jilted.
Living the dream I’ve already cursed feels like a guilty hound with his head low and its tail between his legs.
It makes me feel small, confused, and a little bit deflated. Like I need to earn my place and I’m already ten or twenty steps behind.
And life continued to deflate, shrink and confuse as I thought I might have to postpone graduation, found myself in power struggles about work I was finally passionate about again, received the poorest grades in the work I’ve been most invested in throughout my college career, and a general sense of relational, family health, and financial worries.
Life questions if I’m capable or strong. If I’m competent, if I’m willing. If my imaginations of this dream will be fulfilled, or if I will ever be okay if they aren’t.
Life always asks if everyone is at least a little bit of a mess or if it’s really just me.
Life questions whether I'm worthy of love, whether I can love others well, whether I even want to be loved myself.
Life loves questions...
Who do you think you are?
What are you made of?
Why?.. Why?..
Why, why, why, why?
And sometimes those questions are hard to answer.
It does some good to let go of the questions.
When I let go, I remember I wasn’t meant to feign strength, but instead show another’s through my weakness and how I react to it in honesty.
I remember that I am not the one with the answers, and I rarely ever will be. I can’t hold on to it all.
When I rest from Life’s questioning, from the continual, pervasive why, I start to see reason. I start to see more clearly the careful hand of God. The lessons of forgiveness, and humbleness. And how the only way to get rid of pride and want of control sometimes is to watch the dream drop from high places. Some lessons are best learned through messy circumstances.
I am done trying to hold on with white knuckles and blurry eyes.
I will pick up the pieces I am responsible for and try to leave all the rest.
I will pick up my pieces. slowly, delicately. And I will weigh them with the grace of God, because weight measured by any other standard is just too much to carry.
Life can be a straight up punk sometimes; but I’m not gonna let that stop me. Yes, dreams will break and things won’t go as planned. And yes, I will even be asked to hold to hope and faith in areas that have been constant courses of heartache in the past. But my God will build this afflicted city up with turquoise and sapphire, rubies and jewels.
It will be sad, and scary, and I will cry snotty nosed tears not knowing how or when to stop.
I will want, and fight, and try my hardest to be strong in my own might,
But My God is a God who promises beauty from brokenness. His light shining brighter through my shattered jar of clay.
So I will move forward, looking to the Light. I will seek out hope and healing, laughter and joy. I will dance in wardrobe closets and kitchens and wide open fields. I will shamelessly sing with my windows rolled down, even at the stoplights. I will eat good food, and even cook it sometimes.
And I will wholeheartedly pursue the Lord.
I will grow in the land I am planted (even if the land is covered in snow for most the year).
I will take to the field and harvest the crop of this season.
And it’s bound to be a bounty after all the rain this spring has brought in.
Bring on the laughter,
yeah.. about that line in my last post...
I have cried more tears in the past few months than I would have ever liked to, and I am SO OVER IT!
I’ve been told by numerous people what it feels like to see me sad. People have gotten familiar with the way I cry, and the way I often don’t want to allow myself to, leading to other physical reactions like the shivers, or stomach tension, or unexplainable, possibly hilarious if it weren’t for how I felt, facial contusions. This spring has been a season of worried eyebrows and tilted heads. Sympathetic how are you really’s and constant reminders that its okay to be upset, or scared, or anxious.
It makes me feel overly vulnerable and uncomfortable.
And weak.
And broken.
In high school, I don’t think I ever let anyone see me cry, like ever.. or almost ever. Yes, I would mope. And yes, I very much let people know my feelings, as well as I knew how. But it was all behind the cover of an ice cold, apathetic, couldn't-care-less, so-above-emotions shell. Mostly, I think, I was trying to play strong. I wanted to know I was resilient, and I convinced myself I was through swallowing emotion whole.
Last month my teenage apathy would have been a warm welcome. I do not like all this feeling and awareness of hurt and anxiety and fear. I hate chewing my emotions. Sometimes they taste bitter.
Truly I want to be defined as a woman who is graceful with all circumstances. In both the shallows and depths of emotions, in all walks and seasons of life. But you know what I’ve found about trying to be that woman? It’s hard. And when you want to be that woman -when you pronounce yourself in transition toward becoming that woman, life takes you up on the challenge.
It throws you curve balls. You run headlong towards it, embracing a spirit of adventure and Life slams on the breaks. You stand, confidently looking Life square in the eye and it questions you, challenges you -asks you if you’re good enough, strong enough, smart enough.
Life tells you you can hope. You can hope -there’s room for it. But as you do, as you begin to stretch your wings and hop toward the edge of the nest, Life shows you that hope too can be just as fear inducing as anything else. Hope too has you staring down the possibility of the ground coming ever closer as you ferociously pray your wing flailing will save you from crashing to your death.
Hope is the prayer. Life is the constant of the ground getting continually too close for comfort as you shake your little arms in hopes that it can be somehow be defined as flying.
Life turns you around and points you toward your own reflection, asking you to be honest with yourself. Life might ask you to be way too honest. And there’s a chance that honesty will turn to something blunt and brutal. A thing not much like honesty at all, but you hold to it as your new personal truth nonetheless.
Over the past year I had a dream, a hope, a wish. I knew from the beginning it might be financially improbable, but was encouraged to continue regardless. Not only from my own personal iron will, but from outside, trustworthy people who very well would know whether or not this improbable was possible.
I pushed against so many people, stubborn to make them see my way, my heart, my reason.
So many conversations in which I met the edge of patience.
So much effort in finally getting people to back my heart for this cause.
So many prayers.
So many months of pushing, pushing, pushing...
against an immovable force.
The improbable didn’t happen.
And yes, I am disappointed.
I am heartbroken.
Both sacredly and selfishly.
Sacredly, because I know that I have an honest desire and pull in my heart for this specific thing that I saw crash down this past year.
Sacredly, because I was trying to follow His heart, His call.
Selfishly because it is also my pride and personal will that took a beating.
Selfishly because I am mourning the loss of things happening in my way, on my time.
Selfishly because I am mourning the loss of opportunity to be out on my own, providing somehow for myself, the semi-concious notion of finding a way out of the web of being burden of, and burden to.
Selfish, selfish, selfishly...
Now I still get to do the work I am passionate about, the work that has made my heart so fulfilled and happy. But there was still a dream shattered in the mix.
It feels a bit like a phoenix in the ashes.
Dirty, ridden with the death it emerged from. But a phoenix nonetheless.
When you get to do the things you dreamt of doing in ways that fully conflict with the way you imagined -when you have a stubborn, prideful, highly expectant, controlling heart like mine, it tears ya down a bit.
I had grown over this last year to almost curse the Buffalo land I stood on.
Staying makes me feel like I’m returning to a spouse I’ve jilted.
Living the dream I’ve already cursed feels like a guilty hound with his head low and its tail between his legs.
It makes me feel small, confused, and a little bit deflated. Like I need to earn my place and I’m already ten or twenty steps behind.
And life continued to deflate, shrink and confuse as I thought I might have to postpone graduation, found myself in power struggles about work I was finally passionate about again, received the poorest grades in the work I’ve been most invested in throughout my college career, and a general sense of relational, family health, and financial worries.
Life questions if I’m capable or strong. If I’m competent, if I’m willing. If my imaginations of this dream will be fulfilled, or if I will ever be okay if they aren’t.
Life always asks if everyone is at least a little bit of a mess or if it’s really just me.
Life questions whether I'm worthy of love, whether I can love others well, whether I even want to be loved myself.
Life loves questions...
Who do you think you are?
What are you made of?
Why?.. Why?..
Why, why, why, why?
And sometimes those questions are hard to answer.
It does some good to let go of the questions.
(and maybe even improv about it when you find yourself locked in a wardrobe closet for half a day.)
When I let go, I remember I wasn’t meant to feign strength, but instead show another’s through my weakness and how I react to it in honesty.
I remember that I am not the one with the answers, and I rarely ever will be. I can’t hold on to it all.
When I rest from Life’s questioning, from the continual, pervasive why, I start to see reason. I start to see more clearly the careful hand of God. The lessons of forgiveness, and humbleness. And how the only way to get rid of pride and want of control sometimes is to watch the dream drop from high places. Some lessons are best learned through messy circumstances.
I am done trying to hold on with white knuckles and blurry eyes.
I will pick up the pieces I am responsible for and try to leave all the rest.
I will pick up my pieces. slowly, delicately. And I will weigh them with the grace of God, because weight measured by any other standard is just too much to carry.
Life can be a straight up punk sometimes; but I’m not gonna let that stop me. Yes, dreams will break and things won’t go as planned. And yes, I will even be asked to hold to hope and faith in areas that have been constant courses of heartache in the past. But my God will build this afflicted city up with turquoise and sapphire, rubies and jewels.
It will be sad, and scary, and I will cry snotty nosed tears not knowing how or when to stop.
I will want, and fight, and try my hardest to be strong in my own might,
But My God is a God who promises beauty from brokenness. His light shining brighter through my shattered jar of clay.
So I will move forward, looking to the Light. I will seek out hope and healing, laughter and joy. I will dance in wardrobe closets and kitchens and wide open fields. I will shamelessly sing with my windows rolled down, even at the stoplights. I will eat good food, and even cook it sometimes.
And I will wholeheartedly pursue the Lord.
I will grow in the land I am planted (even if the land is covered in snow for most the year).
I will take to the field and harvest the crop of this season.
And it’s bound to be a bounty after all the rain this spring has brought in.
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