Middle of my mind.

Days pass enveloped with ordinary moments. Collected together, these seemingly common days along with their routines, are the essential ingredients of life. In my head, time has been measured by the last time I filled up my gas tank or how long I’ve had a library book. Nothing jumping out lately. Nothing quite extreme enough to make people on social media envious. But that’s the beauty of everyday. That my heart beats on and pumps blood throughout these miles of blue veins dressed up in pale skin. Each day, if my perspective is perpendicular, I’m learning that ordinary is so very remarkable. No day is like the one before. It may contain the same skyline views or you may walk with familiar people or order the same coffee. But who, lying in bed after living an entire day on this earth, says to themselves, “Well, that day was exactly like the one before.” Yes, sometimes the days run together in a wearisome drift. But we have the capability to make our days become set apart. A wise teacher, Ms. Sol, always reminded me, "Today is brand new, never been used." Don't let yourself be someone who sees ordinary as a curse. This won’t come by serving ourselves and feeding our desperately itching egos. Looking around us and making our hearts attentive to the people that are near us, that is what lifts us up from the inside out. Using all of our energy and precious time to polish and guard our solitude is a waste. We were meant for each other. This life we walk through everyday was not meant to be lived alone. Our lives were made for reverence and for relationship. Like Maya Angelou wrote, “We are more alike than we are unalike.” 
At this point in my life, as a twenty-five year old single woman, there are many ideas my younger self had about where I would be by now. My life is almost nothing like I expected it to be. There are people who have stepped into my life that I never dreamed of. And there are people who are still in my life who I thought would have left long ago. This is the life I want. The life I need. 
One where I am willingly surrendered to welcome the uninvited. 
Fellow heartbeats, you were made in the image of God and to live in His light.

Don't frown, it's Christmas.

"It's that time of year,

leave all our hopelessness's aside,

If not just for a little while.

Tears stop right here

I know we've all had a bumpy ride.."

- Imogen Heap, Just For Now 

It’s Christmas Eve Eve Eve and there have been some thoughts buzzing around my mind for too long that I’m going to put here now. To settle down the bees. 

         This is the one time of year when we wish each other “merry” and “happy” days. You say it to the man who bags your groceries at HEB, who you would normally not whisper a word to. “Merry Christmas” we exclaim to this stranger and that stranger. 
What about those of us who cannot bring ourselves to feel this merriment right now? 
(I wrote a similar blog about this during my first Christmas back from Africa here.) 
For some people during this season, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. The annual elation they feel when the Christmas tree is decorated or the general excitement that others around seem to be pressing against them is dormant. I’m not necessarily speaking directly about depression, although that is definitely relevant to many people at this moment in time. I’m speaking about those who are not feeling like themselves for whatever reason this holiday. Maybe you’ve just been feeling a little down due to a recent cross country move to a city where you are a stranger. There’s a new sickness in the family. Your spiritual life seems dehydrated. Donald Trump haunts your dreams. Whatever it happens to be, you’re not alone. 

There is a need inside of me, like a balloon that’s on the cusp of bursting, to urge each person reading this to look at the people around you. To look at the family members you know you will be around this holiday season or friends you already see on a regular basis, or that woman you work with who always keeps to herself. Sometimes it makes those of us who are experiencing these foreign feelings, or lack thereof, worse off when we are urged to “Be happy because it’s Christmas!” or “Don’t ruin the holidays with your neediness.” This is the time of year when people take time out of their holiday to volunteer at homeless shelters to feed the hungry, can we also remember those who need to be fed, not with food for the body, but with support for their souls? Maybe they need to be spoon fed with an extra portion of love. Or they just need someone to stop them in their tracks, as they fumble around their bag for their keys on their way out, and mention that they have noticed their recent lack in joy. 
Empathy. Not pity. 
If pity is all you have then you can keep it. 
THAT is what this world needs right now. People that are FOR each other. People that are not scared of asking, with fierce sincerity, “How are you?”  and actually wait around to hear the answer. People who are not so afraid that their own Christmas happiness will be tainted by stepping into the sadness or hurt that people they know are currently swimming or maybe even drowning in. I pray we would not be so selfish as that. To look the other way when someone, who doesn’t know how to ask for help or prayer, is standing in the same room as us...isolated. Detached. 

And for those who are the ones feeling down or unexplainably sullen, to be able to recognize when love is reaching out to you. To not keep our hearts locked away with the idea that our tenderness and grief will scare others away. Because if people do run away or shrink back when you share your messy insides, then they need to work some things out in their own lives. 
Don’t disengage to self-protect, I’ve tried that and know from experience that it only injures more. 
Love does not shrink back or look away. Love is longsuffering. Love cleans the wound with truth and empathy. Love then bandages the wound with hope and the reminder that they are not going anywhere. So that when the next day comes, even though you may be limping around or there’s still a sore spot on your heart, the moments can be faced with the knowledge that no matter what, you are loved. 

“Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn’t benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who’s going through a divorce. Yes, perspective is critical. But I’m a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own and the struggle of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.” - Brene Brown

In general, since we are humans and all that, we are going to love each other imperfectly. Try as we might, we are still going to cringe sometimes and say things that bruise hearts. But may we not forget that there is a perfect, holy love that cannot be diminished or taken back by any means and that is the love of Christ.
 He is the one who has seen all the hidden hurts and tears or the venom that we have spewed at others when we cannot rightly articulate our damaged core. 
When others run away, He is there. 
When we want to run away even from ourselves, He is there.

 “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” (Ps. 3:3) 

This is not me commanding you to go out and tell your tales of woe to the next person that smiles at you in the line at the bank, but for us to come to a place where we are not be ashamed of our isolated feelings or sadness. 
May this put some fire under our asses to speak up or to ask. 

Let the healing begin. 

"Though the fig tree should not blossom, 

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold,

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the LORD, is my strength;

He makes my feet like the deer's,

he makes be tread on high places."

Habakuk 3:17-19

What are you so afraid of? Why are your fists clenched so tightly?

For some of us, especially as performing artists, this time of year always brings the question of next season. "Where will you be? Are you moving again? Do you really want to do this again for another whole year?" Those are just a small amount of the ever growing list that we ask ourselves as we pray and consider where our feet will be after summer has ended. I am reminded of a song,"So Far Away" by Carole King, where there is a line that goes, "So far away, doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?" If someone looked at the places I have roamed for the past five years they could assume that I have commitment issues or am on the run from these places I haven't lived in long enough to rightly call "home",  I am there just long enough for roots to feel comfortable to extend into the ground then SWOOSH. On the road again. For me at this time in my life, being in a place for an entire year seems quite a long time and considering to stay beyond that seems like eternity. (We must remember, drama queen over here.) This has the potential to sound extremely pretentious, take it how you will, but there are very few people in my life at the moment who seem to understand this wandering tendency of mine. Hell, sometimes I even have trouble seeing why I am drawn to the life on to move. But when the words pour out of how the longing to move again has risen, I am usually met with bewildered looks that scream, "Don't you like us enough to stay?". Those looks and questions cause aches in my heart that are never welcome. It's the people I am drawn to in new places and it's also people that I cannot imagine leaving when a move is ahead. When Jesus broke through and extended His hand to draw me up out of the pit, He placed His love inside of me. Before that my view and expression of love was warped and corrupt. Now, whether I like or not, this love in my heart is DRAWN to the hurting, the broken, the far-off. There are times, to be blunt and raw with you, that I wish I had never gone to Africa. Never lived in a country that challenged me in ways I couldn't dream of. Never met the beautiful souls of children that changed my life forever and ever. Never had my horizons and vision expanded. Because once that happens, your view of this life and this world are FOREVER CHANGED. You can never erase the suffering witnessed or testing of your faith. All the beautiful, all the precious, all the newness will remain imprinted in your memory. These past 19 months since returning from the mission field have been a time of testing, renewal, joy, and sharing. As I seek and pray, there is a calling in my heart to go out again. Where? I have an idea of where, but at this point I cannot say. Is it just a selfish desire to go? I always, always ask myself that question. Right now, vision is needed. More than anything a right view of the Heavenly Father, set high above my longings or petitions. A pining for a pure heart to "pray without ceasing". This excerpt from J.I. Packer's "Praying" is spot on:

“How then shall we spell out the dimensions of purity of heart? It is a matter of saying and meaning what originally the psalmist said: “ Whom have I in heaven but you? / And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25) - nothing, that is, that I would not consent to lose if adhering to God required it. Thus, it is a matter of wanting and valuing “fellowship..with the Father and with His Son.” ( 1 John 1:3) more than I want or value anything else in the world.

Whoever is taking the time to read this jumble of words, I am asking for your intercession for guidance. That I would be obedient and faithful to remaining in this mission field or planting roots on new soil. There is excitement in walking with Jesus and emptying ourselves to be used by One who freely chooses to use His broken kiddos. May we "channel our thoughts toward God, focusing on the great things He has done - in creation, in providence, in grace - and thus think in a directed and disciplined way, so that He fills the horizon of our thoughts, though we are embattled by life's circumstances." (Packer) 

Oh, how we love You. 

It's been awhile.

Whenever I see a plane, this unexplainable feeling fills my being. I imagine all of the people aboard and picture some of them peering outside their window. Are they coming to meet someone they love? Are they taking another tedious business trip? Are they filled with awe as they fly through the bodies of clouds? Do they wish they were somewhere else? I am reminded of the tightness in my chest as I flew over the ocean to London for the first time. The fear of the unknown as I looked below me at the huts and the orange glow of small fires burning in central Africa on the way to Joburg. Or the raging guilt in my chest as I flew away from the Warm Heart and the warm hearts I came to cherish. There are moments when my heart yearns so much for the dusty roads of Malawi, the smiles and giggles of my students, or for a hug from Carrie that I feel as though the fire in my heart could carry my feet there if I ran hard enough. Is this grievance coming from the knowledge that I may never set foot again on African soil? I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things. But there are a few things I know for sure. And one of those things is that my life is in the hands of my Abba Father and nothing in this life can remove me from His hold. No fault, no misstep, no airplane. Nothing. But I pray that these frequent moments of consuming aches and burnings in my heart will not fade with time. Because they make me feel so alive. 

This post from another blogger has cut straight to my heart.

From D.L. Mayfield's blog :

"The desire to be beautiful is deep within me, which has led me to places that are somewhat close to being extinguished. and i wrestle with this too, because currently in my life i am in a place of smoldering, a sputtering candle, tossed and turned by the winds of the world and the darkness in my own soul. but i think you already know where i am going with this, that it is these half-burnt out flames that Jesus most likes to use.
where my bruised reeds at? he says, looking for the walking wounded, the bent-over men and women, the smoldering wicks. where are my people who don’t even know up from down anymore, who can no more suss out what is sustainable than they can solve the problems of the world? where are my people at, he says, the ones who are beating back addictions, dysfunctions, lies that slink in and out around our ears? those are my people, he says, the ones i will not break. they are the ones i will not snuff out.
i used to think there were only two options for life: burning bright into the dying of the light, or sitting quietly to the side, snuffed out by the cares of life. now i am seeing all the middle places, the flickering candles, the fragile ones, the ones keeping vigil, praying, fasting, singing songs of truth, teaching, believing, creating.
but of course everything about Jesus is so upside-down, so the third way, eschewing the false dichotomies we create in order to love or loathe ourselves. he chooses the half-burnt out, the emptied, the white-knuckled. because it is for us, the ones who have tried so very hard to get both God and the whole damn world to love us based on merit, to whom the burden of following a radical servant-king seems light in comparison.
i don’t know how to end this right, i still want to say i am healed, i am loved, and everything is fine. but the truth is that right now i feel caught in a middle of a brush fire, all of my precious sacrifices going up in flames. and there, on the horizon, on the char-streaked hills, i see a glimpse of my future, being formed even now. i see a flickering candle, instead of a flame. i see a bruised reed, instead of a sunflower. and i see mercy, mercy, mercy, growing in the hardest heart."

Christmas is here again.

Each year, this one especially, I become more aware of how much pressure we put on ourselves to be in a certain state of mind. To be content and super duper happy. From Thanksgiving down to the twenty fifth of December. And for what? Because this is the one time of the year where we are supposed to pretend we are okay even if things are far away from perfect? This year in particular is weird and I don't feel very merry or bright. Is that bad? No, I don't believe it is. I would rather take this moment for what it really is, embrace it, and continue the process ( <----- keyword) of growing. By embracing I don't mean wallowing. And I certainly don't mean pity party planning. But I don't see how ignoring or "forgetting" your troubles for these twenty five days will make it any better once the twenty sixth rolls around.
God is in the desert. God is present to the morose of spirit.
Wrapping presents and drinking your weight in eggnog can't disguise it.
Not for very long, at least.
So, if you are in a place of grief or sadness or disappointment this Christmas season, do not lose heart.
You are not alone and this won't last forever. Not with Christ as your Comforter and Father.

 "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." 

For those of you who are feeling extra merry and/or bright, open your eyes and be there for those around you who aren't. There is a season for everything and I'm glad that every human being goes through each season at a different time....so there can be encouragement for the discouraged and joy shared with the joyless. I am grateful to have my family around me to celebrate Jesus, no matter the season.


He is alive. That is where my hope is found, not in my feelings.

 

Self portraits and chipped nail polish.
Like these two photos, I am learning to find the balance of viewing the world through rose colored glasses whilst keeping a sharp eye for its deceptive promises. Concerning my personal faith I have been in a place where I have been asking really tough questions. Not denying the God I believe in, but coming to the understanding that questioning something does mean you are renouncing its authenticity. This process has been rocky and at some moments I was scared, wondering why I was even asking. It seemed that my faith had faded away to nothing at one point, but the truth is that it’s budding even through all this and my roots will be more substantial & enduring through this tough as nails period. Asking questions and taking a step outside of what you say you believe is essential to you as an individual. If questions are not asked and the rose colored lenses are not removed every now and again, then when fierce oppression or tempest arrive without warning how will you stand? All in all these past few weeks have been drawing the hidden unbelief or questions my heart may hold. Although not all my inquiries have answers, there is no shame in asking.

On a much lighter note, I have been going through books and music like mental. Mansfield Park, The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, the Narnia series, and oodles of autobiographies. As for music some of my new favorites right now are Stornoway, London Grammar, Tom Odell, Haim, India Arie, etc.
Now, where did I put my coffee cup?