life

A Season of Getting Out of the Way

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Today is Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of this year’s Lenten season, the 47 days (yes, I am including Sundays) between what is commonly called Shrove Tuesday, “Fat Tuesday”, and/or Mardi Gras and Easter Sunday.

I am a Christian and yet I have never really celebrated Ash Wednesday or Lent for that matter, not since I left Cayman and the required chapel Wednesday services behind with grade school. Honestly, Ash Wednesday and Lent were never really explained to me, not in a way that I recall or, if they were, remember understanding. This year, however, I have felt a heart leading to concentrate on the Lenten season and, more so, to participate in it. I am giving something up for Lent this year but I am keeping it to myself for the most part. The only person who  knows is my husband and I am at peace with keeping it that way.

I am also following along and reading through She Reads Truth’s Lent study through their website, starting, naturally, with Day 1: Ash Wednesday.

Several points jumped out at me as I read through today’s lesson:

  • Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance.
  • The ashen cross on the forehead is an outward sign of both repentance and hope.
  • On Ash Wednesday, we admit our limits and acknowledge the brevity of this life.

Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance. It is a day when our mortality is to be foremost in our minds. That is a hard thing to consider: mortality. The fact that, some day, our lives will be over and the world will spin without us. “Remember, mortal, one day you will die.” Those would be hard words to hear, even whispered from a soul I love, respect, and trust. As a Christian, they are a reminder to me that, even though my bones will be dust someday, I have hope in a life beyond death. “Still, even for those in Christ, these words are a sober reminder that only Jesus’ death and resurrection could pay the wage of our sin and reconcile us to our Maker (She Reads Truth).”  To remember ourselves as mortal is not an easy thing but it remembering that we are only on this earth for a short time makes what we do with that time all the more important.

The ashen cross on the forehead is an outward sign of both repentance and hope. I have never had the ashen cross drawn on my forehead, and I definitely didn’t know that, traditionally, the ashes are made from burning the palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday. I vividly remember Palm Sunday as a child. I remember walking into church with my friends, waving the palm fronds and leaves as we marked the celebration of Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem just before Passover and His trial and crucifixion. To see the ashen cross on the forehead as a sign of both repentance, a desire to draw closer to God, and hope, the hope we have in the love and sacrifice Jesus made for us, is remarkably poignant and heart-striking to me. It’s like candlelight in a dark room, enough light to see to take the next step. And then the next after that.

On Ash Wednesday, we admit our limits and acknowledge the brevity of this life. Acknowledging my limitations can be very hard for me. Admitting that there are things that I cannot do, outcomes I cannot affect can often leave me feeling helpless and useless. But that is not the truth. The truth is that I need to lean on and let God be God in those moments and situations. My job is simply to obey and do all that I am called or led to do; God handles the rest, that is His job. Human life may be brief but I have seen God bring about amazing things through people who dare to admit their limits, give their work and what they have into His hands, and see what wonders He will work with it.

“Bring Jesus what you have and get out of the way. Getting out of the way provides an opportunity to discover the awe and wonder of God’s amazing hand and experience God’s abundance.” (Albert Tate)

So, as I go through this Lenten season, my goal is to strengthen my connection with God. To be more intentional about spending time in the quiet, listening to and for Him. To see what I am giving up as a step to a better path, to look for grace in the situations that arise (the giving and receiving of it). To acknowledge my limits, give the Lord what I have, and get out of the way.

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Some Truth for a Tuesday

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A friend sent me this last night and it absolutely hit the necessary heart-spot. And so I am setting it here for you today. You are allowed to change, to grow, to be who you are becoming. You are all kinds of wonderful and I am glad that you are here.

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Giving As You Would Have Given To You

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We have often heard what is touted as The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). Have you ever thought, though, that that includes not only our actions but our reactions to people, too? Have you ever had a situation in which you longed and hoped for the best-case reaction from someone(s) but, instead, got the absolute opposite?

  • Instead of compassion, you were judged.
  • Instead of mercy and forgiveness, you were rejected.
  • Instead of support, you were abandoned.

Being truthful, coming clean, sharing our faults, shortcomings, vulnerabilities, or our need for help are often very difficult and even frightening. That fear is often built on the anticipation of a bad reaction from those to whom we must tell these things, and many of us have felt the pain of those fears realized at one time or another.

One of the most popular quotes over the past year (with over 51 million Google results and numerous memes floating about Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) is: “Be the person you needed when you were younger” (Ayesha A. Siddiqi). What would our world be like if we gave the reactions that we wished we had received in our difficult moments? Better yet, what if we gave responses instead of reactions? “To react” is defined by Merriam-Webster as action or feeling as a result of a stimulus or situation. “To respond” is defined by the same as giving an answer to something. The former implies a visceral outcome, built on emotion. The latter implies conscious effort and thought given before speaking or acting. Now, that is not say that ours will always be the response that the other person would expressly desire but, in taking time to think, there is less chance of us allowing our emotions to hold sway and cause us to be discourteous, dismissive of, or even cruel to others in their heavy moments.

What if we gave responses instead of reactions? What if we took the time to consider? To consider humanity, fallibility, and kindness.  We can give compassion instead of judgement, mercy instead of rejection, and support instead of abandonment. How much better would our world be if we remembered the responses that we needed in our tough times and then gifted those responses to others? How many spirits might be spared, hearts edified, or even  relationships saved? Taking a pause is not always easy to remember or to do but I dare say that it undoubtedly worth it.

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Settling Into This Next Version of Myself

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My watchword for this year is grace and one of the books that I am reading (and have been looking forward to for a long while) is Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards.

Quotes of the Day:

“Now fully able to cheer wildly for friends and colleagues, I am free to be me without the constrictive mesh netting around my heart, everyone else is free to be themselves, and I am thrilled about us all.” – pg 15

“You decide your day should contain laughter and grace, strength and security. You realize insecurity, striving, jealousy, and living in comparison will eventually define your entire life, and that is NOT the legacy you want.” – pg 16

“This is your place. These are your people. This is your beautiful, precious life. Probably about halfway done here on earth, you lay down angst and pick up contentment.” – pg 16

From Chapter 2: “On Turning Forty”.

This chapter is written as a small treatise from her now-forty-year-old self to those who are coming up behind her in their twenties. I am not yet forty but so much of this resonated with me, even at (only) thirty-two. What Jen writes here feels very much like what I am processing through right now.

“Oh, my stars, when I was twenty-nine, I was so hamstrung by what everyone else was accomplishing. Other people were my benchmarks, and comparison stole entire years. I lost much time in jealousy, judgement, and imitation. I just couldn’t find my own song (15).”

I could have honestly written this myself and it couldn’t be any more true. I lost years comparing myself to others and finding myself wanting or thinking that others found me wanting in important ways. I gave up a great deal of power to others over what I perceived was their disapproval or my being “too much”. It’s only now, quite a few years later, that I am finding a place of peace with myself and others, stopping the looking sideways so much, and, as Jen puts, it “developing some chops”.

My favorite quote, though, is at the end of this chapter:

“So, sure, your body and mind get whack, but I promise: you wouldn’t return to your twenties for all the unwrinkled skin on earth. You’ll like it here. You will love better, stand taller, laugh louder. You’ll pass out grace like candy. Real life will temper your arrogance and fear, and you will adore the next version of yourself. We all will (16).”

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Turning the Page

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As 2015 prepares to haul on its cloak and make its exit, I cannot help but throw my mind back over what has made my life important this year. Not just the wifely things or the mommy things, but what has been important to me, Mel, as a person.

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NaBloPoMo Day 28: On Crying

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I am an empathetic crier. It is rare, very rare, that I can see a friend or dear one crying and I don’t start crying as well. Perhaps it is a sense of wanting to be able to comfort the other; perhaps it is to let them know that what they feel isn’t silly to be crying over. I cry when my friends are hurting. I cry for and with them because, often, there little more that I can do from where I am.

I am also a very easy crier. I cried last night when I prayed over Elizabeth as she lied congested and uncomfortable in her bed. I cry when something bad happens on my favorite tv show. I cry at moments in books, at cards sent, gifts given.

Right now, though, I have plenty of tears of my own. I am tired, my shoulder aches where I banged it, the weather is gloomy and wet (see, even the sky is crying), my baby is sick, my husband also isn’t feeling, and I have had nightmares. It’s just been a teary couple of days.

Not all tears are bad, not all crying is painful. Sometimes we go through periods where our heart leaks out of our eyes for reasons of which we are unaware. But it happens, so the likelihood is there that it is needed. I am not sure just what my tears need to wash away, smooth, or reshape within me, but I think I am willing to let them.

 

NaBloPoMo Day 24: The 21st Turn

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I do not have any journal entries about my 21st birthday night aside from the mention that my friends and I were going to go to dinner and then a film festival (don’t even remember what the films were about). But I do have a particular journal entry from the night before my 21st birthday that I really like and would love to share with you.

= = =

So…soon (in a matter of hours), I’ll be 21, and I find that rather odd, honestly. I have a hard time stepping out-of-body and looking at myself, not as the little teenage girl who came here almost four years ago, but as a 21-year-old woman.

There are ways in which I KNOW I’ve grown. Only in the past year have I truly found what it means to be comfortable in my own skin. I’m a ‘walking contradiction’, and I like it. I’m a paradoxical simplistic, a semi-angsty romantic, as I once put it. I’m a girly-girl with a love for action and battle prowess; I’m a hobbit who speaks the tongue of Elves; I’m a wielder of pen with a love for the sword;  I’m a teacher who loves to learn; I’m a drama queen who has to work on graciously accepting compliments; I am a self-confirmed bachelorette who would someday like to get married; I’m a walking contradiction.

And I like it that way.

For years, I tried to be only one thing, what I thought people thought I should be: the perfect young lady, the angsty tomboy, the all-knowing sage, etc. No, it doesn’t work that way; I’m merely bits and pieces, as are we all–flawed but lovingly forgiven. This past year has just proven to me that God can put the pieces together in ways we could never imagine. Pieces that ‘should not go together’ come together perfectly in me. That’s not saying that I am perfect, but my Creator is, and I admire His ingenuity.

Yes, I Ask.

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Some people would probably say that a “good” Christian doesn’t question God. Well, if that’s the case, I’m fine with the “good” left permanently off any description of me as a Christian, because I most certainly do question God. However, it might not be in the vein that you are expecting. I don’t question God and cry out, “Why is this happening to me?” No. I did that before and I got my response, so that’s not a question I need answered anymore.

No, what I ask is: “Why is this happening to them?”

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NaBloPoMo Day 16: The Morning To-Do

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I have a large planner on my kitchen table where I outline each month for myself and the family and then, on each separate day, I outline what needs to be done and all that for myself. Sections are labeled like “To Do (yellow)”, “Chores (green)”, and “To Mail (blue)”. I also have a “Personal (pink)” checklist for myself every day just for me. It usually looks something like this:

  1. Quiet time
  2. Workout
  3. Shower
  4. Drink Water
  5. Write/blog
  6. Read
  7. Gym (on certain days)

I will say that when I can get those first four done successfully with no interruptions (which is about half the time), I can feel excellent to start my day. They are specifically intended for the morning, before my girl gets up and about and life gets busy. The rest can be spread throughout the day and the gym usually comes last in the evening a few times a week. Some days, though, if things have been particularly busy and trying, my personal checklist just looks like this:

  1. REST!

NaBloPoMo Day 13, Part 2: Art Threading Through Life

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Today’s prompt: Put your music player on shuffle and write down the first three songs that play and what your initial thought is.

Pandora Channel – “Aladdin (Broadway)”

I am a huge lover of music and how the lyrics make me feel, what they remind me of, make me think about, etc. It’s almost impossible to separate my thoughts on a song from its lyrics.

  1. “No One Is Alone” – Into the Woods (2014)

Both: People make mistakes.
Baker: Fathers,
Cinderella: Mothers,
Both: People make mistakes,
Holding to their own,
Thinking they’re alone.
Cinderella: Honor their mistakes
Baker: Fight for their mistakes
Cinderella: Everybody makes
Both: One another’s terrible mistakes.
Witches can be right, Giants can be good.
You decide what’s right you decide what’s good
Cinderella: Just remember:
Baker: [Echo] Just remember:
Both: Someone is on your side
Jack, LRRH: OUR side
Baker, Cinderella: Our side–
Someone else is not
While we’re seeing our side
Jack, LRRH: Our side..
Baker, Cinderella: Our side–
All: Maybe we forgot: they are not alone.
No one is alone.
Someone is on your side
No one is alone.

I have never seen Into the Woods live, nor have I yet watched Disney’s cinematic rendition of it (even though I actually own it), though I did buy and watch the production with Bernadette Peters as The Witch with Ben for Valentine’s when we were dating. This is his favorite musical. He played the Baker in high school and has been in love with this challenging musical ever since. As such. I have learned a good number of the songs out of a sheer desire to share them with him. This song touches my heart in its reminder that we are never really alone, no matter how we feel we may be. There is always someone who is feeling similarly or who may understand you far more than you expect.

“Part of Your World” – The Little Mermaid

Look at this trove, treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you’d think
Sure, she’s got everything

I’ve got gadgets and gizmos a plenty
I’ve got whozits and whatzits galore
You want thingamabobs? I’ve got twenty!
But who cares? No big deal,
I want more!

This was the first Disney song I remember memorizing and identifying with. I’m sure my friends thought I had everything a girl could want. But I did want more. I wanted real relationships, real friends, real adventures, a chance to see and affect the world. As I have grown, my dreams have tempered some but I still desire those deep relationships, friendships, adventures, and the chance to do good in the world around me.

“Almost There” – The Princess and the Frog

Mama! I don’t have time for dancing!
That’s just gonna have to wait a while
Ain’t got time for messing around
And it’s not my style
This old town can slow you down
People taking the easy way
But I know exactly where I’m going
Getting closer and closer every day

This was me when I was in school. When I headed off to college at seventeen, adults would frequently (and jokingly, I know) ask if I was going to get my MRS degree. It might have been a joke, but I felt my intelligence and ambition were insulted by it. So I would look them in the eye and say, “No, that’s not the point of college.” I had goals to achieve, ambitions to fulfill. And, true to my word, I earned my Bachelor’s degree in English Education and Master’s degree in Literature before I walked down the aisle with Ben.