love

To Print Love on Others

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Two days ago, I had a thought. I was in need of joy and the best way I know to garner joy is to give it as best I can. Bundling that thought up in my fist, I went to the dollar store and bought a pretty storage box. That took quite a bit of deliberation as I am sucker for a pretty box. You have no idea how much self-control it took to not buy all the pretty storage containers and vessels to use somehow in my classroom. All that to say that I left the store with just what I needed for my plan.

The next day, I typed up and printed ten encouraging quotes/sayings/thoughts that had always been an uplift to me. Then I made photocopies and then cut them out, folded them, and placed them in the box. Give it a good shake and we were ready.

Today, after long period blocks of mandated early-semester testing, I handed these simple slips of paper, these drops of (hopefully) encouragement, to my students as they left my classroom. I am also urging them to add to the box if they think of or find encouraging quotes or things to say. Because everyone can use an encouraging word now and again, and building each other up is a habit that it is never too early (or too late) for anyone to learn.

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Ten Years Worthy: The Right to Celebrate

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Today, I celebrate my tenth wedding anniversary, a decade of marriage. While other hearts are full of grief and sadness and heartbreak for a myriad of other reasons and they are wading and sorting their way with bare-nerved pain through some of the most difficult of processes, today I celebrate love and progress and growth and partnership. And I have to admit something: the brain weasels threaten and the question rises in the back of my mind like a lump in my throat, a weight in my chest that threatens to stifle and suffocate.

What right do I have to it? What right do I have to be happy, secure, and glaringly in love? What right have I to celebrate in the midst of the trials and troubles of those in my life? I know that I have written on this before, though the circumstances and point of the writing were somewhat different. Still, it is a notion that I struggle with, this right to feel happy, to be happy.

And yet I will. Not necessarily because I deserve to be happy but because I choose to be. Twelve years ago, I made the choice to say yes to the young man who asked me on a date after chivalrously driving me to the airport to fly home for my aunt’s funeral. I chose to say yes when he stood in my dorm room on a Tuesday a year later and those blue eyes of his asked me to marry him (partially because I didn’t give his voice a chance to get the words out). I made and still make a choice to say yes every time since then that he has asked me if I am sure, if I am happy, if I am still glad that I joined my life to his.

Yes. I am sure.

Yes. I am happy.

Yes. I am still glad that I am here, that I am his wife, that we are family, that we are together.

I say yes because it is the truth.Today, I will pray for those who hurt, who are in pain. Today, I will put on a slinky dress (congrats to any fellow fans who get that reference) and enjoy a beautiful dinner with wonderful people and celebrate all that is good in life, for, yes, there is much good. Amidst darkness and pain and sorrow and grief, there is good. There is grace. There is hope. And I will celebrate it all today.

Today, I will pray for those who hurt, who are in pain. Today and every day, I will do my best to care for, encourage, love on, and support them, as they have always done in pouring out themselves for me. But, today, I will also put on a slinky dress (congrats to any fellow fans who get that reference), enjoy a beautiful dinner with wonderful people, and celebrate all that is good in life, for, yes, there is much good. Amidst darkness and pain and sorrow and grief, there is good. There is grace. There is hope. There is love. There is family. There are triumphs. There is new life. And I will celebrate it all today.

 

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Photography by Jordan Barclay. http://jordanbarclay.com

 

 

What We Do with the Shattered

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All around, the pieces of broken hearts, hurting souls, broken relationships, destroyed hopes, ruined sanctuaries or senses of peace, and shattered dreams. Injured, jagged, pulsing, and aching with unspeakable pain. Everywhere you look, there they lie, leaving precious people pallid and trembling with shock, fear, and uncertainty.

I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I can do. The thoughts chase through my mind as I stand amidst it all, at a loss of where to start.

Yes, you do. The Truth comes clearly, even as I stand in fearful, tearful silence.

What do we do with hearts that lie broken, souls that ache with pain? The answer is the most simple, difficult, necessary, and needed thing.

We love them.

We. Love. Them.

A Greatness I Never Expected

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Now that I have had a few minutes to sit and breathe, I think I am ready to talk about this. This past Friday, I did something completely new. This past Friday, I did something terrifying. This past Friday, I did something I felt wholly unqualified to do. But I did it anyway.

This past Friday, I stood up in the church and community that I grew up in and spoke to the 2016 graduating class of my old private school. I stood up almost on the same spot where, sixteen years ago, I had given the valedictorian address for the graduating class of 2000. At thirty-three years old, I stood up to give these graduates whatever guidance, admonishment, and encouragement I could.

Yep. I felt totally unqualified to perform this task, but I did it anyway. Let me start at the beginning.

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What I Put On is Not Me

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Today, I was asked, “as a favor”, to change out of the cute little capri pants I had on and into my jean skirt. To clarify, nothing was showing. I had a Peter Pan collar top that left covered my bust, decolletage, and shoulders and came down over the waistband of my pants. The capris were dark denim and came down past my knees. The reason I was asked to change? So I could meet the current principal of my old school–where I will be giving the commencement address on Friday evening–and “avoid any conflict” that might come from me being seen in pants. I did it; I changed. I did it because I don’t live here anymore. I don’t have to live with these people and their talk and their (more-than-sometimes vicious) gossip. She (the person who asked me) does and I want her life to be as easy as I can help to make it. But, honestly, I’m angry. I am angry and disappointed.  Not at the person who asked me but at the fact that she felt like I had to be asked to do this. I am insulted by the very idea that my worth or the validity of my faith or my respectability could be compromised by an article of clothing. Could be questionable in the eyes of someone who has never even met me, simply because I showed up in their presence wearing pants instead of a skirt. The idea that anyone’s clothes determine their worth or respectability, especially when you don’t know them. This, frankly, angers me to a degree that I cannot quantify.

What I put on, what I wear, is not me. Now, I know all about first impressions so don’t feed me that line. This isn’t about first impressions. This is about me not being Christian enough when I wear pants for people who have known me all my life but obviously know nothing about me or who I am at all. It makes me angry and makes me sad that this has Not changed in thirty-plus years, and I refuse to be that kind of Christian! I refuse to deny someone’s worth or faith or right to be respected because she wears pants or he wears a skirt or they wear whatever they choose to wear. What I put on is not me. What I do, how I speak, how I act, how I live out what I believe. That is me.  A woman came to Jesus with her head uncovered and used her hair to dry his feet after she anointed them with the dearest and most expensive thing she owned. Did he scold her for coming to him dressed immodestly? No! In fact, he told the others with him, who started berating her for “wasting” the perfume, to leave her alone because her sacrifice was heartfelt and true and made out of love for him. Somewhere, somehow, I think that woman knew in her soul that Jesus was going to go through something terrible, and she refused to let him experience pain without knowing that he was loved. Her lack of hair covering didn’t matter; her actions did and still do.

You cannot judge someone heart and soul by their clothing. You cannot judge their intelligence, their gentleness, their faith, their belief, their convictions, their journey, or their capacity for kindness and love based on what they wear next to their skin. What clothes our outside does not matter. In fact, in the New Testament, Colossian 3:12-15 says:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.”

I believe that we are all holy and dearly loved. We are all beloved of God. What makes a person important, what makes them indispensable, what makes who they are valuable and valid is how they have clothed their spirit, not how they have clothed their body. How that person over there dresses doesn’t make them any less of a person, any less capable of kindness and compassion and love and care, of courage  and determination and strength. You haven’t seen how they live their life. Don’t judge them in this one snapshot moment because of what you haven’t seen. Please! The fact that I wear pants on a regular basis as well as skirts and dresses doesn’t make what I will have to say to these graduating students any less true. It doesn’t make my testimony any less powerful. And it doesn’t make me any less respectable, any less worthy, of a person. And it definitely does not make me any less of a Christian.

If you judge me unworthy or less than just by looking at me, then I would dare say that it’s possible that you might have a much bigger and more serious issue than a 33-year-old woman in pedal-pushers. 

Spoken and Broken Together

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Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete.
Could we just be broken together?
If you can bring your shattered dreams and I‘ll bring mine,
Could healing still be spoken and save us?
The only way we’ll last forever is broken together. – “Broken Together”, Casting Crowns

My Wednesday morning started with the discovery of something being created that, honestly, excites me on a level that I cannot quite explain. Round Table Companies has started up a Kickstarter campaign for the development of a card game called “Vulnerability is Sexy”. The founder of Round Table Companies explains the game like this: “We believe everyone has a story to share, and our stories—the proud ones and the not-so-proud ones—are what make us beautiful. That’s why we created Vulnerability is Sexy, a card game that helps players reveal their true selves and give each other some of life’s most beautiful gifts: time, truth, and connection.” Yes, this excites me. It is hard to explain exactly why but it does. Over the past several years, I have learned the benefits and blessings of vulnerability, as well as come face to face, again and again, with the fears associated with it. I love that the point of this game is to create safety and hold space (two phrases/ideas that are well-known now in the vulnerability movement) for people to be their most authentic selves. I don’t see it as being a party game so much as a good endeavor for a night with good friends, a chance to hear as well as be heard.

As the years have gone by, I have met so many people who have suffered in the same silence and fear of vulnerability and mask-removal that I have–it was even one of the first deep conversations my husband and I had–and It breaks my heart. It has become more and more important to me to create and hold those sort of safe spaces for people as best I can. I have faced my fears of being vulnerable coming true, and I don’t doubt that I have likely been that fear come true for others. For the latter, I am most profoundly sorry, more so than I can adequately say. Now, I find my heart deeply drawn to creating and being a safe space. Moreover, I am learning just what it means to be  a safe space, whatever that might be for the other person(s). That might mean telling/reassuring them that, yes, it will, in fact, be okay; they will be okay. Or perhaps it’s offering an outside perspective. Perhaps it is not offering anything but your presence, to be a breathing, present life on the other end of the phone line while they cry. Not offering advice or a fix or a silver lining, but just showing up and staying there through their hard moments. Maybe being that safe space means reaching out to someone when they are sure that they have screwed up so badly that they are sure no one wants them around.

Later that morning, as I drove home from the gym, a song played on the radio that I had not heard before. It is called “Broken Together” by Casting Crowns (I have quoted part of it at the top of this post). I know that the song is written around the story of a marriage but vulnerability applies to any close relationship. I was struck by that idea of being broken together and the image it developed in my mind. The image is that of bringing the shards and pieces of the strong yet delicate clay pots that hold our selves and souls and pouring IMAG0151them out at each other’s feet. As those pieces fall and gently clatter upon the floor, they tumble and mix. They don’t voice any expectations, any rejections; they just are together in that brokenness. You know what else is beautiful about bringing those broken pieces together? There is no telling those shattered pieces apart. In our brokenness, we are the same, we are together. And when those pieces are put back together, it will be something new and beautiful, mortared together with love, empathy, camaraderie, and acceptance. We will have spoken healing to each other, even if that speaking is only the words, “Me, too. You’re not alone.”

We can be spoken and broken together. Shattered and crushed together. Sorted and pieced back together. Molded and melded back together. That is what vulnerability allows. That is what it accomplishes.

Will it always work out that way? You want the truth? Of course, you do; you’ve already experienced it. No, it won’t. As a dearly-loved friend of mine wrote:

“Caring isn’t all shiny belly badges getting glowy in Care-a-lot. There’s blood no one ever sees spilled. Tears no one sees shed. There’s a soft violence to caring. Not always, never always, but the potential’s always there. When we care, we make ourselves available, vulnerable.” (Daniel Youngren)

If there is a soft violence to caring, that possibility of deep pain, then vulnerability takes courage. Deep courage. Brené Brown calls vulnerability “our most accurate measurement of courage”. How willing are you to be courageous? To step out in that vulnerability, to be broken together, even with the chance (and, yes, likelihood) of at least some pain? When you know that the good that can come from it will produce something deep and wide and high and beautiful in your relationships? Can we be safe spaces for each other? Spaces where we can come, pour out our pieces and broken together, and have our healing spoken to each other’s hearts, souls, and minds? I would like that. Wouldn’t you?

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Photo credits:
*Ceramic pot pieces – http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zYHdwVRZSA8/T1HM7afRoDI/AAAAAAAABc4/ZMyn5sHvyUE/s1600/IMAG0151.jpg
*Broken Clay Heart – https://claypotbroken.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/broken-clay-heart.jpg

Laced Together With Grace

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“When we keep our eyes on Jesus–remembering that He is the one we serve when we love others–the perspective and attitudes of our heart will be laced with the grace of Christ.” — Alyssa Bethke, from SheReadsTruth’s Colossians study

I love that phrase “laced with”. I’ve used it before in my own writing and it’s one of my favorite lovely phrases. To be laced is to be held together, held firmly. If I think of my heart’s perspective and attitudes as holding me together like a corset, informing my posture and gait, my attitude, and then I lace that heart corset with the grace of Jesus Christ, I can see His hand and love in everything.

When my soul aches, I can see Him refining me, just as a corset straightens my back and posture, and sometimes it aches, but it is being improved.

When I am tired and feel like I can’t hold up anymore, grace holds me tightly and reminds me that I can make it. I am supported. I can love, I can forgive, I can have courage, and be kind because I am constantly held up by Christ’s love and grace.

My word for 2016 is ‘grace’ and, as I am specifically working towards this, I hope it will come to be a part of me, my everyday wear, just as that corset might be, the longer I wear it. Kindness, love, compassion, empathy…my heart and actions laced together with grace.

 

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Reflections on Thirty-Three

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Author’s Note: Today, I turn 33 years old. It has definitely been an interesting three and a half years since my daughter was born and life changed in a big way. I think that I have learned more about myself in these few short years than in many others combined throughout my lifetime. I see myself differently, am taking better care of myself, am learning to love others better, and live my faith and purpose more honestly and, I hope, effectively. I do more than like myself at 33. I truly believe that I have finally learned to love myself.

= = = =

My form is a thing of beauty.

Take all your definitions of allure

And weigh them in your hands,

As I make mine my own.

Breasts, waist, hips, legs,

Arms, stomach, shoulders, back.

All I work to make strong.

This I do for myself,

For the good of my body as well as my soul.

To be strong enough in body to hold the skies on my shoulders

But soft enough in soul to hold joy in the sway of my hips

And grace in the reach of my hands.

My mind is a work of art.

Growing and challenged still,

Deeply considering and intense.

My intelligence has not been silenced by time,

But continues to grow and refine with new challenges.

My art is a meeting of thought and feeling,

Pulled together, chiseled, and shaped.

I share my art with a desire for hope,

Encouragement, uplifting, and joy.

I write to challenge to love, to kindness, to compassion.

I write to create refuge, worlds in which to escape,

To send out words that my own voice might find difficult to speak.

I sing to birth joy. I dance to proclaim free. I dress to cry beauty.

I write and post and mail to connect and pull threads together.

In life. In community. In love. In friendship. In chosen family.

I am a being made unqiue and becoming uniquer still.

The older I get, the finer I am becoming.

You should rejoice. I’d love for you to rejoice.

If you don’t, though, that’s your choice.

But, most of all, I just want you to smile with me.

Missing the Walk

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Today is a day for missing. As I walked out, in mid-February, into a day that is bright and sunny and breezy warm, warm enough to eventually shed my light hoodie, I found myself just walking around the playground while my toddler played. The sun warmed cheeks, neck, and arms, and I found my heart yearning and longing, deeply nostalgic. I texted to a friend, “Today would be a great day to walk. I am missing that today: just walking and talking with friends.” And I am. I am missing it terribly.

I miss the days walking through the neighborhoods just north (I think) of my apartment on UofE’s campus, my friend Leah and I just pouring out hearts and minds because we knew the other would listen, hear, love, and pray.

I miss walking through campus of an evening, sitting out on the Circle, laughing with my friends and listening to our echoes.

I miss quiet Sunday mornings walking through campus to church at BSU, the world still sleepy, quiet, and expectant of the day.

I miss nights being walked back to my graduate dorm by my husband-then-boyfriend, only to find out that he had left his car on the absolute opposite side of campus and neglected to tell me so he could spend that last bit of time with me.

I miss those first days of spring, those days when you can’t help but be outside. Walking barefoot and talking with friends about anything and everything, spectating ultimate frisbee games, napping on stone benches. Eating in little cafes, walking around malls, visiting comic and game stores, sitting outside at the coffee shop.

I miss being able to call up a friend to ask, “Want to walk?” and usually finding at least one person who would.

Oh, the miles that I must have trekked, the states’ worth of distance covered in those walks. But the distance didn’t matter. It was the time. Time I got to spend with people, being challenged and sharpened by them, gaining insight with them, learning them, learning to love them, and letting them see me more and more. The honesty, the vulnerability, the truth that I found myself sharing with people in those moments; that is precious to me. The spontaneous games of tag and footraces. The laughs that broke from me when I was caught and, usually, hoisted over a shoulder or grabbed up in a hug.

I feel like Rapunzel sometimes. You know, living far away from anywhere and anyone? I miss an arm around my shoulder or an elbow linked through mine as we go along. I always knew I could reach out and find support. Find a friend.

I still know that, and I still reach, even if the walks have lessened and the distance has widened. But I am just missing the walks today.

(Art) Today’s Heart-Speaker: Lisa Congdon

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A few days ago, I was gifted with a beautiful book by a dear friend: Whatever You Are, Be a Good One: 100 Inspirational Quotations, hand-lettered by Lisa Congdon. This book is simply gorgeous and full of so much wisdom and encouragement and spiritual beauty. I have taken to flipping through it daily since I received it, looking for something that might be that day’s heart-speaker and lay itself alongside the rest of the good that I have been gifted with. This, the second quote in the book, is one of today’s heart speakers:

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Sometimes, all I am called to do is to be still and love. Especially when my happy is bumped, my attitude is in funk, or my uglies want to come out, those are the most important times for me to be still, to be thankful, and to love. Who knows what miracles God will work in my heart when I do this? I could be kinder. I could be gentler. I could be more joyful. I could be better. Better than my bad attitude, better than my uglies. Better at loving.

Be still and know. Be still and be thankful. Be still and love.