Creating a masterpiece

Sunday's sermon was, in part, about approaching the kingdom of God as a child would. Without restriction, without limitation, without boundaries on what is possible. Like my earlier post about how we lose the ability to laugh like babies, at some point we stop seeing the impossible as possible. How much grayer the world becomes when that happens. 

The metaphor used was of an art canvas. A canvas that is blank and wide open with possibility when we are young children. As we go through life, that canvas gets colored in.  Sometimes it gets colored in by restrictions that others, or we ourselves, place based on our gender or skin color or other things not in our control. Other times it gets colored in based on things that we have found we enjoy or are good at, or things that we are not. Things get shaded further by the negative actions that we take or that we are subjected to. It gets colored in further by the job that we choose. Getting married and having children colors the canvas more. Until what we are left with is a small rectangle with an even smaller bubble we have limited ourselves to.

I'm no longer willing to live within that narrow rectangle and that constrictive bubble that I have created or that has been created for me. But as appealing as it may sound and despite how much easier it might be, I don't get to start over with a new blank canvas like I was given as a young child. And truthfully, I wouldn't want to. Because while there are some dark clouds on the canvas that I call my life, and lots of tear stains, and some pretty ugly paint splotches, there are also flowers. And there is beauty. So much beauty. Starting over with a new canvas would mean that while I would lose the dark and the tears and the ugly, I would also lose the beauty. That I'm not willing to do. Because that beauty outshines all the ugly. 

So what I've decided is this. I'm going to work with God to paint over those ugly parts. I'm going to ask him to add bright colors to the dark clouds. I'm going to add a layer of goodness on top of the tears. I'm going to pray for him to turn those ugly paint splotches into beautiful flowers. Those parts of the canvas aren't going to look the same as the ones that were beautiful all along. They are going to be more textured from the added paint. And they are going to have layers far deeper than the others. Because painting over those things doesn't make them disappear. The dark and the tears and the ugly are still there, but they won't be the first things that you see. They're just going to serve as a base coat for the things to come that will add new light and new color and new life to this canvas of my life.

I can't wait to see the masterpiece that God creates.

Old dogs and new tricks

I have always loved learning. I still do. There's not much that makes me happier than becoming interested in something new and reading and learning all that I can about it. It's part of my innately nerd curious nature. I absolutely loved college. Law school, on the other hand, sucked the life out of me. It was mind-numbingly boring and didactic and stressful and just all around sucked butter. And so for a long time after law school, I wasn't interested in learning much of anything else. My lifelong love of reading for learning was dulled.  I still would read, but only mindless entertaining fluff.  Time passed though and my love of learning returned, as did my love for reading to learn new things, and for the past probably 10-15 years, I've really had the itch to go back to school. I looked into getting my masters of social work at one point, as I felt that I had a unique perspective on social work issues from my time working in the legal system in the area of CPS law. But because my undergraduate degree is in journalism, there were many undergraduate prerequisites I would have had to get out of the way first, and I just wasn't interested in that part of it. And I was never quite sure what I would do with the degree, so it was hard to justify the time and the expense.

And then the kids got older and busier and more expensive and more in need of my time, so I set the idea of going back to school on the back burner. Until now.

Part of the process of healing for me has been to shed, like a turtle if you will, the old shell that I've now outgrown. In working on unbecoming the things I've always thought I was but that I really wasn't, I'm finding new opportunity and new space to become something new and different. In doing so, I've been praying for clarity on God's call for my life. Part of that clarity has been the realization that the future I thought I wanted, i.e., to practice law for a few more years then retire young to travel the country in an RV, really isn't what I want at all, or what I feel God is calling me to.

It's an exciting time, but not one without fear or surprise or all sorts of "Oh, shit" and "Are you sure, God?" moments. One of those moments is realizing that God is calling me into ministry. I still don't know exactly what that means or exactly how it will shake out or just what it will look like. But I know without a doubt that the calling is there.  Each time I talk out loud about what it might look like, I get a little more clarity as to the direction I should be going. My initial reaction was to think that it meant going an entirely different direction than I've been traveling, in a totally different area and way of doing things.  As I've looked at it more and talked about it more, I realize that I don't think that's true at all. I believe that God has plans to use the gifts and the skills for advocacy, that have been fostered developed and polished over the past 24 years, to advocate in a new way.

Part of that calling also, I believe, is to finally follow the dream that I've had for a number of years now to go back to school. I've begun looking into master of theology degrees with emphasis in social justice. I don't know how feasible it is financially or timewise to go back to school at a season of my life when I am working full-time and sending a kid off to college, followed very soon by another. What I know is this. If God is calling me to this, he will provide a way for it to happen. My prayer is that he opens the doors he wants me to walk through and closes the doors he wants me to avoid. That he will give the same clarity that he has given to me to my husband and my kids and my coworkers as this path will take a great deal of patience and understanding. Most of all, my prayer is that he will use me to further his kingdom. In the way that he has planned and ordained, rather than in the narrow and limited way I have always seen.

If you're wondering if I've lost my mind and gone completely crazy, the answer just may be yes. I'm definitely not who I was 5 months ago. I'm more. And I wouldn't go back for anything in the world.  So, if you're brave enough to ride this crazy journey with me, buckle up and come along. It's going to be crazy and it's going to be great. I can't wait to see what God does.

Belly laughs and joy

I had the chance to hang out at Vacation Bible School last night and today. I say hang out rather than work because truthfully that’s mostly what I did. This morning the husband and the baby of the children’s minister were there. And the baby, as babies do, just started laughing about something. Just an all out, full-bodied, totally without any self consciousness, belly laugh. And it made everyone around her laugh too, because that’s what baby laughter does. When do we stop doing that? At what point do we stop enjoying the little things in life so much that we just bust out in all encompassing joy and laughter over them? Perhaps if we did that, if we laughed with all out joy when we were happy, if we cried without hesitation when we were sad, if we showed love freely when we felt it, perhaps the world would be a kinder place. I think maybe we have a lot to learn from the babies around us. So if you see me laughing about something as if I’ve lost my mind, just go with it. And maybe try it for yourself. Maybe we can start a revolution of joy.

Of dust and ashes

I was at a women's retreat this past February. The theme of the retreat was "Cover to Cover" which emphasized the value of our stories and the connections that we make to each other because of our stories.  During the weekend, there were several times where ladies shared their personal stories, or speakers shared stories from scripture. These scripture stories weren't new to me. But the combination of the stories from scripture and the stories from the speakers led me to realize that there were things in my past that I had thought I had dealt with that were still haunting me. And so I emailed a safe person whom I had come to trust pretty deeply over the months prior, and I told her that I was working on dealing with some things myself but that there might come a time when I would need her help. Her response was I'm here when you want to talk and you don't have to do this alone.

I hung on to those words as a lifeline for the next month. I tried to work through things myself. Finally I admitted to myself this wasn't work I could do alone. I reached out to that safe person to ask her if we could talk. And so she picked me up for coffee one Sunday evening. We made awkward small talk all the way to Starbucks and part of the time after we got there. She knew I had much more to say but she let me pretend that I didn't until I was ready. And realizing I was never going to be ready, but that I had to say what I needed to say, I spent probably the next 30 minutes telling her most of the ugly things that had happened in my life for the past 40 years. I was so broken and so ashamed that I couldn't even make eye contact with her. I spent much of the time I was talking either trying not to cry or folding a napkin into an elaborate piece of origami, just to have an excuse to not look into her eyes. And yet she never took her eyes off me. She never looked away. She never looked shocked. She never looked repulsed. She just looked at me with the same look of love that she wore when I first began to share my story. When I finally finished talking, she asked some questions, to try to help guide me to ways that I could heal, and she asked me if I was willing to work with her in a coaching capacity to work through the things I had told her. And so with this precious guide by my side, I began my journey of healing.

Over these past several months, I've been doing some very deep emotional work. Part of that work involved dealing with childhood and young adult trauma. Part of that work involved forgiving myself for things that I have done to hurt both others and myself.  All of it has been difficult. I've had the blessing of having amazing friends to support me and an amazing person coach me through this work. She has challenged me. She has loved me. She has supported me. She has prayed for me. And most of all she has listened to me and encouraged me. I absolutely would not have been able to be brave enough to do this work without her willingness to walk me through this time. She has spoken so much truth and love into me. She has hugged me tight so many times, saying without words what I needed to hear, which is that I am worthy and I am loved.

Along to the road to healing, I wrote a number of letters.  Some to myself and some to others. Letters which allowed me to forgive myself at times. Letters which allowed me to see things in a new light and realize that I didn't need to forgive myself at all, but I needed to forgive others. Letters which allowed me to see myself with a compassion I had never before known. Letters which made me cry in the writing, and cry in the re-reading. Letters that helped me to heal. During a particularly hard time, my precious guide asked me if I wanted to figuratively put the things I was dealing with on a high shelf in a closed box for a time, to give myself a break from the difficult emotions with which I was dealing. While I ultimately chose not to, I did decide that I wanted to literally put the letters into a box and that when I was further along in the healing process, and when I was ready, I wanted to burn those letters and scatter the ashes at the cross at the retreat center where I had first realized I had such a need to heal.

This past Tuesday, after months of a lot of tears, and a lot of prayer, and a lot of cussing, and a whole lot of healing, I scattered those ashes in the water, to wash away and to leave me with a new start.  Fresh and clean, and without the dirt of the past.

And so my months of sitting on dust and ashes has come to an end. I know there will be hard days. Days when I try to pick up the baggage that I worked so hard to set down. Days that I question whether I am worthy. Days I struggle with shame and regret. But there are also days of joy. Days of excitement at what is to come. And most of all there is deep gratefulness for the work that God has been doing in me and prayers for his continued work in me in the days and months and years to come.  Because what I know is that he's not finished with me yet.  And the good work he started in me, He will be faithful to continue until it is completed.  Amen.

New beginnings

I had someone comment on a Facebook post that I made yesterday, asking why I was lawyering instead of writing, when clearly that was what I was supposed to be doing. Which really made me think. I love to write. I've always loved to write. It was what I did when I was young because I enjoyed it, and why I majored in journalism in college.

But at some point over the years, I mostly quit doing so.  Blame the busyness of law school, then the busyness of a career as a trial attorney, then the busyness of being a mom. The truth is, it's just a habit I got out of and never quite got back to.

But the truth is, that love of writing never left me. One of the most fulfilling things for me is to write a Facebook post that says exactly what I want it to say, and that makes just the impact I want it to make, and that causes people to think. I've said for the last several years that I create as a form of therapy. When I said that, I mostly meant through crafting or sewing. And that is therapy to me. But as satisfying as that is, it doesn't have the same satisfaction as writing.  I don't know why I ever let that go.

So, with all that said, maybe it's time to pick it back up again. When I decided this today, I went back and found the blog that I kept back in 2009-10, mostly prior to Facebook. It was almost entirely made up of photos of the kids, or my garden, or projects. And it was fun to go back and see how little the kids were, and how cute, but other than a couple of pretty poignant posts about the loss of our dog and my emotional reaction following, it wasn't what I was looking for. So instead of just picking that blog up again, I've started this one.

You will see that the title maybe isn't what you would expect. And there is significance to the title that I chose. I'll explain that in a later blog post.

I expect that this blog will be a bit of therapy for me. I've been learning and working on the idea recently of being vulnerable. And so I'm going to be vulnerable here. So please be gentle. And as I share my heart and my soul with you, I would ask you to share a piece of yourself as well. Because that's what creates connection. And connection is what makes the world most rich.