Requiem: My Year of Losing Control

It's difficult to grab the pieces of yourself that are breaking off before they fall to the floor when you have a coffee pot in your hands.  My eyes looked out hollow, my heart beat listless and thick.  "What if....what if you just let yourself fall apart?", he said.  I sucked in breath, like I'd been shot.  Had I?  It hit like a bullet to the bone.  I could fall apart?  That was the day I excused myself from my regularly scheduled programming to look down and see that there was blood all over my shirt where my soul used to be.  I sat my coffee pot down and didn't stop crying for a year.

My eyes leaked grief and snot ran out my nose in front of everyone and I couldn't stop it and I didn't try to anymore.  I checked my map and noticed I'd arrived at the end of myself.  Hands reached out towards me and I shrunk back.  You can't take hold of hope when you're a ghost.  I floated out to the empty and sat down and looked up towards the dark.  Can I be done now?, I asked the nothing.  This tired feels too big.  And I'm invisible.  It sounded like nothing said "Yes."  But I had lost my hearing.

"Stand up.  I have something to say to you." It was seven years come and gone. The voice came from behind me like a clarion call.  It belonged to a stranger but it carried a weight that caused me to obey it.  I looked into the eyes of Truth that day and it scooped inside of me and drew out lies bigger than my mind could listen to anymore.  "God wants you to know He sees you.  He has heard the cry of your heart and He will not let you go unseen.  He will not let you go unnoticed."  

Years before, I had been in intensive care on a respirator to keep from dying.  With the tube still down my throat, I started to wake up before they were ready and tried to breathe on my own.   Nothing happened and I started to panic.  The nurse gave me something to put me back to sleep until I could stabilize and they were sure I was healed.  This day, though......this was the day my dry spirit bones woke up and breath whooshed in like an oxygen mask and I was resuscitated by my very Creator.  

It changes a person, to be known by Love.  As it turns out, to fall apart made room for the empty to be filled.  I sit peaceful now, breathing steady.  The nothing became Someone and I look out of  His eyes to see a road I have no control over. And I take in gulps of trust that fills my lungs with Life.  And I ride the wind brave, like a feather, because my heart is home.

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Christmas is for the Naked

Mark 14:15-52

"Now a certain young man having a linen cloth wrapped around his naked body, was following Him. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked."

I skimmed past those words to the next ones, the way you do when you're not paying attention to the familiar; like someone's face that's always been there and, you assume, always will be so you will notice tomorrow when you have more time. But then, my mind did a double take and I turned around and went back. I looked down at those words on the page and picked them up to look closer, reading them over and over again. Something rolled like truth over my heart.

This boy, this young man, had more than enough. Linen was expensive and reserved for the out of the ordinary in life. But he....he had the luxury of wrapping up in it to do the most ordinary of things; to sleep. In the middle of the night, Love walked by him and the townspeople raged fury loud.  He grabbed his linen sheet, this boy, to wrap around himself and followed the crowd.  They shook their fists at this Son of Man.  They'd built their world just so on ways of doing things, ways of not doing things.  They were clothed in their own security, buttoned up tight, smug and angry.

Who was this Man, who called Himself "Love", to show them a mirror and ask them to look in it?  Their reflection demanded a death, but they didn't want to die.  So He would.  Young man in linen, swept up in the furious death march swirl, was comfortably invisible. It seemed safer that way. In the beginning, it felt proud and promised importance to be seen as a part of this new "kingdom".  Now, he was clutching his linen, counting on it to keep him from paying any price he didn't feel the courage to pay.

From the center of the mob, hands reached out and caught hold of him, it says, and the young man rattled inside and panic ripped his linen covering from him and he ran naked from the dreadful possibility of being exposed as some kind of follower, some friend, of this condemned Man. He wasn't ready to give his all for this, so he bared all and strained for distance to keep himself safe.  What if this Man, and all that He'd promised, wasn't as big as what life was screaming in the streets.  What if his linen was all that he'd had to protect him and now he had nothing at all?

The question worked it's way through my veins cold as I remembered my own linen shrouds. I'd heard these same words, these promises of the Man called Love.  They fell on me true and I thought to wrap myself warm in them but always the doubt made the wind blow and I groped greedy for comfort.  A house in the country, rules for living, home ground grain and just the right clothes all stitched themselves into my "Love plus something else" blanket and I pulled it tighter around me so no one could tear it off of me and hunkered down lower when it threatened to shred. And then, one day, life got loud and my panic overcame me, and just like the young man in linen, I ran out from under my blanket and tore off down the street with nothing.  I was naked in front of everyone.  When I'd stopped running it occurred to me that under that thin blanket of protection I'd created for myself, I'd always been naked.  Silence filled my soul.  It turns out, I was naked from the inside out.

I've kept company with that fearful young man who ran away.  I understand him.  And I know what it feels like to stop running and look into the eyes of the Man called Love who came here long before I would realize I was naked, and trust Him to be more than enough.  This Christmas as I hang the last ornament and plug in the lights, I've got a special gift planned just for Him.  I'll lay a linen cloth just under the tree.  I won't be needing it anymore.

Fair Colored Stones and Sapphire Foundations

This will be difficult.  This will be my story.  My very particular, personal messy story.  I shake in my boots....the rubbery kind I wore when I was a kid that you pull over your "real" shoes?  Because that's what it feels like to talk out loud and brave; like my nine year old self standing in front of class.  Except, then I was trying as hard as I could to look as good as I could to all of you out there, and that's where I lived for the next many years.

Rule following was my "savior".  It was a way for me to measure my acceptability to God and to others.  I could mark my place with them, know where to stand and how high to jump.  Rules made me feel safe, because the truth was I didn't feel safe at all.  I'd been told God loved me in my sunday school class but  I lived with a nagging sense of walking into the midst of a party that I hadn't been invited to, at home and out in the world.   In a sense, rules became the "person" that made me feel loved and I trusted them.

I grew up and got married and the world became even more confusing to me.  I compensated for what was happening in my marriage that I did not understand by keeping tight company with my rules.  When I couldn't find a way to win the approval of my husband, I sought out other rules and gathered them up around me like so many bricks and began to build a wall high enough and thick enough to keep out the confusion. It's a shameful feeling, not thinking you're "enough" and so I found myself hiding behind my rule wall, smiling big and bright, in hopes the brightness would keep people at a distance so they couldn't see the cracks starting to form.

The years went by and the rules became ammunition between my husband and I.  We lobbed them at each other like grenades and they left bloody gashes on our hearts and spirits that left us weak and wounded and open to attack.  The enemy of our souls drove a stake in the ground of our marriage and I gasped my last breath and chose to raise my white flag and walk away.  I was reeling, and as I staggered for a rule to hold onto, I looked around and found nothing with which to build a bed to lie on and rest.  Romans 8:37 says that those of us who love God are "more than conquerors through Him that loved us."  As I struggled to find a reason to keep breathing during those days, I felt more conquered than a conqueror.

I'd lost the ability to raise my smiling mask and looked around at the broken rules laying all around me I had no way of redeeming and wondered what to do next.  "God?"  I said, to what felt like an empty room.  "Help."  That's all I could muster.  I had no idea what to ask for. He reached out and swept up all those broken rule-bricks and helped me to start over, learning how to trust how much He loves me, rubber boots and all. He blew my nose and washed off my face and set me aright and I learned the freedom in living authentically.  I trust Him now, instead of my rules, and that has made all the difference.  I live because I love God and I love because He loves me.

"Oh you afflicted one, tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold I will lay your stones with fair colorful gems, and lay your foundations with sapphires." Is 54:11.  That bright light you see shining from me now?  That's not my smiling mask.  That's my fair colored gems and sapphires He promised.

Miracles Are Made in China

 In China, when you find yourself pregnant, afoul of the one child law, you face severe repercussions for your family, potential loss of job, health care and access to resources.  If you give your child up for adoption, you may be arrested.  Many women are pressed into making desperate choices; leaving their newborns in an outlying area where they will not be seen, or worse  killing their child.

In the early hours of an October morning, 15 years ago, one brave woman risked all of that, wrapped her baby girl up in a basket and left her in front of a bar in the middle of town directly across the street from an orphanage. She was approximately 3 days old.  The police took the baby to the orphanage where they cleaned her up and gave her a name, Ji MeiQin, in english, "beautiful music".  She was placed in a wing with 80 other babies and thus began her miracle.

One year passed. And then one day, in a shabby little room in a social services office in Foshan City, China  an orphanage worker walked in and placed that little girl in my lap and thus began my miracle.  I loved her immediately.  And I would be the only mama she ever knew.  And as I sat staring at every single detail of her, just as I did with my biological children when they were born, I felt a strange pain deep in my gut.  Somewhere nearby was a young woman who would wonder, for the rest of her life, about this baby I held close to me.  I whispered a "thank you" and asked God to put it in her heart.

Because of that brave woman, my daughter, Naomi Mei,  celebrates her 15th birthday tomorrow.  She is light and joy everywhere she goes.  For those of you who know her, and will be wishing her a happy birthday, please remember to ask a special blessing for the woman who made this miracle happen.

I love you, Naomi.  You are a miracle.

Dancing in the Minefields

There are 81 days left in this year and I've begun to look back over the calendar in my mind....like sifting through a pile of old photographs....I pick one up and smile the wistful kind of smile that calls the day back, another makes me laugh out loud.  There's one that looks mysterious to me,  like I'm not done with it yet, some make me catch my breath and hold my hand over my heart to keep it in it's place.

I've traveled through the valley of the shadow of death, holding the flashlight, as my father said goodbye to this world; the very first person I ever called my best friend, I sat by his bed and sang him songs and reminded him of my memories when he didn't have any left of his own. He slipped away in the early hours of a new day and left behind a daughter who knew what it meant to have a dad who'd loved her well.

I saw my beautiful boy make his childhood dream come true and go off to make his way in the mountains under the western sky all on his own.  He walks tall and straight and sure of himself.  He's a man now.  He drinks his coffee black and reads books about the deeper things in life. I used to teach him his abc's and now I marvel at how he teaches me.   I will remember our midnight talks about anything and everything when the house was asleep; just he and I.  My mama heart fills up full with a love that threatens to burst and then, just at the last moment, it leaks out of my eyes and down my cheeks.  Goodbye, boy.  Don't forget to find the path back every once in awhile to tell me your stories.

I've found friends that feel like a change pouch full of gold coins.  They speak into my life and invite me to family celebrations and see my loose threads and lopsided pattern and love me in spite of them.  They don't leave me on the side of the road when I fall down and come and get me when I wander off, as I'm prone to doing.  They have taught me to take off my mask and shine.  And if my shine gets too shiny they put on sunglasses and wait patiently until I figure it out.

I put on my very first mother of the bride dress and watched my girl turn into a princess and cried tears there aren't words for.  I watched a handsome young man take her hand and lead her into a new life together with him and she will be his wife and the two of them will cleave together.  And it is good and right and beautiful.  I've seen her walk through, push through, dark places and insist on rising out of them and becoming whole and free.  She was once my little girl; she is now a hero to me.

I met a man and thought that it might be love and made friends with the disappointment when it wasn't.  I've learned to shake hands with what I don't always understand and press on.

I've danced in some minefields this year and I've come to tell you it has been worth the journey.  I've been, at different times, quietly worshipful and noisily grateful....and always knowing....God is at work.

Faithful Wounds

In the emergency room, one of the first things they ask you is to rate your pain, from 1 to 10.  The problem with that can be that my 10 is your 1 or...vice versa, and it's difficult to ever really know if we're communicating our pain level.  I've learned something recently......pain can be a gift you're willing to give someone if you love them.

Proverbs says...."Faithful are the wounds of a friend."  As a parent, there were many times when pain was something I had to allow my children to feel, from taking them to the doctor for a "procedure" that I knew would cause temporary pain to make them well, to watching them learn things...the hard way.... because I knew it was the only real way they'd learn.  They eventually grew up and realized the truth behind the pain; that I loved them.  I was their mama.

To be a friend, though, that's a more precarious position from which to pass out gift wrapped pain. They tend not to send you a thank you note.  They throw the present back at you and it cuts a gash in your heart.  Not that you blame them.  When you passed the pain present into their hands, you bled a little yourself.

I have a friend tonight who is mesmerized by a fire he cannot see.  I called out a harsh warning and tried to drag him with me to run away to safety, and in the process, it gouged him and hurt him and he looked at the wound and mistook me for his enemy.  And so I had to leave him behind, still standing in front of the fire.  It feels like pain and smacks heavy on my face like a hard slap.  I stand at a distance now, knowing that it looks like hate. And knowing nothing could be farther from the truth.  We each stand in our own emergency rooms now, assessing our pain levels.  He hurts for him.  And as I look at my own wounds, I realize, I hurt for him too.

That is love.

Stand, Forest, Stand!

I am a deer.  Soft and gentle; but alert, focused, highly sensitive to every snap of a twig and nuance of change in my surroundings.  I have been gifted with discernment and it has served me well.  I can take the "temperature" in any situation I find myself in.  I can be tranquil; playful in my world until I sense danger.  My head snaps up, I stare it down and if I feel threatened, I snort and my super power kicks in.  I become invisible.  Wanna know how I do it?  I bolt.

I've lived most of my life "on the bolt."  To do that, I had to come up with a foolproof plan.  I'd live separate from the herd.  They could see me but I kept my eye on them and one hoof pointed out, ready to run.  I would be a deer; I just wouldn't join in any deer games.  Living life as an invisible deer on the lam, brought with it a special sort of dilemma.  I didn't know how to be a deer or even if I was a real deer.   I began to believe I was a decoy. And the longer I lived "invisible", the more the other deer really didn't see me.  I grew defiantly panicked and began to seek out other animals that would take me in.  But I realized they saw me as prey and I hid.  I became listless and lifeless and my coat was dull, my eyes started to loose their sense of wonder.  I was an invisible deer with no sense of purpose.  I'd been left behind by my own choice.

And then, one day, out of the blue......another deer approached me while I was asleep in the field, exhausted,  and nudged me with her nose.  I was too tired to run.  She saw that I was weak, so she gently pulled me to a safe spot and began to feed me.  I grew stronger and made preparations in my mind to bolt.  But she came after me and sat on me and wouldn't let me leave.  I thrashed around and tried to bite her; I ignored her.  She would not let me up.  "Tell me who you are," she said.  And she looked me right in the eye and waited for me to answer.  

"I don't know," I said.  "I don't know."

That was the beginning of God loving me through another. I began to believe that I was loved.  And it changed my deer heart.  I have begun to use my deer gifts, not for my own protection, but for other deer I meet along the way.  My legs wobble and I start to snort and everything in me wants to bolt.  But my deer friend calls behind me...."STAND RIGHT THERE.  That is love.  That is who you are."

This morning, on my walk in the woods, I came across a deer in the path.  As I slowly walked toward it, we locked eyes.  I expected it to bolt.  Instead, it slowly walked just to the edge of the trees and I passed right by it.  That is me.  Learning not to be afraid to risk being a real deer.