Tag Archives: Faith

Part One Of Leaving Kuwait: I Tried On Hope And Went To A Job Fair

November 19, 2016 By in Daily WP, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

I tried on hope. I tried on fearless hope. And for a few days I felt like the name-it-claim-it-Oprah’s-secret kind of people might really have something, like the send-it-out-to-the-universe people might be right. I was high on hope. I thought maybe I’d been missing something essential in my faith for decades and now, look, I was unstoppable and sure and able because I wore hope. Not long ago, my friend sent me one of those daily affirmation emails that landed in her inbox. The message was to change your narrative. I’d been thinking about that in light of faith, reminding myself of who I am in Christ. We tell ourselves a lot of stories about what we can or can’t do, about what we should or shouldn’t want. We need to learn true stories.

So I tried on hope. I have this faith that says I can do all things in Christ. I have this faith sewed up with hope and trust. But for years I worked hope in private, praying for healing or joy or contentment in my own body and mind. And when I admitted hope to others, I couched assurance in maybe later or probably not. Like I know it’s a long shot to write a book in Budapest or run a hundred miles or climb Kilimanjaro but I still hope I do.

Maybe I confuse hope and dream. A dream is like spun sugar. Even dark dreams are made of spindly wisps. But hope is a cinder block. Hope has weight and sharp corners. Your arms get tired and scraped carrying hope around. That’s it then. Hope isn’t a fuzzy shawl that imbues you with certainty. Hope is a cinder block that cuts into your palms. True story: hope is hard to carry. I must be doing it wrong.

I want to live in Nairobi. This desire surprised me a year ago. We visited my brother and his family and all I could see was green trees and red clay. My sister-in-law took us to an outdoor market where vendors expected bartering but charged a Western price anyway. I ran the hills each morning, up and down quiet streets lined with gated properties. I found alleyways and narrow paths cutting through fields. When we drove out of Nairobi, I imagined us in our own boxy jeep exploring the plains. I have this spun sugar dream of a linen shirt, kicked off hiking boots and a cold beer. I have this spun sugar dream of running to the edge of quiet and standing very still under sky unrolled by God. I have this spun sugar dream of my kids climbing backyard trees, eating thick skinned fruit.

I made Nairobi tangible. So when Justin and I decided this is our last year in Kuwait, I saw us going to Nairobi. I saw my kids growing up with cousins. I saw weekend morning coffee with a splash of Baileys. I saw Justin biking to work. This is about the time I decided to try on a fanatic brand of hope, making Nairobi something that just had to happen because it had to happen because I was hoping hard enough that this city was our next home. And I thought God had to give me this. I wasn’t asking for France or Argentina. I was asking for a country with fire ants and the nearby threat of al-Shabaab.

We had an opportunity. Our first interview in eight years. Later, I’d think how underwhelming we were, lacking concision and polish. Later, I’d cry because I supposed I’d wanted this place too much.

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I Hope I Sleep Tonight: Laying Awake Wondering Why I Write And What You Think

June 15, 2016 By in Daily WP, Process Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

I lay awake last night thinking about the Fahaheel essay. I wrote it two months ago, revised it last month and have turned it over in my head at least once a day since. Something bothered me about the latest revision. I crammed in too much. My ambivalence (occasional hatred) toward early motherhood, jealousy of friendships, scream for contentment. Framed by a beach I don’t want sullied by my litter. But I crammed that much in one piece because it all happened at once. I had babies and just about died of introspection. All my flaws and fears in block letter Sharpie. That first year with two kids was my most prolific journaling year and not by accident, the neat lines and black ink admitting truth, telling truth, hoping truth.

I was a mess. I like to remember I wasn’t all messy because that’s true too.

So I lay awake thinking why I write about insecurity and anger. Why I’ve got essays about unpretty sins like lust and envy. When we visited my brother and his family at Christmas, their church hosted a New Year’s service for people to share their testimony. What has God done this year? I remember a woman talking about how loving open confession is at her home church, how Christ-like for her brothers and sisters in faith to accept her after she confessed sin. And I remember a man standing and saying he’d been depressed all year and it never lifted and maybe that kind of darkness is the thorn in his side that doesn’t go away here on earth, but that even in the dark days, he knows God is faithful.

I lay awake thinking maybe I should stick with fiction. I like to make stuff up. It’s fun.

But I remain compelled to write my way through. Then I lay awake wondering if it’s a mistake to share my personal narrative. When I share anything from experience I deal with insecurity and fear. I rarely feel bold offering an essay to read. Sometimes I feel like I might throw up. Does nausea connote gravity, honesty? But I keep doing it. I keep going back to certain moments and relationships because I want to find something finished. Perhaps that’s why I lay awake at night, to root out conclusions to stories written entirely in the middle.

I enjoy marriage and motherhood. The past two years I’ve settled where I am. I can’t undo. I can’t redo. But I can be here. I laugh a lot more today. All the junk that started turning over years ago, still turns over but I’m (mostly) okay with the process. I’m (mostly) okay trusting God to refine me through whatever is right here where I am.

I’ll keep writing it all because I’d like us to be more like that woman who speaks her sin and finds forgiveness and acceptance and I’d like us to be more like that man who tells what it’s like to carry a burden you can’t put down yet.

There’s more. I remember those two people because I think that’s what we need more of: honest vulnerability. Not gluttonous over sharing but unashamed openness that asks us to check our pride as we write and revise, as we read. But I want to pair that with hope. My hope is Christ. My hope is all the junk gets redeemed, even if I can’t see how just yet. Years ago, I learned I don’t need to slap a tidy end on an essay. I need a good close, but I don’t need to teach you anything. What I’m doing here is finding a good close because it’s night again and when I lay down, I don’t want to lay awake wondering how I look on the page.

Stuck In A Pleasant Place

February 8, 2016 By in Daily WP, Uncategorized Tags: , , Leave a comment

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
Psalm 16:5,6 ESV

Friday afternoon I sat down with a coffee, my notebook and a couple of verses. I chose a phrase from the above to meditate on

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places

and wrote the line followed by a thought on the phrase. Then I rewrote the line followed by another thought on the phrase. I did that fifty times.

When you write and respond to phrase thirty or fifty times, something shifts. You have to abandon expectation around fifteen or twenty and open yourself to looser associations or unexpected connections. You let your mind and heart wander without judgement. I’ve tried this exercise with the phrases Because, I love you and Thank you. When a friend mentioned this approach as a spiritual exercise to exploring a single verse in the Bible, we talked about the necessity of repetition to rooting ourselves firmly in our faith. There are prayers and rituals, but there is also the need to say truth more than once. And so I have stretches when I reread a single book of Bible or return to a couple of chapters to tell myself again what I need to hear for the day.

I was a senior in college when I first read The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places (NIV) and it meant something to me. In the years since, God has brought that verse to mind as a promise. After last week, I returned to Psalm 16. Perhaps guessing it’s a go-to for fast assurance, a little spirit pep talk about contentment. But when I spent an hour responding to the single phrase, more came: prayer and repentance. This life is not about my happiness but about God’s glory. God gives great joy and walks us through great sorrow. But to suppose my faith inoculates me against unpleasant places, people and situations is wrong. There’s a leap I have to make to say The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places and that leap is more trust in God. I don’t lie about where I am here on earth, but I yield to God’s sovereignty.

Right now, where I am is a difficult place to live. For me. So to spend time rewriting The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places was a small fight. I heard the line fifty times. I saw it in my own handwriting fifty times. There is no “maybe” or “sometimes” that opens the phrase. Instead the line is declarative. I humble myself to God’s mercy and authority. My complaints do not negate his love. If I trust more (Spirit, help me), then I open to this understanding: where I am is a pleasant place, not for the soil or water or air itself, but for the God who knows me and draws lines in the sand and says Even here. 

I will think about this for a while yet.

Church

December 4, 2015 By in Daily WP Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Last of the single syllable vignettes. I have an order in mind for the pieces. After revision, I’ll post the all four as I want them read. But now, the last draft. As with the sea walk, I’ve more to say about church. But this is the simplest of starts.

House Church

We hear of a house church, go for a month or two. Our girl is small. She cries and I take her up the stairs to a bright yard fenced by shrubs. We wait. There is a cow tank in the yard. We quit church.

When we go back to the house church we have our boy too. We are tired each day. While the church sings I nurse my boy and give my girl bread and fruit. I eat truth. I am still tired.

God wants all of me. There are parts I do not yield. I think I want to. I can’t see how. The church sings, lifts hands, shouts. I sing, lift my hands. I weep. I have this hurt I want healed. I shout for that, when I am in the car with my girl and boy in their seats. I drive and shout I want this hurt gone. This hurt has a deep root and takes years to heal. I ask. God is firm and kind. I ask. He does not stop a good work. I ask for love and joy. I need love for my girl and boy. I want joy for my day.

At church there is a song or word or verse and I break. All week this goes on. A song or  word or  verse and I fall. This is what it is like to be made. I want to quit. I beg for more love, more joy, more peace.

I let go more.

One day the church can’t meet in a house. It’s a law so we leave the house and move from one hall to the next. The halls aren’t clean, but we go. The church sings, lifts hands, shouts. I still can’t shout. But I want to know how much is all.

Recent Reads: One God Book, One Parenting Book

May 3, 2015 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

First, the God book. I parse my issues. I like to know the root. I think about what I need to give up or forgive or atone for. So I picked up Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero after a pastor I listen to recommended it.. Despite spirituality being in the title, I need to note that Scazzero writes from Christian perspective, holding that Christians have deep spiritual needs we must address if our desire is to live our faith more fully. Scazzero spends the first chunk of his book assuring readers it’s okay to have feelings. This really cracked me up because I have loads of feelings all the time. But there’s a lot we don’t like to look at or take our time getting to and I respect that. I can be very insecure about some things or feel like I don’t belong and I’d like to know why I wobble in those ways when I am fully accepted in Christ. I’d like to know why there are times when God’s love isn’t quite enough but an invitation from ___ would make my day.

My suggestion (and Scazzero’s too, I think) is to read the book slowly. He leads us through ways to understand why we act (or react) as we do – depending on family, our understanding of God, personal expectations. He writes with patience, acknowledging that growing in our faith takes time and that uncovering hurts or roots of behaviors and beliefs can be difficult, even if necessary. The last part of the book gives a range of ideas about how we can nourish a daily spiritual life. One suggestion I am practicing is the Daily Office, a tradition kept by monks that I also see reflected in the call to prayer here: simply stopping three to five times a day to be quiet in the presence of God. I am not disciplined in this yet. But one way I take time to pray and listen is by turning off the car radio while I drive. It isn’t the same as meditation, but can reset my mind and heart.

One reason why I need to reset my mind and heart is that I have two kids I’m driving home to. Which brings me to All Joy And No Fun by Jennifer Senior. Great book. I read it because I guessed that any woman who admitted she’d turned out okay on a childhood diet that included processed food would probably not heap guilt on my parenting choices. I also read it because I’m a parenting trends junkie after failing to totally love my role as mom. Early in parenting, uncertainty led to comparison which led to frustration, anger and, eventually, bitterness that I’d married and borne children at all.

(See above, issues!)

I was wading through love and hate in a single day. I read about parenting, found a few parenting podcasts, talked with other moms, begged for patience and wisdom. I still have parenting insecurities even if I am more satisfied in marriage and family. But when I started Senior’s book, I still hoped for validation, that I am doing okay. That I sought validation from a book about today’s (insanely over-involved) parenting culture and why said culture may promote personal / social / familial imbalances tells me I need to return to prayer re: security, wisdom. So reading the book made me feel a little smug that I am, at least, uninterested in falling into the overscheduled-too-attached-high-stakes parenting that’s so so so North America right now.

Except, once the book was done, my smugness went thin again and I’m back to a Daily Office, hoping wisdom and peace and joy fall fast.

Valleys Of The Shadow Of Death

December 22, 2014 By in Daily WP Tags: , , Leave a comment

One of our pastors, Doug, died this week. He had back pain last spring. Doctors found a tumor wrapped around his organs. They guessed it’d been a slow growth for seven or eight years. Maybe it was already too late but Doug and his wife, Bia, went to the States for treatment. As a church, we prayed. Some prayed fervently for a wild miracle. Doug and Bia walked in small miracles near the end of his life.

On Friday, the message included  Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.
ESV

At first, I thought the psalm was a response to Doug’s death, a pat reminder to us living believers that it all goes okay at the end. I think of Psalm 23 as great for the emergency room. It’s that bit about the valley of the shadow of death. I’ve read it in that light, dismissive of the passage’s succinct truth about God’s full care for his people. I’ve read it thinking that my valleys are not so shadowed as those walked by others. And so, I’ve read it feeling undeserving of the promises too.

Pastor Alan read Psalm 23 as truth for each of us. My valley of the shadow of death is not a too-short stay in a cancer ward or the loss of a partner. My valley is tired, discouraged, doubting, sad, wounded. My valley of the shadow of death is not wanting to get out of bed in the morning.

I get out of bed anyway

for you are with me.

Psalm 23 is rich. It’d taken a worn hue after decades of hearing it, not for me, not really. Ask for new comprehension. Read it slowly.

More Than My Chosen Portion

July 5, 2014 By in Daily WP Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Another round of overthinking. I wish I were blind to my heart sometimes. This from my WP, an extension of previous posts and essays. I am near desperate to write the one that says I’ve got the whole thing figured out.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance.
Psalm 16:5,6

There is a church song with a line in its chorus that says “Christ is enough for me” and when I sing it I want it. There are days when I am ready to abandon my nets and let the dead bury the dead. There are minutes when I see my stuff and my body as dust. There are shifts in my perspective when I get an eternal eye and want more than anything to follow the radical Christ who says I must be willing to lay down everything.

The state of my heart hammers me. The last few years have stripped me of pretense. I have no desire to play Christian. Instead, let me be refined so that I am. Still: I want what isn’t mine and am jealous to keep what I hold. I am afraid to lay down everything, unsure that Christ is enough.

I want more than my chosen portion.

I want what’s over there. I want what you have.

And in my relationships – I am not always a servant. I am not always loving. Sometimes I want your approval. Tell me you like me. Flatter me. Chase me. Need my thoughtful insight. Want my clever brilliance.

Tell me what you see in me is good.

In Christ, I am good. Whole, covered, free. Why do I seek more than my chosen portion? Why do I not trust that this marriage family place church work body moment is my pleasant place? I bang my head against these questions, again again again.

The Knee Prayer

April 5, 2014 By in Daily WP, Process Tags: , , , 1 Comment

God, I write.

Father, I write.

Please, I write.

A few lines or paragraphs or lists of wants, needs, sins. I write prayers for the same reason I write many things: for the right expression or understanding. I write prayers to slow myself and think about what or whom I am seeking.

A couple of years ago, I knelt down to help my son with his sandal and I felt a tightness in my right knee and quad. I knew immediately something was wrong but ignored the pull, running for another week or so, until my knee swelled so painfully, I had to stop. I’ve been looking for a tidy summary of that year and half long experience, waiting for my knee, which had no physical injury appear on an MRI, to heal. Physical therapy provided my body with much-needed strength training, but my knee didn’t heal.

My notebooks from that time are packed with prayers about my knee. I confessed selfish motivation, on multiple pages. I played with syntax and logic. I wrote a single line over and over like a mantra: Please heal my knee. I thought if I hit the right combination of words – written or spoken – with the proper measure of humility and boldness, then God would just heal me. And it didn’t happen and it didn’t happen and it didn’t happen.

Until it did. But not because of a perfect combination of words written longhand. I don’t know why my knee finally healed when it did.

I am writing about that experience, carefully. I pressed hard into prayer. I often felt abandoned, stupid or misled as I sought healing. A lot churned up in the process: selfishness, idolatry, vanity, anger. It was a knee: it wasn’t cancer or paralysis or divorce. Now I am writing about the knee without knowing what clarity I’ll find from remembering, or what I might open to: questions of faith, prayer and healing. Very likely, I’ll write around the topic and leave it again, for another time.

But I think even that is worth it.