In Suspense and Incomplete

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I wrote this post a year ago reflecting on what had been three years of living in Nashville. Reading it now it feels almost a bit self-prophetic.

“It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.” (Donald Miller)

Returning home to Nashville after 11 days of traveling earlier this week I was unnerved by my lack of excitement. I couldn’t wait to be home, but for the first time in as long as I can remember my soul wasn’t longing to be back in Nashville.

I walked into my apartment hoping for that “ahhhh, I’m home” feeling. I’m still waiting. I missed my friends, sure, but not in the way I used to. I was glad to be sleeping in my own bed, but that could’ve been in any city. I was happy to be back in the Southern part of this grand country but just so that I could say y’all without getting funny looks and even strangers would be hospitable. But a certain giddiness about returning home was missing.

Is it possible that I’m falling out of love with this city that has been such an instrumental part of my story? That’s a scary question to ask aloud. Because the truth is, I want to be giddy about returning home here. I want it to still feel like home. I want it to be the place where I feel like I belong.

So what do you do when you’re living somewhere between before and not yet? How do you find peace for your soul living in limbo as it senses change coming without a clue what that means or looks like.

Perhaps there is nothing to do but continue living, and waiting for the next step, knowing that you’ve survived leaving before and you can do it again.

“Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Those Things We Call Friendships

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“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest of courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but rather the solidest things we know.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We toss the word “friendship” around loosely these days and in doing so we’ve cheapened it’s meaning. A lot of what we call friendships are merely connections.

Connections are those people whom you say you’ll get together with…and you do…six months later. They’re the people you probably won’t hear from unless you reach out to them or bump into them around town. Most of what they know about your life comes from Facebook and Instagram, and when someone asks them about you they’re response will likely be centered around what you do for a living.

Connections aren’t bad but I’m learning it’s dangerous to call them friendships. 

Friendships are those people for whom you rearrange your calendar. They’re the ones who text or call just to share a funny or exciting story from their day. They’re the ones you text or call for the same reasons. They’re the ones who give you a hard time if they find out about a significant life event of yours on social media before hearing it from you directly, the ones who know the details of your life that are too sacred for social media. When someone asks them about you, they proudly share details about who you are and what you mean to them, not just what you do.

Friendships are hard to find. And they’re not so much waiting to be found as they are waiting to be built. 

As I get older, I become more convinced that true friendships are relationships almost as sacred as a marriage and almost as hard to come by. Now, I’m not married and it’s a different kind of intimacy, but I know that any true relationship requires vulnerability and vulnerability in any context is hard work.

With the wisdom of hindsight, I realize that many relationships I thought were friendships were merely connections. Again, those connections aren’t bad but believing they were friendships left me failing to understand the value of actual friendships. Oftentimes, while I enjoyed the company of those connections, I felt like something was missing. That missing feeling left me hesitant to place too much value on friendship at all.

As my understanding of what friendship truly is deepens, I can honestly say that I have some of the first true friendships of my life now at the age of 29. Some of those friendships are a few years old now, and the older a friendship gets the more valuable and treasured it becomes. I can also say that for the first time in my life I understand the responsibility and gift of being a friend to others. It is not a role to be taken lightly.

I agreed to meet a couple of friends for lunch. We had discussed a 12pm-ish meeting time so I left my apartment accordingly. Halfway to the destination I received a text that is was going to be 12:30. Okay, I’ll go to the nearby park and knock out some emails on my phone. 12:30 came and went. 12:45 rolled around and one friend said she was almost there. So, I headed to the restaurant. Fifteen minutes later that friend actually showed up. And the other friend another 10 minutes after that. Can I tell you I was upset? I was not a happy camper and my friend could tell. She straight up told me I was unpleasant and almost cancelled lunch because of it. In the moment that made me more upset. But, we pushed through it and lunch was more than enjoyable.

As ugly as those interactions seem in the moment, in hindsight they are some of the most treasured & beautiful because they are moments when friendship is handled with the roughest of courage. In those moments we are reminded that true friends are safe, and that we are loved not in spite of our flaws but as our whole selves – flaws and all.

Oh how I treasure those relationships that I can treat with the roughest of courage. Even when I think the ground has been shaken, my friends quickly show me that our friendship is rock solid. It is grace and love in the flesh.

The Fear of Being Found Out

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a thousand people stood in line
to hear a couple words of mine
afraid i will miss a beat
and everyone’s watching me

i don’t know why i’m still afraid
it’s not like it was yesterday
i’m the one stopping me
from all that i want to be

If Colbie Caillat sings about it I know I’m not the only one who fights the fear of being found out.

In general, on the surface there’s not a lot that scares me to the point that it holds me back. Usually the fear of “what if?” wins out for me. But recently I’ve had to own up to my fear of being found out.

Maybe you know the fear – your anxious spirit perpetually on edge waiting for your life to come crashing down around you. Your life – who you are, what you do, all of it – feels fragile.

There are moments when this fear can be all consuming & down right paralyzing.

It usually starts from a very positive thought or overwhelming gratitude – “Is this really my life? Do I actually get to live this story?” I have that thought at least once a day. But when I think about it too long doubt creeps in & starts asking me who I think I am to be living this life.

It was four years ago today that I made the move from Appleton to Nashville. Not only did that move relocate me physically but it took my life in a direction I had never ever imagined.

When your life looks so different than any story you could’ve written or any plan you could’ve constructed, it’s almost impossible not to be overwhelmed by the greatness of it. It naturally leaves you feeling like you’re living in a dream.

Most of the time I find myself living waiting to wake up from the dream – certain that the moment is going to come when the plot completely turns & I’m suddenly living in a nightmare. The moment I realize that what I’ve thought is my life really was just a dream after all.

I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this fear & I think it has a little something to do with self-worth. Something has convinced us we aren’t worthy of or don’t deserve the life we have. And while it may be true that we don’t deserve it we live in a world of grace that doesn’t so much care if we “deserve” it or not.

One of life’s greatest gift is moments when we get to see ourselves through other’s eyes. My friends are one of life’s best mirrors – I learn more about myself by listening to them than from any self-discovery process I try to engage in. Listen to how your friends would describe you and chances are you will hear that you are completely worthy of the life you’re living even if you don’t “deserve” it.

Through other’s eyes we see that we are worthy in spite of our struggles & weaknesses & that most of the time we are our own worst critics. In those moments we’re reminded “I’m the one stopping me from all that I want to be.”

photo-2I got a new tattoo a couple of weeks ago – the emblem from the Tennessee state flag. It sits on my forearm right under the word “surrender” It’s my daily reminder of the story that has been & continues to be written for me. A story that I am worthy of living because of grace. It’s the story of a girl who, surrounded by the spirit & community that is Nashville, has learned how to be. A girl who is learning to own every bit of her story, celebrate the unimaginable, & step out of her own way.

When Grace Looks Like Laundry

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A few months ago I was on a long weekend road trip helping a friend shoot on the street interview videos for a project she’s pursuing. In the lovely little city of Asheville, NC we met Sally.

Sally shared the story of her battle with alcoholism. She recalled the day she got sober – the day she woke up to find that her husband refused to go buy her usual daily box of wine from the liquor store. She went back to bed and finally crawled out sometime around 2:00pm. She had been drunk for so long that she didn’t know how to participate in her life as a sober person. What really struck me was what she did next. After feeling sorry for herself for a while she got up & started doing laundry. She had no clue how to “be sober” but she knew she needed to participate in the simple actions of life again & laundry was something she knew how to do. It was a life preserver she could grab hold of while she felt like she was drowning.  

For a lot of my life I used work & busy activity as a way to avoid feeling, to avoid life. And there are times when I can still fall into that trap. But at the same time, when life feels like it’s spinning out of control all around me & I’m gasping for air, the work of life can be like a life preserver

Growing up in church, I learned early on to over-spiritualize everything. When life knocks you to your knees that’s the best position to pray in, right?! That line of thinking would tell me that when life feels like it’s spinning out of control I should pray like I’ve never prayed before & God will give me peace.

I don’t doubt that God is the source of all peace. And that He grants it even when we don’t ask for it. But I’m discovering that doesn’t mean I have to sit idly by. Sometimes simply participating in the mundane activity of life gives me the space to catch a breath. It’s a handle to grasp onto. And as I go through the motions God’s love & peace soak into my heart through the back door that is unguarded by fear & doubt.  

And Guest

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I pulled the invitation out of the mailbox and I immediately had that “I don’t like how this feels” feeling in my gut.

“…and guest”

The site of those two little words immediately made my heart sink just a little.

Last they knew I was dating someone…seriously enough that I was posting pictures on Facebook…which was the only reason they knew because I don’t talk to my family often let alone about my dating life. But they knew about him and they were insistent he come with me on my next visit. In July. For the wedding.

The invitation has arrived. But he is no longer in my life. And no one has filled his spot. When I saw the words “and guest” I immediately felt the shame and pain of that void. The sadness of the loss came rushing back.

And not just shame. But the difficult admission to myself that I really want someone to be in his place. I want a name to put in the guest line. Not having a name to put there is lonely. Isolating. It can cause me to feel like I’m not enough if I’m not careful.

Six months ago…for that matter six days ago…I would never have let myself seriously consider posting a blog that had anything to do with relationships. But, here’s to living life a little more vulnerably & letting go of trying to control people’s perceptions of me.

It’s amazing the flood of feelings & thoughts that can be started by two little words, isn’t it? But I’m learning to pay attention to those little feelings & thoughts because I’m beginning to think my truest self lives in those gut instinct reactions, the ones I all too often miss.

One Word 2014

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I’ve spent weeks thinking about a word for this year and I thought I had landed on discipline. I would devote 2014 to getting life in order, setting rules for myself, having a more rigid routine…all of which boiled down to one ugly word: control. It hit me that I wanted to focus on discipline because life feels out of control and discipline would allow me to restore some sense of order to it. But I’ve spent my entire life trying to control and every single time I finally find myself curled up in a teary ball giving up…because life isn’t found in a death grip.

In that same conversation with myself I realized that all I’ve desperately been searching for the past few months is to feel alive again. To be raw to joy and pain and everything in between – to simply be able to feel. As I’ve sat in a counselor’s office the last 8 months the “issue” has been I’m apathetic and that’s not me but I can’t figure out how to fix it.

The last three and a half years have been packed full of growth – emotional soul growth. There’s been a lot of hard work done to embrace feelings with courage and honesty. To accept reality for what it is – resisting the urge to judge it as good or bad. To let go of plans I had consciously and subconsciously made for my life and be okay with life unfolding as it comes. To give myself as much grace as I give others. 

They’ve also been packed full of life. Quitting a job, giving up a dream, moving to a new unknown city on a whim with no job and a Craigslist roommate, new church, new community, all new friends, losing old friends, losing new friends, learning what it is to love, learning what community is all about, new job – one I decided to create for myself, a lot of travel, and little to no rest. It’s been wonderful and exhilarating but also exhausting. I’ve been tired for a while as a result of it all but I’ve continued pulling myself up by the bootstraps as they say and trudging through.

But trudging is no way to go through life. So when I went looking for a new word I discovered revive. I was quite excited because it rings of joy and life. Then I went looking for the definition and something hit me: if revival brings back to life, death must happen first. Perhaps this word is going to be a little harder and a bit more painful than I thought. But it’s going to be worth it.

Revive: to bring back to life or consciousness; to impart new health, vigor or spirit; to restore to use, currency, activity, or notice; to restore the validity or effectiveness of; to renew in the mind; to present again

Here we are halfway through the first month of a new year & I’m finally finding a moment to compose these thoughts. After starting 2014 off recovering from the holidays only to get strep throat, revival is a very welcome thought! My hope for this year is that I get to catch my breath…and have time to take a few deep ones.