Tis The Season.

*Photo by the amazing Erica Bartel

We fight desperately for the unique connection that comes with the Christmas holiday.  Imagery and hope fill us, until reality and tension leave us clenching to an ever shortening rope that unravels somewhere between Christmas and New Year.

Chastened to enjoy the moment while commitments and need bang relentlessly at our already overwhelmed door.  As deeply as I long to be present, I equally want to fill my cocoa with too much schnapps and pass out under the lopsided tree.

Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook show me the perfect skill of my contemporaries, the unrivaled perfection of their all together home and lives.  Their houses decorated with light and charm, their children coordinated and smiling gleefully for the camera.  I trip over legos, scold my children, and bake half burned cookies, the frosting turns to an interesting state of brown after all of the colors are mixed together while my back is turned.

Christmas.  Joy.  Peace.  Harmony.

Or is it Chaos.  Tension.  Stress.

The well meaning will encourage us to enjoy the moments, their pressing guilt fills us with shame that perhaps we aren't valuing the hand holding and joy filled eyes enough.  If you are like me, you cuddled close to whichever sleepy head found your lap in the wee hours when dawn has not fully broken forth and your tree twinkles it's glistening lights, hot coffee in your hand, and this moment is the heart clenching breath of I love you mommy.  Only for the light to break free from the nights hold and suddenly it's shrieks of we're going to be late, get dressed, leave the ornaments on the tree, stop unwrapping the gifts, stop eating the advent candy.

Because life is not a succession of picture perfect moments.  It is in the chaos, the stress, the wild unnecessary pressure that we find little treasures of joy and peace and perfection.   It's while the kids are screaming about hating cutting down the tree that we laugh and run and smile.  It's the memories built over cups of cocoa and weary hearts finding each other in the midst of this ever changing world.  It's laughing at twinkling lights while we drive around in our old car, the heat fogging the windows.  It is the breathless I love you after chase and anger.  It's forgiveness and gentleness.

Enjoy this holiday, your winter season.  Enjoy the perfect in the middle of the ridiculous.  Smile at a stranger, give whole heartedly.  No matter how desperate we are to cling to this season, we will fall into moments of stress, frustration, and guilt.  Let it go.  Breathe deep and look into dark eyes that are pushing tacks into the hot cookies you just baked to take to the dessert auction.  Then laugh and maybe take a sip of schnapps.

When Life Overwhelms

Sometimes, life feels so big.  It hangs over us in scary shadows and we look up, hoping for a glimpse of the sun, between the darkened branches.

Heaviness can settle and the tightness in your chest threatens to rob your breath.  Joy is a hope, forgotten.

I feel my fist rising and long to shake it at the sparkling heavens above.  The storm clouds in my mind so big, so dark, so dangerous.

These things come, as they always do, in waves, that pull our legs beneath us, and our faces seeking air.

We cannot prepare for them, only ride them out, in the hope that the next won't carry us under, take us farther out.

I feel this way right now.

It is in these moments, that I am given a choice for my response.

So, often I'll lie under the weight.  Too discouraged or broken to move.  I'll thunder at the heavens and push forward in my stubborn pride.

I'll make things different.  I will fix this world, this life, with my own two hands and I press forward in willful determination.  Only, to find myself back in this place again.

The whisper of surrender sounds like a curse in my ears and all I want to do is rail and fight and triumph.

Each time it comes sweeter, rest, believe, enjoy.  Praise.  Be thankful.

Celebrate.

Even now, I look out and the grass is green, the trees hang their gentle leaves to kiss the ground.  Children's laughter carries with the wind and the call of the bird echoes.

Like Eeyore carrying his storm cloud everywhere he goes, I'm sucking life and joy into my black mood.

It's choices, isn't it.  When it feels as if everything is going to fall apart and truth, reality, and fear threaten our security, we get to decide how we'll react.

Will we fight our way out, curl in a depressed ball, or will we rejoice that nothing lasts forever.  That in the hurt and instability is a joyful hope, a peaceful surrender.

I breathe, and the sweet air fills my lungs.  I raise my hands and whisper a prayer of praise.  That in this, we are made stronger, His faithfulness is not dismayed by our circumstances.  In every moment there is a call to rejoice.

While I cannot control every thing that comes across my path, the realities I am forced to face, and the struggles that demand, I can choose my reactions and in the midst of the storming seas take hope, that there is rest in the bottom of the boat.

Even in this, my love, believe.
Be filled with joy and hope.
Do not surrender to your failings.
Or the voice that steals your truth
.
Fling wide your arms to the heavens.
Feel the scent of a grace filled rain.
Lift praise upon your lips.
Declare my pleasures.
It is more than your desperate plea.

New Years Day.

Happy New Year!

What an exciting day.  I love the start of the new year, the freshness that comes from a blank slate.  I plot out my goals and hopes for how I want the year to go.

This start is the most interesting I've yet to experience.  My house has been placed in storage, my husband is 4 hours away, and we have no idea what is going to come next.  We thought we had everything lined up and then all of the doors that seemed wide open, shut in our faces.

It's an adventure and I am looking forward to enjoying every moment.  My children and I are up at my parents house, enjoying the fresh mountain air, and the soul cleansing that comes from being in the country.

We have no idea what this year holds, but we plan to find a landing place, to settle, to cultivate deep roots.  There's a lot of blind faith and trust happening in our hearts.

I am not clouding my new year with resolutions.   I don't want to tip the scales toward failure.  I've set some goals that I look forward to reaching and I hope to take you along the journey.  I'll be blogging regularly about health and wellness, reaching goals, posting recipes, and living a rich and satisfying life.

I'm excited for this year and I hope that you are, too.  I wish you well, the fulfilling of your dreams.

daughters

Like a fairy she stands, flowers in her hair, mud on her face, tangled hair and dirty hands.  A flower torn from earth, roots shake and dirt covers my floor.  All for the bloom that barely had time to form.

Cherub face stares.  Eyes wide.  "Please stop a moment, and be with me."  Whispers in the silence of a rage I cannot hide.

Things must be neat, houses must be kept, dresses pressed and dainty, floors that must be swept.

She comes to me and haunts me in my day.  Little fairy wonder, longing for me to stay.  To be with her, in moments, when a list demands, I push from these still longings, to fight the demons that reside.

Kneeling to the girl child, that holds a flower in her hand.  I still for a moment.  Let lists fling from my hands.

I cup her muddy face, stare deep into her eyes.  Then I hug her and her dirt, let roots leave their trace upon my shirt.  Flower in it's water, kept inside it's crystal vase.

We laugh in child wonder and I find my perfect place.

Not in lists and laundry, with fat rolls, and with face, I'll be the mother in her memory who loves with desperate grace.

Stepping into the sea of trust.

Trust.

It is something that can be given, abused, treasured, broken, retracted.

How often does someone hurt us or lie to us and we respond with, 'now my trust is broken!'  It leaves one lost and separated.  There is not an easy return from broken trust.  The simple reason being that we leave the responsibility of repairing our trust on the one who harmed it in the first place.

I forgive you.  I just don't trust you right now.

Is not forgiveness the full return of trust.  A giving away of grace?

Danny Silk from Bethel Church once said that 'trust is a choice'.

That is something that has stuck with me.  I process it.  I try to live it.  It's taken me quite a while to understand how to exist, choosing to trust.

My past is a constant blunder of pain.  There would be moments that things would seem to flow in a small sense of security, then my world would turn upside down.  When it righted itself, I would be left desperate to preserve my safety and my peace.  Trust was left trailing far behind my need to protect myself.

I was able to talk to an amazing friend, Charis Scofield, a few weeks ago and she said very simply, 'you need to trust that God has good for you'.

And like I do.  I  pondered and mulled on that one statement.  God, what is trust supposed to look like?  In my experience, the moment I let my guard down and trust, I am met with heart rending pain.  What does it mean to believe that you have good for me?  My experience doesn't line up with that.

I have hedged myself in, desperately trying to guard against the worst possible scenarios.  Allowing what could hurt me most- to play often through my thoughts, that I may be prepared for the times that pain will come.  Because it will, pain will strike.  It will blind, break and make us bleed.  It is a guarantee of life.

I stand guarded.  Clenched and ready.  I am always prepared for the blows to strike, the friends to leave, the lover to dismiss me, the sickness to come.  I'm waiting.

And because we cannot exist in this state.  I have been breaking.  My constant stance against pain, causing me to only be aware of the very worst things in life.  I cannot see joy when I am looking for suffering.  I cannot believe there is good, when I am only waiting for bad.

Attempting to control my world, desperately trying to protect myself - has left me broken.

They say that when someone falls from a high height, the only way to sustain the fall is to be completely relaxed.  When you clench and prepare for the hit, you break every bone.

I want to share the little I've learned about trust.  I am not an expert - just a sojourner seeking peace, hungry for truth.

Trust is.

A resting place.  In my mind it is lying in a cool stream.  Head back, the hand of God beneath your neck, fully supported.  Knowing that waves of pain may come, choosing to rest and breath through them.  You cannot float if you are tense.  You have to completely let go of fighting the water and as you do - your body lifts, weightless, to rest on top the sea of life.

When you live as though trust is a choice you take back your power.  Choosing to believe the best and the good.  If someone wrongs you or fails you, don't search for it.  Allow it to come in it's wave.  Then wash off of you.  Step back into trust.  It is a great tool in your hand.  It is not meant as a weapon.

Trust is a place of peace, safety, and security.  All of the things, that in my life, I thought had been broken, were only taken because I rebelled against trust.  I refused to rest through the pain and instead sought to protect myself against it - this only caused me MORE pain.  I created the very thing I sought so desperately to avoid.

When you clench and struggle, you drown.  Every time.  Sometimes it's better to be punched in the face so someone can save you, then to carry both of you under.

There have been moments that dark imaginings and doubts creep so quietly through my place of trust.  I start to feel myself tensing, falling into old habits.  Then I pull back my mental wanderings and I choose to remember that I am letting my fear go.  I am resting in the stream of life.  My place of control is what I believe, and I believe that the promises are good.

People may fail me, but I am not going to set them up to fall.  I am not going to look for their mistakes or their struggles, to hold in front of myself, to remind me not to trust.

Rather, I live hand and heart open.

If joy is to come then I will dance and sing and live in the moment without fear of the shadows growing on the horizon of my mind.

If it is pain then I will let it wash over me, I will scream and cry, then let it go - let it run it's course and continue, even through the process, of resting in trust and peace.

I am amazed at the freedom I have found here.  As what once controlled me, no longer holds dominion over my thoughts.

Each day is a sweet treasure of peace.  The promises are - yes and amen.

To all lost in life.

Sometimes, the world stands against us.

Sometimes, fear stares in our face.

Sometimes, we stand against ourselves.

Sometimes, dreams aren't worth living for.

Sometimes, life is hell.

Sometimes, all we can do is cry.

Sometimes, we want to give up.

BUT.


Always, God is for us.

Always, heaven is waiting to invade earth.

Always, there is hope.

Always, life is worth living.

Always, truth remains.

Always, peace can be had.

Always, after mourning there is joy.

In the middle of chaos, in the middle of despair there is a battle that is being fought.  It is bigger than what we can see.  We can find ourselves swept away in the ripple effect of life, wondering how we can even begin to stand.  Depression, fear, hopelessness can loom bigger than truth.

Truth doesn't come in the torrent.  It doesn't come in the whirlwind.  It is in the still small voice.  It is in choosing to believe that whatever pain, whatever overwhelms, it is temporary.  You can sustain.  You can hope.  You can look to tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.

Your dreams are important.  You are valuable.  You have purpose.  Destiny.  Hope.

Right where you are, you are okay.

Peace to you.  and when you can receive it, Joy.