Tears

There is something about crying that depletes the body. It's actually quite interesting as I can't think of any other physical thing I do that drains me more completely than crying. I don't know why that is and I can't explain it physiologically any better than this: I feel empty and exhausted afterward. Physically I mean. And...emotionally as well. Both body and soul are thoroughly drained.

I don't mean shedding a tear or two during worship kind of crying, a good TV show or even listening to someones story and "crying" with them. I mean the all out life falling apart feeling where you just go full on guttural and wail it out.

All the welling up, the shock, the coming face to face with the big fear, the prospect of letting go, of giving up that which is most dear and sacred - to the point where you can hardly breathe and get dizzy and are uncontrollably lost in emotion. This...is more than the body and heart can handle.

And so we bawl. Actually I sob - loud enough to wake the dog from a nap. I whine too, kind've a whimpering and pouting while the tears stream down my face. And I've noticed I yell too, mostly in a rhythmic telling God off sort of way. It feels like a spiritual wrestling that lasts for days and usually involves me saying "No" or "HELL no" or an all out pleading "pleeeeeeeeeaaaaseeeeee...don't let this get taken this away!!!!!!!!!" about 1500 times.

It's INTENSE at first, and even surprises you that it lasts for days afterward. With the grief's I've encountered so far in this life I've found I can cry almost 24/7 for about 2 straight days (day and night). For me, my eyes even swell half shut (which is a real treat to have to be seen in public when that happens). But the faucet of liquid coming down my face and the yelps coming out of my soul can indeed last for 2 full days.

And then....there's just the empty. Everything gets very quiet after the tears have mostly run their course. Depression makes its way in and out of things too. But it's the silence that I've been paying attention to this time round.

I love the silence in that it helps to soothe me. It feels like reprieve. Is everything going to be OK after all?

I hate the silence in that it offers no answers and feels like it is mocking me. Feelings of hopelessness come in and out.

But every time in the silence what I experience is acceptance. This is happening. It's going to happen and you are already in it. This is happening. You are going to through it. You are going to walk through that door again, the unknown door that you never ever ever wanted to open. Accept this.

I'm having trouble remembering what happens after the silence and acceptance. I know joy comes at some point again but I cannot remember how long till she comes. I suppose it's different with each grief we face. I am not there yet this time round. I am numb and I am silent. I feel emptied out of emotion though the tears still come when another reminder is found. But the tears are just sporadic now. Now is the silent time. The time in which acceptance must come.

Acceptance is important. It's the only way to really let Him into it. He's a great crier and holder of your shaking body as you lean into in His arms. But to actually listen and allow Him to come and rest inside and accept what it is and where it is He is taking you to next - that... well that is the sacred, holy, and very scary place to walk. But I know it's full of Him. I know I'll walk through the door though I've been explicitly clear that I'd prefer not to, thank you. I will walk through it. And that is enough. It has to be enough for today.

For Hebrews says

"...He rewards those who earnestly seek him." ~Heb. 11:6

OK then. Seeking I will do. Reward please come.

Fall at home

Make a Smilebox photobook

Everybody loves the pumpkin patch

My first ever video I made in imovie. If you have never ever tried such a thing (using movie making software)...It's hard!! :) I have absolutely no idea how to fix the timing of pictures, how to turn up or down or fade the music, or to keep it from cutting short at the end. Maybe I'll try again someday. That said, enjoy a little snapshot into my day today. A preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch with my 4-year-old boy. It was wonderful.

Wonder abounds in kids. Wonder apparently still abounds in me. Puppies, bunnies, ponies, baby cows, baby chicks, young chickens, baby pigs, goats & llamas - we're all in! Hilarious really, we all just walk around smiling listening intently to the tour guide tell us about the animals and ask our questions. Fascinated to see them crush up apples with a 100 year old machine and taste that (oh my gosh heaven!) perfect taste of apple cider. To learn about different kinds of pumpkins and gourds, and really...just to be outside in the fall. Watching our kids at our feet and trying to keep up with them. Stopping now and again for a snuggle and another wonder moment as we learn something we didn't know before.

Sacred these moments are. Sacred!

Holiness

I've started to follow a blog I've heard about for awhile now called A Holy Experience. Best I can tell it's a mother contemplating life raising her children but all in the context of what God is doing and what she is hearing/learning. If you clicked on the link here you've undoubtedly felt the experience of it. Excellent photography of her kids and nature mixed with tranquil music that surprises your blogging senses, awakening you to your soul and heart.

In her recent posts she talks about a book I hope to read soon and all the ways slowing down helps her not miss the beautiful and the holy. This talk of slowing down to listen reminds me of a book I'm finally finishing called "Seeing the Sacred" by Ken Gire. All this reading and thinking. So much going on in people's hearts and lives, and in mine.

I've found lately that I'm coming into a new way of being. Listening. Watching. Waiting. Quiet. Moments. Paying attention. Trying to tap into the Holy. I'm craving it.

He seems to be moving everywhere. In all the moments and colors of leaves. Holding my sons hand and a glance between my husband and I. In the sacredness of listening to someone, praying with another or crying. Just a quick hug in a doorway as I dropped something off yesterday and watching her son run around and the baby in her arms. Sharing breakfast this morning for my dear friend for her birthday I found myself thinking...this is Holy. Walking to the movies tonight with my family and friends, the wet leaves at our feet and warm air blanketing us. I can't explain it...I just FEEL it. Him. Beating in my chest and welling up within me. His voice. His kindness. Himself. Sometimes overwhelming and awing, and other times soft and peaceful.

Slow. Slower still. To the point where even amidst the tons of stories, emails, people I'm thinking of, phone calls, texts, hyper boy, my thoughts and tasks swirling around me and through me - I. am. still.

I wonder if that is what God's holiness is like. Untouchable in the chaos. Standing alone in beauty when everything is crazy and confusing all around. All the while He is shouting like thunder and whispering in a mist - "I am".

When a birth mother loves you

You know your son's birth mother loves you when:

• She comes over when you are sick and hugs your sicky body anyway

• Brings dinner that same night and feeds your family so you don't have to

• The dinner is something your bored out his mind son can make with her (make yourself pizzas!)

• After she feeds your hyper boy & hungry husband, she makes you pizza with your favorite toppings

• She then brings you seconds and clears your plate and gives your kid a bath while you lay on the couch

• And you know she really loves you when she gets your son in jammies & reads him stories so he's mellow when you put him to bed...and still stays to spend time with you and watch Grey's.

I think I might have the best birth mother in the world.

Stepping behind our face

From Seeing What Is Sacred, by Ken Gire

To better love God and other people is the goal of the reflective life. But before we can love them, we must see them. And we must see them not as we would like to see them or as they would like to be seen. We must see them as they are. Otherwise we don't love the person. We love the image we perceive the person to be. If we are to love people as they are, we must see them as they are. Which means seeing all that lies hidden within them.

There is a story of a rabbi sitting in his study, when his reading is interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Come in."
It was one of his students who was so grateful for his teacher he simply had to come and tell him.
"I just wanted you to know, Rabbi, how much I love you."
The rabbi put down his book and looked over his glasses.
"What hurts me?"
The student looked at him quizzically. "What?"
"What hurts me?" the rabbi asked again.
The boy stood there, speechless, finally shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know".
"How can you love me," the rabbi asked, "if you don't know what hurts me?"

What hurts you, and do the people who love you know it? If not, how can they truly love you? Or me? How can we love one another if we don't know what hurts us?

When somebody steps behind our face and finds us. And loves us, despite what they see there.

Perhaps that's when we will be free, perhaps that's how we can free and love someone else.

Some She time

It's really very fascinating to me how many times in life you get surprised. I went on our church's women's getaway last weekend with one expectation in my head (mainly...to get away and be by myself with God awhile) and came out with something other. At first I was disappointed, actually I was disappointed most of the time. I really needed some alone time. I've been pretty busy lately and have some heavy things on my heart. Just needed to get away and be. That is not what happened. But what did happen was so huge that it stands to reason that what I expected and how I felt disappointed just didn't really matter all that much.

Dragging my suitcase down the rocky path that led to the little cabins, I wondered whom my cabin roomies would be. As I dragged my belongings up the stairs to our cabin a woman I'd never seen before was there. She was kindly making all 3 of the beds for us and getting settled herself. We introduced ourselves and quickly found that both of us were mothers of 4 year olds. So we chatted awhile and decided to go scope out the camp and hear each other's stories of how we got here. We wandered over to the first session gathering when it was time and were both expecting a lead in to some alone time with God. But to our surprise the first agenda item for the weekend was to connect with your cabin mates, deeply. We were told to take a goodie basket (full of food and Kleenex and notes of what to do) back to our cabin and....bond. :) Well we were asked to be vulnerable with each other and lay hands on one another and pray. I knew what that meant though...it meant we were gonna go. All the way, down into those deep places of pain that we haven't really even let our girlfriends all that into just mostly due to time and intentionality.

So we grabbed our basket and met our third roommate. She was a woman I'd met and had some interaction with her family before, so we were pleased to be rooming together. Though we didn't really know each other at all. We all gave each other a quick look like "are we gonna do this?" So there we were, the three of us, in this little cabin. We started eating the goodies and turned the heater up, and got to know each other some. And then we dove in.

The unexpected, surprising part of this weekend was not that we all shared our hearts. I figured there would be some heart sharing on a women's getaway. What I didn't expect is that perfect strangers would end up comforting one another and speaking truth to each other in such a profound way, so quickly. As I shared my hurts and situation with them they came around me in my deep pain and prayed over me. One woman I ended up spending the whole getaway with. We talked for hours on Saturday, just about skipped lunch even. She's the one that laid hands on me and prayed evil out of me. Prayed God would comfort me and give me wisdom and strength. She entered in to where I was in a significant way. She didn't have to do that. I didn't expect her to do that. But she sat alongside me with tears in her eyes and prayers on her lips - for me. Someone she didn't previously know at all. That's goodness.

She was then able to share what was really going on with her. And all the story that it took her to be where she is at. She is lonely. She is worried about her body. But she is grateful for what God has given her in her children and husband. It was hard for her to share it all as she misses her close friends that are far away now and has no one here. But we got to be there in it all with her now. We prayed big dreams for her, for hope, connectedness and God movement in her marriage. It was sacred ground in our little room.

We took a break, ate some more goodies, and went through another packet of Kleenex. We still had another woman's heart to go.

This other woman wasn't sure she wanted to share and gave us permission to go to bed. Which was slightly tempting as we could all feel it must be getting quite late. But we also felt wronged and shut out that she might not share with us at all. So we told her she had to. :) Well....if she could. If she wanted. We waited. She stared at everything but us, fidgeting and nervous. And then started. She said she felt unworthy of everything. To be here, to be with us, to be a Christian, to be a mom and a wife. But mostly just unworthy of God's forgiveness. She told us she'd never shared her sins with anyone, ever, in her whole life.

She quit talking for a bit. We all just sat there in stillness looking at each other, waiting, respecting the moment. She looking down and around trying to decide if she was going to do this. And just when we thought she was done and going to shut down she said, "I'm going to tell you". We listened and listened for how long I'll never know, to her whole life. All the pain, the wrongs done to her, the manipulative men in her life, the horrible things she was asked to do, the grief, the feelings, the loads upon load of confusion and rebellion and abuse. She told us repeatedly that she couldn't fathom how God could possibly forgive her.

When she was finished she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked directly at both of us. "So what do you think? Is there is any hope for me?" she said. The two of us just sobbed and rushed to hold her. And we all cried for a bit. And then had the opportunity to share with her how Christ already had forgiven her. That much of what she shared wasn't her fault, that she had been mistreated. That Christ covers all and sees her in a robe of white, as holy. We prayed and cried and breathed.

Life. New life was born that night. One woman able to receive Christ's grace and forgiveness for the first time maybe ever. The other admitting her loneliness and allowing us to fill it with our friendship, and Christ lavishing himself and his hope over her. And me, letting perfect strangers into my mess.

I didn't rest. We were up till 1am that night with puffy cry eyes and hurting hearts, breakfast was at 8am the next morning. There was much excellent teaching and activities to connect with our God that next day, but I yawned through a lot of it. God did meet me by the river that day for a bit and it was a deep and significant time.....of growth. Rest, relaxation, reflection and fun I did not partake of that weekend. But God showing up in 3 lives unexpectedly in a most profound way - did happen.

It's amazing what a little She time will do for a soul.