Thanksgiving

Typically Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday. It's not that I hate this holiday & I do have a lot to be thankful for but if you make a list of favorite holidays something has to be last and this is it for me. There are several factors that bump it to the bottom of the list; it marks the impending craziness that is the holiday season, we have Thanksgiving with my Mom's side of the family the first weekend in November & since my Dad usually goes to his house in Eastern Washington it usually leaves me to fend for myself, and I don't really like Thanksgiving food (except rolls, mashed potatoes & salad). I do however love that from year to year I get to pick something new to do for Thanksgiving which means that I not only get invited into the families of my friends but I also get introduced into a wide variety of traditions.

Here are some of my favorites that I've been privy to along the way:

• Sticky buns ready & waiting when you wake up Thanksgiving morning.
• Going for a walk in the brisk morning & stopping to get a warm beverage.
• Watching & commentating on the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.
• Alternative Thanksgiving food.
• Watching a movie after "dinner".

This year I'm going to Kristen's house where she keeps warning me that the environment is competitive & sarcastic. I'm warming up my quick comebacks.

There are a lot of things that I'm thankful for this year but here are my top 10 (in no particular order), this is something my family does:

1. God provided the money for school for the rest of my time at Fuller, 3 more years.

2. Amazing friends who have been to me & let me be to them, true community.

3. Laughter

4. The new living situation, including but not limited to my new roommate Adriene.

5. Rhys, the wonder dog who cracks me up & loves me well.

6. The resilency of my family, you can beat us down but you won't break us up.

7. Musicals

8. That God pursues.

9. Outside perspective.

10. The beauty of fall.

Henri Nouwen Inspired Epiphany

Maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago I had the realization that I was creating drama in my life in order to distract me from the pain and challenges of life that I was presently experiencing. This drama was very helpful, it took my focus off of myself and my processing and gave me a brain break. This is not necessarily a bad idea because it is impossible to process all of the time & for those like myself who have a hard time shutting the brain down, it can be a helpful way to take a break. However at some point the drama stopped doing its job, it hit me one day as I was thinking through all the crazy things that were going on in my life and how exhausting keeping up with all of it was. It was at this point that I realized that I had processed and healed enough that the drama that once was helpful was now a burden in and of itself.

So I came to the logical conclusion that I should get rid of the drama. Over the course of the next week or so I cut out much of the unnecessary prolonged conversations and mole hill issues that had be elevated to mountain proportions. I was very proud of myself for several days until the reason that the drama existed in the first place began to get louder & louder.

The drama was there because I had lost the ability to sit and be quiet with myself. My inner peace had been misplaced and what I was left with were loud thoughts of what I could have done different, what my life was going to look like now or just plain discomfort within my own skin.

This quarter Kristen & I are going through Henri Nouwen's With Open Hands with our College Women's small group and one of the chapters was on prayer & silence. Nouwen talks about how silence can be either frightening or peaceful and that many of us have become so used to sound when we are silent we suddenly find ourselves feeling "as though we have been violently stripped of our clothing, or like birds torn away from their nests." At this point he's referring to exterior silence but is very aware that the exterior noise prevents a silence of the heart which leads to losing touch with our inner self.

The longer we go without silence the more "unsure feelings are not cleared up, tangled desires are not straightened out, and confusing emotions are not understood. All that remains is a chaotic tumble of feelings which have never had a chance to be sorted out." Employing logic, again, it is an easy conclusion to come to that after 1 week or even a month of build up when one does find themselves in a quiet place all that "racket" starts up, screaming for attention. Either not knowing where to start or how to deal with the issues, it only makes sense that a diversion would be attractive.

Nouwen however provides an even more attractive, though disciplined, alternative. He states that within silence, which is different than sleeping, there is the freedom to "stroll through your inner yard, rake up the leaves and clear the paths so you can easily find the way to your heart." I'll admit that's a beautiful picture and I want it but it also is very scary to me to have to look at & touch all those leaves. The alternative however is exhausting & not just because I get bored of the same music all the time but because I'm not only working to keep the distractions coming but also because of the fear attached; what if I can't find a distraction or what if the distraction brings up what I don't want to deal with? I'll take the raking.

I'll take it because there is a promise of change and freedom attached to all that work. The promise that Nouwen gives that "Under this gentle regime, we can once again become masters in our own house... and there is no longer any need to be afraid. Then you realize that you can do many things, not compulsively but freely. Where you learn to see your life in its proper perspective. In this silence, the false pretenses fade away, you can see the world again with a certain distance."

I'm not saying that distractions are completely worthless, when I'm done thinking for the day or I can't handle one more conversation there's nothing like a movie or hang out time with friends to remind me that there is more to life than what my brain says there is but when all I'm doing is distracting & thinking and not intentionally doing yard work I'm doing myself a disservice.

Since I am not naturally inclined to sit in silence for long periods of time I've started the yard work by sitting with God for 1 minute/60 seconds a day. It's intentional and I pray before it and it's only 60 seconds. I'm hoping as I practice and more of the yard gets cleaned up it will become more natural but for now I'm doing what I can.

I found Nouwen's prayer very helpful:

Dear God,
Speak gently into my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my surroundings
and the loud inner noises of my fears
keep pulling me away from you,
help me to trust that you are still there
even when I am unable to hear you.
Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:
"Come to me, you who are overburdened, and I will give you rest...
for I am gentle and humble of heart."
Let that loving voice be my guide.

Self-Discipline

Growing up I have clear memories of my Mom's routine when we went to a gas station. These are the highlights as I recall them:

1. Mention something about the cost of gas.
2. Pop the gas door.
3. Get gas flowing
4. Get back in the car & use this time to clean- her wallet, the car, whatever.
5. Top tank off, which you're never supposed to do.
6. Print receipt
7. Get back in the car
8. Do the math to determine how many MPG she'd gotten.
9. Reset odometer
10. Ask me to enter the amount in her check register.

Part of the reason I recall this so well is because I had quite a few activities that she would shuttle me around to, so she used a lot of gas, but mostly I remember because with just a few deviations I now do the same routine. I know for sure that the reason she did number 8 was to determine the car's functionality, that is part of the reason that I now do the same thing. The other part is to see if I'm "winning" or not. Yes, even MPG can be turned into a competition. Winning is determined if I'm getting more than 22 MPG, what Kelley Blue Book & Consumer Reports says the car should get. I typically get 23 MPG so leave the pumps feeling good about myself.

Two weeks ago I went to eastern Washington for the weekend and ahead of time thought that this would be a great opportunity to see how high I could get the MPG's because I knew it would take virtually the whole tank 1 way. When I filled up I found that I got exactly 23. Disappointed I spent a couple of days observing my driving and wondering how this could be. It was during this time of observation that I noticed that 9.5 times out of 10 I'm running late to where ever I'm headed and drive accordingly, even though I KNOW that especially in the city aggressive driving doesn't get you to your destination with any sort of significant time difference.

So for this tank of gas I've decided to not push it, to drive as if I had all the time in the world. So far the projections are looking good but I won't know for a week or so.

This seems like an inconsequential piece of life but I actually have to get in the car & remind myself of the plan & then it takes great self-restraint not to gun for the light or to constantly be mentally mapping out the fastest route from point A to B.

This trivial example is just one in a series of small things that God has been using to remind me of my need for self-discipline. Over the last 6 months or so I've slowly let my feelings determine my actions without even thinking about what's best for the long run or is this in line with who I want to be, this has shown itself in both big & small ways but the bottom line issue is the same, am I willing to say no to myself in order to have integrity of who I am & want to be?

It's been really hard and I anticipate that re-learning how to drive is just the tip of the iceberg but I'm banking on, from previous experience, that not only will I be more satisfied with my life but I also will be more able to enjoy the things that I choose to say yes to because they are good choices. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of going crazy with this but I do want to be choosing life rather than flitting here & there blown by the wind of my feelings in the moment.

Latter Days

These days this song by Over the Rhine has been speaking to my heart. This last summer was a series of unexpected events. I wrestled almost daily with the drastic difference between my own expectations and the plans that God seemed to have. I found my mantra being "Your will be done" not necessarily out of a heart of obedience but more out of desperation that I didn't know what else to say. This went on for a couple of months & then within a matter of weeks I had a serious family tragedy that was a double whammy because of both the situation and the resulting interactions with my family, had finals for 2 summer classes, turned 30, had a change in relationship status & was told that my rent was increasing by 3 times its current amount. At this point I turned from "Your will be done" to "Really God!? Are you kidding me!? I can't do this!" I felt so completely taxed that I lost most of my ability to cope & turned into a person that I did not recognize & couldn't imagine being for the rest of my life. It wasn't that I was a crazed lunatic but I wasn't myself, the inner turmoil was so uncomfortable that I was constantly seeking distractions & wasn't able to just exist, it was exhausting.

In the midst of all this my friend Kyle offered what has turned out to be such comforting advice, "I promise you that it won't always be like this. I will take some time, but it will get easier. I promise." In the moment I let out a sigh of relief simply because he didn't say anything to make matters worse.

Side note: For me one of the hardest parts of being in the midst of intense pain was being around other people, and I LOVE people. I felt like I could cope & exist when I was with friends or by myself but when I had to go out into the "real world" and the unexpected, even the grocery store, I had such hyper-sensitivity & little capacity that I found myself praying just to make it through conversations without falling apart & add that sometimes people say insensitive things & I was really anxious to wrap conversations up. So when Kyle offered not only advice from experience but that it was laced in kindness, I was very thankful.


For more than a month after the advice I was wondering when "easier" was going to kick in. Every single day was tough in some way or another & people "in the know" were telling me that, "life changes you" & that I needed to embrace the fact that I would forever be impacted by this portion of life. That it was impossible to go back to being the person I was before all this happened. I could get behind the logic of what they said & even agree that I wanted to let life change me for the better, to let these situations and their intense proximity to each other mold me into something more than I was before. But I still clung to Kyle's encouragement hoping that his "easier" was just around the corner & contained more than just an acceptance that life was hard and filled with struggles.

It was almost 2 months later before I had had 2 "normal" days in a row, granted the 3rd day was rough but I was so encouraged by those 2 that I didn't mind the 3rd as much. Over the next several weeks Kyle's promise began to take form and since then while things are still being processed & worked through & some days are still tough Kyle was right.


When I think about what got me back to the place of having more good than rough days there are all sorts of things that come to mind; great friends, a solid relationship with the Lord that could take a beating, a family that was willing to talk through things & give space when needed and while in no way do I take lightly the impact of those factors I think one of the biggest contributors to my return to "normality" was simply time. In fact, it has even been time that has grown the other listed factors into such important aspects of my life. While it can seem like a cheap cliche to say, "time heals all wounds" or "give it time", time cannot be underestimated. I can think of so many examples of interactions where had I allowed for a little time between receiving information and responding, I would have responded a whole lot different. While this need for time is inconvenient because we have no control over it & actually have to implement self-discipline, experience and wisdom would encourage us to embrace that things are changing and God is working.


If my own experiences aren't enough I only need to look around to see how God is using/has used time to change things. Family members who used to have broken relationships that are now healed, friends whose bitterness showed on their face & now smile, and countless biblical examples of a delay between a persons call and the fulfillment of that call; Abraham & Sarah, Moses, Noah, Ruth, David, Paul, Jesus, etc. Sometimes we know why God took the time he did and sometimes we don't but I think the point is is that things today aren't the same as they'll be tomorrow. That today's realities are true and tangible but they are also viable and consistently being morphed to fit the present which was once the future. This concept is nice in theory but it is only because of my belief in an all loving and interactive God that I can relax at all & be engaged with the present and hopeful for the future.

So while these latter days have taken their toll and some days I have a hard time remembering the big picture moment by moment, which turns into day by day, God is changing me and fulfilling his promises, Kyle's promise, to me.

Gone...yet not.

This summer my older brother committed suicide in a horrible and tragic way. It has been the hardest thing I've ever had to go through in my life. It's been a little over 2 months now since it happened and I'm just now beginning to feel like a "normal" human again, where I can think about things other than him or my own pain and where I can be in social situations & enjoy myself rather than be petrified that I could fall apart at any moment either due to my own internal situation or because someone will want to talk about it. Let me just say for the record if you know that something has happened just do everyone a favor, say it right away and then go on to being normal. The anticipation and small talk before hand is torture, we all know it's coming, don't try to ease me into it.

The journey has been much different than I would have thought. It's interesting because this time last year one of my seminary classes required I write a paper on grief & in it describe how I would deal with someone dealing with grief. While I took it seriously I also made light of the situation, making 70's cultural references and developing the storyline around the BeeGee's & their loss of Maurice Gibb, may he rest in peace. Even then I cared about the topic but I didn't really know what I would say to someone going through such pain. While there have been other painful things in life that have broken my heart, I still felt very unprepared for this. I flop between not knowing what to think, not wanting to talk about it & feeling like I'm marked with a warning sign; caution fragile cargo.

For weeks after the funeral I didn't want to talk about Matt at all. I was thinking about him all the time, wondering what I could have done different to love him better, remembering things I'd said or we'd done, thinking about his kids & how they were going to grow up, all sorts of things but I refused to talk about him. Then I went through a phase of refusing to even think about him. I needed a break, my heart was a mess & I felt like I couldn't both exist & deal with him so I'd just pack him & all that pain up for another day, but that didn't last for long.

About a week ago I was minding my own business, merging onto I5 and like a ton of bricks it hit me: "He's never ever coming back." I was pissed! Partially because I love him so much but mostly because he made a decision that so greatly impacted me without letting me have a say in said decision. He was the one who got to decide when it was over & he didn't have the courtesy to ask if I was okay with that. I realize that most people who commit suicide don't ask this type of question but I was still pissed about it.

I cried for my whole drive, sad that it was over & there was nothing I could do to change it, no amount of problem solving or brainstorming would bring him back. I cried for both of us, for our pain, his that would drive him to this & mine because of it, and for the loss of our future together.

The next day I was in the middle of getting ready to move & I opened my front door to find this on the porch

I know it's disgusting but it's also very funny and beautiful. Funny because in my eulogy I told a story about how Matt & I had found a squirrel on our walk home from school in 1st & 2nd grade & what we did with it for the next couple of days, just kids being kids. It was beautiful because I felt like God was reminding me that while Matt was gone forever I still had so many memories that weren't gone & those would keep him in my life forever.

I still don't know how I feel the majority of the time & I mostly keep asking God to work through this & not waste my pain. When things like a dead squirrel on my porch happen I am reassured that while I don't understand it He does care about me, hears me and loves me very much and that just as much as I haven't forgotten Matt, God hasn't forgotten me.

One month into my 30's

I've looked forward to turning 30 for the last 5 years. I was convinced that being 30 would mean that people would finally see me as the capable adult I was & had worked so hard to be. While I'm not sure how people see me, I feel less capable than ever. While some more mature adult might try to convince me that that is the point, realizing that I never really was capable, I'm not falling for it. I'm now just convinced that it will come sometime this decade rather than on the day I turned 30.

This "capability" realization hit hard today as I was on my way to a friends house. Since I have the habit of "prepping" before a scheduled hang out time, I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about. While I thought of a short list, more than that I realized how there were so many things I wanted to talk about but wouldn't know what to say. I feel like humpty dumpty, since I believe in a sovereign God I know it's just a feeling, but that doesn't negate that it is my reality. Over the past 5 months I feel like I've been asked to give away pieces of my shell and while I willing gave some small & medium sized pieces away the bigger pieces were a lot harder to give & some very large pieces I feel like were just straight up jacked from me when I wasn't looking. So now what? Have I done this to myself? Is the moral of this story: keep it together & don't give anything away? As an advocate of authenticy & community I can't support that but yet I am not comfortable staying in this place either.

I can't live in pieces on the ground, I know for sure the kings men, whomever they are, won't be able to put me back together & I don't even know if I want to be put back together, at least not exactly the way I was. Being in pieces has meant feeling all sorts of things I've never felt before; both being loved and loving in a way I didn't know was possible, being so angry that I actually tried to start a fist fight with a grown man, standing in front of friends feeling exposed & scared while waiting for their response and feeling the most intense pain I've ever felt in my entire life. Life has not been like this before but I'm beginning to think that this is more accurate to "real life" than what I've known up to this point.

Today as I was having lunch with Larson & we were catching up on life she asked me if it was worth it & it wasn't a hard answer, "yes". She might have been referring to a specific event but both the question and the answer is applicable across the pieces of my life right now. I still don't know what to say when I think about what's going on or how I'm supposed to be handling life right now, as this capable adult, but since cashing in isn't an option & I can't change what it is, I guess I'll just keep going, fumbling around. I'm really hoping that at some point I'll look back and "get it", maybe that comes at 40.