Faith – Best Faith Forward

Angels in Charge

“For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11

It was a day. A day of constant reminders, of big emotions, of bigger stressors. A day where I sobbed in church. Where I sobbed at the gym. Where I sobbed at bedtime. Each time triggered by a big move by a bigger God. It was just one of those days.

But the moment at the end…it happened in slow motion. As I watched, frozen, my sweet puffin dove gleefully toward the animal “nest” the girls had created, plummeting toward the bunkbed steps. I saw his knees hit, perfectly angle to propel his body forward, and within a split second, his face slam against the side of the wooden bed step. Internally, I did a mom gasp/shriek/scream/cry, but externally, I physically crumpled to the floor, scooped him up, and just held him. I looked at his face, checked his eyes and surrounding bones, then held him – close – and cried. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” Sobbed. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” Rocked and swayed. Thank you, Jesus.

My girls, confused, could not figure out why I was saying a prayer of thanks as my little guy screamed in pain and cried those tears of devastation he has when he’s hurt. They couldn’t see everything happening internally; in my heart, I felt an overwhelming rush of emotional awareness, gratitude, and grace. Of realization of what could have gone differently, so very wrong, with the slightest torque of body or bend of stuffed animals. And I cried harder.

Blake Eye

The puffin received a kiss of angels that evening. I know it in the depths of my soul. That day, from the get-go, God was reaching to me. Speaking to me. Sending people my way in impromptu prayer. And in one all-encompassing incident, the envelope was sealed: “Here I am. Trust. Me.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying my littlest was hurt as a way to send me a message. While I think those moments happened to an extent in biblical passages, I don’t believe God intentionally causes physical harm in the day to day. But as I looked at his healing scab tonight, it washed over me all over again, like an ocean wave that takes you by surprise: just because we get hurt, it doesn’t mean God turned away.

And I knew this. Oh, how I knew this. But tonight? It sunk in a little deeper. Hard times? God doesn’t leave. Grieving? Still present. Overwhelmed? Yep, He’s there. You lost your job, your spouse, your kids, your home? God is present, loving, gracious, and looking out. When my 6-year-old can gush during an everyday conversation, “I just love how God loves us so much that He cares about that“, it requires a gut check to remember just how much He really loves us. How much do I love my kids? And His love is SO MUCH MORE!

My precious reader, He has not turned His back on you. When your heart is open, when your mind is ready, open your eyes. Look around, be present, and pay attention. He’s speaking to you, and He wants you to know He has not abandoned you. Sometimes, His saving grace may look a little differently than you had imagined.

Look Straight Ahead…and Step Off

I read a friend’s SM post tonight, and it was a beautiful, beautiful post. She went into intricate detail about comparison with highlight reels, fears and anxieties, real life experiences, and a somewhat familiar experience she had with the freezing capacity of fear. (if this is something you need to hear, message me and I can share more – with her permission 🙂 )But the powerful statement that pushed her on – the one that inspired this post for me – was one made by a worker as she encouraged my friend to keep going: “look straight ahead…and step off”.

The first thing I felt was a punch in my gut, which, by sheer default of the quick rush of emotion/energy, often causes me to inflect (internally reflect – like what I did there??). How often do we miss our chance without even knowing? How often does fear hold us back when God is whispering, “trust Me”. We believe we are called to something – a mission, a place, a job, a relationship, a community organization, a cause – but instead of looking straight, we look down. We hear His voice. We get confirmation. We believe with full force that we are on the right path. We look down. And we freeze.

Because when we look down? We swirl. Our minds race, our heads spin, our heart rates jump and our breaths catch. We jump into one of the many responses to stress, but for most of us, we freeze. Frozen, we start to question. We inflect – but guess who’s there, ready to answer loudly and to compound your doubts? We question the risk, the reality, the purpose, the passion, even God’s voice. We wonder if we were crazy to think that God was what – WHO’s – voice we were hearing. We wonder if it was all driven by emotion and not reality. We rationalize and look at logic, justifying turning back – or staying complacent – with our “when I get my ducks in a row” mentality…and we miss out. Oh, dear readers, we miss out on SO MUCH.

Y’all, this post is short and sweet. When God calls you, He calls you. He doesn’t ask you to figure out all of the details. He doesn’t request you have all the skills or knowledge or tools or understanding or know-how. Over and over again, the bible shows us examples of God calling the UN-qualified (I mean, how many sermons have been preached on that?!?). But He does require trust in Him. A child-like trust that believes He knows the bigger picture, believes He is who He says He is, believes He will walk you through the next step.

All we need to do is look straight ahead – and step off.

Image result for look straight ahead

Hopeless…with hope

I’ve often wondered why people want to read what I write…what I think. It is, at it’s very base, a rambling of whatever I’m struggling with at the moment. But, in that line of thinking, I’ll stay vulnerable…

I am at a point in time in my life where I have realized, I am burned out. It didn’t hit me all at once; rather, I was listening to my cynical, tired, stressed internal complaints, and I realized…I’m done. I’ve hit it. I’m not down-sliding, I’m not spiraling, I’m not going crazy, I’m there. I am burned. out. It was a strange realization of sorts, hitting me because I know me…I know me to know: I’m compassionate, almost to a fault. I’m empathic to the point I cry because other people are crying and have nightmares from movie previews. I’m sensitive, and if people are upset, I can’t sleep and I want to make it right, even if I had literally less-than-nothing to do with the cause.

And when it’s real fault? You can multiply this to the nth degree – I personalize, trivialize, internalize it all. Not that it’s “my fault”, per se (even though I have met those who experience it to this degree)…more that it’s “my responsibility”. And if I see a hint of my oldest, internalizing this mindset? Holy. Moly; for. the. love.

Hope has been my buzz-word for…I don’t even know how long. I realized in college at some point, perhaps when I was struggling with my own purpose and mortality, that if someone didn’t have hope, regardless of the source, that that was the point where the person might give up. I’ve learned much more about the factors and characteristics and sources of resiliency since then, but I still believe that hope is what keeps us moving forward. That even when we feel “hopeless”, there is at least one small part of us holding onto the idea or the potential of change. That change is possible, even when we don’t believe it.

I’m not even sure if there is a “point” to this blog tonight. Perhaps it’s just that…well…I know what it feels to be hopeless, and I’m thankful for my underlying conscience that’s always been there. I call mine God – it’s my faith – but whatever it is for you, if you have ANY voice arguing. ANY voice questioning. ANY voice telling you that this isn’t “it”…listen. JUSt. BREATHe. And Listen. I say this for you AND for me…There’s more. There’s more than thought. There’s more than belief. And there is even more than “hope”, a concept I held for so long. Regardless of the emotion and the corresponding term I can come up with at any given time, if I am alive, then there is more. There is purpose. There is a point. And while I don’t know about you, as stubborn as I am, I am not about to give up before I figure out what the heck that is.

New Pathways

Tonight.

Tonight, I write, because promised my friend I would start again. I write because I had a long conversation with my sister that’s heavy on my heart. I write, because that’s what I do. Or at least, I used to.

I stopped writing for a long time. I could pretend I was too tired – I could pretend that I got busy, that I couldn’t process or think, that it was too much work. And some days, that was my truth. But when I really think about it – when I really dig deep – I stopped writing because it MADE me feel. It made me experience these big emotions that I did not know what to do with or how to handle. Writing made me dig deep inside this portion of me that just wanted to Shut the F down. It was so much easier to pour a glass of wine (whiskey on the rocks, please!), turn on a television show, and Zone. Out. Shut down, turn off. Not have to think about me – I spend all day thinking about others and helping them through their situations and figure themselves out and know themselves better. And meanwhile, I was going to doctors and doing research and burning out. There was seriously a point that I remember thinking, “I’m so tired of psychoanalyzing myself and exploring and digging deep and processing. I just want TO STOP.”

So that’s exactly what I did. Not purposefully, I don’t think – not really even a consciously. It was more a perfect storm of postpartum depression, anxiety, a newborn with two other littles, work, exhaustion, fatigue, sleep deprivation. It was an “easy out”, so to speak, and I veered steadily in that direction.

But it wasn’t…it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t an out. Shutting my brain down to emotions and to overwhelming thoughts was not the perfect ending to a beautiful story. Instead, it began to slowly shut me down. It’s reminiscent of the squirrel in “Ice Age” – remember him? Constantly chasing the acorn, not caring the trouble it got him in but persistently going, nonetheless? There’s a scene where he gets excited and spikes the acorn into the ice. It starts a small crack – which grows and spreads and, well, you know the rest… Shutting down an emotion or intense feeling or painful thought is a bit like that. It starts as one act – an isolated moment. But after that moment comes another and another. Eventually your brain has burned a path that makes it an automatic response – yep, you form a pathway that now NATURALLY responds in the same (or similar) manner to the same (or similar) situations and experiences.

Yikes.

Tonight, I’m starting a new pathway. New pathways – new electricities – aren’t easy. They take intention. They take awareness. They take some focus (don’t worry, we’ll go there…). They take repetition. Like any new goal, forming new habits take a lot of supporting factors. But the pathway can be burned, and the habit can change.

People can change, if they want. When the consequences – or the rewards – are big enough, people can make changes, one intention – one step – at a time. But if – and only if – the desire is there.

Tonight, I take my first step.

To the mom of three

Dear mom at Wegmans,

This isn’t another letter saying, “I see you” or “you’re not alone”. Lord knows we have enough of those floating around. Instead, this is a letter to say, “thank you”, because I didn’t have the guts. Because this time, the “I see you” sentiment is because you gave me hope.

You see, I had a day today that I don’t often get, nor imagine I will often get. A day to “myself”. Of course, my 7 week old was with me…but I still consider him an attachment 😉 But nonetheless, the girls were at the sitter’s for the day, then headed to their Gigi and Papa’s, and I experienced some quiet time for reflection and peace. Do you know what happens in those times? God speaks to me…and He strengthens me. Every. Single. Time. Fortunately, today, I was listening (other days, I can’t say that with quite such confidence).

God first got my attention as I took a break from our walk to feed the puffin. As I sat on the rock, staring out over the river in front of me, I heard and mom and 3 young children come over to the same space to sit. In the past I might have become annoyed, and these thoughts began to enter my mind…”She’s a mom, doesn’t she understand the need for solitude?” “Seriously, my own kids are talking and screaming and yelling…it had to be somebody’s…” “Did they really have to stop where I’m sitting, of all places?”. But on this day, I was feeling particularly relaxed, and as I observed my thoughts, I actually smiled as I realized, I need to learn to be peaceful WITHIN the chaos – I won’t always have the opportunity to separate myself from it (though, as a strong introvert, I have also learned that I need occasional times away to reboot).

As I resumed our walk, I began to think. I hadn’t yet taken all three kids out by myself, mostly for fear of our precious cupcake, our middle daughter. What would she do if I needed to stop to feed the baby? Or if she dropped on her bottom in the middle of the street in an early toddler tantrum? But for the first time, I began to have the desire to be active with them outside the home; to go on adventures, even if if my husband was working; to explore and have fun and make the most of my leave. It’s amazing the freedom your mind has when it’s not being inundated with questions from my curious preschooler, such as, “why is she riding a horse?” “why did her mom let her go into the trees by herself?” “why is a rock hard?” or the 20minutes meltdowns of my smart, independent, toddler. I love them both to death, but if I want to write, I need just a moment to myself. <3

Dear, fellow grocery shopper, here is where you come in. I noticed you initially because I liked your top, and was about to compliment you on it. But when I looked closer, I stopped in my trackers. Here you were, with the same kids as me. Two girls who looked perhaps 5 and 3, and a little boy in the front of the cart – perhaps approaching a year old. As I watched you walk calmly with your children, put together but not overly primped, talking sweetly with your girls about snacks to pick out for a picnic you were planning, my heart felt a sense of relief. You see, my heart has been feeling overwhelmed, burdened, heavy, stressed, worried, isolated – and even though we all logically know that things change, things get better/easier/fillintheblank, I don’t know that we all believe it to be true when it really comes down to it. It’s much harder to feel a sense of peace and hope in your heart than it is to rationalize one.

As I continued to shop, I saw you a couple of more times, and each time I tried to work up the courage to thank you. But each time, I flushed and hesitated with embarrassment, slowing my step as if you might know what I was thinking if our eyes connected, wondering how completely insane I might sound if the words ever formed.

So here it is. My thank you. Thank you for showing me a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for providing me hope that the swirl that life is right now won’t always be. Thank you for being God’s third sign (He works in three’s with me…seems to be the number of times I need to hear something to get it 😉 ). Thank you for just being you, walking through a grocery store with your tag sticking out, debating over the type of granola bar your kids would enjoy, reminding me not only that “this too shall pass”, but to take each moment as it comes, being present with and enjoying my children no matter the experience.

Day 8: finding the balance

It is my heart to share my journey, with hopes to connect with others who are experiencing the same, whether physically with me now, or spiritually with me later. But I am realistic. Realistically, I know that I have 3 kids under 4, with one being a mere month old. Realistically I know that balancing a blog and balancing life need to find perfect harmony as I venture into what my health journey will look like now, in a new chapter of my life. Realistically, I know I am not alone.

In my head and in my heart, I know this balance will come. But I’m also striving for it currently, in my work, in my fitness, in my diet, in my relationships, in my family, in my faith, in my self. Balance seems to be this “thing”, so far out of sight but just out of reach. Tempting us with the promise that it’s achievable but never truly being reached.

So, for now, I will continue in prayer for balance and will continue stumbling forward, seeking a community who is also stumbling, praying, reaching, searching, hoping, grasping. Maybe, just maybe, we can support each other in our journey, and the balance will be found there in.