Changed for Good

I hate rejection. I hate how pitiful I feel when I’ve been snubbed, forgotten, pushed aside. I hate how all I want to do is tell the person who wronged me all the ways in which they did so. But no amount of eloquence makes the words sound any less desperate to be wanted than the heartbroken lover on her knees begging to be taken back.

The sight of a beggar makes me cringe. Someone hanging on the edge of misery and desperation, the ledge their fingers grip requiring them to let go of all pride in order to hang on to what once was. What they so desperately want to be once more.

And yet, I’ve found myself there. Here.

I’ve been the girl once included in the game only to be left looking on from the sidelines.

I sat in on the secrets, the planning, the excitement, and then had to watch it all play out from afar.

I walked with them, talked with them, rejoiced with them, and in the end had to hear about them through the broken lines of a telephone game.

The love, the friendship, the togetherness we shared is now but a fleeting memory of what once was.

And now, as I allow the freshness of hurt to seep out from its dark, hidden place and let it be seen in the light by someone other than myself I feel the desperation clinging to me yet again.

Why must honesty about hurt and pain come across as desperate and pitiful? As if the person standing beside me has never felt the disillusionment of a relationship ended, a heart betrayed.

Why must we continue silently through the sting of rejection and disappointment as if we never really cared at all? As if the shrug of the shoulders is enough to shake off the heavy hurt that weighs us down.

The truth is I did care.

The truth is I did give it my all.

The truth is I did get hurt in the end.

But the bigger truth is this: that love? that passion? that person that caused the hurt? It was never all for nothing unless I allow it to be so. Pain needs our permission to cripple us.

The cut may have been deep enough to leave a scar but that scar represents healing and doesn’t that permanent mark upon the skin also tell of its even bigger mark upon the soul?

I’m choosing to learn the lesson set before me from the pain that is behind me. I’ve learned the true meaning of Grace and Kindness, both capitalized here because they should be capital actions in our lives. I’ve learned to see the good, especially when seeing it requires so much searching for it.

When it is oh so easy to see the bad and distasteful, I’ve learned to taste and see that the Lord is good.

He has given me a taste of His love and compassion and I’m left with the wonder of how I ever lived beside people without really seeing them. Not for how I could make them better but for how He has already made them best.

And so, in the end, there is no other choice for me but to be thankful for the hurt, for the pain. It’s the shaking of the fault lines in my heart that becomes the quaking of my soul. Shaking me awake to that which brings breath to my lungs and blood to my veins. To that which brings me life.

As i move on from situations of hurt and pain, I take the lessons in love that I’ve been gifted, for they are great and they are many, and I continue on, letting go of the bad that has changed me for good.

The Hanging On

Summer is still hanging on in Florida. Knuckles white with the grip, nails deep in the flesh as she longs to hold us in her heat for a little bit longer. You can feel Summer’s grip loosening each morning and evening as a cool breeze teases us, but then disappears in mid-day when her hands of heat tighten once more.

We never really get a season of Fall the way our neighbors to the north do. Our days will simply become bearable over the next few weeks when we will finally be able to say goodbye to the Summer heat, but the real beauty that comes with Fall in the north is all but missed in our Pine tree-filled neck of the woods. And all this hanging on of Summer reminds me of the hanging on I do every day. To the good and the bad, I hang on for dear life.

I’m hanging on to grace when I fail, in constant need for continued forgiveness.

Hanging on to compassion when I’m face to face with someone that needs it.

Hanging on to grief when I know I should let go and move on but somehow the pain of what was lost is more pleasurable in this moment than the joy promised in the morning.

Hanging on to a child’s laughter when all I want to give in to is anger.

Hanging on to a promise forgotten, a friendship ended, a love lost, all because I  just can’t. let. go.

Hanging on with desperation to my husband’s love and trying to let go of the time when we weren’t so loving.

Hanging on to hurt and pain because I have no grace in me for the person that wronged me like she did.

Hanging on to dance parties in the kitchen and hide-and-seek in the park.

Hanging on to memories of a brother loved, a grandfather treasured, a friend cherished, all taken from this world and now living in the next.

Hanging on to the words of beauty given to me by my mother and hoping with all hope that I can impart beauty and self-worth to my own children.

Hanging on to the women I count as sisters, finding solace in the love of an unconditional friend.

We hang on to so much. And we find that some things are worth every effort that the hanging on requires. Yet others are begging to be let go and the more we fight to hang on (to the pain, the hurt, the grief), the more we are robbed of the comfort, joy and peace that could be in their place if we would only let it go.

But the letting go is much harder than the hanging on. Like Summer’s heat letting go of our days and giving way to cooler weather, it seems we hang on far too long to that which does nothing more than burn blisters on our fairing skin. To all that keeps us sweating, miserable, and begging for relief. And yet we tighten our grip and hang on for dear life.

Like it’s the letting go that will kill us when it’s actually the only thing that can save us.

I’m finally feeling a turn in our weather and can tell that Summer is getting ready to wave her flag and release her grip. And so am I. This girl, who tends to hold on a little too long to hurt and confusion, who has allowed her hands to callous and blister under the pressure that the hanging brings, is going to follow Summer’s suit and let go.

If only I had a pile of beautiful Fall-colored leaves to break my fall…

First Sentence

*photo source: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/160920-meet-3-legged-molly-the-wonder-horse

I thought my story was over the day I lost my leg, but I realized it was only just beginning when my dad brought home a new horse with a prosthetic leg just like mine.

My 10 year old niece wrote that last week for a “First Sentence” writing contest. The winner of the contest will be invited to write the rest of their story, to be printed in a national children’s magazine. I’m trying to get her to finish the story anyway. Tell me how it ends. How the little girl and her horse start their new journey together. Tell the world how there were so many obstacles, fears, unknowns that they both had to face to get to a place of trust in each other. She, trusting the horse to hold her, protect her, not stumble beneath her weight. The horse, trusting her to be gentle, know her limits, moving forward only when both are ready.

And I can’t help but wonder how many of us have these “first sentences” hanging out there with the rest of the story just begging to be written.  Isn’t it true that we look at a sentence like, “I lost my job today and I have nothing to fall back on” and we let it just sit there, sad, depressed, alone.

“My mother has cancer.”

“My husband cheated.”

“My son is failing all of his classes.”

“I lost my best friend.”

Whatever it is that tells you “I thought my story was over the day I…” needs more from you. Our lives  are begging for us to keep writing. There is ALWAYS an “until I” waiting to finish that first sentence. But too often I feel like I’m waiting for someone else to invite me to write the rest of my story. Someone to inspire me. Tell me I won the contest. When all I really need to do is pick up the pen and start writing it on my own. No invitation. No wins or losses. My story.

There have been several times in my life when I felt like the story was over. The story of love. The story of health. The story of spirit. But every time, no matter how long it took for me to find that pen and paper, I just kept writing. Just kept showing up. Some days the words flowed and I could feel the love creeping back in. Some days I sat in silence feeling like I was staring at a blank piece of paper that would never see words again. But I kept showing up with faith that something would happen. And something eventually did. Love found its way back. Peace came. Faith flowed.

It’s true that our stories don’t always feel like they have happy endings but I don’t think that’s the point of writing out our lives. We aren’t meant to live in this world always seeing rainbows and butterflies. We are meant to just keep going. Living out our stories so that others can have the courage to live out theirs. It’s an ebb and flow. Lows and highs. The tides of our lives coming in and out. But, like ocean waves that follow every receding tide with an incoming wave, so must we look at a situation of loss, hurt, fear, and allow it to be followed by peace, forgiveness, grace.

If you need a friend’s hands to help you get started, grab them. Trust them. Allow them to help you find your footing and start moving forward when you are ready. Grab the pen and just start writing. Maybe you have to cross a few lines out and start again. So what? Just keep going. Every one of us deserves to see our full story written out. Those first sentences are desperate for a second and third and before you know it you’ll have a paragraph, a chapter, a full circle story to call your own.

And they rode off into the blazing sunset, her horse finally trusting the leg that was not his own, allowing it to carry the weight of the girl that now carried his heart.

Love wins. Rinse and repeat.

I stood in Target last night completely and utterly about to lose my mind on my four year old who would not stop with the “Hey Mommy, why are you picking up bananas?” and “Mommy, I want chocolate ice cream!” and “Mommy, Ellie is not sharing the gummy snacks!” and “Mommy, when are we leaving this place so we can go to the paaaaaarrrrrrk??” and IF I HEAR MOMMY ONE MORE TIME I’M GOING TO FLIP OUT SO CAN EVERYONE PLEASE JUST SHUT UP!!!!!!

The really unfortunate part of this situation was that Vaughn apparently can see into the future because before we left the house he asked if we could all wear our “monkey in bath robes” t-shirts (I’ve tried telling him they aren’t wearing bath robes, they are actually little monk monkeys, but he’s four and, frankly, monkeys in bath robes are just funnier to him). Anyway, the back of each of our t-shirts each have a saying: his says “we can do hard things”; Ellie’s says “we belong to each other”; and mine says “love wins”. In that moment of wanting to come completely unglued in the middle of Target I remembered I was wearing Love Wins on my back and if anyone saw me do what I really wanted to do, that would NOT be an example of love winning. My son’s shirt just taunted me all night long:

 

It’s like the pastors that won’t have church bumper stickers printed up for their members to place proudly on their cars. Because the one time that member with the sticker lets their rage go on the road to another driver, that other driver is going to be paying attention to the bumper sticker and make a note never to attend that church. I felt obligated to own up to what my shirt was proclaiming. And in that moment I hated that we were wearing these shirts (sorry, G). I really wished I was wearing a shirt that read “I’m a mom. I’ve had a hard day. My kids are driving me crazy. Please look the other way while I show them what crazy really looks like.”

And I don’t know why I did it but I turned my back to the kids and looked around. Desperate to find someone, anyone, that looked to be in the same crazy boat I was in. Filled with holes, water pouring in, sure to sink within seconds, and frantically trying to get the water out using a bucket riddled with cracks. And I found her. Not even 10 feet away from me.

Except that her boat looked nothing like mine. She was an older lady. Perfectly put together. No kids acting like complete maniacs at her side. And her eyes were peacefully set in their sockets while mine bulged out of my head looking like Ramona Singer of the RYONYC. This lady was reaching for a bag of coffee on the top shelf and wasn’t quite tall enough to get it. I stepped away from my chaos and asked if I could help. She smiled and let me. Then she said, “looks like you have your hands full today” and I laughed with a “oh, you have no idea.” She told me she was a young mom once with five (FIVE!!) children running around and knew these days well. I willed myself to absorb the love this woman was showing. Which is SO hard to do in a moment like that. But she kept talking. She said, “Love really does win, you know, just like your shirt says. Maybe not in this moment but in the end, it does.” By this point I had tears in my eyes and wanted to run but she continued. “Put those kids to bed and take yourself a bath. Wash the day away. They forget these moments of driving mommy crazy and you can start over. You just rinse and repeat.”

“Thank you” is all I got out and walked away. Still kinda wanting to scream at my kids (let’s be honest, even the kindness of that sweet woman wasn’t enough to erase the terror of these kids that are obviously suddenly insane and STILL FIGHTING OVER THE GUMMY SNACKS) but also kinda just wanting to remember that at some point love will win. Maybe not in this moment, but, in the end it will.

And so we left Target and went to the park.

And then I called a friend to say I am coming over whether you like it or not because I just can’t do the mom thing by myself right now. We need those kinds of friends that understand and don’t judge and let us show up unannounced then offer us chocolate cobbler. We need our Monkees.

So, in the end, love wins. Even in the moments when it doesn’t. At the end of the chain of moments that feel like there is no way in this hell I am going through that love can win, it really does.

Rinse and repeat.

Defining My Words

I’ve run into a snag in parenthood. Trying to define the words I use is making me stumble awkwardly down the path of educating through dialogue. I believe in open communication with my children to the point where I even bore myself sometimes with all the communicating. You see, Vaughn, the butterflies come into our garden because of the nectar-producing plants. Nectar is a sweet juice that…zzzzz. I find myself in moments of explaining why or how something happened and realize I don’t know what words to use. Having to stop my explanation to my 4-year old of why people are mean sometimes to define words like kindness and forgiveness ends up losing us both on the many rabbit trails I find.

So last month I decided to focus on a new word each week. Figured it would be good character-building to introduce patience, grace, generosity, etc in at-home speak and it will help my kids keep up with the conversation when I’m in the car trying to explain why we need to be kind to everyone, even when we feel like screaming and hitting (like you just did to Timmy). You know, visions of me explaining, and them absorbing everything. Most likely it will be me explaining, and them zoning out completely. But my vision wins for now.

Anywho, I started with patience. My definition was “to wait with a happy heart”. I was so stinking proud of that one. Off with a bang! Over the course of the week I found so many opportunities to tell Vaughn, “I need you to be patient right now. And that means to wait with a happy heart”. And he bought it! That would stop him in his whining tracks. I actually started finding other things to do when he asked for something just so that I could give him an “exercise” in patience. You want a peanut butter sandwich? I realize it may look like I’m just sitting on the couch watching RHONJ for the 3rd time this week but I was actually just about to fold this laundry that’s been sitting here for two days so, “Hang on, son. Be patient for mommy. Wait with a happy heart.” (of course, I didn’t actually do the laundry) A little sick, I know. But I was character-building.

Week 1 done. Patience learned. I’m such a great mom.

That was last week. This week I chose grace. Definition: sharing or giving with a loving heart. I made a mental note to have all of my definitions circle back to the heart. The big lesson at some point down the road being that character is made up of things we do with our heart as our guide. Man, I am good. Mental note #2: maybe next week’s word should be pride. Nah.

Monday: I started by telling Vaughn that the iPad belongs to Mommy and I love it. I use it a lot and it’s something that is very valuable (rabbit trail here to define valuable) to me. I have games, books, and movies on it for you because I love you and I want to share this valuable thing with you.  I allow you to use it because I love you. And it’s with a loving heart that I share this thing with you. And that is an act of grace from Mommy to Vaughn. He smiled and said, “Ok, can I play with my iPad now?”. Um, I think you may have just missed my point. We’ll try again later.

Before bed that night I took one of Vaughn’s silkies (little silk blankets he’s slept with since he was a baby) and tell him about grace once more. I explain that this silkie is something that he loves and it would be a big act of grace to let Ellie sleep with it tonight. To share something you love with her and have a loving heart while doing that would be very graceful of you. He said he would think about this during story time. Side note: I looooove this age. Watching the thought process and reasoning happen is incredible to me in such a young person. I look at him as a baby still and then he has these moments that remind me of his personhood and I fall in love with him over and over again. Fast-forward to end of story time. He tells me that he loves his silkie and he loves his Ellie and he wants to be grace. (We’ll work on how to use these words later. The point right now is what it means, and CHECK, he got it!) He hands her the silkie. I’m blown away but try not to show surprise at this huge act of love. It doesn’t matter that there are three other silkies laying beside him. What matters in this moment is that he chose grace. I really want to be all ram-in-the-thicket and give it right back to him saying it was all a test and YAY! You aced it! Because honestly, Ellie has silkies of her own and doesn’t really know the difference yet between hers and his. And I’m just so darn proud of him. But I let it stick and put Vaughn’s silkie in the crib with Ellie.

This morning, however, he came to his senses and saw her with it, promptly forgot all forms of grace in his morning stupor and snatched it out of her hands. A work in progress. All of us.

But I realized that this exercise of word defining is teaching me more than Vaughn. Over the past two weeks, I’ve sat in waiting rooms (there’s a reason they are called waiting rooms, not patience rooms. I DO NOT have a happy heart when I’ve been sitting for an hour after my appointment time with no end in sight. There is waiting with a happy heart and then there’s waiting. BIG difference.) and had my patience tested more than I would have liked. But because I’m consciously trying to teach these things to my kids, I’m trying to live them out as well. Teaching a word and living a word is also two vastly different things. Mental note #3 to write about that sometime.

I also had the opportunity to extend grace to my new friend, Faith, this week with my Monkees and she began telling me of a community service project she got involved in last week as a result of the help she had received from us over the past month. She said, “Everyone needs something. And everyone has something to give. It doesn’t matter who you are. We are all called to be faithful servants of God’s love. And that means that we give His love consistently to everyone we meet, no matter who they are. Rich or poor, healthy or sick, man or woman, child or adult. It’s not our call to judge; it is only our call to love.” Faithful servants = loving consistently. Hmmm…

I’m astounded at the ways in which God is teaching me how to love. I may have a little bit (a lot) still to learn as I try to parent my children to be givers of love but I’m so thankful for people like Faith that have been brought into my life to teach me. To show me that no matter how I try to define all the “big words” of life for my kids, the only words that truly matter are those that circle back to the heart.

Next week’s word: Faith. What better way to teach it to someone else than try to learn it myself?

No Matter What

“Love is patient, love is kind,” are some of the most beautiful words we can know. This simple phrase speaks of an ever-growing dimension of love and a not-always-easy lifestyle of graciousness—both of the small graces we impart and receive daily and of the deeper offerings of the soul that require only the truest of loves to give. The patience and kindness of love, when allowed to completely manifest within our attitudes and actions, stand the weight of the kindness scale amongst the ever present rages of this world, from the simple words in passing when sarcasm might be quick to speak, or the sharing of life on the most intimately connected levels, day after day and year after year. Our actions of love suggest a consistent, predictable offering of grace, a lifestyle of kind gestures and words, whether given to a passerby for only a second or to a friend for a lifetime in the extended day-by-day togetherness of life.

How bleak this world would be without those who practice small acts of kindness, small gestures of love. Worse yet, how desperate this world would be without those who know how to give from their souls, who are willing to walk through dark places with others, who comfort, who cheer, who connect, and those who hang in there by our side no matter what.

I’m so grateful for the “no matter what” people in my life.