.006 Defamiliarization {Or: Why I am Withdrawing from University}

When I dove back into school this September, I was expecting the transition to be smooth and easy. I thought I would pick up where I left off in first year, except this time I'd go to bed earlier and manage my time more effectively and eat more salad. I wanted to have a quiet semester: no spotlight, no major life decisions, no pressure. The healthiest thing, I thought, would be to live at a mature, steady pace for the next few months with intentional focus and direction.

That's what I thought.

In reality, rather than gaining healthy habits, I found myself walking around with a sense of aimlessness and feeling a little bit sick all the time. I played the piano for two hours a day, went on extended walks or runs, took pictures, made abstract sketches, wrote vignettes and bad poetry, and more: all on top of the other work my six courses gave me. It felt wrong, like something was constricted or cramped up and all of those extra things were my attempt at gasping for air or massaging out a tight spot.

Generally not one to make impulsive decisions based on a whim or emotion, I thought it was a phase. It would pass, I told myself. It had to. Despite this attempt at a positive mentality, however, I would still go to class and wonder what on earth I was doing there. I'd try to slide it away, hoping that this season would end quickly and that I'd start feeling fulfilled by my studies. September was almost over when an acquaintance asked me how school was going and I answered with a blunt: "I hate it," which took her slightly aback and surprised me even more.

At some point I started thinking about dropping out. I'd talked about it before, jokingly, but suddenly I began thinking about it seriously. I, the one who competed for grades, the one who followed the rules, was contemplating dropping out. This forced me to look at the situation and ask myself some honest questions: ones that, frankly, I really did not want to ask.

The next week of my life looked mostly like me having extended conversations about life with some very wise people and sketching out some other possible life plans. After much contemplation, I decided not to drop out. It seemed like the logical conclusion and the safest plan. I told those wise people not to let me talk about dropping out anymore. I wanted to stop shifting my allegiance and changing my mind. I wanted to stick to my decisions.

Essentially, this didn't work out for very long.

The reality is that trying to become someone you are not will almost always come up short, somehow. My massage therapist originally went to school to be an Engineer. I asked her how she went through all those years of school to become something she knew she wasn't. She told me that, somehow, you always end up coming back to what you were made to be. It might happen very late in life, the realization, or you might catch it early and turn things around, but eventually you'll explore, whether in thought or in deed, in hobby or in occupation, the person you were created to be. You'll come back to yourself: your story may just unfold in a more unconventional way.

Once I finally made the decision to withdraw, I fully committed. I cut ties, cancelled interviews, officially withdrew, wrote a proposal, and backed out of a contract. It was a huge hassle and it hurt at times, but every step felt closer to freedom and my motivation slowly returned.

My time at this University is coming to an end. My plans (and most of my back-up plans) include returning to school in September, studying the one thing I probably should have been studying this whole time, but I wouldn't allow myself to pursue (which is another discussion entirely). This means, though, that I have a huge empty space between now and September that did not exist before. I have some ideas of how it will be filled, and they mostly include people and writing and art and work. Beyond that, I don't know. It all feels terribly risky and irresponsible, but there's a freedom attached to it and doors continue to open for me, unwarranted.

There's a term we use in English Criticism called "defamiliarization." Essentially it is the idea that one of literature's functions is to show us a truth that exists unseen by revealing it from a different angle. It means that it usually takes something to knock us out of our "familiarized" state, out of our numbness, to shift us into a teachable posture. That's how I'm thinking about this space, this season. I'm in a defamiliarized state and I'm trusting that I'll grow more into the person I actually am as I take a few risks and learn old truths from new places.

Steps

Seven years ago, a very normal incident sparked a series of events that threw me into one of the craziest, richest journeys I've ever walked and blew the dust off of a faith that was beginning to grow stale.

I met one of my best friends while walking home from school one day. I didn't know her very well yet, but we struck up a conversation, which led to the topic of God, and I found myself inviting her to church the following Sunday. I wasn't aware of it then, but that moment was a catalyst launching me into an adventure of faith. She came to church with me that Sunday, and a hundred Sundays after. She just didn't stop coming and I had the privilege of being with her when she accepted Jesus about a year later. This past weekend (six years later) we went to a Christian youth conference for our fifth time, except we went as leaders rather than youth. The transformation is stunning: now my friend is pouring into the lives of youth, telling them about living for Jesus and ministering and serving and worshiping; not because she now has a perfect life, but because she has hope and a healing heart.

As we led together, I was struck by the richness of this friendship and all the intense pain and crazy laughter we've experienced together as we've both learned how to follow Jesus: she, as a brand new Christian, and I, as a pastor's kid redefining how and why I believed and carried out my faith. We have so many strange and beautiful and God-filled stories, and what we've experienced could probably fill a book but what strikes me, what humbles me, is that I could have missed it all.

I could have ignored the prompting to invite her to church. I could have swept the invitation under the rug of my fear or hesitation but by God's grace I didn't. That one small risk led to a dozen more and it built a relationship, which grew two faiths in completely different ways. The effects have reverberated across the miles that separate us and through the years till now. So much fruit and blessing has come from one blip of a moment. One tiny act of obedience altered everything.

Sometimes a small step is all that is needed to drastically shake up our lives and push us into a better version of ourselves. Sometimes the best way to see Jesus is to take a risk and lean in and trust hard. It probably won't be smooth or easy. My friend didn't become a Christian the next day; it was a year before she accepted Christ. In fact, much of our relationship has consisted of wrestling with hard questions, and walking through many experiences of heart-wrenching pain, but I think, through it all, we taught each other how to press into God, how to let Him be sovereign, and how to experience a mysterious joy in difficult circumstances.

Take a small step in faith, and it might bring clarity to some of the foggy edges in our lives. It might involve sacrifice, but it might also produce rich blessing. It might answer some of our most difficult questions and leave us with harder ones. It might stretch us, but it might also propel us to continue on. We might be glossing over our fullest life because we're being tugged back into fear or tunnel vision or a list of rules. Dare to take a step and follow a prompting and watch what tumbles out of that. It could be that behind the risk, tucked under the unknown, a shower of blessing is waiting to be unleashed.

Slow Release

Last week was a hazy sweep of work, laughter, emotion and action. The days smudged together and time warped and Friday night was so welcome. The week exhaled to a close.

I've been thinking about Lent in between all of the chaos. I have a few blog posts written and saved in a document on my laptop that wander through my thoughts about Lent, but none of them seemed authentic enough to share.

Last year, I engaged in Lent for one of the first times and it altered something in me on a very deep level. It taught me about looking outward rather than inward. It taught me about trust and prayer and walking on the edge of wonder and anticipation.

I prayed for five different people over the forty days of Lent. I didn't decide to do this because of Lent, but it happened to come up around the same time, so I ran parallel to it, grafting myself into the practice. The five people didn't know that I was praying for them, but I saw very direct and clear answers to my prayers manifested in their lives. Something fresh and rich grew up in me during that time and I point to that season as one of the most healthy and vibrant periods in my life.

I wanted to recreate that experience again this year. I wanted to have a focus and a direction and, to be honest, a cool story to tell about it. I've been trying to bend myself into Lent by attempting to find something meaningful to give up. Lent has already started and I still haven't pinpointed what to go without.

What is really resonating in my spirit right now is a quiet "wait for me." I think that I might simply need to use this Lenten season to sit and wait in expectation for God. Something in me pushes back against this. I don't want to wait. I want to see. I want to experience. I want the miracle and the transformation right now.

On the weekend, I engaged in a worship session that brushed up against a callous place in me. I realized that, somehow, I've been gripping burdens like a lifeline and their weight is pulling me down, suffocating my spirit, squelching my joy at times. I don't know what exactly I'm holding onto, but it is allowing fear and insecurity to seep in around the edges.

I thought I was done with this. I thought that I had found freedom from all of my fears already. I can't believe I've come full circle. I didn't properly guard myself against relapse. All of these thoughts caved in on me as I realized how heavy and ingrained these burdens are. They have begun to grow and intertwine like vines to build up a protective layer, a shield, a wall of distance.

A constant unclenching of the fist. Really, isn't that the essence of Lent? Isn't it about giving up, about going without, about regaining focus and grasping meaning in the hollow space that has been channeled into your life? What will fill that gap? Will it be new truth, or a conviction, or simply some air for breathing room?

Maybe, instead of giving up coffee or committing to a different way of prayer for Lent, I need to wait and reflect and begin to loosen the knots that have blunted my spirit and my trust. This whole season must be a slow release, an uncurling of the fingers. It takes time to pull away the layers. The deepest lies are not easily redirected. The heart of a burden is buried deep.

Rather than letting go at the beginning, this Lent will be a journey of release.

Hollow {Or: Silence. Part 2}

My life is a constant rhythm of one step foreword, three steps back.

Or so it feels.

I'm usually spinning in ten different directions in my mind, dissecting thoughts, analyzing everything, noticing details. It's normally a pretty crazy place in there and I'm juggling all the ideas and words in a valiant attempt to shuffle them into some kind of linear sense.

Lately, however, I've become a mellow line rolling steadily onward.

It has been really, really quiet around here.

My last post was all about silence and growing through it, but I feel as though I'm growing out of it at this point. I desperately want to shake things up. I don't recognize this place and I miss the random bursts of colour, the unpredictable, the anticipation of possibility.

: :

Smells are very important to me for some reason. I go rogue in soap and lotion stores. I'm not into anything too fruity or too perfume-y. The smell has to be distinct, yet subtle. Smells are directly connected to location and memory (and I didn't make that up, either. That is an actual fact). I found a lotion today that I used for all of first semester, and one whiff took me back to the days of early fall and econ class and the different shades and nuances that season held for me.

Now I am here and in some ways I feel as if I have digressed. I like to think that I'm always pushing foreword and growing, constantly building up and gaining new ground. These days, though, I'm either stalling or rolling backwards. I get moments of air and clarity sprinkled throughout my days and, in those spaces, I convince myself that I'm totally fine. What was I worrying about again? There's nothing wrong. It'll work itself out. Life is dandy.

Then I notice how quiet everything is.

What I'm really doing here is kicking around the inside of my shell, trying to punch a hole in it. I really hope I'm making sense, but if I'm not, I'm ok with that too. I don't have all the answers. This is a journey and I'm standing at a point in the road where I can't see where I'm going. It's a little foggy.

: :

In attempt to gain some direction, I've been running over these frayed ends, trying to pull them together in some kind of connection. Scattered ideas are all I have.

• I could be on the verge of something. I feel as though I'm walking around with a blindfold on and earplugs in, stumbling around with my arms waving out in front of me, but when this blindfold comes off, I could find myself further ahead and standing in a place of more brilliant freedom and maturity. I can let this silence create distance between myself and God, or I can press in and allow it to draw me closer toward him. 

• I might need to do something. There is a thought bouncing around in the back of my mind that I need to stop thinking sometimes and start doing things. I don't think this means ignoring underlying issues or pretending away what I feel, but I might be overthinking all of this just a bit. It might be time to pull out of all the theorizing, stop connecting the dots and start taking action.

• I am not defeated. Honestly, all of this quiet kind of trailed me into autopilot after a while (hence the plodding mellow line). All of last year I lived with a sense of total and complete awareness of God. I was still a confused and wandering mess of a child, but I'd seek hard and pray hard and watch intently as God kept showing up in my life. It floored me every time. Somewhere, somehow, the bottom cracked a bit. I felt it, but at the beginning I had no idea how the hollowness would reverberate through every part of me. I still pray all the time, but I'm not as expectant as I used to be. My prayers wilted a little. I'm walking around with an attitude of defeat when I should be standing in a posture of victory and freedom. 

This is me shuffling through, scraping back, and trying to regain my footing. This is a messy part, choppy water, but when is life ever a free ticket to serendipity? Usually the most joyful moments are found in pockets scattered over the hard road. I've lived this. I know this. 

Sometimes it takes a while for my heart to catch up with my head. 

*Note: I am not blaming God or suggesting that I need to do something to "gain his favour" again. What I am getting at is this: I am prone to wander. I have so much more to learn. God is always faithful. I may not understand, but maybe I don't have to, and maybe I never will. The word "trust" comes to mind....

Silence and a Hymn

Sometimes you just need a quiet space and a way to worship.

To be honest, I've been walking through one of those periods of spiritual quiet for some time, now. I've been straining to hear, craning my neck to see, but nothing comes.

I've kept my eyes and ears open, waiting for a glimpse or a whisper, but all I receive is a reverberating silence and my own words dissolving into thin air.

I would say that it has been a source of tension for me, and it has, but it has also been a calming type of quiet. Yes, I've tossed a few harshly worded prayers to heaven in moments of frustration, but I have also come to know the silence well and sometimes, if I look or listen hard enough, I can see a shadow or echo of presence, a ripple of something more real that I know moving beneath the surface.

I am not alone, and when I press into the silence, I understand that. I know that a friendship has reached a deeper level when I can simply sit in comfortable silence with the other person. Perhaps this kind of silence from God is similar.

When the silence comes, I become more alert. My senses are sharpened because I'm desperate to hear, to see, to feel. When this period of silence is over, I know I will appreciate my relationship with God in a fresh way. I'm not taking Him for granted.

I am simultaneously waiting in peaceful quiet and actively searching for God. I know I am not abandoned, yet I can't wait to come to the place of meeting again.

Patience.

Those frustrating moments I mentioned? They agitate, like sandpaper against the soul. My heart is a stone and the silence is scraping, smoothing my rough edges, wearing me down....

Breaking point.

I went downstairs tonight and sat in front of a piano and played hymns. I played hymns and paid attention to their words and one hymn struck me. It is called "Lord, You Sometimes Speak in Wonders," written my Christopher M. Idle, and these are the words:

Lord, you sometimes speak in wonders

unmistakable and clear;

mighty signs prove your presence

overcoming doubt and fear.

Lord, you sometimes speak in whispers,

still and small and scarcely heard;

only those who want to listen

catch the all-important word.

Lord, sometimes you speak in silence

through our loud and noisy day:

we can know and trust you better

when we quietly wait and pray.

Lord, you often speak in Scripture,

words that summon from the page,

shown and taught us by your Spirit

with fresh light for every age.

Lord, you always speak in Jesus,

always new yet still the same;

teach us now more of our Saviour:

make our lives display his name.

Silence is what remains when all the noise is chiseled and fallen away. We're swimming in noise and silence is the ocean floor. It is the bottom, the solid, the canvas before it is painted. A seed doesn't need sound to grow.

I'm learning to see silence as space. It is space to grow and think and be still. it is a space to ask questions and prepare for answers. It is a baseline, it is the foundation, and, like it or not, I am here.

Lord, sometimes you speak in silence...... 

There Are More Questions Than "Why"

For the past few months I have been running up a huge learning curve. Actually, it isn't even a curve. It has just been a straight line pointing "up" and it doesn't show signs of sloping downward any time soon. However, I feel as though I've hashed through enough lately that I'm gaining some kind of clarity.

I'm notorious for asking questions. Even if I don't voice these questions, they are definitely there, percolating in my mind, swirling around as I toss them up and try to cut in at every angle in an attempt to gain a more whole picture. I admit that sometimes a question presents itself in my mind and it nags until I take up the line to pursue it. It is almost an obsession to know. I have to know.

The most common question that rises in my mind is why. I've grown cold toward this word because it always leads me to the edge of a cliff and leaves me stranded. Why is tricky, sometimes unanswerable, and always frustrating. Why questions run like a broken record in my mind, spinning out and leading me to dead ends all over the place.

A few weeks ago I was praying and getting to that desperate place that I so often find myself in; a place where I feel restless and undone and claustrophobic. I had been feeling random anxiety and I was sitting there asking God why. "Why do I feel this way? Why here? Why now?" Then I fell silent and a clear thought rang in my mind:

There are more questions than why.

When a doctor or a journalist or a counsellor wants to know something, they ask more questions than just why.

This may seem so simple, but it was a paradigm shift for me. Why questions can be bookends. They might initiate an exploration or prompt a reflection, but the journey to the answer often looks more gritty or colourful than the dead-end why.

So rather than asking why I am feeling anxiety and waiting for a banner in the sky to wave an answer from heaven, I begin to pray through different questions:

Where was I when I started to feel anxious?
Who was around me?
When did it happen?
What was I thinking about?
How was I acting?


With these questions I come in at different angles and loosen the tight locks of the situation so it can breathe a little. This is just one, very simple, example, but I'm finding that more often than not, why is the wrong question to end with. Why is a signal to look deeper, whether that is running myself through new questions, or whether that is intentionally paying attention to what God might be speaking to me or noticing different patterns that arise in my life. The more I ask new questions and pay attention to the answers, the less stuck I become. If I'm asking the question why, it probably means that I don't know the answer. If I'm asking God why all the time, there is probably a reason that I don't know. I may be learning something, my vision might be too narrow, it might be too much for me to handle; God knows the situation and He knows all of the answers. He also knows me better than I do.

There are times, though, when why is a call to action. An answer might not be sufficient; I might just need to grieve or apologize or take a new risk. It might be time to stop analyzing the past or worrying about the future or making excuses for the present. I might feel stuck in why because I am stuck. I'm not moving foreword and I need to. The time is now.

So, rather than staying in the dead-end, why has become a signpost to me. It has become a kind of code language for wait or watch or you're still learning. Sometimes it means go or do or rest. It prompts me to ask different questions and it asks me to be patient.

I still don't get answers very quickly, but sometimes the best remedies come slowly. They assemble quietly as I follow my string of questions and gather up bits and pieces of answer along the way. Then, one day, I might find myself standing at the end of a chapter or a page and see that the response I wanted so quickly grew up slowly and, in the end, it bloomed in a more unexpected and more beautiful (yet sometimes more painful) way than I wanted it to.

Somehow, though, it is still good.

There are more questions than why. There is more than one way to answer.

So, Who Will You Be?

It's university and I'm eighteen years old and attempting to construct some plan my future, but I'm caught in a tension. The dilemma is whether I should do what I want to do, what I think I should do, or if there is any difference at all between those two questions. I say that I want to make the right decision to get myself a good job, but since when did I ever care that much about getting a "good" job? That's already a signal to me that I'm trying to hide something from myself.

The problem right now is that I'm only half doing what I want- the other half is doing something that I want to do too, but for completely different reasons. It feels a little bit wrong. The tension is whether I want a degree in business, which I hate, or a degree in english, which I love. There are many other variables to this issue (trust me), but this is the basic core of it.

The question that keeps circling in my head is: "are you just taking business so that you sound smarter?" I think that I might be walking right back into my old habits without even realizing it. I might be back to wishing that I was the logical math genius rather than this complicated, creative personality that I've been given. Is it because I always want the quick answers and rather, I am the one who must explore, uncover and experience things the hard way before realizing what I knew all along? That is what makes me myself, and I do love it, but I also think that I am wishing myself, pushing myself, into a mold that doesn't quite fit me. I can slip into it and wear it, but it doesn't flatter who I really am or highlight my best qualities. I'm not my best self here.

The reason this is risky- switching programs- is not because I'm so worried about my future career path. I trust that that will unfold somehow. That's not the point. The risk is that I feel like I'm about to let that elusive math and logic "self" beat me again. This means that I'm letting go of an ideal, trusting a lot (and giving up a job that might sound "smarter").

I have to trust that God did not create me to be naturally systematic and logical for a reason. There is a reason why I've been gifted with this specific skill set and why this is my true passion.
I was walking to make an appointment with my academic advisor to talk about switching my program when suddenly I felt like I had put it off long enough. I needed to sit under this tree right now and write, for heaven's sake.

Because something great might come from this; and how can I give up english for business? I'll go further doing what I love than cinching myself into something I hate, something I know I'll never really excel at. Maybe quitting business isn't allowing it to trump me at all- maybe it is saving myself, freeing myself. Maybe it's allowing myself space and energy to invest into doing what I love. I'd rather fight later for english and a job in that field than fight right now for an economics grade that I don't even care about.

So, true to my usual self, nothing ever happens in any kind of conventional way for me. Nothing is very linear in my life. I think, though, that at some point honesty has to take over. I have to be willing to risk doing what I love for the sake of my sanity and my calling. I can't fight the truth forever.

On Community and Why I Love Story

I haven't written here for a while. It isn't for lack of wanting to, but sometimes there are more intense seasons we walk through in life that require rest and recuperation after we experience them. As much as I hate to admit it, I have limitations and seasons of rest are just as important as seasons of productivity. I've intentionally paused from writing here for a couple of weeks.

I have been writing outside of this space, though, and I've been so honoured at the response I have received from those who have read either my stories or the stories that others have graciously allowed me to tell. It is a blessing to me. The reason I love to write other people's stories is because sometimes we can't see the meaning or depth of our stories, especially the painful ones, until someone else tells it for us. I love to be able to give that gift through my words.

The following is an excerpt from a longer essay I wrote recently about learning and how it extends far beyond the classroom. Community and story is what is really teaching us, however subtly, and prodding us toward a deeper understanding of ourselves, our lives, our world. Story teaches us something about being human. When someone is brave enough to be transparent, the impact an be huge. Story moves us.

Community can be an amazing place to learn and grow together but it can also teach us hard lessons in very painful ways.

". . . The truth is that there can be deep hurt within a community and some people draw back from this. I've been this person; the one with the broken trust and guarded soul, wary of groups and people because I've watched good churches split and good friends become cold. I've had the privilege of being wrapped in a wild, gracious, loving community with friends like brothers and sisters to me and I've had to say good-bye to them and break away. I've watched beloved family members die slowly. Through all of these experiences my heart closed a little bit more.

In Writer's Craft class this year my teacher handed me a specific quote after reading a short story I had written and it screamed at me like a siren.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries. . . .  Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
-C.S Lewis (The Four Loves)

I know I've missed out on rich relationships because I've kept people at arm's length. I can list names of the people who have reached out to me, yet I turned a cold shoulder because I couldn't take the risk. I was wrestling with this issue when I was given this quote and it loosened the noose around my heart a little. It put a crack in the walls I hide behind . . ..

We start each Writer's Craft class with prayer and the moments that we share prayer requests together have become a kind of holy space. Here, we share the burdens we carry or the burdens we see others carry. We spread the load a little between us all and it forms a connection, a shared bond. We sit in a circle and as the burdens and joys are spoken, I always see them falling in the middle and resting on the web of laughter and tears that runs between us and pulls us closer. We learn from the raw experience of others . . .."

I've been learning to be transparent with my own story because so many people have been willing to share pieces of their own honest stories with me. These people have been brave enough to show me the more hidden, broken parts of who they are. This is rich to me and I've learned so much from their truthfulness. I have to be fair and allow you to see what I've learned from my own messy, beautiful story. We weren't made to walk through life alone, but so many people live in isolated pain, breaking from the inside out; it is healing to share the fractured pieces of our narratives as well as the good parts. Sharing our stories is healthy and needed. It strengthens our bond, builds community, and it might even allow us to see a new dimension of purpose to our lives. That is the power of story.

On Vulnerability and Surrendering the Hard Things

Sometimes I walk wide circles around writing here because it forces me to be vulnerable. I view writing as an art form and I think that as an artist creates, they pour something of themselves into their work. Each piece of art is a tiny slice of the soul that has been scraped back and offered to allow others to engage in something deeper. I have scraps of half-finished thoughts scrawled all over the place, sandwiched in my school notes or on scraps of paper in my Bible, that have never been developed because they pull me open too far and it is my natural human instinct to avoid that place at all costs.

I'll share something with you now, though, because I think it is important. This past month has been an endurance test for me. It has been a rich time of growth and learning and deepening many valuable relationships in my life, but it has also been weighted by heavy questions, inner wrestling and many sharp disappointments. This is one of the "scraps" I wrote when I was in the centre of it all. The rug of certainty had been pulled out from under me multiple times and I was re-evaluating my future plans for writing, school, and where I thought God wanted me to be. I wrote this in the middle of it all in an attempt to ground myself and find the thread of truth running through all of my chaos:

Some of my dreams have been shaken up, splayed, and washed out lately. Intensity has rolled over me heavily in the past few weeks, extracting everything strong within me and replacing it with a humbled sense of what now? I'm starting to realize again, in very real ways, that nothing is certain except God. My sense of control is being wrenched from my tightly closed fists along with my dreams and I'm at the point of full surrender.

I'm wondering if I've been trying to package God into my goals; looking ahead with starry ambition and good intentions and trying to fit God in, justifying it all because it seems so good. I built my dreams with God alongside, but now they are breaking apart and God is rebuilding it all. I think He's reclaiming His rightful position in my life. He isn't only at the centre of my dreams but within, permeating, encompassing them entirely. I am reduced, yet elevated, to a vessel for His use. He has a larger vision for me than I have for myself.

Sometimes I have to die to my dreams before they can be realized. I must pray the prayer of relinquishment and sincerely surrender my own wishes in order to keep God and His plan as my focus. As much as I want my own dreams to be realized, I want to live for God above all else because I know that He is good, and His plans for me are better than anything I could come up with.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28



*Side note: This doesn't happen in every situation of surrender, but almost all of my dreams and goals that were obscured or taken away from me for a short time were given back shortly after I released my control of them to God. In my situation, this has been a continuing pattern of God showing his power to me through seemingly impossible situations and leading me to a deeper trust in Him through a long process of healing. Sometimes what you surrender will be given back to you when the time is right, but some dreams will not be returned. When this happens, it is so important to be praying, listening, and paying attention to God and where He may be directing you. Keep an open mind and heart to the vision God has for you. He is good.

For When You Feel Like You've Lost Control

The weather has broken open lately and now, finally, the days are warmer and the smell of spring rises from the ground. Lately I've been finding myself in parking lots in the early mornings, or as dusk falls, and I'll cut my engine so I can listen to the silence as the sun climbs higher or the moon illuminates. I'm not always sure why I do this; sometimes it is an unconscious reminder that there is a grander story than the small details of my own mundane. It is a fallback on natural rhythms; I can run as fast as I want to in a day, but a miracle edges it open and a miracle pins it closed again. Every time. Ultimately, I don't have control.

I need to remember that sometimes because so often I fight for control. I might not look like the average control freak, though. My life usually looks more like a collage or mosaic than a linear progression of events. I don't line up anything in neat rows; I prefer stacks. I like some chaos and unpredictability in my daily life and I only use an organized calendar so other people know where I am. My preferred method of schedule organization consist of scattered, random lists ranging from remembering to send an email to "don't forget pens" to reminding myself to lighten up a little. I have friends who organize their closets and desks at home with special containers and jars with labels because it clears their mind and allows space into their lives. I maintain basic levels of organization because if I organize things too well, I just lose them. A little while ago, a portion of my wardrobe mysteriously migrated into my car (always be prepared for impromptu sleepovers, that's my theory). I like the "lived in" feel of a space. Not like a tornado just ripped through, but "lived in." Also, if I ever wear socks, they probably won't be matching. Some things are just a little more important in life.

I still like to feel like I am in control of the bigger issues in life, but I think that this is a natural and universal human desire. At my last doctor's appointment for my back and digestion issues (or Ankylosing Spondylitis, if you'd rather be fancy about it), we determined that my current treatment was making the inflammation and pain worse rather than controlling it. She advised that I do a four week trial in which I would not eat any gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, sugar or peanuts to rule out allergies and Celiac disease because, apparently, where there is one auto-immune disease, there are often two. I seem to be a prime candidate.

A stone overturned and suddenly my road stretched longer and I felt impossibly old and out of control. Two diseases in one body and I'm only eighteen? What will I feel like when I'm seventy? Will I even be able to move? What will I eat for four weeks? Why did this happen on the day I decided to stop drinking coffee? God, why is there so much pain and brokenness twisted into our bodies? The questions burn and I'm standing in the middle of the flurry, attempting to regain balance and bearings and ward off the anger that sits in the wings, waiting to press in.

How do I navigate this one? The truth is that I could stay perpetually trapped in my "why" questions and shake my fist at God or dissolve in self-pity. I could fall apart because I can't see the future and there's nothing that I can do to prevent it from coming. My other choice is to trust that God holds my future and do my best to effectively, even creatively, overcome this hurdle by His grace. Worrying too much about the future stunts the present and I can only live moment by moment, day by day. I think that this is why I intentionally pause for the sunrise and the moon's debut. Rise and fall. This day is a gift, this day is past. Breathe in and breathe out. I am still here...

Where are you now? Where are your feet? It's so easy to become overwhelmed by the tangle and pull of life, but we live through a string of small moments. Start here, where your feet are planted. You can choose to walk on holy ground and pay attention to how God may be working, moving, through your life. He's in the details, he's in the life-altering events. He's intricately woven through every moment. He's above it all, in it all, and through it all. Sometimes it may seem like he is distant; I've known this too. He may not always feel close. In times like these, I try to think of Job who did not say, "I feel that my Redeemer lives," but rather "I know that my Redeemer lives." (Job 19:25) Pursue God with your questions, release the doubts and rest in him. He sees and knows more than you can even conceive.

If nothing else, my physical pain keeps me humble and dependant on God. I see his strength working often through my weakness. I am thankful that my health isn't any worse. In the grand scale of life, my health problems are comparatively minor. I've seen suffering to the death, and that keeps my perspective healthy. I have prayed for personal healing, though, and I've been given small answers to prayer in the form of temporary pain relief. Small gifts of grace are signposts of His faithfulness to me; new mercy unfolds with every sunrise.

What you should know about my story

 Two years ago, when I was sixteen, my family and I uprooted our lives and moved from a rural country town to the city. I've been thinking back to that lately because it was a tipping point in my life. It broke all of the shaky foundations I had been leaning on and shattered me. I don't talk about it often and I think it's because I learned too many things the hard way. I'm still emerging from, growing from, the wreck that used to be me.

Recently, I found a short-term "bucket list" of sorts that I wrote in youth group when I was fifteen, standing on the brink of that life-altering change:

1. Push yourself to do things you think you can't do
2. Blaze some new trails
3. Read the Bible more intentionally
4. Don't be afraid to be genuinely, authentically yourself
5. Stand up for yourself
6. Be artistic in different ways
7. Invest in relationships that count
8. Rest your brain! (aka- quit overanalyzing everything)
9. Invest in prayer
10. Keep laughing-keep telling stories

I couldn't have known what was ahead, yet I've grown in every one of those areas over the pat two years (and I'll expand on these in future posts). It was a process of relinquishing old ideas and misconceptions about myself, life, God and rebuilding again around my identity in Christ. It hurt. It still hurts at times.

A buildup of callous will numb feeling; moving ripped away all of what I thought were the most important pieces of myself, my identity, and constantly threw me in the face of all of my pent-up fears. I needed it. My security had been wrapped up in my friendships, my grades, my church, affirmation from others and so many other things that were not God. I knew my Bible and my theology well, but I had a  shallow relationship with God. When all of my "security" disintegrated, I became an open target and fear pounced; I became incredibly insecure because I had no identity left. I became afraid of rejection, failure, honesty, close relationships; things that had been laying hidden and dormant in my life until my support system collapsed.

Fear is a strangle that steals joy and the sense of a deeper meaning in the experiences of our lives. It keeps us riding a hard edge and we could reach out and into all we have been called to experience and to be, but fear draws up a barrier. It has the ability to keep us safe in a fundamentally destructive way. What you've missed, in the end, will cheat you out of  what you could have been. Change, surrender, is an avenue of faith.

It isn't easy. It's a long journey and the tearing away may leave some scars. Surrender is painful, but necessary in order to experience God fully in your life. I'm still walking my own journey and sometimes old fears creep up to confront me, but I'm more grounded now, rooted in faith. I can't stress enough the impact and importance of prayer and surrender during that time, and always. Praying through the fire, keeping eyes locked on Christ, builds trust and deepens relationship. God can handle anything you have to say, anything you are struggling with. That said, don't wait until the fire to pray. Build a strong relationship with God now so your foundation will be firm. Don't allow open, unguarded loopholes for fear to crawl through.


And so, I'll end with these words, which speak better than my own:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against . . . the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm, them, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people."

Ephesians 6:10-18, NLT

On Signposts and Trusting in God

So often when I read, I stumble across an idea that snaps open and breathes; like scraping away a bit of frost from a window, looking outside, and realizing that there is a vast expanse of world beyond the glass. The other day I was filling in a gap of time with Annie Dillard and came across a paragraph that melted a bit of frost from my own window:

"The books I read are like the stone men built by the [Inuit] of the great desolate tundras west of Hudson's Bay. They still build them today, according to Farley Mowat. An [Inuit] traveling alone in the flat barrens will heap round stones to the height of a man, travel till he can no longer see the beacon, and build another."
-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

At first I didn't know what was so significant about this quote to me. I kept nudging back to it, rereading the words, allowing the fogginess to settle.

It's really the idea of signposts, or markers, along the journey. Significant events in our lives rise up to mark where we've been and direct where we may be going. As we press foreword, these events may recede from sight into memory and suddenly we find ourselves in a new season, building new pillars to mark our path. Endings slide into beginnings and sometimes we need to make an altar to remind ourselves of where we've been; to acknowledge the place and allow it to be a point of reference.

A friend and I were talking recently about trusting in God and how we sometimes fall into the trap of tunnel vision. We trust God as long as life is relatively normal and we can see the clear path from point A to point B. Often, though, clinging to this mindset will cause us to run aground when difficult events or tests in our lives press in because if God and His goodness are defined as the ease of your life, who is God in the hard times?

Often the journey from point A to point B looks less like a straight line and more like a zig zag. God could have led the Israelites straight from Egypt to the Promised Land but instead he took them on a 40 year detour through the wilderness. I don't believe that grief and brokenness always origionate from God, but I do believe that He can always use these "detours" to form us and shape us and lead us into a fuller, richer dependance on Him. He can and will redeem the dark wildernesses we walk through if we are open to it. Muscle is never built without resistance, and we grow through challenge. God's vision for you is not to remain stagnant, but to pull you higher, deeper into relationship with Him.

To trust anything implies that there is an acknowledged ambiguity involved. If we, as humans, understood everything about God and his plans for our entire life, we would reduce Him to something less than ourselves. Because our world is fallen and sinful, it is inevitable that you will encounter suffering in your life. The question is, will you allow God to walk with you through it and redeem it? Even to wrestle with God in the darkness is healthier than resenting him and standing still. As long as you wrestle, you are engaged, moving, building muscle and relationship. Wrestle, but don't forget Who you are wrestling with.

How does this connect to signposts? During these times of wrestling and darkness, I've marked my own path with pillars as reminders of God's faithfulness and grace amidst the mess and the brokenness. Some have been physical altars, most have been an intentional recognition of Him in times when He seems particularly close. They are points of reference; reminders of where I've been and where I'm going. It's a rising history of God's faithfulness and promises to me. Sometimes walking through suffering strips you of old, ugly pieces of yourself and the signposts mark the places they were shed. To look back on these pillars is to see your story marked and transforming as it expands. It's a testimony of faithfulness of which you are a blessed witness.