BAL-A-NCE

She waivers
Always tilting
Always shifted
Only ever momentarily
Fixed in equilibrium
Never long enough
To gather herself
There
Never long enough
To adjust
To the tension required
In order to balance

Because that is it
Isn't it?
There must be tension
In balance
Focus
Awareness
Work
Mindfulness
In order to maintain
Stability

Polarity is everywhere
In this steadiness
It is being fearful
Of  a God
Who commands me
Not to fear
It is believing I am
One in a million
While understanding
I am only one
Of millions
A wisp
A vapor
A chasing after the wind
It is to love myself
Without vanity
Because I am Your masterpiece
But also
Not nearly as beautiful
As a lily

I am feet slung
One on each side
Desperately
Trying to maintain
The symmetry
I know will
Make You proud
And failing
And flailing
And then
Finding again
My focus
My tension
My center
Which is You
And all the grace
I need 
To cover
My never ending
Ever present
Wobbling

Holes

"There's a hole in our soul that we fill with dope. And we're feeling fine."

-Marilyn Manson

You did not just misread that. I totally quoted Marilyn Manson because once upon a time long long ago I was a huge fan and while most everything he said gives me the total creeps now, this lyric has always stuck with me. I don't resonate with this because I was once or am still a drug user, I resonate with it because for as long as I can remember I have understood that hole. I have understood something that is a giant gaping wound leaking over into everything one day and a black hole swirling and sucking in everything around it the next. And then I found Jesus and slowly that enormous hole, that at one time if I were to illustrate it would have taken up more space on my person than anything else, began to shrink, but it didn't disappear. Its size and shape and function may vary according to which season of my life I am in and where I am struggling, but there is in fact, even with Jesus all up on it, a hole. 

I know where my hole came from. I know the people responsible for putting it there, at no fault of my own, and sometimes, under the right circumstances that hole that has at this point in my life become generally not more than a flesh wound, expands and reforms itself into what feels like that giant leaky pre Jesus swirling sucking black hole mess. And I don't expect for it to disappear. I do not think Jesus and my love for him is a magic hole fixer. Hole shrinker, hole coverer, hole filler, YES- hole fixer, no. Finding and loving and following Jesus doesn't undo your past. It frees you from shame and guilt and living there but it doesn't undo it all. There are consequences to life that we all must live with until the other side. But that is another blog. 

What I want to say is, so I have this hole that just is. Usually it is under my control, but sometimes it isn't and what I realized today is that when all of a sudden that hole feels ENORMOUS and open and like I cannot control it, I go about trying to fill it myself, and with all the wrong things because having an open wound hurts and no one wants to sit with that. I just flounder and flail like a fish on land looking for whatever will make that wound fill up or be covered and there is NOTHING at my disposal that will work, BECAUSE, it isn't MY job to fill it. It's Jesus' job. I am robbing Jesus of his job to cover and fill and shrink that wound by trying to do it myself. And not only does it not work, my quick fixes actually make it all so much worse. 

I don't care who you are, you have holes. What are you filling them with?

Just Me.

I have spent a lot of my Christian life working really hard to be the best version of me. Not working for the approval of God, but working to be, seem, act, do better than I feel, am or be. I don't think this is wrong, but I also don't think it is right.

First off, the best version of me, on it's own, still sucks and the only reason I am even remotely capable of not sucking is because Jesus. Before someone gets all, "But I don't believe in Jesus and I am a good person" on me, that may work for you and that is great, but in my own life, without Jesus, I suck. That to say, it is only the Holy Spirit working in me that allows me to be a good version of anything. Yes, I can take minimal credit for generally heeding the still small voice and continually seeking, knocking and striving for growth even when it is painful. However, it isn't "ME" that is getting me better, it's Him. When I try and get me better what I find I am actually doing is just heavily critiquing myself which only causes self loathing and pushing away from my faults rather than accepting them and handing them over to God. It's highly counterproductive, exhausting, and generally impossible in aiding in the bettering of self.

Lately, not surprisingly as I have been reading a lot about grace, I have felt that still small voice reminding me in my weakest moments, in the moments when I feel things I don't want to feel, think things I don't want to think, or do things I don't want to do, that who I am right now is okay. Who I am today, in this moment, completely incomplete, sinful and broken, is more than okay. I am so okay right now that if Jesus were here he would totally eat dinner with me. He would come over to my house with my unbelieving husband and break bread with us, as we are, no strings, no expectations other than for us to receive Him. He would ask me to follow him, and in doing so I would become complete regardless of all the dumb things I will continue to think and feel and do.

Don't get me wrong. Growing is great. Listening to the still small voice will only bring good things. It helps us in every aspect of life on this planet when we grow. But if we don't- if we are stubborn, hard headed slow learners who can't seem to find a way to lay ourselves down, not only are we still loved and accepted by Christ, but we are also still in the running to be used greatly by him.

Today I am working really hard to accept all the things I am, and I am a lot of things. A lot of things I don't like. Things I mask or push away from, only to find myself right back where I started because they are simply part of my humaness. Maybe God will get to them in this lifetime and maybe He won't, but they don't make me any less loved or any less usable. I am willing to change, willing to grow, willing to look in deep and see myself in all my broken glory- but for the first time in this Christian walk of mine, I am also ready to be unapologetically me, exactly where I am, sin and faults included. I am ready accept that on any given day I am just as much the prodigal son as I am the older brother, and wrong is wrong whether it looks right or not.

LGBT&JESUS

A few days ago a friend of mine on FB posted a link to a blog written to the Christian community. The premise of the blog was to remind Christians to be careful about what we say concerning Caitlyn Jenner (I would link it but my friend has since removed it from his page and I can't find it). While most of my peers were admiring the writing, it really pissed me off. It pissed me off because I believe that as Christians we have two jobs (Mark 12:29-31):

1. Love God
2. Love People

Our greatest commandment is to LOVE people and yet the largest portion of us probably really needed to read that article and be reminded that it absolutely IS NOT our job to sit and talk trash or point fingers or play judge. It is because so much of the Christian community does these things that people would rather remain broken, hurting and lost than be associated with us.

When I said some of these things on my friends page, as I do because saying the things is my thing, the response was completely typical in that all of them reverted back to "....but it is sin and they need to know because, eternity." Also, "Living in sin is different then having some sin and I don't believe that you can live in sin and be saved."

Let me say a few things here, things that I think Christians conveniently forget when talking about sexuality and gender and sin.

1. Idolatry is putting anything before God (not just worshiping golden calves but worshiping our money, stuff, kids, friends, TV shows etc). Idolatry is a sin. If you are living your life as Christian putting any such things before God, as most of us do, you are actually living in sin on a daily basis.

2. Divorce is a sin. Jesus rebuked even what the Jews had been told about divorce by saying:

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
“What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied.“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mark 10:2-9

He goes on to say that there are two reasons divorce is acceptable (Matt 5:31-32):

1) Infidelity
2) If an unbelieving husband/wife walks away from the marriage

It also says that anyone who gets divorced and then remarries is actually committing adultery, which is also sin. I could then say that if you are a person who is divorced and remarried you are living in the perpetual sin of adultery.

For some odd reason which I have yet to figure out or understand Christians have found a way to avoid, ignore and talk themselves out of these things, yet are terribly concerned about the souls of our LGBT brothers and sisters because the sin is SO great.

Some people say things like "The homosexuals can FEEL all the things they feel but they don't have to live the lifestyle because that is sin." I could then say, "The wife whose husband isn't attentive enough and stays too busy at work and drinks more than he should, she can FEEL like she deserves better but she doesn't have to go on to live that out because that is sin."

It makes no sense. It is a double standard all day and no amount of conservative dribble will change it, nor does it need to because JESUS.

JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS.

If we were even remotely capable of NOT living in some form of sin WHY in the world did God send Jesus? Why would you send your son to a death sentence if your people had it on lock in ANY SENSE OF THE WORD? You wouldn't. Just because you aren't gay or confused about your gender or bi curious does not mean you are not an absolute filthy wretch JUST AS in need of grace as the ENTIRETY of the rest of the planet. Just because you understand more, work harder at and feel more holy DOES NOT MEAN you hold the secret to relationship with God and all the "other" people don't.

The secret is GRACE and it ONLY COMES by way of JESUS. 

So stop it. Stop trying to justify pointing fingers because people need to know what they do is sin. What people need to know is that their sin does not define them and that despite all of it, past present and future, there is a God who loves them enormously and wants to be in relationship with them. What they need to know is that whether they ever figure out their sin, what it means, how to cope with it, how to change it, IF they have JESUS they have everything.

If you want to really help people, if you really want to exhibit this Jesus, JUST LOVE PEOPLE. Love them in their sin. Tell them He loves them in their sin. Then let the Holy Spirit do His job. We are robbing the Spirit of His job by constantly trying to change and reform people. That isn't for us and we SUCK at it.

Let me close with this. I am not exempt. I ride my holy high horse sometimes with the best of them. I am a human and I am a sinner and I am desperately in need of grace. ALL DAY EVERYDAY. I need to read this too. If you leave this blog with nothing else please leave with this:

If you don't understand someone. If you can't make sense of their choices and their lives, the most important thing you can do for them, the one thing that will no doubt demonstrate Jesus is to simply be kind to them. Be kind.

As-Is-Edness

Not too long ago someone attempted to insult me with a statement about my absolute lack of introspection. It would have been really hurtful, except that it was so ridiculously far from the truth that it was really just laughable, and then confusing, because have you met me? 99% of my time is spent in introspect. Myself, under a microscope controlled by me. It takes up a lot of my time, and, I am learning, causes so much more harm than good.

In my last post I talked about having the crazy and the feeling of running in circles, not being able to turn off my mind. I talked about my new therapist and a few starter points she made that really resonated with me, the most important I think being that I need to start practicing a little more self love, something that absolutely cannot and will not occur looking at myself under a microscope. Shortly after that post I drove up to Atlanta to surprise my dad for his birthday. It is our practice when I am there, to stay up way too late sitting at the dining room table or standing in the kitchen, talking about God and life and then the combo of the two. And one of the first nights I was there and talking to him about therapy and all my many issues he asked me this:

"So, when do you think you will just be done? I mean, when will you get to a place where you have the tools you need and can just move on as is."

"As is".

"Uhm, never." Is what I felt like would be the honest response. "You mean, as is as is? Like just the way I am, with all the crazy intact? No. absolutely not. I will fight till I die, I will shrink till I die, I will not "as is" for the rest of my life. I simply cannot."

Key word here, "I". I will fight I will shrink I will work I will self help I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

How did I ever get so far from HE. I started off over a year ago on this med free journey in complete reliance on Him and although the road was rocky here I stand. I don't know at what point I got so wrapped back up in my own ability, my own plan, my own war, that I completely failed to honestly acknowledge that I am IN HIM and need not rely on ANY of my own anything because the truth is that I have very little to contribute in the way of fixing even my smallest problems.

Not only that, but my "I" nature is complete self absorption. "What is wrong with me, how do I fix me, how can I make me better?" Now, to the world this looks really noble. It lines up so brilliantly with the "make yourself happy" way of life the media preaches to the masses. But what it is, what it really is in my relationship with God, is sin. It is its own form of vanity and arrogance. Furthermore, my unwillingness to accept my faults, my humanity, the things that allow me to recognize I am actually in NEED of God, is so effing prideful I can't even hardly stand to talk about it. And my shame. The shame I feel in my anxiety and in my obsessive nature. I am embarrassed and where is Jesus in ANY OF  THAT????

I don't know when I thought I had become so equipped to fight these enormous battles on my own, or when I decided it was up to me to make me better, because all the self control in the world can't change who I am. And who I am is a lot of things. I am not sure all the therapy in the world could fix my anxiety, fix my tendency to obsess, fix my neurosis, fix me. BUT I do know, that this man named Paul- one of the most amazing, brilliant men of all time who was GREATLY used by God had this thorn in his side. A thorn that God put there to keep him humble. And it must have sucked because he asked God three times to remove it from him. God never told Paul "no", but he responded with something so much more powerful than "yeah okay Paul," or "no" could have ever been. He told him, "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness."

GUYS. This is so easy. This means "as is" in Christ is exactly what I am supposed to be. And I know somewhere deep down I already knew that and had functioned in it on and off for years now, but today this is like a revelation. Because it means I am okay. I am more than okay, I am in His image and it is only my own sin- vanity, pride, shame, idolatry, that is keeping me from being whole, content and humbled by my own "as-is-edness".

"Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

Prodigal

I was going through boxes this morning and found this little poem. It was dated exactly a year ago.

I am the eldest
I have toiled until my hands were broken
And then continued with broken hands
I have risen with Adams rooster
Ready and willing to give time and effort
At the risk of damaging these broken hands even further
I have pushed and leaned and believed
Through days I didn't think I would last
Another minute
I have accepted responsibility
For who I am
What I know
And all that You have shown me
And I have held it and handled it
I have not cast my pearls
To pigs

I have been transparent and honest
To a fault
I have sought out
My own shortcomings
In order that I may
By grace
Correct them
I still seek
I seek and seek and seek
I fix and fix and fix
I do what I am told

I don't want my treasures
I don't want my fortune
I just don't want to feel
Like the only one
Working with broken hands
In fields only serving to do
More damage

I just want a break
And I don't want it
In the form
Of a party for my brother

30 Days: Day 23- Friendship and Gratitude

 I am not totally sure the day I set out on the 30 Day Blog Plan, but I know FOR CERTAIN I have exceeded 30 days and am still not done. Lots of people would in frustration quit, but I am too OCD to have all these blog titles consist of numbers and not get to my goal, so.....

Today is my last day in California, and while I am ecstatic to head back to the south I have found goodbyes here to be harder than I anticipated. It took me until the last year really to build any solid friendships and I'm feeling a little gypped.

I have really strong feelings about what friendship is. For a long time people may have referred to me as a friend, when in my mind, they weren't really a friend at all. I associated genuine friendship with a deep personal connection, where both parties are involved in an equal mental, emotional give and take and I don't think I am wrong in feeling that way, but I also don't think I'm right.

God made me a certain kinda way. He made you a certain kinda way too. The certain kinda way I am seems to draw people. All sorts of people. People I love immediately, people who it takes some work for me to love, people who I never really get to loving at all. I assume this is because once you get over the hump of being alarmed by my appearance and talk to me, I am easy to talk to. I ask questions and listen. I work really hard at not using too many words to make it all about me. I try to be honest always. It's just how I am and the people talk to me.

I say all of this to say that there are lots of people who talk to me, and who I offer advice to who consider me a friend, where as I may not consider them the same. However, I would be wrong. Just because I don't offer myself to people in the same way they offer themselves to me, does not make them any less my friend.

The lesson here, for me, is that friendship isn't always intense and time consuming and iron sharpening iron. Sometimes it's just saying hello to the same someone on Sunday mornings. Sometimes it's just sharing dumb banter on social media after a particularly stressful day. Sometimes it's dinner once every couple months and hardly anything in between. And to be honest, that smiling face on Sunday mornings, is needed just as much as the deep 2 hour conversation over coffee.

I chose this blog topic today for a particular reason, and I haven't got to it yet because I'm wordy and I needed to explain all that for this to mean as much as it should:

I am SO grateful for ALL the levels of friendships in my life. I am so blessed to be nothing more than an ear for some of you, and equally as blessed to have those who listen when I need to be the mouthpiece. The amount of love I have felt over the past few days in preparation to leave this state has been overwhelming. People have flooded my life with kind words and expressions of appreciation. I don't know how I have managed to convince so many amazing people to like me, but I am so thankful. All the moving has gotten old, but I LOVE that I am able to say I have community/family/brothers and sisters in Christ from coast to coast and I am pretty sure that is exactly what Jesus intended. So thank you, from those of you in California, to my friends in Washington, Arizona, Georgia, Florida and everywhere else you people occupy! Thank you for loving me and letting me love/work at/maybe not be so good at, loving you.

30 Days: Day 22- Executive Life Decisions

I've never been a drinker. I mean sure, maybe Bud Light at a party when I was young, but I can count on one hand the amount of times I have actually been legitimately intoxicated. Getting drunk, or high or whatever was just not my thing, even when I was doing everything else in my power to self destruct.

I just don't like being out of control. I like to know what I am doing. I thoroughly enjoy rational thinking (even when it is hard and it hurts). I don't want or need an excuse to get out of my head enough to say or do or be anything other than me.

Alcohol has been the leading cause of every problem I have had in my marriage. It is mainly for this reason, at this point in my life, I have an absolute distaste for it in general.

I am tired of being the DD. I am tired of making sure people are "okay". I am tired of watching folks act like complete dumb asses. I have no more patience for it. None.

Which is why I have recently made the executive life decision that I will no longer accept invitations to hang out at bars or any other place where the reason everyone is going is to drink. I will not go out with the intention of driving drunk people home, or babysitting them. I will politely decline anything that will place me in this sort of environment.

Will I go out for A drink with a friend? Sure. Will I perhaps have a glass of wine with dinner? Yes. But will I aid in the complete lack of self control and madness that follows in others? No.

This has been a long time coming. I have wanted to excuse myself from all of it for a long time. No one event or circumstance has brought me here, rather a lifetimes worth of them. I am 32. It's time to put myself first every now and then. 

30 Days: Day 21- 5 Things I Wish I Didn't Know

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. It's hard caring. It's hard having knowledge and feeling responsible for it. This should be short and sweet.

1. I wish I didn't know how bad everything we eat is. 
I wish I could ignorantly feed my children Fruit Loops and bologna sandwich's with a side of Cheetos and some refined processed sugar item for dessert and not know anything other than they were happy and full.

2. I wish I didn't know how bad medications are for you.
All of them. They are all bad. They band-aid problems and then cause more problems. I hate feeling guilty every time I take a Tylenol or legitimately need antibiotics because I know the little bit of help is hurting something else.

3. I wish I didn't know what beauty standards were.
I want to "F 'em" but it isn't that easy.

4. I wish I didn't know so explicitly what goodness was- who Jesus was.
We are responsible for what we know and if I didn't know what I do about the love of Christ I wouldn't be responsible for being loving when I didn't want to be. This one is sort of a double edged sword because I know being like Jesus is actually better for me and also shows others who He is, which is also something I want to do, but sometimes it's just really hard.

5. I wish I didn't know that our government is a disgusting, selfish, prideful display of money grubbing scumbags who only want what is best for themselves and will sacrifice anything to get whatever that is.
Yeah.

30 Days: Day 20- Poem

I see you
Red lipstick
Trendy haircut
Sitting
Straight backed
In that polka dot dress
Matching heart shaped sun glasses
Propped casually on the table

Cheesecake in tiny bites
Coffee in tiny sips
Thumbs on phone
Looking busy
But
Sneaking glances

Desperately trying to project
Something

I am interesting
I am unique
I am different
And deep

And maybe
Maybe you are
But then
So am I
And she
And he
And we
Them

We are all stuck
Muddled
In the purgatory
Of being
One in a million
And
Just one of the millions
Exceptional
And yet
Not the least bit
Exceptional

And for all our grasping
At individuality
We never find ourselves far
From feeling
And doing
And being
So much like
Everyone else

I see me
Glossed lips
Striped shirt
Match purposfully
With red cropped pants
Sitting
Straight backed
Steve Madden bag
Flung on the table
Thumbs on phone
Looking busy
But
Sneaking glances

Desperately trying to project
Something

30 Days: Day 19- How I Met My Husband

I've mentioned before, numerous times, what a hot mess I was for approximately the first 20 years of my life. Here, you will see that full force, as I am going to relive meeting my now husband.

I was in the process of moving out of an apartment I had shared with a boyfriend for less than a year. I had been mostly faithful to him, never physically involving myself with anyone else, but certainly in some inappropriate relationships with boys amongst the interwebs/telephone. I mean, I HOPE they were boys. I had conversed at length with one boy in particular, who peeked my interest and who happened to live only a few hours south of me in Pensacola FL. I don't know how I had the time or money to do it, but I decided to take a trip down to meet him with a girlfriend and her guy friend, who I just knew as "that dude you're friends with".

Meeting people from online in real life, 5 plus driving hours away from home, where there is no true escape from said individual, went pretty much exactly as you may expect. Bad. Bad bad bad. The guy was really awkward in real life (go figure right), and expected way more from me than I was even on the cusp of willing to give. I don't remember much, other than constantly trying to avoid him touching me in any way. We were all staying at a hotel and I definitely made him go home come night night time.

So our last night there, this guy who I was visiting (whose name completely escapes me) says his friend is having a party at some hotel. We agree to go. I feel certain it must have been pretty lame, because I found myself standing outside the room smoking. It was here, in the dirty breezeway of some skeezy hotel in Pensacola FL, that my life would be forever changed.

As I stood smoking, looking cooler than ever I am sure, up walks this boy. He is wearing Dickie shorts, a plaid pearl-snap shirt, low top Chucks and a white bandana peeking out from underneath his side cocked black, flat brim baseball cap. He has a silver necklace whose pendant is the Cadillac emblem, and tattoos on his arms and legs. In his hand he holds an unnecessarily large Taco Bell cup. I would later find out that in the cup, was 80% Southern Comfort and 20% Dr. Pepper. I think it was not his first drink of the night.

So here in front of me stands this young, adorable, blue eyed punk-hop drunk boy. And he talks. And he talks and talks and talks. Turns out he had been ejected from the party he was attending for not being a Marine. He spent most of his words defending the coolness of the Navy, how (even though he had barely made it out of boot camp at this point), he spends all his time defending the country and should therefor be respected by, well, everyone. His duty never ends, he never clocks out, he is 24/7 on call for the sake of America. ('MURICA!) It's good America didn't need his service on this particular night, as I am certain he would have been of little use.

I'm not sure how we went from that to talking about anything else, but there was a moment in which he was showing me his tattoos and at the time most of them were Cadillac related. Everyone knows the Caddy is the staple car of all gangsters, particularly those residing in the dirty south, (two words I just so happened to have tattooed on my wrists). At the time, I was much more gangster than now, so the boy with the Cadillac tattoos, talking to me about the dirty south and looking like the lost member of Blink 182 was down right DREAMY.

From that conversation we ran off, down some other breezeway in order for me to escape the creeper online guy, and sat on a bench talking about what I am sure had no value at all because he was wasted and I was just gonna agree with anything he said because he was cute. Then he took me to the parking lot to show me his Cadillac. I don't actually like this particular make of car. I mean, yes, Cadillac's are important in the reppin of the dirty dirty, but the truth was they mostly just reminded me of someones Grandma. His was no different. It was huge and burnt orange and, no thanks.

And then we kissed. It was in a stairwell and it was terrible. Not any sort of first kiss from the movies, or that you dream of, or covet the memory of for years to come. It was aggressive and sloppy. So I gave him my number and he and his giant cup of liquor DROVE OFF back to BASE and to his barracks. I can't be sure, but I feel like while he was drunk driving back to government property he may have called me. Making sure the number worked.

I went home and talked to him constantly through out the week. He didn't remember what I looked like or much of anything from that night, but my shining personality was enough to keep him interested until the next weekend when he came to visit. He brought 2 friends, in case I was ugly and he needed an excuse to bail. Obviously, I was absolutely DARLING and such a total catch that he decided to stay. We spent the weekend at the Days Inn with his shipmates and 2 of my friends. I probably got pregnant sometime in that 48 hours. I was real classy.

Before he headed out he wrote something nice, and I am sure terribly romantic for me on one of the empty OE bottles from the weekend. How lucky was I?

The rest is history. We made the baby and got hitched. Then lived through absolute hell on earth for awhile. Split up. Got back together. Therapy. Made another baby. Had some awesome years. Lived through more hell. Therapy. Bought a house. Bout to move to our 3rd duty station in 11 years. Wash, rinse repeat. Life is good. Even when it's bad, it's good. Because Jesus and because work.

30 Days: Day 18- Where Have You Felt Out of Place

The blog prompt generator is getting weak. I think I have used all its creative juices and I have had to scour the interwebs for other prompt sites. Most of them suck so I feel like its slim pickins for topics that I feel good about.

Today the winner is, "Tell about a time when you felt out of place."

I have felt out of place a lot, but there is nothing that makes me feel so uncomfortable as I do anytime I am present at a military function or even just on government property.

When I met Travis he was fresh out of boot camp. This quality was "hot", not only because it meant he had like, a real job, but also because uniforms. I feel like I didn't think too much about it other than it meant I only saw him on weekends because he was stationed 5 hours away. Then we made a baby and I married him and even at that point, he was a SLACK ASS sailor, so his career choice really didn't effect me other than it was a paycheck that supported us both, awesome. All of this to say, it took a deployment or 5 and him tightening up his sailor game for me to really feel the effects of being a military wife. In fact, because it is all I have known as a wife it feels very natural and it is always odd when people make a big to do about it.

Anyways all of that to say, we are 12 years in this military family game and yet anytime I have to be on base or at a function, be it the commissary, doctor, a command BBQ, a Christmas party, a quick lunch delivery- whatever, I AM SO UNCOMFORTABLE there. I feel like I am on another planet full of people in matching outfits who have their own language and belief system. Weird alien people who are all working together like cogs in a clock and I am an unwanted interference. Even at "fun" functions where everyone is wearing clothes of their choice, I feel so incredibly out of place.

I think part of it is that what Travis does at work is separate from our life. I understand his literal job, and we talk about happenings at work, but really it is the only part of his life in which I am naturally excluded. Not only that, but it isn't just some desk job, it's a job where he potentially spends 6 plus months away from me and with those people. And who he is there, I know, is at least a little different from who he is at home. So maybe a part of it is that I feel like military personnel are all in a club that I don't get to be in and that I will never understand. Furthermore I stay home, so I don't have a piece of life separate from him and the kids which makes it harder to feel out the part of his life that is. 

But even the other places. The doctor and grocery store that are full of other spouses- I don't even like those. I could never join any form of military wives anything because it all just feels so wrong to me.
I don't know why, it always has and I am okay with that. Till I have to participate in it, then I'm like a brace faced 6th grade boy at a school dance trying to talk to the girl he likes. Awkward. Uncomfortable. Probably over compensating.

30 Days: Day 17- Something I Am Learning

 I could write a ton of different things here. I could write about parenting and how hard it is and all the things my kids are teaching me about myself or how I have no idea what I am doing most of the time. I could write about marriage and how hard that is and how my husband is constantly teaching me about myself and how I have no idea what I am doing most of the time. I could write about the fact that I am about to be homeschooling for 3 months and all that I am learning as I gather all the stuff I need to do it. I am always learning.

But right now, for this blog, I am going to write about something I feel like God has been showing me, learning me, over some time now. I haven't arrived in this area. I don't understand it all. I don't have answers and I am still working through it. Luckily, God is patient. That to say, if I say something here that doesn't sound right, forgive me- learning. This is not an advice blog, this is just me working something out with Jesus and giving you a sneak peek.

It started with a book. The book is called "My Name is Hope", written by John Comer. I read it around this time last year, right as I was coming off meds. It came by way of Amazon, purchased for me by a friend who knew I was struggling. The book is written by a Pastor guy who struggled with anxiety and depression, and is intended to give hope outside of medication for others. This book changed my life. I took a lot from it, but more than anything I came to the conclusion that anxiety is the consequence of idolatry. If you believe that God is above all things, with your best interest at heart all the time, no matter what, and that faith/trust is the center of your life, you cannot worry because worry would mean you aren't actually trusting God. Worry means your faith is in other things.

So I started thinking about what I have made an idol of that keeps me anxious. Like most Americans, the biggest one is safety. I want to be safe. I want good health. I want to avoid suffering at all costs. Furthermore, I want my kids to have those same things. Don't get me wrong, it is totally okay and completely normal to desire the best life possible for you and yours.

However (and here is the learning curve)....

The only thing that is actually best for you and everyone else, is the advancement of God's Kingdom. That means, more people coming to know Jesus and having the option of eternal relationship with God. This means that GOD is the ONLY THING that matters. And if that is true, everything we care about- kids, spouses, family, friends- are just a bonus.

They are simply gifts, from a Giver.

I think more often than not we turn the gifts into idols, rather than idolizing the Giver and His ability to give them.

I think we decide what we think is "bad" not based on trusting in the Giver and His ultimate plans, but based on what is hard, and what hurts. Then, sometimes, we blame the Giver for all the hurt and the hard stuff, forgetting that He was the one who gave anything we had to lose or struggle with to begin with. 

To be less abstract, God has brought into my life via different forms of media over the past year, a handful of people who were in the process of or have lost a child (worth mentioning- all of the people I will speak about are Jesus followers). Now I must preface all this by saying there was a time a few years back when I would have told you that if I lost one of my children I don't know where that would leave me with God. I would have admitted that such a circumstance, (the worst I can possibly imagine), would absolutely make me question any sort of "divine plan". Because children dying is not fair. It has to be hands down one of the worst things to occur on the planet and I just didn't have faith that I could process such a thing in conjunction with a loving God.

So I have watched these strangers, on Instagram, on Facebook. I have watched them lose what I imagine all of us struggle not to make an idol of- our children. I have watched consequently, the out pouring of love for these people. I have watched them hurt and be angry and then hurt again and then have a good day, rinse and repeat over and over for a year. And, I have watched their grieving open the door for others who have been in similar positions to grow and to grieve perhaps better than they were or not feel so alone. I have watched the death of a child not only grow the souls of their parents, but also help and grow all the souls watching from afar. I have watched God take the worst, most "bad", hardest thing I can imagine and grow it into something that advances His Kingdom. Something that shows others His face. His love. His grace. His availability.

I mean, we are talking about the guy who sacrificed HIS son for the sake of all the dirty, no good, lying, cheating, wife beating, murdering, drunken, sexually perverse, thieving humans from Jesus' death till he shows back up on earth. His ability to use the death of a child for the good of something really shouldn't come as such a surprise.

Here is what I am getting at. God is ALL GOOD. He can't do bad, it's impossible. Cancer is bad. Childhood cancer is worse. Babies falling asleep and never waking up for no apparent reason is torture. It is awful and I don't mean to take away from that. But death is a part of life no matter how old we are. Losing things is a part of living be it death or the end of a relationship or a home or whatever. The key to dealing with it, coming out the other side well, is KNOWING that God really is STILL GOOD despite EVERYTHING. And that GOOD doesn't mean making sense. GOOD doesn't mean us getting what we think we need and want. GOOD isn't everyone we love never suffering. GOOD IN THIS CONTEXT ONLY MEANS GOD WORKING FOR HIMSELF WHICH INEVITABLY MEANS ALL OF US. People we know and don't know. People across the whole planet. All the things, the births the deaths the losses the wins- they have a ripple effect and God USES that.

I used to think nothing "bad" was God's will. It couldn't be because God is all good. And then in the midst of this- what has been a year long learning curve, I came to a scripture I have read a gazillion times. Matt 10:28 says, "Aren’t sparrows sold for next to nothing, two for an penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s consent." CONSENT. That means He said "Okay. Fall." That means He not only knows, but He consented for even the things we consider to be "bad". 

What is to be learned then, is that bad is not bad at all. If it happened it is because He consented, which means there is an amazing good to be found in whatever it is. Maybe we won't see it this side of eternity. We aren't supposed to know everything. We aren't supposed to have all the answers. We are only supposed to BELIEVE that God is who He says He is- which is a GOOD GOD WHO LOVES US. And if we can get to a place where that really is more true than anything else, perhaps our definition of "bad" will change also. We are so linear. So stuck in time. God is just so not, and it makes it impossible for us to grasp SO MUCH. That too, has to be okay.

End note: In the beginning God created us to live eternally in relationship with Him. It was the bad decisions of humans that altered this reality- that opened our eyes to death. God knew that would happen, but that doesn't mean he made it happen. The fact that it DID happen means we live in a broken world. God will make the best of this brokenness if we let Him. He is always willing to work with whats broken. All that to say- don't take from this blog "God gives babies cancer so they die and He can do something with it." NO. Not what I am saying. God doesn't give babies cancer, this broken place and all our bad decisions from beginning of time to now gives babies cancer. God simply works within the broken lives we lead in order to make it the best it can be- which this side of eternity will still be broken. The only time we will see and experience true WHOLENESS will be in heaven. 

End note II: Don't forget I said I was learning and maybe, for all my theologian friends reading (HA), there are things here that don't line up. I am okay with that. God is giving me little bits at a time and I don't have anything resembling a pulpit so no need to be worried I am preaching some sort of false gospel.

30 Days: Day 16- Where I Grew Up

I am so excited about this prompt for a few reasons. The first is that just over a year ago, my Nanny passed away. It was in her house that I grew up, and the summer before she died, when I knew she didn't have much time, I made it a point to take pictures of her house, my house, and all the things I never wanted to forget. All the things that represented my childhood. Like most old people, not much changed in Nannies house over the years, so the pictures that you find here will be pretty much what I grew up in. After her death the house was sold and is currently begin renovated. I haven't looked through any of these images since her death and the sale of the house so I am pretty excited to take a brief trip down memory lane. The second reason I am excited about this blog is because a portion of it will explain a little about me in conjunction with what used to be one of my most favorite places on the planet.

When my parents split at 2, I was already in a home daycare with a woman named Kathryn Brookshire (Nanny). She had been taking care of me since I was an infant and just happened to own a duplex in Candler Park, a pretty well to do area in the city of Atlanta. The house was built in the early 1900s and she purchased it in the early 50s for what is chump change now. When my mom and dad divorced, she opened up the other side of her home to my mom and I. Because my mom worked full time I spent most of my childhood on Nannies side, which is represented in the photos.

Welcome to 445 Oakdale RD.

 

 So many of my childhood memories are found on this front porch. From being a little girl sitting with Nanny and playing a game where we tried to guess the color of the next car coming by, or being a grown up with my own kids and her sitting waiting for us to arrive on it. The porch furniture never changed between to the two, and no matter what major renovation changes were happening to the houses around hers, the view was always close to my heart.

Nannies spot. The chair itself changed over the years, as well as the contents of the little stand, but if we were in the living room, Nanny was sitting here. Maybe she was watching Days of Our Lives, or golf. Maybe she was doing a crossword puzzle. Maybe she was sneaking a sweet treat from a drug store bag hidden beside the chair.

Slip and slide and splinters- all experienced on this floor, from my little feet to my kids little feet. Everything from the outward aesthetics of this house, to the closed room inside layout has completely shaped what I want in a home. It's crazy how something so material can shape your taste. When we bought our house recently my only real deal breaker was a front porch. If it didn't have that porch I didn't want it.

Here are just a few of the original to the house things I will always love. The best light fixtures, door knobs, mantel details, and light switches. I didn't want to bore you, but there is way more of these cool shots of random original hardware.

So that is a new stove- kitchen appliances don't last forever when you cook as much as Nanny, but those cast iron pans are the same ones she cooked cornbread in before I was even old enough to ingest it. And you can bet that little chrome pot is full of bacon fat. The curtains may have changed, but I have pictures of myself and both my babies having baths in that sink.

When you wash your hands in this bathroom, you must chose really cold or really hot. Unless you wanna use that amazing rubber plug and fill the sink for a middle ground.

There you have it. A little taste of what will ALWAYS be home to me. It was this house in this neighborhood, where I could walk a block to my best friends house, or another block in the other direction to see other friends, that has absolutely convinced me that the streets of Atlanta are paved in gold. I know it's all nostalgia but the force is strong in this one.

Now, the other part of this blog is that this house, 445 Oakdale, was located a couple blocks away from what in the 80's and 90's was Atlanta's punk rock, misfit mecca. This place, Little Five Points, was about 10 blocks of pierced, tattooed, dirty colored mohawk, drunken teenage squatter types. There are stores and restaurants lining the streets and in its heyday seemed like something out of the wrong side of the tracks from Pretty in Pink. The stores sold clothes and gifts and housewares that before the internet and Hot Topic you wouldn't find anywhere else and the people that worked there were covered in tattoos way before they were mainstream enough to no be blatantly stared at. On the weekends crazy religious folks would come and yell through mega phones about how Satan was present there. Meanwhile the orange robed Hare Krinshnas lovingly handed out pamphlets.

And from a very young age, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT THERE. I loved the people and how they looked, I loved the stores and the weird crap they had. I loved sitting inside Zesto's with my soft serve and people watching or going with Nanny to pick up her medications at Ira's Drugstore where there was an old school fountain bar in the back. And I never stopped loving it there. Even when I moved to the burbs as a teenager I made it a point to get there every time I saw Nanny, and when I moved back at around 18 I got a job at Little Five Points Pizza where I slang slices.

The past few years when I have gone home, Little Five Points is but a shell of its former self. The streets are empty, even concerning the homeless population. Some of the same places are there, but most of them have closed up shop and been replaced with much less cool counterparts. There is even an American Apparel down there now, and if THAT doesn't represent the mainstreamness of the current situation I don't know what would. I do still go though. When I am home I always go back and walk through the cool shops that are still there, and even some of the not so cool new ones.

I am pretty sure if I hadn't been exposed to the sort of place Little Five was as a kid and teenager it is quite possible I would have much less colorful skin, fewer scars on my face and perhaps lamer taste in music.

So there you have it. That's where I come from.