I am going to start living like a monk, though I have no brown robe or penis. What I have is a love of silence. “Be still,” You say and I am moved. You have seen straight through me. You have revealed my desire and answered it with abundance. It is enough to hold hands in the silence.
I am going to start living like an artist— comfortable clothes, maybe a paint smudge here and there. I will print my soul on paper, allow it to be read. I will notice the way leaves grow and petals fall, and I will study the delicacy of a spider’s web and the beauty of a human hand. And You will be nudging me and pointing, for always there is more wonder.
I am going to start living like a mystic disguised as a mom. The paradox of my children’s sass is the perfect—daily—invitation to discard right answers. As I haul a bag of right answers to the trash bin by the garage, I smell how clean the air is, and I hope when I return to the kitchen the kids will smell it too— life-giving molecules dancing all around us.
Thanks to Christine Valters Paintner for the writing prompt that set me to writing this poem—from her book The Artist’s Rule.
“Many unhealthy behaviors begin as necessary coping mechanisms.”
I hear various versions of this sentiment repeatedly from therapists and psychologists. What may be a harmful habit today, they say, served us well in a previous season of life. I get how this applies to people-pleasing, secret-keeping, anger-stuffing, and high-performing. I’m less sure how it applies to self-hatred which, at first, sounds universally useless to me.
But maybe it did begin somewhere useful. Maybe my self-hatred sprouted when I couldn’t stop big feelings during infancy and toddlerhood, feelings that overwhelmed both me and the people around me. Flooded with emotion and its unwieldy side effects, what could I do but show my disagreement with the outburst by hating myself?
I buried self-hatred under the more acceptable coping behaviors of performing and pleasing. But whenever I couldn’t perform and please—when I showed up in the world in a way I didn’t like—self-hatred jumped out of the trunk to take the steering wheel.
There were more scenarios than I realized, as self-hatred tried every position in the car, from back-seat driver to navigation system, snack hoarder to complainer. Further exploration reveals at least a dozen ways self-hatred has served me:
It keeps me small, and being small keeps me from being seen, because being seen is risky.
It beats “them” to it. If I can make myself feel bad sooner and more than you can make me feel bad, I’m not vulnerable to you.
An excuse to be sad. When I don’t know why I feel depressed, loathing myself makes it seem legitimate … OR maybe I’m sad because I hate myself. Either way, it’s a handy excuse.
A layer of protection between you and my pain, and between myself and my pain. During the years of parenting my preschool daughters, hating that I was exhausted, angry, and shut down seemed easier than admitting I felt lonely, empty, scared, and inadequate.
A way to belong. When my mom got frustrated with herself, she often said, “I’m such an idiot.” I could fit in at home by thinking and speaking poorly of myself. And the church taught me not to toot my own horn. Apparently it’s not spiritually sound to think well of myself (leave that to God, I guess?), so self-hatred is also a way to fit in spiritually.
Keeps me from being perceived as naive as Pollyanna.
Protects me from trying to do things I’ll fail at.
A way of responding to failure—it spares me the time and energy of taking responsibility. (ouch)
A shortcut. It’s faster to process, “I did that because I’m bad,” than it is to process, “I did that because I’m human and humans get depleted and defeated sometimes, and what is depleting or defeating me right now?”
A form of power. When I had infants, I “couldn’t” be angry with them. In order to feel some control (power) over my anger, I directed it toward myself.
A way to remain in “relationship” with the unwanted parts of myself, even though the relationship is toxic.
It proves my loyalty to certain ideals. It allows me to act outside of my standards without confusing myself or anyone else by condoning the behavior. So self-hatred proves I have morals (even if I don’t live them out).
This all sounds so ridiculous.
And familiar.
All of a sudden, it sounds like a lazy way out, but it makes so much sense, and I feel sad, but grateful that I can see it, and profoundly grateful that other options are available to me. I don’t need to dislike myself to belong with people, and certainly not to belong with God. So maybe I can give it a break.
Go ahead, sit down and make your own list. It might be time to break up with one of your coping mechanisms.
Last weekend Michael and I celebrated 19 years of marriage, with a getaway to Waitsburg, WA. For those who aren’t from around here, Waitsburg is a 25-minute drive from our home in Walla Walla, and it boasts a population of about 1,200. Despite its small size (or maybe because of it), Waitsburg treated us like royalty.
We dropped the kids at their great-grandma’s house Friday afternoon, and since it would be a couple of hours before we could check in to our hotel, we bummed around Walla Walla for a while. We stopped at FVC Gallery to try their new pumpkin chai. Then we poked around the stacks and shelves at Earthlight Books. After that, a walk to Bright’s Candies in the warm afternoon sun brought us close to our check-in time and we drove to Waitsburg. The farmland and sky showed off as we passed the time talking about serious stuff like other people’s relationships.
Our room in the the Royal Block had tall ceilings, and gorgeous windows facing Main Street. The king bed occupied a loft over the large custom shower.
We lounged in our room, then checked out the local grocery store and convenience store (there’s one of each). Although we didn’t find the plant-based meat we were looking for to go with our croissant sandwiches, I found pineapple juice concentrate. (That may not sound exciting, but the two grocery stores I shop at weekly have been out for months. I like to keep it around for smoothies (especially piña colada smoothies), so we made plans to come back and buy some later.)
After dinner we opened the fudge from Bright’s Candies. We had no utensils, plastic or otherwise, so we used the prong on Michael’s belt buckle to slice our fudge. Yum.
In the evening, we wandered down to the bar that occupies a portion of the Royal Block’s first floor, and ended up deep in conversation with the owners, Joe and Tiina. Tiina made us a cup of tea and kept our water glasses full, while Joe regaled us with stories of the owls that lived in the building when they first bought it, and how they lived in a tent because of how much water dripped down inside any time it rained. They’re passionate about community and beauty, and are delightful conversationalists. We must have talked for an hour before turning in for the night.
Saturday morning we quietly exited the Royal Block and walked next door to Ten Ton Coffee, where eclectic art, comfortable seating, and good food occupied us. Michael read “King Jack and the Dragon” to me while we waited for our food. (The story was new to us, and I highly recommend it for preschoolers and their parents.)
After eating, we checked out The Times office in the back of the coffee shop. The woman who currently owns the paper struck up a conversation. We talked about coffee, art, the local white supremacists, and The Times, which has been in print nearly 150 years – since 1878. She invited us to peruse the archives, housed in large volumes with green covers, shown on the right in the picture below.
Having no plans for the day turned out to be great fun. We read newspapers from the 40’s and 60’s, and when we tired of that we went back to our room and did a crossword puzzle.
Lunchtime found us at Whiskey Canyon, a half-mile walk to the other end of town. The food was good, but a healthy population of house flies detracted from the ambience. We took the long way back to our hotel, stopping to see the sights and take too many pictures.
The city park in Waitsburg borders the Touchet River, and if you’re willing to scramble down a short dirt embankment, you can stand at the water’s edge and listen to the peaceful sounds of water flowing and branches swaying.
While I took a picture of the library, Michael snapped one of the former City Hall (the portion of the building with darker brick), which is currently for sale. Both Joe and Tiina at the Royal Block, and the woman who owns The Times, suggested that we buy the place (we brainstormed possible business plans over lunch because, why not?). We snuck in the building to admire the beautiful old architecture, complete with a dripping sink in a dilapidated bathroom, and office doors painted with signage for the lawyers who used to occupy them.
We dressed up for dinner and I asked Michael to take pictures of me in front of the lovely windows. We laughed over my awkward poses and the bank sign outside that clearly added to the romance.
Our flip-flops (yes, flip-flops can be dress-up clothes) smacked loudly on the wood stairs as we walked down to the main floor, where Tongue and Groove, a local band, played live. Joe and Tiina took orders and chatted with customers. We’d been told that Joe bakes on Saturday, so we ordered bread, an adorable baby loaf that came with housemade dipping sauce – oil and vinegar, herbs, and fresh sliced garlic.
As the sun sank low and the air cooled, we walked down the block to American 35, where we enjoyed dinner outdoors under a lighted umbrella, and tried to make friends with two wary cats. We finished up with a corn-hole game, then took a picture inside by the “Repent” sign.
Sunday morning we repeated the performance at Ten Ton Coffee, complete with newspaper readings like this 80-year-old entry in the “Local News” section:
To Pullman. Mrs. Marie Stanley and daughter, Naomi went to Pullman over the week-end to visit their son and brother, Dennis Stanley, a student at WSC.
Before leaving town we snapped a picture of the lobby in the Royal Block, sat beside the river, and bought pineapple juice concentrate.
Final thoughts on Waitsburg: go visit. We talked for more than thirty minutes each with three different business owners. That’s a first. In addition to the businesses I already mentioned, also take time to stop by Simply Sawdust, where I forgot to take pictures.
Final thoughts on marriage: we’re enjoying a peaceful season – an overnight success, 19 years in the making, you might say. We’ve grown both tougher and more tender. We’ve made it through the sleepless years of parenting. We’ve settled into ourselves and into each other. It feels good. Quiet. Homey. Like a small town.
Bonus Picture: Michael and I at Pine Cone Creamery yesterday, celebrating on the actual day of our anniversary.
I sat on a yoga mat with the soles of my feet together in front of me, knees out to the sides. A feeling of connection and calm came over me. I had done this stretch many times and was surprised by the whole-body comfort. Rather than fighting against my body to force more flexibility, yoga taught me to work with my body. My bare feet pressed against each other, the stretch invited me to feel the muscles deep in my legs, and my spirit rested. I felt that I belonged to myself.
My exposure to yoga began in childhood, when my conservative Christian parents—who nevertheless had a habit of blazing their own way—bought a Bikram Choudhury yoga book. I loved watching my dad grunt his way into different poses—Eagle Pose, Tree Pose, Standing Bow Pulling Pose. My older sister and I would show off our youthful elasticity, easily getting into positions that our parents forced and contorted themselves into.
The Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class book had funny cartoon illustrations, along with actual photographs of Bikram and his students—mostly leotard-clad, flat-bellied women. Bikram wore exceptionally small speedo-swimsuit-style briefs that left little to the imagination. The photos, taken during one of his Hatha Yoga classes in Beverly Hills in the 70’s, often show him steadying one of the willowy women, his face expressionless, a hand on her arm or leg.
In the 90’s, Christians—if I may generalize—spoke spitefully (or was it fearfully?) of “New Age” thinking. I’m not sure at what level I was aware that yoga made the naughty-new-age list, but the grunting and body-folding in our living room felt pretty safe to me. Any misgivings I may have had about yoga and its gateway-drug-to-eastern-religion qualities vanished sometime in my 20’s, and I accepted yoga as a healthy and legitimate practice. But until this year, I had never tried it as an adult. My time on a yoga mat typically involved sweating through lunges, burpees, and sit-ups, and those workouts were rare.
Last year, my friend Tiffaney started a yoga class with another young woman, in the fellowship room of a local church. It’s not called yoga class, because yoga is still associated with Eastern meditation, which allows evil spirits to inhabit you … or something. My sister, who is generally underwhelmed by the threat of evil spirits, has been doing yoga for years. She attended Tiffaney’s class, and around the time she mentioned it to me, Tiffaney invited me again.
So I came on a Thursday morning, late, and joined half a dozen barefoot women on yoga mats in the church basement. It didn’t take long to settle in to the quiet music and Tiffaney’s gentle voice, guiding me to breathe and stretch and count, hold and release. My body awakened, something like the expanding I feel when I step outside and take a deep breath after a rainy downpour. I felt invited to notice myself. I felt pleasure in the strength of my body, and deep release as I stretched muscle groups from head to toe. By the time I wiped down my mat at the end of class, I knew I’d be back.
Not long after my first yoga class, the group adjourned for summer. Around that time, I got a call from the local senior center, thanking me for a recent donation, and inviting me to join their yoga class. I arrived with some trepidation, expecting to be at least three decades younger than all the participants, but—in addition to the women in their 70’s and 80’s—a little girl probably three decades younger than me also attended.
“Hi,” I smiled. “I thought I was gonna be the youngest person here.” She smiled back politely but looked at me like I was about as easy to relate to as all the other strange old ladies. I laid my yoga mat down next to hers in the corner of the small, carpeted room, and a short, plump woman in her seventies began rolling her shoulders and inviting us to do the same—seven times forward, seven times back. As class progressed, I watched with respect as the circle of participants made their way through the stretches. Some were more flexible than me. Others adapted as needed for stiff joints or chronic pain. The little girl flailed and flopped in boredom, and I guessed she would have preferred her grandma took her somewhere other than yoga class.
Over the summer, I returned to the senior center whenever I had the time for Monday morning yoga. The teacher talked about opening my heart chakra, getting my synovial (joint) fluids moving, and keeping my arms against my head like ear muffs while stretching side to side. Rather than ending class with a Bible verse, she read a “thought of the day,” put her hands in prayer position, and said, “Namaste.” Five years ago that might have freaked me out, but after reading a couple of books on mysticism, and learning that “Namaste” is usually interpreted as, “the divine in me greets the divine in you,” I heartily embrace it.
There’s a wholeness to expansion and contraction. Rather than using my muscles only to hold body weight, dumbbells, or weird positions, I am invited to breathe deep and allow them to relax into the release of breath. There is safety in the guidance of a gentle voice. I don’t have to make decisions, or brace against a fitness pep talk. Rather, the teacher leads me in getting to know my body, feel my strength and my heaviness, and notice my capacity to loosen and lighten. This safety and wholeness is akin to what I feel with God, and I am delighted that it is built into my breath and my body.
Before I tried yoga, I thought it consisted of fancy stretching. Now yoga ranks among my top five bodily experiences. As I drove home from class at the senior center a couple weeks ago, I noticed that I sat taller, my muscles working together to hold me in a healthy posture. At the same time, I felt completely relaxed. Before yoga, I believed muscle tension and relaxation were mutually exclusive, but I have discovered they can coexist, and that opens a whole world of possibilities. Could a similar tension and relaxation also coexist in my spirit?
Since I’ve done yoga and remain uninhabited by evil spirits, next I’m planning to try meditation. Perhaps meditation is where the tension and peace in my spirit become friendly with each other. I aim to find out.
This summer I’m bingeing country artist Martina McBride. She’ll be right here in Walla Walla for our county fair at the end of August and I. Can’t. Help. Myself. Michael and I have tickets on “Floor A”—the center of the arena, between the bandstand and the stage. I’m gonna belt every song I know, and I’m hoping I know every song. Hence, the bingeing—time to explore her music, especially any hits I don’t know, and hopefully find new favorites. But first I return to the song that connected me with Martina 25 years ago.
Remember the CD mail-order marketing of the late ‘90s? For me, a teen reaching a few timid fingers out of my homeschooled-on-a-farm cocoon, an offer of a dozen free compact discs was too good to pass up.
The ‘90s and early 2000s were my puritan years—no dating, no secular music. I lived those moral convictions with great gusto. My collection of CDs, which by high school graduation filled two disc storage albums, consisted almost entirely of Contemporary Christian music (Michael W. Smith, every Jaci Valasquez album, Kathy Troccoli), along with a compilation of Elvis Presley’s gospel songs, and a few “pagan” discs from my musician father—Peter, Paul and Mary; Roger Miller; Cat Stevens. The Cat Stevens album included “Two Fine People,” with a scandalous lyric about breast kissing—that was a new thought.
The summer after my 15th birthday I worked at a small orchard in a neighboring town, thinning and picking peaches and nectarines. The self-assigned orchard crew leader, a tough woman named Dawn, kept the portable stereo in the orchard tuned to country radio, shifting it down the rows as we moved our ladders and picked only ripe fruit—the best I’ve ever tasted. By the end of that summer I knew most of the country hits of the year 2000. That same summer, my sister worked as a lifeguard at the city pool in the next one-horse-town down the line from where I picked fruit. Country music was the backdrop there, too, and we both finished out high school with the stereos in our matching white Chevy Corsicas tuned to the country station.
On the radio I heard Martina McBride sing “There You Are,” a slow song full of metaphor about the omnipresence of a lover. I immediately adopted it as a Christian song about the ever-presence of God. This adoption allowed it into my stringent collection of music. I wanted to buy the album with that song, but didn’t know which album to buy. It took me a couple of tries, and that is how I came to possess Martina McBride’s albums Evolution and Emotion—the latter includes the song “There You Are.”
Popular music, along with all Disney movies, and most fiction books, were absent from my childhood home. As a Junior in high school—the first year I didn’t homeschool—I became best friends with Terah, who listened to popular music. I picked up a song here and there. She gave me the Shrek soundtrack and introduced me to Billy Gillman, who sang country that was pop enough she could handle it. At first I felt a bit sneaky adding those Martina McBride albums to my Christian-curated collection, but my loyalty was sealed when I read online that Martina sidelined her touring so her children could have a normal upbringing, with her in it. I mean, doesn’t that speak for her music?
Evolution and Emotion are cherished albums 25 years later, and Martina continues to be my favorite country artist, although I haven’t kept up with her later releases. Her Christmas albums play in our house every December, and I learned the chords for “This Uncivil War” so I could sing and play it on my guitar.
In preparation for the concert at the county fair, I’ve been listening to all 14 of Martina’s albums. There’s some good classic country stuff in there, like the song about crying on the shoulder of the road. Her first three albums lean toward “whiny country” (or, if you prefer, “classic country”) and I’m finding I don’t enjoy them as much as her country-pop sound. But one album, released 17 years after Emotion, quickly became a new favorite from beginning to end. I can sing parts of every song now. And—once again—the song that captivated me most, reminds me of God. The album is Reckless, and the title song is about, well, being reckless, rushing headlong into everything. The rash person in the song makes a rash statement about her lover, new words for my standing conviction that God is crazy: “For loving me the way you do / I know I’m reckless / But you must be reckless, too.”
I don’t suppose God is reckless in a traditional sense (“reckless” is generally defined as a lack of concern for consequences), careless about the consequences of His decisions—given all that omniscience and “outside of time” stuff. But, unlike humans, perhaps God doesn’t make decisions based on consequences. Maybe He doesn’t even base decisions on “outcomes”—the sophisticated version of consequences. What if it’s all about creativity, the making of us; and presence, seeing us? What if it’s about doing a whole lot of reckless things for people who will never return the favor, the affection?
I’m looking forward to a reunion on August 28—a return to age 15 and nectarines, to the memory of CD clubs and having my own car (a Garth Brooks CD was in the player when I bought the car), and a do-over of the time I missed hearing Martina at the 2019 Ventura County Fair. I’m looking forward to singing in a sea of strangers, watching the moon rise above the stage, everything sounding muted on the way home. And I’m looking forward to celebrating the God who loves me through my puritan phases, arrogance, anger, and disbelief. He has sent love notes to me in country music, TV shows, and irreverent books. He has taken me on dates to therapy offices, quiet campgrounds, and Bible studies. I know I’m reckless (believe me, perfectionism is its own version of recklessness), but He must be reckless, too.
A mom doesn’t know if nursing her baby will be bliss or misery. She doesn’t know how many weeks, months, or years will pass before she sleeps one whole night. She doesn’t know if the bedtime boundary is for the kid, or for her own sanity, or who will be scarred by it 15 years from now.
Is crawling “early” a good sign? Is learning to talk “late” a bad sign? Is she spoiling with too many snacks, or not offering enough? Is it best to let the siblings fight it out or to coach them through conflict?
Has she said “no” too little, or too much? Does letting her daughter spend the night at a friend’s house foster healthy independence, or increase the likelihood of sexual abuse? Does curating books and movies and music benefit her kids or teach them to be afraid of the world?
Moms don’t know how their prayers will be answered, their cooking remembered, their mistakes retold. They don’t know about the people their grown child will feed and teach and hold, or the nights he or she will go to bed early because they know how to stop and rest. Moms don’t know the impact their love will have after they’re gone. Moms just don’t know.
Last fall I (shockingly) found something on Facebook I don’t agree with. As I scrolled through the first dozen posts on my feed, this graphic appeared at least three times.
Obviously it resonated with many of my friends and family. But, when I read it, I felt small, mute, powerless. I felt called to misery as my spiritual inheritance. I felt afraid of myself.
Then I thought, two can play at this game. You throw Bible verses at me, I’ll throw some back at you. (Side note: I’m working on being less defensive.)
#1) Jesus didn’t say, “Follow your heart.”
No, but He made my heart, and He likes to spend time there. My heart is where the physical and the spiritual meet—like the exchange of oxygen in my lungs, passing from air to blood, life-giving mystery. If I try to separate from myself, I end up separating from God. He is the substance of which I am made.
Jesus said to His Father, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.” (John 17:20-21a, NKJV, emphasis added)
#2) Jesus didn’t say, “Be true to yourself.”
No, but He did say, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.” (Matthew 12:25b, NKJV)
#3) Jesus didn’t say, “Believe in yourself.”
No, but He did tell this parable: “Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’” (Luke 15:8-9, NIV)
This is a woman who believes in herself. She doesn’t blame the kids for losing her coin, or berate herself. She takes action. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and looks carefully until she finds the coin. When she finds it, she doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief that no one found out how irresponsible she was to lose it. On the contrary, it appears she’s okay with mistakes and disappointments. When she finds the coin, she calls her friends and neighbors to rejoice. She knows that she belongs and that her triumphs are worth celebrating—not because she has done something extraordinary, but because she has showed up for the ordinary.
#4) Jesus didn’t say, “Live your truth.”
No, but He did make me different from everyone else. JJ Heller sings, “Maybe the best thing I can be is me.” I’m not Jesus, or Paul, or Ruth. I’m not the foster-mom, or the guy who evangelizes with fresh-baked bread. I’m not the one who remembers everyone’s name and their mother-in-law’s name. My home isn’t a clean and peaceful space people flock to. But I do create safe spaces for people to talk and grapple and say life is shitty. I do text friends when I’m thinking of them, and sporadically send cards in the mail. I ask questions and deliver coffee and buy birthday gifts.
I write bravely, and sometimes the person who reads feels seen. My truth is the truth I know because I’ve lived it and it’s deep in my bones. It is these deepest parts of me that touch the divine.
Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17, NKJV)
God didn’t come into the world to overshadow me or indict me, but to preserve and liberate me.
#5) Jesus didn’t say, “As long as you are happy…”
No, but He did say, “I have come that [my sheep] may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” (John 10:10b-11, NKJV)
Jesus didn’t suggest that we sacrifice everything on the altar of happiness, but neither did He suggest that we pursue misery. He made us with taste buds and penises and clitorises, and He made a world bursting with taste and touch and life. He metes it out neither according to merit nor in submission to scarcity, but in wild abundance.
“Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!” (Psalm 144:15b, NKJV)
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Queen of the Universe, for chocolate chips melted into a couch cushion, bandaids on the shower wall, and toothpaste. so. much. toothpaste— crusted onto the tube, smeared on the bathroom counter, cemented to sinks and walls.
Blessed are You for Cheerios on the kitchen floor crushed into powder, coat wet and dirty from a night in the back yard, sandal forever lost in the mud of Anthony Lake, chip crumbs in the bunk bed.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Queen of the Universe, for candle wax dripped down the cupboard door, Q-tips cut into pieces, gum saved on the dining table “for later.”
Two young humans dwell here who create often and live large. May they always have permission to be messy and alive, and enough money for toothpaste.
My journal takes me back in time. September 25, 2015. Thirty years old. Married ten years. Two daughters—Kyli two months past her first birthday, and Kayt a month shy of her third. That means on the day I wrote this prayer I had a one-year-old and a two-year-old. No surprise that “broken,” “scared,” “no match,” and “tired” feature in this heart-cry, penned during a rare stolen moment. My heart bled out through the ink of my pen. I turned to the page and to my heavenly parent, because together they were the safest place I knew.
April 17, 2024. Thirty-eight years old. Married 18 years. Kyli and Kayt are now 9 and 11. We’re deeply settled into the house we were in the process of purchasing in 2015. And I’m writing, which I now realize is not only a safe place for me, but also a creative passion.
Today I’ll respond to myself in this prayer. A spiritual journey is a both/and experience, dense with contrast and contradiction. And so today maybe I disagree with my thirty-year-old self, but my experience and beliefs then were as valid as my experience and beliefs now.
Truthfully, I haven’t been writing spiritual content much recently. I’m weary of cultural Christian ideas, the sin-and-salvation language, the beliefs that tied my hands behind my back. But set all that aside, and there is a friendship. Prayer is a celebration of friendship.
Good morning, Lord.
I am in a place I know You do not intend for me to be. I’m literally sick with worry. I can’t stop my head from spinning and my heart from panicking. Please speak truth to my heart and save me from myself.
You can be in this place. It’s okay to not be okay. You won’t feel this way forever. And yes, keep believing there are better things ahead. You are held.
I believe the solution is walking with You, but I can’t even do that. I am so broken, so scared, so selfish. Please do it for me, Lord. Take my heart, take my marriage, take my parenting, take my responsibilities at church and book group and other places, take the move to the new house, take meal planning and grocery shopping, take the lies that cripple me. Take my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.
What does it look like to “walk with God”? You are beautiful and your life is beautiful. You are worn out. Ask for help. Take medication. Drink coffee. Watch TV shows. Cry. Plan a day for yourself—that is not selfish. Your heart of flesh is already there. And this grieving might be just the thing to help you find it.
I confess my selfishness, my desire for control, my fears, my misbeliefs. They are sin and they do not honor You. Please take them from me. Please fight this fight for me. I am no match for sin, no match for the devil, no match for life.
Overwhelmed, flooded, depressed, alone, trapped. You feel these things deeply. You are stronger than you think, and not as strong as you think. You might have to let get of what you’re holding tight, and holder tighter to the things you’ve been letting go. Don’t know what that means? Don’t fret. God really does have your back, and She’s not the least bit disappointed.
I can do nothing … but isn’t that a good thing? For Your strength is made perfect in weakness [2 Corinthians 12:9]. Please hedge me behind and before and lay your hand upon me [Psalm 139:5]. Please take away my addiction to negative emotions. Teach me to rejoice in Your victory in my life, to give You the glory, to have a heart of thanksgiving.
These things you dream of will happen. You will learn to enjoy feeling happy, to like yourself, to feel gratitude and joy.
Lord, I am lonely. I am broken. I am too self-centered to see the beauty of You and the many good gifts You are showering on me daily. I surrender to You, Lord. Please save me from myself, Lord.
God will save you from yourself by introducing you to your true self. It’s okay to be lonely and broken. You are also brave and kind and capable.
I need time with You daily in prayer and in the Bible but I feel helpless to make that time. Please do it for me.
God loves to spend time with you. She hears you.
Thank You that You see me as I am and love me. I am so tired of myself. I am so grateful that You are not overwhelmed by my brokenness. Thank You that You use brokenness for Your glory. Give me a testimony that will draw others to You. Lord, if I need a mentor, please provide.
Keep speaking these truths. And when you’re too tired to speak them, the Spirit will speak them for you. You don’t need a testimony; you are a testimony. And you always will be.
I am terrified of the day ahead of me. Take this from me, Lord. Give me eyes of faith. Remind my heart to lay everything at Your feet and let You do the heavy lifting. I want to take Your yoke upon me and learn of You, and accept the rest You promise [Matthew 11:29]. I want to be Your servant and friend so that others will be drawn to You.
Oh dear one, these days are so long and so hard. I see you. You can do hard things. And God is teaching you to rest, even now.
Thank You for my brokenness, thank You for trials and difficult times. Thank You that You are enough and everything else is a cherry on top. I choose by the power of Your Spirit to abide in You. Please let me be a branch today. [John 15:4, 5]
Way to go! You are receiving with open hands. But you know, “everything else” is the stuff life is made of, and it’s okay to want it to feel lighter. You are a branch. You are a badass. Many good things are coming for you, and one day you will feel excited about what the day holds. In the meantime, go get some coffee.
I’m thinking about deprivation—absence—because I have been on a vegetable juice fast for over 48 hours and am deliriously hungry for something I can chew, something with texture and flavor, something buttered. My husband, Michael, has juice-fasted with me these past two days and we are preparing to break our fast. I peeled an assortment of white and orange sweet potatoes, cut them into rounds—cut their fat middles into half-rounds—put them in a casserole dish with plops of butter, and slid them into the oven while it was still preheating.
Years ago, when Michael and I hadn’t had sex for two months, we sought counseling. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to have sex, we just weren’t having it. It was too risky, to vulnerable, took too much energy. It was intimidating, easier left undone. I had a cognitive desire to partake in body-to-body intimacy, but my emotional and physical self was highjacked, under the control of an exhausted mommy-brain and a litany of fears that I would never be enough. The counselor’s advice? Abstinence. Set a period of time in which we would not allow ourselves sexual intimacy. See if our desire found space to rise up and write the story. I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t remember if it worked. One way or another we got back into a rhythm of intimacy.
After 20 minutes I returned to the kitchen to stir and fork the potatoes. The smell drew me in. I began almost to feel the potato on my tongue—the texture, the saltiness, the butter and warmth, even the way those sweet potatoes would feel in my stomach, a meal of substance. My fork couldn’t pierce the potato chunks. I set another timer and returned upstairs to my bed, where I lay devouring a book about writing.
I went to a MOPS meeting once and listened to a woman talk about having sex daily—or more—with her husband. It appeared to be an intentional stress-management technique: stop in the bedroom before a stressful meeting, and return there after the stressful meeting. Was this couple addicted to sex? Maybe. For better or worse, I have been more addicted to abstinence than indulgence. I am better at not relating, not watching, not eating, not sexing, not reading, not cleaning. The one exception, my most joyous indulgence, is sleep.
The second 20-minute timer on my phone made me jump. This time the fork sunk into the potatoes. I speared two chunks and returned the rest to the oven. With vigor I blew on the procured samples, fearful of burning my tongue in my excitement. I felt almost guilty eating those potatoes by myself in the kitchen—like candy Michael didn’t know about—first one piece, then the next. How quickly it became pedestrian, the tasting, the chewing, the swallowing—I have done it a million times. How rapidly I moved from fast to feast. Yes, absence made the heart grow fonder, but it wasn’t a new fondness; it was a remembrance, a desire to return to what nourished me. So if absence makes the heart go wander, is it because the thing that it left was not nourishing?
Motherhood subjected me, unwillingly, to sleep deprivation. Did my heart “grow fonder” or “go wander”? It got bitter. Seethingly bitter. Now that I sleep most nights uninterrupted, do I appreciate sleep with greater depth? Yes. But I also hold it more loosely, because I experienced the pain of losing it when I held it with passionate desire and commitment. Honestly? I wish I had let myself “go wander” during those years of little sleep—drink coffee, ask for help, eat chocolate, binge on a TV show. Loyalty can be a real drag.
I fetched Michael from his office with the promise of “real food.” He nearly leaped from his chair. A few minutes later we sat behind a white plate piled high with the entire contents of the baking pan, Michael’s arm around my shoulders, each with a fork in hand. We ate in satisfied silence, broken only by exaggerated mmmm’s, and an occasional thought from the day.
Motherhood also pried rigidity from my desperate, clinging hands. Unwillingly, I abstained from control. This was the worst kind of deprivation. Eventually I grew tired of dwelling on what I couldn’t have, so I wandered over to the “flexible” aisle and shopped there. Did I sometimes miss the old feeling of having control? Sure. Would I return to the way I was before? Hell no. These days I can be late, forget an item at the store, give a friend wrong information, leave the dishes in the sink and the laundry in the washing machine for days—and come back around to it when I have the time and capacity. Sometimes a forced absence is the only way to move forward.
At this moment, I am more grateful than usual for food. I am grateful for farmers and shippers, grateful for money to buy food, grateful for peeler and knife, oven and spices, and perhaps most of all, tastebuds—proof that pleasure is God’s idea, and food Her sensual offering.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Absence makes the heart go wander.
Absence makes the heart glad it left behind what it didn’t need.
Try absence sometime. See which way your heart turns. Maybe you will become grateful for something plain. Maybe you will discover a new love. Maybe you will leave behind a person or habit you don’t need.
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