Tag Archives: safe

Storms, and Other S-Words

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Storms, and Other S-Words

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for sex.
I am drawn by passion
or a desire for passion.
I am drawn to celebrate the joy
and relief of belonging.

Blessed are You
for storms,
set to kill, or thrill,
or water the earth.
Thunderstorms ground me—
flashes of light,
beating of great sky-gongs,
loud but gentle fall of rain.
The smell of washed earth
says I belong here.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for the safety of You—
a safety that embraces
mystery and madness,
skepticism and silence,
and humankind’s violent and dark
underbelly—human trafficking,
and other tragedies.

When there is not a wisp of cloud
over endless, hellish desert,
there is a whisper that you belong
in yourself and in the heart of God.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be Roy Kent From Ted Lasso

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When I Grow Up I Want to Be Roy Kent From Ted Lasso

Journal entry, March 2023

I don’t feel on top of things, but I also don’t feel run over by things. I feel alive, real, and less scared.

Feeling on top of things is always about ego. Feeling run over by things is also about ego, but it feels like depression and stress.

I’d like to be like Roy Kent in the TV show Ted Lasso—fully present, wise, honest, and not connected to people because I’m nice, but because we’re connected. I think that’s called “secure attachment.”

Papa God, thank You for inviting me to this place and waiting—for years—while I hesitated outside the door. Thank You for sitting there outside with me, and for keeping the door open. Thank You, Spirit, for intimacy.

Journal entry, May 2023

I feel lost again. Depressed, I guess. I notice myself trying harder in some areas, and not trying at all in others. My mental space feels foggy and disconnected. I want to stay present, but being present feels like one more thing I “should” do that I’m terrible at. As I showered this morning, my mind was sluggish, but restless, like a tired housefly. I told God I feel out of practice at being present, and I don’t know what to do.

God told me the present is safe. It’s safe to be with myself in this moment. The moment I’m in is exempt from evaluation. I don’t have to carry a ruler—dual purposes of measuring and punishing. Instead, I receive the “we’ve got this” look from my Father.

Until my shower-talk with God, I didn’t realize I live mentally in the past or the future because it feels safer than the present. The past is over; I can fret about it all I want, and my judgement and worry give me a sense of control. The future is coming; maybe if I plan it just right my life will be better.

If I’m thinking about what’s next I reduce the pain of knowing I’m not showing up how I want to right now.

The present is wobbly. It slips away like kite string, pulling, whimsical. It doesn’t behave, doesn’t let me nail it down. Qué será será? Not on my watch.

This awareness I’m afraid of the present, and God’s assurance it is safe to be present—these are my invitation to relax. Like a massage, the words “present is safe” loosen the tightness underneath and free me to move and breath. And who knows, maybe if I receive this moment and accept safety in being present, I’ll have less to fret about in the past and the future. Maybe it’s all okay, even when it’s not okay.

Like Roy Kent, I can be angry and pessimistic if that’s what I experience in the present, and I can also be generous, compassionate, and honest. All of these are safe experiences for me, and receiving them open-handed is what steadies me for the next moment. I don’t need to worry. It is both safe and brave to be present, and I have a growing appetite for safety and bravery. Now is where I belong.

I’m Afraid Being Me Will Ruin Every Relationship I’m In

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“Life is a journey,” we say. I want a rest stop. I want to stay at a posh hotel for, I don’t know, a couple of years. But in a rash moment I decided healing is a priority. Discomfort is part and parcel with healing, so I carry on. I receive the affirmation of my friends and of my own spirit and I keep taking steps.

My current discomfort comes from the fluctuations and changes of intimacy in marriage. I feel like I’m on a chain and I don’t know when it’s gonna get jerked. It seems we oscillate between politeness and passion, and both extremes are uncomfortable. The truth is I’m really scared to be me. Around all the actual dynamics and realities of our relationship is a cloud of fear. My thoughts are fearful, terrified. Though I’m acting peaceful, some inward part of me is frozen, and if it gets poked it will likely either fight or flee.

What if this fear is not me, not true to who I am? What if it doesn’t belong here and I can send it away?

What if being me is never a mistake? There can be fallout, but it doesn’t mean I ought not to have been me. I am not the mistake. I make mistakes, but I am not a mistake. I’m gonna agree with Papa God and Jesus and Holy Spirit on this one.

“A feeling is just a feeling,” I say, quoting Josh Straub. What is under this fear? What is my internal space without the fear?

I journal the fears. I allow myself to explore them and feel them and write them down. Then I do the same with healing messages. Sometimes it helps to call them “lies” and “truths.”

Lie: I am not and cannot be enough.
Truth: I am enough.

Lie: I am not worthy of connection or belonging.
Truth: I am worthy of connection and belonging.

Lie: Vulnerability may cause permanent damage to my sense of self.
Truth: No matter how someone reaches out to me or responds to me, they cannot touch my identity of wholeness. Vulnerability involves sharing my inner world, but it does not involve putting my value up for negotiation.

Lie: Rejection says something about who I am.
Truth: Rejection is a normal human dynamic, a part of processing experiences in a shared space, and grappling with fears. Rejection does not tell me the truth about who I am or about who the other person is.

Lie: Being different means someone is wrong.
Truth: Being different probably means we’re both right, both have something to contribute. We bring our flat realities and together make a 3D reality.

Lie: I should be able to avoid hurting someone if I try hard enough.
Truth: I cannot avoid hurting other people. Hurting someone does not declare that I am a hurtful person. It means that my movement in the world interacted with another person’s movement in the world in a way that was painful—similar to accidentally stepping on someone’s toe, or elbowing your kid in the head while unloading the dishwasher.

Lie: I am not a safe person.
Truth: I am a safe person when I am a real person. Being me is the greatest gift I can give.

Lie: I can unwittingly ruin a relationship.
Truth: I can unwittingly cause pain, but I cannot unwittingly ruin a relationship. Relationships are bigger than the stimulus of pain. Relationships always hold the potential for repair and shared understanding, connection and healing. Even when there is a rift in a relationship, the relationship continues to hold that potential.

And so it seems I am a lot less dangerous and powerful than I thought I was. The success or failure of each relationship I’m in—including my marriage—is not mine to carry. I am me, and that is good. I will keep showing up because relationships are life, and I was made to live.

Is It Really Safe?, Part 2

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As I described in Is It Really Safe?, Part 1, I have been in a funk. It’s a tropical storm of emotions, fueled by the lie that my value is based on my performance. It’s not the first time this lie has pounced on me in my weakness, and I am certain it will not be the last. I find some comfort knowing that God sees me and loves me. He invites me to be as I am, to be known by Him, to take a deep breath with the knowing: it’s ok to not be ok. As I continue to battle the monster and alternately fight and give up as each day goes by, God keeps inviting me into His goodness.

Invited To Be Sought

Unsurprisingly, my funk takes a toll on my marriage. It’s exhausting to live with a depressed person, and it’s exhausting to be depressed. With my husband I feel compelled to take the path of least resistance. I don’t have much energy for intimacy (emotional, physical, or otherwise), but neither do I have the energy for a big breach or fight and then repairing. So I’m walking on eggshells, somewhere in between (if that’s even possible). As I write about this in my prayer journal, God says, “I’ll help you walk on eggshells.”

Uh… Wait, what did You just say? I am stunned into silence. This is not what I expected. When I find my voice I say God can’t possibly mean that. Doesn’t He have a solution? Isn’t there something I ought to be doing differently? Slowly I internalize that He does, in fact, mean what He said. He affirms my struggle and joins me in it. Perhaps this isn’t as bizarre as it seemed to me at first. After all, didn’t He save us humans by becoming one of us? This is central to the way He operates. He seeks me, He finds me, and He stays with me. Oh God, Your companionship would mean the world to me.

Two weeks after the “God, what did You just say?” conversation, bedtime with the kids crashed and burned. It was late. Nothing went well. It ended with my five year old crying herself to sleep in the guest room and me in time out downstairs. As I sat in the recliner crying and staring out at the trees, I was again reassured of God’s companionship. No advice, no fixing. Instead, a quiet spirit.

The lessons of love are freeing: I am invited to be. This invitation stands even when I am seen – no masks, no filters, no protection. God wants to be my companion, exactly where I am. Even when where I am is unhealthy and un-beautiful and unpleasant. Even when it is lonely and sad and frustrating. He will be here. With me. Emmanuel: God with us.

I am invited to be sought, and to be found. And when God finds me, hiding under a blanket of shame, red-handed from my latest sin, deeply mired in my mistakes, He stays there with me. Oh precious gift! My failings do not sentence me to solitary confinement. This God-Man Jesus knows what it is like to be human, and He stands with me, sits with me, struggles with me. I always thought God didn’t really get it. Yes, he was tempted, but He didn’t sin (Hebrews 4:15). So how could He possibly understand what it feels like to fail: to find myself again and again on the other side of a choice I wish I’d made differently; to treat the people I love the most with aggression, disdain, selfishness. He doesn’t know what it feels like to suck at life.

But I think I was wrong. Paul says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21a). Sin separates. Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The only reason He could have felt forsaken is if He became sin for us and experienced the feelings of separation and despair that plague every human. He does indeed know how heavy it is. How lonely it is. How desperate. And this is what He does: He seeks me. He finds me. He shares with me this ugly knowing of sin and separation, and He doesn’t run. He stays.

Invited To Enjoy

In his book Come to the Cradle Michael Card observes that children are occupied with playful imitation of what they see adults doing. He asks, “Could my work become playful imitation of what I see my Father doing?” I mull this over. It is so different from how I think about life, it is a foreign thought. Card goes on to say, “The point of work is to finish. The point of play is to not finish…” Again I pause, unsure what to do with this observation.

Finished is safe. Unfinished is negligent. Given my point of view I suppose it’s not surprising that I excel at finishing. I am so determined to finish that I even try to finish my children. Do the tasks, learn the skill, become mature.

I am realizing that often the way I think about my life is unhealthy and counterproductive. So I approach God one morning with a question, and we have this conversation:
How do You think about my life? How do You want me to think about it?
“Life is to be held loosely. Even people who are deeply sad or troubled can enjoy life. You have more capacity for enjoyment than you think. Keep slowing down. The answer is not more.”
Are you sure? Because I feel like I’m hardly doing anything.
“Think about the gift analogy. I have called you to play, not work. There is so much to enjoy in your life, but we must take this slow, because you will be tempted to turn enjoyment into work.”
I sigh. You know me so well.
Why do I always think of martyrs and people in concentration camps when I think about goodness/happiness/enjoyment?
“You are still living in fear. That’s ok. You won’t always.”
Ok. Will You help me enjoy something today?
“Of course I will. I love to help you! This will be fun!”
Ok. (Pause) Do You really feel that way?
“Yes, I do.”
You’re trying to speak life over me, aren’t You? I’m sorry I make it so hard.
“It’s not hard, because I love you with my whole big self. I don’t think you know how much patience I have.”
No, I suppose I don’t. Ok Lord, go head and make me alive. (Pause). Are you sure it’s not hard? Because I feel like a tough case / lost cause / disaster.
*Laughter* (is anything too hard for God?)

I find it very odd that God wants me to enjoy life. It’s not a new concept, but in all honesty, I always hear it through the lens of “doing the right thing” and it sounds like work: there are so many wonderful things in life we ought always to be joyful. Ugh. I guess there’s something wrong with me.

God enters into my misconceptions and fears and invites me to enjoy, to hold life loosely. I am so accustomed to holding life with an iron grip that I’m not even sure where to start. I have the “scarcity mindset” Brené Brown describes in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection: “We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and we hate that there are no guarantees. We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less. We think if we can beat vulnerability to the punch by imaging loss, we’ll suffer less.” This is a lie I have believed. I protect myself behind the safety of pessimism/realism, hard work, and control. Enjoying is scary because it’s vulnerable. Brown continues, “If we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.” Hmm.

Why is it that I don’t want to enjoy what I have now, because I don’t know what I’ll have tomorrow? I don’t want to drink in abundance when I can imagine a future without abundance. It’s like I want a guarantee of a long and happy life, or I won’t engage. I want to know that if I do things right everything will turn out well, or that if I trust Jesus I will experience safety in all things: relationships, finances, health, my faith community, and the list goes on. Not knowing sets me on edge. Being set on edge is the opposite of enjoyment. So here I am trying to perform an impossible balancing act while holding onto – well – nothing, with an iron grip.

And here God is, inviting me to loosen my grip and to enjoy. To play. To have fun. To be grateful. To slow down. I feel like God is laying out a lavish banquet before me, but I have not yet partaken. I’m still looking at it. When I fill up a plate and start eating, perhaps I’ll write another blog post about enjoyment.

For now, I am grateful that I need not hold tighter or try harder. I can be still and know that God is seeing me, seeking me, celebrating me, and being the companion my soul longs for most deeply.

Is It Really Safe?, Part 1

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I have been in a funk. I have been dragged around by emotions I don’t understand until I feel like an empty shell and a lost cause. I have lots of questions and no answers. Confusion and discouragement pepper my journal pages:

– Somehow I got lost.
– Where am I? Where did I go?
– I feel like a failure. I feel condemned and alone and sad and afraid.
– I don’t know how to be. I don’t know who I am.
– I don’t matter. I am valuable only as I fulfill the roles I have been given to fulfill. I don’t enjoy my life. I don’t know how. I don’t have permission to. When I hear the words, “you do matter,” I think blah, blah, blah, that’s just a bunch of hogwash. Who are you? A fairy to grant me my dreams and wishes?
– “Be thankful. Smile. Be faithful.” Don’t feed me that crap. How can I love my life and hate it at the same time?
– Actually, I don’t think I hate my life. I think I hate myself.
– Surely there must be some relief. I don’t know how to be in this place.

Deep in my gut, my soul, my heart, I believe that my value is based on my performance. It is agonizing to perform poorly for weeks on end and be forced to face this monster. I have been wrestling the monster for years, and sometimes it gets easier. Right now it’s harder. As I wrestle and grieve and worry, God extends invitations.

Invited To Be

My brave husband, overwhelmed by the tearful shell of a wife he’s been living with, courageously asked what he could do to help me. I had no answer, so I took the question to God, and God said I need to be reminded of these things: everything is going to be ok. It’s ok to be broken and it’s ok to not know why. It’s ok to do the best I can and it’s ok for that to be small and basic. I don’t have to wallow, but I don’t have to fight either. I can just be. I can be grateful my daughters are relatively independent. I can be content with small things. I can learn to be safe with myself. I can praise God for being with me in this. I can be still. I can be imperfect. I can have a different capacity every day (I cannot express how frustrating this is for me!). I can read and listen to things that are affirming instead of challenging. I can be alone or I can reach out. I can have days in which my best feels more like my worst.

As I was driving downtown recently, a car passed me with these words big and bold across the rear windshield: “It’s ok to not be ok.” I took a deep breath. As the days pass, I keep circling back to these words and taking more deep breaths. It’s ok to not be ok. Discouragement and confusion does not make me unsuitable for life. When I feel tired and anxious, dialed up to ten, but seem only to have energy for emotional turmoil and none for the tasks of life: I can come and curl up in the arms of God, still and loved. I can trade lethargy and despair for permission to do less. I can admit my capacity is low. I can breathe deeply of love that is not earned. I can trust God’s strength instead of fearing my weakness. I can remember it’s ok to not be ok.

Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [the things you worry you won’t have] shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33, NKJV) That is a big promise. My skeptical side wonders if God knows how many things I worry about. Skepticism aside, what exactly is the “kingdom of God”? What would it look like in my life? It seems Jesus wanted people to know, because He told many stories beginning with the words, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”
– Letting myself be found and celebrated (Parables of the lost sheep and lost coin)
– Letting myself be cultivated – soil for seed (Parable of the sower)
– Letting myself be imperfect (Parable of the wheat and tares)
– Letting myself be the least (Parable of the mustard seed)
– Letting myself be slow (Parable of the leaven)
– Letting myself be treasured (Parable of the hidden treasure)
– Letting myself be sought (Parable of the pearl of great price)
– Letting myself be gathered (Parable of the dragnet)

When I look back over the list, I see – as if for the first time – the phrase “letting myself be…” God is inviting me to be. No explanations, no defenses, no requirements. No “right” or “wrong” way to be. My experience is valid as it is. I am invited to be. Lord, maybe today is less about what I do and more about who I am, and maybe who I am isn’t so scary if You are with me.

Invited To Be Seen

In God’s presence there is a priceless gift added to the permission to be: an invitation to be seen. I am learning to let God see me. But in the process of letting Him see me, I also see myself, and this can be painful and scary. I don’t realize how much I am hiding until He comes to find me. I am hiding from pain, but I am also hiding from love. I am hiding from my feelings, for fear that really feeling them will render me unable to function. I am hiding from the people I love, because I don’t want to frighten or burden them, and even more because I don’t want to be rejected by them. I am hiding from myself, because my own anger against myself is frightful, and my assessment of myself is scathing.

All this hiding is exhausting. Being seen is terrifying. It seems all options are agony. I consider an invitation from God to think about what I want, and this takes my terror to a whole new level. Wanting something is vulnerable. Wanting reveals my inner self. Wanting is frivolous. Wanting is not safe. Wanting is an invitation to be invalidated. In my heart, wanting is a minefield. Yet clearly, hiding behind my duties is choking me, and so – tentatively – I consider my wants. I speak them even though I feel mocked by them. I want to feel good at something. I want to follow God. I want some time when no one needs me. I want to have good posture. Gently God invites me to consider not just my general wants, but what I want today. This is getting very personal… I want to sit by the fire in my new chair and read. I want to laugh. I don’t want to think about meals, cooking, or food planning and shopping. I want to enjoy my children. Phew! I survived. I feel vulnerable, but to my surprise, saying what I want did not wreck me.

I am seen, and I am still invited to be. This means the invitation to be was not imaginary, contrived, or based on my being – my existence – turning out “right.” I am truly invited to be me – not the better version of myself that I am always competing with and losing to. Here I am, sad and vulnerable me, seen and affirmed in my messy existence.

Brené Brown ends “The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto” with these words: “I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Truly deeply seeing you.” God holds sacred the gift of seeing me. I am safe, I am honored, I am cherished. Even when I’m not ok.