2016: The Year of Quitting

It's the last day of 2016. It's been a hard year locally, nationally, and globally. It's also been a hard year for me personally: in parenting, in marriage, in personal struggles, and in painful grief. There were *some* good moments this year, and I'm tenaciously clinging to them so I don't throw out the entire year.

I started this blog post with a plan to rehash all the bad so I could also note the good and attempt to find praise in the pain. But I really don't want to drag myself back to January by way of fall then summer then spring, and I'm sure you don't want to go on that ride either.

I do want to view 2016 from a bird's eye rise-above-it perspective, so I am looking at the year with a focus on progress. More specifically, progress through quitting. In no special order, here are the things I quit in 2016 - some good and some bad.

*I quit saying yes to all proposals to hustle.
*I quit Christmas cards. (I may send Happy New Year cards instead, but I quit deciding that until next year.)
*I quit sending immediate text responses, opting to pause at least a few moments before most replies.
*I quit underselling myself and raised my photo session rates.
*I quit trying to please church leaders.
*I quit big holiday decorations and went with the minimal.
*I quit worrying about the cost of traveling and said yes to being with family when their milestone events called for a visit.
*I quit letting fear dictate and finally launched my website (www.HisEchoes.com) where I'm posting devotions weekly and housing my photography portfolio.
*I quit worrying what people would think if they read my personal blog (www.sixgoldencoins.blogspot.com) and went public with it. [And it hasn't killed me... yet!]
*I quit nursing a cut from an old friend when loss stung deeper than the cut.
*I quit wondering WHAT IF about that tattoo and finally got it!
*I quit sitting in pain and fought for my marriage.
*I quit being a stand off and showed up for people I love even when their beliefs were a contrast to all my regimental Pharisee rules.
*I quit wondering what anyone else but Jesus would say when I spoke at my friends' wedding.
*I quit sitting on the sidelines and said yes to skin in the game.
*I took the bite out of a specific insult and turned it into a compliment, letting my raging mercy flag fly.
*I quit waiting to be invited and decided to do the inviting instead, forming a book study group of women who challenged me to Live Loved.
*I quit making excuses for a small group commitment and said yes to a Two/42 group with friends.
*I quit expecting forgiveness to appear magically and began the hard work of repairing wounds and getting help by starting counseling again.

And tomorrow, the first day of 2017, I am quitting one more thing: Facebook. I can't fully withdraw from it because of business usage, so I'm limiting it to one day a week. As much as I love the connections I make there and the opportunities it's given me (our annual pillow fight day or caroling for a cancer patient or making a friend in the airport), the Facebook negativity isn't worth those connections right now.

As best I can, I'm quitting the negative Republican/Democrat political posts. I'm quitting the hustle of more more MORE from acquaintances who want me to buy/sell/launch/promote in a type of relationship that isn't truly relating. I'm quitting the lie that I need a platform to become a writer, instead opting for a couch where I can become a friend.

I'm ready for the fresh and simple hope and encouragement that 2017 *might* bring. Of course, it might also bring pain and loss and fear again. If so, at least I know I can survive it. I've made it through 1993, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2013, and now - blessedly - 2016.

Happy new year (and happy quitting!) to all of you!

via Glennon Doyle Melton

2016 in Review

January started with the waters receding after major December floods in St. Louis.

Personally, January was marked by raging mercy and a promotion for Dan. That promotion set the tone for the year to come in more ways than one.

The highlight of February was the first weekend, when Katie and I went on our church's youth retreat called WinterBlast. It was a fun (tiring!) weekend.

My third Holy Yoga retreat started March off with a bang. I thoroughly enjoyed the photography sessions I had and the women (and one man!) who became more than clients to me: they are now my friends!

I also spent a glorious March day with my friend Cindy as we went on a photography hunt in a field of thousands of daffodils.

In March, the kids and I took a spring break road trip to my hometown Marietta, GA. It was my high school's 50th birthday party.

I also had a senior photo session with my niece Peyton.

April was a book launch team (Looking for Lovely), the annual International Pillow Fight Day, and an earthquake of a conference by author Dan Allender that Dan and I attended.

I also had 3 photo shoots in April, plus our own extended family photos in celebration of my mother-in-law's 70th birthday. (April also meant her big birthday party.)

May was a daytime Cardinals game with my friend, a visit to the Botanical Garden (and LOTS of beautiful photos for future devotions yet to be written), a senior portrait session, hail damage, a solo trip to Arlington Cemetery, a business trip with Dan to Las Vegas, the end of the school year, and a mother-daughter art retreat.

We started June with a trip to Asheville, NC on the way to my niece's high school graduation in Pinehurst, NC.

Almost as soon as we got home, Katie and I left for a five day church youth summer camp.

Right after that, Katie became a TEENAGER. Eeeek! That was followed by our church's baptism blowout party, and the start of a deep funk for me.

June further unraveled with me and the kids sick on the couch, followed by a mouse (or mice) invading our house. We clung desperately to happy by adventuring out to Knockerball as a family, just before our piano arrived.

This brings us to July and some summer adventures: fireworks on the 4th (this year at Innsbrook), our annual day at Six Flags, graduation parties, and camps. Dan's job had become even more high pressure with a larger time commitment. At the end of July, we traveled to Kansas City (on fumes) for the wedding of our friends Brad and Andy.

August started with one last summer adventure with friends to Anheuser Busch's Warm Springs Ranch.

The Olympics found us on the couch a lot, being inspired by the world's best athletes. School started back up, and I flew to New York City to help my sister move into her new home.

August ended with another trip: this time, Dan and I flew to North Carolina to celebrate my brother-in-law Wally's military retirement.

September marked the beginning of the Mizzou football season as Dan and I escaped on day trips to CoMo for the games.

September is also when I waved the white flag and started seeing a counselor again. Right after that, our friend Sean died and we're still struggling to grasp the loss.

In early October, Dan and I took another trip - this time to New York City to celebrate my sister's 50th birthday.

October included more photo sessions, fall break, more Mizzou games, camping, and having coffee with an author whose book deepened my faith and changed my perspective.

The end of October brought the 20th anniversary of my brother Jackson's death, and I marked the day by finally getting the tattoo I've been planning for years.

Jackson started wrestling at the end of October. We had another funeral to attend, another Mizzou game, and we sputtered into Halloween with hardly a fall decoration on display. (I felt drained, y'all.)

November's election just about did me in, as well as the rest of the country. Thankfully, I had some distractions to keep me moving: more photo sessions, lots of Katie event (a trip to MOYIG in Jefferson City...

...a smashed iTouch screen, science project, and Metro8 performance where she was selected first chair), a last Mizzou game, and a Blues game to celebrate Dan's sister's 40th birthday. Whew! We made it to Thanksgiving. Just barely.

Our family attended our first ever wrestling tournament at the start of December. Dan and I were in desperate need of connection with each other, so we had an adventure day with a St. Louis city scavenger hunt.

I made my last trip of the year, back to North Carolina to see our niece Hannah graduate from college.

Katie and I attended a Christmas concert, an ice storm hit St. Louis and wrecked lots of plans and property, and we finally had our siding repaired. (Remember that hail storm back in May? Yep. It took us THAT long to get the work done.)

Dan and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary with a lunch date and a visit to a new float spa in the area.

Christmas Eve services at church involved bell ringing, hearkening back to the 2010 services that will forever be our favorite.

And, there you have it: 2016 in a nutshell. I didn't describe the ick in extreme detail, because I do want to honor privacy. Plus, if I open that can of worms I'm not sure the lid will fit when it's time to shelve it. There are parts I want to forget, but I know forgetting only results in repeating the same patterns. So I'll remember 2016, but I'm hoping the good stuff outshines the pain that 2016 brought with it.

I'm praying 2017 brings rest and joy and hope to you and to my family, too.

Asset vs. Liability

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, the first thing I felt was excitement. I couldn’t wait to share the news with Dan.

The second thing I felt was an immense amount of responsibility because of the gravity of the situation: I was officially responsible for someone else’s wellbeing. Dude. That’s a lot of pressure!

But before I got lost in the enormity of that awareness, I was overcome with the most important of all human emotions:

HOPE.

Responsibility grounded me, but hope gave me wings. I felt lighter because I had hope that this child growing inside me would give me a chance to get things “right.” I wanted to parent in a way I myself hadn’t been parented. (Not that I was abused or badly mistreated, but I wanted to do things a little differently than my parents had.) I began dreaming of all the joys I would help my child experience in this world: roller coasters and sunshine and fireworks and ripe peaches. I would get to help her celebrate joys and navigate heartaches. I couldn’t wait for this baby to arrive so we could get started LIVING. I had so much for her to learn because, you know, I’m an expert. Yep, me! I’m an Expert on Living because I’ve done it too! This baby was gonna be so lucky to have me as a mom to show her the ropes because I am an ASSET, by golly! [Would you believe I even wrote her a letter called “Tips on Living Written for My Unborn Child” and sealed it up so we could read it together later? (Ha. Is that even a question? Of course you would believe something like that from me!)]

That pride stuck for many years. Eleven, to be exact. (And it still has a good hold on most days!) But somewhere along the way, the feeling that I am an asset to my child was replaced by the feeling that I’m a liability. The hope I began the journey with was tarnished by reality because, in some ways, I reverted to the type of parenting my parents used with me. I repeated phrases I swore I’d never say and said things I didn’t even know I knew, because that’s how parenting was modeled for me.

When my daughter’s personality started shining through, I discovered a basic truth in the Nature vs. Nurture debate: human beings are born with an inherent nature that is part of their DNA. Realizing that half of my daughter’s DNA came from me caused me to flinch. I knew that Katie would inherent some of my struggles and my personality quirks, plus the Nurture part of the debate meant she would pick up some of my less-pleasing qualities because she watched me model them to her. Oh, man! The pride I felt from being an Asset quickly morphed into guilt for being a Liability.

I soothed myself with the reminder that everyone is broken. Everyone has faults. Katie is human, and her flaws would be unavoidable. “Oh well,” I thought. “It’s just the price of living.”

And then one day a few weeks ago, I sat with a friend whose child is struggling with the same illness my friend had when she was younger. I watched my friend’s tears fall as she cried out, “Why does my child have to carry the same burden I did?” She wondered if maybe SHE is the reason her child inherited this illness. In her grief, she wondered whether she “gave” it to him and then said, “Why couldn’t he struggle with something else?!” And that’s when it hit me: her child is BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE to have a momma who has walked the same road before him. He got a mom who knows the triggers and the relapses and the potholes and detours he will face with this illness. What if he had a mother like me, who didn’t know how to handle it and couldn’t recognize the warning signs? I asked my friend to look at me and I told her this truth: she is a blessing, not a curse!

God, in His sovereign wisdom, knew this child needed a very specific mother to walk the path with him. Those very same things we consider liabilities in ourselves are the most important assets we can give our children. These “liabilities” bring experience, which is a priceless inheritance we can bestow on our kids. In God’s resourceful economy, nothing is wasted.

The longer I live, the more I see the truth that all of us humans have a brokenness inside our beings. My kids are no exception. I don’t yet know the full extent of the burdens they will shoulder throughout their lives. Maybe it will be lupus or insecurity or an addiction or an abusive situation or lack of confidence or depression or any number of aches. But I do know that if their burdens even remotely mirror the ones I’ve carried, God will make me an asset for His use!

REST

About this time last year, I had just finished a bumpy year in general (2013) and a really rough two months specifically. (If you want to read more, I wrote in this blog post about the ache of 2013, and how I was praying for 2014 to bring relief.)

As January 2014 began, I read a devotional about choosing one word for the coming year. I had heard of people doing this before, and using their One Word to direct their intentions all year long. I had never done it before, but decided it might be good for me in 2014. I was already in a dark spot and the year ahead of me looked bleak and painful, so any shred of hope seemed worth grasping.

I prayed about my word. I read my Bible trying to find my word. I even did some Praying in Color to help me select my word and doodled down all the words I was pondering (yes, I have A LOT OF WORDS rattling around my head!), and thought I had settled on a few “finalists.”

So at the end of January, on the night before my 40th birthday – which I was considering the true start to my year – I sat down and told Dan all about my Words. I showed him the art I made and which finalists I had chosen. And then, he told me none of those finalists were MY Word. I was a smidge irritated, because, really! How would he know what MY Word should be?!

And then, he said my Word: REST.

[You can see from my doodle art that the word “rest” actually was on my list, it just wasn’t one of my top words.] Dan had watched me crumble and crack and fret and try. to. hold. it. together. all through 2013, and he knew I needed to stop striving. Stop trying. Stop fretting and controlling and freaking out. He knew my soul desperately needed rest. Simple as that! I saw the wisdom in Dan’s reasoning, and decided to trust his suggestion. I selected rest, and then spent the next 11 months of the year choosing it intentionally. In fact, the very next day was my 40th birthday and rest became a HUGE part of the event. Dan whisked me away on a surprise trip, which you can click here to read.

Rest helped guide the remainder of the year for me, too. When we returned from Mexico, I spent the first part of February in a post-vacation high. When reality set in, I realized I would need to make some changes in my life if rest was going to become more than just lip service for me. I prayed about the status of my life, asking God to show me what areas I was overfunctioning and needed to rest. I had already been praying since November about what direction He wanted me to pursue in relation to my job, so I already knew there might be some changes coming there.

I started seeing a counselor to help me make sense of the mess on my plate and discern what God’s best for me might look like. Around the same time, a job opening became available at my office/church. I decided to apply for it, because it wouldn’t require me to work weekends and it was in one of my favorite ministries.

My counselor and I also talked about what TRUE rest would look like, even considering if I had no job at all. At first, I bristled at the idea. In our American society, being unemployed isn’t exactly a goal. And in my mind, being unemployed would be taking a step backwards. I had already been a stay-at-home mom for 7 years prior to this job, so leaving the job would mean losing ground. Wouldn’t it?! But there was that word again: rest. In my conversations and my sessions and my prayers, I slowly realized this truth: If I am truly secure in my Father’s provision for me and can trust His direction in my life and define myself based on who He is (not my paycheck), then I am able to step out of my known into His known (even when it is unknown to me).

It turned out the job opening I applied for was removed, and it was no longer an option. That left me in a job where I worked weekends, which had started making me feel like I was shortchanging my family. I wrestled with rest. And my job. And my standards and expectations of myself. I wrestled in my prayers and my conversations with Dan and close friends and my counselor. I kept trying to make my current situation work, but kept losing ground in patience and peace and margin for my life.

The morning of the day I found out the job opening was not an option, I met with a new friend of mine who is an author. That morning, she asked me to share my story and she listened intently. At the end of our time, she asked me, “What is your dream?” I told her about a book. And photos. And a few other things. And she said, “I want to help you make that happen.” Words can’t describe the hope I felt flooding my heart after our conversation. It was a turning point, and hope gave me something to hold.

I had been trying for nine months to find rest on my own. I was ignoring the danger signs that I was getting to some unhealthy points in my life, and was blatantly ignoring things God was whispering to me because I wanted to keep trying to make things work MY WAY.

That frustration mixed with this new hope, and I finally saw the way things were going were simply just. not. going. I realized the thing my counselor and I had talked about needed to become reality: it was time for me to step out of my job. I sat on that decision for a while, and waited for God to affirm it. He did, so I gave my resignation at the start of August and was unemployed by September 1.

My Word for the year didn’t just upset the proverbial apple cart; it totally upended it! But by mid-September, I could tell God was already changing me. Rest was now reality, and I was blossoming while I rested in His arms. I say that in past tense, but it is still present tense for me: I am blossoming while I rest in His arms. I have spent intense and intentional time with God these last 4+ months, and it has changed me. The overachiever, performance-based part of me has struggled with being unemployed, and I wrestle with her when she says I should “Find a job!” and “Start contributing to society!” She’s right, but only partly. I am learning that “contributing” doesn’t mean you have a W-4 and a paycheck. These days, contributing looks like:

• Being home when my kids get off the bus, and being rested enough to welcome them and be a place of refuge. (I used to be frazzled and snappish.)
• Catching some of the balls Dan and I were dropping while I was working.
• Having someone over for coffee so we can talk about our struggles.
• Ministering to the grieving.
• Studying the Bible.
• Listening to my husband and engaging with him in person. (We used to handle lots of stuff over the phone.)
• Sitting in my Tent of Meeting for as long as my Daddy wants to talk.
• Taking care of household business: carpool and groceries and meals and laundry and Christmas-gift-buying and planning and organizing. (And, man! I’ve done some much-needed purging of cabinets and stashes!)
• Spending time intentionally: with myself, with my family, with my friends, and with God.

Within the first two or three weeks of my unemployment, I had eight people say to me: “You look happy.” and “You look peaceful.” One person even said I was glowing, like a pregnant woman. But the best affirmation of my decision was when Katie said these two things a few days apart: “I like that you’re an energetic mommy now when I come home!” and “I had a fun weekend. I’m sort of glad you’re not working anymore.” So I’m learning to do less wrestling and more resting. I know it’s good for me. I know my Father wants me to rest and sabbath and find Him in my peace. Some days it is a struggle because I want to be doing-and-going-and-frenetic again. I had to fight that feeling even today, and spoke to a friend who talked me off the ledge. She reminded me that God will tell me when it’s time to start a new pace for my life.

2014 has ended and it’s time to consider my One Word for 2015. I haven’t selected it yet, but I do have some words already floating around. I have to admit I’m a little gun shy about choosing one because of the radical changes last year’s Word invoked, and yet I’m a tiny bit eager to see how God will breathe life into me this year when I bind my intentions to His.

He is Mine

In January of 2012, I wrote this post about lies that swirl around me and threaten to overwhelm me. I shared the art I created to help me replace those lies with God’s truths about me. Here’s the “funny” thing: that blog post was written more than two years ago. You’d think I would have grown and matured in that time, right? Oh, sure, I changed in the last two years, but the lies simply shape-shifted into new nooses. The lies continue to repress me and flatten me. They take the wind out of my sails. They hinder my soaring. They shackle my courage.

I have never questioned or second-guessed myself more than I have these past two years, and it is a scary thing to feel like the one “thing” that is dependable (my own self!) is not. I know my own heart, right? Because of this, I assume my own heart is the one place where I am always safe and always innocent. Oh, but how I’ve found that to be the opposite sometimes! My heart is fickle and selfish. It will always choose self-preservation over future pain (picking a fight with my husband instead of asking for help because I don’t know everything [Yeah, shocker!]). It would rather strike out at others than admit vulnerability (yelling at my kids instead of admitting I’m overwhelmed). Some days, my heart is faulty and undependable and untrustworthy.

Of course, my heart is all those things when it is powered on its own strength. When I try to rely solely on my own judgment and righteousness, my heart – and my self – fail. Through all of this, I’ve discovered one magnificent truth of life: I am not enough. When I depend on me, I always run out of fuel. When I turn to myself, my self lets me down. When I try to tackle obstacles on my own, I end up flattened on my back with the air knocked out of my lungs. I desperately gasp for breath.

Two years ago, lies rattled around in my head and I believed I wasn’t enough. Today, that “lie” has become truth for me, and I realize I really AM not enough! But instead of letting that truth consume and choke me, it has caused me to turn to the One who is enough. There is one Person who is everything I want to be: Selfless. Righteous. Whole. Unbroken. Humble. Courageous. Truthful. Dependable. Trustworthy. Beautiful. Giving. Worthy.

His name is Jesus.

And He is bigger than all those lies, bigger than my failures, and bigger than my mistakes. And what’s more? He died to make me all those things that He is and I am not. Do you get that? Can you understand that?

As a companion piece to the art I posted in 2012, I made another piece of art in 2013. I’ve never posted it here, but I think now is a good time to do so. My 2012 art described me, but this art describes Him. The first art is called “I Am His” and this one is called “He is Mine.” We exist together; a statement that not only could be an entirely separate blog post, but a life calling.

This art goes so well with something else God brought into my life this past April. A friend of mine shared the new MercyMe CD with me. It’s called Welcome to the New and it has become a guardrail in my life. The entire CD is God’s truth set to music, and it is SO. VERY. GOOD. Along with the CD, my friend sent me a clip from the album release concert MercyMe had on JoyFM on April 10. I transcribed the entire 14 minute clip, and have listened to it repeatedly as well. Lead singer Bart Millard talks about the way grace has transformed his life, and how Jesus’ sacrifice for us makes us flawless. (If you want to listen to something very similar, click on this link to listen to the K-Love concert and forward to the 16 minute mark.) This is one of my favorite parts of the JoyFM clip:

In the past, I would get up and say stuff that I hoped would connect but I’m so confident in this message that I know for a fact it’s gonna connect with a lot of you when I say things like, “I struggle every day with the enemy telling me every day that I’m disqualified and that I’m not enough and that if ‘they’ knew what you’ve done in your past they would not listen to a word that you’re saying.” So much so that there would be mornings I wouldn’t even get out of bed because I felt like I was already defeated. And sometimes the enemy sounded a little bit like the Holy Spirit. I would take things like, “You should just be glad that God knows you. That should be enough.” I thought that was a good thing! But that’s not the gospel. Your identity is not what you do or what you’ve done. Your identity is not the guilt and shame that you choose to carry with you throughout your life. Because if you know Christ, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now dwells inside of you 24 hours a day. He ain’t leavin’! And because of that alone, everything changes. You are not someone who cannot be trusted. You are not one that has a wretched heart. We’ll write worship songs and get up under the banner of nobility and say, “God, we just stink as individuals. We are unworthy. We are unrighteous. We are horrible. If I choose, I will choose something other than You every time so I just need You, God. I’m nothing without You.” That last part is true. But as far as the rest of it goes, is it possible that Christ is standing there saying, “You know what? You used to be unworthy. You used to be unrighteous. You used to actually stink pretty good. But because of that whole big deal I made on the cross, you’re a brand new creation.” You are not a bad person trying to be good. You are holy as He is holy. You are righteous. You are redeemed. You are a child of the Living God. If you’re just bad, trying to be good, you’re gonna have your little mountaintop moments but you’re gonna go back to believing you’re this sorry person and if you believe it long enough, you’re gonna live like that when Christ is saying, “No, there is nothing sorry about you.” You have the heart and mind of Christ. How can you be worthless when you are an heir to the throne? When you are a child of the Living King? (emphasis added)

It’s one thing to know God and know His attributes. And it’s another thing to know how completely contrary my heart is to God’s goodness. But when I take His holiness and allow it to cover my wretchedness? When I stop turning away from Him in shame and run full-fledged to Him in gratitude and freedom? Oh! It’s liberating and life-changing and tremendously earth-shaking.

So, back to the start of this post. All those lies that still rattle around and shake my foundations? They’re still here. The last two years of struggles and questions? They haven’t ended yet. Life is still LIFE, y’all. It’s hard and bumpy and painful and fluid and changing and harsh. But God is bigger and He gets the last word. He keeps deflecting those lies by dropping things into my life like the MercyMe CD, my new Proverbs 31 Online Bible Study book (Limitless Life by Derwin Gray), and my friend Stephanie’s book (Cultivating Peace). Each one of those things helps God uproot a few more of the weeds that choke my fickle heart. He uses these things to keep me on His path and following His light.

I’m grateful for His passionate pursuit, and undone by the fact that He never gives up on me!

Fabulous Magnificence

I thought I was following God’s leading. I thought He laid an opportunity in my lap – literally brought it directly to me when I wasn’t even searching for anything such as this – and so I thought this new opportunity was truly His will for my life.

I fretted about it. I sweated it. I asked God a lot of Are-You-Sure questions. I sought wise counsel. I weighed the pros and cons of this risky step – risky because I was exposing myself and had no backup plan. I sat on it and tried to squelch it until I deeply felt God’s leading that the time was right and I needed to open my tightly-closed fists and take a step into the unknown.

So I did.

My heart pounded. I thought I might throw up, but I didn’t. I took the step and I survived it, and that step led to a period of waiting. The waiting wasn’t bad at all. Truly, even for an impatient control freak like myself! I felt more peace over the whole thing once I took that “tiny” step, and felt the Holy Spirit giving me a high five for the trust and obedience I demonstrated.

The waiting didn’t bother me because I felt like I was exactly where God wanted me: I was surrendered. With open hands. And a peaceful calm. And a trusting heart. And excited about my future because I felt like I had clarity.

Until today, when an answer of “not now” came. All that peace, trust, calm? It’s muddied with confusion now. And self-doubt, because I’m second guessing and wondering where I misheard His leading. I thought it was so spot-on and circumstances had converged to make His path overly apparent to me.

And now there’s a “Dead End” sign. With a “Do Not Enter” sign AND a “U-turn” sign as the cherry on top of the bowl of confusion. What do you mean, God? You want me to turn back? How? Where do I go now? You want me to just stay here?! All of that for all of this?

I am bruised because I patted myself on the back for following His will, because I thought His will had an end result in mind. Today, I’m guessing that His will isn’t so much about an end result as it is about the experience along the way: the surrendering and the opening hands and the calming peace I found when I submitted to His leading.

And yet, all those words are balm I use to soothe the ache I feel over a lost dream that I tried on for size – and felt so lovely when I looked at myself wearing it. I’m sad. It’s painful when hope dies, no matter what sort of hope you cling to (relationships, children, retirement, careers, even the town you live in.) And I question and wonder, all along knowing He’s okay with me questioning and wondering. No matter what, I still trust because His track record with me is one of unflagging faithfulness. He always has my best in mind.

The truth is this: my plans for the future seem pretty fabulous when I map them out. [And, for the record, I don’t feel like this was solely MY plan. From the get go, I felt it was HIS plan too!] And then I look at His grand design and realize settling for fabulous is pretty darn stupid when He has marvelous magnificence in mind. Fabulous is pretty good, but He takes that fabulous and enhances it – intensifies it - magnifies it – into untoppable magnificence.

I want what He wants for me. And I trust that His “no” on this topic translates to “I have something better in mind.”

Finish What He Started by MercyMe
I don't have to know you
To know that you will go through
Hard times - it's just part of life.
Don't let that moment blind you
And don't let it define you.
Take heart, that's not who you are.
Our God is able,
More than capable
To be faithful
To the end.
He'll finish what He started.
No matter what you've done,
Grace comes like a flood.
There's hope to carry on.
He'll finish what he started.
No matter what you face,
His mercy will not change.
He's with you all the way.
He'll finish what he started.
Remember you're forgiven
So there's no need to give in
To the lie
That you're disqualified.
Our God is able,
More than capable
To be faithful
To the end.
He'll finish what He started.
No matter what you've done,
Grace comes like a flood.
There's hope to carry on.
He'll finish what he started.
No matter what you face,
His mercy will not change.
He's with you all the way.
He'll finish what he started.
This work He's started in you now,
He's faithful to complete it.
A promise sealed when He cried out,
"It is finished."
He'll finish what He started.
No matter what you've done,
Grace comes like a flood.
There's hope to carry on.
He'll finish what he started.
No matter what you face,
His mercy will not change.
He's with you all the way.
He'll finish what he started.

Drip by Drip

Things are not good right now. Life isn’t horrible by any stretch, but it is difficult and wearing on me. I feel like I have no room to complain because I know so many others who are facing tremendous pain and struggles: a 6-month-old going through cancer treatments. Job loss. Abuse. Adultery. Life-changing diagnoses. Lyme disease. Back surgery. Divorce. Infertility. Death.

My burdens pale in comparison to those struggles. Honestly, I feel like I should shut my mouth, lower my head and keep plugging away at life. Except I’ve already been doing that and I don’t feel any better. In all honesty, “plugging away” makes my heart feel more alone. Darker and smaller than normal. Maybe airing it out will help. Here goes.

2013 was a darn sucky year. Yes, I’ve had worse. 1996 and the four following years are benchmarks of misery for me. In most people’s lives there are years that suck because of a single major crisis, but this year wasn’t like that. 2013 bled me dry, drip by drip. Crap just kept happening, and a lot of it wasn’t made public because I didn’t want to look like a whiner or like I was ungrateful for the good things that did occur. But when I think back over the last year, the overarching theme can be summed up in one word: isolation.

I haven’t written a lot of deep posts on my blog this past year. Writing is soothing therapy for me, but I haven’t felt the freedom to be honest with my struggles because of privacy issues with the people involved in these struggles, plus not knowing who exactly is reading this blog. Just when I think I’m pretty much the only person who knows it exists, someone will mention it and then I’ll remember I can’t give full disclosure here. But here are the main highlights low points:

Jackson’s diagnosis. Dietary changes. Intense changes at my job. A family member’s abusive relationship. “Breaking up” with a close friend. Starting to lose my eyesight. Medication changes. Increased hours at work. Pre-cancer procedure. A family member’s lupus diagnosis. Tax surprises. An emotionally painful mistake.

I’ll summarize it: I’ve been wrestling a lot with God. Not with the concept of Him (my faith in His existence has never wavered), but with His direction for my life. I’ve asked “why” a lot, although lately I’ve stopped asking “why” and just took whatever new crap has been thrown at me… like it’s a punishment I somehow deserve. He could be ripping open the glossy veneer to show me the rot in my subflooring. Or maybe He’s been trying to buff out the selfishness in my heart. I’ve been wondering if this year was a lesson in humility. My pride is an idol that blocks the door to His workshop in my heart, so maybe He allowed some of this pain to happen as a way to unblock the door.

• Maybe Jackson’s diagnosis was meant to remove the pride I take when my kids are well-behaved and under control. (Yeah, like THAT happens often!)
• Maybe the dietary changes were meant to show me the ways food is an idol in my life.
• Maybe the job changes stripped away comfort in order to show me God is the only safety net I need.
• Maybe the abusive relationship was a way for God to tie my heart closer to my loved ones.
• Maybe the break up with my friend was God’s way of showing me that earthly friendship shouldn’t take the place of His friendship. What if he wanted me isolated so I would depend more on Him?
• Maybe losing my eyesight was a gift and got me off medication that was doing long-term damage to my body.
• Maybe the painful mistake I blindly made was the reminder I needed to stop putting my trust in the wrong places, and a reminder that I really don’t have it all figured out and I’m not in control.
• And maybe all the other crap was just an extra bonus Satan threw in to keep me down and turned away from my Refuge.

Heck, I don’t know! I keep hoping God will make sense of things soon but I know that even if my “soon” isn’t the same as His, every single struggle from this past year will eventually be used for His glory. I have to believe this pain isn’t for nothing and that it will be used in some way, some day. I see glimmers of that truth every now and then, like the woman at church I’ve been walking with as she took her son for testing and got a diagnosis that breaks her heart the same way Jackson’s continues to break mine.

Please, dear God, make this ache go away. And if you can’t make it go away, sit in the muck with me and help me endure. Please bring respite soon!

Where there is loneliness, help me feel Your presence.

In the places in my life where I feel like a victim, please empower me to take action. I want to respond to the ways You initiate movement in my life.

When I feel under attack, please go to battle for me.

When I can’t even find the words to ask for Your rescue, hear my groans and turn them into prayers.

Please, God, give me hope! I am desperate to know if I’m where You want me to be at this stage in my life. Do You want me to stay put for just a little longer, or is it time to move forward in some way? Speak boldly and plainly so I can differentiate Your guidance from my desires and fears. Give me vision to see Your ways, and trust to follow You.

I’m afraid to even ask this, but is it too much to request You do something big in my life? (And by big, I don’t mean more painful. Please not that!) Open my eyes to see You, God.

Help me be a leader for You, knowing You are my ultimate boss and my righteousness. I want to be courageous enough to stand alone even when no one else supports me. Help me speak truth when it’s necessary, but shut me up the rest of the time.

Help me obey Your will, even (especially!) when it seems contrary to what I want. Please show me the way out!

Thank You for hearing my prayers and for not thinking I’m a whiny baby. And when I am whiny, thank you for rocking me like the baby I am. Amen.

Losing My Vision

September 29th marks five years since I was diagnosed with lupus. It changed my life but I’m not complaining, because some of those changes were actually really GOOD!

One of the first steps I took towards controlling my disease was to start taking a drug called Plaquenil (generic is hydroxychlorquine). It is an anti-malarial drug that is used to control inflammation. When I first started having lupus symptoms and then – a few months later – when I was diagnosed, I was in the throes of a full-blown lupus flare. It was painful (I described the symptoms here) and frustrating, because I had no idea how long it would take the Plaquenil to be effective. Thankfully, it was only about six weeks until I started feeling relief. I took Plaquenil for five years, which brings us to today.

One of the side effects of Plaquenil is retinopathy. In my simple layman’s terms, this means the medication can deposit in the macula of my eyeballs and cause blindness. Patients who are on Plaquenil are monitored for this side effect through a visual field test every six months, which checks peripheral vision and notes any changes since the last exam. (On a side note, this blindness side effect is the reason my mother refused to take Plaquenil. That didn’t turn out well, which is a topic for another time.)

This past July, I started noticing a change in my eyesight. It wasn’t anything major, just more of a “ghosting” on the edges of my vision. At first, I was convinced that I was seeing the edges of my contacts. But then I realized that’s never happened before (why would I just recently start seeing the edges, when I’ve been wearing contacts for twenty years?), and my gut instinct (which I attribute to the Holy Spirit) told me that I should get it checked out. I made an appointment for my visual field test, and got the news that my vision had changed. When I asked my ophthalmologist if it was a slight change or markedly different, she said “markedly different.” She notified my rheumatologist, and – long story short – I decided to go off the Plaquenil. The options are: save my eyesight and risk lupus flares, or control lupus flares and risk blindness. Uh… I’ll take door #1, please!

Today, August 13th, marks my last dosage of Plaquenil. It doesn’t mean I won’t take it again further down the road (because both doctors say the buildups could disperse and I could try the medication in the future), but for now the risks outweigh the benefits. My rheumatologist says if I have any flares, we can opt for other medications like steroids, methotrexate, or Benlysta (each of which have their OWN set of dreadful side effects – ugh!). She says the Plaquenil should be out of my system in about four weeks. This means I’ll be out from under the “umbrella” of safety in mid-September. I’m nervous and anxious about flying without a parachute, but I’m a tiny bit excited too. Why?

It’s been five months since I radically altered what I put into my body through my diet. Because of my two autoimmune diseases (systemic lupus erythematosus and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) I went gluten-, corn- and dairy-free. I had a slight hope that maybe one day I might stop taking my lupus and Hashimoto’s medications. Well… it turns out that one day is TODAY.

I haven’t stopped my Hashimoto’s medication, because I haven’t had reason to yet. But five months ago, I took eight pills a day. Today, I am down to only two (and hopefully only one when I have my next visit with my rheumatologist). I think that’s pretty stinking fantastic! And yet, I hesitate to rejoice because I know it could all change in a matter of weeks.

But for now, I have a multitude of reasons to stick with this crazy “diet” I’m on – which isn’t really a diet anymore, nor is it a new “lifestyle” like weight-loss companies suggest. It is a lifeline, and a hope for minimizing future pain and side effects. I also have multiple blessings to be thankful for in the middle of not-so-great news: I’m thankful for doctors who know what they’re doing and can help monitor what I can’t. I’m thankful for medication options. I’m thankful for a high-tech world that lets me be an armchair expert on my body and my health, where I’m a click away from research and information on what food I can and can’t eat. I’m thankful that God put me on a path five months ago that I didn’t quite understand, but has since clarified why I just “felt” like I needed to change my diet. I’m thankful that He convicts me even when I don’t understand it.

And I’m thankful that even when I lose my vision, His never fails! As the current quote at the top of my blog says, “Live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;
Thou my best thought by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Words by Eleanor Hull, sung by Fernando Ortega

The Hope of Reunion

“In Christ alone my hope is found… And as He stands in victory,/Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me./For I am His and He is mine,/Bought with the precious blood of Christ.”

Without the hope I find in Him, every day would be despair for me. Imagine how it would feel to think there’s nothing left after we die. I would be bereft if I believed I’d never get to see my brother again. Or my mom. Or my dad. But that’s not the way life with Jesus works. I GET TO BE REUNITED. I get to see Him with my own eyes, and feel His arms around me.

To me, these photos are the closest I’ll ever get to experiencing heaven on this side of death. I can only imagine what it will be like to be held this way for eternity.