The Ways We Hide

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” ― Oscar Wilde

How do you hide?

Here's the truth.

I have always been an extreme introvert. 
I've shied away from social functions. I've avoided groups of people. I've sat at the back during events. I didn't feel that I had anything to offer. I was petrified that if I said something it would be stupid. 
My biggest goal in most circumstances was to blend in. 
Disappear? Even better.

Marriage didn't magically cure me of my lack of confidence and my aspirations to be invisible. It became my crutch. I didn't need to make friends because I could stay home with my family. I didn't have to take risks with people that I didn't want to take, because I was married and that was going to be forever...so I was set. 
I thought I'd eliminated the risk of getting hurt or embarrassed or singled out. 
I didn't care that I didn't have a very good chance of engaging with people, sharing my gifts and talents, or making any kind of a difference in my world.
I was hiding.

Then one day I woke up...
And I didn't have that title or that relationship or that life to hide behind anymore.
My hiding place was gone.
I was exposed.
I was a grown woman, a mother - with children of my own - and all of my not-enough was staring me in the face... and for every venture I made out into the world on my own I might as well have been a new kid standing alone on the first day of school.
It was like starting from the very beginning.

I've thought many times about how I could possibly share about the good that has come from devastation.
How can an event that rips you wide open and cracks you straight through the middle... have a story of redemption laced through it?

The thing is...God uses everything. 
The beautiful. 
The lovely. 
The noteworthy. 
The sad. 
The untimely. 
The confusing. 
The tragic. 
All of it. 

In fighting to find breath, and strength, and healing, I ended up finding the truth about who God is and what He does. In a season where hiding would've made a LOT of sense...
I learned that hiding isn't actually living. And I really, really wanted to feel what it felt like to...live.

I believe right down to my core that our paths and our twists and our turns, our wanderings and wondering, our hard fought and our sadly lost... and our discoveries and revelations through all of that... are to be shared.
It's what the human experience is about. It's what connects us and draws us closer to each other. The sharing is what spreads hope.

Sometimes that won't be pretty and polished. Sometimes it may reveal unsavoury things, and sometimes it won't land, and sometimes the result may be gritty and uncomfortable. 
But that's okay.
The truth is only scary when it is hidden. Monsters hide in the dark. And for all of the silence that wafts through the air after the real is offered up...there is usually one quiet whisper that says...thank you...or...me too.

There is nothing more comforting and hopeful than finding out that you're not the only one.

All of us have ways that we hide...and we have reasons for our hiding. 
I had my reasons, and I thought they were good reasons.
But here's what I know today...

I am thankful for the ways that my life was laid bare.
I am thankful for the undoing that lead to rebuilding.
I am thankful that the stripping away revealed things I would've never uncovered.
I am thankful for a God who showed up in the darkest of dark shadows and saw my pieces and shards and tatters and immediately said, "I won't leave you here and I don't want you to hide any longer."
In stepping out of the dark, the light can be shone on your worth...the Light is for me and it's for you too...

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cling

What about when what You ask of me is far greater than what I had expected?
Far more demanding than my strength can withstand....

And not in the...

'This-is-so-huge-and-amazing-I-don't-think-I'm-awesome-enough-for-it'....

It's the...

'I couldn't have known that this many questions and this much undoing and all of this pain could possibly be representative of a girl who is still on the right path.'

Yet, here I am.

Life undone is hard to put in a pretty box.

Life transparent shows a lot of holes ~ a lot of the fraying fabric of my humanity.

There is no timer that rings and signifies that clean up has begun and perfection is slated next on the agenda.

There is no room for pretending or faking it.

In the deep end - you can't 'pretend' you know how to swim.

So the water is deep.

So the waves continue to swirl.

So the peaceful, quiet, shore is a long way off.

And I'm only one. Undone.

I'm kinda done with striving, kinda done with buying into the idea that my own effort is the only thing I can rely on...I've kinda been done with it for a long time.

I'm out of options that begin with the words -

I. 

Me.

My.

I'm choosing one word to start.

It's my only hope.

Cling

There is a choice out here in the deep.

All is not lost - all is not pointless.

Cling - to the One who turns the tides.

Cling - to the One who sees me in my storm. It seems big to me, but He sees everything from beginning to end.

Cling - to the One who promised, I will never leave you or forsake you.

Regardless of who or what stirred up this storm...

Regardless of who or what left me in the dark and never looked back...

There is One who is greater than the winds that blow in and out of my life.

There is One who brings peace to a restless heart.

There is One who will never leave.

Hope is built on this truth.

This lifeline is secure in any length of dark storm.

This promise lies not in the assurance of a life free of hard questions, pain and loss, but that there is an arm that holds on and never, ever lets go.

And I smiled to think God's greatness
Flowed around our incompleteness ~
Round our restlessness, His rest.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This is the Story

This is what I'm realizing:
Sometimes the back story in life is actually the main story in God's plans...
and....
The BIG, menacing, dramatic, attention-grabbing, life altering UP FRONT story is really just a catalyst. 

A way to get me to stop. 

To get silent. 

To ponder. 

To seek and to yield.

When I uncomfortably agree to let the life-hole stay vacant until HE fills it.....instead of seeking a temporary band aid so I can move past the pain.... He reveals deep truths to me. 

I am at unrest with the confusion. 

I want OUT of the uncomfortable place. 

I don't want to dwell here. 

In my human heart I want to know Him because of the liberation FROM the pain and I want to FORGO  the experience of His sustaining presence IN the dark places.

When I try to solve things on my own, in my own timing, I interfere with His work ON ME. 

I see every situation with limited vision.

If I push my own agenda, I risk  forfeiting the space for His perfectly timed revelation that grows me, and calms me, and reminds me that He is perfect and He is ALWAYS working. 

He is my teacher and I have much to learn. 

The only way to learn - straight from His heart - is to trust Him when I cannot see, and to seek worldly silence and Spirit whispers, instead of giving into the pressing urge to defend myself.
When I decrease. He increases....

He increases in my life.

In my circumstance.

And in my world. 

Choosing God's way can be humanly painful. 

Waiting upon Him can appear to the masses as foolishness.
Careful examination of the areas He highlights, the behaviours that He puts His finger on, causes me to see that the calamity, the undoing, the confrontations and the riffs - these monumental happenings that bring my days to a halt...

THESE ARE the backstory. 

The BIG UP FRONT story is how he is winding and weaving His higher ways all throughout my life.

He is ever-presenting chances for me to see Him and choose Him and be changed by Him.

Always Pick the Pretty One.

I think, as a woman, I can fall into the rut... or plunging ravine ...of just "making do", just "getting by".

OF COURSE we all have days that are pulling us in so many different directions that some making-do-ness is required and necessary and totally legit.
I can't even speak on anyone else's life. I just know - for me - it can go very very quickly from one day to an unconscious total mind-set shift...and just.like.that. I'm on auto pilot.

I'm aware of this in myself.
I am actively deciding to show up for my life.
It's a choice I've made.
There was a turning point...

I had started taking stock...taken some time to reflect.
I was trying to figure out when I had checked out. When I had stopped feeling fully. When I had shifted to "making do" for my LIFE not just a day.
Ya know what was haunting?
I couldn't remember.
I had been in a fog for so long that I couldn't even pin point a timeframe where it had been different.
I found this very very unsettling and disturbing.
So I shook myself. HARD.
I woke up.
I started making choices again...actively.
I started doing everyday things that brought joy and conscious awareness again.
I stopped "phoning in" my days and started showing up instead.
Not easy.
Actually really hard.
But beyond worth it.

Here's the thing though....
~ As with EVERYTHING in EVERY area of my life ~
It's not a one-time decision that sticks and never shifts again.
It's an always and everyday series of choices that I make.
I'm responsible for me.

I'm not perfect.
Give me a LONG week, a hard and draining day, some bad news, a sick kid, a lull in my journal and devotional life...
And auto pilot kicks in.
I DON'T want this to happen.

I got a wake up call the other week when I was hurriedly picking some clothes from my drawer, scrambling to get myself dressed after taking care of everyone else's needs before school.
We were bordering on lateness and I grabbed for the plain, non-descript, white shirt.
My 3 year old stood by and watched my frenzied actions and came and put her hand on my arm.
I stopped.
I looked at her.
She put her hand on the shirt with flowers and colours on it.
"Always pick the pretty one momma".
I laughed and thought...of course that's the way a little girl thinks.....like everyday is an occasion...and why on Earth would you leave the pretty one sitting in the drawer?

BUT

Why don't I think everyday...TODAY...is worthy of the lovely, the beauty, the effort, the choosing of the pretty...for me?

I push myself to bring creativity and variation and nutrition to my kids' lunches. Because they're worth it.
I put thought into what clothes they wear each day, picking the ones they like and feel good in. Because they're worth it.
I grab their drinks and their breakfast and pack their bags for school each morning. Because they're worth that effort.
I want them to have a great day. A great start. A great sense of home. A great outlook on life!

When the quiet moment comes in MY day and I can take time for joy and devotion and the lovely...I often choose to close the drawer and stick with the basic and the non-descript version of my life.

I need the reminders.
I  need the wake up calls.
I want the colour in life. I desire the lovely. I need the devotion. I crave the beauty.
I welcome the lesson in all of its forms and I love that God uses a 3 year old girl who believes in being a princess and a firefighter at the same time as my teacher more often than I could have imagined.
Today is extraordinary and it only comes around once. As the seconds tick...this day slips away never to return again.
I'm going to look for the lovely and choose it.

Tuscan Bean Soup with Spinach

Happy Friday :)

It's a day full of kids ~ no-school day here ~ and a little birthday celebration for a cousin and lots of smile-worthy stuff.
We have some mellow music playing on the ipod, we had cinnamon buns for breakfast and the play dough is getting lots of action.

Here's a soup I made yesterday.
It's simple and delicious.

Here's the back-story....
I was stuck in kid~land food for AGES.
I was sick of it. I was uninspired and I wasn't willing to make elaborate dishes with complex ingredients that my kids would look at and cry.
Not joking!

I hit a wall.
I realized once again that I'm in charge of my happiness and satisfaction in every area...even meals.
I found a solution.
Because it mattered to me.
Because I was SICK to death of grilled cheese and waffles.

I make small portions of the lovely, amazing food I enjoy.
I eat it.
I don't have left overs.
I don't suffer tears and drama.
I accept that my kids' pickiness is for a season.
I re-entered the world of YUM.
Happy.

Tuscan Bean Soup with Spinach.

 

10 1/2oz canned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

10 1/2oz canned cranberry beans, drained and rinsed

2 1/2c chicken or vegetable stock

1/2c small dry pasta shapes

4tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped

Fresh baby spinach ~ as much as you like

salt and pepper

 

Place half the cannellini and half the cranberry beans in a food processor (*I used an immersion blender*) with half the chicken stock and blend until smooth.

(*I only had white kidney beans and it still tasted amazing*)

Pour into a large, heavy-bottom pan and add the remaining beans.

Stir in enough of the remaining stock to achieve the consistency you like, then bring to a boil.

 

Add the pasta and spinach and return to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook for 15ish minutes, or until just tender.

 

Meanwhile, heat 3tbsps of the oil in a small skillet. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for 2-3mins, or until golden. Stir the garlic into the soup.

 

Season to taste with salt and pepper and ladle into bowls.

 

 

DELICIOUS!

 

"A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting."

 

 

Perfectly Imperfect

She is 3.
She is magic and passion and laughter and fire all rolled into 3 short years on this Earth.
She learns and grows...it seems everyday...always something new, different, astonishing.
I am pretty enthralled with her.

I watch her draw.
I see the big circle head and the dots for eyes and the straight line for a mouth.
Inside I think ~ there is nothing else in this world that I would rather watch right this second.
I marvel at her progress and her creativity. I drink in her imagination and listen for the story that will go with the picture.
It is life giving to my soul to be a part of her world.

She finishes the first person and goes on to the second.
The circle line doesn't match. It doesn't meet up.
Her demeanour immediately changes. Darkens.
"That's NOT the way it's supposed to look".
I tell her it's awesome and that she's doing her best.
"It's NOT right and I can't fix it. That's NOT what a head looks like. It's wrong."
And in a blink the whole page is in the garbage and she never wants to colour again....

I can't match her frustration with an opposing argument.
It doesn't matter what I offer up in that moment by way of encouragement or teaching.
She wants perfection. Her 3 year old hands and coordination don't afford her the ability to pull off her idea of perfection and so she is inconsoleably disappointed in herself.

It pains me.
I know I couldn't have handled it differently.
I know her...I know me.
Oh...what was that??

Ahh, yes.
I know me.

Her reaction.
Her unattainable perfectionism.
Her self-critical nature....
It's me.
I see me.

I want to shrink away from this scenario.
I want it to be different because I know where it leads.
I want her to be different because I want her to be happy and carefree and confident and accepting of her best efforts.
I desire that....for her.

Hmmm...but why don't I desire that for me?
A three year old comes into my life and holds up a larger than life-size mirror and a 35 year old sees her reflection.

Truth wash over me.
Revelation sink in.
Don't let this moment and its teaching and its value be fleeting.

Open my eyes to see that my everyday is my best effort.
Open my heart to acceptance...of me.
Open my mind to remember that there is Someone who marvels at His creation.
Open my soul to remember that I am counted in that creation.

Today is a great day to interrupt the cycle.
Today is ripe for modeling something new.
Today is calling for my perfect imperfection.
I'm going to bring it...and offer it...and let it shine.
Today.

Let's Go

Oh hi there!
It's a rainy Saturday here and I just made cinnamon buns...just for me.
That was a hard decision to make...crazy right?
But, yeah, deciding that me - just me - is worth cinnamon buns was actually a conversation in my head.

I decided that I didn't want to wait until I had a full house.
I decided I was worth it.
I decided that today was just as good of a day as any.

Sooo...that's a great segue into welcoming you into this new space.

What About Today.

See, here's the thing ~
I've been learning a lot lately that today has value.
And today isn't about what surrounds me and what my circumstance is.
Today IS about my perspective and my choices and my blessings...and wow...the blessings...they are endless.

Today is a great day to follow a dream, to smile, to forgive, to laugh, to hug, to learn something new, to pray, to be humble, to connect, to give more than I thought I could, to have a nap if I'm tired, to breathe in fresh air, to whisper and speak and yell and scream ~ at the top of my lungs ~ Thank You.

I'm learning to not discount today.
I'm learning that today has everything that I need and everything I hope for...if  I choose to see it.

Wow! That's pretty great news if you ask me.
Do you want to join me?
Do you want to run crazy brave and head-long into today?
Do you want to figure out how to face down fear and insecurity, step over them and be counted among the few and the courageous who choose joy...freedom...grace...today?

I'm doing it.
I don't know what it'll look like.
It might be messy and chaotic and disorganized.
But...I have a sneaking suspicion it will be beautiful, captivating and glorious, funny, gripping and real.
Let's go.