Getting Present Requires Grief.

After all the lessons I have already learned about grief, I think I learned another one: Getting present requires grief. It's not necessarily profound. It's not necessarily deep, but it's meaningful.

I think this lesson came to me after talking to my therapist about getting into a funk when things don't go my way. I don't want to be upset. I don't want to be mean to my husband. I don't want to have a bad rest of the day. I just can't seem to get over my "bad" (unwanted) feelings. That was when she said to me, "Maybe you just need to take a minute to two to grieve." It's not a big grief, but it's a grief when things don't go my way, when expectations die. Maybe they need their moment.

As I started practicing what she told me, I started to realize how often I am not in the moment because I haven't grieved. I'm holding on to what I thought would happen. I'm clinging to past memories. I'm clinging to past hurts. I'm not here because I'm there. I'm not here because there didn't happen. What if I took a moment to just grieve that and let it go?

I'm not good at grieving. I never have been. Life continues to teach me to do so, though. God continues to teach me. As the Heavenly Father, he went through the ultimate grief of losing his beloved Son, so I am sure He gets it. He is here with me, if I grieve, and if I don't He is with me too. I just might not recognize his Presence if I'm not present. 

When Times are Good...

Life is a swirl of excitement right now. There's a new niece, and wedding planning, and friend visits, and spring, beautiful spring! I want to celebrate it all and live out this season of celebration, but honestly, there's still fear. 

Fear of not having enough time to invest with all the people I love
Fear of missing out on one thing or another
Fear of the other shoe dropping and this facade of happiness crumbling
Fear of sickness
Fear of conflict
Fear of fear

And all the fear eats at my joy.

"When times are good, be happy," King Solomon wrote (Ecc 7:14a, New International Version). That's the sentiment that keeps coming back to me. So I'm trying. Trying to live in the moment. Trying to wring every drop of joy out of this season. These times are a blessing, for God has blessed me.

With family I love
With a fiance I love
With a beautiful new niece who's growing by the day
With warmer weather
And sunshine-y days
And hiking
And living 
And planning
And breathing
And being

WITH BEING A BELOVED CHILD OF GOD!

Hard times will come. That's what the latter part of the verse says. But God has made the happy times as well as the hard. I want and need to celebrate both.

Ride the Waves

I've been telling myself lately that emotions are like waves. They come, and they go, and then they're over. This perspective has helped me, until it didn't.

One Thursday night after work, exhausted and tired, overstretched and overspent, I hit a wall and descended into a really dark place . I didn't feel good enough. I wasn't thinking positive thoughts. I honestly wanted to give up on life, though I had no plans to actually end my life. I couldn't stop crying. It was awful. Miserable. Isolating. Alienating. Lonely. It wasn't a wave of emotions. It was a tidal wave, or maybe even a tsunami.

The people in my life didn't abandon me or give up on me. They didn't pressure me, but they didn't leave me alone, either. They were there for me and with me. That gift of presence and acceptance was a blessing. But even though I knew I could talk to them, I struggled to do so.

The breakthrough for me came Monday morning when I read Romans 12:6, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (New International Version, NIV). The Spirit showed me that I was comparing myself, comparing myself to others, to my ideal self, to the person I thought I should be. And that's not the way God's economy works. He made me, me, and I need to live in and walk that, "with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me” (Col 1:29). That realization was so freeing for me. It totally changed my perspective and brought me back to my real self.

Ride the waves. That's a good perspective, until the waves are too big to ride on your own. That's where reaching out for and accepting help come in. Because when you can't ride the wave, you need someone to tow you to shore, to bring you home.

Life is Full.

Life is full. Life is messy. Life is busy. And at the same time, life is rich.

There are so many layers to life right now that I can't quite figure them all out. Sometimes I feel unexplicably happy and grateful. Sometimes I'm just tired, emotionally tired, and I don't know why. Sometimes I'm sad. Sometimes I'm grumpy. Sometimes I'm all of the above.

In it all, I'm just trying to show up. I'm trying to learn to be present. I'm trying to soak up this season because it will pass and soon I'll be on to the next one.

“Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyway,” Glennon Doyle Melton says. By God's grace and the Holy Spirit's power, that's what I'm trying to do.

Presence is My Gift to Jesus This Year

As I read my Savor devotional about the most important gifts the other morning, I thought about Christmas and what Jesus would want from me this year. The word that immediately came to mind was Presence. I want to be present this year. Present with Jesus. Present with my family and friends and loved ones. Present in the moment. 

I've been trying to cultivate little moments of presence and preparation for Christmas throughout the week, but it's hard. Life is busy. Work is busy. It seems like there are always a thousand things to do, but life is about choices and priorities. We can always make choices to prioritize what's important.

Jesus coming as a baby in a manger was about relationship. It was about God condescending to man to bring the light of a perfect baby into a dark, dark world. It was about Mary receiving what God had for her. It was about Mary's betrothed Joseph supporting her in what seemed like an impossible mission to raise the Son of God.

So in celebration of Christmas, I started trying to do one thing a day to cultivate celebration. (I've posted about that on Instagram.) Some things were little, like using a Christmas hot pad. 

Some were bigger, like an art project I did with a group at work and didn't necessarily want to finish, but did.

But what I tried, by God's grace, to prioritize were relationships and serving those around me: I got to make dinner for my family Saturday night. 

We slowed down to go for a walk to look at lights.

I've been trying to hold my schedule a little more loosely so that I have time to spend with people I love. 

As I consider Jesus coming into the world as the Light of lights, I realize that relationships are what really matter. May I be present in them for this season, and beyond, for the way I live my life daily is a year-long celebration of what Christ did for me by coming to earth at Christmas and then dying on the cross at Calvary.

God's Presence is Made Known in All The Earth.

Canyon Bible Church started a new series on the book of John this morning. Pastor Jon Gaus read verse 3, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" (New International Version, NIV) and pointed out that Jesus is God's creative agent in the earth. Arriving home, I read Psalm 8:9, "Lord, our Lord,  how majestic is your name in all the earth!" This got me to thinking about God's presence and how God is evident and made known in all the earth.

Genesis 18:25b
Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Exodus 9:16
But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth

Psalm 8:9
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 19:4
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Psalm 47:2
For the Lord Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth.

Psalm 57:5
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

Psalm 83:18
Let them know that you, whose name is the Lord— that you alone are the Most High over all the earth.

Isaiah 54:5
For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.

Revelation 5:6
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.