This Mountain

As I drove back from my occupational therapy evaluation, I felt so overwhelmed. The therapist wanted me to come to Phoenix once a week for six weeks. I'd scheduled appointments, but didn't see how they could work. I work full time, or more than full time, after all.

The mile posts flashed by as I sped up the hill back to work. And God brought to mind this quote that I'd seen on Pinterest some time earlier:

I tell people all the time that self-care is important. But do I really practice it? Not really. I like to be self-sufficient and I try to pretty much take care of myself. Needing to go to the doctor so much is quite frankly humbling, and embarrassing, and at the same time probably something I need. It forces me to actually put my actions where my words are, and take care of my health. It requires me to make time for myself and prioritize my well being. This therapy probably won't cure my condition, but it might help, and I have to take the chance.

My diagnosis of dystonia may be a diagnosis that cannot change, but the way I view and take care of myself can. With God's help, the mountain of bulletproof self-sufficiency that has guided my life for so long can be move. In it's place, I hope to make a mountain of faith, hope, and love, a testament to God's faithfulness and not my own.

It's Going to Be Okay.

"It's going to be okay." That is the message that I heard from the Lord the morning I woke up to return home to Arizona after my friend's wedding. I didn't hear an audible voice, but I received a deep seated peace about life. And it's stuck with me.

I'd worried about a lot of things on that trip: travel to and from, doctors' appointments when I got back, singleness, relationships, community, work, housing, vehicles you name it. The travel was fine and I survived the doctors' appointments, but the rest of the stuff hasn't worked itself out yet and it might not. We don't live in a perfect world. I won't lie and say I'm not still worried and stressed, but every time I start to get overwhelmed, I hear the still small voice, "It's going to be okay." I'm clinging to that.

As you know, I'm not a believer in the prosperity gospel. I don't believe that I can name and claim whatever I want and get it from God. But I do believe that God is good. I do believe that His promises are true. I do believe that God is with me. The Bible tells me that I have eternal life in heaven through Jesus. These things don't and won't change.

So it's going to be okay. I'm going to be okay.

Walking Around These Halls

Walking around these walls

I thought by now they'd fall

But You have never failed me yet

Waiting for change to come

Knowing the battle's won

For You have never failed me yet

Elevation Worship, "Do It Again"

This hospital corridor is becoming far too familiar. After several years of making the rounds of all the doctors, I've been referred to Barrow Neurological Institute, and after multiple, multiple visits, I've received the prognosis is that my condition is chronic. This dystonia is permanent. As much as that is bad news, it is good news. I can seeking a cause for my condition and just start accepting it. Right now, acceptance looks like physical and occupational therapy. Long term, it looks like living in a new way.

I never thought that I'd have a chronic health condition at age 30. The doctors continue to tell me how "young" I am. I know I'm young and that's why I don't want more botox. But I also accept that I belong to a fallen world and that I am aging and that life will never be perfect.

I have prayed and prayed for my hand condition to go away. I have seen the inside of more doctors office than I can count. And while healing hasn't come, I can testify to this: God hasn't failed me yet. He is God over the halls of the hospital, sovereign within the walls of dystonia, and Lord of my life.

Crazy-busy

"‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us."

~Brene Brown

This quote is perhaps another way to explain where I'm at in life. I've been crazy busy for so long. And now, as life slows a bit, all the emotions are hitting me in the face. I feel lonely. I feel scared. I'm angry. I feel sad. And I find myself trying to fill time instead of feeling. I go on more walks. I take on more projects. I try to sleep more. None of these things are necessarily bad, but they're just other ways I keep myself numb. They're ways I stay a human doing instead of a human being.

What I really need right now is to sit with my feelings, to ask God what He is trying to tell me through them. But I don't want to. Admitting my feelings makes me raw and vulnerable and real. And that's not comfortable, or painless. It's pain-full.

I know God made me a feeling creature for a reason. My emotions help me connect to other people. My emotions help me experience the richness of this world God has made. My emotions remind me that God is God and I need to be still and know Him (Ps 46:10).

So here's to letting down the armor a little bit, to feeling the feels, to trying to enjoy life a little more instead of numbing myself with busyness. Jesus, hold me close.

God is Up To Something.

It's been a pretty crummy few weeks. I've struggled with sleep, obsessed about the stupidest things, worried about my health, felt unworthy, gotten overwhelmed, and had decision fatigue. Then I got that flat tire. I may be ridiculous when I say this, but I got the idea that God was about to do something.

I have faced spiritual opposition every time I tried to take action regarding my professional career. I renewed my license the Monday that all this started. I had been praying a lot about some things before that, and then suddenly the importance of those things took a back seat. 

Whether or not I'll get the answer I want about any of those matters, God wants me to pray. And I confess that I let the crumminess of life distract me from that spiritual responsibility.
I went to the occupational therapist and the physical therapist the two days before I had the flat tire. I got super overwhelmed about all they asked and expected of me. And I started thinking about that instead of about loving others, doing good in the world, or praying. And then the flat tire.

The flat tired changed my perspective some. It helped me realize that there is still good in the world. It made me grateful. And it convinced me that I need to persevere.

When God works, Satan works. And God is always working, so Satan is always working. 
Therefore, I am rebuking Satan in Jesus' name and praying to accept what God has for me. I'm not expecting some pie-in-the-sky reward for my faithfulness, but I am looking forward to seeing what God will do, because I know He is up to something.

I Have a Hangover.

No, not that kind of hangover. I don't drink. I have what I'd call "vulnerability hangover*." It's that incredibly confusing and painful state that comes from being so real that it hurts. It's that sensation that you've shared too much, done too much, and want to go back, but can't. I've been extremely vulnerable with myself this weekend, and it's left me feeling overstimulated, overly sensitive and overwhelmed with emotions I can't seem to sort out.

My job requires me to show up and be present with people and their stories each and every day. It's not the kind of job where I can show up and put myself on the shelf. No, I am there in person every day at work, and sometimes, the work is there with me when I leave. I like my job, I really do, but I haven't ever had a job where I've had to be this real, and it's hard. A particular call this past week reminded me of that.

It isn't very often that I go out with people and let loose and really have fun. And I did that this weekend. It reminded me of the value of community and of the importance of activities that really have no extrinsic worth. It was an experience that made me painfully aware that fun and community are seriously lacking in my life.

My parents were out of town this weekend, so schedule and routine were completely up to me. I'm so used to the rhythm of life with my family that decisions like where to sit to do my devotions and what to eat for dinner became overwhelming. I had to really tune in with myself and ask myself what I wanted. And I'm not used to that.

I've lost a lot of myself in my years of moving away from home, getting an education, trying to be perfect, and living an overall inauthentic life. In this process of coming home to Arizona, I'm coming home to myself and feeling the pain of God breaking down the walls of what I have known to make me into who He wants me to be. It's confusing and awkward and strange. 

My life right now is messy and complicated and I'm afraid, but I'm trying to show up. Please be patient with me. I'm in God's workshop and He's not done with me yet.

*I got the term "vulnerability hangover" from Brene Brown, but am using it in a slightly different context here.

My Father's Daughter

I am my father's daughter. We both like red and flannel and good food and car shows. But that's surface level stuff. Ask my mom, and she'll tell you Dad and I fought when I was growing up because we were so much alike in our personalities. 

I've been home two years now and I'm so thankful for the opportunities I have now to really get to know and appreciate my dad more. He's so creative and inventive. He's a hard worker and a leader. He takes really good care of my mom and I. He show me what it looks like to have love and respect from a man. 

But above all else, my dad loves and follows his Heavenly Father, and in part because of him, I am that Father's daughter.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I love you.