done.

It's been an interesting few months. Not long ago, I had this sinking, constant feeling that I was in control of nothing. My temper surprised me, my irritation was an addiction, little things exhausted me. Something had to give. I suppose I should elaborate on the feeling of lack of control: I couldn't control the timing of the adoption or make myself feel all the things I thought I should or make our daughter progress any faster in her journey, I couldn't make Silas any easier in the throes of toddler behavior, I couldn't seem to make myself any more patient with very long question and answer sessions with Nicky, it felt like I was going nowhere at work, and I continued to feel the loss of some things that are better not described here.

I was feeding the wrong wolf; I can see that so clearly now. The answer was not to keep shoving my feet into the shoes that just don't fit, or to force anything else, really. It was to find something I could be proactive about and get to work on it.

Turns out I'm a pretty controlling person. (It's been disappointing to realize this.) I honestly think it was God's hand, directing me to simply let go. Stop forcing. Fill my mind with other things. So I did: I took a leap and started a new job that was demanding of my time and energy, and my wonderful partner in life took up a lot of slack in the process. He wants me well too, and I love him for it.

I think one kind of tiredness is a cure for another kind of tiredness. It's the difference between your hands aching because you've been clenching your fists all day and your feet aching because you've been running with a purpose. That good tired when you fall into bed, when you've earned your sleep. I've found a lot of rest in getting good and tired, and I feel better. My mind feels like it's waking up, more than before.

As for those lack of control things: I've seen our daughter blossom under Ricky's calm and relaxed care, I've learned to enjoy my Silas again, and I now look forward to that moment when Nicky runs in the front door with his million questions and observations. Of course I still get frustrated from time to time, but I don't wear it like a heavy overcoat these days. Thanks be to God; I can say it with my whole heart.

I don't think the issue was ever actually about my children. Sure, parenting is such hard, self-exposing work, but there are other things in my life that felt wrong for such a long time that I was trying to keep plugging away at, and that created a toxicity that had to come out somewhere.

There are still things I don't know what to do with, but not everything is fixed right away (or at all, perhaps.) I can carry on. I've come to believe that it's okay to put things on a shelf and distract myself with the good. When the right time comes, I'll feel compelled to take them down, examine and work through them. In the meantime, I'm not forcing anything. I'm not enslaved to anyone's formula. I'll try to be better at listening, knowing we're all carrying quite a load around.

It comes back to this, over and over: walk gently through the world. Look for the goodness of God. Rejoice when you find it; rejoice with the people around you who see it too. Whoever they are, wherever you find them.

So I'm trying to look around, all the while feeling quite vulnerable and oh-so-tired. We're all in some stage of healing I suppose.

mystic

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes--
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Lately I see this gorgeous bit of verse everywhere.

I listened to a sermon about beauty yesterday; about how the Wise Men didn't know they were looking for Jesus specifically, but they followed beauty and so they found him, eventually. The point was this: if you follow beauty all the way back to its original source, you will find Jesus, because anything and everything beautiful is from Him.

I love this. God seems more beautiful than ever when I think of Him this way.

I suppose it was the exact thing I needed to hear, because I just stopped what I was doing and built a pile of stones right there. I prayed, curled up on the couch while Silas tinkered, about beauty and seeing, really seeing, and melancholy and anger and making decisions that are fear-based, about my heart-dreams and my sins against my own heart. About love and regret and persistent pain. I leaned against my dearest Friend, and wondered why at times I cannot trace all this beauty back to it's Source. Why I am satisfied with  enough beauty to last the day but tiptoe around these burning bushes. In the ordinary of our lives, there is such loveliness. There are whispers of what could be, of the true potential of all of us made in the image of the One who transcends it all. I need to remember this, in all of my interactions. I need to ask more people what they are dreaming of and where they see beauty.

Fear is strange because we fear our deepest desires sometimes. I fear becoming real, like the Skin Horse, because it means being worn down, but I'm worn down to exhaustion from retreat and withdrawal. Could there be anything more wonderful than being real? When you meet such a person, you remember. I sometimes think heaviness is my own personal thorn; I can't comprehend all this energy and lightness around me except for the brief moments when it flickers over my head. I don't seem to have many answers, but I recognize beauty, and I can give thanks for it.

Looking around is a good starting point.

I may never understand my own holding back. I may never deem myself worthy of such wild, limitless love. Oh, but may I continue to know it anyway. May I somehow point the way to the Source, gasping alongside the rest of creation at the glory all around us. May I be brave enough to believe it all matters.

I invite it. I want to be a mystic, taking my shoes off in ordinary places.

like a poet

Sometimes I sit with my unsettled-ness for a while. Sometimes I fling it away and run free, a happy dance of denial on my feet. Like a boomerang, it returns. Sometimes he takes it, holds it, and I rest. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you, he reminds gently. I learn to doubt my heart, not his. And he gives vision; I see a little more of that horizon. His goodness fills all the hollow spaces. His kindness makes me want to be more kind.

Like a parent who wants a child to walk, he allows me to wobble and fall, hovering close behind with arms out. Like a mother, he holds me close and whispers tenderness. Like a father, he has a big lap and a hearty laugh and when he says good job all is right and well, even when I all I want to do is be able to call mine on the phone and feel my place in the world again. Like a friend he offers his presence. Like a teacher he sets down a complicated book in front of me, gives me paper and pencil, and says wrestle with this for a bit. But if it gets to be too much, you can set it down for awhile. Like a counselor he says Go outside, laugh with your children, walk with that sweet husband, remember the broken all around you, remember my eye is on the sparrow too, call your friends. Laugh, and be broken. Love, and be broken. Eat, and be broken. Let being broken be a part of you, to where you can feel all my love for this beautiful messed up world and love it the way I do. Like a coach he says trust the process. I know how this will make you stronger.


Like the poet of poets that he is, he offers life and mystery together and when I remember his heart, there is always, always hope.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80811849/it-is-well