The Danger of Extremes

It's come to my attention recently how much we tend to live life by extremes.  We are either on top of the world or at the bottom of the trash heap.  We either want fast food ready almost before we order or we want a long leisurely multi-course dinner served to us over an extended period of time.  But the extremes don't stop there.  They infect our language and the way we live our lives.  We become so accustom to the extremes that when we are in between them (which let's face it, unless we are creating our own drama to exude a false sense of the extreme we spend most of our lives in the in between) we feel less than enough.  We feel bland, unexciting, not worth anyone's attention.

As someone who grew up in church the extremes were defined as the mountain top experience and the valleys of life.  The mountain top experiences were the "Praise God!" "Hallelujah!" moments while the valley times were the moments you were somberly asking everyone for prayer and if it were extremely personal it was the infamous silent prayer request.  The in between times didn't really rate acknowledgement.  Nothing exciting was happening, but then again neither was anything bad.  So you just coasted along content to maintain the status quo.

So, you might ask, what is the problem with those extremes?  Don't we need the rejoicing of the mountain top experiences and the reality checks of the valley moments?  Isn't there a time for fast food and a time for the five course meal?

Of course, in Ecclesiastes we're given a very lengthy reminder that there is a time for everything.  The top of the world moments should be celebrated and the moments of deep struggle need to be acknowledged, but the danger comes when we feel the constant need to live in one or the other.

One of my favorite places to vacation is in the Smokey Mountains.  I remember several years ago a friend and I spent the July 4th weekend in Gatlinburg and took the time to drive to the tallest peak of the Smokey Mountains National Park.  It was a lengthy drive to get to the top of the mountain and once we got there it was a short drive to crest the peak of the tallest point and begin the descent toward the valley.

I suppose that what stands out to me about that is the fact that life mimics the mountain range.  While we have those moments of ecstasy and the conflicting moments of deep despair, neither is where we spend the bulk of our time.  Most of the time is spent making our way to one or the other of those extremes and in the overall snapshot of our life we don't spend great amounts of time (even if the valley moments seem to last forever some days) in either extreme.

So what happens if we start to change our thought process from needing to be in one extreme or the other to being ok with where we are at that moment in time?  What if we learn to celebrate the mountain top moments, properly acknowledge the valley experiences, but also to value the in between times when we are headed to or from one of the extremes?  It creates an interesting experience as we learn to be present and experience each moment of the life we're given.  Personally, I think it means we begin to experience the extremes in a much healthier way because rather than living from one of them to the next we are experiencing the journey that it takes to get from one to the other.  When we choose to only experience life by extremes it's like reading the Cliff Notes version of a classic book.  Oh, you get the general idea of the storyline, but you miss the heart of the characters the author created.  You miss the tension that builds from scene to scene so the climactic end to the story doesn't hold the same excitement as if you had experienced the entire story as the author intended.

So what's the danger in living our lives in extremes?  If we are bouncing from extreme to extreme we are missing the opportunity to experience our own lives as they are taking place the way the Author of our lives intended them to be experienced.  Those in between moments are there to provide us with the chance to get to know the other characters that God has introduced into our story in a unique way and for a purpose.  And as with any well-written story, if we fail to take advantage of the opportunity to engage and develop relationships with key characters as they are introduced we miss vital elements that are essential to the intended development of our own story.

The Beauty of Brokenness

I started this post 3 weeks ago, coming back to it today I found myself able to finish it.  Probably a little differently then it started, but I think that demonstrates the point all the more...

I find myself contemplating the much overlooked beauty of brokenness today.  I suppose that could be because today I feel exceptionally broken and God's needed to show me how that speaks to him.

You see tomorrow I enter the 30th week of my pregnancy.  A pregnancy which honestly has been extremely difficult both physically and emotionally.  Life change is never easy, but when pregnancy, job change and a move to a house in much need of TLC come all at the same time it brings an entirely new meaning to the word overwhelmed.  Add to that the unexpected limitations that pregnancy brought to my life-style physically (making it to work each day I'm scheduled is the equivalent of making it to the top of Mount Everest!) and what should have been a time of great celebration and joy becomes more like surviving the Amazon armed with nothing, but a pocket knife.  That's caused a lot of frustration for me since I truly am excited about and look forward to meeting our Little Miss Muffet, but the struggle to survive and get things ready while not being able to handle the day to day routine of keeping a house in order and making supper often takes precedence over the excitement that I'd love so much to live in for even a few days.  As I see other expectant mom's able to continue their lives with full time job demands and still take care of the children they already have it makes me feel less than adaquate most days.  Every so often the thought crosses my mind that I can't judge my behind the scenes bloopers by the highlight reel of their life that I see, but the truth is in my brokenness I'm often guilty of doing just that.  I see all of the pieces of me that aren't good enough and don't measure up.

"The pieces of me" it's really an interesting choice of words since at the first of the year when challenged to choose a word for the year God kept bringing me back to the word  "Pieces".  Everyone around me is picking words like give, strength, fight...  Words of action or substance and I kept coming back to the word "pieces".  I didn't understand it completely, but I went with it.  It wasn't long after my word choice that we discovered we were expecting, pregnancy soon exposed the need for some job changes where my second job was concerned as stress brought on blood pressure issues and hormone changes soon meant that pushing through the difficulties became nearly impossible emotionally.  So again I start to see the pieces of me that don't measure up to other people's expectations.  The pieces that make up me that aren't ok with other people as they start to come to light.

It's interesting when you start a blog post only to come back to it 3 weeks later...  As I write now I sit in a hospital bed waiting to see if our Little Miss Muffet is going to be joining us several weeks earlier than planned.  Waiting....  It's become another of my pieces.  It seems to be one that God feels I need right now.  It's interesting though as I find myself chatting with the nurses taking care of me sometimes baby chat other times lapsing back into the chatter that was a natural part of my life in my 10 years of nursing I find that God seems to be using this time in a hospital room to give me what my favorite author, Bonnie Grey , refers to as spiritual whitespace.  He's taking this time in my life to slow me down, take away the responsibilities that feel so overwhelming at home and He's showing me how some of those pieces fit.  He's reminding me what it's like to be able to share my story with someone else while at the same time reminding me to stop and listen and rejoice in their story as well.  To hear the similarities, but recognize the differences in our stories that have intersected for this moment in time.  Considering that when faced with the idea of a hospital stay earlier in pregnancy I fought it and argued against it, I find that right now it's exactly where I need to be.  It's given God the perfect opportunity to show me the beauty that is the brokenness I've felt for so many months.  A chance for him to remind me where I have been, but at the same time to reinforce where He's leading me.  

So right now in the moment while the pieces of my beautifully broken life have me resting in a hospital bed I find myself enjoying the whitespace moments God is sending me.  Moments where Dustin and I can just rest and listen to our Little Miss Muffett's heartbeat, moments like now where her little heart tones become the white noise I go to sleep by, time spent with my own mom learning to listen to the stories and experiences I haven't always listened to well, but thankful for the time hear them again and learn what might apply to my forthcoming adventures as mommy to my Muffet.  Brokenness, pieces of me and whitespace... The one thing they share in common?  The beauty of a picture that God wants to create in each of us.