The Exhale in Emotion

Emotions are difficult. 

 Emotions are messy.  

Having emotions has gotten me reprimanded more than once.

On the other hand....

Emotions are complex.  

They are an intricate creation designed by an amazingly creative God.

Emotions are reminders.

They symbolize that we are alive, we can feel.

Emotions are connection.

They have the ability to redirect us to the loving, caring God, who holds our past and our future in his hands.

Today, I'm full of emotions.

I am so excited at the direction my tribe known as Southeast Project is headed!

I have emotions I cannot even name as I see the journey that God has lead this group of people on even before our family joined them and where we are headed with them.

I feel happiness at watching my two year old insist that she needed to go say hello to Jared, our worship pastor, before she would go to the nursery.

I felt amusement as after service she proceeded to run around the worship space calling to his fiancée, Shelby.

I feel connected as I walk through the various areas and realize I can celebrate with many other people the amazing things that are happening in their lives.

At the same time I feel sadness.

I am not really a fan of that emotion.  

I realized today that whatever myself and others that have been in my life might think; my daughters will not really know most of the people I thought they would grow up knowing two years ago.

I feel loss as I look at the people I used to know, but who no longer are a part of our life.

I feel anger at those, who are responsible for the circumstances that led to that separation.

I really don't feel comfortable with the anger.

I feel like it is an emotion I am not allowed to express.

But it doesn't exactly go away....

I feel tension as I live in the reality that I feel the happiness, the sadness, the connection, the loss, but  the anger leaves me living in the tension the most.

In the past I have always stuffed the anger pretending that I could spiritualize it and "pray" for those that have hurt me.  I think I am realizing like many things in my life, spiritualizing and "praying" really does not do much but connect me more deeply with the Pharisees.  You see, even though I am not typically quite as impulsive as Peter; I feel much more like cutting someone's ear off when I am experiencing anger.  

So the tension is there in the anger.  It often feels like every day is lived in the tension of will I blast the object of my anger?  Or will I hand it to God and say "I can't do this. Help me."  The tension remains as right now the anger has lessons it is teaching me.

Ephesians 4:26 tells us "Do not sin in your anger.  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,".  The part we often fail to read on to see is verse 27, "and do not give the devil a foothold."  When I focus on not letting the sun go down while I'm angry, I feel like a major failure.  I have been experiencing anger for nearly 3 years now whether I have admitted to it or not.  My husband was the one to bring my attention to the first part of the verse, "Do not sin in your anger."  When I move on to the next verse and realize that not giving the devil a foothold is part of the instruction I start to look at the whole concept to this anger thing.  

My anger is an emotion.  God created every one of my complex, messy, connected emotions.  This makes every single one of them beautiful.  

Yes, even anger....

If I let it my anger teaches me that I can try with all my might to check off the right boxes, but this emotion of anger is like corralling cats.  I do not have the ability to manage it on my own.  If I try to handle it, it is going to run all over the place!  So my anger serves as a tool that God can use to draw me closer to him.  If I am not to sin in my anger and I cannot control said anger on my own forever, then the only way to manage it is to continually bring it to him for help.  

And therein lies the exhale...

Anger does not have to be a bad thing. 

It can be a powerful tool in God's box to build relationship with me.

I can breath....

I can let go...

I can exhale...

Will I experience it tomorrow?

Maybe...

You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge,
and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within,
festering and destroying you and those around you.
~Richard Rohr

Today I realized that acknowledging the emotion of anger give that opportunity to heal.  

When I name it and acknowledge it I deny it the power to fester and destroy.

Healing never happens if we ignore the very thing preventing it.

So I might experience the anger tomorrow or the next day or the next.

But owning that it exists prevents that foothold from being established and acknowledging it invites God into my story to start the healing process.

My Present Story

When you allow other people to determine your best choices; when you allow yourself to be carried along by what other people think your life should be, could be, must be; when you hand them the pen and tell them to write your story, you don't get the pen back.  Not easily anyway. 

~ Shauna Niequist, Present Over Perfect

My oldest daughter turned two this last weekend.  After a crazy weekend, dedicated to an extroverted toddler, who loves her peoples, I find myself with time to reflect on a quiet Monday morning.  I am quite sure that every year when Myka's birthday comes around, I will find cause to pause and reflect on the changes in my life.  You see, finding out I was expecting Myka was life changing for me.  It became the moment in time when I came face to face with the insanity that I had chosen to acquiesce to in my life.  

I had let others demand more and more of me.  I had let others take over the pen that was writing my story, telling me that they heard God differently than I did, so the implication became, I heard God incorrectly.  The blessing that comes with pregnancy for me is the inability of my body to handle the stress I attempt to put it through on an everyday basis.  Myka symbolizes a moment when God disconnected me from the unhealthy that was surrounding me, the voices that would have lead me away from the direction he was moving me.  In pregnancy my capacity is diminished so significantly that I lose the ability to force myself to sacrifice my emotional, spiritual and physical health for the version of me others want.  In reality, both of my girls are blessings.  With Myka, I recognized the danger in letting someone attempt to custom create a job you were never intended to fill.  With Eden, I discovered the joy in being in the right place and having your need to say "no, I need some space" accepted, even honored.  

Myka symbolizes for me a moment when I took back the pen of my life and began to write my own story again.  I began to pursue the vision of the story God had given me.  Myka served as a catalyst to make me chose to make the difficult move to reclaim the pen that was steering the direction of my life.  As a result, I said no to what was ultimately a glorified office assistant position.  By saying no and walking away, God moved me to a place much better suited for me.  I now serve in a position that enables me to live out the vision I had of developing and investing in leaders and volunteers.  By saying no, I freed up the capacity in my life to pursue the formal education that will better prepare me to lead.  

When we allow others to write our story, it reflects a combination of what they believe should be our story and themselves.  It will never be truly ours.  It becomes a broken up compilation of short stories as the pen continues to change hands.  When we take back the pen and begin to write our story with God's guidance.  It becomes a story that flows seamlessly through the fabric of our lives.  Rather than the random broken pattern of a patchwork quilt, our lives become like a piece of carefully crafted and painstakingly woven expensive silk.  Beautiful and valuable because its flaws are woven into one solid piece.  

I was reminded yesterday, that our lives are not intended to be separate boxes and compartments.  Our life is intended to flow from one space to another unbroken.  When we allow God to drive our story, our passions move from our work life to home life to the spiritual in much the way the Mississippi river flows through it's varied landscapes.  Our story is consistent and unbroken.  It's strength coming from the way it flows consistently from one area to another, connected in its movement.  

Being present demands that we wield the pen that writes our story.  When we give it to others it creates a brokenness to our life as we are pulled in various directions.  When we take back our pen and write the story God is showing us, we create a seamless and beautiful story that reflects His glory.

The Soundtrack of Life

Listen to a soundtrack.  Have you ever noticed particularly in the really amazing movies there is an ebb and flow to the accompanying music?  There are moments it is peaceful.  A rhythm that indicates a rest or moment of peace for the characters.  At other moments it is intense and powerful, moving through action scenes and tense, emotional moments.   Now think about life.....  Is it not very similar in its ebb and flow?  

When I think about my life there were dramatic moments... Moments like the time I experienced extreme verbal confrontation by what amounted to nearly an entire church.  It was the first step on a path that led me to choose a different way of life.  There was the moment when I went into a meeting with a boss thinking I would find support in a decision, only to be told I was being replaced rather than supported.  

There were moments that I will never forget, like meeting the guy I would marry, to realize from the first minute that this was someone worth waiting on.  The moment I knew without a doubt I was suppose to hand in my resignation in nursing because God had another path that was not suppose to wait.  

There are moments like my first pregnancy, which was extremely isolating and lonely.  A moment when I felt extremely invisible and unnoticed.  The moments like this create the more melancholy pieces of my soundtrack.  These are the moments I found myself desperately asking God where he was?  If the church is suppose to be a reflection of his image, than why did I feel so forgotten?  Had he forgotten I existed, also?  

When I think back, even though I have some answers now, I find it ironic that during the events where are suppose to bring you the most joy and happiness, I have experienced the minor chord events of my soundtrack in tandem with them.  

Ultimately, I am realizing that the soundtrack of my life ebbs and flows as needed.  Sometimes I needed to experience the minor chords at that moment because it made the swell and rise of the happiness that followed so much stronger and dramatic!

The birth of my first little girl was painful in that it was cloaked in isolation and feelings of being forgotten  She is a tremendous joy to our lives though.  She teaches me every day to view myself differently.  When she runs into the room and flings her arms open and in her muddled two year old vocabulary declares everything she sees is "beautiful", I'm reminded the deepest joy accompanies the deepest sorrow if we let it.

While life was never the same after what I experienced as she came into the world, it prepared me to experience a different piece of my soundtrack when her sister was born earlier this year.  That soundtrack is one that made me feel valued even though as my second pregnancy progressed, my capacity decreased temporarily.  This part of my soundtrack is one that allowed me to experience different movement.  It was a time of support and excitement.  Shared baby stories and support when my answers needed to be "no" for a season.  When I tried to blame myself for my lack of capacity, my soundtrack was filled with people, who pointed out value where I could not see it.

I have noticed that my soundtrack is becoming more peaceful, less dramatic at this time in my life.  Oh, there are some "dramatic" peaks occasionally.  You cannot always keeps other people's circuses out of your life, but when we let them, the extreme moments we experience have a lesson to teach us.  A lesson that can give us the opportunity to look for God in the unlikely places.

Reflecting on my soundtrack, has me recognizing that God can be there in the word "no".  That simple two letter word can create margin and rest in life.  It better prepares me for the moments that are more intense.  It puts me in a better place to find God when I feel like he has forgotten me.  It creates a rest, silence, space to hear the still small voice that is nearly indiscernible in the crescendo moments.

Sometimes God thunders from the mountain.  Sometimes he answers with fire.  Other times he is found only in the still small voice.  Still others he is in a lonely Garden, when others fail to keep watch with you.  Our soundtrack is a varied experience.  It contains the high movement, the loud moments and the rests because we need all of these.  All of these expressions serve to connect us to God in important ways and in that create our own personal unique soundtrack of life.

Lessons in Friendship

Today life seems to have found a little bit of normalcy... 

It's not perfect, but I have a clean organized kitchen so that counts for something right?  

I mean, I'm still dealing with the circus... That's annoying... I don't even like circuses!  I have never had the slightest urge to see the ringmaster, elephants or clowns (clowns really creep me out!).  Yet the ringmaster, elephants and clowns continue to intrude on my peaceful little world.  I keep telling myself they'll take their circus to another town at some point so there's hope...

But enough about the circus... Well, almost enough.  One of the things I am learning is that when those elephants rampage through your life... Sometimes you find yourself hiding under the seat with someone who proves they are one of those exceptional friends.  In a season of life when those relationships feel particularly dry, I find that when I discover those people hiding under the seats next to me I value them.  When life changes and you have that moment that C.S. Lewis so adequately describes...  

An acquaintance turns to friend the moment you realize this is someone you can text or call at any moment of the day and they will be there (ok, unless its 3 am and they finally got the screaming toddler back to sleep...).  They are someone you find yourself in the trenches of life with when you share the same crazy seasons of life.  

Recently, I've been reading books by Jennifer Dukes Lee, Jen Hatmaker and Shauna Niequest.  As I read about their personal tribes of friends I have found myself longing for that same type of friendship.  A tribe that genuinely felt like mine.  In my current season of life, I'm meeting new people, but relationship happen at a slow simmer for me, much like a really good homemade spaghetti sauce.  Friendships simmer for days, weeks, months and even years and I mourn their loss agonizingly when they change.  

As I read the stories of these women and their encouraging, strong friendships with their tribes, I suddenly realized that in that moment my tribe is small, but it is there.  I have those people it excites to hear from.  Some live states away, others on the other side of the city, but they are there.  Sometimes it just takes the rampaging elephants to see the friends and the family that fill those important roles of your tribe. 

So in the meantime what else am I learning?  

I'm learning to ditch the condiment bottles when the company comes... Serve the condiments in style because as one of my tribe says... It's the little things that elevate to make the ordinary special.  

I'm learning to take the moments and clap with your toddler as hard as you can to make the Little Einstein's rocket "Blast Off" (which you scream very loudly).  Because guess what?  She's the part of my tribe that shows me how to have fun with abandon.

I'm learning that decluttering and intentional living are only tasks when you do them yourself, but when you continue to learn to perfect them with one of your tribe you inspire each other to new levels.

I'm relearning the need to invest in whitespace and to stop and breath.

I'm learning to live 

Present Over Perfect.