Respite

Without whitespace, we become emotionally disconnected.  We cannot be touched, nor can we touch anyone.     ~Bonnie Gray

This week I've been operating in exhausted mode.  Last week everyone in our little family of three managed to be sick one right after the other.  This week my husband had meetings and overtime galore and by yesterday I found myself hitting a wall.  I had forced myself along as much as possible, but desperately needed something to bring me joy.  Something that would delight the little girl inside me and so my husband arranged a date night taking me to see Cinderella.

I'm not sure I even realized how much I needed to feel again.  In just coping with the daily demands of life without stop I had become numb to the world around me.  In contrast today as I've taken time to feed my soul I've managed to feel the day I'm going through.  Rather than rushing through the immediate demands of the moment, I've been able to enjoy the funny faces my 7 month old makes as she continues to  adjust to the new texture of her baby food.  We've celebrated her consumption of the entire tiny jar of pureed peas for the  progress it is.  We've had fun matching up her Supergirl onsie and Daddy's Captain America superhero shirt.  I've actually taken the time to taste and enjoy my lunch rather than just swallowing  it as fast as I could to move on to the next item on the list.  

I'm starting to realize how much I do that.  Hurry through one thing to move on down the list.  Not really stopping to experience the moment.  I suffer for the moments I do that, but as I realized this week, slowing down to feel also means I feel the painful memories a little more.

One of the things I've realized with the season of life I'm in right now is that I feel isolation more acutely.  One of the fears I've had since a little girl is the fear of being forgotten, being alone.  When I was 7 I changed schools.  We didn't physically move, but my entire world changed.  While from a distance I saw my little kindergarten friends move on over the years, I always believed that while I remembered them, I was no more than the face they'll never put a name to in a single class picture from 1986.  While most people tend to think children are resilient and will get over things like that, it doesn't seem to have been the case for me.  My belief of that experience has impacted me for decades.  It has made me stay places I should have moved on from longer than I needed to be there.  It's impacted how I leave jobs and churches.  As far as I'm concerned I always believe I'm the most forgettable person in the room.  

This week that belief was challenged.  As I stopped for lunch in the middle of a day full of errands, I heard my name.  As I instinctively looked up and around I recognized a face I hadn't seen in 4 or 5 years.  The first person to befriend me after my move to the Indianapolis area, the first person to call me friend in this new place.  Someone, who I had lost track of in the busyness of life, was sitting at the next table.  Not only was she sitting at the next table, but she remembered me!  After spending some time catching up and exchanging current contact information we parted ways.  As I walked to my car and through the rest of the day I continued to hear the words "you're not forgotten".  

As I get to the end of my week I find myself realizing how much I miss hearing from God when I'm in the busyness of doing.  When I'm not taking the time to care for my soul by resting I get stuck in my head and the lies I've believed about myself for so long.  As I take the time today to embrace the rest that God has for me I am reminded that God designed us for rest.  God created a world, animals, humans, plants and so much more, but even He rested.  

Rest....  It's not something we earn.  It's not something we are worthy of.  It's something we were created for.

So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God.  For all who have entered into God's rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.

~Hebrews 4:9-10

Rest...  It's how we are suppose to connect to the God who created us.  It is how we hear the message we are the Beloved.  

Rest.... It might not change the fact that the now 35 year old adults that I once attended my early years of school with probably don't really remember me.  It doesn't change the pain of feeling forgotten in more recent relationships that seem to have moved on past me.  But what it does do is reminds me that where it's important I'm not forgotten.  But it does remind me I'm so very loved by Someone who will never forget me.  

The Pieces In Place

Have you ever had those moments that you are in a frustrating season of life?  One you just can't seem to kick no matter how hard you try or how much you beg God it just doesn't seem to end?

I'm in one of those right now.  Saturday afternoon I was so excited.  Finally, after about 6 weeks of struggling and panic attacks it looked like we were at the point of going to a new church.  And then it happened....   Even looking back on it now it seems so simple, there shouldn't have been anything to set me off, but as it happens from time to time I was running through my list just a little too quickly for my husband to absorb everything I was throwing at him and he walked away to collect his thoughts before contributing to the conversation.  Now you have to understand this happens for us on a regular basis.  I've already processed everything out in my head and poor Dustin is left to catch up so there wasn't anything strange about his need to walk away, but that was all it took to set off the cycle of anxiety that was just waiting to be unleashed on my unsuspecting self.  Before I knew it I was in tears for the rest of the night and had the worst panic attacks and nightmares I had experienced in months.  Needless to say after an extremely difficult night our visit to the new church did not occur and once more I was devastated that yet again I was the reason that our family failed to make a church service.

As this week has continued on I have realized something as God has used various people to speak into my life.  A picture starts to form as each person brings a piece of truth that I desperately need to hear.  From one person I hear again the message that he has been giving me for months through my Spiritual Whitespace Bookclub "I am His Beloved", from another I hear the message to give myself grace as I grasp the reality that I'm dealing with burnout, but am also taking all the right steps to repair myself emotionally, spiritually and physically.  From my kindred church I am given the reminder that Scripture tells us where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there.  It's ok, if during this season I am only capable of  watching church online at home with Dustin and Myka on a Sunday morning.  It's only for a season and will pass the more I'm able to rest and heal.  

As I continue to think about all of the people who have been impacting my life this week in their own ways I realize that sometimes part of kicking the frustrating seasons in life means waiting on the right team to be assembled.  For me I need the kindreds in my bookclub sharing their stories helping me realize I'm not alone.  I need the reminder that I'm His Beloved.  I need to hear from someone who's wrestled through burnout to help me recognize the progress I'm making, but also the reality of what I've been through.  I need all of those to help me move on, but more importantly to remind me to give myself grace if it takes a little longer than I might prefer.

A Beloved Valentine

It's quiet right now as I write.  After a busy morning my husband has decided a morning nap is in order and evidently our 5 month old and all three puppies agree with him as everyone, but myself appears to be napping right now.  The silence is good though today.  It's given God the opportunity to give me His own Valentine's Day message.

One of my favorite stories to go to when I need to remind myself to protect my whitespace moments is the account of Elijah in the period after his moment of triumph over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.  You would think that God's provision of rain in response to Elijah's plea as opposed to the complete and utter silence that followed the begging of the servants of Baal would put one on a fairly high note.  You would expect a certain calmness, confidence and poise to follow this success, wouldn't you?  

 That's not exactly what happens though.  After a powerful answer to his prayer, the next thing we see Elijah doing is running for his life from the kingdom's ultimate bully, Queen Jezebel.  His was a God who brought fire to consume an offering (that had been saturated in water by the way), but in that moment his God wasn't a God that could handle the threats of a woman.  

The truth is I've been struggling for a few weeks now.  Difficult decisions have become necessary for our family to make over the last month especially and to be honest I'm not really happy about them.  In my more positive moments I see them for what they are, necessary changes because we live in an extremely broken world.  However, it doesn't mean I like uprooting pieces of the life I was hoping to resume to start over parts of my life somewhere completely new.  

I'm an introvert so I tend to invest in relationships and I'm not really eager at the need to start the cycle over again.  I have moments that to be honest I get frustrated and even anger for a brief period at the fact that I have to move on while others are allowed to stay in the place I was comfortable at one time.  Of course then I realize that I really haven't "belonged" in that place for nearly a year now.  

I think those moments are the ones that make me come back to Elijah's story.  Today, evidently my constant reference to this particular part of Elijah's life has made my husband decide to read it because as I opened the Bible app on our shared iPad intending to look for some comfort in Psalms I instead find it opens to the part of Elijah's journey following his success at Mount Carmel.  I found myself rather than moving on to Psalms as intended reading Elijah's struggle and in that I found my Valentine's message.

This time I saw in the story the weariness that had suddenly consumed Elijah.  It very much feels like where I am right now.  Rather than just let me die, I actually said last night that I want to be able to settle for less.  I'm so tired and exhausted with this part of my journey right now.  I also noticed this time though that God provided rest and nourishment for him.  He sleeps, he's fed, he sleeps again and he's fed again and then strengthened by this he's able to journey on to the next whitespace moment God has for him.  

I think that the most impactful part of Elijah's experience though came in the part that I have spent weeks quoting.  I've spent a lot of time thinking about how the importance of spiritual whitespace is so aptly portrayed in this story as God does not speak through the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but he speaks in the gentle whisper that comes in the silence after all of the chaos.  What stood out to me this time was that the whisper only came after Elijah poured his heart out to God being real and vulnerable in his isolation.

"...and now they are trying to kill me..."

~1 Kings 19:10b

As I read that I found myself sharing with God that is exactly how I've felt for a while now.  Not that anyone is trying to physically kill me, but often times unintentionally those around me have tried to kill my heart.  It comes in ways that many times people don't even realize what they are doing.  It comes when I'm pressured to accept someone else's reality as my own when how I experience the events can't really be changed.  It just is what it is and that is my experience.  It comes when vulnerability is met with rejection.  It comes when isolation is magnified because people feel uncomfortable with what they can't fix.  

"Yet I reserve seven thousand...."

~1 Kings 19:18a

My dad was the first person to really bring this part of God's reply to Elijah to my attention over a decade ago.  I think though somehow I've always interpreted it as a reprimand from God for Elijah's lack of faith.  Today, however, it was my Valentine as His Beloved.  Rather than hearing it in this "stupid human, don't you know I've got more people than you over here on the sidelines" tone, I heard it today more like this:

"You're not alone.  I'm here, but I also have so many more kindreds that I want to share your journey.  If I leave you where your heart feels threatened you will only focus on the perceived danger.  That's not where you will do your greatest work.  Come and let me surround you with the ones you need for the experiences I have waiting for you.  You're My beloved and I take care of what is Mine,"