Emotional Space to Be.

My friend, Kate Vasey, and her husband have had a mentor couple since as long as I can remember.  Perhaps even since their dating years.  They now are two children into marriage and years keep coming with growth and challenges and support and friendship.

But something their mentor couple said years ago, has always stuck with me.  The wife was talking about staying home as a mom and what that means, and why that's important.  And her words were something like, "When you stay home full time, you can have the extra emotional fill take to give to your husband and children for when they come home."

I think about now, as Mark and I give our emotional fill tank to "the world" - our jobs, and try to make every effort to find some leftovers to give to each other.  And it reminds me of the woman's words.  About wanting to be filled so I am able to overflow into him.

And I think about the women I see who are working full-time and watch their scattered homes and how this one in particular feels frantic always, and the impact that has on me and her children and her household.

Then my sisters words of yesterday float back, and she said they were staying home for the day, skipping errands and playdates, because her "household needed her."  Time to play dolls with Kaylin, get on top of groceries, and rest in pajamas.  Time to, be.

I wonder what this means for us as women.  We are those who think, yes, but who live in the depth of our hearts.  And we feel in a way that is distinct.  And our hearts need to be full.  We give out, always.  But in this world, we need to be filled by the Holy Spirit and the Word, by our friendships, by time to just be.  We need space for the things that fill us -- books, music, movement, conversation -- so we are filled and able to help others Be.

I am called to be his helpmate, and her dear sister, and her close friend.  All of these things require an inward strength, and outward flow, to be giving, available, loving, patient, kind, and have the capacity to help others Be.

Lord, give me the emotion, the time, the energy, the space, the temperament, and currently, the job, to Be.  And Be the woman you created me to Be.  Fill my emotional tank so I can help my husband, and my friends, to be the people you've called and enabled them to Be.

Grown-Up Things.

In an email from a friend this week, she listed off all the things she was getting done, from house-cleaning to Christmas shopping, and ended with "sometimes I just hate being a grown-up."  I could hear her sign and feel her slump.  Like the pen thrown down the page in surrender to the list of the demands of life.

I found myself casting loud echo with her statement.  Yet I would need to add my grumpy tone and sour scowl.  Fully knowing and aware that: my attitude stinks.  Somehow recently I've elevated myself above anything that could be considered a task, then given myself a Cinderella complex with pity party as I boar over the job.

I've lived on my own for twelve years, eight of those post college, but somehow my attitude, heart, and mind have twisted in the past year.  I've found myself prickling about grocery shopping, humphing about loads of laundry, sighing about vacuuming, snarling about meal-planning, and brewing about having to go to work.

The thing is, everyone does these things. All the Mercedes owners pump gas.  All my neighbors lug in their bags of groceries.  All my friends do piles of laundry.  All homeowners roll out the garbage.

I'd like to crawl back into my parents house and have my mom do all the "grown-up things" for me again.  But I can't.  I'm the grown-up.  I'm the one living the life.  I'm the one who also gets to do grown-up things like go out for dinner, sip wine with friends, take airplanes to far places, and attend the theater with my love.

I am a terrible grown-up.  I'm a grown-up praying for an attitude change.  I'm not there.  At all.  But I know God well enough to know he will put people in my life to train me as such, offer Truth in my dark spaces, and prune me so that I will have the grown-up attitude of a servant, to do my grown-up things in the Light of Christ.

"You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."  Ephesians 4:22-24

"Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest but each of you to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus... taking on the very nature of a servant..."  Ephesians 2:1-7

Look Up.

Today, I am thankful for the sky.  For the perspective that it offered on my morning commute.  I've been churning a lot inside and looking at myself a lot.  And as I was driving, I cognitively told myself, "Look up!  Your God is bigger than you have made him out to be!"  And I looked up.  And I smiled.  Clouds smoldered with the morning grays and brought perspective in the vastness.  My God is so big. My life and thoughts and self are so small.  His wisdom, ability, sovereignty, and strength are only reflected in slight through that expanse of sky.  My God is so big; I just need to learn to look up.

Things I Didn't Know I Wanted.

I find myself wishing, envying.... everything.  Things I didn't even know I wanted.

I wanted to live in Africa, in a hut, ministering to the local women and children.

I wanted to be a mother, and have children who I loved and prayed and nurtured over in my home.

I wanted to be a friend, who sat with tea and cookies and listened and cared.

These are the things I wanted. These are the things my life geared toward, motioned into,  and fostered forward for.

But now I find myself in several months of looking and listening and hearing... and coveting.

I see houses so big and broad that they feel empty or boasting, now decorated in my head.

I notice cars that before seemed frivolous, now on my have-to-have list.

I see children and women and families dressed perfection, now idealized in my plan.

I live in South Charlotte.  I roam in circles of wealth and find their norm becoming my concept of common.  I gloat over their money, their families, their homes.  And paint it as my dreams aimed for reality.

Which then leaves me struggling, straining, and strangled.  Strangled by dreams that aren't mine.  Struggling against values that I don't hold.  Straining for wealth I won't attain.  Striving for things I didn't know I wanted, and I don't want.

The Flip Side.

I feel like I've been writing a lot of Eeyore-type posting, slightly ho-hum with a saddened bent to them.  So I'm trying to offer a bit of balance to those with a few pictures of what else is going on in life this fall...  of goodness.

 

 Labor Day weekend games with our family.

 Our new adventures: biking the greenways, near home, and getting outside...

 Of course:  fall brings USC

 Trips with friends: here at Lazy 5 with Daniel and Lauren

New BFFs (who went back to South Africa now): Kendra & Daniel.  

What fun we had so often with them!

When Family Lives Close.

When family lives close...

You stop byfor Saturday morning baking with niece and nephew.

When family lives close...

You call up Aunt Ruth for to schedule game night for two.

When family lives close...

You drop by Grandmas on a Sunday afternoon.

When family lives close...

You arrive on Aunt Pat's doorstep, hosting dinner for you.

When family lives close...

You boat with your siblings or take kids to the zoo.

When family lives close...

You meet parents for dinner, and Sunday lunch too.

When family lives close...

You have places and spaces

Always and immediately

Open to you.

You have hugs ever-waiting

And bonds ever-present

And people you love, who love you,

Close.

Oh how many days don't I wish that family lives close...

Prayer Works.

Trish and I read an incredible, instant classic last summer that melted itself into our heart and life.  A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller was intentional, narrative, poetic, simple, and profound all in one little blue wrapping.  But its impact on my life has far left the words scrolled on pages, and moreso imprinted itself in my world.

I was reminded of it last night, when my dear friend and Charlotte dad, J.D. Lawson was talking about prayers and tithing and money and philanthropy and hardship.  At a time in their life when tithing made the least 'sense', they started.  They were married and out of the military and now new Christians, when financially everything seemed to collapse.  But they felt called and convicted, so the giving began.

In the same season, he was alongside the road and his car broke down.  He was so angry he shoved the door open, smacked it closed, and hissed at the engine.   Then, in one movement he laid his hand on the engine and prayed over it, got back in the car and chugged away.  It wasn't until he stopped at the stop sign that he realized his car was even working.  And... prayer was working.

I left last nights table full of thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving for the comfort of the home of my Charlotte mom and dad, whose door is always open and in whose arms I can always find a hug.  Thanksgiving for the friendships that seem always available and open handed and happy and rejoicing in me.  And thanksgiving for the reminder that prayer does work, and God is involved in life, and Christians can encourage the faithful.

Thank you, JD, for being the faithful and encouraging me with your stories, and prayer.

Kingdom Work.

I've learned valuable lessons in the last three months, about time and space and life and work and meaning and play and calling and rest.  Because it all came in one bundle of thought, through struggle of experience:

Work is part of the kingdom.

I spent two and a half of the last three months without "work."  Without a schedule, a community, a need to arise and be productive in the morning.  And this turned into sloppy emotions, sloppy thoughts, sloppy behaviors.  Though there were things to be done, without a schedule or need to get to done that moment, I just fumbled and lost the ability to feel purpose and my place.

I dwelt on this in the moment, and especially at church, as we walk through the Old Testament this year.  And I land on Genesis One.

Work is Pre-Fall.

Work is created by God.  Only after the curse does it become laborious and long and tedious and exhausting.  But all things of God desire redemption.  Including work.

Work is created to give meaning, to satisfy, to create bountiful days, to create beauty, to sustain our hours.  Work can, and was intended, to bring relationship with others and our Lord.  It was created good.

As mornings roll around and I crave those few extra minutes in bed down before heading off to my out-of-home work, I am reminded of this lesson and given purpose.  In what I do each day, I am doing Kingdom Work.  I am being part of the Kingdom simply in working.  Especially when I work as for the Lord, and with a steadfast heart holding fast to him with grace.

Messy notes

When my mom died, I went through a long period of things in my brain not transpiring.  I couldn't think straight, plan meals, cook, or seem to make sense of the world around me.  My friend Kate came and stayed for 3 days in June and cooked and grocery shopped and listened to my whirlwind of everything that I couldn't place in my brain.

When I moved to Charlotte, I found the fall so difficult.  Everything was new and I was splattered in it -- new job, new house, new roommates, new grocery store, new church, new everything... And it felt so displaced.  Like - did my life really happen?  how did I end up here?  Is this me?  What is all this around me? Because nothing stayed the same (except Christ and my phone-call friends).

Its been two years now since that and I regained my footing and created a home and began to settle...

Now I'm back in this transition with 10 weeks without a schedule, friendships that seem to have faded, with lots of my energy trying oh so hard to make new ones, and this cloud of transition and waiting getting darker over my head.  I'm a woman that needs heart friends, that needs a schedule, that works best with a project underway... But right now I'm fumbling and just wishing I could somehow get back on that platform of steady -- I'm not even asking for green grasses -- just steady for a while...

So it makes me want to buy flights to send my friends here, so that I have them deeply in my world, and somehow convince them to move here.

Or sit down and ask my mom a million questions.  Literally a million -- like: how did she stay home all day? how did she organize her morning? what is so important about dusting each week? what does it mean to be a wife at the beginning? how did she survive when both her parents died?

So here I am in transitioning, wishing I could lean on her faith and her wisdom, and somehow find schedule and forward movement in order to regain my footing once again...

Messy Words on New.

When everything is new
You can't find your footing
When everything is unknown
You grasp harder
But find no familiar control.
Whenever thing is new
It seems to send a whirlwind

I wish everything weren't new.
I wish I lived near family
Where faces will recognize me
For thirty years
And hugs and memories
Are deeply held near.
They know, they understand,
They have walked the shifting sand.

When everything is new
I wish for my "old" friends.
For those of Charlotte 3 years
And college of 12 years.
For those who see the Big
Bad and Ugly,
But know you are more than this
Instance you're in.

When everything is new
You long for fimiliar
For faces and memories
And places and talks
And anything to make you feel
Known.
Not wind or tossed by the sea.

I long for something that is not new
New job, new schedule (or lack there of)
New husband, new "roommate"
New roles, new responsibilities
New season, new Bible Study
New friends (acquaintances really)
None of these are bad, and most blessings.

But in this season, so much has changed
That everything feels new
And leaves me wondering,
whirling
for the familiar
Because somehow the
Un-new
Makes me feel known.
Settled.
Rooted.
Okay.