The But God Writer

Not so long ago I was talking to my oldest daughter about writing. She (unlike her mother) has now graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. It is her dream to be a writer and she is quite talented. Her professors seemed to think so as well so I'm not so bias as you might think.

As we discussed the fact that we have the same, yet different, dreams she expressed her fear of comparison.  She wants to be taken seriously as a writer and not as a kid who does as her mother does. Let me just take a moment here to address the fact that we as humans (especially women) spend FAR too much time living life in the land of comparison.  Comparison only exists to steal joy. If you want to look at where someone is and use that as incentive to work harder? Fine.  But do not look at others and lose sight of the blessings that you DO have in the process. Comparison is the work of the enemy and it does nothing to further the kingdom of God nor does it do anything to help your mind or heart.  

But I digress...I pointed out to her that we have very different styles in writing.  I can only write what I know and while I have many ideas for works of fiction, I lack the know-how for getting any of it written. She, however, has the education to do just that. It was about that time that she said, "Yeah you just write about how much your life sucks and then add something about God at the end."  I'm not sure if that is exactly how she sees what I do or if she was trying to feel better or more confident in what she does.  I don't really remember my exact response to that.  I will say that my life doesn't suck but I do go through trials much like everyone else and I find that writing about those trials and how God gets me through them helps me and maybe they can help others too.  I think that I tried to explain that to her. Maybe....  

Life does get hard for us sometimes, doesn't it?  I struggle with anxiety and sometimes depression.  I have control issues.  I doubt often that I'm a good enough wife and mother.  The point is that we all do struggle in life at some time or another. But God says that, “in this life you will have trouble but take heart for I have conquered the world.”  As for adding something about God, that is the point. I need the reminder and maybe someone else does too.  That is why I do what I do.

I struggle with anxiety.... but God.  Philippians 4:6 says: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests before God.

I struggle with worry...but God. Matthew 6:25-27 says: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

I feel like I’m not enough…but God. 1Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people.  You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.  As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light.   

I could go on and on about the struggles that we have as humans or maybe you don’t struggle at all.  Maybe your life is full of sunshine and rainbows and you are perfection and quite possibly an alien from another planet because who doesn’t struggle in life from time to time.  A pastor once said, you are either going into a storm, in storm, or coming out of one. I don’t know what your storm is, but I know that if you live on this planet if you aren’t in one now there will be one coming at some point. My God is bigger than all of it.  So maybe I am the but God writer and maybe that’s ok.  I hold no fancy degrees.  I doubt if I did it would change anything anyway.  I said I am only capable of writing what I know at least so far.  But God…. I don’t know what his plans are for me.  I’m not on the planning committee for what happens from here. When I try to plan it never works out.  It is better if I am just a willing servant.

My daughter is full of ideas and has a passion for writing that I have no doubt will take her far once she hits her stride.  Once she lets go of her fears and figures out the but God part.  As I explained it to her, I realize that I cannot do anything apart from Him.  I’m not smart enough, strong enough, or equipped enough but God….is. 

Fighting Anxiety

I was in a kayak once or maybe it was a canoe...it had two seats and I sat in front which meant the person in the back was steering us, at least that is what I was told. We were on intercoastal waters and at one point we were heading straight for a wall that was covered with spiders that was reminiscent of the spiders from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. At least that was what popped in my head when I saw it. I immediately used my oar to push away from the wall and began to try and steer.  Isn't that what we do, or is that just me?  I'm always trying to steer.

I had never been in a canoe in my life and at one point I was pretty sure that would be the end of me. I was going by way of manatee or spider, not what I would have chosen but it would make for quite the story. As I type this out several years later having never stepped foot in a canoe again I can say I think we're safe from that fate.

As I looked at those spiders on the wall that beautiful sunny day though they were huge.  The largest I had ever witnessed and so many of them that I panicked. I hadn't prepared for this situation. A wall to the right of me and a wall not ten feet to the left of me and the only way out was forward or back the way we had come.  Life feels that way sometimes.

As I look at the storm we currently find ourselves in, not one we haven't been in before mind you, but one I never thought I'd be in again to this degree. and one with several complications,  I can feel the panic rising. I feel like I'm in a canoe and there is a wall of spiders on either side of me and the water is beginning to get waves that are rocking the boat.  There is only one way out, I know that, and it isn't the way I came.  What is done is done and there is no going back. All I can see are the waves and the spiders and I didn't bring a life jacket and I was never a good swimmer and I'm pretty sure there are alligators in that water.  Fear and panic rise. I can't breathe.  I can't see. My inability to rationalize and think are gone and I'm probably going to have a bit of a breakdown before it ends. I'm exhausted.  I need rest. I can't find it. I'm consumed by trying to steer and find a way out.

That is what anxiety and stress does to me.  I'm not sure how else to describe it.  I'm not sure how it plays out for others who go through it. All I know is I am so tired. I am ill equipped to deal with the ongoing stress of trying to steer a boat I don't even hold a license to drive.  I tell myself I need to work more. I need to work more. I need to work harder.  I just need to work more and just work harder and my heart races and time speeds up and slows down at the same time. I can't possibly work every hour of every day. I will die...or maybe I will just wish for it. Do you feel that?  Do you get to that place?  Or maybe you talk yourself out of things. I'm an expert at that. You may not know this but I can't do anything.  It's not true, if I slow down and get out of my own head long enough to see truth, I know that. It's not always easy.  In my memories on Facebook recently I was reminded of a quote from one of my coworkers, she said, "We're drowning but we're still swimming."  I laughed so hard when she said it at work.  I still chuckle when I think about it.

But what if...even though we are drowning we kept swimming?  What if instead of concentrating on the waves and the walls and the spiders and the alligators and whatever else we just kept focused on the shore?  What if we shifted our focus and searched for Jesus in the midst of the sinking ship we think we are in? I'm a runner you know. I mean I don't actually run. I'm a 0.0 miles of actual shoes to the pavement in running kind of girl. If you see that I am running, a zombie apocalypse may have arrived.  I don't run but I'm a runner. I will run away from my source trying to figure out my own problems and stress myself to the brink of a breakdown every single time before I will surrender it to the one who is capable of carrying it for me.  I am a from the belly of the whale kind of girl.  I have no idea why...better story perhaps?  Pure stupidity?  Probably the latter though I wish it were the former.

In all of the worry and working I have forgotten how to dream.  I have forgotten that I moved here in the pursuit of dream fulfillment and I've made it so that all I'm chasing is my own tail. I'm not having fun.  I don't lounge by a pool sipping iced drinks making plans for if and when. I'm living as though I've come here to die.  Not reading books for fear I won't live long enough to finish. It also came up in my memories on facebook recently that a few years ago I had finished reading over forty books in a month. I am unrecognizable to myself. My husband reads more than I do at this point which is unheard of.  As though he is confident that all things will work for the good.  As though he can see the other side of this and we won't drown by exhaustion from treading water for too long. Oh how I long to be more like him in most areas of life.

Living a what if life can be good if your what ifs get you excited about what could be. It's only when you fear the change that the what if can turn to crippling anxiety about whether the change is for the good or for the bad.  I've often said I'm a cross between a Moses and Jonah in my faith but what if I could be David?  What if I could have an even though faith like David? Wouldn't that be easier?  I want to walk through the fire knowing that I don't walk alone.  I don't want to be blinded by anxiety and fear.  I want to head to the battle ground of a sword fight with only a rock and a sling and know that I will not perish because it isn't my fight and that God will win it for me.  I want to be a woman who dreams again, who tells stories and isn't bothered by what others think of her because she isn't writing for them, she's writing to further the kingdom of God.  Where did she go? I really liked her.  She was cool.  What if she could resurface and believe in the One who could see her through the battles she faces and share the stories?  Who knows what could happen....only God.  It's time to draw a line in the sand.  It's time to choose.  It's time to tell the devil who whispers in our ears that we do not belong to him. It's time to fight.  It's going to be hard.  It's going to wear us to the brink.  It's going to be worth it.  Are you ready?

Fifteen Years...

It is a strange thing to think about for me.  The thought that in just three short days it will have been fifteen years since my mother went to be with Jesus.  How can it be fifteen years when the hurt still feels so fresh every time July rolls around?  The replay of the last few weeks, days, and hours play as though they are playing in slow motion. I could describe the evening of her passing to you with as much clarity today as I could the day after and yet the days after...nay the two years after are a blur.  Almost as though a part of me shut down not to be reawakened until I was ready.  The view out the window of the lightening show, the feeling of the room, the feel of her hand in mine, the moment Jesus stood at the foot of her bed, every expression of her face, and yet I cannot quite remember how many days it had been since I had heard her voice.  The days when she didn't even know who I was and the days she was so mad at me because she didn't even know who she was and missed out on an entire day those I remember with extreme clarity....but then she was always mad at me for something.  I miss that actually.  If she was mad at me it meant she was around.  Perhaps that is why I don't remember when she went silent, lost in her own mind and unable to communicate with me.

To think of all the things she has missed seems strange.  Girls driving, girls graduating, getting jobs, the boy getting hair...driving, getting a job. The boy doesn't have a single memory of her.  The younger of the two girls barely remembers her.  This hurts my heart. It seems absurd really the rotation of the universe, days turning to weeks turning to months turning to so many years. The idea that in just four days I will be only five years younger than she was when she died.  How distant that age seemed so many years ago and now I'm in the front yard of it slowly and quickly walking towards the door.  I have so many mixed emotions that I don't know how to process.

I don't know how to put away the pain or make it stop showing up every year.  The hurt...the guilt of not being able to perform miracles that I'm not qualified to even perform arrive on schedule every year.  I hold it close to me and try to push it down, then I get up and put one foot in front of the other and decide that though she is not here I am still here and there must be some reason for it.  Some unknown, unfathomable reason why God wants me here though I do not know why.  I offer no great contribution to the world at large.  I cannot stop the oncoming train of despair from barreling towards me even fifteen years later.  I don't even know how to help others deal with their pain.

All I know is that every morning, July or January, it doesn't really matter the date on the calendar I wake up with a choice.  I can choose to wallow or I can choose to make an attempt at thriving.  I can choose to be happy or sad.  I can choose a good day or a bad day.  I cannot choose the events around me.  I cannot choose the decisions of others.  I cannot choose anything other than my reactions and how I choose to live in spite of the things I cannot control.  So it is July and the oncoming train is barreling at me at 180 miles per hour and my heart hurts though it was yesterday, but I am putting one foot in front of the other and I'm going to work instead of laying in my bed.  I choose to show up and be present because I know I wasn't before.  I know there where two years that I missed.  I have had to learn to hold my thoughts captive.  To sort out what is true and what is not and dismiss the ones that are not.  I'm a slow learner in this.  I still struggle.  I can't do things on my own.  I can't function any other way.  I pray in the shower, in my car, I fall asleep with one thought "you know" because he does know.  God knows what I can't put into words because I'm fighting the quicksand of my emotions.  I'm exhausted, my energy depleted from just breathing in and out and fighting the attack of my mind that I know will come every year.

Last night I was trying to remember her at my age.  How old were the girls then?  What were we all doing? I would call her when I was making dinner. She worked all the time.  She slept with the television on QVC.  She would find a shirt or shoes she liked and buy it in every color.  She drank hot coffee year round black with nothing in it to actually make it taste consumable. When I meet her again in heaven I want to introduce her to a caramel macchiato because I feel like she missed out on that.  The places and experiences I've missed out on taking her to, the life and love she shared, I miss it all. It crushes my soul...and yet I have the hope that I will one day see her again. Until then mom know that I love you always and think of you daily.  I look forward to the day I hear your voice again.