A word for 2014

I have half a dozen half-finished blog posts sitting in the cache.  Ehhhhhhh.  (typed with emotion).

Why are they sitting there, you may be wondering?  It's all about expectation.  This is my struggle.  If I took a poll of the things I routinely procrastinate on, the number one underlying motive would be "I don't expect the result to be ideal."

One of my red-headed little persons came to my office last week so we could work on how to interact with Kindergarten friends.  Namely, not kicking them in sensitive areas.  At one point during the session he says, "Ms Laura, did YOU KNOW that GOD told it to snow TODAY because He KNEW all the kids would WANT A SNOW DAY?!"  I agreed, because that's what you do with confident, adorable, red headed children, provided they aren't hurting someone.  But, of course, I didn't agree.

And why not?  Why can't I expect God to want to give me snow days?  Why can't I expect that my words won't be misunderstood or manipulated the way they have been in the past?  Why can't I expect peace in my words, around my words, before my words and after?

I can and I will.  This is 2014.  I will expect.  I will expect peace and joy and hidden meaning and surprise and good things that come after struggles.

Treatment for spiritual asthma

Think back on 2013. What surprises happened? What were the hard moments AND have you seen any breath of redemption in those places? If you haven't, how are you stronger—bolder—braver because of what you've been through? In what ways are you looking forward to 2014?

Oh 2013.  What to say.  I always feel like I come to this.  I did in 2012 and I'm sure 2014 will bring the same.  How do you sum up a year?  (I just went to season of love in my mind, oh lord).




The biggest surprise was deciding to go back to school.  I aspired to a couple years ago and flaked out, it didn't feel right, I wasn't that excited, and I didn't know if I was really cut out for the field.  Fast forward to the day after the completion of my first semester and I've found my breath.  I've found a niche, a community of peers that breathe the way I do and are broken in the ways I'm broken, and embrace the "gray area" the way I need to see more people doing.




It has been hard.  I wanted this program, I knew it was for me before even stepping foot on campus.  But it has been hard.  I knew I had to move intellect to emotion.  I knew there were broken places.   The Lord was so sneaky in the timing of this Story Sessions class the summer before this program.  He knew I needed to ease into it. He knew I didn't don't trust my voice.  He also knew that I treasure those moments...those moments when a professor and 12 of His students adventure into a huddle on the sacred ground...of common purpose and longing for an alternate universe...of reciprocal restoration and spiritual breathing treatments...of embracing the sovereignty of the God of "gray area."  He knew that I needed "share and tell" for my monsters.




Those places aren't redeemed...yet.  I can feel the cracks, the stress of walls wanting to buckle but worried about being crushed in the aftermath of collapse.  And yet...




I'm looking forward to the transformation of new experiences, of how one moment can seemingly be erased, for all intents and purposes, with the internal shift of perspective.  


I'm looking forward to having a month off where I can write and shop and have a happy dance when the answer to the question "What do I need to get done tonight" is "Nothing" and carol with friends and watch "A Christmas Story" way more times than I'd care to admit.




It's so appropriate to this season of advent, in that I can't say as though I look forward to "waiting" in and of itself.  But I do look forward to "waiting" in the sense that I know something good comes at the end.  I may not expect what that "good" is, but I know I'll figure it out eventually. 


I've been chewing on the idea of choosing a symbolic word for this next year.  In retrospect, I would call this past year "embrace."  I'm thinking about either "trust" or "speak" or maybe "expectation."


This is in response to a prompt from the Story Sessions Community.  It's an incredible online community of women passionate about writing, loving, and finding their voice.

What a cat, counseling and Christmas have in common.

Part of the problem of being in a Masters of Counseling program AND blogging is that at any given moment I'm thinking about 3 and a half different things.  What to say?  Sometimes I just want to turn off the barrage of "what about this" "why is that" "what if we could" "I wish that" "this is really."  So in an effort to summarize and celebrate this season of my life, I'm going to share what I'm thankful for.

I am thankful for my quiet apartment, and tall ceilings that echo that Ella and Bing.

I am thankful for the fat feline I reside with, whose angry meows signaling he's noticed my absence, are a welcoming reality after cold and tiring days.

I am thankful to be a safe person for other people and that I have safe people in my own life.

I am thankful for God's grace and to having an increasing understanding of how I'll never understand its complexities.

I am thankful for classroom experiences in this counseling program in which I know I'm treading on holy ground and everything else that matters just fades away.

I am thankful that I know others who share my story and have found the courage I'm just getting a peek at.

I'm thankful for friends with children that teach and inspire me what it means to love and sacrifice and adore someone.

I'm thankful for crockpots and Christmas movies.

I'm thankful that I am in a position to help others that have not been as fortunate as myself in a variety of ways.

I'm thankful for my family; their love, their quirks, their concern and investment in me.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to travel, explore, reflect, and reunite with my sister for an entire week over Thanksgiving.

I'm thankful for the security I have in Christ; that I have an anchor in the midst of external turmoil.

I'm thankful that I hardly have to worry about my safety or the safety of my family.

I'm thankful that I both have insurance and am healthy enough to not need it very often.

Finally, I am thankful to understand the depth of meaning in Christmas, that I don't feel lost in the midst of commercialism, that I find strength, hope, and community during the season of advent.

Will you find me? (In which I'm a guest blogger!)

My life, these past two weeks, has consisted of a "perpetual" to-do list, in which I add/remove but never seem to find the end to striving.  (exhales)  In the midst of this whirlwind I found the time to prepare a guest post for another blogger!  I know!  Exciting!  These series involves choosing a biblical character and then with both empathy and imagination creating a nonfiction story involving some component of that character's story.  I was very intrigued and have enjoyed the series thus far.  I'd encourage you to read through the post and see if you can guess whom I've chosen to write about before the end.  It may surprise you.

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I know what to do.

To a certain extent, I always have.

There’s a security here, in knowing.

Even if my fear wins, as it most assuredly does, at least I am among those who know the truth.

My battle is not found in the striving to know, to be certain of what is correct and desirable.

My conflict lies not in God’s expectation of righteousness.  I find peace in His character whether it is joyous or wrathful.

He is undoubtedly good, Sovereign, and wise beyond comprehension.  I love that.

You can find the rest here.

When the on fire was "we"

If you were to take all of my memories, over the past 27 years, line them up and categorize them based on intensity of emotion, I have NO doubt that youth group days capture a majority percentage of the "top intensity" spots.  Newsboys, "Yes I Believe," trips in 15 passenger vans, pamphlets, flag poles, prayers for peers, purity pledges, "Heaven's gates, Hell's flames," bible drills, DC Talk, naming and claiming and believing and receiving, secret notebooks, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," "Book of the Martyrs," spiritual gift inventories, and judging apathetic parents...it was black or white baby, gray area was for unbelievers.

Reflecting on those things now, mostly makes me feel...tired.  Where did we find this seemingly endless supply of energy and passion and heartbreak and conflict and dedication?  Now I'm just happy to commit to a social gathering on a school night.  Ambition looks a lot different on the other side of 23.

I have so many thoughts on this culture perpetuated in which being "on fire" was the definition of a true Christian.  One thought being that it was so powerful because it was "we."  There was a community, with heightened emotion and spirituality---essentially, a "perfect storm" for growth--good, bad, or ugly.  It was a gang culture without the violence or obvious intent to harm/illicit activities.  We belonged to each other, we had a higher calling in midst of a developmental stage begging for independence and adult ambitions, we stood for something.  

Is our "on fire" "we" anymore?  For many of us, the answer is no.  We don't live in a culture that celebrates the "we."  We have to work for the "we."  I don't know what happened between then and now that we can't figure out what "we" means anymore.  Plus, "We" just looks a lot different when you work full time and have kids.  

Another thought is that "on fire" and "doubt" were antonyms.   And grace was just forgiveness.  I'm still working my way out of those nuggets.  Who has learned how to talk about the "gray area?"  The gray area that doesn't hide our sinful nature, but acknowledges that it is a part of who we are now (now meaning out of the garden).  Our generation are skilled "splitters."  My on fire self and my hidden self instead of my whole self has good and bad components.  That is a HUGE difference.  

I think many of us needed that culture, as dysfunctional as it may have left us.  Yes, "on fire" looks a lot different from this side.  I think many of us found ourselves having to push against that culture in college in order to find the balance.  Its scary to me to think about how close I came to walking away from Christianity because of those subtle and scary undercurrents perpetuated in the "on fire" culture.  And I consider myself more fortunate than others.  I'm so grateful for this book and eager to delve into it so we can have good discussions on how to perpetuate a better way for our children especially in light of the ever growing divide between our broader culture and our Christianity.  I want my kids to know who they are, completely, not split into good and bad versions.

This is part of Addie Zierman's synchroblog for "When We Were on Fire" which I am sooo excited to read.  You can buy it here.

My teenage conscience live in concert!

I went to my first Switchfoot concert last night, which seems hilarious in multiple ways.  One being that they were the first band I obsessed over.  The other being that they've been around for, you know, pushing two decades.  And, naturally, they played at a theatre less than a mile from my apartment.  Random.  I love the intimacy of listening to a band whose songs were such a foundational element in forming my identity.  Sometimes I think Jon Foreman was my teenage conscience.  I still have my original cds and their army of small scratches.  My journals paint an ode to their impact.   Do you have a song that you obsessed over during a very specific period in your life, and then ten years later can play it and flashback to that moment?  Yeah, good stuff.
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Sometimes we think that response has to be proportional to whatever event proceeded it.  If something terrible happens, my response has to be very firm and confident and assertive in regards to whom, when, where, and why.  If something sad happens, my response has to be wordy and exaggerated to compensate for helplessness.  If something outrageous happens, my response has to be passionate and reassuring to someone, even if only myself.  Sidebar: "has to be" is not necessarily always a conscious process.
My problem is that I kind of suck at "proportional" responses.  I can produce witnesses ;0)  I don't find security or safety in formulating responses to things like government shut downs or scandal or school shootings or victim blaming blog posts or all the people in jail who couldn't read in 3rd grade or suicidal 7 year olds.  I don't find safety in policies or Facebook micro social movements or lecturing or assessments or statistics or political party affiliation.  I feel lost in a mosh pit of verbal vomit.  It's not that I don't have something to say, or a desire to speak my mind.  But, more often than not, what truly can be said and be proportional?
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There are moments.  Small moments.  Maybe alone, maybe in a small group, maybe in an auditorium that seats a couple hundred.
All the pressure for proportional fades.  All the voices outside of that moment clambering over each other to be heard, fade into white noise.  What remains is us.  Together in our struggle for a response.  Nothing except our voices, some instruments, soft lights to illuminate the dark space surrounding our group.  The dark space doesn't escape my attention but, rather becomes inferior to what is happening now.
We find our voices.  We find a solidarity in our lifting one timeless song, with each one's voice, with one aim: to be heard.  It is here that I find my security.  The anthem of my sisters and brothers and little ones and elders.  "hello hurricane, you're not enough...you can't silence my love."  "until I die, I'll sing these songs, on the shores of Babylon, still looking for a home, in a world where I belong."

Giving yourself for the unseen

I work in the realm of abstract.  There are the goals that are known, documented, billed for.  The behavior modification demonstration, big and staring obvious maladjustment resulting in couch pillows thrown in my direction.  And then there are the goals that aren't within the scope of someone's perspective, the unseen, the hidden part of the iceberg.  It's within the latter that my mind spends the day leafing through pages, examining through the microscope of my world-view, and standing in the midst of a thousand tiny pieces blowing forcefully around and colliding with my face.  It's within the latter that things like motivation and defense mechanisms and grief and unspeakable confusion are poked, prodded, offered support and unconditional company.
It's so much more than a bill, than a piece of paper describing theory and resistance.  It's more than an expectation and consequence.  It's more than hopelessness and, dare I say, evil at work.
It's a process.  Grace is bigger than forgiveness.  Community is more than words.  Hope can't always been seen.  Bad things don't equate to bad people.  The law does not motivate.  More often than not, change happens in the open ended question, and the depth of emotion shared that cannot always be articulated.  What scares me more than anger, is anger masking fear.  Anger is so much easier than fear.  Anger is known.  Fear is abstract.  We are afraid of the abstract.  We are afraid of grace.
Am I describing the known, my job or the abstract, my spirituality?