BECAUSE WE COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH: MISCARRIAGE AND THE BELIEVER

It happened during a painful meeting after a week of painful meetings at the end of months of painful meetings. I ran downstairs to the women’s bathroom and it was full. I hobbled over to the men’s, praying no one would come in. This wasn’t my first and I knew there was nothing I could do at this point. Nothing.  

. . .

My husband and I had moved immediately following our late spring wedding to a new city where I was coming on staff at a new church in a new community. Everything was new and we felt ripe for it. We bought a house from which you could see the majestic Rocky Mountains. We walked every night around the lake by our house. We threw ourselves into life in this new place, life in a new marriage, breathing it in. Within two months of being there, though, the crumbling began. We, unbeknownst, had come into a church about to undergo a leadership crisis. My husband’s stable work contract let him know they were cutting back and, because he was working remotely, he was the first to go, effective almost immediately. We encountered gun violence up close and personal in a way my counselor said months later, “Just wasn’t normal.” It felt like from every direction we were being crushed into nothingness.

Around Christmas, though, when all else felt too much to bear, we began to suspect the new life within, talk about names, parenting, the world we’d be bringing this baby into. We were tender with it, we’d already had one miscarriage, but we were surer and surer of it. This one little space we could protect and care for. A few weeks later, though, after a week of difficult meetings at work for me, in the middle of a meeting where we were delivering painful news to our local church, and still no job on the horizon for my husband, the second miscarriage began.

I left the meeting as early as I could excuse myself and came home, hobbling in our back door, running to the bathroom. I knew what to expect but nothing prepares you for the emotional and physical toll of blood loss, hormone loss, and the tiny baby loss in the moment. 

Continue reading at Risen Motherhood. 

Sufficient for Its Day

A friend wrote of having a "winter soul" yesterday and I commented there are some who struggle with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) up north from the spate of gray and shortened days, while I struggle with it down south in the minute variation between seasons. But today it was cold enough for me to see my breath when I let the dog outside in the still dark morning. I breathed it in and breathed it out, watching the fog escape my lungs in the light from the neighbor's garage. I have always been happier in crisp, chilly days. 

I had a few hours with another friend this past week. We've known one another since we were late teenagers, experienced a lot of life with one another and a lot more apart from one another, but we have always been friends. She was here so quick and gone so fast, but I sat across from her and breathed too. We have traded places with one another, New York to Texas, Texas to New York. She lives on a little plot of land, hanging her laundry out to dry now, like we used to dream of when we were younger and still mostly unaffected by the world and all the pains life brings with it. We know better now, but "Life is so good," she says and I believe her. The goodness of life is usually about our perspective and less about our circumstances. This is something we learn as we grow. I dropped her off after a few hours and I missed her as soon as we said goodbye. 

This is how I feel about the seasons too, I think. They rush in so quick, we drink them in, they are so good and so short and then they are gone. There are some places I've lived when the winter is long, long and cold and grey and you have to start your car an hour before you drive, not to warm its engine but to melt the inch of ice it is covered under. I am not a winter soul on those days. I am a fickle lover when the seasons bring discomfort and angst and inconvenience. I only want the special days, the crisp apple scent, the warm spices, the smell of woodsmoke that permeates the air where I'm from, and the rows of bare black trees with branches like wet cowlicks, sticking up for miles, like lines of freshly bathed schoolboys. I want the wool mittens and the early evenings, the dark mornings. I love the dark mornings. 

I have always heard that friendships are harder the older you get, sparer and more difficult to find. I know it is harder, too, because we are such a transient world. Everywhere can be home and therefore nowhere is. But I know folks who have always lived in the same state, the same county, and still find deep friendships difficult as they grow older. The older I grow the more I cling to those fewer friends, the ones I've had for ten or fifteen or twenty years. I want to hang onto the ones I love, the ones I know and who know me.

We are told to bloom where we're planted, but even blooms shrivel up and die someday. Nothing blooms forever on a single stem or trunk or branch. Blooms are for certain seasons and so are shrivels and so are voids. I always think it is some strange alchemy when a person perpetually blooms, some magic elixir that will fail them prematurely someday, a falsely inflated self. Death and breaking apart is a part of life too. In some ways, a more important part of life. Part of a scattering life. Seeds on a bloom are beautiful but scattered seeds from a shriveled blossom are sown for more beauty in another season. 

My friend shared words from Annie Dillard in his writing about being a "winter soul" yesterday and I wanted to share them with you today, "If we are blinded by darkness, we are also blinded by light. When too much light falls on everything, a special terror results.” And then he went on to say, "I will not dismiss your summery faith, I will take you at your word that every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. But in return I ask this—that you not cast off my sense of wintriness, my predestined affinity for Psalm 90, that our years die away like a murmur. If I do not stand and raise my hands it is not that I have betrayed the family of God, but rather that I am a darker optimist, an optimist of the evening. I crouch and rub my hands before faith’s embers, scanning the skies for revelatory constellations, for 'whom have I in heaven but thee.' Mine is a winter soul."

It is very tempting for Christians to assume that if one has the joy of the Lord they will be gregarious, full, sanguine, and abounding always. But I, like my friend, have found more of God in the autumns and winters than in the springs and summers of my faith. I have found more of friendship in the old ones than in the new ones. More of faith in its absence than in its presence. More of life in the discipline of God than in the gifts of men. 

Some of us are in real autumns—the beautiful kind, abounding with color and crisp, and some of us are in the minute variation kind, the nearly changeless days that eek on for weeks, but both of us are dying in some ways. Dying to self, dying to dreams, dying to friendships, dying to goals. We're losing to gain or, perhaps, we're just losing. Maybe we have bloomed where we were planted, in full faith that the adage would always be true, but now we are shriveling, now we are dying, now we are falling to the damp earth, and now our seeds are scattering. 

I don't know. I just wanted to say, today, to be patient with your season as I am trying to be patient with mine. It is not like another's season, same in name only, but not in circumstance. Maybe their autumn is stunning and yours is not. Maybe their winter is ice covered cars every morning and yours is hot cocoa and woodsmoke. Maybe their summer is now and yours was then. Maybe their spring is slow and yours is sudden. I don't know. But just be patient, I guess, with today. 

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4

Rotted Fruit of the Urgent

I'm not sure why, but it is always autumn and not spring, September and not January, Fridays and not Mondays that always feel like the start of something good. I think it's probably because I'm easily discouraged by Great Gains and Grand Plans. I've almost never completed anything I started on time, and if I did, I most likely did it at the last minute. I've been learning about the Enneagram lately and the nemesis of the 9 (the Peacemaker) is sloth. It is like reading all my worst fears about myself. And also realizing some areas the Spirit will always be at aggressive work in my life. 

The fall, though, is always a good time for me to reflect on what did not work last year, what might work this year, to recalibrate our menus, our schedules, and our goals. I've found if I do this on January 1, when everyone else is, my extreme aversion to competition kicks in and I run to the back of the line as quickly as possible so as not to win (and so secure a certain loss).  

I thought a lot this past summer about the various means of communication available to our modern western world. I do try, as much as possible, to push back modernization and technology in my own life, but try as I might, communication is one place that will not be stopped. There are seventy seven inboxes, one hundred apps wanting to notify me of everything, and if I'm not careful, I can feel pressured to succumb to the way one person uses a particular form of technology even if it's not my preferred way.

So this fall, in my ever-increasing desire to press away from the tyranny of the urgent, I wanted to revisit or remake some intentions regarding communication. If I don't set my own expectations, I cannot expect to either meet them or recalibrate them if need be, or communicate them either. These are my principles. Feel free to use them for yourself if you'd like. I would encourage all of us to not come at these things neutrally. They want to eat us alive, we must rule over them.

1. I do not reinforce the belief in my own life that I am the answer to anyone's problems, have the answers to everyone's problems, or that my input into anyone's situation will make or break them or their situation.

2. I let most things wait because the Spirit is a better counselor than I am. 

3. I am not anyone's best source for counsel, correction, insight, or direction. 

4. I do not respond to almost anything immediately. 

5. I do not have notifications enabled for any app. 

6. I keep my phone on silent except for Nate. 

7. Reading news and views does not help me worship or trust God more. 

8. I am responsible to be faithful first to my own life, home, marriage, local church, and community. 

9. I will never deal with personal conflict over any kind of written message (text, FB, email, etc.). 

. . .

Here's how I endeavor to use these tools in my life: 

Email. Email is work and I only use it during working hours, and only if it doesn't impede on other writing I'm supposed to be doing. Because my work is mostly writing, I don't write long emails. 

Blog Email. I think of email from readers more highly than a lot of email and I take your questions very seriously. I want to give more time to responses, either on Sayable itself or in personal responses. (I am enlisting the help of a sweet girl and burgeoning blogger this fall who will be helping me navigate a lot of blog related content/emails/ebooks.)

Phone Calling. Talking on the phone wears me out, therefore I reserve it for far away friends and family (of whom I have many). 

Text Messages. I exercise restraint by not answering most text messages immediately. I want to discipline my own inclinations of self-important, impatience, and need for speed, and also not give the impression of instant availability at all times. I also attempt to not have any serious conversations over text messages. This is the space I most feel pressured to answer immediately and so it is the space I have to be most disciplined in saying "No" or "Not yet." 

Facebook. I use Facebook primarily for sharing links to things I find interesting or things I've written. I do not find it helpful for me to spend much time reading or perusing there. I exercise disinterest in polarizing political statements, fake or overly left/right news, cat pictures, or videos YOU CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE. 

Facebook Messages. I do not check Facebook messages with any sort of regularity unless I know the sender personally, and even then, it's irregular that I check or respond. 

Twitter. I use Twitter primarily for reading news and blogs, and interacting with readers. I really like the word limitations enforced there because it keeps things short and our words meaningful.

Twitter DMs. I do try to check and respond to these often. 

Instagram. I use Instagram primarily to look at photos of babies, art, inspiration, and for sharing bits of my own aesthetic and life. I really care about beauty and would honestly most days rid my online footprint everywhere but here. Because I like it. I love it. 

Instagram inbox[es]. I check both often, reply rarely. 

Pinterest. I use it to gather inspiration for myself or bookmark links I want to remember, rarely to share with others. I'm selfish like that. 

I do not use Vox, Snapchat, and a myriad of other apps available to communicate. Call me a luddite, but I keep very few apps on my phone anyway and have no desire to be ranted at for ten minutes via Vox or try to figure out if those whiskers coming out of your face on that video are real or not. 

I don't know what forms of communication are in your life, but I encourage you to come at them purposefully, intentionally, and with awareness, and not just absorb, react, or rant with them. Whether you only use Facebook or never use it, whether you mainly communicate with the written word or the spoken one, whether you have every app open with notifications enabled constantly or you don't even own a smart phone, we're all being inundated with messages daily and we have to learn to navigate them as humans and not as gods.  We will give account for every idle word we've spoken and written, so let's put some checks and balances in place today.

Putting Ourselves in the Way of God

I sobbed the night Rich Mullins died. I wasn't a fanatic fan, I was just a 16 year old girl who'd been jostled from a stupor by his lyrics. I still wouldn't awaken fully for another 14 years, but the jostling was powerful still. 

Rich was the first Christian I knew about whose faith—and the wrestle for it—seemed real and not built of principles and precepts and rules and boundaries and all the suffocating things I thought Christianity was. I dreamed about his kind of Christianity for a lot of years, knowing it must be possible to be as jacked up as he was and still as loved as he seemed to think he was. It would be another decade and a half before I'd begin to really understand the way to know the "reckless raging fury that they call the love of God," and that the way to believing we really are that loved is to first admit we really are that jacked up—and to never separate those two confessions from one another ever. 

I sat at a table with a friend last night and we talked, as we have always talked, for as long as I've known her (a few years after the night I cried wet tears with my best friend while we leaned against my bed and listened to the news of Rich Mullins' death on the radio), about the gospel. She has always been a teacher of sorts to me, the one who used the words gospel and grace and predestined and the cross in a way that drew me instead of confused me. She was canning beets and I was drinking water and it has always been that way for her and for me. She, faithful with the work of her hands in a small sustainable farm in upstate New York, parenting her kids, being a wife, listening and sharing sermons, and every day reminding herself and others that the gospel that saved her is the gospel that sustains her and she needs it, oh how she needs it. She's in her 50s and canning beets and telling me again she can't coast by on anything but the kindness of God who draws her to repentance. I want to be like her. 

The thing I love about Rich Mullins, and the thing you do too if you've given any of his lyrics a good hard listen, is that he never let anyone believe he was too big for his britches, too big for a walloping from God, or too important for anyone. I think that's the reason he was barefoot so often, as if to say it's all holy ground, "every common bush afire with God," and yet we're not yet, not yet afire with God. Not all the way through. He wore the garments of sinner and saint well and I want to be like that too. 

I've grown weary of the goodness again, the pretty perfect people. I've grown weary of hearing myself talk or talking at all. The harder I work to be sanctified, the more I despise the person I become, straight-jacketed, self-important, principled, careful, wise, stupid, or naive. I hear more Pharisee in me than Jesus in me. Not because I'm a hypocrite or a white-washed tomb, but because I forget the gospel that saves is the gospel that sustains. 

I read this from Andrew Peterson this morning, the intro to the concert I was a little bit heartbroken to miss. I'm reminded we're all just folks wanting to put ourselves in the way of God, desperate for the kind of affection and attention we think will fix or save or help or reward us. But the thing I think Rich Mullins knew, and my friend who was canning beets knows, and the thing I want to know more than anything is God has put himself in my way.

As a Father he picked up his robes and ran toward our filthy sin-stained rags and our filthy righteous robes. As the Son he became sin. As the Spirit he comes and fills and overflows and empowers us to live today and the next day and the next day and the next, one step in front of another, ragamuffins, but faithful ragamuffins as best as we can understand it. 

There's a wideness in God's mercy
I cannot find in my own
And He keeps His fire burning
To melt this heart of stone
Keeps me aching with a yearning
Keeps me glad to have been caught
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

When Plans Go Awry and Link Love

In the beginning of August the government agency for whom Nate works told him he'd had two weeks of training at the end of the month for which he'd need to be in D.C.. We made hurried plans for a road-trip, some driving routes were discussed so I could go too, a ticket was purchased, I let the folks at home in New York I'd be there for almost two weeks. I rarely get truly excited about anything until the thing itself is a reality right in front of me, but I had the quiet rumblings of joy at the unexpected trip. Then, as suddenly as the trip was planned, Nate came home and quietly told me the plans changed and he'd no longer have to go right then. 

I felt so disappointed and sad. You know the feeling? The kind of sadness you can feel in your throat and maybe your stomach and certainly your heart. I didn't want to be sad because it wasn't Nate's fault and yet he would be the one who would see that sadness up close. But I was still sad. It was a good reminder, for me, that we can make plans but our hope has to be squarely on God. 

A few weeks later Nate came home again with some more news: another training trip was needed and this one would be closer to home (for me), and during peak week. The last days of September and the first days of October make up peak week in upstate New York, where I'm from. The leaves are brilliant in their array of color and the weather is usually crisp and dramatic, dark skies with brilliant glinting sunshine, billowing clouds. Autumn is my favorite season and these weeks of beauty are its capstone. 

In two days he and I will begin our long trek eastward, splitting our time between upstate and D.C.. We have 67 hours of driving, a flight, a passel of books on Audible, plans with friends made, and a few spots booked along the route. We are leaving our sweet pup with friends and our home in the care of our housemate (Did you know we have a housemate this year? We do! He's an intern at our church and we thank God for the gift of him every day.). 

This is nothing more than to say that many times our plans go awry. In fact most times they do. I can't think of a single plan I made when I was 20 that has been actualized, except maybe my English degree. Most of my life has been one fumble after another into surprising circumstances, sometimes painful ones, but usually ones I find myself grateful for in the end. I would not have written the story God had for me and I wonder if there are many of you who are saying, or would say (or will say), the same for you. I think most of us find it to be true. 

Here are some things I've read in the past week or so that I enjoyed and you might too: 

The Body and the Earth, by Wendell Berry

Some Kind of Calling, by Pam Houston

What Does a Healthy Writer, Reader, Publisher Relationship Look Like, by Aaron Earls

Five Benefits to Reading Entire Books of the Bible in One Sitting, Crossway Blog

The Parable of the Lost Pointer, by Karen Swallow Prior

The Hardest Thing We'll Ever Do is Just Plain Faithfulness

I caused a bit of a kerfuffle over on my Facebook page the other day by attempting to encourage one group of folks and bumbling it a bit. The husband and I hashed over it all while going to pick up a white slipcovered couch we found on Facebook Marketplace, which should tell you two things: Facebook is still good for something and that something will probably lead to more headaches than fewer ones. I promptly spilled coffee on the couch yesterday morning. An object lesson if there ever was one. 

Few of my still unmarried friends, in all honesty, really, truly, and completely think that marriage will complete them, solve all their problems, and generally make them better folks all around. Though it is all the rage to assume they do think this, I can't think of a single one who does. Most of them, though, hear that message from married folks all the time in some form. 

I know, I know, you're throwing up your hands right now, insisting you've never said that ever. But, actually, most of us have. Every time we say things like, "Marriage is the most sanctifying thing you'll ever do," or "Nothing matures you like marriage," or "He/She just needs to settle down and get married." What message do you think singles are hearing when you say things like that?

They're hearing: If marriage is the most sanctifying thing one can ever do, I must be incomplete until I'm married (therefore, marriage will complete me). Or, if nothing matures one like marriage, I will be immature until I'm married. Or, if I want to be stable and settled, I have to get married. You see what I mean? Married folks complaining that singles all think marriage will complete them while continuing to tout that in some form marriage is the most of anything continues to perpetuate strangulating myths for both married folks and unmarried ones. 

What I tried to say in my Facebook status was that, for some (and for me specifically), singleness was more difficult and more sanctifying that marriage has been. I did not say it would never even out (though I suppose it may take another 35 years for the scales to level), though I did infer that if one presses themselves into obedience, which leads to righteousness, which leads to sanctification (which—surprise—leads to obedience, which...) (Romans 6:15-23) while still unmarried, then they too may have a less difficult marriage as those muscles will be stronger coming into it.

I don't know why this is so difficult for many to hear. As the weekend progressed, though, and I thought, prayed, and talked with Nate about it (and listened to yet another respected teacher say a form of, "Marriage is the most sanctifying thing you'll ever do." ), I realized something: the Bible never says that. 

The Bible says in this world we will all have trouble (John 16:33). It says marriage will bring us concern for our spouse, yet singleness has concern for the Lord—so both have concerns aplenty (I Corinthians 7). It says husbands must love and wives must submit (Ephesians 5), but it also says all Christians will be known by their love (I John 3) and all of us must submit to one another (Ephesians 5). In fact, there isn't one thing a married person has or does that an unmarried person will not participate in fully, functionally, and more eternally than an earthly married person does. So who's the more mature one here? Who's the one who has it harder? Who's getting more sanctified? The answer is neither.

Life is difficult and trials have come for all of us in one form or another. But, as our dear Lewis said, it isn't that we expect too much, but that we expect too little. From God and from one another. The Scriptures do not promise marriage will be hard, but they do promise life will be. For some, that difficulty will come in marriage, and for some in cancer, and for some in financial ruin, and for some in singleness, and for some in infertility, and for some in lifelong celibacy, and for some in ministry, and for some in wealth, and for some in parenthood, and so on. 

When we perpetuate the narrative that our experience of marriage is hard and therefore assign it will or should be hard for everyone, it puts limitations on singles for the possibility of sanctification.

When we perpetuate the myth that there is no relationship we will be more challenged by, in, or within than marriage, we place limitations on relationships for singles—are we surprised when our unmarried brothers and sisters struggle to commit to one another, to truly love, to risk hurt? We've as much as told them they're incapable of deep, lasting, covenantal relationship unless they're married!  

When we perpetuate the myth that marriage is the "most" or "hardest" of anything, we elevate marriage as pinnacle. Why are we then surprised when our unmarried friends perhaps think marriage will complete them? 

We are guaranteed two things in life: the first is we will suffer and the second is we will spend eternity with our Groom. We are not guaranteed a hard marriage or an easy one, a difficult singleness or an easy one. To each has been given a measure of faith for the life we've been given to live. Nothing we do is the most or worst or best or easiest or hardest or whatever other superlative we want to throw in there. What we're called to today—where sufficient for every person's day is its troubles—is faithfulness. 

If your marriage is hard, and Lord knows, many of them are and the hardest thing some folks have ever done, here's my encouragement to you: obey the Scriptures, bear the fruit of righteousness, press yourself into sanctification, beg the Spirit to fill you with himself more and more, and to bear his fruit in all things. 

If your singleness is hard, and friends, I know it sometimes feels like the most difficult thing you will ever do, here's my encouragement to you: obey the Scriptures, bear the fruit of righteousness, press yourself into sanctification, beg the Spirit to fill you with himself more and more, and to bear his fruit in all things. 

If your marriage or singleness is easy, and goodness gracious, let's rejoice when ours is or others are, here's my encouragement to you: obey the Scriptures, bear the fruit of righteousness, press yourself into sanctification, beg the Spirit to fill you with himself more and more, and to bear his fruit in all things. 

I am praying for all of us today to that end. Faithfulness in easy marriages and hard ones. Faithfulness in child-rearing and child-absence. Faithfulness in singleness and widowhood. Faithfulness in empty-nesting and baby-birthing. Just faithfulness. 

Films, Books, & Music for your Autumn

One of the beautiful parts of this writing life is the friendships and fellow artists I've gotten to know over the years. I'm physically unable to read and recommend everything I get sent or am asked to recommend, but there have been a few projects recently I am so excited to share with you. Some by dear friends, some by acquaintances, and all by people being faithful with their gifts. 

Several years ago the folks behind The Heart of Man reached out for help in getting their Kickstarter out. I was all too happy to spread the word then, and haven't heard much about the project since then. Recently the trailer was released and I saw why: because they were busy doing everything with excellence. I cannot encourage you enough to gather a group of people together to view this film. 

Here's a film about the life of one of my personal heroes, Wendell Berry. It also has a limited release, but maybe it's playing near you somewhere. Our plan is to purchase the film, fill our living room to the brim, and project it on the wall. Maybe you could do something like this. I know it will provide food for thought. 

You might remember a few years ago Stephen McCaskell directed a documentary on the life of Spurgeon. It was spectacular. He has recently completed another documentary, this time on the life of Luther. I haven't gotten a chance to view it yet, but it looks fabulous and would be a great way to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Gather a group together to view this one too. It's available here on Amazon streaming. 

A few months ago my friend Jared Wilson released his book The Imperfect Disciple. The night I got it in the mail a friend came over and was interested in reading it. Since I had a stack of other books I was trying to get through, I lent it to him. I just got it back a week ago and have devoured it during my morning reading time. Not since Zack Eswine's Sensing Jesus (now The Imperfect Pastor) have I encountered a book so freeing for imperfect Christians. If that's you (and that is you), I recommend it. 

A few weeks ago my friend Ruth released her art in the form of painting and words in her book Gracelaced. It is truly a masterpiece. Ruth is one of my favorite people to follow on social media for her vulnerability, faithfulness, and always present love of the word of God. I hope you'll check out this book (and its accompanying journal). 

Years ago Shawn and his wife Maile came over for dinner on their way through Texas and told me about the book that would eventually become my favorite. They named their son after the title character so I knew then they must be serious lit-nerds. Shawn's appreciation of good writing is the foundations for his book The Day the Angels Fell, which is great literature! Nate picked it up and read it in one afternoon, citing its similarity to Peace Like a River, Chaim Potok, and Ray Bradbury (three of his favorites), so I knew it would be good. And it is. It's a young adult novel, and would make a great read-aloud for discussion as a family. 

Caroline Cobb's new album is releasing today, A Home and a Hunger. I first learned about Caroline years ago when I heard her song Passover Song. I was mesmerized. I told everyone I knew about her album, The Blood and the Breath, then. Now, I cannot wait for you to listen to her new work about the kingdom and our longing for the new heaven and hew earth. Get it today. 

We Were Going to Move to Chattanooga

A year ago today Nate and I were standing on the pinnacle of a familiar mountain, a place I called home for years and a place that still holds a piece of my heart. We were quietly dreaming, after a year of crushing disappointments, heart-ache, trauma, and loss. We were asking the questions "What if?" and "Where might?" It was the first time I felt hope in over a year. We made the beginning of a plan that weekend: to move to Chattanooga and settle there. 

There's a lot that happened between Labor Day 2016 and Labor Day 2017, but the shortest way to say it is that we're back in Texas, in the place we met and married, but not the place we fell in love.

The place we fell in love is everywhere and everything. 

It was honeymooning in the Aspen trees and buying a house on July 4th and learning things weren't as they seemed at my new job and losing a baby we didn't know was beginning and losing his job we thought was certain and coming home to a police-taped home near Thanksgiving and cutting down our first tree together in the Rocky Mountains and witnessing the shooting of a cop on my birthday and and losing the beginning of another life we were sure of and navigating a church conflict we felt blindsided by and being disappointed again and again and again by hopeful job interviews and no call backs and packing all of our stuff again and moving again to another side of our country and losing more money than I'd ever dreamed of even having and living in our second 1800s home with creaky floors and uneven doors and charm and still feeling so alone every single moment. It was bringing home Harper and struggling to find a church home and learning the Chattanooga job market was another Denver job market and our dreams of moving there would not be realized. It was packing again, and moving again, back to the south. It was unpacking in a home we knew wasn't guaranteed or our "forever home" or secure or would be full of children or dreams coming true. 

What I'm trying to say is we can make a lot of plans, but our hope is in the Lord and he carries us through—and grows our capacity for life and love within it all. 

I get a lot of emails from you, dear readers, asking about love and marriage and singleness and how do you know and what is settling and all that. I guess I just wanted to say to you today: you can make a lot of plans and have a lot of dreams and just envision how your life should be and think it is all somewhat certain. Because you have a certain "call" or a certain "desire" or feel you were made by God for a certain "purpose," it can become so easy to believe life will turn out that way, all you have to do is make the people in it and the jobs you take and the decisions you make fit within that call or dream or purpose. 

I want to say to you, friends, that this is a lie. It's a sneaky one because it sounds good to have purpose and to aim for it straight. But the lie is that we think we're somehow owed the life we desire, even if God has not yet granted it and might never do so. 

You may feel called to be a mother or a husband or a pastor or a teacher or a writer or a wife or a single or a speaker or a counselor, but a sense of calling does not mean God will fulfill things in your order or way. The way to be a successful wife is not to have the perfect husband, the way to be a successful pastor is not to have a pastor's wife, the way to be a successful writer is not to have a successful book, and the way to be a successful single is not to be undistracted by the opposite gender. No. The way to be successful is simply to be faithful with today. 

And tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the day after.

Someday, when you are very old, or maybe not very old, and just in the middle of your life, you will look behind you at a series of crushing disappointments, plans that went awry, ways you felt stolen from and lied to, and you will see the faithfulness of God pressing you into the way of a faithful servant. This is the mark of a successful child of God. 

The answer to the questions we're all asking can be summed up with another question: What is the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of you—within the confirmation of Scripture—telling you to be faithful in today? 

That's it. That's our answer. 

Your life will take many twists and turns and near fails and falters and wins and losses, but if you're pent up inside trying to situate yourself in such a way for success as you determine it, you will feel lost on the way. No matter how strategically you play the pieces of your life, you are not guaranteed the win you envision. You are only guaranteed the win you have been promised in Scripture. The sooner we can all learn things won't turn out like we planned because life is not some choose your own adventure book like we all think it ought to be, the sooner we can rest in the comforting presence of the Spirit, the true promises of Scripture, and the beckoning care of the Father. 

Whatever decision it is that's tying you up in knots today? What does it look like to open your hands around it, obey the Spirit (as hard as it might be), and let the trajectory of your life take an unexpected and—perhaps—painful turn? I promise you, no, Scripture promises you! There is the joy of your Master at the end of the story of your life—a story you can't even imagine today he would write for you.  

That time we made a plan to move to Chattanooga and didn't. 

Empty Tables: Singleness and Barrenness

There are moments in our lives when we have startling clarity about a painful memory or circumstance in which we find ourselves. It is at times only a moment, and other times it shakes us so deeply we know we'll remember it from then on. There was a moment like this for me in 2012. 

I, like most of my friends, assumed I'd be married sometime in my twenties, like most of my friends. One by one, two by two, I watched almost all of them marry, and I crossed over the threshold of thirty wondering what horrific thing must be wrong with me. Each year that passed then, the growing feeling of being defective grew. I found more purpose in my singleness, exponentially so, but simultaneously there was a growing feeling of having been overlooked. There was a public purposefulness existing alongside an interior confusion. 

In 2012 I met a few friends who struggled with infertility, and this was my startling moment of clarity. As obvious as it might seem now, until that point I had not considered the similarities of the struggles we shared. And now, having experienced infertility, I find myself grateful for the strange gift of lack. If anything, experiencing these two similar seasons has made me more aware of the people all around me who are waiting for something they have not been promised, and how quickly we can run to the seeming safety of that identity to excuse our sins, fears, failures, and life choices. 

The lessons I learned in my singleness translate to this infertility in a few ways: 

1. I had to learn that marriage was not promised to me, as much as I wanted it and believed I was made for it. It has made it infinitely easier to remember children are not promised to me, as much as I might want them and believe I am made for them. If I believe that a simple desire for a thing means a guarantee I will get the thing, I have made that thing an idol, something that takes the place for God. It cannot be the thing, or the desire for the thing, that commands my worship. 

2. I had to learn my purpose could not be put on hold until I was married. In the same way, I have to learn I am not less than, being withheld from, incomplete, or unable to learn what God has for me to learn in barrenness. God will teach me patience, hope, his sufficiency, faithfulness just as thoroughly as he will teach moms of young children and has taught empty nesters. He withholds nothing good from me, not marriage, not children, and not lessons I think are limited to those who have them.

3. I had to learn in my singleness that I would always feel a little incomplete and this was not a bad thing. So too in barrenness. The gift is the lack. The feeling of incompleteness is a great gift to the Christian because it reminds us we're not home yet, we're not face to face with Jesus. Pray that the areas where you feel the ache of emptiness, you would long more for the day of Jesus. 

4. I had to learn that my family was not a husband or children, but the local church. Our world and church culture is so built around and acquiesced to the nuclear family, this was a difficult one to learn. In my singleness I had to be very purposeful to find sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and children within the local church. In barrenness it is the same. My family is not limited to blood and DNA, but it is the body of Christ. 

5. I had to learn my hope was not in a single person to be my best friend, my closest confidant, and the object of my affection. In barrenness I have to learn that I may never have children to dress, to teach, to feed, to nourish, to love, to discipline, and to release. It teaches me to look up from me, and see the many. 

I am convinced, every single day, that my years of singleness were preparing me for these years of infertility. I do not know when or how or if we will have children. But I do know I do not feel wasted, overlooked, afraid, ignored, or short-changed by God. And I know for certain it was because I entered into the suffering of my barren friends during my singleness and learned to see we're all waiting for something, every one of us. 

If your table is empty because you are unmarried or because God has withheld children from you or because your children are grown and away, what might he want to fill those chairs with? What is he teaching you about his character? What various sorts of trials is he asking you to enter into with your brothers and sisters, even if they're not the same as yours? How has he prepared you in the past for the struggle you now face?  

Throwing Stones at The Glass Castle

I think I can say with nearly 100% accuracy that I have never written about a movie on Sayable. I'm not sure why I'll venture to today except that I watched The Glass Castle last week and haven't stopped thinking about it. 

I first read The Glass Castle six years ago and loved it. Jeannette Walls is a talented writer and storyteller, and as with most good memoirists, takes unremarkable life and makes it profound. I won't give too much of the story away, but the basic plot is the story of a dysfunctional family. There is no beginning, middle, or end to their story, and if it sounds hopeless it's not because it is, but because we are so predisposed to sore beginnings and happy endings. Eternity is written on our hearts, the Bible says, and the way that plays out for most of us is we want the feast, the Father, and an eternity of joy. (Spoiler alert: Children of God get all three.)

The critics did not like the new film version of The Glass Castle and so while I was looking forward to my viewing, I also was setting my sights low. When is the movie ever really better than the book? The main complaint, it seemed, was not on the acting, the setting, the scenery, or even the story, but on the ending. After a lifetime of dysfunction, years of neglect, abuse, alcoholic rages, and spots of joy so tangible you could taste them, the children in the film, now grown, seemed to forgive their parents, even laugh about their childhood. The book didn't portray their joy quite so tangibly, so if the critics complaints centered mainly around the disparity there, I could understand. But they didn't. They critiqued the neat ending, the tied-up ribbon, the tears and laughter around the Thanksgiving table, remembering their father. How could these children seemingly forgive the monstrosity of their parentage? 

I am not a movie critic, but I do think about life quite a bit, and what I can't shake is that the strings of unforgiveness are so woven into the fabric of our lives and culture that we can cannot fathom life as a mixture of pain and joy, highs and lows, brokenness and forgiveness any longer. People become the sum of their actions instead of humans first and broken second. This is everywhere around us, in the news, in our living rooms, in our marriages, in our friendships, in political sides, in theology, in lifestyle. And as we spit nails at the injustices of others, we become what we behold: unjust justice police. 

Life isn't so neat and orderly as the critics of The Glass Castle want it to be. Forgiveness doesn't mean there isn't still a bittersweet taste in your mouth when you think of your father. Laughter doesn't mean there is no trace of regret. And coming around a Thanksgiving table with the brokenness of seven lives and worlds and histories behind you doesn't mean none of it ever happened. It did happen and it shapes things and changes them and shifts them. It doesn't mean they don't tell the truth about the kind of man their father was. And it doesn't have to mean they can't take the hand of that dying—and broken—man and smile at him through their tears. 

The beauty of The Glass Castle is not that it ends too neatly, but that it ends messily and complicated, just as life is. We want clear delineations and boundaries and decisive clarity on whether folks are in or out, but life is not like that.

I read this morning in II Corinthians chapter one, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

Hurt people hurt people, and Paul says those who are hurting from any affliction can be comforted with the comfort we've been given by God. That's messy, friends. There's no way that's not messy. To enter into brokenness, where years of hurt has induced hurt, and to say, I'm going to offer the comfort of a smile through my tears, laughter through my pain, and the hand of peace to the hand of neglect. That is messy, but that is also grace. 

Link Love and Some Beauty for Your Tuesday

Now that most of the United States got themselves in a flurry for the total eclipse and found themselves sorely disappointed when it turned out to be merely a partial eclipse for most of us (Anyone? Just me? I don't do science good.). And now we're all tired of memes and funky glasses and is Total Eclipse of the Heart on repeat in anyone else's head? I wanted to share with you Annie Dillard's classic essay on her experience of watching a total eclipse. I can only imagine mine would have been similar if I lived within the totality region (Good news, in seven years it'll hit a bit closer to home.). Here's her essay, take twenty and read it slowly. 

One of my favorite writers from Image Journal's blog, Good Letters, has come through with another soft piece that landed in all the right places for me. Even though our situations are different, I find myself in a similar season of subtraction. Entering the Age of Subtraction. 

Also, because Image Journal redid their website and it's so much more readable again (Hoorah!), I'm going to recommend another recent piece from their blog, simply titled Miscarriage.

The most notable thing about this piece from Elyse Fitzpatrick is the order in which she lists her advice. Too many burgeoning writers begin with number three without considering—or putting their writing forth for consideration by honest folks—her first point. I'm not a Writer, but I Write. 

I love this quote my friend Mason posted on his site. 

Finally, Erin Loechner, has this poetic piece on injustice, naming, and experience. It's beautifully written. 

I'm determined to make, buy, borrow, or steal the makings of this wreath this fall. I love it. I don't know where this one in particular is from, I just have it saved on my Pinterest board, D I R T. 

Marriage is as One Long Conversation

The old philosopher said, "Marriage is as one long conversation. When marrying you should ask yourself this question: do you believe you are going to enjoy talking with this woman into your old age? Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time you're together will be devoted to conversation.” The old philosopher was right, but as with all bits of rightness, it ought to be understood in its place. 

I have always known marriage was not an easy conversation. I am of Scotch-Irish descent; men in my family love their beer and asserting opinions, and as for the women, there's a demure outside but on the inside it's all fire and spit. Most conversations were spent seeing who could talk the loudest the longest without throwing the first punch—even if the punch was merely metaphorical.

When I began to grow outside the incubator of family alone, I saw the long conversation of marriage through a different lens. These marriages were built on the scaffolding of details: who is supposed to be where and when and how, who needs to be picked up, what's for dinner, what should we do about this child or that one. There was an ordinariness to the conversations of marriage, unaccompanied by emotive, defensive jabs at the other. It seemed simplistic. I know now it's because I was not in the middle of those marriages as I was in the middle of the marriages in my family, and when we are in the middle of something all our own, we see all its inconsistencies and broken-places.

As I stepped into adulthood and was able to see my skewed perspective of childhood and adolescence both, I began to see marriage was a long conversation, but the tone of voice could change it from a pleasant one to a violent one. Armed with this newfound knowledge of tone, intention, nuance, and even love, I began to assume all the long conversations of marriage could be blissful. A constant sharing of ideas and delights and hurts and confusions, a true partnership. Whenever I thought of being married it was the long conversation I looked forward to most. 

Marriage has been that for me and Nate. The cusp of our friendship was on deep conversation, leading to dates full of long, easy talks, quiet pauses, intentional listening, and slow responses. This was the long conversation of marriage I wanted, I could see that clearly from our first date. 

The long conversations become subject to the tyranny of the urgent, though, as most things can. A few weeks ago there were twelve decisions that needed to be made and seven of them required quick conversations but the other five required depth, time, focus, and charity. We were short on all of that, though, and so if the conversations were going to be had, they were going to be had on the surface, quickly, while we multi-tasked, and were short with one another. As with most conversations built on bedrocks like that, we needed to repent later to one another. 

The urgent doesn't let up, though, does it? There is always someone who needs an answer or thinks they need an answer, or wants one. There is always something that must be signed up for or paid or responded to or agreed upon. There is always something left unfinished, unsaid, unsealed. I have learned to say to others, "I want to talk to Nate about that first," but the when of talking sometimes comes slowly or is mingled among the other conversations, never finished.

Nate and I practice (and by practice, I mean we are very unproficient at this and must practice) the discipline of saying "No," to ourselves, our minds, our friends, and the tyranny of the urgent. If, in saying no, we find ourselves disappointed or others disappointed by our lack of a quick answer—this is the discipline of the practice. This is the sacrifice, the hurt, the pain. This is where we admit to ourselves and to others that we are not God, as much as we sometimes think we would like to be. 

I think about Jesus in John 16. He says to his disciples and friends, "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you." I think about how often we fill conversation simply because we do not want to feel the lack of the incarnate Christ and we do not want to wait for the Holy Spirit to do what only he can do. We are uncomfortable with the long silences, afraid the Spirit will not do what He does: move. 

Yesterday morning, in the early hours of our day of rest, Nate mentioned some conversations we've left unfinished this week, answers others expect. And then he said this: I want to pray about these things, ask the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom, humility, and a direction, even more than we simply talk about them. And then, for the rest of the day, we didn't talk about things we could not solve on that day. We left space for the Spirit to enter in, give peace or withhold it. 

Marriage is one long conversation, but it is not, primarily, a conversation between two, but three. If we find the conversation to be focused on just two, it may go the brawling way of my family, or it may go the stoic way of my checklisting friends. But, I think, if we move ourselves away from one another for a moment, stop talking and begin listening, not primarily to one another but to the Holy Spirit, we may find that conversation more robust, full, and gentle than we could have imagined before. We may leave more things unfinished, more things unsaid, more events unattended, and more lists unchecked, but I do not think we will leave less full. 

If you're married today, what might it look like to still the conversation—even about the rudimentary things or the things that seem pressing and necessary—and begin to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in this longest conversation of your life? 

If you're not married today, what might it look like to trust the Spirit is still at work in all the seeming silences of your life? In the lonely places where you long for conversation, how can you exercise listening to the Helper, learning from him, and obeying him as he perhaps prepares you for the long conversation of earthly marriage and definitely prepares you for the long conversation of eternity? 

Living the Whole Life

I am working through two books concurrently (three, if you count fiction, which I do, but not for today's purposes). One is Eugene Peterson's As Kingfishers Catch Fire and the other is Curt Thompson's The Soul of Shame. Both were gifts to me from friends who read them and knew I would need them or love them, or both. 

For many years I thought of myself first as an artist, a spinner of words. I lived in a place full of natural beauty, with never enough words to describe the way the blue heron dipped his head into the quiet riverbed, amidst lily pods and sodden sea grass. Waterfalls and mountains and quiet piney woods and apple orchards were mere minutes away, ripe for inspiration. I drew my cues from poetry and the contemplative. 

Then I moved to the other side of the country and my mind began to be captured by the intellect of theology, ideas, concepts, and I began to think of myself as a thinker, and lost the artist within. I was valued for my mind and ideas, and less valued for art. And I thought myself okay with this because I thought intellect was better than art. 

A friend turned 30 a few weeks ago and felt the things we all feel when we pass a marker in life: fear, anxiety, inadequacy, the question of "Have I wasted my life?" I remember feeling all of those same things on the eve of my 30th and in some ways those feelings have increased, but really it's just that I think myself more aware of their presence and less aware of their power. Turning 30 was hard, but being 30 wasn't. There is hopefully a settling sense of growth, maturity, and the temporality of life that no longer frightens you as much as invigorates you. If being in my 40s or 50s or 60s only brings an increase of that, I await it eagerly. Age brings the disparate pieces back together again, I think, or it should. All the scattered feelings and identities and questions come more into focus with a quiet, settled yes.

So I am reading Peterson and Thompson and both of them wrote about the union of these disparate pieces, namely the body, spirit, heart, and mind. How when we only address one of these, or address it more than the others, we begin to live lopsided lives. I am thinking of a man who skips leg day at the gym, whose body is strong on top and meager on the bottom. Or a comic illustration I saw many years ago of a man who only lifted weights with one arm so it was bulky and disordered from the other which was skinny and limp. We laugh because it's laughable but we also do it more than we like to admit. At least I do. I exercise my mind because it's easier than exercising my body. I engage my spirit because it's easier than engaging my mind. I entreat my body because it's easier than giving my heart. I am lopsided piecemeal. 

The growing awareness of these malnourished pieces came into focus over the past year in the void of anything to feed them (affirmation is such a powerful feast and we are such hungry paupers). We have been trying to begin seeing ourselves as whole creations intended for wholeness, instead of limping along at breakneck speeds without the equal use of our limbs. What does it mean to slow the growth of one part of us, in order to give attention to another? What does it mean to set aside the mind for the flourishing of the spirit, or to prioritize the health of the body when the spirit is strong? Not to neglect the other at its own peril, but to acknowledge that we are more than one appendage and therefore must attend to all of them? 

We are by nature legalists, always adding to the laws of God because we fear he will overlook us otherwise. But what does it mean to trust the Creator made us for wholeness and not half-ness? I cannot answer that for you and most of the time cannot even answer it for me. It takes time and trust and some times are easier than others. But I know I want it. 

I wonder, sometimes, if one of the reasons we're constantly searching for meaning in everything is because we're discontent with our under-exercised limbs. I read this recently and it's funny because it's true: 

"It’s easy to believe that if we look good enough, perhaps it might be true that our lives are meaningful or even blessed. Everywhere we go, we can see evidence of this. Walking along the Seine, one sees dozens of people from all over the world standing with their backs to the view, smiling hopefully up at their iPhones. Millions of selfie sticks are purchased out of hope and fear."

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my car waiting for someone and a girl sat on a park bench alone nearby. For nearly twenty minutes she posed herself with her phone camera, shooting image after image, and deleting, I'm sure, all but one. There were probably wrinkles or glints of light or too much chin or not enough hair or someone in the background or any number of reasons why being a whole person with wrinkles and frizzy hair and among others would not do for her. I don't know her, but I wanted to sit with her, make conversation, distract her from the myth of Narcissist inside her for one moment. Tell her she is not less than a body, but that she is certainly more than one. 

Someone asked me recently how we help young teens not obsess about perfection and I don't know the answer. I think it starts with teaching them they are whole people, whole image bearers, that their hearts, souls, minds, and bodies are all made by God and he called all of creation good. I think that's where we start, by not neglecting what God called good—even if it's frightening to engage. I don't know what you'll find there, when you begin to stop counting calories and running incessantly, when you begin to engage your mind instead of only your body. I don't know what will happen when you set aside the books and papers and themes and dig out the painful occurrences of your childhood, ways your spirit was crushed and hasn't ever recovered. 

Yesterday morning I sat on the couch with my husband and confessed some shame I've been feeling about something that happened when I was nine years old. I had wronged and been wronged and couldn't differentiate the shame I felt from doing wrong and being wronged in the same scenario. All I knew is, years later, confessions later, I still feel the clinging shame of those moments. Most of that is because I've neglected that space, have been afraid to enter into it for fear of what I'll find there. It's easier to engage my mind or my body than it is to open the door to my heart. But I must go there, I know I must, because wholeness cannot happen when only half-ness thrives. 

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31

To Rest is to Leave Unfinished

People seem to be under the impression that we in the Wilbert home do rest well. We've fooled you all then, haven't we? We're as bound up by the shoulds and mights and what ifs as the rest of humanity has been since the devil first pointed to Eden's forbidden tree. 

I would like to give some advice on how to rest for the Christian, but since my advice doesn't work for myself half the time, I can nearly promise it won't for you. Instead, I'd like to talk for a few minutes about the different kinds of rest we need as mere humans, so, if you can spare a few minutes, you can think about how this might work out in your life. Abraham Heschel, rabbi, said, "If you work with your hands, sabbath with your mind. If you work with your mind, sabbath with your hands." This is a helpful rubric if you're a laborer or an accountant, but what if your day is a mix of both? What does it look like to rest then? 

Nate and I often talk about how clocking out of our paying work is a reminder to ourselves and those for whom we work, that we are mere humans and we must leave some things unfinished. The truth is because we are humans and always improvising, creating, exploring, everything is always unfinished. There was a famous explorer who once said, "To infinity and beyond!" but he was still thrown into the toy box at the end of the day. None of us can finish anything ever. No author will ever read a book they published and not find two or three tweaks. No artist will not find a shade of color in their masterpiece fine as it is. No accountant will wake to no longer be needed. We say we cannot finish what God has not completed, so we submit to the limitations of our bodies and rest.

Nate and I also talk often about not kindling a fire on our day of rest. This is another lesson we learned from Heschel, drawing from Exodus 35:3, "You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day." We have used this as a reminder to one another to not light fires of conflict, contention, or confusion for one day a week. This is a reminder to us that we cannot solve the problems the world, our friends, and our humanness throws at us. We have to stop talking about politics, disagreements about theology, discord among friends and counseling situations. We have to step back and say we cannot solve what God has left unsolved—so we submit to the limitations of our minds and rest. 

The last thing we try to do on our day of rest is set our minds on things above. This is the only time of the week we have a good amount of time to talk about scripture with one another, what we're learning, where we're struggling to believe, and how God has been faithful. We don't have a set time where we come together and schedule this out. What happens, though, is because we are resting our bodies and our minds from most of the cares of this world, our spirits are freed up to think about God, one another, worship, the Word. It's not programatic. It's the overflow of a stilled body and quiet mind. So many people ask me how I meditate on Scripture and the secret is this: stop everything else for a bit. If you're constantly listening to music, thinking about your life and the lives of others, keeping busy, how do you think your spirit is going to make itself heard? We have to step back and say we cannot pay attention to God if we're succumbing to the needs (perceived or real) of the body and mind constantly. We submit to the expansiveness of our spirit, in which the Holy Spirit abides, helping and comforting us in all things. 

No matter what season you're in, you're going to have to fight for this. Don't believe the lie that because you're unmarried or because you're the parent of young children or because your spouse isn't a believer that you can't be faithful in small ways to run to the dependable arms of your Father. Just as he made you to work, he also made you to rest. 

Ask yourself these questions to find out what rest might look like for you. Hint: it's not cool to be unbusy. Trust me. People will feel failed by you, projects will be left unfinished, your kids will complain about a whole day at home, you will feel bored (maybe) for a few weeks, you might not get the raise or the promotion you wanted or thought you deserved. This is a discipline but it is also a gift if you will submit yourself to it. 

How can I submit to the limitations of my body and say no to finishing all that seems unfinished?

How can I submit to the limitations of my mind and say no to talking about, scheming, planning, or sorting through problems over which I have no control? 

How can I submit to the expansiveness of my spirit by acknowledging and obeying the presence of the Holy Spirit within me who controls me, compels me, and comforts me?

I read a quote from Scott Sauls a few months back where he said this, "Feel guilty falling asleep while praying? How do you feel when a child nods off in your lap? There. Feel better? You should!" I wanted to cry right then. I love when a child falls asleep in my lap and I want to trust my Father loves that about me too. He loves when I leave unfinished what only he can finish (Zack Eswine—and I'm going to keep quoting it beyond when you're all tired of it.).

Lifting the Hands that Hang Down

I'm an internal processor and, I suspect like most internal processors, prefer stillness and the ministry of presence when I'm suffering or confused or in pain. I don't run to a multitude of counselors or need to process my feelings with seven to ten friends or even more than one. I don't like hearing platitudes or trite cliches. Getting preached at or rebuked in the midst of pain only shuts me down further. What I desire is the gift of presence. 

This can be a hard gift to give though because we're a fix it quick culture, even within the church. We want to answer, minister, heal, advise, counsel, and find the fastest way through the searing loss. 

A story I've gone back to again and again and again in the past two years is the man who saw men as trees walking. I find such comfort in the half-way healing of a blind man. Jesus completed the healing and it wasn't his intention to leave the man with incomplete sight, but for some reason, he did not heal him completely immediately. I am fascinated with this Jesus. What is Jesus trying to say about himself in that moment? What aspect of his character did he want the man and those standing around to see? The thing I keep coming back to is this: Jesus completes the work, but the timing isn't always what we expect. I've quoted this before, but Zack Eswine says, "It's not our job to finish what Jesus has left unfinished." So much of our Christianese platitudes are just that: trying to wrap up, seal, heal, and solidify what Jesus is still in the process of working in. 

We all know someone today who is suffering in some way. Perhaps a physical ailment, or walking through a confusing situation, or who just lost someone special. I know, for me, the past two years have been rote with suffering and a lot of it was the sort people don't look at as the Real Suffering. Moving cross-country three times, miscarrying, my husband's job loss, confusion about church situations, losing 100k on our house sale, witnessing the shooting of a police-officer and then living in a city where we heard gunshots weekly for a year, it felt like everywhere I looked I saw dimly, mere shapes of what was real, but not anything solid or real or hope-inducing. There was no one thing that I could point to and say, "This is what hurts." Everything hurt. Everything was tender. Everything was painful to touch or even talk about. 

In those spaces, a few friends gave me the gift of presence and it made such a difference for me. I knew the truth of the gospel and the Word of God. What I didn't need was to be pounded over the head with things I knew were true, but which didn't feel true. There were plenty of counselors and advisers and good-idea-givers, lots of times I said things rote with confusion and was met with less than empathy, many moments of sadness and awkward silence. But what meant the most, looking back, was: 

The gift of flowers or a plant.

A note in the mail or under my office door.

An offer to drop a meal off at my house.

A drive out of the cities and into the mountains or country together.

Someone who simply listened, who wept when I did. 

A good, long hug. 

An envelope full of cards, gift-cards, and money. 

These might have seemed a small thing to the givers, but they meant paramount things to us in the moment. They were the ministry of presence to us in a time when nothing could fix all that felt broken except Jesus—who for our good and his glory had left those things unfixed for that moment. 

Here's my encouragement to you today (and some I gave to myself this morning regarding a few friends): think of a few friends who are suffering, maybe (especially?) suffering silently, and give them the gift of presence. It's really easy to lavish gifts on people who have success, lots of notice, are surrounded by hordes of people, where you know your gift will be Instagrammed and given shout-out about on social media. Something in our flesh loves to give more to those people for some reason. I'm not sure why. But those quiet sufferers might need it more today. That bouquet of flowers showing up anonymously or with a card simply stated they're loved and seen, or that tight hug in a hallway or coffee shop, or the offer to just drive an hour or two away from it all for a bit—these things mean more than most of us can know from our relative place of peace and joy.

Sometimes we can't lift our own drooping hands or strengthen our weak knees, and we need the Church to come alongside us and help. I'm praying if you need that today, someone sees, and if you can be that today, you are.