New Stories

It is that time of year when many people, including me, look back at the past year and dream new dreams and set new goals for our next trip around the sun. I don’t know about you, but that feels really challenging this year. 2020 was hard and weird and uncertain. And I am not in the same place I was last year before the world changed on all of us. Even so, I still want to look back, as I also look forward. So I am doing that through stories.

Stories are how my brain processes events, and telling them is the way I interpret what is going on around me. I have a lot of stories floating around in my head right now, and I’d like to share some with you this month as I transition and gather up what I’ve seen and felt. And more importantly, I want these stories to influence how I move into this next chapter.

As I think back on my personal story, I see the story of God patiently and compassionately revealing God’s own character and love for me. I see personal triumphs in my writing as I joined Hope*Writers, began writing daily, and started this blog. I started calling myself a writer this past year! I also began training as a spiritual director through Metagem Institute, moving me steps closer to where I feel God calling me right now.

In my faith community, I’ve watched my church learn to worship and study and fellowship through digital platforms - places that didn’t exist before the pandemic slammed into our way of being the body of Christ. We have in-person and virtual ways to worship now, but a new online community has been birthed and is growing strong and healthy. These things would never have happened without the events of 2020.

In the larger story of our world and nation, I’ve chosen to learn from stories of inequality and injustice - ones that have always been there. I just wasn’t willing to look at them. That is hard to admit, but it is true and important that I say it aloud. I have lived a life of relative privilege. My faith has been marked by certainty. I have too often chosen to operate under the assumption that my understanding of God was right.

So my 2020 story has also been one of deconstructing and reconstructing how I understand and experience God working in me and in this world. I looked my certainty squarely in the eye, and I didn’t like what was there.

I confess that I have excluded people from God’s table on the basis of sexuality. I have chosen to hang on to my frustration with Black voices crying out in anger and pain over continued injustice. I have, too often, viewed my story, as a middle class, white, straight, Christian woman as the standard by which all should be measured.

No more. No more. No more.

My job, I’m discovering, is not to set the bar for receiving God’s love. My job is to love the way God does. It really is that simple. I love. God takes care of the rest.

God’s love is so much more vast and welcoming and equitable than I ever understood. While Jesus was here on earth, he didn’t hang out with the good church folk and pat them on the back for their piety. No, he went out of his way to find the marginalized, the poor, the outcasts. Jesus spent his whole ministry loving people that I have struggled to see. If I am going to follow Jesus in this life, I want to act like he did.

God’s table is wide, and there is room enough for everyone. I understand now that it is not my job to decide who deserves a seat. And so I am tearing down that rigid view of God’s love that I’ve been carrying, and I am opening my ears to hear the voices that are beautiful to God’s ears. I want to love without question, and to check my privilege and certainty at the door.

I heard a phrase in Brene Brown’s podcast with Austin Channing Brown earlier in 2020, and it rocked my world. It has become my my constant meditation. I will leave it here with you so you can ponder it over the next week. I want to "be a better human to other humans.”

God, will you allow this to take root in my heart and become my standard for loving your beloved children, no matter who they are? Amen.

New Year

So, I have this love/hate relationship with change. There have been times in my life that I embraced a change as a new adventure and I walked willingly forward, ready to see what came next. There have also been times when I fought change with everything in me, kicking and screaming while I was dragged into the new arena.

This year, I was ready for 2021; ready to wave “buh bye” to 2020 and all that it represented. I don’t really like feeling that way though, because I’ve seen that life can change in an instant. I’ve had my world crash down on me in a new year, after wishing that the old one would just end already. This was my story in 2016, when life gave my family more changes than we thought we could handle.

That February 2016, I suffered a 4-day-long, complicated migraine that led to a stroke. 2 actually -  one was mild enough that I had no effects. The other left me with bi-lateral loss in the right hemisphere of my field of vision. That’s a fancy way of saying that I have a permanent blind spot on my right side. The vision loss made reading, driving, even walking in parking lots, so much harder. We prayed that whole year that my vision would return, but it didn’t. That blind spot is still a part of my story today. Late in that same year, one of my kids was diagnosed with celiac disease, on top of type one diabetes that he had been living with most of his life. We felt so beaten up that year, by life and hard circumstances, that we wished for the year to end. We just wanted it all behind us.

The year obviously did end, and we rejoiced to see it go. But in early March of 2017, my husband died suddenly and unexpectedly. That new year, the one I was so ready for, brought so much raw pain and grief that there were times that I thought we wouldn’t and couldn’t survive. 

So why am I telling you this story? Maybe for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I want to tell you to count each and every moment as precious and fleeting. We can never predict or know when everything will change. Life is beautiful, even when it is HARD, and I don’t want you to ever regret taking it for granted. 

The other reason I want you to hear my story is this: our human life is going to have easy days and hard ones, joyful years and really devastating ones. We aren’t promised a pain free life. That is just not how this human thing works. 

There is grace in all of it though. We have the choice to rise up after we get knocked down. We get to choose to keep looking for the beauty within the pain. It is there, I promise. 

Maybe your grace is simply the opportunity to love someone a few months longer. Maybe it’s seeing one more sunset or holding a sticky, chubby toddler hand while they wobble a few steps. Maybe it is simply knowing you aren’t alone in your sadness, even when you feel like you are. 

Beloved, God isn’t mad at us when difficulty befalls us. God doesn’t reward us with happiness or punish us with suffering. God loves us unendingly and more than we can imagine - both in the joy and in the pain. God’s presence is sure and steady. God’s love is true and persistent.

So, search for those moments of joy and hope. But also know that you are loved and seen in all your days - including the hard ones. Trust that when the world seems shaky, God is present and steadfast. You are loved. You are seen. You matter. 

Let’s move into this new year, savoring every moment, trusting in our belovedness, taking each day as it is, and giving ourselves grace in every moment.

A Few of My Favorites

So here we are at the end of 2020. One of my favorite parts of the year is looking back over my list of books I read and remembering how I learned from them. I am an avid reader, and I am usually reading 2 or 3 books at a time. I relate to Rory Gilmore and Hermione Granger with their loaded book bags and constant stacks of books.

I decided it would be fun to share with you 5 of the books that most impacted me as I read them this year. They are all nonfiction. I do read fiction too, but mostly I love books that help me grow. So with no more time wasted, here are my top 5 most impactful books I read this year and why I loved them:

Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode—and into a Life of Connection and Joy by Aundi Kolber We are swimming in a “try harder” culture that encourages us to keep hustling so that we can do more, accomplish more, be more. Aundi believes we don’t have to “white knuckle” our way through life. She teaches us how to slow down and process our stories with compassion and connection to our deeper selves. Through Aundi’s teachings I learned practices to use and questions to ask as I learn to be more compassionate to myself and others. She is particularly gifted in trauma response, and in learning to stay present with difficult emotions. I loved this book so much that I gave 2 copies as Christmas gifts.

Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans Born in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Dayton, Tennessee, Rachel grew up in much the same way I did. I related to her hilarious stories of life in the Bible Belt, and I related to her journey of faith and doubt. She shared how she learned to ask questions and sit in the discomfort of not having all the answers. Her brave example taught me to be comfortable with having more questions than answers. Through her book, I was reminded that our faith must grow and change to survive and transform. We are not meant to stay in the faith of our childhood. Just like we grow and mature physically and intellectually and emotionally, we are meant to grow spiritually also.

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown I’ve been studying about race and injustice, and I’ve been learning to hear and respect the voices of those who are not like me. I learn better through story than theory. I loved Austin’s candid story of her life as a black woman in a culture of whiteness. I gratefully learned from her willingness to share her experiences of injustice and prejudice. She is a gifted author and teacher, and she challenged me to be “be a better human for other humans.”

Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women by Sarah Bessey I have always lived in a patriarchal culture and worshipped in a male dominated faith. There are lots of books that show the struggle and hard emotions that come with learning to honor your voice as a woman. I’ve read many of them. But this book was different. Sarah beautifully shares stories of Jesus’s compassionate and extravagant love and respect for women. I cannot begin to tell you how this book changed the way I experience my own belovedness and relationship with God. As a bonus, I also highly recommend Sarah’s book Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God.

The Enneagram Type 2: The Supportive Advisor by Beth McCord (The Enneagram Collection) I learned late in 2019 about the enneagram, and I discovered I am an Enneagram 2 wing 1. The Enneagram is a map of sorts that is based on 9 personality types. Most people see a little bit of themselves in all 9 types, but we all emerge from childhood with one of the 9 types driving our personality. I’ve done lots of personality study over my life, and learned from each of them. Some make for interesting discussions and some are just cool party tricks. What I love about the enneagram though, is that it is designed for transformation. I am an enneagram 2, often called the Helper or the Supportive Advisor. As I learned from Beth about what it meant to be a 2, I discovered more than just my personality. I’ve learned about my motivations, my core fears, and my core needs. I have learned to identify my behavior patterns and use that knowledge to grow myself deeper and be more mindful. This book offers journaling questions that are thought provoking and quite frankly, challenging to answer. But as I pushed through the discomfort, I learned so much about myself, and I found myself transforming bit by bit. If you are interested in learning about the Enneagram, I would also recommend https://www.yourenneagramcoach.com where Beth has a free test and lots of information about each type. I also really like the website https://www.enneagraminstitute.com which is a little more academic, but has great information that goes into more detail about the theory and how to use it.

So these are my top 5 books I read and loved this year. Maybe you will find your next read among them. What are some books that you read and loved? What did you love about them?

Stories

You know those trees that are perfectly color coordinated and hung with matching ornaments? The kinds you see in magazines? Yeah, mine is not one of them.

My tree is a hodgepodge of mismatched ornaments.

There is a ceramic “I love you” hand sign I got the year I was taking Sign Language as an undergrad at Alabama. I met my lifelong best friend there - she was my Sign Instructor and we have loved and supported one another ever since.

Also on the tree is a wreath made of dog bones with a picture of Bama. Growing up, she was my family’s beloved pet Peekapoo.

I have several church ornaments, given to us by congregation members though the years.

There are ornaments from Prince Edward Island, Canada that we bought on a trip way back in 1999. We took that trip just a few months after the miscarriage of our first child. We said goodbye to her there on the red beaches of the Island that I have loved all my life because it was the home to Anne of Green Gables.

I still hang ornaments given to me by seminary friends and by my mentor from our very first church. She took it right off of her tree when I admired it, and she gave it to me to remind me of her love for me.

Now, with my nerdy boys, we have ornaments celebrating Star Wars, Thomas the Tank Engine, Optimus Prime, Wonder Woman and the Tardis (those last 2 are totally mine😉)

None of our ornaments are especially expensive or fashionable, but every one holds a story. Our tree tells the story of our lives. Every year when we unwrap and hang these ornaments, I remember where they came from and the stories they hold.

I believe there is something sacred about retelling and remembering the stories from our lives. It is a space for us to remember the grace and the tears, the sweet smell of a newborn baby and the way our dog scratched at the glass door when we walked down the sidewalk and entered our childhood home.

Sifting through these memories, I find God there. I see God’s movement and presence in the stories I tell. This is something that God’s people have been doing throughout the ages - telling stories and seeing God there within them.

Psalm 136 is a beautiful example of this. It is sometimes called the Great Hallel - the great hallelujah. Throughout the history of the Israelites, they would sing this duet - a call and response, sharing the great works and faithfulness of God. Over and over in the psalm, the leader would call out the events of Israel’s history and the people would respond to each statement with “His steadfast love endures forever.” They reminded themselves - proclaimed - that God was faithful and present in all of their stories.

Still today, Psalm 136 is repeated and sung in certain Jewish festivals and celebrations. I loved repeating it every year in our Passover Seder as our churches or friends would celebrate with us on the Thursday night before Easter.

Storytelling and remembering God’s faithfulness is an important practice for me. It is so easy to see an endless string of days and events and to wonder where God has been among them. The truth is - God is always right here with me, even when I don’t feel it. I am grateful for these practices that naturally encourage me to repeat my stories and the places where I found God. I need this discipline; I need to be reminded. Maybe you do too. Let’s together create more spaces to tell the stories of our lives and notice God’s presence there with us.

In Between

Here we are, midway into December at the end of a year that has been full of chaos and loss and grief. We are weary. We have experienced loss in unfathomable ways in the past 10 months. Our eyes have been opened in new ways to injustice and to our own mortality.

There are memes portraying 2020 as a dumpster fire. And there are 2020 bingo cards floating around cyberspace that include things like murder hornets. We laugh at the images because they are ridiculously true - and maybe because we don’t know what else to do to quiet the anxiety we are feeling.

Given all we have seen and experienced and lost this year, we feel understandable trepidation heading into the unknown future of 2021. This month feels a lot like an in-between space. We are in the middle of a massive spike in Covid19, and the vaccines are not yet widely available. People we know are dying of this awful disease, and we have no idea what 2021 holds. That is a lot to take in and process, but I will share what is helping me breathe right now.

I didn’t grow up celebrating Advent, but it has become one of my favorite parts of the year. Advent is the beginning of the church year; it begins 4 Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. It is the in-between space that marks the time connecting the coming of Messiah as a baby and the return of the triumphal Christ, when all of our broken world is redeemed. Advent is the liminal space between the already and the not-yet.

I have been digging deeper than ever before into the season of Advent this year because this “space-between” feels really relevant. God is teaching me new things as I dwell quietly in this season. Honestly, it is not a place I enjoy - this waiting space. I’ve been here before - too often in the last 3 1/2 years, honestly. But here I am again - with all of you - as we wait for what comes next.

I admit that some days, life -and the unknown future - feels unbearable.

But in Advent, I am finding moments of a quiet hope. This morning, I found it in my alone time with God. I was studying a passage in Isaiah 41, verses 6-7. Let me share it with you.

Now I am revealing new things to you. Things hidden and unknown to you Created just now, this very moment

As I meditated on these words, it struck me that God is still at work - creating new things. I sometimes think of creation as what happened in Genesis, or what happens at a birth. But God reminded me this morning that creation is still happening all around us, at this very moment.

Beloved, God isn’t finished with us or with this world. We live in an in-between space where suffering happens all around us. 2020 feels like a daily parade of brokenness. But God is still creating in this very moment, revealing new things to us as we look with weary, yet hopeful eyes.

We are a people of hope, with a God who is still creating and transforming. Keep watching and waiting. Keep looking for hope, my friends.