Month: December 2020

How am I here again?

How I am wondering who I am and what my purpose is? Again.

Why am I so heavy again?

It’s an understatement to say this has been a tough year. 2020. It’s been a shitshow, but everyone knows that. And it’s true for everyone. I don’t think anyone who has survived this year has made it through without paying deep, heavy costs. Some costs will take years to be fully known or realized. Our wounds refuse to heal as relief continues to be something that only exists in the future. What good is this kind of hope?

It’s been hard for me, but I’m no fool. The difficulties I’ve born are not nearly as hard as it’s been for others. I know this, and I weep for this bitter injustice. Comparatively, I have had a blessed year. How the fuck have others survived this with less? I have enough. I have a safety net. I have a loving, safe husband and healthy, resilient children. The money and work opportunities that I have lost were not needed for the family. Just for me – my edification and enjoyment. So we didn’t suffer, just me. And I barely had time to register or grieve the loss because the time was filled and energy and creativity and innovation were needed elsewhere. Instead of a year in which the kids would gain more independence and I might go to work and serve my community, the kids would need me to be a full-time, unpaid teachers’ aid. I would pivot to guide them in all realms of their development – spiritual, physical, educational, mental, emotional, social, practical. It may take a village, but, like everyone else, the village couldn’t come within 6 feet. Besides, the village was suffering and I didn’t know what to do.

This year demanded resilience and innovation until all my coping mechanisms, talents, and expertise were depleted. It wouldn’t be until October that I finally admitted I was depressed. Again. And I couldn’t bear it and needed medication to keep going. Thankfully, the medication is working. Hallelujah. But the side effects are tiresome and I don’t know really understand why I’m depressed. My doctor claims its just the pandemic and this utterly insane election season. I disagree, but, to her point, the weekend after the election, I finally got my period again after not having it for two months. There’s a remote chance I’m more stressed by my culture and environment than I realize.

I’m gaining weight and it feels out of control. I’m trying my best but maybe I’m doing nothing. I am still. I just can’t tell if it’s because I am paralyzed or waiting in faith. I know this won’t last and for that, I am truly grateful. That is my hope and joy even if I don’t feel happy. Like a smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. I keep thinking about Psalm 147: 1-5.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.

I don’t trust our princes. Relief will not be in a vaccine or a better stimulus package. Look, those would help immensely, but the damage is deeper than that. Hope is not in our republic or her people. We have shown ourselves to be our worst enemy.

Faith claims it is in God alone. His victory over death, despair, and dysfunction is secure. It is coming, but it is not here yet. It will manifest in relationship and through time. This is the third week of Advent and its theme of joy. I don’t feel joyful, but this is a journey toward joy. I move toward the One who Loves, whose salvation can actually bring wholeness. This is the week to celebrate that the Kingdom of God is here, even as it is not yet fully here. I’m having a hard time doing that. I am stuck in the not yet and can’t seem to take another step. My righteousness fails me.

I’m here again. Pretending to be a writer. Pretending to be a leader. Wondering if my life is important or meaningful at all. Knowing friends and family would say, of course, but wondering, in my heart, why? How do you know?

I am well loved. I am beloved. I am skilled. I am blessed. These are facts. My ability to survive this year as well as I have is because of these truths. God has provided enough even as much of what I value, enjoy, crave, and long for has been taken away. Perhaps temporarily, but maybe not. We can never go back. New life appears after the seed bursts and is crushed in the dark underground.

My first year of being a mother was the hardest year of my life. Everything became hyper-focused. My world felt small and lonely. I was in pain and overwhelmed with the responsibilities of caring for a whole new person and I had no idea what I was doing. I have never been so tired in my life. This year has felt a lot like that year. In fact, I’m pretty sure that year made this year survivable for me. A consummate planner, God has said repeatedly, “We’ll get there when we get there. Be here now.” It is absolutely maddening.

So often the hope I live in is the hope of my plans and expectations. I enjoy planning. Set a goal. Reach it. It is a familiar and satisfying rhythm. The constant changing restrictions have meant that even simple goals or hopes have had to be adjusted or abandoned altogether. It has exposed the shallowness of my hope and joy. Honestly, it is hard to feel joyful this season because I can’t make the season special. It is hard to be joyful in as much as joy is dependent on me. I am spent. But what if hope is in the Lord?

John 15: 10-12 says, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

I may not feel joy. I may not be filled with hope. But if I am loved, as I am, and remain in God’s love, keeping his commands and loving others, then His joy will come to me and it will be whole.

And just like that, I can breathe and take one more step.

I love Advent.
Even more than Christmas, I adore Advent. It is the preparations, I like. I’ve always been one a little more comfortable living in the future than in the moment. So often, growing up, big events were a bit of a let down.
Christmas always feels that way to me.

I’ve even extended our family’s experience of Christmas by celebrating for all 12 days of the feast. But still… by the end, it’s January of a new year and everyone is back at work and school and often, it feels like nothing has changed. The hope and peace and love and joy of Christmas has dissipated with the chilly wind. In its place are resolutions we know we won’t keep, bills, clean up, and disillusionment.

But Advent is December. The house is slowly transformed with romantic Christmas lights, candles, bows, and tinsel. It smells of cinnamon and fir trees and chocolate.

Our family, and even our culture, prioritizes togetherness, connection, generosity, and gratitude in these winter holidays. Ironically, the stress of the season is rooted in the desire to do all the good things in a single month instead of all year long.

I mean, it does also expose the harsh realities that many are homeless, that American capitalism is crushing working families, and loneliness lingers and lurks in the glow of the lights. Crime goes up and tempers flare as our expectations and longings are exposed. We are made raw by the waiting and wanting. We are led astray by the temptations of secular Christmas. We confuse indulgence and wealth with abundance. We mistake parties and presents with joy.

But this time of year, we are made so aware of our deepest longing for the righteousness and justice and overwhelming love of God. We crave the hospitality and fellowship of the Spirit manifest among us. We long for the freedom of Christ from our painful lies and devastating habits. We wearily search for the pasture of abundance of God’s Kingdom that truly nourishes.

The work of Advent is to see more clearly what we need and what is enough.

This Advent I wonder what I am preparing for.

Christmas won’t be that different from what life has been all year. What do I need to make it special? Will sameness be enough?

I keep thinking about the incarcerated. My life is mostly about caring for my kids and husband. Taking care of the house, our hamster, making sure everyone is fed and the place is cleaned regularly. I serve as the Coordinator of our local MOPS group. I pray for my leaders and try to train and provide them with resources and support to care for the women in their groups. MOPS was such a blessing to me when my kids were younger. I wanted to pass on that blessing. The restrictions on large group gatherings has made it difficult, but I am doing my best. I just don’t feel very connected to it, to them. I love them. I care about them. But something is missing. And come this May, my service as Coordinator is over. Then what? How will I work? Who will I serve? What will I do? So I think about the incarcerated.

I wonder if my growing attention to those in jail is from God or not. I have no connection to anyone incarcerated. I have no particular skills or qualities or education or experience that would make me of any value to captives. Why should I care about them? How should I care? I discovered there are sites to be a penpal for “someone on the inside.” I could become a great letter-writer, offer connection and friendship to someone who is alone and forgotten, but I also know I am inconsistent, at best, as a writer. Or as a friend. So I wonder, why do I think about them? I don’t actually know them. But I also wonder, do I need to understand before taking the first step? I hesitate because I don’t want to harm someone already on the fringes of society. I hesitate because I am first praying for clarity and for faith.

I am preparing for Christmas, the birth of God into the world as a fragile baby. I prepare to be known and loved, to be a co-collaborator in God’s purposes in the world.