Now

I talked yesterday about my brokenness and mental illness soapboxes and about walking honestly.

And then I came across this post from Anne Jackson earlier this week.

She wrote about the story of now.

I don't like my now story.

I talked about story at the beginning of the year, when I was reading Donald Miller's book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."  About wanting to write a better story with my life.

If I look at my list, I have to admit that a lot of those plans for the year died when I lost my job and unexpectedly found myself duckless and changing direction in life.  Even U2 had to be indefinitely postponed (though I suspect that Bono's back surgery is not directly correlated to the ending of my employment tenure).

I started telling a different story when I enrolled in some university courses for the summer to begin to move towards a career in nursing.

And God had some story ideas too.

His involve healing and freedom.

And a process to get to those things that is anything but pretty.

Unless of course, you're using "pretty" in a sentence such as this, "It pretty much sucks, actually."

My now story involves a lot of days that are spent in tears.

In an seemingly constant and intensifying battle with fears that have controlled me for years.

Fears that are fighting hard to stay as they surface in new ways and I desire freedom and healing.

It involves stomach aches, and panic attacks, and frustration.

It involves relational tensions and discussions about boundaries and other things that involve my heart and stir insecurities.

It involves insecurities and self-image and self-worth.

And working to change long ingrained mindsets.

It involves identifying lies, and working through the (seemingly endless) process of replacing them with truth.

It involves family, and faith, and friends and sleepless nights and cloudy days.

This is my story of now.

And my gut response would be to go with the earlier statement - it pretty much sucks.

But something in me knows that this is good.

That God holds my hand and walks with me even in this.

That His hands are in these things surfacing now, when I don't have full-time employment to cope with too.

That He is offering freedom at the same time as directing me down this new path towards nursing.

It pretty much sucks.  But it's good.  Dichotomy and mystery.  Healing through pain.  Freedom after the fear really intensifies (and it encourages me, oddly, that the fear has intensified, that it is trying to hang on.  it seems to only do that when there is hope that it will really and truly go.)

This is my now story.