Tuesday Anticipations, January 2, 2012

I'm out of "You Ask, I Answer" questions for the moment, and I was wracking my brain to think of something to blog about on Tuesdays.  So, for now, I'm going to blog about the things I'm anticipating in the week ahead.

I remain ever mindful of the lesson I learned (and continue to learn) from a guy named Stan.  A lesson about postponing joy.  In fact, when I find myself focusing too heavily on the idea that the only joy is that which is coming, I remind myself that I can choose to be present and find joy in the present moment.

That said, there is also a great joy in the anticipation of things that are special, that are unique to a day or a week, that hold the promise of love, and laughter and joy.  Those are the things I want to share with you in Tuesday Anticipations.

So... welcome to my first list of anticipations:

• I'm anticipating the thrill of completion of several necessary (and much procrastinated) errands and tasks
• I'm anticipating the orientation to my nursing program, with the quiet thrill that comes from a peace in the timing that this acceptance has played out in, and the joy of knowing that something I risked longing for has arrived.
• I'm anticipating the first house church gathering of the new year, and the chance to spend time praying for and with each other, and praying for guidance as we head into the new year.
• I'm anticipating the chance to spend time at the zoo with one of my oldest friends and her daughter.  People I love and a place I love - awesome!
• I'm anticipating the fun of shopping for textbooks and uniforms

They're mostly simple things, but they all hold the promise of joy, and that's what I want to share with you on Tuesdays for a while.

Wrapping Up "Heal"

My one word for 2011 was "heal".

It wasn't the word I'd initially thought I would choose, but it was the one my heart landed on on December 31, 2010, as I walked and prayed on my way to and from the passport office.

I was in a good place that day, and heal didn't seem intimidating.  It seemed perfect, really.

I was expecting to hear, either within days, or within months, that I was accepted into a nursing program.  What better word for the first year of nursing studies, I thought, than heal?

I was in a good place mentally, emotionally, and spiritually - riding the high of some changes and progress I'd made, heal seemed like the natural continuation of that high, of the victory I was experiencing after many months and years of a tiring fight.

The year didn't turn out quite like I thought it would.

Heal, it turns out, is not all victory and highs.  A lot of it is hard slogging.  A lot of it is tears, and work, surrender and sacrifices.

Nursing didn't work out like I expected.  I didn't start school in January, or September, as I thought I would.  It was a full year of waiting for that part of my journey of healing to happen.  I will start school and that much desired nursing program in 2012, a year whose word has yet to be determined.  The first rejection from the program hurt.  It was a shattering of dreams and expectations.  The second one hurt less so, perhaps from experience, perhaps because of the practical reality of knowing that very few people were accepted in that second application period.

And victory?  Well, changing relationships and tears and struggling are all more apt descriptors of the year.  Uncovering, digging, surrendering.  Yoga.  Chocolate.  Loving friends. Transitions. Knowing Jesus in new ways.  Hard choices.  Hard work.

And yet, as I stop today and recall the past year, I can tell you that it has been a year of healing.

I am healthier - physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I have made choices I never thought I would make and they have changed me, they have helped me heal.  I feel emotionally and spiritually stable in ways that I haven't in more than a decade.  I have friends who I have leaned on in some pretty challenging situations, and who I know I can trust with the messy parts of myself as readily as the tidy and together bits.  I know Jesus in new ways - in ways that convince me that He loves me more than I ever could have believed.  And more than that, I am growing to understand that I, myself, am worthy.  I'm learning that caring for myself, loving who Jesus has made me, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and profound gifts of healing that this year has offered.

The year of heal didn't turn out at all like I expected, but it has been a year that has moved me, and a year that has lived up to it's name.  I can't wait to see what word reveals itself for 2012, and the journey that that word will take me on.

Friday!

It's Friday!

(well, actually, it's Thursday night when I'm writing this, but by the time this goes live, it will be Friday.)

This week I'm particularly excited to welcome the weekend.

It's been a rough week at the office, for lots of reasons that I can't go into here.  Let's just say that I'm thankful that this particular temp contract is ending in short order.

It's been harder still since I haven't been feeling well physically.  I'm battling a cold that has settled into a wracking (how do you spell that?) dry cough, and on top of that I contracted a mild stomach bug that has rather limited my appetite and food intake (and thus energy).

I'm really excited for a weekend.

With one brief exception, and maybe a couple of errands, I plan to spend it catching up on rest, and hopefully carving out a bit of silence.  My parents will be away for a good chunk of the day on Saturday, so I'm hoping to curl up in my favorite recliner in their living room and carve out some quiet space for rest and restoration.  I need to carve out that space.

And so, today, though I really do try to remember the lesson I began to learn on that humorous day I was hijacked by Stan, I'm not so much postponing joy, as anticipating the greater measure of it that will come with the weekend.  Not too many hours to go...

Looking Forward

Since I'm all about celebrating even the small things, here are a few things, both bigger and smaller, that I'm looking forward to the next several weeks:

• Looking forward to watching the season finales of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice online tomorrow
• Looking forward to hanging out with a dear friend, and her daughter next week
• Looking forward to seeing all of the vegetables and flowers I planted grow, and then cooking with them
• Looking forward to two weeks of house-sitting for my folks - two weeks of staying in the same bed every night!
• Looking forward to spending some time bus reading in the near future
• Looking forward to finally seeing U2 live in concert!

Reverb 10: Day 27 - Ordinary Joy

Today's Reverb 10 prompt:

December 27 – Ordinary Joy

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

(Author: Brené Brown)

Ordinary Joy.

It should be an easy theme for me.  It's basically what I make a list about each evening when I write the daily 5.  (In fact, today's daily 5 in my iphone, just waiting to be transferred to the blog, is filled with very ordinary joys from the last 24 hours or so.) 

Dictionary.com defines ordinary as, "of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional."

I thought quite a bit today about what moment I was going to use here tonight.

I have two.


The first is an afternoon spent in a bookstore.  It was only a few hours really.  A brief stop on a road trip home from Ontario, with my dad, and my baby brother and his wife of approximately two weeks.


Dad and I planned the stop before we ever left Calgary to drive in the opposite direction.  I had the address for this store written in my little notebook, so that Emily, the GPS lady, could guide us directly there.  It was the destination we set when we left my sister-in-law's childhood home and headed back towards our own city.


The store is basically a clearing house for seconds from two big Christian publishing houses - slightly damaged or off-kilter or slightly misprinted books, still perfectly good, but not saleable to retailers, sold for a pittance.  


It's heaven for a book lover, and my dad, brother and I were in bliss.  Dad and my brother were busy stocking up on commentaries for their professional libraries, while I happily searched shelves with the joyful ease of one who is convinced that heaven will look and smell like a bookstore.  We shared finds, bought a few duplicates, adding multiple volumes to each of our libraries, and just generally baffled my poor sister-in-law, who enjoys reading, but perhaps not to the same book nerdish extent of her new husband and some of his family members.  It was delightful.  Such a simple activity that it was ordinary, and completely out of the ordinary at the same time, since we likely won't be back in that place for a long time.


The other afternoon I'm thinking of happened in California in the fall.  After a full morning of church related activities, we spent the afternoon comfortably, in pajamas, sorting a giant bucket of the little metal monopoly tokens that had been given to my friend for sale in the Sunday school rewards store.  Basically, we spent the afternoon laughing, talking, taking turns picking questions to mutually answer from a book full of fascinating prompts.  It was perhaps one of my favorite parts of that trip, because it was simple.  We weren't touring around or doing anything extravagant or unique to that area, we were just getting to know each other better, enjoying each others company without pretense, resting, talking and laughing.


I suppose it's not all that ordinary to sort a giant bucket full of thousands of monopoly pieces, laughing and exclaiming over some of the stranger ones, and some of the funny ones, but the afternoon felt ordinary, natural, and beautiful.


And perhaps that's the key to ordinary joy.  It's certainly the key to the things that make my daily 5 lists night after night.  They are the things that may or may not happen regularly, but seem natural, and beautiful and carry smiles and laughter and joy within them.

Opening Day

An hour and a half from now, our first client is scheduled to arrive to "shop" for Christmas gifts for their children.

A month of preparation, and it seems a bit crazy to recognize that this day is actually here.

I fully expect the day to be full of joyful chaos.  And I'm planning to soak it in.

Medicating?

I'm walking out this crazy season of aiming towards healing, and these words on a blog a friend sent me a link to a while back, hit home.

Read her post here, first.

Seriously.  Read it.  This woman has a way with words.  Since I started reading, at least one post a week has stopped me in my tracks.  This one I even printed out and carried around for a chunk of time.

Okay.  Have you read it?  Good.

Because I read it the other day, I'm asking the question, "What do I use to bandage up wounds instead of finding real joy and healing?"

It's a weird question for someone who has been counting daily joys for the last year and 107 days to ask.

These words in particular, caught me:

I’m realizing that so much of what we do in life is simply medicate our hurts.

We eat. We shop. We blog. We open up Twitter or troll Facebook. We look around for something, ANYTHING that will help dull the pain. We even consume things that were never meant to affect real pain {like children’s ibuprofen syrup}. We volunteer. We exercise. We watch television. We drink. We buy a four-dollar Starbucks. We eat some more. We do things that both distract us from dealing with the real problems and offer us a little, tiny piece of what we think might help us. It promises real joy, but all it really offers is rescue from feeling really horrible to a level of functionality.

We medicate ourselves.

So many of the things we truly count as a JOY really are, in fact, just bandages for the pain. It’s hard not to confuse them though. A good peppermint mocha when it’s chilly outside does bring a smile to my face. But if I’m trying to distract myself from something or if it becomes an addiction then it isn’t beneficial.

But it's one that I think bears pondering this week.  What things are ineffective stop gaps, that mask pain?  What things facilitate avoidance rather than healing?  Are there things where this is a line to be crossed, where they help for a season, until suddenly they hurt?

And, I'm more committed than ever to Daily 5 lists.  To counting the things in the day that made me smile.  The things that brought a giggle.  The things I'm pausing to be thankful for.  Because counting joys for the last year and one hundred plus days has made me more aware of being joyful.  It's taught me to look for the joy, instead of the sorrow.  And it's helping me patch a life together.  Not just cover over and hide the wounds, but knit the pieces back into wholeness.  And that's worth working on.

You?  Do you bandage things over with false joy?

First Advent

It's Sunday morning again, and I'm again laying in a darkened room, pondering.

It's the beginning of Advent today.  A new church year.  Just another season of waiting and longing.

And honestly, as I was laying here, I was pondering if I would even choose to acknowledge that this year.

This whole year has been full of drama, of feeling ripped apart, of waiting and longing.

I'm pretty tired of the longing.

Ironic for me to say that, given that just recently I wrote here about the fact that I feel like God has been challenging me to really long for things, to really dream and long for those dreams to be fulfilled.

And so I was laying here, pondering if this year I would "celebrate" (what a ridiculous word for recognizing this season) Advent.  I feel guilty for wanting to ignore it, for ignoring that part of my heart that just naturally tunes itself to the church year.  But honestly, I don't know that I'm up for that this year - for the aching that comes in these four weeks, waiting again for the coming of a Savior.

So I thought about how I could do it differently.  Could I skip the candles?  Is there a way to make this less of an achingly painful journey of waiting and more of a joyful expectation?  Could I just ignore it all together and show up on Christmas Day, and welcome a Savior?

Out of curiosity I clicked through here, to a site I bookmarked in one of the last several years, to see what candle is the first for Advent.

And the part of me that has fallen in love with a God who has a very ironic sense of humor in our conversations started laughing.

Hope.

The candle for today is Hope.

Hope followed by love, joy and peace.

Those don't so much sound like achingly painful concepts.  Maybe the opposite, actually.

And here's the thing - I'm on this journey of recognizing some twisted concepts in how I relate to God.  Like, for example, the idea that the only true moments of encounter with God are intense, scary, and painful.  The Advent season, for example, perhaps doesn't have to be marked solely by pain.

And that, that is a thought I needed to have whispered to me this year.

I don't know yet how I'll mark this Advent season.  For the last year, the Christ candle from my previous wreath has sat on my dresser, waiting, only being lit occasionally through the months. 

Tonight, though, if only for one week, I'll probably light a candle.  The space I live in could use the light of hope today.

And I'm pondering this.  Having a "Jesse Tree" this year.  (Though in my odd living reality, it will probably be not so much a tree as a string, hung across my map of the world and wall of happy memories.)

And who knows?  Maybe an Advent wreath will make an appearance.  Because hope, love, joy and peace are concepts I'm wanting a little more of in my life these days.  Because God is a God of those things, and meeting Him can be filled with those, instead of with fear, intensity, and pained exhaustion.

So, Come Lord Jesus.  Come and bring hope this day.

The Happiness Project

Last week one of the books I finished reading on my multiple bus trips was Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun."  With a title and subtitle like that, how could I not love it?

Actually, I really did enjoy Rubin's book.

I liked the ideas it gave me about being happier.

But mostly, I liked these two things:  the first of her "twelve commandments" - "Be Gretchen."

And this, one of Rubin's "Secrets of Adulthood" - "What's fun for other people may not be fun for you - and vice versa."

I need those reminders to be myself.

And particularly I needed to hear that it's okay to be me, even when me doesn't seem to be in sync with the rest of the world around me.

I needed that reminder that it's okay that I really don't like some of the things it seems like everyone around me loves.

After finishing the book, I'm reminded to keep making choices that inspire happiness.  To keep making daily 5 lists.  To try new things.  To do the things I really love.  To notice all the little things that bring a smile or laughter to my day.

And sometimes, even when I don't love things, to do them because people around me do love them, and their happiness helps make me happy too.

I Know Hope

I greeted the arrival of November 1st late last night, laying in bed and watching the clock flip slowly from 11:59 to 12:00.  I watched one of my least favorite days of the year end, and one of the the most special days in my year begin.  And there was deep peace and joy in acknowledging that the threshold had been crossed - that I'd reached that five year mark of healing that seemed so elusive at times.

A few minutes past midnight and my phone buzzed with a text message - a dear friend in a different country and time zone had been quietly keeping vigil too, and had waited up to send me a message celebrating 5 years of healing.

I've told the story before - of that night when I sat in a dark car with a good friend, and encountered God in a profoundly new way.

It's part of the dialogue of my life, this day.  November 1st. 

And it's been 5 years since that night in the car with my friend.  5 years since God intervened.

I'd lived with depression for 7 or so years.  Every time I thought it couldn't get worse, that my existence couldn't become darker, it did.  There had been a few brief reprieves, but nothing lasting.  Despair and hopelessness were the emotions of the moment.  The few prayers I still prayed were either colored with anger at God, or exhausted begging.  I had good Christian guilt and would never have taken my own life, but I spent many a night trying desperately to sleep and begging God that this would be the night where any waking I did would be in Heaven.

Five years ago today my life changed.

It took me several months to understand the scope of that.  To really be able to trust that it was true when I voiced the words, "I've been healed."

They have actually been five of the hardest years of my life.  Many of them marked with days and weeks where I wondered if I would actually reach another anniversary of healing and still be able to say, "By God's grace I'm depression free."

This year has had many of those days and moments too.

But the overwhelming hopelessness that marked the days of depression has never returned.

And as I pause to mark this day, that is perhaps the greatest gift.

To know hope, even in the darkest places that I've walked and walk.

Today, I'm pausing to celebrate hope.  Hope and healing, and a God who carries both and offers them as irrevocable gifts.  A God who has offered those to me, and continues to teach me to stand in them, to delight in them.

It's been 5 years.

The cast of characters in my life has changed time and time again.  Those who celebrated with me at year 1 are scattered.  The friend who was with me that night is one I rarely see or hear from these days.  Life today looks nothing like what I'd envisioned five years ago, or even one year ago.

But God has been faithful as I journey.

And I know hope.

Head Above Water

I read this article on Gretchen Rubin's blog the other day.  I've been slowly reading her book, "The Happiness Project" and have been quite enjoying both the book and her blog.

This is the line, though, that caught me from the article:

"So, if someone’s stubborn, “fake” refusal to acknowledge the dark side of life is annoying you, consider whether he or she might be struggling to stay afloat, to resist being dragged down completely by someone or something. We think we know people, but really, we usually know very little."

I make a list here, every night, of the things in that day that have made me smile in those last 24 hours.  If you talk to me these days, I'll be honest about the major challenges that I'm facing in life right now.  About the mess that my life is.  But I'm also probably going to try to laugh at them.  I'm probably going to try to get you to laugh with me.  To recognize the mess, but to laugh with me.  I'd hardly be declared "fake" in my glee and cheerfulness.  I'm not exactly known for that.  But for the last year and a bit, I've been making an effort to choose joy, daily, amidst some pretty crazy circumstances.

It so happened that I read Rubin's blog post on a day where I was barely staying afloat.  Where any ability to laugh at the current disastrous state of my life had deserted me.  And that day, I found myself nodding my head in agreement.  And knowing I wanted to share this thought with all of you.  To remind myself to be less hasty in judging that super cheery person, and pause to remember all the times I've joked recently, in a last ditch effort to keep my head above water.

The Happy Planet Index

I've been reading about happiness lately.  Happiness and satisfaction and joy.  And I found this TED talk video on a related subject quite fascinating, and thought I'd share.

Perspective

I've found myself thinking about perspective quite a lot this last week or so.

My parents have had a missionary family coming and going from their house for the last couple weeks, and, since I spend the vast majority of my days at mom and dad's, I've gotten to enjoy their company as well.

I've met dozens of missionary kids and families over the years, and this family has rapidly become one of my favorites.  Their children are articulate, well-adapted, and genuinely interested in the world around them and in finding fun everywhere they go.

I've been exposed to quite a number of missionary kids who seem quite adrift when they land in North America.  Conversations with them usually entail a lengthy  dissertation on how very different life in North America is from life in whatever country it is that their family serves in, and then a discussion of why it is that whatever the aspect of life under discussion is done better in that country than in North America.

When I began to travel, my dad gave me a piece of advice that I've found valuable.  Don't compare, and don't make judgments about what is better or worse.  The context is different.  Choose to appreciate, to observe, to explore, to seek to understand.  Sometimes as I'm talking with missionary kids, I wish they were given that same advice about approaching life back in North America - that in the same way it would be irritating and horrible for me to come to their home context and pass judgment about how things are done, it's equally irritating for them to come here and pass judgment.

In any case, I particularly appreciated the family that was staying with us.  Rather than complain about what they missed, I heard over and over from their three children, "We can't do that in Ghana!"  It was great fun to watch their youngest child's eyes grow large as she spotted one of the many herds of cows that spot the Alberta foothills.  "Look at how big those cows are!!!"  It was totally enjoyable to sit with them in a movie theatre and hear about how this was only the second or third time they'd ever been in a movie theatre.  I loved hearing them detail their delight at the vast assortment of wildlife they saw as they toured the mountains for the first time (none of them, parents included, had ever seen mountains!)  And I took joy in watching my dad teach the kids the basics of fly fishing - another "we can't do that in Ghana" experience for their collection.

There was something in watching all this that caught my attention.  That made me think about differing perspectives.  I live in a land where cattle are huge, and the biblical phrase about God "owning the cattle on a thousand hills" takes on a truly surreal meaning.  I live in "Alberta beef" country, where cattle are the pride and joy of ranchers, and are raised by the thousands.  Where cows are huge, plentiful, and where very high quality beef is easily obtained from just about any butcher or grocery store.  These kids come from a world where the cattle are scrawny and where a single cow can make an immense difference in the life and living eked out by a family.

I was thinking about perspective in a different way this week too.  Late on Monday night I sat in a car, catching up with a friend, hearing about her summer, and sharing some of the challenges that life has thrown my way this summer.  In her typically sarcastic way, she asked "and how's that for you?"  I laughed and began to respond in kind, "well, it's been just..." and I bit back the word I'd planned to use, threw something else in it's place and finished answering. 

She caught my pause.  "You were going to say it's been hell, weren't you?" 

"yep."

"You know that you can say that right?"

And my response caught me off guard as well.

"I know, but I'm working to change how I see this.  To be grateful for the healing that's coming, and not focus so much on how brutal the process is."

I'm thinking about perspective this week, and I want my perspective to be more like that of the kids I've so appreciated.  To let them be my teachers.  To see opportunity, and joy, and new things, instead of focusing on what has changed, what I miss, what aches.  I want to see healing instead of wallowing in the muck of a very broken life.  Even when everything is unfamiliar.  I want to have an "I can't do that in Ghana" attitude and make the most of what I am being offered, rather than wishing for a different portion.  And I want to continue to work on seeing a different perspective reflected not only in my thoughts, but in my outlook, my writing and my speech.

Shake the Dust

I was watching and listening to this video again from Anis Mojgani.

Shake the Dust.

For me (yes, in spite of the rougher language at moments) this is a powerful image.

Shake the dust.

From life.

Brush off the cobwebs.

These last few weeks have been full of deep aches and brokenness.

In my own heart, and in those around me.

Carrying deep burdens of prayer.

Choosing to love when I'd really rather not.

They've been hard weeks, and I've been feeling down.

Some of that is just physical.  A change in medications that my body is having trouble adapting to.  The wear on one's body and mind from the kind of intense weeks I've been having.

Some is emotional and some spiritual.

I feel cobwebby.  Trapped in this crazy circle of feeling miserable and overwhelmed.

And I came across one of my own old posts, and was reminded that I've been here before.

Shake the dust.

Choose to celebrate hope.

Choose joy and life and peace.

Choose to be grateful for the healing that comes and is coming.

Choose to focus on all of those things instead of the brokenness.

And choose to trust Jesus with the brokenness.

In me, and in all whom I love.

Shake the Dust.

And really, really live.

Be Well

I read this post that Allie, Dearest wrote the other day.  Her thoughts on being broken struck me, and drew to mind an ongoing conversation I've had the last few years with a dear friend.

We've been talking for a couple of years now about the passage where Jesus heals the lame man lying beside the pool.

Jesus asks a question of this man that is rather confusing and even haunting, "Do you want to be well?"

Seems like a crazy question, doesn't it?  The man has been laying by the pool for decades, never quite able to make it to the waters when they are stirred and miracles are possible.  Clearly he's after healing if he's spent so much time there, isn't he?

I think about that question sometimes when I consider my own life.  I think about how much time I spend hovering around the edges of "being well."  I think about how sometimes, even though it's miserable, broken seems a like better option.  It's familiar. Safe even.  How I can talk about wanting healing, but I'm sure not making any steps towards it.  Even when it's an open door in front of me.

I have a friend who was with me the night I was healed from depression.  He'd been around through some of the worst of it, and was patient.  I'm thankful that he was there that night.  For probably two years I'd been griping about my misery and fear and depression as he drove me home from various church events.  For two years he'd been quietly asking if he could pray for and with me, inviting me to come before God with him.  For two years I let fear rule the day.  "You can pray, but I'm not going to.  You can pray, but I'm going into the house now.  No, we're not praying tonight."  The night I was healed the desperation caught up to me, and even though I was scared of God, I was more afraid of continuing the miserable, hopeless and meaningless existence that I'd been inhabiting.  My friend was with me when I went from saying "I want to be well" to really and truly meaning it deep within me, and God met us in that place and healed my heart in ways that still leave me speechless, nearly five years later.

I've thought of that question of Jesus quite a lot again lately, as the ongoing conversation around that question has continued.  As I have had to be in the place of lifting my aching heart towards Jesus and really considering, "do I want to be well?"  Will I trust Jesus again with the process of healing, however it looks this time, whatever the results?  Do I trust Jesus with all of the others around me who are also broken, who I also want to be well?  Do I trust that he's big enough for all of that?

I've come over and over again to the conclusion that I really do want to be well.  And that I want that - physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, for so many others as well.  And that this is a question I will most likely be pondering and finding new depths to for the rest of my life.

"Do you want to be well?"

How am I Choosing Joy?

These thoughts from Richard Rohr appeared in my inbox the other day.  If you've hung around this blog long, you'll see why they made me laugh, and reel, and take a few days to absorb them.  Choosing joy has been sort of a theme for me.  A major theme and goal, really.  Someday I'll write about just how impacting it was to me to discover that there was something of a choice in that...

But for now, I thought I'd share Richard Rohr's thoughts with you, and invite you to join me in "collapsing into joy."

Question of the Day: How am I choosing joy? Joy is both a decision and a surrender.  Eventually we stop being preoccupied with creating a fault-free environment that will ensure our own happiness, and we discover that joy is much more like falling into an objective Presence, a Larger Body, Love itself, a unified field, that many of us would call God.  You do not create love, you “fall” into it. You do not attain God, you fall into Him or Her.  You do not manufacture joy, you collapse into it when you give up trying to make it happen. What freedom when we no longer have to wait for ourselves to be happy!  There is no waiting, only receiving. This feast of the Body of Christ is also a promise of joy, and quite daringly—in a quite physical encounter of union, table fellowship, and close intimacy.  “I am telling you this so that my own joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 9

3100

3100 blog posts seems like a milestone.

I feel like I should have something profound to say.

(I never seem to have anything that feels profound to say when the milestone posts roll around.)

Instead I'm just going to acknowledge that I've written 3100 posts.  That I've been showing up here consistently for over 5 years now, and writing about whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.  And I'm going to talk a little about my day.

Today is just one of those days.

I sent out a pile of resumes, and I have a pile more to send.

I heard back from one place I applied yesterday, telling me that I was not going to be a candidate.

I did an errand or two with my mom.

I'm discovering the weird balance of being an introvert and needing human interaction.  Apparently my previous job, however I felt about it, was meeting a need for some human interaction.

I'm finding myself tired of myself the last few days.  Tired of being alone with my thoughts, and the battleground they can tend to be.

Tired, I think, of the ongoing neccessity to choose joy.

Tired of the deep internal wrestles I was walking through with God even before I lost my job and that tension was added to the mix.

And tired of too much time alone.

It's partly why I've been hanging out at my parents' house during the day.  That, and their internet access is better for job hunting than the access at the place I'm house-sitting.  Because they both work from home, I get a bit of human interaction as they come and go from their respective home offices.

Tomorrow I'm hanging out with a friend and her daughter for a while.  I think the plan is for us to go to the farmer's market together.  I'm flexible.  I'll just enjoy time with a friend.

I've been hesitating to set up times to see various friends during the day, always wondering if I'll get a call for an interview, or be starting a job and have to cancel.  I think I'm going to change that.

Since the majority of my job-hunting is online, I can be flexible in which hours of the day I apply myself to that (and I'm determined to apply myself to it for at least an hour or two a day or more.)

That means I can make time for friends.

Yes, I'll maybe have to cancel if a job or an interview comes up.  But I'd rather have those things to look forward to, than stare at empty days.  I'd rather feed my soul and be with people I love.

Because feeding my soul in that way seems wise.  And it makes the choice for joy just that much easier.  And it seems smart, somehow, to try to make what can be such a hard choice easier.

Some Days are Just Easier

Some days are just easier than others.

Yesterday was one of those days.

A day where things flowed.  It was sunny, I had an amazing coffee appointment with a new friend.  I sent out resumes and felt hopeful about them.  I knew deep joy and peace.  I felt like myself.  I laughed via email with a dear friend, and discovered a dream about the future deep within me.  I talked about twirling and tattoos and the fact that the word hope in Spanish is nearly the same as Italian, and a friend had encountered that translated word in a place she'd recently revisited in Malta.  I was laughing at the idea of ducks totally out of line, or missing entirely.

Today is a harder day.

A day where I kind of want to cry.  It's raining and cold.  I've been wrapped in a blanket since arriving at my parent's house this morning, eaten soup and a toasted cheese bun, and have my feet propped on the warm power adapter for my laptop, and I still can't get warm.  I'm having a flair up of some health problems.  I'm kind of lonely.  I'm thinking about routines and revamping life, and kind of want to scrap everything and run away, even though I know deep within me that that won't fix anything.  The dreams deep within have begun to be researched and I'm resigning myself to the knowledge that they likely won't be as instantly acted upon as I would like.  Where I'm sending out resumes but having a hard time not being fatalistic about the job hunt, even though I've really only been actually putting my resume out there for a couple of days.

And I'm having to remind myself that this is how life works.  That some days are just easier, but I'm responsible for choosing how I respond whether the day is easy or hard.   That I have to choose joy and life on the cold, rainy, lonely days just as much as on the sunny, warm, flowing days.  That just because it's harder and the circumstances seem huge doesn't mean that it's not still my choice.  That sometimes routines are important, and perhaps I should re-engage them.  But also that some need to go.  That discipline, a word I've hated for years, a word that has been used as a weapon against me, describing all of my failings, maybe isn't a bad thing in every situation.  That it might be a good thing here.

I'm having to remind myself that there are little things to celebrate even on the cold and lonely days.  That I'm inside and warm.  That I'm wrapped in a blanket.  That I am loved - by God and by friends.  That tonight I will get to join my house church for the first time in several weeks, and we'll talk and pray and enjoy each other's company, and meet with God.  That there can be hugs in this day - spontaneous ones, but that there are people around who I can ask for a hug as well.  That I'm housesitting, and thereby having a break from the challenges of life at Grandma's.  That yesterday was beautiful and that beautiful days will come again.  And that in between those truly beautiful moments, I can choose to find beauty, too.  To find joy and hope and life.

Some days are just easier, and today isn't one of them.  And that's okay too.  Because I'm choosing to celebrate God anyway.

Tired

Overnight a minor flare-up of "I'm tired of all the crap-itis" turned into a full blown case.

I'm tired of the many, many curve balls that life has thrown my way this last while.

I'm tired of the the politics and the maneuvering and the bending of morals and standards in my place of employment.  There hasn't even been a recent influx of those things.  Just a build-up of long term exhaustion.

I'm tired of relationships that have to be carefully managed.

I'm tired of living (well, it feels like hiding sometimes) in the basement at Grandma's.

I'm tired of trying to come up with ways to smile and laugh at all the ridiculous things that life has thrown at me in the last few months.

I'm tired of feeling like I have to pretend.

I'm tired of being around people (my grandma especially) where I have to carefully watch every word I say.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'll post this, or, if I do, that I'll leave it up.

It's not the choosing differently attitude that I'm trying to embrace these days.

It's more of a wallowing.

And I'll be honest in saying that life circumstances are definitely making this choosing joy and choosing life thing a lot more challenging at the moment.

I'm weary.

I'm even tired of myself.

Really Good Stuff

It seemed like there was a plethora of good stuff out there in the blogging world today, as I made my morning rounds.

Stuff I liked included:

Seth Godin's post on consumer debt.  Amen and amen.  I did some calculating on the weekend, and, given my soon to be carless state, and assuming (a big assumption right now) that there aren't some sudden changes to my living arrangements, I will be out of debt (except for my student loans) within a year.  That, even despite how crappy the situation is that is bringing it about, brought a huge smile to my face.

The post at Homestead Revival on the family budget.  Let me just be clear - I have no intention whatsoever of raising chickens or goats to save money.  (These would actually likely cost me money, since I rarely eat eggs and I don't drink milk.)  I probably wouldn't use a lot of her listed tips.  But, I like the idea of living more naturally and saving money while doing so.

The "Equal Weight" post at Gitzen Girl.  I've only been reading Sara's blog for a little while, but I've come to appreciate her words, and I look forward to the moment when my blog reader lets me know that there's a new post up and ready to be enjoyed.  And not just because I'm absolutely in love (given my daily 5 lists and ongoing goals for the year) with her tagline of "Choose Joy."  I particularly liked this post today because of the message it spoke to.  Yes, take risks, but consider them, too.  I feel like that's a concept I've been weighing this last week as I've navigated the loss of a car that is coming within the next few days.  What are the things that are positive in this?  And am I letting myself properly grieve the losses too?

Today's "Serious Wednesday" post at Stuff Christians Like.  Because I'm definitely guilty of resisting rest.  I talked about that yesterday while reflecting on my friend's reminder to be gentle with myself.  And because I'm in the process of figuring out a way to really set aside a much needed day or two to just rest sometime this month.