Not About Me

A while ago a dear friend of me sent me a link to a post that Sarah Markley had written.  I loved the post, and immediately subscribed to Sarah's blog, and have been loving it ever since.

Late last week Sarah posted this post "It's SO not About Me".

And oh, boy, do I identify.

I work to hide it, and I rarely vocalize it, but I'm totally insecure.

If I haven't heard back from a friend about something, I do not immediately assume that they're busy or out of town.  My thoughts immediately go to, "I must have done something," or "they're avoiding me" or "I'm an obligation and they don't really want to spend time with me."

And then I talk myself down to "oh, they're really busy, or out of town or whatever."  Sort of successfully.

It's almost never totally successful until I actually hear from that person that they've been busy or away or whatever.

I liked Sarah's solution of offering grace.

Lately, the big lesson has been learning to offer that to myself. 

To have the security to believe that I am loved.  That my friends aren't friends with me because it's an obligation.  That I am surrounded by people who are loving on me, caring for me, and supporting me.

It's a lesson in grace - and a reminder "It's not about me."

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 78

Today's Daily 5:

1. Watching the clock flip from 11:59 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. and welcoming November 1st
2. Starting this 5th anniversary with a text message from a dear friend
3. knowing deep joy and peace
4. A beautiful book sent from a friend, inscribed to me by the artist, so specially appropriate for today
5. having flexible plans
6. "If the impact doesn't kill you, the sharks will"
7. tea this afternoon with a long-time friend
8. a lovely handmade collage/card from that friend (one of the few who was at the big party I threw to celebrate the first anniversary of healing all those years ago!)
9. getting the news that I had been hired for a job I'm quite excited to do
10. receiving an anniversary text from my dear friend and former roommate L, currently living in the UK
11. Feeling well enough tonight to go out for the evening (not bad since earlier in the day I'd been feeling very unwell from some food I ate yesterday)
12. the twinkling lights downtown
13. eating Subway for dinner - I haven't had it in ages... so good
14. a brief text message exchange with my friend J. - the friend who was with me in the car 5 years ago tonight, who let Jesus use him in my life so powerfully that night
15. attending a "Concert of Hope" - seemed an appropriate way to end the evening - hearing about ministry themed around hope, and worshiping
16. kazoos - nothing quite so funny as a great song with a kazoo solo!
17. time to simply sit and pray for friends today
18. comfy clothes
19. a hug from a friend
20. one last night's break from Grandma's house

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.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 77

Today's Daily 5:

1. Spending some time at church this morning chatting with my former roommate J and her husband
2. "Mighty to Save" and "God of this City"
3. Listening to T preach on the reformation
4. a couple of honest conversations with people who've known me forever at the church today
5. funny youtube videos
6. reading on the bus for a few hours again
7. the moment when the sun finally came out from behind the clouds
8. treating myself to fast food
9. laughing still over some emails
10. watching episodes of Grey's
11. praying friends
12. a "non-traditional" friendship, and the laughter and encouragement it has brought to my life
13. a relatively peaceful halloween
14. grace
15. big realizations about caring for myself

Re-formation

It's time for the post I seem to write every year on October 31st.
The "I celebrate Reformation Day and not Halloween" post.

So, let me start here - last year a friend of mine who is Catholic informed me that she really didn't appreciate Reformation Day any more than Halloween.  I believe her reasoning was something along the lines of "why celebrate the beginning of truly incredible schisms and disunity in the body of Christ?"

Fair enough.

To be honest, I think that's maybe a good point.

But it's not so much the great schism that I think about on this day, but the idea of being reformed.  Re. Formed.

Made again.

Made new.

This year especially, after all of the changes that have come, after finding my life entirely deconstructed and myself duckless, I am enamored with the idea of being re-formed and made new.

I think about this every year on the eve of my healing anniversary anyway.  Because if there was ever a day that was one of reformation, that day was it.

So today I'm thinking about being made new again.  It's not a new theme, really.  The idea of rebirth, of practicing resurrection has been coming up constantly for the last few weeks.  And I'm pausing today to think about it.

That said, the history geek in me thoroughly enjoyed hearing my baby brother preach on the reformation, and being people of the book and being made new this morning.  I don't often go to dad's church on Sunday mornings these days, but I did today, to hear my brother speak.  The part of my heart that loves the universal church, the Catholic church, celebrated that he didn't focus on the schism, but challenged the congregation to ponder whether they were still being reformed by their time in the scriptures.

The part of me that is a history geek, and spent four years getting a degree in church history, focused primarily on the church in the reformation period, though, had to laugh when he stopped by this afternoon and made sure to show me a funny youtube video on the reformation that he had come across while researching for his sermon this week.

And so, as I pause to consider being made new, I'm also laughing at this humorous retelling of history in polka form.



I don't really "celebrate" reformation day any more than halloween.  But I do want to continue to stop and ask Jesus to be making me new.