my non-Christmas spirit and the obligatory yet unplanned end-of-the-year post.

the obligatory year-end post but not really

this post was not planned and anyway this year i am not doing anything obligatory for Christmas.

no planned Christmas light shows, concerts, eve, gifts or carols.

i have read (or at least saved in my read-later list-which rarely gets read, like all of yours if you're honest) all of the reminiscent introspective melancholic end-of-2014 posts that showed up in my news feed. and even then, the competitive spirit of writing one of my own did not kick in.

partly because of my work schedule, obviously the rookie always gets to work Christmas, which is expected. expected is always less traumatic.
partly because of practical reasons like computers bought as gifts because they were needed two weeks ago, florida trips being planned and payed for before Christmas when the tickets were cheap. come to think of it, i could have wrapped all that and put it under a tree and abided by the spirit of the season.
so as i am writing this, i realize that the truth is maybe i really am not in the spirit of the season. the slumber of the competitive spirit may just be the 8th criterion in the DSM IV of depression.

the spirit of the season. i have done the lights and the gifts and the carols before, simultaneously listening to sermons and podcasts telling me that this is not what the season is about. and i nodded, and agreed and still planned outings and took part in the obligatory fun. not putting it down, i mean it was fun and i felt i belonged to the world around me. and i sure hope to do it again next year or next decade, whatever.

but his year God made me stop. MADE me. and gave me His spirit.

see i believe he talks to each one of us, if we listen. and he talks differently to each. depending on how we are wired. elementary my dear watson, right, he has done the wiring. not so easy to believe though.

i am not good at following rules and making wise decisions and He knows that. i am not good at changing my way of life because i agree with a commandment, even if it convicts me. essentially i am not good at repenting and obeying. He has to make me. He has to speak firmly in my ear and He knows it.
in fact He knew this about me before i realized it. He knew this about me even as i was patting my self proudly on the back for "getting" this whole repentance-obedience-submission deal down. i thought i had nailed it.

until i faintly asked him to speak. half desiring it or maybe even less that half. really i just wanted my plans to work out if possible, but by then i didn't have the stamina to make it happen. and those of you who know me, know it takes a lot to run out the stamina.

i asked Him to speak because of the fog in my eyes and the tumult in my ears and the tears in my head. as my plans were crumbling down and i had no more desires to hide in, no more plans to build on, and no more directions to build a reputation towards.
God waited for me to erect all my castles on the sand, waited until all the rejections were delivered and the disappointments exploded, waited until all the coffee was drunk and my head was pounding, until all my adrenaline had run out and my body was exhausted and my eyes were tearful yet defiant. waited until a child ( that i was babysitting) was screaming at the top of her lungs, inconsolable and terrifying, to break all my pedestals and the fences i didn't know i had built, and made me talk to him.

in arabic no less, because in that state who can think in multiple languages. in arabic because its the language of the scared and disappointed child in me, and the language of the angry rebel. not just talking but singing in arabic because it sounds even more sarcastic and irreverent and insubordinate. and also because He knew it would also calm the screaming baby and put her back to sleep.
hopefully someone is laughing by now because really, it was a pretty ridiculous situation. yet so finely orchestrated.

and there started my week of just throwing myself into His arms and His word and memorizing experiencing His presence and reading and enjoying Him and missing Him and running back. really not trying to sound holy here, all of the above have been on my to-do list but never really got done.
because i and we profess to know that He will be there when everything crumbles and that sounds great, but really we are hoping nothing crumbles and we can just stash Him as a very expensive insurance contract in some dusty drawer.

Jesus was born for our sins, but really, the social calendar of Christmas is not an ideal time to ask for sin to be revealed. not when you have all these cards to address. the immeasurable gift of God is what is to be revered but surely, after i'm done with all my social activities to put me in the spirit of the season. that was me, and i suppose will probably be me again, but even if i will just realize it just this one time, i am thankful for this revelation of destructive and blind irony.

and because He delights in giving gifts, because He knows that there is no gift bigger and more enjoyable than Himself but yet He knows that i still doubt and ask questions, He has pointed my attention to everything else He's doing and letting me be a part of.

like the kids that i took care of at church last year who randomly run to me with love and a smile and a hug when i thought that they had no clue who i was, and that serving these two hours a week at church really didn't matter all that much.
like the letter from a patient who i took care of at 11 pm on a weekend, the memory of whom had drowned beneath my fatigue and sleep deprivation, and complaints of a difficult schedule.
like friends expressing that they felt loved and cared for, when i figured that i had just written another antibiotic prescription, no big deal.

so this year has been a roller coaster of jobs and graduations and travel and athletic feats and deepening friendships and mended relationships. mountains that seemed insurmountable until He got me through and the landscape looked beautiful from the other side. trust that wavered when the next hill was in sight. sour relationships and disappointed hopes and wasted time in my book.

what if another lesson for me was to measure time not by the achievement of the end result that i had planned, but by what God has shown me about Him on the way. what if the whole point of failed relationships was to strengthen mine to Him.

i have heard him whisper in my ear and i even wondered why he doesn't try to sound clearer. elementary again, but God has been screaming in the world and in my heart for years. i am thankful that the sound fog lifts a little year after year. i am thankful that i am looking forward to hearing him clearly, His voice and not the echo that my sinful heart blocks and deforms.

this has been so far the most real Christmas season, spirit, joy and peace that i have experienced. i will look forward to the plaza lights and a wrapped gifts next year but this year, i feel i've caught a glimpse of real.joy. which still feels funny considering the actual practical debacle of some circumstances.

and this post that i was not planning to write just had to be written, as a testimony to the immeasurable love, the faithfulness, the strength, the delicate planning, the power, the kindness, the tenderness, the presence of God this year, that just exploded this Christmas in the firework of an intricately weaved plan. that is but a mere glimpse of the glimpse of the glimpse of His plan, from everlasting to everlasting. 

the unexpected chronicles of singleness

yes i'll believe the Lord
His every word is true
and when i hear His voice
i will come close
i'll follow Him
and what He says i will do


how i wish my heart was less fickle. more true to my emphatic musical proclamations.
how thankful i am that He made this song stick in my head as i my brain drowns in a swamp of thoughts and doubts.
every season in which i fall in the auto-congratulatory mode over growth, obedience, and maturity, He is faithful to remind me how much i need the shelter of the cross.
He unrolls the scarlet carpet and gently reveals how i am ever running from Him in a weak remake of the same scenario. each clever attempt more hypocritically pathetic than the last. thankfully pathetic. praise be to Him who brings me back. pouty, ungrateful and irreverent child, stomping over her unfulfilled list of demands.

i run and tackle and hide and fall, and fall, and fall, and hurt: knowing that with one breath, He appeases and comforts and re-focuses the whirlwind. when he ever so slightly turns my face to look at Him, i forget the last two sleepless nights and the cyclone of my imagination. the happiness and hope that i have failed to find all afternoon on social media, are but fading shadows when my heart is filled with His gift of grace and joy.

how long do i have to wait, Lord?
i ask again because the jaded-attitude-of-a-busy-successful-career-woman did not bring the comfort it promised. (surprise!)
i ask out loud, because trusting you means i can forego my pride.
resting in your plan breaks the patterns of despair.
and if i've been silent about struggles to protect my self-confident, self -sufficient reputation and
avoid the aw-s and oh-s and empty words of comfort of the world, i now also ask on behalf of other single women.

if we single women who understand each other's struggles well, if we who just get it, if we don't point each other to Christ, to his sufficiency, to his eternal nature, to his extravagant love, to his finished work, to the example we should be looking for, to the God we are cherished by, and are being made perfect for; to the joy of worshipping Him, to the passion He enflames in our hearts when we look at His glory. to the single God-man who joined our sorrows, the single head of household who toils and weeps with us and is Himself the answer to this particular pain. who else will?


God's plan for you and me, is not about about you or me. i really am not equipped nor created for the weight of all creation to be revolving around me. and when i try to twist an atom of the world to revolve around me or fit the plan that i haven't double-checked with God, i become the twig that snaps.
He may have a man in store who may speak arabic or not know what the mediterranean basin is.
who may have dreads or be bald, drive a harley or an escalade (hopefully not, really. please).
who may love haitian kids or dream of climbing everest ( i wont be going with).

he may this or that: insert all your lists and bulletpoints and dreams and imaginary weddings and ring sizes, career options, musical preferences, physical appearance, geographical boundaries, food restrictions, spiritual gifts, clothing choices, parenting skills, worship styles, and the countless items on THE list we all keep editing, adding to and crossing from, depending on the level of hope placed in the list.


this list does not work. it produces anxiety, endless hours of analysis over maybe's, and shallow relationships defined only by the feeling of accomplishment in laser-ing off the "SINGLE" branded on your forehead.  it is tiring and disappointing and scary.
let's trust the One who made us, who made the world, who made them. let's trust His list.

and let's trust his plan for our lives, man or no man, list or no list. let's work for Him and obsess over Him because that's what we are made for. no wonder other obsessions leave us defeated and empty and exhausted. let's not believe the lie that we are alone or abandoned or forgotten. let's not believe the lie that a created being will love us and understand us better than He will. let us admit that there are things we crave that are missing but that He knows what we need. let us not believe that being single is our biggest problem and that a relationships will fix everything. let us pray to believe He is what we need most. let us not believe that something is wrong with us.
let us laugh together and struggle together and accept together that we don't and won't believe His promises every minute of every day. and let's encourage and point each other towards Him, every time we fall.
let us wish for a wedding waltz but let the ultimate hope always be the wedding waltz in heaven with Jesus.















 

A post that was not supposed to be about what it's about

i haven't posted in a while, busy with overthinking, overworking, overworrying, over to-do listing, over-medicining, overachieving.
i was mentally and physically exhausted by the end of two weeks of consults and two weeks of intensive ICU regimen. mixed with my first 5k run, a road trip to the symphony on the prairie, a road trip to southeastern Kansas for a lecture, and writing ever-renewing to do lists, shifting items around as if re-writing them on a new corner of a piece of paper somehow meant part of that job was done.

read between the words performance anxiety regarding the lecture, achievement anxiety regarding the to-do lists, fitness anxiety regarding finding time to run during all that, religious anxiety regarding not exploding in people's faces when I was tired- as my newfound insight had shown me i have been prone to do for the last 33 years.

oh and the women's conference. somehow in my unplanned post, the women's conference portion did not make my mental anxiety list. elyze fitzpatrick was speaking at church, over 2 days. too long, i just want to sleep! and i need to run! but i have to go. (have to is the most frequently used term in my family)
 
i had never heard of fitzpatrick. i thought attending a women's conference would be cool. (i don't know how i've evolved to this "hanging out with women is good" mentality after preferring male friendship all my young adulthood years, and avoiding overemotional, over analytical and overdramatic female friendships as much as possible. if there was to be any overdrama in my life, i'd be the one producing it. in case you're wondering, no that did not turn out well at all in any of my relationships).

i mainly attend all the events at church that i can to build deeper relationships and because i have realized how much i have to learn. speakers and conferences are an amazing teaching experience, but i have to admit that they cater well to my hunger for hearing about Jesus, mixed with a lazy reluctance to just pick up my Bible and read, or just pick up my brain and talk to Him.

back to the conference. i was physically exhausted but spiritually refreshed. a new baptism i felt. there is something to be said about listening to a woman state repeatedly and sing of Jesus' love for her, and her need for Him, a woman who has theoretically "achieved" all that you, in a dark dusty corner of your head, still believe that you need to make everything right.

marriage, kids, a carrier, peer approval. all of the above will make everything right culture tells us. what a horrendous lie.  i realize the devastating impact it has on my friends and coworkers and random girls i meet when i hear their stories and their longings. the prison it keeps them in and it had kept me in all these years. a lie that even after not-believing-it-anymore, even after putting out trust and hope and happiness in much more powerful hands, we still occasionally lean towards,

fitzpatrick is a strong experienced lady, who has the gift of preaching the Gospel in a slightly estrogen-laden sarcastic manner. the gift of guessing crazy convoluted women doubts and reminds you, again and again -because she knows you are a woman and need to hear things twenty different times and in twenty different ways- reminds you of His love for you.

not love "but maybe he didn't like me as much today", not love "because i did good and didn't explode in anyone's face today", not love "but i still remember all these horrible things ive done and it's weighing me down and i dare not look him in the face" UNCONDITIONAL, EVERLASTING, NEVER-ENDING, ALL-ENCOMPASSING, ETERNAL LOVE.

im not trying to sound like the jesus storybook bible. okay fine, maybe i stole a word or two from there. google elyze fitzpatrick and buy her books. youtube her, amazon her or whatever new app is available since my last techno culture check. it will change your life.  and the beauty of the modern age, is that macho-men-types-what-does-a-womans-conference-speaker-have-to-do-with-me-types (don't get me wrong, pretty attractive types they are) can order books or listen to her gender-clandestinely. i'm sure you have crazy convoluted men doubts of your own too.

what is amazingly obvious is that God tells you that He will change your heart when you start following Him. You don't really believe it. maybe you hope for it, but don't believe its possible. i mean yeah yeah sure he created the heavens and the earth blablabla but this is di-ff-rent, God. I tried to change on my own and couldn't now, could i? yes yes i know You created me and all, you can do all things, but let's be realistic. it's hilarious what condescending little creatures we are to the Creator.

just to say not only He changes you, but every time, you think you've got it, the whole creation/fall/redemption/restoration business, BAM- He slams it in your face in a whole new different way that leaves you panting with excitement all over again.
He knows when you need to be reminded of heart truths that you've packed aside, because you're an intellectual and too busy considering deeper theological or to-do listal issues. He is there in your to-do lists, your failed attempts at non-explosions, your missed runs and your lecture performance.

He is also there in a blog post that was supposed to be about "overthinking" and somehow ended up being about Jesus. hmmm. funny.