gentler steps

     A few days ago, I met a caricature of myself in the grocery store. I can still hear the awful click, click, click of her heels on the tile floor.

     She was on a mission, fast and efficient as she crossed things off her list. Click, click, click. Grab something off a shelf. Click, click, click to the next aisle. I don’t think she saw anybody else in the store. At the checkout, she pushed her cart a few feet beyond the clerk and stood tense and taut, reaching behind her for the receipt. I guess she was hurrying home to cross more things off her list. It was a lot easier to breathe after she left.

     I don’t want my steps to sound like hers anymore. I want to take gentler steps. I want to see the people around me, and I want enjoy the small gifts along the way. I want to learn to let life flow with beauty, ease and grace. I want to let go of a need for control that has kept me so often from joy.

     I will practice today, one gentle step at a time.

“She was able to let go of a need for control that had kept her so often from joy.” Belden Lane (of his mother in her latter years)

“Because You are my help, I sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings.” Psalm 63:7

fresher and greener

     This morning’s Fresh Start is different. It is, for me, a very important fresh start. It is the releasing into your hands of a book that I’ve been writing in fits and starts for years. The writing of it has been a labor of love, and the releasing of it is both joyful and scary – joyful because I hope that the book will give others hope, and scary because it shows me as I am, warts and all. But you have been reading Fresh Starts for a long time, so the warts-and-all part won’t come as a surprise to you.

     The book is about grief. I am certainly no expert on grief. The book is only my story. It is the story of how grief, in the wake of my father’s death a decade ago, undid me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. For a long time, grief felt like the enemy, ruining all my self-confidence and competence and leaving me small and scared. But gradually I began to see another side of grief. I discovered that, when I had the courage to accept and even embrace grief’s pain and uncertainty and undoing, the grieving process, against all odds, was fruitful.

     Grief felt like the erupting of Mt. St. Helens years ago. The mountain, once lush and Oregon-green, was left barren and desolate. It looked dead, but it wasn’t. After a while, things started to grow back, fresher and greener than ever.

     And so it was with grief. As I learned to live it instead of trying to “get back to normal,” it changed me. It made me fresher and greener. I can’t explain it. I can only tell my story and hope that my story will somehow encourage somebody else. Here’s the Amazon link in case you want to take a closer look.

“The starting point for many things is grief, at the place where endings seem so absolute. One would think it should be otherwise, but the pain of closing is antecedent to every new opening in our lives.” Belden Lane

the truth

     For a long time, I didn’t know that I needed my friends. I thought they needed me. I thought it was a one-way street. It took them years to teach me the truth.    

     They stuck around through thick and thin. When I had three-days’-worth of things to do in a day, they showed up and did two-days’-worth for me. When I lost something dear to me, they were willing to paw through piles of trash to help me find it. When I got off-track, they nudged me back on. When I didn’t call them back, they kept calling me anyway. They loved me as-is.

     Now I know the truth: I need my friends. I don’t have a chance without them.

“[T]hough he is a very brave and true Hobbit, Frodo hasn't a chance without Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. He will need his friends. And you will need yours.” John Eldredge

“[L]ove one another. . . .” John 15:12

past your limit

     Sometimes things happen that seem too hard to bear. You feel like you just can’t. Period. I felt that way a while ago, and I told a friend. I said, “I can’t stand this,” and she said, “Yes, you can. God never gives more than you can bear.” I thought, “Well, it sure feels like He has this time.”

     But her words stuck with me and I pondered. If God won’t let me be pushed past my limit, why did I feel so scared and desperate? Then it dawned on me: He won’t let me be pushed past my limit, but He will let me be pushed past where I think my limit is. I don’t know where my limit is (and I don’t really want to find out), but God knows, and He won’t let things go too far.

     In the relief of that, a strange and unexpected thing happened. I started to feel safe right in the middle of all the pain and uncertainty. Nothing had changed except my perspective, and that changed everything.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13

right here and now

     Every once in a while, I savor a meal. It happened last Friday. I enjoyed the food and the wine. I enjoyed the table setting and the candlelight. I enjoyed the people around the table. I savored it all.

     Today, I want to be intentional about savoring things. I probably won’t savor the whole day or even most of the day, but I will savor parts of the day. And I will keep practicing, because I want savoring to become a habit. I want to learn to take the “bread” of right-here-and-now and give thanks.

“He took bread and gave thanks to God. . . .” Acts 27:35

“Finding peace of mind, and so happiness, right here and now. Learning to live so that we savor each day, waste none of the precious moments God has given us.” John Carmody

enjoy the world

     I have a friend who, by her own admission, isn’t great at anything, as most people see greatness. She doesn’t make a lot of money or have a fancy resume or do glamorous things. She isn’t famous, and she isn’t powerful. She isn’t a lot of things that a lot of us want to be.

     I have watched her for a long time. I have seen that she is great at one thing, and it’s the only thing that really matters: she loves much.

     I guess that’s why she enjoys much.

“You never enjoy the world aright . . . till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own. . . .” Thomas Traherne

“[F]or she loved much.” Luke 7:47