Dearest Daughter,

You have inner and outer beauty. I’m so excited that you are really starting to see that.

You were created perfectly. However, your sin nature and that of the world’s has brought you down some challenging roads.

I’ve been there with you every step of journey. Sometimes you came up running to hug me. Other times it was quick wave and a smile. You and I longed for so much more.

Daughter, I am redeeming you.

You don’t know what I have planned.

But guess what?

It’s GREAT! Beyond your wildest expectations.

You are still learning to trust Me. And that’s okay.

You move slowly. But I see you taking risks.

Don’t stop.

Keep reaching out and letting love in.

Accept rejection as part of the plan to building a new community for yourself.

Continue to write.

I know you think you have nothing left to write about. You told me that you never wanted to write again. But, I gave you a gift for communication and encouragement.

You say that you are out of ideas.

Yes, YOU are. But, I have oodles for you to share.

Trust me to reveal myself to you.

Be still.

Be available.

Get comfortable with the quiet, and surrender.

I am the artist. You are my paintbrush, my dear daughter. I will bring bold colors and patterns into our portrait.

You will want to know what this portrait will look like. But doesn’t the mystery of art unfold through the creation process?

I am making all things new.

I ask that you be open. Resistance in the past has served you well. It allowed you to go at a pace that was comfortable for you.

Start learning how to be uncomfortable. I will be there with my hand on your shoulder.

Little butterfly, it’s time to fly.

Love,

Your Heavenly Father

“We humans are about 2/3 water. Each of us contains about 40 liters (or quarts) of the stuff, and each liter weighs a bit over 2 pounds. Our bodies effectively regulate fluid balance by adjusting urine output and sense of thirst, but this is done within a 2-liter range.

Within this range, your body doesn’t really care if it is up to a liter above or below its ideal fluid level. What this means is that we all live inside a 4-pound-wide grey zone, so that from day to day we fluctuate up or down.

This happens more or less at random, so with any one weight reading you don’t know where your body is within that fluid range. Your weight can be the same for 3 days in a row, and the next morning you wake up and the scale says you’ve gained 3 pounds for no apparent reason.

For people who weigh themselves frequently, this can be maddening.”

Source: The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Living

Thanks to Healthy Living How To and Verdant Health Inc!

How do you measure *your* Self?

When you take care of yourself, you are filling the pitcher with water.
When you are taking care of others, you are pouring water out.

You cannot pour water from an empty pitcher.

You can only pour out what has previously been filled by you.

Fill your pitcher &, then, and only then do you have plenty to pour.”

~Christie Inge, “Hungry for More”

Image

How do you fill your pitcher?

There are Tears in Community

There is hustle and bustle

There is quiet

There is wondering

There is assurance

Why do I reject it?

Why do I crave it so?

I reject it because it means that I might not be accepted.

I reject it because relational risk seems like suicide.

I crave it because I was created to be with people.

So I might Grow.

So I might give

And Take

Showing people your soul

Laying out your unmet needs

Is

Paper-thin hopes

Crackling

When you don’t fully know yourself

It’s hard to show others who you are.

But

Maybe that’s part of being in community

Getting to Know ME

In the supported circle of others

Maybe they are getting to know themselves as well

I won’t know

Until I ask

Until I show up

Until I breathe in the undiscovered love around me

Relational Risk ~ Suicide?

Really?

Suicide is gone forever, no more feelings, no more hopes, no more dreams

In Suicide you lose yourself

With relational risk

I lose

That Girl That Hides

She must go

I don’t have any more hopes and dreams for the hide-r

The blooming bud is where I am now.

Soaking

In the Love

Getting rooted In

a Family

The Word

Traditions

A New Focus of Eternal Values, as opposed to earthly materialism.

Some Day I will form My own seeds and disperse

Is it possible I might be doing that now?

This cycle continues

The give The take

The supporting the encouraging

I’m taking in love, I’m giving My Story, My Hopes

The Girl That Hides

Must Be Acknowledged

Must Be Heard

And reminded

That God has plans for for Her

A message to share

About Not Using Food

And Being Fully Alive

Must the Girl in The Bottle Leave Forever?

Is it truly suicide?

Or might I come back to her from time to time

When I need to

She may have a new role

New Employment

She may be the one to re-energize me

To honor the sacredness of the quiet

She may leave, but not be forgotten entirely

She will nudge me

Letting me know when it’s time to go inside

A Peaceful Place, no longer a Cocoon

The glass bottle will be broken

She will wait for me

Offer some tea

And let me slumber

Away from the Noise

Of that Much Needed Community

Yelling, Screaming, Anguish

The scene?

A church meeting about six years ago.

I cannot tell you the heartbreak I endured as Christian men and women, whose children I had grown up with, whose leadership in the church was greatly admired and respected, did battle with each other.

Feeling Alone

Sharing Deeply

Met with Stares and Ambivalence

I was seeking safe people within a small group Bible study.

To my surprise, these women, with whom I’d “done life with” were unreceptive, shallow, & curt in their responses.

These situations lead me to falsely believe that Christians are DISINGENUOUS people who will always let you down.

Always.

When I teach the skill of fact and opinion to my third graders, we look out for black and white words like ALWAYS, NEVER,  & EVERYBODY.

But somehow …

In my thinking …

I overlooked what I teach on a regular basis.

It’s like that taking the yoga off the mat idea.

It doesn’t always happen.

Oops there’s that always again.

The fact is that Christians are Messy. The fact is that some Christians are authentic, and some are not. Some want to be, but don’t know how because that was never modeled for them.

The fact is that Christians have passionate disagreements that cause them not to want to worship together anymore.

For some reason after that church meeting, a part of my perfect childhood dream in my head died.  The dream of: I had the perfect church experience. The dream of: all of my childhood heroes would worship together here on Earth indefinitely together.

Did the lies keep me hidden? Or did the lies cause me to hide?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I believe that God came to save the Messy. But what I mean by messy is: the poor, the addicted, the handicapped. Not: the mean-spirited, the cheaters, & the liars.

But, He came to save everyone.

Part of Christianity is accepting that you will never be perfect this side of heaven. I really have no issue with that. I’m with myself 24:7, so I completely understand that while I strive to my like Christ, I’m not actually going to be LIKE him until I am with Him.

But…

What about accepting that OTHERS (even faith giants) will never be made perfect this side of heaven?

The church is made up of other messies just like me.

Writers Note: This post was partially inspired by Mike Yaconelli’s Messy Spirituality, which I read a number of years ago.

It’s comfortable.

It’s cozy.

It’s totally unfulfilling.

It’s lonely.

It’s full of numbing out and not wanting to feel or be in my body.

Cocooning.

Living in a fog, is great in the moment, but over a lifetime? Disappointing.

I found myself diving into isolation because

People had failed me.

Godly people.

Because taking relational risks was such a burden.

Because I hated myself.

Now it’s time for me to spread my wings,

To grab onto God and His People.

To start trusting,

That He has a plan

For my life

For my relationships

For my desires

I’m at a place where the need for connection is so much greater than the fear of not being accepted and not being heard.

Inviting God into these moments seems to be my only solution. Everything the world has to offer has left me in that place of isolation.

As I seek God for His role in the next chapter of my life, I need His People surrounding me, leading me, encouraging me, and challenging me.

How do I do that?

Pray.

Breathe.

Be Open.

Be Available.

As I attempt to tip-toe out of my cave, I see that my period underground has been a beautiful thing. Not every moment, but over all, I look back with pride and admiration of the person I am becoming. I think I am very tired of hiding. But, it’s so scary to peek out under all these layers of physical & emotional weight.

It’s time to continue to emerge from the cocoon, if even for just a moment. So that I might reveal my True Self, the Self that God sees.

I need and desire a “necessary ending” with my relationships. My old habits do not bring me the results I desire. I need to revolutionize and prune these people, things, and habits that just don’t do it.

I’m in a period of trying new things, challenging myself, keeping what works and getting rid of what doesn’t. It’s evolution & growth.

My soul has to change.
My soul responds to kindness.
My soul responds to love and deity.

My soul cries out for Her Creator.
And the creator is about holiness.

Jesus is enough.
But it doesn’t feel like that all of the time.
And that’s when it’s time to move from a shallow faith to one much more deep.

Lord,
Forgive me for my lack of faith, my tendency to hide, my selfish nature, and loveless actions. Help me to be You to others, instead of consuming my time by filling myself up with things that have no value. Give me what I need to do your will. Help me to Trust You. Help me to see you in the tapestry and poetry of my life.

Attending church is a nightmare for someone who struggles with social anxiety.

It’s the before part: will someone say hello? What if someone DOES say hello? Where do I sit?

It’s the passing of the peace: The Lord Be With You, and Also With You. Do I have to initiate? Am I saying the words correctly? Do I sound nervous? Do I look like a loser? Can I sit down now?

Communion: Am I sorry enough? Am I grateful enough? Do I have to stand in line? What if I don’t know what to say to the communion minister? What are the right hand gestures? Oh, I can’t take communion if I’m not baptized? Are people going to look at me weird, & judge me because I can only receive a blessing? What if I don’t go up at all? Then people will wonder, “What mortal sin did she commit that she can’t receive communion nor a blessing?” Will people trip on me as I sit down, though they need to pass me in the pew to get to the communion line?

And the after: where is the nearest exit? Can I escape now? Do I have to make small talk? I hate small talk. I’m not good at small talk.

Then you get to repeat it every Sunday.

It’s exhausting.

There are so many reasons why I’ve stayed away from church. It’s the mind games I play with myself: the self-judgment & the perceived outside judgment of others.

But, really, it’s about hiding.

Hiding from myself.
Hiding from God.
Hiding from community.

And yet there is a longing.

To be known. Fully.

I’m entering a new stage in my life. I can’t hide behind my body. Or maybe I just don’t want to. Maybe I’m realizing that there is more to me than just this earthly shell.

Community: it terrifies me and yet I crave it so deeply.

I read a book by John Ortberg many years ago titled Love Beyond Reason. It was during a time when I was so filled with self-hatred. There was a quote that really stuck with me,

“You will seek me, & find me when you seek me with all your heart,” God says. But that is not the whole story. I’m not just a searcher. I’m also a hider. You too. We have to come face-to-face with our tendency to hide, to get lost.”

For so many years I’ve stayed hidden.
Away from Church.
Away from my Self.
And away from God.

I hide from God because I doubt His plan for my life. I have a false belief that surrendering to His plan means staying fat, dull, and single. Even as I write this, I kind of chuckle a bit out loud. I would think that the Lord God Almighty might have a bigger plan than that. I blame God for my circumstances, even though my sin nature is very much a part of my current circumstances.

It comes down to my view of Self, which is that there is something inherently very wrong with me. I’m not talking about a sin nature here. Or salvation. My view of Self is that I was created wrong, or what I perceive to be wrong, that God may see as right.

How can I learn to see what He sees, and latch on to that?