2013 is The Year of ...

I have been known to hide out when I am in process.  

To hunker down in the fog and then emerge into the clear, seemingly unscathed.

My mom knows this about me. And when I was in college she waited before calling- always waited for me to check in first. But if I didn't? She knew I had gone underground.

And she hates to leave a message- feels 'so silly talking to a machine,' she says. But she left the messages anyhow, always the same: 'Mary Abigail, I'm missing you. Where did you go?'

Most of the time I called back quickly. 'Sorry mama. I've just been busy.'
But other times, I would only have to hear her voice on the other end before cracking wide open. I would cry quiet into her ear, always trying to hold it together. Keep the flood contained. Keep her safe from my burden.

Because I never wanted to trouble her. Not anyone.

I have a few heart friends who always come to me when they find themselves mid-crisis. Call or show up right in that bad moment when the world is all coming down. And I love them like crazy for this, for the gift of being vulnerable. They don't know it's sacred space when they do this: show up at my door and spill it all out for me to catch ... only to offer it back up to Jesus on their behalf. 

And it's not that they couldn't or wouldn't go to Him in their distress. But it's hands and feet they need and it's holy privilege to be safe space in those gut honest moments. I've been called that:  safe space.

And I have been, for the most part. For every person but myself.

And I've always said I work everything out on paper. That I don't know what I think until I see it. Don't know what it all means, what it is all really about until it's over and done. Until the storm has passed. This is only partially true.

The other part? I don't like to flail. Don't like to fail. Don't like to fall apart. Don't give myself that much room. I'm just private, I say. Not likely to come to your door and spill.

Back in school I never let anyone edit my work ... would have taken my words to the grave before letting you mark them up with red ink. Too afraid to show process. To proud to need direction.

I'll show you my A plus ... just not my rough draft.

And fear and pride will play tricks on your heart- keep you all bound up and alone, tell you you are wrong for needing people. Wrong for being in the middle of the journey. Wrong for being a bit rough around the edges. Fear and pride will tell you to hide out, work it out alone, resurface when all is well.

Pride will whisper that just you and your quiet faith is highly spiritual.

Only, God gave us each other...

And I spent the first half of my life showing only the good stuff. Lived out an addiction-to-thin among college roommates for five years. I led bible study and raised my hands at Inter Varsity, covered up my hurts behind closed doors. 

I finally sought out some help. I did it all by myself. And for months, while living with four girls, I drove away to therapy instead of to class. Four days a week I sat in groups and private sessions,  learned it was alright to say 'I'm not okay.'

I just didn't want others to know.

And I had a major breakthrough- found some power in the Word-made-flesh and I stopped being afraid of my own. When that doc said I had years of work to do, I simply told him I wouldn't be back. I had found some new freedom.

My eventual victory was radical and powerful. It was also lonely.
I had no one to share it with, no cloud of witnesses.
I wondered why I'd done it all alone. And every year since, when spring hits and I smell the first whiff of green grass, I'm bowled over by memories of fear and keeping secrets ... and yes, of finding the way.

God's grace.

Because how do you share your greatest joy when you hide your deepest sorrow?
How do you share real beauty when you hide all of the growth?

And we were created by Him and for Him. All of us are His. And so we are family- brothers and sisters around every turn, if we will allow each other to be. We want so badly to belong, to be known, to find safe arms but we stay all tucked in, arms crossed. We keep people out. We show only our best selves, our finished selves- resurfacing when the hard is behind us, when we can tell about how we made it through, how tough it was, how strong we were.

We are terrified to be needy or lacking or a tiny bit broken ... right now.

 I am guilty of this.

And so when my words go underground, you can guess that I've gone there too. Waiting for just the right thing to say. Packaged well. Perfect.

This word crafting- the putting out into the open is risky. And I just don't know how to write words that aren't a bit transparent. They are real and they are all red streaked. And lately, this life is feeling all inked up. Red. With cross-outs and missing verbs and misplaced punctuation.

But it's what I've got to show, even if it's not that pretty.

What rough draft is?

My goal in school was to have no edits. I wanted to get everything right the first time. I equated revision with wrong. Suggestion with failure. I'd turn a rough draft in a day late before I'd turn it in with fixable flaws. I've been that way here- with all these words.

I want them to be right. And staying right takes tons of energy and we spend most all of our lives being mostly wrong- needy, mixed-up, unsure. I think I might write a bit more if I let you see those parts too.
I think I might like that.

I want this space to have a theme and a direction. A purpose. Truth is? My life looks nothing like that. I am all over the place. Could I be all over the place here too?

I could tell you about how I'm always reading six books at once and how most homeschooling days are a sweet disaster. I'd write about Africa and how I have this crazy notion that I belong in war-torn places with war-torn folks; how I'm learning to rest in my 'right now' with these good gifts of young children and a man who loves me in radical, daily ways.

How I have a roach problem and how, honestly, I've acclimated ... made peace with those sneaky buggers; how I really like my exterminator because he says I'm still clean and that's it's all these woods and all this rain and not at all a reflection on my domestic habits.

How most the time I feel like a lousy friend and a mess of a wife, never calling or showing up or showering when I should; how when I do wash up, I turn the water real hot and sit there too long, pray a prayer or two because I'm finally alone and if someones calling me ... well, I won't hear them.

How I love my new church and how I crave the Mass ... can't get enough of communion;  how it's been the most beautiful and quiet journey of our little family's life;  how I am afraid to talk about it, afraid the right words won't come, afraid I'll be misunderstood ... make another red streak on this page.

But here's the thing. I feel some victory coming on. And I can't share it with you if I won't share a bit of the process too.

I want to celebrate wild with you at the end of all of this.

So, for now, you need to know: I'm in process. And aren't we all?

So what do you say? I'll show my rough draft if you'll show yours. Maybe in 2013 you could let some folks into your journey? Celebrate the messy 'right now' together?

And later ... we'll celebrate together, okay?

It will be a red-streaked party called Grace for all of us who are holding out for the A plus.

Friend, you already made the grade. There's no report card around these parts. I'm tossing it out
(mainly because Jesus did long ago and I'm praying that head knowledge will become a heart truth).

And because I'm ready to be safe space- for you. And for myself.

So ...

I'm declaring 2013 The Year of the Rough Draft.

Yes, this is the year to be okay ... right now ... in the process. Whatever it may be.

And I think I feel better already.




 

At Home in 2012 and a review of sorts

Last year at this time, we were deep in transition. A major life-change.

We were quiet. Private.

I was vague with my words ... hoped you might, or might not, read between the lines.
And we named 2012, the way we do each year, The Year of Finding Home.

And it fit so many themes, really. We were homeschooling and we were home. A lot.
I needed to understand this space and these four walls in a new, everyday sort of  way.

I was planning a trip to Africa- finally flying off to a place that has always been home in this heart. And I stood up in Uganda, around a dinner of lentils and orange Fanta and new friends- told them all how I'd been homesick. And couldn't this African soil be home too?

But more than this- Todd and I were on a journey, one that we had been on, collectively and apart, for quite some time. My journey was emotional, nostalgic, and from a deep place I couldn't articulate. His was intellectual ... at first. And in 2011 I told God, alone and from a church pew on Holy Thursday, that I wouldn't ask it of my husband.

He would find his own way if this place would be our home.

I would wait quiet.

Anyways, I feared resentment. Feared misunderstanding from outsiders. Feared change and estrangement. But the Lord weaved and intercepted, gave us friends who stood in the gap. And
He brought this marriage closer still ... walked us further into communion.

And in our Year of Finding Home? We did just that.

But I've been known to go underground when I'm in process. I want to have it all figured it out and then tell you the back story from a place of wholeness. Clarity.

I've also learned over the years that the less process I share, the less celebrating I do in the end.
Because how do you celebrate wonders and victories if you don't first share the trials and the journey?

We've experienced some quiet wonder this year and I wonder if we, if I, could have shared more along the way. Except that I can hear my husband in my head, reminding me ... "Ab, we're not that cool." And while I wholeheartedly agree about the cool factor, I wonder ...

Because the truth is, you've journeyed a bit with me, with us, over the last year. And I haven't been able to write lately because I don't know how to write words that aren't see through. And because I've been nervous.

To some it may just be a church change. No big deal! Especially not big enough to write about.

But for us, it's been a major shift in community, in comfort, in control. Leaving one beloved church family for another just miles down the road ... this has been an ironic homecoming of sorts, full of beauty and full of risk.

This new community is one that my husband never claimed until now, the very one I left at age eighteen- frustrated with questions I couldn't answer, history and theology I didn't understand, and emotion I couldn't articulate. As a teenager, I embraced a new church filled with dynamic men and women, exciting programs and worship, leaders and teachers of the highest caliber. I got to know God. And my husband served on staff and I led young women and we lifted up brand new babies in front of a great cloud of witnesses. We grew friendships and shared life in all its glory for ten years.

But suddenly on Sundays, we pull up to the neighborhood stop sign and we turn right instead of left. 

We miss our people.

Because we are still here! and we are still the same not-so-cool us. But life is busy and common walls on a Sunday, common childcare rooms, common seats in the back/left of the sanctuary? These givens make staying connected a bit more easy.

But what about when you suddenly find yourself in different space ...?

And we asked ourselves the same questions over and over again, up at night, for a year. Why would we ever leave our people? Why would we give up these walls? This worship? Our history?

We were married here.

And our new space doesn't offer the same kind of childcare. Let's just say we've spent some time in the foyer with some kids. And it's a whole new crowd- equally large, equally rooted.

We have felt lost in a sea of faces.

But then this:

In the past year we've also kneeled, shoulder to shoulder. Cried collective gratitude with foreheads in hands. We've been bowled over by the richness of a sensual, sacramental faith. We've discovered liturgy and tradition- how those alone offer us a community without adequate description. And we have found a family that transcends walls and a history that reaches far beyond ours alone.We've walked forward each week, with palms turned up.

We have found communion.

And despite everything- despite the gratitude, the quiet grief, the immense change; despite what we've left down the road to the left-- the God-given and God-grown friendships, the comforts of familiar space, the full-of-Grace-and-Truth teaching we received, the story of our growing-up; despite all of the new questions we can't answer perfectly and the Mystery we've knowingly embraced ... despite it all, we are sure of one thing:

In 2012, we found Home.


Happy New Year, dearest friends. May you find your home in Him in 2013.

Homesick and Happy

I've been back in town for three weeks. It's been twenty-one days since I washed that red dirt out of my toes and out from under my fingernails. I stood long in the warm water here and I scrubbed really well.

But Africa lingers under my skin.

I can smell a world away in the quilt across my lap, but I won't be washing it under any water. I'm too afraid to blur the browns and reds and blues, too afraid to rinse away the scent of His "yes."

And I've been home longer than I was away, can't believe the moments came and went already. There are people, a world away, who have committed their whole lives to a country. A continent. There are new friends who stayed behind, forfeited the round-trip home in order to seek and serve ... indefinitely.



My abrupt arrival and departure barely feel noteworthy ... already back to taming the laundry, attending preschool graduation, blowing up pink floaties for the pool.

I want to multiply what happened three short weeks ago and the longer I am home, the more apparent the gift becomes: my feet were on that soil.



And people have asked if my desire has finally been quenched.

"Gosh, no!" is all I can say. Truth is, the whirlwind trip simply affirmed what I already knew: I love a place and a people now more than ever before. And dare I say it?



It felt a lot like home.

Back in January, over red wine and broken bread, we finally named the year ahead. We had pondered and prayed ... wondered if we were too presumptuous, trying to name a year that wasn't ours to claim.

We agreed on a name and 2012 would be our Year of Finding Home. Mostly, because we were feeling the squeeze ... these walls pressing in with three children and toys and squeals and life rubbing us all raw. We laughed occasionally, sang a little made-up ditty about how we'd been "struck down in the prime of life ... "

And we didn't really mean it, only we sort of did. That tune with just one line made us laugh hard and it lightened the mood when moments seemed bleak.  

 

The Year of Finding Home seemed to fit ... for months we had talked and prayed, felt like Jesus was inviting us into new spaces. And our address didn't change but heart walls were under construction.

Naming the year was like bringing life into focus. We wanted to really see, find out what our home on this side of heaven might really look like. Could we look for Him, see Him, join Him in the now? Could we be at home in Him even when being at home in general was wearing us down?

All the while He was redefining home. When we named our year, we were planning a simple sun-room addition, a quick porch make-over. We thought we might bring in some light.

But He was reworking the foundation. 

And home has a particular scent. It lingers on your clothes and greets you square when you pass through the front door. We were walking into all new territory that felt strangely familiar ... like He had been there before us-- inviting us into safe, sweet smelling space.

We spoke of adoption. We wondered, in barely-there whispers, if a child could find a home in ours.

We held on to our people while bravely branching out to new family. We walked through new doors and looked new brothers and sisters in the eyes ... humbly asked to drink from their cup too.

We committed to homeschooling this little crowd, committed to learning how to live and love well within these walls ... for better or worse.





And the home we spoke of suddenly had many new rooms ... held more than one shade of paint. We spoke of finding home just as the walls were closing in. Suddenly, they began to expand.

So when I cried over Africa again and he said "It's time for you to go," I  thought it odd. Why, in this Year of Finding Home would I fly so far away on my own?

When that 747 touched down in Entebbe I knew:  this too was part of our heart-home expansion.

And I caught His sweet scent there in that Ugandan breeze. Over an ocean and a continent away, I tilted my head back with a quiet laugh. Oh there You are. Of course You are here too ...







Todd had said it before: "You know this trip you're going on? You need to know it's a family affair. We're all in this ..." He had meant it and I had believed him.

Just a few nights later, I pushed back a chair in the open-air dining room. I told new like-minded friends how I named my years and how I felt at home right there in that space, with all of them and with all of that dirt in my toes.

I wondered how. How does a girl feel at home a world apart and under a mosquito net? Away from a man and the babies she named ... the babies who named her? I wondered it out loud to new family in the dark, over lentils and warm Fanta with a straw.

And really, I already knew. Isn't home wherever He is?



So I'm home now and He is here but He is there and so am I. I am here under my quilt with my purple watch still ticking loud. I am there with friends who stayed behind and I am there with women and children and their stories that go on.

And perhaps that sweet scent of home has nothing to do with an African quilt or the breeze over a continent.

Perhaps that scent of home is really just Him--  the sweet Savior who is for all, in all, and through all.

And when we make our home in Him, we too become a sweet aroma to the world. And all those lovers of Him? Don't they fill our lives with His sweet aroma too? And regardless of the soil we're standing on, we can be at home. Him in us. Him through us. Him all around us.

I'm so glad to be home with these expanded walls. And I'm more homesick than ever before.



"You have been our dwelling place, through every generation ..." Psalm 90:1


Friends, interspersed among the rambling are pictures depicting a typical clinic day. Forgive me if you had trouble focusing. I did. Later this week, I'll share some of the sweetest faces you can imagine. I'll also tell a story of shoes ... the shoes that you sent along. Have I thanked you? :)

Finding Home

It was on Day 6 of Advent, back in December, when this little family read about Jacob who slept on a rock and dreamt of heaven. When he woke, he was afraid and in awe at the same time.

"How awesome is this place," he said. "Surely God is in this place and I was unaware."

My oldest girl drew Jacob's ladder that day, the stairs to heaven colored red and blue with the angels ascending and descending. Wings bright yellow. God hovering at the top. She folded it up, put it in her pocket like Ann told us to do-- to remember, throughout the day, that everywhere is a house of God.

Later that night I pulled it out of her pants pocket, was reminded of its truth before tossing denim into the wash. How had I forgotten so quickly? I was certain I had missed Him that day ... because some days I just don't know how to make a home.

Some days home can feel elusive.

And Todd and I have always named our years, faithfully together on January 1. For years now we have performed this New Year liturgy. We sit close on New Years day, communion between us. We eat bread, drink wine. We remember the twelve months behind us, ponder the twelve to come. We confess, ask, laugh nostalgic, offer up this next trip around the sun. We ask for grace and courage. We give thanks.

And recently we've witnessed the passing of years named COURAGE, FREEDOM, MATURITY. And it sounds audacious, I suppose, to name a year that hasn't yet happened. But the naming has become, for us, more of an asking ... a recognition of a need mixed with humble anticipation.

Becasue He has worked on this family's behalf.

But this year, we sat together with the calendar wiped clean and we had no name-- 2012 glaring at us like a newborn swaddled tight. Infant hope all wrapped up in endless possibility.

And nameless.

This nameless babe has haunted me for nearly a month. I haven't been able to move on, figuratively speaking. For the first time in years, the weight of a name is weighing me down.

But on Day 6 of this new year, one month after my oldest put that ladder in her pocket, my littlest one stirred something in me. On the day of the Epiphany, I had one.

We were talking about church and how it is a building and how it is also God's people, inside four walls and outside as well. This concept is difficult and I wondered if she was tracking. Then she asked me if it was the same as "that story." "You know, mama? The one with the rock pillow and the stairs and the angels? Not just church, but everywhere is God's house."

I remember how Jacob woke up afraid that morning. And amazed. With fear and wonder mixed together, he got up and declared that place God's house. Awe at what he had seen, fear at what he hadn't understood, wonder at God's presence and the promise ahead of him. All the while, he had a knowing that he was on holy ground.

God there in the mystery.

And I wonder if fear of the unknown (un-named) could be holy wonder too? God here, sprawling across empty calendar space, taking up residence in my nameless days ahead.

I go back and read Jacob. And when he woke he went on his way, but not before making a proposition:

"If you'll be with me and watch over me, if you'll provide for me then you'll be my god. And all that you give me? I'll turn around and give it right back. And this place of rock hard sleep will become your house.  If you'll get me home, I'll declare this place a house of God."

Only this: God had already told him, "I will bring you back to this land. This is the land I will give you." Jacob wanted to get home and God said, this place you named 'House of God' will be your home.

Your home will be wherever I am.  

And in the first four weeks of my nameless year, I've been thinking on this idea of home without even knowing. Conversations and books and prayers and encounters, all pointing not to a place but to a reality. "You have been our dwelling place..."

It's nearly February now and Christmas is lingering under my skin; this God who came down to dwell among us, within us, is reminding me again and again that home is wherever He is.

And so it is one month late and right on time that I'll declare this year The Year of Finding Home.
Because there's a stirring here within these walls and we're sensing that home is far more than where we lay our heads. It's a mystery and it's lovely and the welcome embrace is safe, sure and strong.