Leaning in

The seasons change so fast.

There is a nature park about a mile from my house. Correction. the park is about .7 miles from the house. But most days, when i'm not running, just walking, it feels strange to not have coffee with me. So I make a longer trip to accommodate my needs-to-be-broken- addiction. So this morning, i pulled myself out of bed "early" for my overnight schedule, drug myself to starbucks, ordered my americano and was shocked to find that the person behind me was ordering a pumpkin spice latte. She had 'unlocked' it somehow, which implied to me that she was very special in the starbucks world. Because i certainly didn't have the vaulted access to the PSL syrup, and neither did, much to her disappointment, the woman behind her.

We are in pumpkin spice latte season already?

Although i'm not certain i would venture anywhere near announcing the arrival of fall, i am anticipating it happily. Fall is heavy cottons, books, hot tea, changing colors and earthy smells. It's candles, blankets and quiet, chilly mornings, early evenings. Fall is not so fast, not so crazy, and i need that transition. My internal engine has been running too fast, too far, too long.

I recently was challenged to join this online bible study. The study is on Esther, and in so many ways, i think it comes in perfect timing. I need something to challenge and inspire me, To keep digging in when everything in me is fighting. In the confirmation email that my registration was successful, Jen pointed out something i've heard before about the book of Esther - it's one of two books of the bible where God is never mentioned. And yet the entire trajectory of Esther's story is marked by the loving, leading, hand of the Father. She's a strong woman that has purpose and plan to her life. And i need that hope right now.

I don't feel fulfilled. I feel like i'm a round peg in a square hole. I pray and i cry and I ask, and all i feel is silence and void. In my work life, in my personal life. In my loneliness, in my longing to be a contributor and not a consumer. I don't feel like i fit or belong, i don't feel productive or at peace. I don't feel utilized in any capacity within work, within relationships. I feel weak and pathetic when accounting accounts for every detailed mistake, big or small, and it causes me to finally cry.

I pray and ask and cry and doubt if i'm Gods beloved. Deep in me i am centered - the hope of Jesus, the anchor of our souls (hebrews 6). That matters. But all i know is the struggle. I question the truth of being Gods beloved when i feel so directionless, so helpless, so small, so weak, so lost and confused and alone. How am i supposed to believe and lean on the Lord Jesus when i feel like he's void in my life? I fully believe that he is orchestrating the events in my life, my present, my now, for his plan and purposes. But i am not handling it well. Somedays from the surface i'm surprised to find myself okay, functioning, and seemingly doing well. But sitting on the inner steps of my heart, I know there is much to be done. Much softening, much trusting, much need to remain being honest and not to throw in the towel and build walls of bitterness. I want to remain soft, but i am terrified that the only way i know to be soft will actually ruin the relationships i have with my friends, that being soft will make me to much to handle. That the fears that plague me will push me further into isolation.

Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, wrote this:

"While i was preparing for childbirth, I learned how much of the pain women experience during labor is related to our own fears and resistance to the pain. Dr William Sears calls it the fear-tension pain cycle. Because we are afraid, we naturally hold back and tense up, and then there is more pain, so we experience even more fear, and on it goes, around and around, building with intensity on every turn. To interrupt the cycle, we need to surrender to what is happening, right now. We must lean into the pain instead of resisting it...  

It seems counterintuitive; we should run from pain, right? But believe me: leaning into the pain makes giving birth easier. I should be the mother of seven children, but there are only three tines with us now. Believe this: i have learned to lean into some pain - to let the pain be there, part of me, with out fear, without judgement, without refusal, because this is all part of the struggle of birth and life. And the pain will, somehow, eventually, give way to blessed release and relief and hopefully, joy.

I'll avoid the prescriptives and how-tos for both our sakes. Instead, if you are struggling to break that cycle of fear-tension pain, I'll tell you a bit more about the God i love so wild but remember, the subtext for all of it is this truth: lean into it. Lean into the pain. 
Stay there in the questions, in the doubts, in the wonderings and loneliness, the tension of living in the Now and the Not Yet of the Kingdom of God, your wounds and hurts and aches, until you are satisfied that Abba is there too. You will not find your answers by ignoring the cry of your heart or by living a life of intellectual and spiritual dishonesty. Your fear will try to hold you back, your tension will increase, the pain will become intense, and it will be tempting to keep clinging tight to the old life; the cycle is true. So be gentle with yourself. Be gentle when you first release. Talk to people you trust. Pray. Lean into the pain. Stay there. And the release will come. "

I read that, encouraged, and scared by the reality of truth within that. To be vulnerable and honest is so hard right now. But to not be honest is to remain in the same vicious, insecure cycle.

I chatted with a friend yesterday who over the weekend had a mishap with his road bike. He fell on a turn, without his gear on, which resulted in several pretty sevear scrapes along his side. After a couple days and some slightly scary looking yellow hues, he went to the doctor who instructed him to scrape the wounds down to the point they were bloody again. "The gravel is trying to work it's way out of your body" he said.

I thought about that, and how that is so true to my heart right now. I need the Lord to scrape away the criticalness, the ungraciousness, the hardness from my heart. I need to be softened again, desperate again, willing to let go of my pride and my fear and my self sufficiency and allow myself to be vulnerable enough to cling to my Abba, my Father. I can trust him to do that work.

I have to lean in. Into the "I just don't know."