What do I even call this?

Lately I've been doing a lot of unraveling.

I'm discovering threads of false narratives that I've had woven through my life, and as I start to pull on them to see what they're really made of, I'm finding out that they're actually dry and brittle and covered with dust. This is a strange and slightly scary phenomenon, because I used to have such strong convictions about certain things--hills I was willing to stick my flag in and die on. But with a little tugging and a little digging, I'm realizing that these hills are actually precariously stacked empty boxes that topple over fairly easily.

It's disconcerting to be at the bottom of a battle you thought you had won.

Unfortunately, I think the scarier part is wondering how people I love and value and treasure and respect are going to react when I finally "out" myself. Will they still love me, and (even more than that) respect me and my views? Will they take the time to listen and wrestle with the things that I have wrestled with? Will they believe me when I say I did not set out to become the opposite of the person I used to be?

All of a sudden I have new battles to fight, new hills to dig into, and new faces in new camps to familiarize myself with. And I'd hope in the middle of all of it--all the battles, all the camps, all the faces--we'd still find Jesus, together. In fact, I'd hope that there would be no more battles and no more camps. Just people who love the same miraculous, holy, GodPerson that came to save us all. Why can't we just have that?

I'm tired of fighting with people. It just makes me tired and weary, and so, so sad. I think it's hard for us to remember (or understand, if we've not yet done it for ourselves) how scary it is to find yourself on the opposite side of a very strong conviction you once held. It's so difficult to see your thinking change with every jarring thought that drives it in even deeper. All of a sudden, this new conviction, this new truth, is everywhere. Headbutting you in the face. Making sure you don't forget and that you don't ever get comfortable. And all your memories start bubbling to the surface, and you begin to realize how colored they were by what you used to believe.

I know this is mumbo-jumbo and so vague, but I don't know how else to explain it.

How else do I explain the searing pain that cuts across my heart every time communion is served and I am reminded that the place I worship in tells me that I may never offer this beautiful sacrament to another believer simply because I am a woman?
Or the tears that fill my eyes when I see people running away from Christ and His perfect love because people that call themselves Christians have felt the need to tell them that they are condemned to hell for loving someone of the same gender?
Or the anger that rips through my brain when I hear people shame teenage girls for being teenage girls and having teenage girl bodies that they need to "cover up" so we can protect our teenage boys from sinning?

I just don't have anything left. And I'm at the point in my life where I'd rather be accused of loving too much and too extravagantly than loving too little. I'd rather be known for being "permissive" than for persecuting. I just would.

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the well runs deep and dry

I've got so much to say, but my brain is like a colander and it just slides right out before I can catch it.

1. I read an article a few days ago where the author talked about how we have this internalized fat-shaming thing going on. We can look at other people and accept them where we are and think that they are beautiful, but when we look at ourselves, we just can't do that. She said, "If you hate the way your before picture looks, do you think I need to lose weight?" insinuating that if we don't like the way we look, do we think that people who look similar to us need to change as well?
I was so struck by that.

Because I look at all the beautiful people I'm surrounded by, and I am so proud of them and their accomplishments. Sure, I see physical "flaws" (society says), but I applaud them for using their bodies and don't judge them or think they should change their appearance. However, I can pick myself apart in front of a mirror in 2.5 seconds and give you a blanket list of everything on my body that needs to change.

Why? Why can I find other people beautiful and worthy, but not do it for myself? My body is healthy and strong, it makes babies and keeps them alive, it loves people well, it goes on adventures and explores, and generally lets me live a wonderful and beautiful life. So why can't I see all of that when I look in the mirror, instead of the layer of fat riding on top of my stomach, or the cellulite all over my thighs?

I become consumed with a sort of panic--I need to change this now! and it deteriorates into, "How can I change (read: become acceptable) myself as soon as possible?" Counting calories, elimination diets, health supplements, any and everything gets thrown onto the drawing board, because pretty soon it deteriorates into being all about appearance rather than taking care of myself.
Basically, I'm having a hard time right now. I feel like a gigantic, enormous failure, because I reached so many goals and finally felt at peace with myself and my body while also improving my health, but now I'm here, 3 years later, and I just feel stuck. I'm tired of the process, I'm tired of picking myself back up after I fall face-first into a pile of sugar, and I want a quicker fix (but am coming back to the fact that I don't think there is one).

2. This video makes me cry every single time I watch it, because it speaks to so many areas of my heart that just feel bruised and battered right now.

Women's roles in ministry (and all of the discrimination/inequality my eyes are finally seeing)

Pursuing your dreams and calling, in spite of logistics

Making room for my husband's calling, and helping him pursue it

I am wrestling, wrestling, wrestling.
I feel like Jacob, when he spent the night wrestling with God, and got so tired, but he wouldn't stop until God blessed him. I can't leave this alone, even if I am injured in the process, because I just need to know. So I keep sweating, and straining, and yelling at God to let me in, let me see, let me hear, because I want it all.

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I was never me

Why is it that women are often so encouraged to give up every piece of themselves for their families or their loved ones, and put being themselves on hold until everyone else is done and taken care of? Why are we the ones expected to raise our children, keep our homes in order, and keep telling our dreams, "Not today, dear ones. Check with me tomorrow."?

There is honor in laying down your life for someone else.
No greater honor, in fact.

But where is the honor if you're not living the life you are laying down?
Where is the sacrifice if you don't even realize what it is you're giving up?

I just finished watching 'Wild'. It was beautiful and it made my heart pound and soar in so many magnificent and uncomfortable ways. I understood Cheryl, identified with her in so many ways. I understand the desire to push grief away, to numb it up so high that you can't feel anything anymore, let alone the pain that's cutting your soul open. But at the end of it all, there comes a point where you realize the only way to stay you, or even find out who you are, is to simply walk straight through it. Straight to the heart of it all, the corners of your mind that you'd rather never see or visit or even acknowledge.

Because how can you know who you are if you don't even know what's hiding inside of you?
I've been in a season of walking through grief, and it lasted for a long time. Years, even. The most secure things in the world were ripped open and shaken up, and I had to decide who I was and where I stood, even when I had no ground left.
Lately, I've been in a season of rebuilding and implementing the things I've discovered. I'm trying my very best to hold onto the things I learned in the fire, and to carry them with me into this new season. But I still think there's more to go. There are things left unseen inside of me, and I think I know this. There are places that I just don't want to go, because they're too dark and too hard and I am so afraid of what is lurking behind those corners.

Who am I, really, in the shadows?
What if I would choose to make the same mistakes?
What if I would choose to change them all?

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On why I am tired of The Church

Oh, I am so weary.
Today I have just had it. The straw that broke the camel's back landed in my bag and I am firmly on the other side of "I'm done".

I am so tired of this Church.

This judgmental, angry, hypocritical, whitewashed church.
The ones who spout love with one breath, and judgment and condemnation with another.

The ones who claim to follow Christ, and yet seem to ignore those great commandments of loving God first and then loving others. (Can we all take a minute and note how we, ourselves, do not even make the top list of people we are supposed to care about?!)

I am so worn out from fighting it, and trying to convince myself that it's not like this, and that The Church is still there and still beautiful, and still in love with Christ. Because right now, when I look around, I see a Church in love with the Law and in love with themselves and this masquerade of Righteousness that they are convinced they are living out. Like the Crusaders, firmly convinced that spreading Christianity means beating other people to death.

I just can. not. take. any. more.

So I'm out.
Do you hear me?

I am OUT, Church.

You can find me in the dens of iniquity, hiding with my LGBTQ family, my fellow addicts, losers, left-wing, liberal, worldly, SINNERS.
Because that is who I am, and this is where I belong. Right back in the place that Jesus plucked me from, so that I can hope and pray that He will use me to help pluck someone else from that place. I cannot hold my head up high anymore and say that I am okay with the attitudes running through the Evangelical Church right now. The judgment disguised as "encouragement", the hypocrisy disguised as care, the moral high ground disguised as leadership. I don't want any part of it.

I love my local church body. I love my fellow Christians who are truly in love with Christ and are genuinely living that out. I love the women that, every day, push me to challenge my old ways and thinking and to make sure they truly line up with Scripture and the life God calls me to live. Those are the people I will cling to and fight the battles of this world with. But I am tired of trying to align myself with others who believe that people are the enemy, and not the evil authorities of the spiritual realm.

I just don't have the energy to hate anymore.

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write what you know

I've been blogging for a long time. A little over ten years actually. In that time, I've gone from being an angsty teen, pouring out her emotions all over the interwebz, to entering a mommy-blogger-wannabe phase in which I really struggled with marketing myself and attempting to monetize my blog and profit off of it, and now finally landing in this strange area where I am so much a mother and so deep in my own mire that I have often wondered if there is any point in trying to keep this thing going.

You may have gathered this by now, but I am struggling with the value and purpose of my own story.

It feels like everyone else, it seems like I have nothing new to contribute to the conversation, and I remain unconvinced that I need to add to the virtual noise that is currently streaming around us.

Unfortunately for me (and maybe you, if you're stuck reading this), I have never, ever, ever, throughout my entire life, been able to turn off the word faucet. I've tried many times, and I've gotten it to dry up to a trickle, but it remains steadfastly flowing and moving, whether I want it to or not. Which always leaves me here, in a quiet room with fingers tapping and a brain trying to translate all the electrical pulses flowing through it into coherent words and sentences, like:

Inadequacy
-This is a supreme emotion, one that tears through my body with free reign, wreaking havoc and chaos wherever it goes. It tells me that I am not enough, have never been enough, and will not ever be enough. It declares, loudly and triumphantly, "You lose, you fail, you fall short, you are worthless for even trying, so just give up already." It attacks at all angles, leaving no area of my life untouched, and no accomplishment unblemished. It has tormented me for as long as I can remember, and even though I feel like I have gotten much stronger at battling it, there are still seasons where it just seems to be lurking around every corner.

Selfishness
-This sneaky bugger whispers that only truly selfish women believe that they should have a purpose outside of motherhood (which, interestingly enough, means that it co-mingles with pride) and for me to take time away from my family, or even feel like I deserve time away, means that I am filled with the utmost of selfish longings and am once again, inadequate in so many areas.

Disappointment
Ah, the sting of an unfulfilled dream and a life left un-lived. Blessed as I am, there are too many moments (selfishness) where I find myself wondering what it is that I'm doing and why. This is often followed by long diatribes in which I moan about how I'm too young to be married and have two children, and mourn the loss of the life I could have had, had I made a different choice: (insert life choice here)

And so there you have it.
The ugly, rambling impulses of my brain that is chronically sleep-deprived, ridiculously overworked, and probably under-nourished. Heaven knows why I'm even putting this out there, but I think it's because I just can't let the toxicity of it all keep building up in my brain and the internet seems as good a place as any to dump your baggage.

Voila, interwebz. The drama continues.

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burn(ing) out

Honestly.

I've tried to write these words down for days and weeks and months, and I get so discouraged because they're the same words that I've been writing, and the same ideas and concepts that other women have been writing, and I just keep talking myself out of it, because who needs to hear the same thing over and over?

Honestly.

I'm in a hard place right now. I'm burned out, I'm emotionally exhausted and mentally spent. I am fighting the comparisons with other women who seem to have found their place and are fulfilled by doing all those things that they say God wants for them to do. I'm embarrassed by my lack of contentment in my life right now and by my desire for a life that has more meaning. 

Honestly.

I'm filling my days up in an effort to feel important, to prove to the world that I have just as much worth and value as everyone else, because look at what I can offer--but really I'm just spinning my wheels and lighting a fire inside of myself that burns so brightly it threatens to reduce me to ash when it's gone. 

Honestly.

There is ugliness hiding here. Ugliness in the shape of jealousy, comparison, discontentment, selfishness, impatience, rage. This heart is a black hole.

Honestly.

I am afraid. I am afraid of who I am right now, I am afraid of what I am on my way to becoming, and I am afraid of what I might miss out on in the future because I didn't work hard enough in the past. I am also exhausted, in a way that is more than just sleep-deprivation. It's an exhaustion of the soul, of the heart--a weary mind crying out, "I give up! I cannot do this anymore, I cannot live up to these expectations, and I'd rather lie here in the dirt than keep trying to play this game of pretend."

Honestly.

I don't know how to write anymore. And that is just one more log on the fire, one more rock to add to my pile. Writing was a gift, a calling, and I feel like I've wasted it. Babies, and housekeeping, and a different life took over and now it's just a whisper of something I used to know. 

The baby is crying, it's getting late, and I know I've got a full schedule tomorrow. And so that's the end of that.

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the luck of the draw (or reader)

Today it occurred to me that every single person out there who writes books and blog posts that command audiences of thousands are still just one single person.

Just one. One person, with their singular thoughts and viewpoints on things, but for whatever reason, the world has risen up to take notice and now listens to what they have to say and values their opinion in some form or another.

How does this process even happen? How do you hit that lucky post or book or paragraph that defines you and draws a crowd, making everyone rise and say, "This person has something valuable to say and we should definitely listen."

Oh fate. What a fickle beast of burden you are.

Today, as I was lying on my bed after trying to get the toddler down for a nap for the third time, I had a moment of overwhelming despair (as is rather common for the stay-at-home mother on a Thursday afternoon). 'What am I doing with my life? No one sees this. No one knows that I'm even here, fighting these little, seemingly insignificant battles that all add up to one very significant life. Is this really all I was made for?'

Don't get me wrong. I know what I do is important. I know some consider it to be the most important job in the world, molding young lives. I know that I am the only mother my children will ever have, that I am the perfect mother for those kids, that what I am doing is worthwhile and worthy.

But sometimes, those creeping moments catch you unguarded, flat on your back with sweatpants on, dirty hair, and a feverish preschooler on the couch, and you are simply stripped bare to your core--"Who am I? Whose life am I living?" We all like to think that we're the special ones, the ones worth listening to, the ones ready to command the world to sit up and notice us--Hear what we have to say, oh Earth! Listen to our lofty and glorious opinions!

Tragically, most of us don't actually get a say, and the world really doesn't care what we think. And sometimes that's depressing and full of despair, but other times it's full of relief. A sigh of freedom, at the end of the night when the kids are in bed and the dishes are done and it's all you had to do. Netflix is waiting, there's a wine glass in hand, and its not up to you to save the world or change anyone's opinion on anything, other than how great 'Gilmore Girls' is. So sometimes this life is enough. Sometimes this body is beautiful, with it's soft edges and it's scars and strong arms from carrying children and creaky knees from a life of ice skating and bending and climbing and running and living. Sometimes this mind is wise, full of knowledge from mistakes made and lessons learned and facts gained from reading, reading, reading. Sometimes this heart is just tender enough, in the face of a sick son, and an accomplished daughter, and a hard-working husband, and a God who is merciful. Sometimes this soul is full up of the things God has done, the promises He has kept and the gestures He has made in this very ordinary, very important, very average life.

Sometimes the words are enough, if I'd just sit down and let them out once in awhile.

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