Ash Wednesday

I just experienced my first Ash Wednesday and am completely blown away by how I’ve been completely missing one of the richest aspects of the Easter season by never observing Lent. I didn’t grow up in a church that observed Lent and honestly I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never taken the time to understand it’s purpose beyond a good excuse for people to dietarily give something up that they wanted. Well, no longer!

It’s no coincidence that I experienced my first Ash Wednesday after just recently completing a 10 day version of the Daniel Fast, which was the first time I’ve ever had the desire or felt prompted to fast for a spiritual purpose (or really fast at all – let’s be honest – homegirl loves her food). At the very heart of the Lent season as well as fasting is to practice the art of denying ourselves, to resist serving self in order to limit the things that distract us in order to prepare our hearts to receive and hear more from God. What’s that quote? “If you truly seek understanding, then first, empty you cup.” As my pastor taught tonight, the 40 days of Lent has been given to us as a template of time for intense preparation for Christ, as a time of quarantine so that we may empty our cup for the purpose of learning.

I never cease to be amazed by the way God weaves from multiple sources what point He’s trying to drive home in my life at any given moment in time and at this moment in time, I am learning the discipline of self-denial, specifically in the form of fasting for the purpose of knowing Him more. That has taken several shapes over the last 6 weeks and the one that I have yet to follow through on is writing more consistently, be it journaling or blogging. That said, my church is participating in West End Presbyterian’s Lenten Readings and part of my resolve for this Lent season is not only to follow this reading plan but to blog and/or journal how God is using those passages and the other things happening in my life to draw me nearer to Him. I know I for one can’t WAIT to see what God has in store.

Walk with me as we prepare our hearts for this Easter season. May it be rich and transformative and teach us a deeper understanding of what it means to lay down our lives. God do in us what you want to do through us. To follow along with the readings yourself and read more about the meaning of Lent check out http://lentreading.wordpress.com/the-meaning-of-lent/.

It’s a New Dawn, it’s a New Day

and I’m feeling good! I’ve always loved this song and it feels apropos as this new year, 2012 gets rolling into full gear. There’s always something so magical, mystical and profound about the dawning of a new day and I think much of that has to do with the refreshing sense that the day is fresh, new and open to possibility. I think that’s also why there’s so much excitement, hope and resolutions made at the beginning of a new year. There’s a hope and promise that the new year will be better than last and there’s a feeling that you can wipe the slate clean and start over.

2011 was a rough year. Rough emotionally, physically, professionally, relationally, you name it but before I was able to say out with the old in with the new, I found myself meditating on the year and praising God for the spiritual and personal growth that manifested through the depths of my brokenness, confusion and pain, the new relationships that were formed and the seasoned relationships that were healed and/or grown. As I’m being reminded from multiple fronts, trials are meant to grow us up, to call us to put our belief into action and to draw us closer to our Heavenly Father. Though I am extremely excited about the new dawn and new day that 2012 will bring with a move, new jobs, new community and new lessons to be learned I am thankful that the biggest thing I learned and will treasure from 2011 is how to be content and thankful for where I am, how to be still and know that he is God, how to rest and abide in the Lord and how no matter what’s going on in the crazy world around me, I have amazing friends and family that love me and remind me of how truly blessed I am!

And who knows….a lot of great blog potential came out of last year so you may actually see me post more than once this year

Merry Christmas!

Being that Christmas is my all time favorite holiday, when my dear and incredibly gifted friend Janie asked me to contribute to her 2nd annual “12 Posts of Christmas” by either sharing a Christmas tradition, what Christmas means to you or what things come to mind when you think of Christmas along with your favorite Christmas song I knew I had to participate. It’s incredibly hard to capture the full essence of what makes this holiday and season so profoundly magical but my attempt is below .

Merry Christmas!

I love every morsel of the Christmas season. I love the smells, picking out a fresh Christmas tree, decorating our home, playing Christmas music ad nauseum, baking and planning holiday meals, family traditions new and old and the feeling I get when I’ve successfully found or created the perfect gifts for my loved ones. I love Christmas shows, holiday parties and the doe-eyed look kids get when they sit on Santa’s lap. There’s something inherently magical about the season that makes it impossible not to have joy in your heart and a twinkle in your eye.

Even more magical and awing to me is how Christmas turns our thoughts toward the humanity of Jesus. So often Jesus becomes somewhat of a distant figure because of our attempts at reverence that we forget how incredible it is that out of a messy, dirty, stinky barn came the Redeemer of the world. How true is that of our lives when we pay attention. Is it not the “dirtiest” places of our hearts and lives that God bursts through with his light and brings the greatest healing and redemption?  The hope and expectation of God’s people fulfilled by the birth of Christ reminds us that no matter our circumstances or the brokenness in our life and the lives around us, God keeps His promises no matter how fantastical or impossible they seem. In the form of a baby! In a manger! What a gift that Christmas represents the ability for us to grasp God’s humanity, to realize how accessible he is to know, love, trust and adore. A realization so magical and permeating that even the roughed-up crevices of our heart can’t ignore.

There is no song more powerful and more representative of this to me than a live duet of “O Holy Night.”  The simple melody and piano score that crescendos into glorious harmonies and that heart-stopping climax captures so perfectly the magic, reverence, glory and awe of Christmas. I can’t help but be moved by the beauty, the stillness and the promise it represents. The promise fulfilled by the birth of Christ.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born.

 

Trust

Trust is not my default setting. I am a doer and a fixer and my life generally revolves around what I can do to control a situation or at least how a situation makes me feel or appear to others. I was talking to one of my dear friends last night about how at the very core of every struggle in our lives is an inability to trust that God is enough. We trust God when things are going well or according to our plan but when they don’t or when God doesn’t show up for us the way we think he should, we get pissy, unsettled, depressed, angry and throw a tantrum just like a toddler whose mom won’t let him have the toy he wants. Isn’t it funny to think how we shake our heads at the ridiculousness and selfishness of that behavior but then in the very same breath feel slighted by what we think we deserve out of life but aren’t getting. Clearly God doesn’t realize all that we’ve done for him, all that we’ve sacrificed, how hard we’ve worked.  Though we cognitively know that this selfish, entitlement logic is preposterous, it creeps in and our ego runs with it convincing us that we’ve been wronged.

Along with feeling wronged comes hurt and if that hurt goes unchecked, bitterness. This can show up in a thousand different ways- a failed relationship, a lost job, financial problems, family hurt, disillusionment. It doesn’t really matter how it shows its face, it will and when it does we have the choice to fight for ourselves or trust that the battle has already been fought and won giving us the freedom to let go and experience everything that life’s joys and pains have to offer.

Within that freedom comes peace, purpose and a deep gut sense that regardless of how the odds may be stacked against you, everything will work itself out. Most of the time when we’re experiencing what I call consternation of the soul, if we’re honest with ourselves and stop to listen to the small, quiet voice within, we know that trusting that voice, however confusing, unknown and scary it is, is a far better alternative than the spiritual, emotional and physical fatigue caused by our ego-driven resistance.

Rest

Not an easy thing to do for a person who’s been moving 100 mph, full speed ahead for the last, well forever. I think this is in part due to the fact that inherent in being able to rest is the ability to be patient and disciplined and though I’d like to think otherwise, my nature is not a patient or disciplined one.

When I looked up the definition of rest in the dictionary, what I found most interesting, besides the fact that there are over 50 definitions for rest, is that there are more definitions for rest as a verb than there are for rest as a noun. Well that’s convicting and reminds me of when I was hit over the head by a ton a bricks a couple months ago when I was listening to Mariannae Williamson’s The Gift of Change-she was talking about how people will come up to her after her talks and events wanting to know how to find the peace and direction of God in their life. She asks them, “do you do a serious prayer and meditation practice everyday” to which people always respond with “well, no” and she says “funny, i knew you were going to say that.” She further goes on to say that if we meditate sometimes but not always then it will seem to us that God helps us sometimes and not always. If we pray and mediate to God on some days and not all days than we will feel the peace of God on some days and not all days. If we go to God only when we’re in trouble then of course his help seems inconsistent yet the inconsistency lies within us. The more time we spend with God, the more time we develop our spiritual musculature and the stronger we become at dealing with the challenges of life. The closer we get to God, the closer he gets to us.

Einstein says “we can’t solve the problems of the world from the level of thinking we were at when we created them.” The only way for our level of thinking to change is through prayer and meditation. If I want rest, peace and patience to characterize my life than I must actively rest, pursue time and avenues to be still and discipline my mind and body to receive truth, peace and direction. I still don’t really know how to do this well but as I’m annoyingly learning in several areas of my life right now, it’s a process. It’s normal to feel agitated before we feel peaceful but I’m learning that feeling agitated is just a point in the process that must be endured before it passes and rest, peace and grace becomes all-consuming.

Contentment

“We can only become more than we are when we’re  content to be simply who we are”

This is an incredibly difficult concept for our hearts to grasp. It’s much easier to focus on who we should be, where we should be and what we should be doing rather than to rest and be content with who we are, where we are and what we’re doing.

My last six months can be summarized by this beginning quote in Elizabeth Lesser’s Broken Open, one of the myriad of books I’m currently reading:

“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Sometimes it seems that in order to overcome our need for control and self-sufficiency God takes us through a season where we have no choice but to be stripped away of all that’s known and comfortable in order to finally listen to that still, small voice that our monkey minds have become too undisciplined to hear.

Even though I don’t wish to relive the hurt, pain and confusion of the last several months, I’m grateful for the way it’s been preparing me for this month of (mostly) solitude. It’d be very tempting for me to feel anxious about this time off, to want to use it perfectly, to obsess on figuring out what in the world God is up to in my heart and my life but as I first stated, I’m learning that the only way to become who I want to be is to trust that I’m exactly who I am (and where I am) supposed to be at this moment in time. I believe that  the masterful, loving God of the universe creates time and space to hang out with us and more important than trying to figure out who we’re supposed to be and what God wants us to do is to remember that we’re already perfect in his eyes and that the only way to grow more into who he’s creating us to be is by receiving the blessing of God’s love and call to relationship wherever we are, in whatever situation, whatever circumstance.

Sometimes he has to bang us over the head and our circumstances have to get so unbearable that our soul literally screams at us to pay attention but when we do, when we let the pain and risk of blossoming overcome the pain and fear of remaining still we realize that God is really not that far out of reach at all, nor is the path to becoming more than we are.

Aloha!

Step one of learning how to be a blogger, create a blog- check. Step two of learning how to be a blogger, post more than once every 4 months- fail. Haha, well here I am four months after creating a blog without writing a single post. Granted, it’s been an exceptionally busy four months but it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be to just sit down and write- to get over that initial hump of figuring out what and how to write knowing that people may actually be reading…so I’m just going to pretend you’re a journal for now and work from there .

It’s 6:30 AM here though my body registers it’s somewhere between 6:30 AM and 12:30 PM because I’m just on day three of what’s turning out to be one of the best vacations ever. I’m currently sitting on the balcony of our room overlooking the breathtaking Hawaiian scenery while watching the sun bring to life the palm trees, the birds and the runners getting an early start to their morning routine. I’m here with my family this week and next week Adam and I get to stay for an additional week by ourselves. Can we say second honeymoon?! Hopefully this one will be less dramatic and incident free! It’s been amazing so far. Monday was probably the first time in I don’t know how long that I truly relaxed, enjoyed life and didn’t let my mind wander to the myriad of stressors in my life. A local guide named CJ took us to northshore where we went on two dives, swam with sea turtles, were on the set of lost and had famous hawaiian shaved ice. I haven’t dove since the last time we were in Hawaii which was five years ago but it’s just like riding a bike and it was incredible to be enjoying the beauty of Hawaii 50 ft deep in the pacific. CJ was an incredible guide and took us through caves and caverns and even found us an octopus to play with. I would never have thought that having an octupus on my face would ever be something to check off of a list of things to do- but it should be on yours because it was so cool! This is also probably been the best time with family I’ve had on a trip in a long time too. Actually, I can’t think of the last time we took a trip with the family that wasn’t to one of our living places at the time- it has to be several years by now. My family truly is incredible and I’ve already being able to have such great one-on-one time with each one of them and be amazed at what God’s doing in each one of their lives. I’m starting to see more and more what a blessing it is that after almost 10 years of being a nomad I’m back in Charleston with the opportunity to pour into my family’s lives in a way I have never been able to before. Coming back to Charleston has always been an unknown and a partial source of anxiety for me for a number of reasons but every day that I’ve been back in Charleston I get more and more excited about being there and insight into why God has us there. Speaking of, I’m a doctor now. WHAT?! I graduated from Logan April 24, 2010 and can truly say that I never want to enter an institution or open a textbook again. Granted, I’m sure that will change especially when I do continuing education but for now the sense of freedom I feel is unparalleled. Too bad the result has left me bound to a staggering large amount of school loan debt which has proven to be a giant thorn in my side especially since we’ve been trying to get a house loan. But God is unbelievably faithful even when I’m not and has humbled me time and time again regarding the possibility of our home. I found out yesterday that the BIG piece we were praying would come through did making us just a few tiny steps away from closing on the house we built May 26. WOOOOOO HOOOO!

Today we’re off to the Polynesian culture center to enjoy some Hawaiian history, show and luau. I’m going to attempt to upload one of the amazing sunset pictures I’ve taken and I’m sure I’ll have more to share soon. Until then, ALOHA!