Why I choose to tribe.

I’ve got this.  If I need help, I must be weak.  Others can’t know. What would they think?”

I don’t know the pain many live with on a daily basis called depression. My heart goes out to those of you who do. My ache is more like an undercurrent, reaching an abrupt peak similar to opening the refrigerator to discover something has been slowly rotting and abruptly needs to be tossed. It can overtake me and I’m suddenly aware I’ve been drifting.

I know what drifting feels like. When I was 17, I joined a friend and her family for a weekend at their Wisconsin lake house. Upon returning from a day of water skiing, I chose to grab a firm, brightly colored raft and just close my eyes momentarily near the pier before joining the others up at the house for dinner. With each slow, back-and-forth movement, I went deeper into what I still remember feeling like an embryonic state of incredible peace.

After what I estimated to be about 15 minutes, I opened my eyes only to discover I could barely spot the pier on the horizon. Panicked, I sat up and found I was practically in the middle of the lake! It took nearly an hour of exhausting my paddling arms to reach the shore. Thankfully, my friend and her family were waiting for me.

Drifting is like that. I fall into a similar place when I’m out of my usual rhythm of meeting regularly with my circle of friends or intentionally talking with others. A recent conversation with a dear friend revealed this even more.

“What contributed to you feeling out of sync?” she asked. I had been explaining to her the “funk” in which I found myself recently during the holidays. I was keenly aware of my answer, which was simple, yet humbling.

“I’ve missed talking with you and meeting with others,” I said. Naming such meek truth felt weak and needy. And yet, it was exactly true and what I needed to say. Her empathic response was tender and moved me one step closer to exposing the lies.

“I’ve got this.  If I need help, I must be weak.  Others can’t know.

What would they think?”

Lies like these bombarded me growing up and I easily find the culture reinforcing them. Get up. Tough it out. And, never ever need others.

The truth is I do need others. Desperately. The God who made me, alone, is NOT enough because he presents himself through others. Those who know me best remind me that I’m not crazy, that I can be giving and that I offer goodness to this world. They see things in me that I easily forget. I need them because I need these reminders. And they do too.

Perhaps 2018 is your year to try a tribe. While I offer no money-back guarantee, I can easily say that I’ve never regretted a regular dose of others who know and love me well.

The God Who Sees the Heart of a Parent

I love this time of year. Stores are stocked with backpacks and Facebook is plastered with first-day photos. There’s a newness in the air, full of new starts and hope. This will be the year she makes new friends. This is the year he will get a teacher who believes in him. The hope of a parent is as fierce as a storm, and it will outweigh any desire a mom or dad will ever have for themselves.

 While not a parent myself, I certainly have a special place in my heart for those Moms and Dads I know, faithfully navigating each careful step, each cautious word, weighing it, sizing it, picking their battles prudently. Choosing. Wondering. Regretting. Shaming. Rising. Confessing. Battling. Knowing and never knowing for certain how each moment of their day went.

 I often pray for the parents I know whom I call friends. They are gutsy in ways I’ve never had to be. I think I’m fairly good at multi-tasking but I’ve never had to multi-task matters of the heart like needing to choose to be at one child’s first recital versus another child’s first soccer game. I think I’d cave like Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice. I am in awe of the parents I know and I believe God is too.

 The story of Hagar in the book of Genesis has always struck a deep cord in me. Here’s Hagar, a young slave girl who, by no choice of her own, became the means to an end for Abraham and Sarah’s desire to have a child and see God’s promise come into fruition. However, Sarah comes to so bitterly resent Hagar that she casts her out to the desert to die alone. It is then that the angel of the Lord sees her and instructs her. Upon this encounter, it is said that Hagar gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me, for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’”

 I sometimes wonder about all of those astounding moments that God sees the true heart of a parent – all those moments in the desert when shame screams and Evil accuses and there is no way of knowing if you handled the situation right. After all, there is a child inside that Mom or Dad, desperately doing all they can and sometimes simply caves in exhaustion.

 If you are a parent, know that God sees you. He sees and knows your limited wisdom, knowledge and credentials when it comes to parenting. Let Him parent you and fill the gaps where you are beyond uncertain. Allow Him to attune His gaze to you and linger long enough for you to respond, like Hagar: “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

The Pathway to Kindness

“…You don’t answer to a wide swath of people and their opinions, even if they’re good people, with good opinions.  You were made by hand with great love by the God of the universe, and he planted deep inside of you a set of loves and dreams and idiosyncrasies, and you can ignore them as long as you want, but they will at some point start yelling. Worse than that, if you ignore them long enough, they will go silent, and that’s a real tragedy.”

These sentences in Shauna Niequist’s book, Present Over Perfect, hit me hard. I’ve known, deep in my heart, for decades, that the only One I answer to is the God who created me, knows me and has only the best for me. So, why does my time constantly get filled up with the wide swath of others? 

I was reminded recently of a time when I was introduced to an experience where solitude with God produced an awareness of God’s delight in me like nothing else. I had just finished my sophomore year in college and decided to spend the summer working at a camp called Spring Hill in Michigan. Our Director, Mark, would lead the twelve of us, his leadership team, on a solitude hike, each of us having only a blanket, bug spray and our Bible in hand.

With only the sound of our feet on the ground beneath us, he would stop and point to a tree, long off the path, to the next person in line. This would be their designated solitude spot for the next three hours, when we were “picked up” by the same hiking line in which we entered. It was risky, as a director, to go to such lengths to serve up such a solitude “table” for us, but I am forever grateful he did.    

This was in the late 80’s – long before solitude retreats, mindfulness apps, life maps or any of the sophisticated, organized retreats I’ve attended in recent years. I even recall bringing a canteen since bottled water had not yet been marketed. It was a complete “unplug” with a blanket as my only luxury.

But, what happened in those three hours long stays in my memory. The first 40 minutes or so, as Mark predicted, I slept. And his kind instructions, prior to our hike, not only gave me permission to sleep, but challenged me to relish in the much-needed nap. “This is your time to be a child of the great Father who loves you and knows your limitations. Cooperate with him and enjoy the sleep,” he would say.

Brushing off my sleepy eyes, I looked around at the beauty of my surroundings: the expansive trees and their long shadows shading me; the distinct sound of the distant blue jay; the tall pines swaying slowly against the sky. I felt small but deeply important, knowing I was not there by accident and definitely not alone.

Over the course of the hours that passed, the quiet served as a platform for whatever God wished to bring my way. Sometimes it was very little – a faint whisper of “Don’t forget… I’m crazy about you, Natalie.” Other times it was a more distinct impression of a tough relationship or what I hoped the end of the summer might bring. One time I did a handstand against the tree, remembering how I loved to see the world upside down when I was much younger.

Over the years, I took those same principles from Spring Hill and carried them into an annual practice. Being alone with God freed me from the numerous “shoulds” shouting in my head. I was free to be a child, without answers and without anything to prove. I’d imagine and create, dream and pour out my heart in tears. At the end of my time with God, I recall being somewhat sad, not that my time with Him ended, but it shifted back into a reality that was harder for me to concentrate on His presence.

“Be kind to yourself.” A couple months ago, I had put the written calligraphy card on my bookshelf to remind myself that sometimes the voice inside my own head is the worst enemy of all. Carving out time for myself to be with God is the pathway to kindness.

Do you know your path to kindness?  Do you know the desires of your heart and what brings delight to your soul?  

You are worthy of the journey to uncover it. 

Turning Toward

 “Did you write today?” I asked half heartedly. “Yes, did you?” Kevin asked expectantly.  We sat together for the first time in over a week.  Just the two of us.  Every time I sit in this chair by the window, my heart exhales.  I love the way the chairs are turned toward one another which is the posture my heart most longs for.  I want to see his face, to know his heart.  I want him to listen to me.  To really listen, tuning out all of the other pressures and distractions that vie for his attention.  Today as I sit with so much swirling inside of me, my heart trembles.  It feels guarded and scared.  He is busy and distracted, he’s physically there but not really. Busy feels dangerous to me.  I remember wanting so much more than I could ever get from my mom when I was small.  She was busy. Though I know I am a priority to Kevin, that scared and broken part of my heart can’t tell the difference.  His busy season triggers my deep wound and I get swirled up in the strong emotion and move into fight/flight/freeze.  Though I want to run away and refuse him access to my tender heart, I choose to stay.  With consistent practice, I am learning to keep showing up and turning toward him even when its hard. 

 Kevin and I have been writing together with some consistency for about 5 months.  It has been some of the most holy work we have engaged together in our entire marriage.  Something happens when you open up a blank page and just pour out the contents of your heart.  Sometimes it is an awful rant that would be better left unshared.  Often it contains truth that exposes and disrupts.  Sometimes it is a beautiful prayer and a celebration of all that is right in our world.  You never know what is going to come up when you open up and write without reservation.  That’s the way I write, but it takes practice.  I have been doing these daily dumps for over ten years and it has changed my life.  I like to think of it as taking out the trash.  Emptying so that the light can fill and flow freely through me.  Sharing it with someone you love is another story.  It takes tremendous courage.  Vulnerability is scary as hell, but I am committed to it.  What’s the alternative?  Living a big lie?  Covering it all up until you implode or explode or get sick because all the tension you hold?  I prefer to shine the light of awareness and to find language and connection in the midst of the storms of life.  If we wait to share our hearts til everything is packaged neatly with a big bow around it, it will never happen.  The time is now!

 The fact that we can sit turned toward one another and tell the truth about what is going on inside of us is such a testimony to God’s goodness and grace.  I remember years of both of us being completely distracted and numbed out and cut off from the longings and whispers of our hearts.  We were deadened in a way and going through the motions; doing life side by side or even back to back in opposition when things got bad. It was all we knew.  We were survivors and just struggling to make it through the day.  Over the past 15 years I have been on a spiritual journey and it has been some of the most challenging work I have known and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  Healing and restoring the wounded heart is the only way to live the life we are called to live.  As my heart started to heal, I began to realize that my needs and desires were not a burden but a good thing.  My desire felt scary, but I had good friends around me affirming me and encouraging me to acknowledge and ask for what I needed.  Every time I turned toward Kevin with a need, I felt weak and needy.  His response vacillated from withdrawal to anger and very rarely did it seem like he heard me, understood, or had any ability to move toward my desire.  This only reinforced the lie that I am “too much.”  My need triggering his shame.  His anger, triggering mine.  So we dance, round and round in circles, stepping on toes and getting nowhere.  In every moment we have the power to choose.  What we do with our disappointment, pain, and desire really matters. 

 We continue to practice extending grace, asking for forgiveness, speaking the truth in love and turning toward one another, even when it hurts.  The writing has helped establish pathways of trust and a growing intimacy which is what every heart needs and longs for.  David Augsburger wrote “Being listened to is so close to being loved, we can seldom tell the difference.” Even if Kevin’s head is full and his heart is spent from the day, it really means the world to me that he would take the time to write with the hopes of connection.  We are each works in progress and we get it wrong more often than we get it right, but when we write and share we are truly writing our relationship well.  This is a sacred gift that the whole world needs.  I challenge you to start with yourself.  Make yourself a priority.  Open a notebook and write for three pages without stopping, judging, editing or even thinking about what you wrote.  Simply write!  Allow your heart to speak and notice how liberating it feels.  If you try this and want to begin to impact other around you, choose one person who you want to focus your love on.  It could be a relationship that feels stuck, or even dead, like our marriage felt long ago.  You can write about what hurts and what you really want.  Try to find language for what is stored up in your heart.  It might hurt, but I promise you, it will lead to healing, growth and better connection.  Simply begin…

The Intersection

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger; Beauty from ashes – You’ve heard all the clichés. Throughout my life, I’ve always had a sense that there’s more and that these clichés are actually true. I am the person I am today because of the circumstances of my life, right?

While I believe this is true, I’m now convinced there’s more. There are more than just ashes supernaturally making my difficult circumstances beautiful. This is both good news and problematic. Good news because it says my pain is worth something – that there is a purpose that is good. Problematic because it requires something of me, something that is difficult and brave and deeply uncomfortable. ”I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” says Paul in Romans 8:18. The operative word here is in us. Glory is revealed in me? Yes, but only when I compare it to my present sufferings – which requires me to look at them—and a hard look at them with Jesus at my side, nudging me with the hope that glorious purpose can be birthed.

This means that when I feel the unease of God’s hand gently pressing something specific on me, I embrace it and linger in it, holding it in my hands delicately, like a newborn. It requires me to turn away from distractions – a glass of wine, another humorous video or simply scroll my Facebook newsfeed again. I will do anything to distract myself from the twinge of uneasiness.

Jesus’ own life was a beautiful, and tragic, mix of purpose and pain. He’s described as a man well acquainted with grief, perhaps because He was crystal-clear in his purpose, right to the cross. Unlike Him, we deeply desire purpose but often want it without the pain. We want to be the passionate, strong leader our church teaches us to be, but often we want to go unscathed in the process.

My own sense of purpose is somewhat vague to me during this present season. I wrestle to unearth that which I sense God drawing me to look at, deeply held beliefs due to scars in my past, as well as patterns of relating that I keep clutched. I cooperate, slowly letting go like a child releasing a blanket of security, trusting God will someday bring purpose to all the difficult grappling.

In the words of speaker, writer and thought-leader, Dan Allender, to have purpose “…one needs to have walked where few choose to tread – the valley of the shadow of death.” The irony of this is that it is actually good news. In a sense God’s only requirement for us to have purpose is to look inward, with Him, at the truth of our trauma and brokenness. Only then, after being refined, will our profound purpose be revealed. Beauty from ashes? Oh yes, with a relentless trust that our purpose is something God had in mind for us all along.

Join us April 28th for our Unleash Your Life Purpose Workshop and begin to find and unleash your unique and stunning purpose into this world.