To Flee the Center

I wish I could be brave enough to put my feeling and fears and tears on paper as much as this one that inspires me does. Every week, several times a week she sits at the screen and mashes out a few paragraphs to let us know we are not alone in our grief. Some of us can’t help but grieve. The creator saw fit to fashion this fragile vessel in such a way that the slightest upset makes me crack. No matter how much I don’t want fractures to appear in my soul… they do.

This is why I disagree with the “happiness is a choice” saying. I think there are choices in what we choose to do with our sorrow, but feeling sad is not something that people choose. I think we can choose to wallow in it and we can choose to place it in the nail scarred hands. That choice is a daily, even hourly decision at times.

Over the last few weeks I have been taking a pottery class. Those of you who consider me a skilled sculptor might be surprised at how difficult it was for me to learn wheel throwing.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Maker whilst watching the skilled potter at work. What she did seemed so easy and yet when I copied her motions my pot did not respond to my touch they way hers did. What a glorious and mysterious task our Creator has! He takes this shapeless lump of clay and works it into a masterpiece.

Do you think of yourself as a masterpiece? Even though I know the truth, the word kind of grates at me… “I’m nothing special… definitely not a masterpiece…” I think.

 Isaiah 45:9 says "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, "What are you making?' Does your work say, "He has no hands'?

What will result if I continue to quarrel with my maker?

We spent the first three lessons simply learning how to get our clay centered on the wheel. If it is not perfectly center. Centrifugal force will pull on one side more and the piece will “flop.” I have seen it fly off the wheel. I’ve seen the piece collapse.

Centrifugal force is from Latin centrum, meaning "center", and fugere, meaning "to flee." Is the apparent outward force that draws a rotating body away from the center of rotation.

It is a delicate balance to try and form the pot into what you want, while all the time keeping it centered on the wheel. The teachers kept saying, “Slow down… slow down… This takes time.”

I want my Maker to hurry up or at least tell me what he is making. “A masterpiece,” he whispers in his Word.

“No, Lord, tell me WHAT I will be…”

“Something amazing and perfectly skilled in what I have created you to do…”

“I don’t believe you… show me proof,” I quarrel.

“You just have to wait and see…” comes the gentle reply.

“But this is painful.” Centrifugal force threatens to pull me to pieces or at least make me permanently lopsided. I want to flee the center… my Lord.

So my task is to lean into the potter’s hand and let him center me. I cannot center myself… I cannot succumb to the forces that pull on me.

Lord, forgive me for my quarrel. Mold me… shape me… make me yours…  

A Tone that Resonates

I have been reading poetry and poetic writers for years. A tone that resonates in my soul. The Psalmist sings to me thousands of years later. Many times the hum that draws me dissipates and eventually disappears.

I panic.

Have I lost my way?

The creator whispers … silence… be still.

And then I hear it: the music within.

I answer it. I let it flow through me from my heart to my finger tips.

This has happened to me too often to count. I panic in the silence after my tutors have played for me. The silence may last only a moment. The silence may last an entire year. Usually it lasts longer if I fail to lean into it.

I cry aloud. I go to sleep. I search for answers in many places. I numb myself with noise: audible and visual noise. Why do I need white noise in my life?

When the silence is where the discovery begins and the beauty reveals.

Today I make a vow to not panic in the silence, but make a choice to remember that is where the melody is found.

The Things You'd Rather Not Look At

You didn’t log into your Facebook page to be confronted with injustices in the world. You came to post a picture of a neat dessert you made, see the pictures of your newborn nephew, and complain about your bad haircut. You needed to get your two cents in that Facebook fight you’re having. You needed to check on your Farmtown crops.

There are things you’d rather not look at. There are crimes committed against humanity… Against children…

O LORD, Why do you make me look at injustice? (Hab 1:3)

I read a startling statistic today. “An estimated 5.3 million children between the ages of five and eighteen are forced into sex trafficking in India.” http://www.rescueher.org/india-prevention

In one country! Sex trafficking happens all over the world. Even in our own country… but we like to pretend it doesn’t happen any more. We like to think that it is something that happened in societies of yester-year. We watch movies with prostitutes in an old western saloon… jaded women who seem to enjoy the “career” of pleasing men.

BUT what you don’t know.

Prostitutes come from broken homes and have deep emotional scars. They feel they have no other option. Many are FORCED into the sex trade at ages that would turn your stomach. Children are kid-napped and forced into the trade. In some societies, once a woman enters the sex trade (willingly or unwillingly) she can never escape that status. She is an untouchable…

These are the things we don’t want to look at. We would rather watch a slasher movie on the silver screen than to look at actual injustice. AND we find violence ENTERTAINING. We are more offended that our movie club double charged us this month than at the crimes committed against the human race.

I have spent more hours watching movies in my lifetime than I have spent reading about current events in my community… my country… the world. I have read more fiction… play more games… twiddled my thumbs… cuddled my cats… thrown Frisbee with my dog… (for crying out loud) blow-dried my HAIR…

Been concerned with my own emotional well-being and physical health… never to consider the emotional scars and life-threatening disease that claims the lives of millions of CHILDREN each year.

I have fallen asleep… and I am a card-carrying Christian. I have been given the great commission. I have been CALLED to care for widows and orphans.

My heart is broken. My priorities are being questioned. Not by any human being… by the Creator of the Universe.

I cannot sleep on this… night after night, I ask God what I can do. I am willing Lord. Wake me up out of this slumber. Move other hearts to make a difference too.

More on Rubble

How long does it take before the rubble in our lives become familiar?

I drove past the old mill site today. I drive past it every day… several times a day. Today I slowed down and pondered the debris. There is a thought that quickly enters and exits my mind each time:

When will they clear the rubble away?

What are they waiting for? It made sense that they took their time picking through… recycling scrap metal… salvaging one hundred and twenty year old wood... stacking good bricks onto pallets and shuffling pallets into neat rows. Selling off the valuables first… but now… now it’s nothing but piles of concrete and cinder block. . piles of wood chips… piles of asbestos. TRASH… sorted.. separated… but ALL TRASH.

Refuse with no value… littering the landscape… worthless waste from bygone ways. When will they take it away? Where will they take it to? Where CAN it go? A hole in the ground? How is that any better place than where it currently lies?

I am so familiar with the sight and yet this familiarity does not breed fondness. It is like a corn on my heel… a crack in my palm… a pimple on a particularly tender place. Uncomfortable familiarity.

Today my mind is drawn to the debris in my mind… rubble in my relationships. Baggage, we call it. Eleven years I’ve been married and yet it seems like such a short time to have little piles of refuse between us. Habits we have fallen into… buttons that are so easily pushed.

Sometimes we are hot, on fire… raging mad. Sometimes frigid, freezing cold. The cold times never last long but this warm-blooded woman, does not weather them well. I don’t think he does either. Like any good southern girl, I’m ready for spring.

I spent years sorting through my own rubble. Picking through… looking for valuables, all the while trying to rebuild my life, in the strength of the Repairer of Broken Walls. I realize now that he and I spent sometime tearing down the very wall we were trying to build...

Now I stare at this pile of stones. There IS so much debris here! How can we rebuild this section of the wall? This pile of refuse has become uncomfortably familiar. We walk around it… skirt it carefully. We act as if it’s radioactive.

When will we take it away?

Where can we take it?

Where can it go?

Love, I don’t think we can…

Thankfully we know ONE who can. I think just have to be willing to surrender it.

Special Chicken: continued

I have a new batch of chickens in my pen. These tiny girls are about six weeks old and it never ceases to amaze me the lessons I learn from my little flock. I didn’t raise these chickens the way I did the first six. The first six started out in a Rubbermaid tub in my living room. We were so enamored with the soft, fluffy day-old chicks, that we handled them every day. The kids would reach in and scoop them up, like a person would a new puppy. The first six chicks were pets.

The new chickens are not pets. They spent their first few weeks in a dog kennel under a lamp for warmth. I would poke my head in a couple times a day to check the temperature and water level. I only picked a chicken up every now and then, when I wasn’t in a hurry to finish my chores. When I did, they would run from me and I would have to real-quick grab one of the fluffy little girls. As soon as they were ready to spend time outside the brooder I only checked once a day. These chicks don’t know the warmth of my hand.

Now when I go to check on the chicks they do the same thing as they did when they were little: run. They have a little cubby hole they like to sleep in that I had affixed their lamp to when they were younger. Now, even though the lamp is gone, they still run for cover in their little hole. The little box I built for them feels safe. They remember the warmth of that spot but they do not know that the warmth they experienced there was provided by me.

Only after I have laid the food and water on the ground do they slowly inch toward the vitals. I can stand there and watch them gobble up the food but they don’t want to be near me.

Do they not recognize that everything good in their life comes from my hand?

My hand is strange to them… They are familiar with the instruments I use in their life: the box, the lamp, the water feeder, the food… but they do not know that it’s from me. I sit there some times on a bucket turned upside down. I watch them… loving them from a distance.

Their feathers are coming in nicely. Only a few have a little bit of fluff hanging on. For the most part they look like grown chickens, only smaller. They remind me of a boy I know who has the same freckles on his nose that I did and beautiful hazel eyes… just like me. I know boys aren’t supposed to look pretty but I think he is just adorable. There is something instinctive about loving someone who looks like you…

IT’s a pleasure to watch my flock grow. I am not your average chicken farmer. I don’t just like them for what they give to me. I love them because they are beautiful creations and I find that God has given us some beautiful things to look at in this grand picture he is painting. My chickens are a bright spot there.

The chickens don’t reciprocate… not even like a dog when the master comes home… No, but I love them all the same.

And isn’t that how we are… We walk through this life eating up all the food God gives us… snuggling down in the shelter he’s provided, without even a thought as to where it comes from. Even if we do recognize that EVERYTHING GOOD in our life comes from God, do we even take a moment to thank him? Do we even take a moment to sit at his feet? IF God is anything like this special chicken farmer, all he wants is for us to draw near to him….

Maybe, just maybe, we are too unfamiliar. Maybe we do not know His hand. How can we run for the warmth he has provided and not know that it’s from him?

Maybe my chickens are just looking at what they can see- eye level… Maybe they only SEE the feeder and they never look up long enough to see me…

Maybe I am just too busy running after the things I want from God: a nice house, good food, good friends, air conditioning on a hot day, heat on a cold day… maybe I just want what God has to offer me and I eat it up before I can ever give a thought to it…

Unless of course the things I want are missing.

One day I came into check on the chickens and strangely enough they met me at the door. The older chickens do that, but these little ones never had. I quickly noticed that the water was empty and it was a HOT day. All of the sudden they KNEW they needed me…

That is exactly how we are. We only look to God when we notice our water has dried up and we are dying of thirst.

Oh that I would look for God’s hand on my life and not only his provision. Oh that I would stop looking at what I can only see eye-level. May I look to the heavens and sit at HIS feet and know HIS warmth and feel HIS hand and rest in the truth that the one whose image I bear is right there with me, even when I don’t realize it.

How chaos can order your life:

“Things don’t matter. Pictures don’t matter. I have my husband and my daughter and my Momma. That’s all that matters.”

She just stood there stunned, not knowing where to begin. The tornado had ripped her home apart and nearly taken the lives of the three that were there.

We had arrived to help them salvage what they could of their belongings and discovered that they didn’t have renters insurance. That meant that whatever we picked up was what they had to start over with. It’s hard to imagine (although I had tried before we arrived) what a monumental task it would be to pick through piles of a twisted broken house to try and find one little thing that might have survived. A ceramic jar here, a bed sheet there, a stuffed animal hanging from a tree limb; that was all we found at first. No one really had a plan. How could they? Just look for anything that is salvageable. For me it was: try and find something precious: a picture, a cherished trinket… something.

Finally after a few hours of finding just a few items that covered the bottom of a rubber maid tub, a plan began to surface: clear a path through the rubble, pick through a pile (lumber this way, scrap metal that way), throw away what is clearly garbage and box the rest so the family can sort through it when they are finally able to think. Our plan was to get the salvageable items centralized so we could cover it with a tarp before it rained again.

The woman couldn’t offer direction at all. She said all she did was cry when she went up to the house site. She sat on the tailgate of a friend’s truck and told her tale to her neighbors and family, probably a thousand times over. She needed to talk. I think maybe it’s easier for someone unattached to pick through the rubble. It did not devastate me to throw away a busted up fisher price toy. But what would go through her mind if she picked that up. Would she wonder if the baby had been there, would she have survived?

What do we do when storms rip through our lives? How do we pick up the pieces and keep moving? Right now this woman is surrounded by friends and family, but what about a month from now when all has settled down and she only has a few card board boxes full of her things to start over with?

All the family and friends could do was thank us and all I could say was: this is what I would want. If I had lost my home and my belongings, I would want people to come and help me salvage what I could. I have had other storms come through my life and it takes so long to pick through the rubble.

Where do you begin?

When storms rip through your peace of mind… when people have taken their last breath and their earthly shell lies under a mound of earth… when marriages dissolve with a few words and blots of ink on paper… when the one you vowed to cherish forever lies in another’s bed… when disease cuts deep and words cut deeper… where do you begin?

No one really has a plan at first. How can they? We just look for something salvageable. We grasp for something to hold onto… a child, a friend, a pastor…

How do you clear a path through the rubble of your life? How do you find the strength to move on? How do you not simply stand there in the rain beating your fists against heaven? How do we continue to believe that God is good when what we see being served up to us is unpalatable?

I don’t know what this woman’s life was like before the twister twisted her home apart. I don’t know what her priorities were but I know me. I know it is so easy to get my own priorities out of whack. I run here and there trying to get the laundry done and the bills paid and “pick up your toys” and “don’t leave that in the living room.” I seek to make order out of my life and I forget what really matters. I mow over the hearts in my home, trying to order my home. I never think that a storm could come and spread my belongings for miles and I would all of the sudden be ORDERED. “Stuff doesn’t matter. People matter.”

In the eye of the storm there seemed to be the MOST chaos and yet that is where the most ORDER was found. Her priorities became suddenly clear. When God rips all the clutter out of our hands a spreads it for miles, we look to see what is left and maybe, just maybe we can see what is important.

Then we can begin to slowly pick through the rest, throw away what is clearly garbage, and try and salvage what we now see is important. I think when storms have come our way, we NEED to have others to help us sort through the rubble. I believe those who have also endured their own personal storms offer the best wisdom. I don’t want someone who has never suffered to tell me how to recover from searing grief. Not that others cannot help. They can… they can sit on the tailgate and JUST listen. That is so very important.

It is important to let people in. There are those who would not receive any help and sometimes we are just like that. When help comes, don’t close the door on it. Let those who have endured storms help guide you. There is wisdom to be found there.

Picking through the rubble of your life will be a slow process. I have learned it’s best not to rush it. I have also learned that you can’t junk all the things in your past. It is tempting to believe that all is lost when taking in the whole scene but no matter how big the storm is, there is always something to salvage, even if it is simply that you are still living and breathing and able to keep going.

Centralize what you have left and preserve it, before the rains come again. They will come, I believe that God is moving us toward himself with the rain. Whether we bless or curse God, we press toward him during trials.

As someone who has endured trials, I see God using the rain to press me toward him. He uses chaos to order me and I know I have been fired and can see God’s purpose for the storms.

Hidden Sorrow

You would think this time of year would be lifting this winter fog off my mind. Everything is greening, everything is warming, life is emerging everywhere. My bulbs and wild flowers are faithful to send up jade leaves, slowly unfurling.

There will be flowers.

My flowers come in seasons. First the Daffodils, then Primrose (we call them “ I love you” flowers- a cherished memory of courtship), quickly the Irises will don purple bonnets, and lastly the Daylillies and Canalillies will explode the yard with orange and yellow.

And yet with all this promise of visual food for my soul, there is a fog that lies heavy on my heart. It is strange that my grief consumes me even when I am not conscious of it. I wake up in the morning wondering: what is wrong with me? Am I just overwhelmed by the clutter that marks my calendar… the constant “hither and yon” of children and church and just ordinary responsibilities? Is it that undone task that is nagging at the back of my brain? Why can’t I button up just one simple thing in my life? Why can’t I complete something? I want to line all my accomplishments in a row and prove to the world or just prove to myself that I have finished SOMETHING.

As usual, I want to be more than the Special Chicken that I am.

I look again at the calendar. I know why I am foggy. The answer probably lies on April 8^th.

I don’t know exactly what time she died. I know it was after midnight on a Tuesday. It’s funny how: not knowing the exact date has troubled me. I know it doesn’t really matter but it has pestered me a little. I wonder if she lay there unconscious for hours as her breathing slowed and death drew near. I wonder how long the window of salvation stood open as she lay there un-rescued.

Salvation… that word nags at me too. I had saved my mother from death many a time. But I am not the one who saves souls, am I? I could save her from tasting the grave for a time but I could not save her from standing at the judgment seat. We all stand before the Lord someday.

They call us survivors. When they write out the obituary, they list the immediate (and sometimes the extended) family. The person is survived by… For years I felt like I was just trying to survive. I am finally in a place where I feel like I can actually live. It doesn’t keep me from wishing that she could have found a good reason to live. I still battle guilt that floods in for a moment and I pray to my God to swallow up my grief. He has swallowed up a mighty river before.

I met a woman once that called herself a survivor of suicide and she noted the difference between this kind of death and natural or even accidental death. I think that the difference is the human factor. It was not God’s decision to take. The person made the decision. Then there is the “if it was in human hands, then why couldn’t I have prevented it” factor.

After that, I met two more women who had lost their own mothers to suicide in the same year I lost mine. I wanted to reach out and comfort them. I wanted to clearly state the answers the Lord had shown me, and yet my grief still plagues me. It is not a paralyzing grief that shuts me down and incapacitates me (most days) but a hum in the back of my mind that seeks to distract me or make me seek distraction. I want to flip on the TV or really loud music that will drown out doubt and fear and uncertainty.

In the quiet, the tears slip out. I see my departed loved one in the soft notes on the piano… my sweet boy reflects his grandmother in musical genius. I knew this before she died. He carries on her song.

Within the silence I feel my grief loud and yet in facing it, I find a peace that surpasses understanding. Within the deafening sorrow, a light shines. I know this is not a worldly venture. It is a holy quest. I am not one who is ignorant of Holy Pilgrimage and so I press on.

Maybe I am trail blazing and other survivors of suicide will be encouraged to blaze their own trails through the valley of grief. Maybe this is just another Refining Fire. Either way, I am awed at the hand of The Creator on my life.

As the second anniversary of my mother’s death draws near, I feel another link in my chains of flesh broken, another layer is cut off my uncircumcised heart…