When It's About Staying Wide Awake

There’s been a bit of synchronicity in our world lately.

Last weekend, we were in Georgia attending to the arrangements of Kirk’s mom’s passing, being with family, and of course participating in her funeral.

This weekend, we’re in upstate New York for a trip that has been in the works about two years — a reunion with the other side of Kirk’s family to memorialize his aunt Diana, who passed away two years ago to metastatic breast cancer.

Today the family is taking a hike to Huckleberry Point in the Catskills. It was Diana’s favorite place to hike and where she asked for her ashes to be spread into the wind. (I wrote about this remarkable woman and this very same hike we took with her in 2008 here.)

It feels like everywhere we turn, Kirk and I are being invited into the reality of the grief journey. And what I’m learning about grief in this road we’re walking is that it asks you to remain wide awake.

Every day is different on this path. You just don’t know how you’ll feel. Some days you’ll feel numb. Some days you’ll feel angry. Some days there’s sadness unspeakable. Some days you just want to get things done.

I say all this from the vantage point of being the one standing beside the person in the primary place of grief. I grapple with my own feelings concerning the loss of both these women, yes. But even more than that, I walk every day in the path next to Kirk, in whose life these two women played a primary role. I see him feeling all these things, and each day — sometimes each moment — is different.

And so, wide awake. For him and for me, that’s the invitation. Will we be truly present to this season of grief? Will we choose to live this well? Both of us choose to say yes to this question.

It’s so easy, when we encounter someone experiencing a loss, to fall asleep on them. We say the easy thing. We rush to the answering place. Sometimes we run away. We feel self-conscious and helpless.

But walking with someone through grief means staying wide awake. Attuning to them. Attending to them. Participating in the conversation. Being open to all the feelings. Even having your own feelings.

It’s interesting to me that, as I shared with you in one of these recent letters, God is directing me into a season of learning to carry stillness with me wherever I go, no matter the surroundings or circumstances. One thing I’ve been noticing about this journey is that it has something to do with remaining present to the present moment — just like this grief journey is teaching me too.

Again, synchronicity. 

Is there any synchronicity happening in your life right now? Is there any way in which you’re being inviting to remain wide awake?   

Much love,
Christianne

When You Are Walking Through Bereavement

About two months ago, I shared with you that Kirk’s mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

It was an aggressive cancer, spreading quickly to her bones, and this past Wednesday night, at about 10:10 p.m., she passed into eternal rest.

We are thankful she no longer suffers.

It’s a strange and holy thing, watching the person you love most walk through something as deep and profound as losing their mother’s presence on this earth. 

Kirk and I have been talking quite a bit the last few days about the thin veil that exists between this world and the next and how much more real the next world is than this one. We’re thinking often these days of the fullness of joy Kirk’s mom now knows — an existence with no pain, no suffering, no tears, and a greater degree of love than she has ever known.

She is experiencing home in a way she never has before. For this, we are also thankful.

When someone beloved has passed on from this life, I often remember what a close friend of mine wrote about several years back when she was exploring Catholicism for the first time. She took some time to share about the Catholic practice of praying to the saints and put it in a perspective I had never thought about before.

We have no trouble asking believers to pray for us, she said. And the closer to God we perceive them to be, the more we covet their prayers, trusting their ability to pray for us in spirit and truth, especially when we don’t know how to pray for things ourselves.

How much more will those who have passed on from this life know how to pray for us, my friend said. The communion of saints who have gone before us have entered a dimension of reality that is more true, more real, and more pure than what we know. They are in the presence of God to a greater degree than we are. They participate in his holiness more than us.

And so we can trust their prayers, and we can ask them to pray for us.

I love this idea, and it brings home the idea that there is really a thin veil between this world and the next. Jesus in the Gospels and Paul in his letters describe dying as a process of “falling asleep” — something from which we wake up. Existence goes on. A death on this earth is not the end. The essence of ourselves continues to exist.

This idea is comforting when it comes to bereavement, I’ve found, because it can bring closure. Any unspoken words between us and the one who died can be spoken. Anything unresolved can be resolved.

We can also trust that the ones who passed know and understand circumstances and us to a fuller degree than their humanity ever allowed them to know and understand while they were here.

These thoughts are bringing us comfort today. These thoughts are giving us hope.

In what way can your own experience of bereavement be helped by these ideas?    

Much love,
Christianne

When You Discover New Growing Edges

As I write this note to you, our big black cat Solomon is sitting on the floor next to me, purring his heart out and staring up at me with his huge yellow-gold eyes, occasionally chirping for affection.

He’s never been that affectionate toward me — really, Kirk is the object of his hero worship — but in the last month or so, he’s become more sweet, coming to sit on the couch next to me and asking me to scratch his ears and chin. Insistent affection from a formerly uninterested 25-pound fur ball? I’ll take it!

So, that’s the scene in which I find myself writing this week’s letter to you. And I wonder: What is the scene in which you’re reading it?

Today I’m also wondering if you have any growing edges at work in your life. What are “growing edges,” you ask? They’re what I call  those places we know we’re being invited to grow. The places in active operation. The places God is currently forming us.

By way of example, I’ll share a new growing edge that showed up in my life this week.

I would say the last four years of my life have been spent coming into a greater understanding of my vocation as a contemplative and seeking to align that truth of who I am with the way I live. This has, at times, led to changes in my work life, outside commitments, and even the way I shop for groceries each week. Living in alignment with my inner and outer world has become a very important part of my life the last four years, and I even have a name for it: I call it “living a rhythmed life.”

(I wrote a series about this concept, which you can access here.)

But for the last six months or so, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to find that rhythm I’m used to living. My days do have a rhythm, but it’s not a rhythm that feels natural. I feel a bit off balance most of the time. And no matter what I’ve tried, I can’t seem to find my way back to the rhythm that feels right.

It’s been distressing and frustrating, to say the least. I have felt out of alignment with myself. I have felt disconnected from the things that matter most to me: spaciousness, thoughtfulness, prayerfulness, and quiet. I have felt disoriented. I have felt a bit like a fraud. And I have felt increasingly unsure what to do about it.

And so this week, when I met with my spiritual director, Elaine, all of this showed up in the mix of what we talked about.

And when she invited me to take this frustration to God in prayer, I was in for a surprise.  That’s where the growing edge showed up.

In that moment of prayer, I saw that God and I were walking along the beach. It was about five in the afternoon, and the sand along the shoreline was soft and cold and wet. We were barefoot, walking slowly, and I knew God knew all the frustration I’ve been feeling in this area, as well as my not knowing what to do about it. 

That’s when he said something new.

“You’ve been dependent on external circumstances to form your sense of identity,” he said. “But now it’s time to go deeper. It’s time for that identity of stillness to be found on the inside of you.”

In other words, it’s time to learn something new. 

I understood God to be saying in this moment that my circumstances aren’t going to change. Unlike previous seasons when I’ve felt overwhelmed and out of sync with my true rhythm, this isn’t about discerning if commitments or structures in my life need to change. Rather, it’s about my relation to the things already in my life that will change.

I’ll be honest: I felt frustrated by this revelation. I love the spaciousness and quiet I’d cultivated in my lifestyle the last four years. I thirst for it, and I feel quite wonky when life doesn’t provide room for it. And here God was telling me I’m not going to have that spaciousness and quiet for the foreseeable future. Things will continue to swirl and move.

Yet my relation to all of it will change.

Somehow I’m going to learn to carry a sense of stillness inside me no matter the external circumstances. That external rhythm of quiet and contemplation I’ve come to love and need in my life is going to go internal instead. I’m going to become less dependent on my external circumstances to find that quiet and peace. 

This is my growing edge. And it feels unsettling. Yet I can’t shake that I know it’s what’s being invited of me right now. 

Do you have a growing edge in your life right now? How would you describe the way you’re being invited to grow? 

Much love,
Christianne

When Images Help You Move Forward

In last week’s letter, I shared that I’d found myself feeling stuck in a pit and that when Kirk prayed for me, I felt grace descend and then lift me out. I shared that the word dependence kept resounding in my ears. I shared that afterward, I spent time just resting in God’s arms.

This past week, the image advanced.

It happened while listening to last week’s lectio recording. (Did you know I pray with the weekly lectio recording, too, after mailing it out to you each Sunday? I do!)

It was a meditation on the first two verses in Psalm 40 — the psalm where David talks about God hearing his cry and lifting him out of a pit. I chose that passage intentionally, given what I’d shared with you in my letter, and when I sat down to listen through the recording, I wondered what would emerge during my time of prayer.

The part that stood out to me as I listened was the line, “He set my feet on solid ground.” As I ruminated on that phrase, it was as though I could see the hands of God that had lifted me from the pit then set me down on solid ground, and then God and I walked forward together on that solid ground.

It was a reminder of the journey I’ve walked with God. It was a reminder that God has been and is still present. It was a reminder of who I am.

In this image that continued to emerge, I could see the pit I’d been lifted out of — it looked like a manhole with the cover taken off of it — to the right in my immediate line of vision. But up ahead, there was me and God walking together on a sandy stretch of ground toward the horizon.

I was leaning against his arm as we walked.

—

Near the beginning of this past week, I received an email from an acquaintance who asked for a favor. For some reason, the request didn’t sit well with me, even though it was a really small request and completely in my power to do.

And so I froze. I felt a lot of shame around the idea of saying no, and so I wondered if my feelings about honoring the request would change if I just let myself get used to it. If my feelings didn’t change, I wondered if a gracious, clear response would materialize for me to say — because I just couldn’t imagine how I’d say it.

I ended up sitting with the request for several days. I kept revisiting it, reviewing the information, trying out in my mind what it would be like to say yes. At one point, I even tried to move forward in executing the request.

But something kept stopping me. It just didn’t feel right. And the tough thing was, I didn’t know how to tell my friend that. The request was small. Simple, really. I could oblige it so easily.

Except for the part of me that felt like I couldn’t.

—

It took me about four days, but I finally realized I could talk to Jesus about it, especially since the fact that I hadn’t responded to the request kept preoccupying my attention. And so, in order to talk to Jesus about it, I went back into that image of me and God walking together on the sand.

Immediately, what I’d been feeling in my gut all week was confirmed as I brought it up with Jesus. The difference was that with Jesus, I could be more free in my truth about it. I knew I didn’t want to do what was asked of me, and I wanted so badly for my simple no to be sufficient.

And so I began to draft my response.

It’s probably the most vigilant I’ve ever stayed inside an image while doing something else. With every word I typed, it seemed, I had to return to that image of myself with Jesus on the sand. I had to keep revisiting what I was telling him. I had to keep revisiting my answer to the question, “Why don’t you want to do it?” I had to keep writing every single word of my response from the truth that came from that vigilant practice.

It was such a picture of that dependence I wrote about last week. It was such a chance to practice it. 

How is God showing up in your life right now? What is the reality of your spiritual practice at the moment? 

Much love,
Christianne

When Necessary Graces Come

I’ve shared with you in some of my more recent letters how much of a struggle I’m facing to move forward on the various projects and ideas I have for the work I do at Still Forming.

I’ve shared that pesky gremlin voices keep trying to dissuade me from my path. I’ve shared some of the fears I have about moving forward. And I’ve shared ways I’ve found sustenance along the way in response to those fears and gremlins.

And then this past week happened.

To put it lightly, the week was a doozy. Despite the space I had in my schedule to move forward on my top-priority project — the Look at Jesus course — I couldn’t find the strength or capacity to move forward on it at all. At. All.

I would open my Bible to review the notes I’d made for the current section of the course I’m completing, and the words on the pages would swim before my eyes. I’d pull up the online classroom and look at where I’d left off, and I would feel defeat.

And then I’d turn away from the screen and toward my most typical avoidance behaviors instead. You know, the ones that tell you in a voice filled with alarm even as you’re doing them, “Mayday! Mayday! Something is really wrong here!”

Despite that voice urging me to notice what I already knew, I couldn’t find the strength of will inside myself to course-correct.

Have you ever experienced this?

—

This went on for several days. When I reached Friday night, I was pretty toast.

Kirk knew something was wrong, but I barely knew how to talk about it. It seemed so paltry to say, “I’m having trouble moving forward on the Look at Jesus course.” What felt more true was to say, “I feel like I’m out in a dark ocean, drowning.” Or, “I feel like I’ve fallen in a pit. I can see the sky above me, but I don’t know how to get out.”

Thankfully, Kirk has a lot of wisdom, and he was able to help me see that I needed help. “You can’t crawl your way out of a pit,” he said. “You need to be lifted out.”

So he asked if he could pray for me. I didn’t have the strength to say yes, so I just shrugged my shoulders and mumbled, “I don’t know,” which he said he was going to interpret as a yes. And then he began to pray.

As we entered into prayer, the truth of my heart surfaced, and tears started falling down my face. “I need help,” my heart cried to God. “I need help. Please help me.”

—

Somewhere in the midst of that prayer, help came. It was like actual grace descended. I felt myself being lifted from the pit, just like Kirk said I needed.

And it drove me into the arms of God. I just kept thinking the word dependence. 

I can’t do this work on my own. I can’t do it in my own strength. When I do, I fall into the pit. When I do, I drown.

But when I lean into the arms of God, letting him guide me, letting his Spirit be the dominant force in this work that I do, the pressure lifts. I get to join in something God’s already doing. I get to be a conduit for something that belongs to him, not me.

—

Even after Kirk finished praying for me, it felt important to keep leaning into God’s arms. To just rest there. Not to run away.

So I did. For some time afterward, I just let myself continue to rest in God’s arms. To let myself be held by him. To stay there quietly. 

It wasn’t easy to let myself stay there. All the habits built up in my body wanted me to busy myself, to go and do, to let myself be distracted. And yet resting in God’s arms was such a greater treasure than any of those distractions. I kept remembering that, and that helped me continue to rest there.

And so yesterday, I was able to work on the Look at Jesus course again. I’m one section short of finishing another module, and that feels miraculous to me. I feel enthusiasm and anticipation about it again, looking forward so much to the chance to do this course with those who want to spend time getting to know Jesus a bit more.

I’m so looking forward to its being ready to offer you. 

Have you ever a hard time moving forward on something important to you? How did you find your way forward? 

Much love,
Christianne

How to Repair a Breach in a Friendship

A year ago May, a breach happened in one of my closest friendships. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It wasn’t an argument. It was a breach.

It felt like a tearing.

Neither of us saw the breach coming, and neither of us handled it well when it came. We are, to this day, still recovering from the fallout. 

I’m grateful that we are, at least, recovering. That recovery is happening ever so slowly — in tiny little baby steps that look like we’re barely inching forward at all — but it is happening, and I’m grateful. Even as I’m terrified.

—

Why am I terrified? Oh, for many reasons.

I’m terrified the breach will happen again, and I’m not sure my heart can handle experiencing that level of pain a second time.

I’m terrified we won’t actually recover, that trust will never re-establish itself between us and so all that will be left is a sad and shallow shell of something that used to be, one day long ago.

I’m terrified I won’t put into practice the things I’ve learned about myself because of this breach, that I’ll merely perpetuate the behaviors and beliefs and issues that led to my contribution to what happened.

I’m terrified I won’t be forgiven. I’m terrified I won’t be allowed to grow beyond what happened in the other person’s eyes. I’m terrified this breach will become the thing that defines who we are as friends.

There’s so much more to who we are than this breach that happened.

— 

I met with my therapist, Debbie, this past week to process some of where I am with all of this. Because the truth is that my head and my heart still get so tangled up and confused about what happened between me and my friend, and I still need help seeing my way forward with these tiny baby steps we keep taking.

And that’s where the image of the marble jar came up.

Are you familiar with the work of Brené Brown? She’s a shame researcher (yes, that is a real thing!) who has been researching shame, vulnerability, wholeheartedness, intimacy, and connection for, oh, about 15 or 20 years. 

She catapulted into the public spotlight in 2010 because of this Tedx Houston talk on vulnerability, and then this Ted talk on shame in 2012, and then through her appearance on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday in March earlier this year. Her most recent book, Daring Greatly, was a New York Times bestseller.

So, about the marble jar.

Debbie told me that Brené talks about the marble jar in Daring Greatly, saying that each person in a relationship has a marble jar with the other person’s name on it that gets filled or emptied depending on things that happen. If connection happens or trust grows with the other person, we put marbles in the jar. If hurtful things happen, we get missed in the relationship somehow, or trust erodes in some way, we take marbles out of the jar.

And when a breach happens, it’s like the jar shatters completely and all the marbles go spilling out all over the floor. No more jar. No more marbles.

—

To rebuild trust in a relationship that’s experienced a breach, I guess we first have to ask if we’re willing to have a jar with that person’s name on it in our house again. If we are, then maybe we mentally bring that jar into our house and set it on a shelf, letting ourselves get comfortable with the fact of its just being there.

Then, should both people be comfortable having these new jars in their houses, the next step might be to focus on putting some new marbles in those jars.

This seems important, as one thing I’ve been wrestling with is how much time to spend looking back at what happened versus moving forward. Looking back is certainly important. It’s how we learn from what happened. Together, it’s how two people find out the other person’s experience of what happened and where they’re coming from.

But Debbie is helping me see that at some point, marbles become the necessary thing. That’s what builds the new relationship — and helps us see if a new relationship is even possible as we watch what happens with the new marbles.

And here’s the real kicker, she said: If we don’t put some new marbles in the new jars after the old ones have been shattered and replaced, we won’t have much of a foundation for those “looking back” conversations to be helpful and productive at all. We would be having those conversations on shaky ground, each person hedging their bets and so very ready to bolt. The collection of new marbles in the jar is what helps two people weather the difficult and tricky conversations about the past and the less-than-perfect scenarios that emerge in the future.

—

Marbles can get tossed in the jar in the simplest of ways. It doesn’t require magnanimous acts.

For example, my friend texted me about three times this past month just to see how things are going with Kirk’s mom, who has been diagnosed with cancer. We don’t text very often anymore, and so I experienced those check-ins as such a kindness — a moment of knowing myself cared for and thought of by her. Marbles went into the jar.

In another instance, when we’d made plans to talk by phone but then a schedule conflict required my friend to cancel, she took care to say our conversation was important to her and apologized for having to reschedule. Marbles went into the jar.

Slowly, slowly, I’m taking time to notice marbles and put them in my friend’s jar. I’m doing this because the relationship is important to me and I want to be about the business of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Have you ever experienced a breach in friendship and wondered how to move forward? What do you think of the marble jar metaphor?

Much love,
Christianne

When You're Scared to Move Forward

I remember when I was in fifth grade and we had these journals that we would write in every day. Every day, the teacher would give us a prompt. But every once in a while, she’d give us a “free write” day, where we could write whatever we wanted.

I hated those free-write days. I would completely freeze up. I never knew what to write on my own.

It was the same thing whenever we did art. If there was a specific project with a plan to follow, I could do it. But whenever there was “free art” day, I would freeze.

Paralyzed.

In those early years of my life, I came to believe I wasn’t creative.  It wasn’t until I was mid-way through college that I came to realize I was more afraid than uncreative. More perfectionist than lacking expression. More afraid of failure or humiliation than lacking an ability to color outside the lines.

It look a lot of hard work and many years, but I eventually got free — for the most part — from that perfectionism. Slowly, I started to risk more, to tune in to my true voice, to hear God’s voice in my life and follow it, even if it didn’t make sense to other people.

But lately those perfectionism gremlins have reappeared on the scene. They tell me I have too many ideas and will just overwhelm people. They say I’d better be sure to choose the absolute right ideas to pursue. They say I need a coherent narrative for the work I’m doing. They say people will think I’m weird. They say I’d better be careful or I’ll be ostracized.

These voices are making me freeze.

It’s just like being in fifth grade again, afraid of doing the wrong thing.

—

When I saw my spiritual director this week, I had a chance to talk about these fears and all these voices, and she asked me an interesting question.

“If you could describe your work as a road, what would it look like?”

The road that I saw was wide. Made of dirt — but smooth, not rocky. Room for so many people to join in. Heading somewhere strong and sure.

“Do you see people on it?” she asked.

No, I didn’t. But I could see the potential for people. It was almost like they were imaginary potentialities, and I could see them up ahead, streaming onto the road in clumps of two or three from different directions, all at different points along the way.

“Where does the road end?” she wanted to know.

I held that question for a few moments, and I came to realize there was only one way to describe what I could see at the end of the road.

“Heaven,” I said.

A whole crowd of people, from every tribe, tongue, and nation. So full of joy. So much love. Such a celebration. And Christ encompassing it all, almost like he was the city.

Like I said: heaven.

—

When it came time to talk to Jesus about my fears, we sat on the side of a cliff, our legs dangling over the side, our feet bare. Ahead of us, to the right, was the shoreline we walked together for the better part of nine months. Behind us stood the tree he brought me to see when our time on the beach was done.

We sat there, him on my right, looking over at me as the sun shone on his face in the middle of its setting journey over the ocean, and I blurted it all out.

I’ve got too many ideas, I said. They’re coming out my ears. I feel like my head’s going to explode. They don’t make sense. They don’t follow in a coherent, singular line. People won’t get it. They’ll think I’m weird. I don’t know how to do this right. I don’t know which ones to do first or which ones to throw away. I don’t want to throw any of them away.

He didn’t say much. But what he communicated mattered. To follow my creativity. Pursue the ideas. Don’t worry about a coherent narrative or a correct way of doing things. Experiment and try things. Trust him for the results.

—

I’ve been so worried about finding coherence in the narrative of what I’m doing because that’s what I see in the work of the business people I most admire.

I’ve been afraid of overwhelming people because I feel compelled to create a lot of work and just put it all out there, but what if it’s too much at once?

I’ve been afraid people will think I’m weird because of the things I care about: Jesus, the life of the heart, discernment, formation, nonviolence.

But then I got to thinking.

Maybe the way I saw people streaming onto that dirt highway, in clumps of two or three at different access points along the way, is because those God brings to himself through the work I do will literally come from different places. Not just physically different places, but different places in the journey.

Maybe some will need the access point of Jesus. Maybe some will need the access point of caring for the world. Maybe some will need discernment. Maybe some will need to talk about the realities of the heart.

Maybe the thing that makes me feel incoherent is just the way God means it to be. I mean, that’s so much like God, isn’t it? That he would use our whole self, our whole story, all that we love and want to do?

There’s such freedom in that. We get to just do. We get to keep following the voice propelling us forward, the voice that is most true, the voice that feels like a tuning bell dropped into the deep.

And let God do the rest. 

Do you ever feel scared to move forward? Do you wrestle with gremlin voices too? How do you hear God’s voice speaking in that place to you? 

Much love,
Christianne

When You Struggle With the Way God Made You

Do you ever struggle to understand the way God made you?

I do.

I’ve felt that way most of my life, actually, having been a pretty introspective character for as long as I can remember. So serious. Always thinking about the deeper things. Wanting to know the heart of people.

Truthfully, it felt pretty lonely, being this intense from my youngest years. Why didn’t the things that preoccupied me seem to matter as much to others? How did my peers live so carefree? I envied their ability to just live the age they were, even as I didn’t understand it.

But as I got into my mid-20s, continuing to stick with the honesty of my unfolding journey, I came to understand that the way God made me means something. It matters.

This seriousness? This concern for the deeper things? This care for the heart of people? It’s what makes me the writer and spiritual director I am now.

I think not understanding the purpose behind the way we’re made is the hardest part. It’s what often makes us feel like the odd duck — at least it does me.

I’ve been experiencing this struggle of not understanding the purpose in the way God made me lately in the way I respond to brokenness in the world. Truthfully, it makes my heart break.

Want to know what I mean?

I took myself on a solo date to see The Butler a couple weeks ago and bawled my eyes out in the theaters — just like I did on three different occasions of watching The Help in the theaters a couple years ago. In 2009, when the Iranian government cracked down on its citizens who were staging peaceful protests? I curled up in a ball in my bed, wracked with inconsolable sobs for a whole afternoon. The same thing happens every time I read about Guantanamo Bay.

All the brokenness looms so large, and it presses down on me. Being unable to fix anything, all I can do is feel it. And it hurts.

This aspect of the way I exist in the world feels strange. I feel like such the odd duck, taking things in so acutely, feeling them so deeply, hedging toward despair with them sometimes.

I told Kirk last night that sometimes the only thing that brings me solace in this place is the thought of heaven, where all will be restored and made new, where there will be no more tears, where love and goodness will reign supreme, where all will be made right and we will live in persistent joy.

I so long for that day.

What am I to do with the visceral way I respond to these kind of things? I pray, of course. And I write sometimes. (See more on this below.)

But is there something more? I don’t know. I’m still living inside this question. This is one of those places where I’m still struggling to understand the way God made me.

Are there ways you’re living inside questions about who you are? Can you relate to struggling with the way God made you?  

Much love,
Christianne

When You Don't Know Until You Know

This week, we received some pretty devastating news: Kirk’s mom has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

The news came on the heels of two emergency room visits in the span of one week, but other than that, we had no advance warning. No symptoms. No warning signs.

In one short minute, your whole world can change.

As soon as we received the news, we packed our bags, loaded up our car, and drove 450 miles north to Athens, GA, where his mom and her husband live. We’ve spent the week here, and I happen to be writing this letter to you from the hotel where we’re staying.

In just five short days, I’ve already learned so much about walking through a cancer diagnosis, but one of the main things I’ve learned is this:

You don’t know what it’s like until you know what it’s like.

Cancer seems to lurk around every corner, and I’m sure most of us can say our lives have been touched by it in some way. My grandfather died of cancer when I was in high school, and my aunt died of cancer several years ago. It also seems like the news of a cancer diagnosis touches the lives of people I know on Facebook more often than should be considered natural or normal.

But even though the reality of cancer has swirled near a long time, touching my friends and extended family, there’s something different about it this time. This time, it has felt something like stepping through a portal — a portal reserved for those who know in a deep and personal way what it’s like to hear that world-altering word cancer when it concerns a spouse or a parent or a sibling or even one’s very own self.

This week, I’ve learned what that is like.

I’ve learned that when it’s that up close and personal, your whole world changes. Your priorities flip in the blink of an eye.

I’ve learned when the news hits this close to home, you become closely acquainted with waiting. Waiting on test results. Waiting on doctors. Waiting on milestones. Waiting on news.

I’ve learned there are so many decisions. Decisions about treatment. About home care. About who will take care of what, and when. About how this works once the hospital stay ends.

I’ve learned people process it differently. Some need space to take it all in and think and feel their way through. Others need to talk it through out loud.

It’s so incredibly different to be this close to a cancer diagnosis.

And it makes me realize that the next time I hear of someone going through this in such a close and personal way, I’ll remember this week and what it’s been like and the few things I learned in just a few short days, and  I’ll be able to say with much more sincerity than ever before, “I’m so sorry. I know how scary and overwhelming that can be. It’s shocking, and it changes everything. How can I help?” 

Have you ever been in a circumstance like this? What was it like for you to move through it? 

Much love,
Christianne

When You Want to Stop Fleeing God

The last couple weeks, I’ve been struggling with bouts of sadness that come and go throughout the day without any explicit reason. Nothing bad has happened. In fact, many good things have been happening.

But still, the sadness. And my struggle to hold it.

I think some of the sadness is connected to continued grief from my healing journey these last many months. Even though much healing has happened, there’s still so much to continue processing. Ongoing revelations. Impact on relationships. Growing pains as I learn new ways of existing in the world.

The grief is real, and I just keep trying to hand out handfuls of grace to myself along the way. But there are definitely ways I flee the grief, and I think that contributes to the sadness too, almost adding more on top of it.

Last week I shared with you that I’m learning how much space healing opens up in our lives for greater contribution and productivity. There’s suddenly all this space inside of us where woundedness used to be, and there’s a growing edge in learning how to fill that space with healthy, life-filled endeavors instead of tracking along the well-worn grooves of brokenness we’re so used to traveling.

On top of that interior space, I’ve just had a lot of exterior space open up for me too. This week, I finished the last in a long line of projects for various publishing clients — have I ever told you I’m a freelance editor by trade? — and these projects have followed, one right after the other, for several months now. I sent the last big project off on Tuesday, tied up some loose ends throughout the rest of the week, and then got to Friday evening and realized I was stepping into the weekend with absolutely zero outside projects on my plate.

I can’t tell you the last time that happened.

And so this interior and exterior space. And learning how to fill it well.

And then the sadness. And learning how to live with it.

I’ll be honest with you: Most days, as the sadness has been showing up in the open spaces, I’ve grasped for anything other than God. I’ll turn to Facebook or Twitter. Or Instagram. Or playing my solitaire app. Or watching Netflix. Or eating food that’s altogether bad for me.

I do these things to try to fill the space and soothe the ache. But the thing is, they only make me feel worse because they don’t make the ache go away. As soon as I’m done doing any one of those things, there the ache is, staring right at me again.

A few days ago, I realized I was fleeing myself and fleeing God through all these things.

And here’s the truth: Turning to God is hard for me sometimes. Can you relate? I feel like Eve in the garden, running and hiding and covering myself up in fear instead of coming out in the open to meet the one walking in the garden who wants to meet with me — the one who created my body and soul.

I flee him because I’m scared. Of what? I’m not sure, really. Perhaps the truth. Perhaps intimacy. Perhaps what he may say. Perhaps what I may say.

And yet, when I turn and face him, the thing I most need is there.

Intimacy.

It might sound kind of weird to say it, but when I was thinking about what it’s like when I finally stop running and turn to face God, it’s almost like an egg being cracked open. I can almost hear the slurping sound of that egg being pulled apart at the seams. And then everything’s inside — the white and the yolk, all mixed together. Beautiful but messy.

God sees it all in there. And so do I.

The truth is, it’s never as scary as I think it’s going to be, this stopping and turning and facing God. Rather, it’s like coming home. At last. It feels, more than anything, like relief. 

Do you ever struggle to turn and face God? To let God see you where you are? To let yourself see where you are? 

Much love,
Christianne

When Healing Comes ... But You Don't Know How to Hold It

I’ve been chronicling for you here in these weekly letters the intentional journey toward healing I’ve been taking these last many months, culminating in the experience I shared last week of finding myself transformed into a wholly new sort of creature after so much intentional time spent in the presence of Jesus.

It was as though health and wholeness and freedom and joy burst onto the scene in a spontaneous new way.

I mentioned at the end of last week’s letter that I’ve been noticing, in the wake of this experience, the way healing frees us up for creativity and contribution. That’s been the overwhelming sense in this for me: There’s suddenly so much space for productive activity, ways of contributing to greater life and fullness in the world.

But do you know what else I’ve noticed here?  That the identity and habits of woundedness go so deep.

I can’t tell you how many times since that spontaneous moment of health and transformation happened that I’ve found myself nursing old wounds. Ways of thinking about a situation move like wheels over well-oiled grooves. Postures drift toward a familiar frame. Even the running commentary that goes through my mind as I scroll through something as innocuous as Facebook so easily tracks along familiar strains of self-accusation and judgment.

I’m finding that slipping back into that familiar identity of woundedness is so much easier than learning how to live free. 

The thing I’ve noticed about living free is that it’s exceedingly vulnerable. If I live in the freedom and joy Christ has offered to me, then I’m living out loud and without apology. Out loud? Without apology?

That’s vulnerable!

And it makes me realize how much of the wounded identity I’m used to living in is also, in a way, a means of control. If I’m vigilant about other people’s responses to me, looking for all the ways I might need to adjust my way of being so as to be loved and accepted instead of abused and rejected, then I’m looking to control the one factor I’m able to control — me — while also hopefully exerting some measure of control over the outcome.

This isn’t the good kind of control — it’s not the self-control we’re told in the Scriptures is a fruit of the Spirit. Rather, it’s a control rooted in fear and manipulation of myself and situations.

I don’t want to live that way.

But I also recognize that living in freedom is pretty frightening. It’s about giving up the work of perception management. It’s about living unapologetically. And choosing to live that way leaves us somewhat defenseless, wide open to whatever ridicule and rejection might come.

It’s only the complete and total acceptance and love I’ve experienced when I’m with Jesus that makes venturing into that open, defenseless posture possible. Knowing that love is always there, never changing and never leaving … well, it makes me brave. 

Can you relate to this fear of freedom? How has it shown up for you, and how do you respond to it? 

Much love,
Christianne

When We Become Something Wholly New

Last week I shared with you that when I was invited to become a chalice minister at my church for our contemplative service, I was pretty much over the moon.

I went straight from that invitation to a session with my spiritual director, Elaine. I walked into the room where we meet every month, sat down with a huge smile on my face, and just spilled over in exuberant sharing with her about this opportunity.

(She’s walked with me about four and a half years now — meaning, she was there when the image of the communion cup emerged in my prayer life, and she was there when the phrase “presenting Christ” emerged a year later concerning my vocational calling — so she immediately understood why this invitation would thrill me and feel so right.)

But almost as quickly as I shared this good news with Elaine did my smile fade and I start to become fidgety.

“What is it?” she wanted to know.

I felt overcome with a feeling of darkness. All kinds of accusing voices started to swirl around in my mind:

You’re not allowed to do this. Your church experience is invalid. You don’t belong to the true church. And who are you — a woman?! That’s not allowed, either.

It was such an overwhelming feeling of condemnation. It felt like a pack of wild dogs nipping at my heels, baring their teeth and snarling.

Whoa.

Elaine, my director, was the first person I told about the image of the animal creature that showed up in my prayer life while I was on retreat in June — that image I’ve been sharing with you from time to time the last couple months — as she and I met for a session immediately after that image showed up for me at the retreat.

And so, because she knows I’ve been carrying this image of that animal creature — an image that looks like an overgrown mole with a long lizard’s body that represents me in my current healing journey — she asked where the wild dogs show up when I’m looking at that animal creature that’s been spending time with Jesus.

So I spent some time visiting that image of myself as a rascally mole with dark, wiry hair with Jesus. I saw us traipsing along a trail path. Or rather, I was traipsing. Jesus was just walking along beside me. But I was giddy, running alongside him and smiling up at him and sometimes running circles around him in happiness.

The wild dogs were nowhere to be found.

“Could they show up?” Elaine asked.

Yes. They could. But my sense of Jesus as shepherd in that image was so strong. He had command of the environment. If a pack of wild dogs came upon us, I just knew he’d keep them far from me. They wouldn’t even come close. And they definitely couldn’t touch me. They’d cower in fear before Jesus, staying far away.

There’s no place for wild dogs when I’m with Jesus.

And do you know what happened next? The more I let myself experience and receive the freedom and joy and safety the presence of Jesus offers me in that image, I saw t hat dark, wiry hair of my animal creature burst into soft, clean, healthy brown fur. That animal creature turned into a wholly different kind of animal.

A beautiful animal. Soft and furry … and pretty.

I think this is what healing has the potential to look like: experiencing and receiving complete freedom and joy and safety, and then, because of that, becoming something new.

To say I’m thankful is probably the greatest understatement.

How would you describe what’s happening in your life with God right now? It doesn’t have to be as vivid as what I’ve shared here with you, but what would you say about it, if you said anything?

Much love,
Christianne

When God Fulfills Promises

A couple weeks ago, just before I left on a trip to California to visit my family, I received an invitation from the rector of my church to prayerfully consider becoming a chalice minister for our Sunday evening contemplative eucharist service.

(A chalice minister is someone who helps the priest prepare the bread and wine and then stands next to the priest during the celebration, offering the cup of Christ to those coming to receive it.)

To say I was thrilled is an understatement. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time the deacon who called me with the invitation ever received the response of someone whooping in her ear!

It was a moment of revelation and amazement, and let me tell you why.

If you’ve been reading along here or on Still Forming for any length of time, you know that images figure prominently in my prayer life. It’s been this way in my life with God for well over a decade.

And several years back, the image of a communion cup showed up. It was a golden chalice, and swirling around in the wine inside of it were me and God. (You can read more about this story here.)

This image presented itself at a time when I was growing in my sense of pure communion with God, but it also began to carry, pretty early on, a sense of a priestly calling. I didn’t really know what that meant — I mean, I didn’t have the sense I was meant to be ordained as an actual priest — so I just carried that sense of priestly calling with me for about a year, just trusting God would help me understand it more when it was time for me to know.

Then, about a year later, as I was struggling through some aspects of my relationship with Jesus primarily having to do with how I communicate that relationship to others, I came to a place of understanding that one of the marks of my vocation is to be that of “presenting Christ.” I wrote at the time:

“There’s been this continued sense that my calling is to present Christ to others — in the same way that a priest presents the body and blood of Christ to others in eucharist.”

(You can read more about my coming to understand that mark of my vocation here.)

I knew at the time that this call to “present Christ” was connected to that image of the communion cup I’d been given the previous year. And I’ve been carrying that understanding of my calling, connected to that image of the chalice, ever since.

And so when I received that call with the invitation to become a chalice minister, I knew immediately I wanted to say yes. It was just so obviously right, right? I could hardly believe it was happening. It humbled me so much.

I agreed to take the next week to prayerfully hold the invitation, just to allow there to be room for a confirmation in spirit, and I’m so glad I did.

My response to that invitation still turned out to be yes — I’m going to be meeting with the deacon this week to learn more about the process — but before I said yes, I needed to work through one visceral roadblock that presented itself to me pretty immediately. It’s a roadblock that had to do with that ongoing image of the animal creature I’ve been telling you about the last couple months.

I’ll tell you more about that part next week. 

But today, I’d love to hear from you. How has God been working in your own life lately? If you’d care to share, I’d love to hear it. 

Much love,
Christianne

Learning to Ask for What We Need

This past week, I had the chance ask for some things I needed in some conversations that were pretty significant for me to initiate. Walking into those conversations took a great deal of courage, and then asking for the things I needed once I got there took even more bravery.

I don’t know about you, but knowing what I need in a certain scenario — much less asking for it once I know — is no easy thing.

There’s the voice that says I exist to supply what other people need, and that’s it — that I don’t get to have needs, too. There’s the voice that says I need to be strong and self-sufficient because that’s what (I think) makes me valuable to other people. There’s the voice that tuts, “Danger! Danger!” because rejection looms ahead if I put myself out there.

It’s all kinds of twisty-ness and lies.

In my formation journey right now, I’m untwisting myself from those lies, and I’m realizing what this ultimately means is that I’m continuing to learn what it means to be human.

I’m learning, for example, how to exist on the same playing field as the person sitting across from me. I’m practicing letting go of the misguided belief that I have to be God — the one who supplies all the other person’s needs — and am picking up the new belief that all I really need to do is keep getting to know God, myself, and others and then share those learnings with others, just as I invite them to share their learnings with me.

And I’m practicing showing up in some big, new ways.

Those couple conversations were scary for me this week. But do you know what? Some amazing things happened because I stepped into them, too.

I experienced being loved in one of those conversations in a way I never would have if I’d stayed home and kept my truth and my needs to myself. In another, I gained information I couldn’t have gained anywhere else, and that data is going to have a huge impact on the way I continue to move forward in a situation.

Also, I’m pretty sure I heard my self-respect click up a few notches after each conversation. By acting in a concrete way on the idea that I was worth the risk of vulnerability, I helped myself believe it just a little bit more.

I’m taking deep breaths and feeling proud of myself for doing it — each one. It helps me feel braver for next time. 

Right now, I’m learning how to speak my truth and ask for what I need. What are you learning in your formation journey right now? 

Much love,
Christianne

Walking With the Shepherd God

Last week I shared with you that I’m learning how to experience more of the world inside my actual body — to learn my real thoughts and feelings and truth about things that I normally don’t experience or let be real because somewhere along the line, I began living “out there.”

It’s been interesting to watch this reconnection with my real self continue to develop — and how much the image of the animal creature I’ve been carrying around the last month and a half or so has been helpful to this process.

When the image was first given to me, I saw that creature version of myself cowering in a corner, all curled up as though it was abused. Then, when it experienced the trustworthiness of Jesus, it came near and spent quite a lot of time frolicking in his presence and crawling all over him. Then it came to rest in his arms.

But for the last week or two, I’ve seen Jesus and that animal creature walking side by side.

What’s been intriguing to me about this new development is how much I keep assuming Jesus has this mole-like creature on a leash … except he doesn’t. When I look closely, I see that the animal is completely free.

And yet the way it walks next to Jesus, so happy and in step with his steps, it reminds me of the way a happy dog looks when walking with its master in the park — on a leash.

But there’s no leash here. I walk freely next to him, so happy to be walking where he walks and to be in his company. There is so much joy.

The last few days, I’ve been tuning in to that image of the animal creature on my daily bike ride. There’s this certain place on the loop where I ride my bike where I have to decide if I’m going to take another turn around the loop — adding an additional 2.5 miles to my ride that day — or if I’m going to turn toward home.

The past couple days, when I haven’t been sure whether to lengthen the ride or not, I’ve tuned in to that image of the animal creature to gain a sense of what it wants to do. Is it tired? Does it have another round of the loop inside its energy reserves? What does it want right now?

It might sound silly to say that I consult an interior image of a strange animal creature to find out whether to keep riding my bike or head home, but I’m finding it’s really a helpful exercise for me right now in this process of learning my real self inside my body. Weird as it may be (to both me and you!), God seems to have given me this image as a grace in this healing process. I do believe it is, in some strange way, a real representation of me.

So I’m just continuing to go with it. :-)

This week’s lectio recording is a time of reflection with Psalm 23 — the famous psalm that talks about God as our good shepherd. When I read this psalm earlier this week, the spirit of the shepherd God who cares for us in overwhelmingly good and abundant ways resonated with this image I’ve been carrying of myself as an animal creature walking with Jesus in the process of being healed.

I hope you are able to experience the shepherd God in a way that’s meaningful to you right now as well.   

Much love,
Christianne

Receiving Love in Our Actual Selves

One of the things I’m learning right now is how to more fully embody myself in my lived experience of the world, and especially in relationships.

There’s this weird thing that happened somewhere along the line for me, where instead of being fully present inside myself and having a very solid sense of self in my interactions with the world, I moved outside my body and existed in response to what I believed other people wanted.

It’s hard to describe, but it’s very much like feeling disembodied — of existing outside myself.

And it gets confusing because a lot of how that looks in relationship — of putting other people’s needs first, of letting other people go first — also looks a lot like love. Jesus spoke of serving one another, of washing each other’s feet (John 13:12-17). Paul spoke of esteeming other people better than ourselves and looking out for their interests more than our own (Philippians 2:3-4).

And yet Jesus also said we’re to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:31). How can we love other people as ourselves if we don’t know how to love ourselves first? And how can we do as Paul said and esteem others better than ourselves or look out for their interests more than our own if we don’t know our own esteem or interests first?

I’ve long maintained that we need to experience and receive love before we can freely and beautifully love others. That’s what happened to me the first time I worked my way through the formation spiral: I spent several years learning my belovedness in God, getting rooted deep down inside it, and then one day I looked up and realized I had so much love for other people. I wanted to give and serve. It just flowed naturally.

We experience love, and then we give love, just like John says: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). 

In my current turn around the formation spiral, I’m re-learning this. The part of myself that has existed in a disembodied state is learning to move back into my body and exist there — and, what’s more, to receive love there. This is a lot of what that image of the animal creature has meant to me these days: being inside the reality of that body and sharing with Jesus what that experience is like.

Once I have greater practice living inside my actual self — of knowing my real self and sharing the truth that self with others — I suspect the love I offer others will be more true and pure than before. 

Are there ways in which you are learning to receive love from God where you actually are right now?  

Much love,
Christianne

The Courage to Be With What's True

A friend sent me an email yesterday with the simple question, “How are you?” and I realized my honest answer to that question was, Hmmm. I don’t know!

A busy week with lots of errands and appointments and projects kept me well occupied. But as I lay in bed last night, thinking over what I wanted to share with you today, I realized some of that busyness has masked an underlying anxiety. The more I kept myself occupied, the less I noticed it. But as I lay in bed last night in the stillness, that anxiety gurgled and punched its way to the surface.

I’ve been telling you about this animal creature that’s cropped up in my prayer life lately. It’s a strange-looking creature — half mole, actually, and with a long, thick body — and I’ve known from the start that it was an image of myself in my current healing journey. I’ve watched that creature progress from cowering alone in a corner to connecting in meaningful ways out in the open with Jesus. Of late, it has taken to resting in the arms of Jesus. 

But last night, as I entered the image of that animal creature again, I saw it moving back and forth at the feet of Jesus in a state of restlessness. Of anxiety.

What was that anxiety about?

In my therapy work the last few months, I’ve been coming to see that I have a very strong denial muscle. The incident that took me back into therapy in the first place several months ago concerns an even that happened about 19 years ago. It’s taken me 19 years to see that event for what it really is. Denial has been strong.

And then there’s other places I’ve come to see denial at work — the way it can take years for me to realize anything’s wrong in a relationship, the way I keep plugging, denying any hard truths I might feel, believing myself capable of handling more than I really can, giving credit where credit may not, in fact, be due.

Denial is strong in me sometimes.

And so, right now, I am learning how to see what’s really true and to let myself voice that truth. When it comes to situations or even my own feelings, I’m finding this really hard.  As I edge closer to breaking that pattern, especially in certain contexts, the anxiety starts up. I feel my heart race and my breath grow short.

This work has everything to do with beginning to believe my real thoughts and feelings are legitimate. It has to do with learning my voice is equal. It has to do with learning it’s okay to have needs and to ask something of the people in relationship with me.

This is hard work, and it’s scary. But I know it’s the most important work right now. I know it’s the essential growing edge.

Thankfully, the image of this animal creature in the presence of Jesus continues to be a saving grace. I see the way Jesus looks at me, pitiful animal creature that I am, and I start to believe I matter. I see the way he keeps his attention on me and doesn’t look away. I see the way he lets me do and say whatever I need to do and say. I see the way he wants to hear my truth. I experience the way he never pressures me. I feel him never shame me. 

Are there ways you, too, are learning to be with what’s true right now? 

Much love,
Christianne

What Helps You Move Forward?

I was able to take a couple major steps forward this past week in relation to the healing journey I’ve been sharing with you for a while now.

(If you’re new to the Sunday Quiet and want to learn more about the beginnings of that journey, you can read about it in a series I wrote on Still Forming called Beginning the Work Again.)

One step forward I took was to ask a key person in my life if I can share with them the more specific details of my healing journey when I see them in person next month. Another step forward — one which feels a bit like a small miracle to me — was to write and send a letter to someone I’ve needed to contact for some time now.

These felt like major victories, the first because it means a readiness to be vulnerable and live deeper into the truth of my story, and the second because it means having found a release in an area that had previously felt closed and stalled.

It is with amazement and gratitude that I look at my journey and continue to see movement forward. Sometimes I marvel at that — our ability to keep healing, keep growing, keep taking courageous steps forward into the more true identity being offered to us.

And sometimes I ask how it happens. How do we find that courage? How does that new release come? What makes movement possible?

For me, the image of the animal creature I’ve been telling you about has been crucial to my process. I notice that as I spend time with that image — make it my intentional spiritual practice, as I shared with you last week — movement keeps happening in tiny ways.

As I let myself lay in the arms of Jesus in that image, I find space to be with the truth of my heart in this journey. And in that space, I find myself able to speak truths I’ve fought hard to deny for a really long time. In his arms, I experience the reality of my grief.

Laying there in his arms like that, healing happens.

And somehow in that healing, strength comes. I can step into sharing my story with someone I hadn’t been able to tell just yet. I can write a letter I hadn’t been able to write.

I think the courage I find to move forward in these ways has something to do with receiving the dignity of my story in the presence of Jesus. He receives it all. He hears it all. He sees me. And so my story becomes more real, even to me. As he accepts me, I can accept myself. In that accepting, I have the ability to take another step.

Full acceptance creates courage. 

Is there a way you might benefit from receiving this kind of acceptance from Jesus? 

Much love,
Christianne

What Is Your Spiritual Practice Right Now?

This one’s proving a bit difficult for me to write to you, maybe because it means peeling back even more layers of vulnerability. 

Do you remember a couple weeks ago when I shared with you the image of an animal creature that cropped up for me — and how I knew the animal creature was me? (If you’re new to the Sunday Quiet, you can read that letter here.)

I’ve been continuing to sit with that image. And I’m coming to realize that doing so is my necessary spiritual practice right now.

Here’s how I know.

When I’m going about my normal day, the weight of the brokenness I’m experiencing in a particular context of my life right now nearly does me in. It’s always there, buzzing around in the back of my head, and I turn to it pretty often throughout the day, nursing the pain and getting all tangled up and confused by its complexity and contradictions. When I lay in bed at night, the noise becomes even louder. I get stifled and can hardly breathe. I feel confused and lost and sad and angry and alone.

But then there’s the image of this animal creature. When I visit that image, I still see Jesus there. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ground, and this odd creature that I am still cannot get enough of his good presence. Still I am scampering around and prancing in his presence. Still I’m clambering all over his chest and shoulders. I see this animal creature smiling.

And in the last few days, I’ve noticed another shift. Rather than dance and prance and clamber, I’ve crawled into his lap. Sometimes I lay there and just breathe, in and out. Sometimes I rest my head on his arm and look up into his face.

There’s peace here. Stillness. Love.

In his arms, I experience the welcome and patience of Jesus to be with me in the reality of what caused me to become an odd, hairy mix of animals in the first place: the reality of pain.

And in this place, time ceases to exist. I can lay here, resting, as long as I need. I can look up into his face and receive him smiling over me for as long as I need. I can tell him, in quiet tones, the truth of my heart and my experience with as much bravery as I need.

It’s such a different experience than what I normally experience of myself in relation to this area of pain. Normally, there’s the buzz of noise constantly goading me to hurry up and get moving. Normally, I feel like I’m running the track of a cycle that never resolves itself or quits.

It exhausts me. And it doesn’t lead me anywhere.

With Jesus, it isn’t like that. It isn’t like that at all.  In his arms, there’s no ticking of an impatient and watchful clock. There’s no reproving glance. 

Jesus wants me to receive the gift of his presence toward me that isn’t goading or hurrying me along. But you know what? I’m finding that receiving this gift of his presence is hard. I’m used to the familiar racing track that goes nowhere and yet judges me. The grooves of my mind are used to the constant refrain of judgment. I’m used to pushing myself along with impatience and exasperation.

Choosing to rest in the peaceful, patient arms of Jesus is just that: a real choice. It’s an actual spiritual discipline. In this act is my healing, even if it takes a really long time to get there. 

Do you have any particular spiritual practice right now? 

Much love,
Christianne

Being Weak and Powerless Is Better, Somehow

This week, I read a book called Sober Mercies by a woman named Heather Kopp, who shares with incredible openness her difficult journey to sobriety as what she calls a “Christian drunk.”

It was a remarkable book for so many reasons. I highly recommend it to anyone, whether or not you or someone you know struggles with alcohol addiction.

Toward the end, Heather shares a bit about why she believes the 12-step recovery process “works,” even though it’s hard, and says:

“So much about how recovery works feels counterintuitive. How do you explain to people that it has little to do with willpower or being strong, but almost everything to do with knowing that you are weak and powerless?”

I am not in addiction recovery, but in reading those words, I found myself.

I thought of my journey into grace, how grace eventually became known to me in a real and visceral way when I stopped trying to do everything right and instead allowed room for the belief that an unending pillow of grace would always catch me, no matter what. I let go of my “strength,” and when I did, I was surprised to find God.

This is true for me in daily life today, too. So often, I find myself seizing up on my strength, my mind buzzing with defenses or all my reasons I think I’m right or good. There’s no room for God in that posture; it’s all about me and what I think or want or need.

But when I let down my guard, when I un-scrunch my shoulders and allow room for vulnerability, there’s suddenly place for God to show up and be present. When I let myself go by the “little way,” as St. Therese of Lisieux called it, no longer needing to scratch and claw my way to the top — or simply to visibility — then there’s room for God to come near and be with me.

What motivates my need to be strong? A fear of failure, maybe. Sometimes a desire to be loved and wanted. Or a need to prove my worth.

Relaxing into grace, giving up control … these movements rest in a belief that I am loved and wanted, that I am worthy already — quite, in fact. I don’t have to prove it anymore. I don’t have to white-knuckle my way through, trying to hold on to that worth or shred of dignity.

It just is.

This is easier said than known. Earlier this week, I shared on Facebook that I think grace, though freely given and abundantly available, takes real effort to receive. It’s so much easier to turn to our particular addictions and fixations, the usual tools in our toolbox that we think will get us what we want. It’s easier that way, and faster, and we’re easily fooled to think they’ll give us what we seek. But grace — the thing that reaches its arms out to us in our utter belovedness always, no matter what — is what we really seek. It’s about letting go of power and receiving love instead. 

This is another thing Heather Kopp says in her book about that:

“When we think we want a drink or a drug or an emotional fix, when the wind blows through our empty spaces, what we really crave is grace.”

Speaking of grace, here’s a really great song by a favorite artist, Jonathan Kingham, called (not surprisingly) “Grace.” May it encourage you today as it continues to encourage me.

How are you in need of grace today? 

Much love,
Christianne