A Prayer For When It’s Too Much…

Some days are just TOO MUCH! Too much arguing, too much paranoia and suspicion, too many labels and judgments. TOO MUCH! When those days hit me full in the face, I often grow withdrawn and silent. Prayer seems like a thing other people do. When this happens to me, I turn to the scriptures. Inevitably I find a passage that matches my state of mind. If the pandemic and political unrest feel like TOO MUCH - here is a psalm that soothes me into prayer. It reminds me that God is listening even if he is silent. God has habits I can count on - inevitable, true things about God - that I can trust in, even if I lose trust in everything else. Let us pray...

Help, God—I’ve hit rock bottom! Master, hear my cry for help!

Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance?

As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that’s why you’re worshiped.

I pray to God—my life a prayer—and wait for what he’ll say and do.

My life’s on the line before God, my Lord,waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.

O Israel, wait and watch for God— with God’s arrival comes love, with God’s arrival comes generous redemption.

No doubt about it—he’ll redeem Israel, buy back Israel from captivity to sin.

Psalm 130, The Message

“Hey, Who Pulled the Plug?”

“Sometimes it takes hitting that rock bottom to realize you’re done descending and it’s time to rise…”

Mandy Hale

Part of growing up involves learning stuff we think we should have known earlier but are only getting around to figuring out AND not blaming ourselves for what we did not know. When our kids were little we usually went to the beach on vacation. Eager beavers that we were we’d often end up at our destination before we could get into our rental.

We’d find some place to park and head immediately to the beach. One summer we arrived at high tide. The next morning, the tide had receded. One of our littles said, “Hey, who pulled the plug?” The only body of water that he knew of that acted like the ocean was the bathtub. It was a logical question for a three year old.

The truth is, there is stuff we just cannot know until we know it. Like the way our life is like the ocean, or a bathtub, depending on our viewpoint. Sometimes it feels like a mysterious hand pulls the plug and our joy drains from us. We lose hope and confidence. We doubt that anything will ever feel right or normal again.

This is life. Psalm 130 (you can look it up or wait until tomorrow when I post it in the blog) talks about this. It gives us an example of a group of people who feel like God pulled the plug. But it ends with “right remembering” - that inevitably God restores and rebuilds.

So when we’re feeling like we are at the end of our rope, let’s push off the bottom and kick our feet in an act of solidarity with a God whose intention is to eventually make things right. We wait. We paddle. We try to rise as an act of faith.

Learning From Regret

Instead of waiting to see if you measure up, start letting everyone else know that they don’t have to.” Melissa Camara Wilkins

I suspect anyone who pays attention AT ALL and lives long enough can find one or two things to regret. I for one wish my little girl self had understood that it was not healthy for a childhood accident to be met with punishment without first checking for broken bones and glass shards. Now, I can regret not having a different experience and ruminate over it (which I have done) or I can lean in and allow my past to be my past. I can learn new ways to understand it, which is helpful. I can also use it as a lesson for how I want to live my life.

I can WISH for a different experience or I can choose to give others the gift of an experience I have learned is valuable.

I have a friend with abandonment issues. He has reacted to this problem by making sure he leaves relationships at the first sign of turbulence. Better to be the one who walks out than the one who is left behind. Lately he has started to question his choices. He’s wondering if maybe this is not living in a true way.

Maybe, he thinks, he could learn how to be the kind of friend who sticks close as a brother because he knows what it is like to be left behind. I like the way he thinks.

When in Self-Doubt…

“Do not belong so completely to others that you do not belong to yourself.”

John Mason

I am prone to look outside myself for authority figures I can trust because I am full of self-doubt. Others are more self-referencing, guided by an internal compass. My husband is more self-referencing. When he is noodling over a problem, he often researches, prays, and plans in his head for a long time before he mentions the issue. By the time he speaks up, he usually has a plan for solving his problem.

I’m the opposite. I like to talk things out. Part of this is related to my desire to have someone other than me make hard calls and big decisions. My “false self” who lives falsely, tells me that I am bad or stupid. My “true self” who lives truly knows that I am a grown up woman who can make my own decisions without constantly needing others to reassure me that I am not a little girl who drives a red flyer wagon through a plate glass door because she is stupid and an embarrassment to her parents.

I have had to learn to speak up and be clear: I own this problem. I will work it out. I can also recognize that it helps me to hear myself think out loud. Living in true versus false ways is a daily journey of acceptance, self-discovery and course corrections.

Offloading problems can be a lovely thing, but it is not the best strategy for growing up. Authority figures are helpful, but as we grow and mature, we have the awesome responsibility for becoming an authority on the subject matter of living our truest life. This is our work to own. It’s great to have guides and mentors, but this is, as Mary Oliver says, OUR one true and precious life!

How are you increasing your spiritual muscle and leaning into your truest life?

The Heart of Authenticity

“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”

Brené Brown

Our true self has its best chance of showing up when we give her room to breathe. We allow her to live within the context of living a true life, as opposed to a false one. This is the heart of authenticity.

I must be careful in my assessment of true versus false or else I get off track. How do we decide what is true versus false? For me, it springs from the foundation of my faith, my life experiences, my strengths and my suffering - all of which invite me to consider what it might mean to live a true life.

Oh my goodness - this search for living a true life is fraught with complications!

We deceive ourselves (and others) and are deceived about truth. We justify and rationalize our choices. I remember when my father was chasing me upstairs from our basement whipping me with a belt. He kept saying, “This is for your own good. You have to learn to listen to me.” He was, in effect, justifying this spanking as true and good - part of his parental responsibility. For a long, long time, I accepted his explanation.

My brothers had just managed to push me and the little red wagon I was riding in through a glass sliding door, out onto a small concrete slab, down a grassy hill and into a creek. I was in too much shock to listen to anything. The sting of that belt on my already bruised legs did not turn on my “listening ears”. My shame was inflamed, my humiliation complete as I opened that basement door into a hallway that opened into the living room where my folks were hosting a party. Tiny shards of glass sparkled in my hair; pinpricks of blood dotted my arm. I saw people gasp and stare, I assumed they were seeing a very very bad little girl. After that, my memory goes dark.

All of us will face experiences that we cannot process in real time. Hopefully, with guidance, we can circle back through our memories and the teachings of our childhood. We can evaluate them. We can edit our belief systems, thought patterns and the habits they produce. We can make choices that are more honest because we own them. Although I have made many, many mistakes as a parent, I have CHOSEN to believe that hitting children with a belt (or any object) is not good for them. I have CHOSEN to accept the reality that what it felt like is what it was - abusive. I have CHOSEN to listen to and learn from others who do not feel that physical punishment of this nature is helpful for teaching children how to listen.

So this search for our true self and our true way of living? It requires a ton of excavation and examination of our assumptions and beliefs, our certainty and our shadow. When we know better we do better, which I think is the best we can all hope for in a life filled with choices and decisions that do not always spring for our conscious, most true self.