Asking

These are the questions I have been pondering lately. Perhaps they will resonate with you, too.

1. What are the gifts of this season? (I’m thinking about autumn harvest, darkening days, memories that grow stronger this time of year, longings I can’t quite name…)
2. What do I desire? Where do these desires come from?
3. A new thing is dawning for me, and I am not sure exactly what it will look like. In light of that, I ask, who am I becoming? And, as I change, what abides? (What have I always worked toward, though in different ways? What continues to bring me joy?)

Sometimes my more fruitful conversations with God are the ones in which I ask a lot of questions. I try not to ask them just once or twice, but to hold them for a week or two, perhaps longer. Maybe answers will come, and maybe I will only see them years from now, looking back.

What questions are you asking?

 

P.S. If you don’t know, my book (A Good Way Through: My Journey with God from Disappointment into Hope) will be coming out February 21, 2017. We will be celebrating on the evening of March 11, in the East Bay. If you are local to the Bay Area, or if you need an excuse to visit, save the date!

Belonging Is a Monster

A few weeks ago, some old wounds of mine began to tingle with reminiscence. Friendship wounds, wounds of rejection. A complicated (and painful) situation came up, and a series of long, hard, good conversations began. These things unravel slowly, but I know these wounds, too, will heal.

Friendship is hard.

Two years ago Dave and I talked with a friend about “community.” We agreed: The desire to belong is a hungry monster. You can throw immeasurable time and energy into feeding that desire, but it will never be satisfied—not till Kingdom come.

Desire for friendship brings with it fear of scarcity. I worry there is not enough love to go around. If I don’t grab and guard what I can, I might be left on the outside. If I let someone else into this space, there may not be room left for me.

The longing to be known, accepted and loved is probably my deepest desire. But here’s the thing: When I carry that hungry monster into my relationships, it is damaging. I know that to be true of my marriage. When I look to Dave to complete me, we both end up hurt and angry. We complement each other, yes—extremely well—but we do not complete each other. We’ve learned this, and we no longer try. Our marriage is healthier for it.

These last few weeks have been hard, but I am not caught in the cyclone of shame I would have succumbed to five years ago. I am resilient now. I am able to see the hurt, to acknowledge it and own it and be angry about it and speak about it and cry about it, and to keep moving.

I am resilient for two reasons.

First, I have people. There are a few people scattered across the country whom I can call or text any time and know they will hold my story with me. They will be sad with me or joyful with me. They will pray for me and hope for me. This helps immensely.

Far more important is this: I know, at my core, that I am Beloved. I believe God loves me and is near. I am worthy of love simply because I was created to be worthy of love. I have professed this truth all my life, but in the last five years has it settled into my marrow in a new way. Now, my belovedness grounds me. When I know I am beloved, nothing else matters as much. When I carry this knowledge into my friendships, I can love and receive love freely. The monster is subdued. I don’t enter friendships hunting for belonging; I already belong.

How have I come to this knowledge? It’s been years of practice. I wrote a book about it. For now, I will say this: I used to be afraid to be alone with God. I thought God was angry and maybe didn’t love me very much. I feared I was, at the core, unlovable. But the more I entered the darkness within myself, the braver I became. The more I opened myself to God’s love, the more I fought for time to rest, to pray, to create, and to be outside, the more grounded I became. The more grounded I became, the more I could love the people around me well, without grasping.

This month is hard, but I know the wounds will heal. Reconciliation will come with plenty of truth, grace, and honesty. It would be much harder if I needed these relationships to believe in my own worth. Because I know I belong already, healing will come much easier.

There are other things that help the hurt. One night we went to dinner with some new-ish friends, and as we cleared the table they asked if we wanted to linger, to put the kids to bed and play games and talk for a while. As we wrangled our kids into borrowed pajamas, I looked at the happy chaos and thought, This is good. This is healing.

One morning after our weekly pancake breakfast, my family had a spontaneous dance party. Spinning in circles with my small son, I thought, This is good. This is healing.

Those moments alone can’t heal me. They are healing because I am grounded in God’s love. They are healing because I already know I belong. They are healing because I don’t expect them, by themselves, to heal me.

I don’t have this figured out. I am still hurting, still making mistakes, still asking hard questions. But trust me on this: There is enough love for you, my friend. There is more than enough. I have seen it.

Photo Credit: Heidi Ameli Photography

Cadence

In the last six weeks, our family of four has had two bouts of mastitis, one nasty flu/cold virus, two colds + ear infections, one week-long fever, and one ten-day case of hives, still unresolved. It’s been a ride. Somehow, we still managed to squeeze in our annual family adventure to Tuolumne Meadows, which was two parts exhausting, three parts wonderful. The trip was a gift, made possible by grit, antibiotics, the help of friends and the grace of God. In spite of little sleep during our cold nights camping, I feel refreshed. Many of the tasks on my plate that seemed enormous before we left seem smaller after a week outside focusing on the daily, physical needs of my family.

I am thinking about cadence. What are the rhythms of my life, the patterns that I put in place to live well?

Sometimes we look at vacation as an escape from reality, but there’s a better way to think about it. Our time away is not an escape from life, but a part of it—an integral piece of the cadence of our lives, one of the changes in rhythm we practice to help us to live better, more fully, and more generously. We live well when we live from a place of rest.

This summer my cadence was out of whack. Work on the book felt so urgent that I set aside the daily and weekly practices that ground me. My anxiety levels rose, and I was tired. I became, for a little while, someone who writes more about spiritual practice than actually practices it. That’s not a road I want to walk down, even a short distance.

A couple of weeks before we left for our trip, sometime between the first ear infection and the week-long fever, a friend of mine wrote me a note and reminded me of something: I have missed sitting at the feet of God. I am less myself, less present, and have less to offer those around me when I don’t make time to remember I’m beloved.

I reset my cadence. A few days after I got the note, I took a one-day retreat. The next week, I started again to take a few hours on the weekend to be by myself, to pray, read, draw and write. I danced back into a cadence that moves me toward wholeness.

Here’s the thing: it feels selfish at first. I don’t like leaving Dave with the boys for a few hours on his day off. I don’t like saying no to social opportunities. I don’t like turning off my mental to-do list.

But saying no makes room for saying yes. When the cadence of my life is healthy, I have more room in the margins. I am less thrown by changes of plans or weeks of sickness. I am more available to help other people. I am more able to sacrifice my soul-filling practices once in a while when I am practicing them regularly.

Here’s what a good cadence looks like for me right now. (It’s a work in progress, but I offer it to you in its imperfection for two reasons: 1) maybe it will be helpful for you as you think about your own rhythms, and 2) maybe writing it here will help me stick to it.)

• Annually: A week away from home, internet and cell phone service with my family.
• Quarterly: An overnight or one-day retreat by myself.
• Weekly: Two hours to write, read, journal, draw, pray and listen.
• Daily: Fifteen minutes to read a few verses, write, draw and pray, and six minutes of silence. I accomplish the former, some days, with the help of Daniel Tiger for Everett during Asher’s morning nap. The latter I’m still sorting out, but am starting to implement during the boys’ afternoon “rest time”/nap time, with moderate success.

These practices sometimes feel soul-filling and sometimes don’t, but I always notice the affects when I step away from them for long.

What practices fill you? What is your best cadence?

I’d love to know.

 

Worn

Today I write this fuzzy-headed and worn.

On July twentieth, we returned home from a whirlwind trip to visit family in Wisconsin. Someone in our house has been sick ever since. First it was me, with mastitis. Then Asher got a cold, followed quickly by an ear infection. Dave was so sick last weekend he spent much of it in bed. He’s still carrying around a box of Kleenex. Wednesday brought Everett’s fever, which is still going strong.

Sickness with small ones is exhausting. I have been “on” for most of the last three weeks. Friday night Dave offered me a night out, which sounded wonderful until Friday night, when I was so tired I opted instead to lie in bed and watch TV. I am worn.

Yesterday I read this blog post in a quick break between nursing Asher, settling Everett for a rest, and caulking the new siding on the back of the house. I was reminded of the miracle of this body of mine, the body I’m called to spend on behalf of those around me. Today, that is my husband and children. I am called to physically, wholly, lay this body down, to sacrifice my sleep and strength on behalf of my family.

The nights have been long, the days longer. They blur together. We wake in the night to administer Tylenol, change sweat-soaked sheets and pajamas. Asher has been waking for the day before 5am, so Dave and I sleep in shifts until 9 or so.

This morning at ten, Dave said to me, “So what do we need to accomplish today before I go to work in an hour?” I gulped. How could it be ten? Dave always starts his Sundays at eleven, but normally that means we have several hours of family time before he leaves. Today is not normal.

“I think I’d better run to Trader Joe’s,” I said. That’s all I have the capacity for right now—to think about providing sustenance for us and our children.

I hopped in the car and made a quick run. In the pasta aisle, I noticed a pack of spinach and chive linguine. I know people say not to shop hungry, but I think it’s also a bad idea for me to shop tired—I have a lot of fear of scarcity around both food and sleep when I’m exhausted and am far more likely to impulse-buy. I grabbed the linguine and kept going down my list.

I got home, kissed Dave goodbye, and put Everett on FaceTime with my family. Asher was sleeping. I boiled water, deviating from my usual lunch of fresh fruit, vegetables and cheese. I cooked the linguine, then mushrooms and tomatoes. I drizzled on the leftover homemade sauce from Saturday’s pizza and added a couple of dollops of cottage cheese. All this, layered in the beautiful blue bowl I bought at CB2 a few weeks ago and hadn’t used yet, wondering if I’d buy a set or return it.

After the pasta was gone, I held the empty bowl in my hands. Heat lingered in the clay and in my belly.

Today I lay my body down. But I also pause for a moment, holding an empty bowl, in thanks for the sustenance it has offered. I thank God that I don’t yet have the virus that has ransacked our “normal” the last few weeks. I thank Jesus for spending his body on my behalf. I thank God for the privilege of stumbling through these weeks, for enough energy to get through each day, and for reminding me to be grateful (because many days I am not).

Fearfully Wonderful, Part II

Last night, Dave asked me a question: “How would the you of five years ago have read that post?”

Five years ago I wouldn’t have read that post. Or, I would have read it and cried.

Five years ago, my body couldn’t carry a child.

We were a year into infertility. For me, infertility carried both sadness and shame. My body didn’t work right. It couldn’t do the one thing I wanted it to do.

My body was a miracle then too.

I couldn’t carry a child, but I could run. Someone told me once to find the tallest hill near my house, and to start running up it. I overcame a chronic foot injury, and by the end of the summer, I ran from my house to the top of Griffith Park once a week. I was strong.

I ran a half marathon, and ran it faster than I had ever imagined running. I was strong, and I was fast. My body did something right in a season when nothing about it felt right.

But the foot injury caught up with me. Six months later, I had to cancel my next half marathon because I couldn’t run. I couldn’t even walk without pain.

My body was a miracle then, too. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t carry a child, but I could love the people around me with my hands and arms and ears. I could paint, teach, listen and laugh.

Right now, I cannot run. I can’t even walk far. But I can write. I can make dinner for friends and clean my house. I can sing.

Our bodies are amazing.

But what happens when everything we have is taken away? When our bodies are sick? When our bodies are weak?

I don’t know.

I am a body and I am more than a body.

I am what I do, but I am more than what I do.

My body is a miracle, and my worth has nothing to do with how beautiful it is or how functional.

At the bottom of it all is this: I am beloved. Nothing else matters.

Thank God for grace.

Fearfully Wonderful

It’s Tuesday. Dave and I are in Capitola, celebrating our ten years of marriage a few days early. We have Thai food for lunch, then wander around town.

We pop into a couple of shops. As I stand at the counter buying a $3 pair of sunglasses, a woman turns to me. Eyeing my midsection, she asks:

“Is there a baby?”

“Yes,” I reply. “But he’s out already.”

She looks at me quizzically.

“I have a six-month-old,” I say.

What else can I?

There is plenty to say about her question and its appropriateness, but I cannot say I am surprised. I’ve had the same conversation seven or eight times in the last six months. Each time it has played out a little bit differently, but one thing remains the same: I am always saddened afterward. Angry, sure, but also saddened.

Later that day, I grab the breast pump. “I’m going downstairs to pump,” I tell Dave. “It’s not very sexy.”

“Everything your body does right now is miraculous,” he replies.

Why do I forget?

I am weak, but I am strong.

My belly hangs loose, like a tent without poles, an empty pillowcase. It is warm like a blanket, and soft. It was Everett’s house, then it was Asher’s. It has never had hard lines of muscle, but it is a testament to strength of another kind.

My body is a vessel. Two human beings have begun their life inside of me—and that is fearfully wonderful.

What stays with me is not the woman’s question. What stays is that I have not loved my body well of late.

What would it look like to feed my body out of respect, not desperation? To exercise to bring honor, not shame? To dress my body as an act of reverence, not subterfuge?

Who’s to say the roll around my middle is not beautiful?

If I, deep in my soul, love my body, then perhaps it won’t matter what anyone else thinks. Perhaps it won’t cut when I’m asked, again, if I am pregnant.

I am flawed.

I am weak.

I am beautiful and strong.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

So how do I live that way?

For today, my answer is this. Each time I care for my body, when I eat, bathe, dress, or prepare for sleep, I will pray: Thank you that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Today gratitude is the first step.

 

Book Update!

Dear friends,

Many of you know that for the last three years I have been working on a book.  It began with a kickstarter campaign to pay for a babysitter so I could write.  (Thank you to the many of you who were part of that!)

The last three years of work on this book have been a journey up a very steep learning curve.  After much prayer and thought and a lot of great conversations with knowledgeable people, I decided in January to move forward with self-publication, and I am thrilled.

In self-publishing, I am not beholden to a bottom line like a traditional publisher, so there is more freedom to do what feels right for the book, regardless of marketability.  I also have the opportunity  to experience the process of making a book from start to finish – a complex and fascinating process.  And, as a friend told me recently, I get to figure out what exactly I’m about before I submit that to someone else’s authority.

Right now I am in the process of completing the final revisions – distilling the book down to exactly what it is supposed to be.  I am working with a fabulous editor, Paul J. Pastor, and already much clarity has come from our collaboration.  I am gathering a wonderful team of people around me to handle the elements I can’t create myself, like copyediting and design.  It is such a joy to watch all of this unfold!

The book is about my journey of discovering God’s love in difficult times through spiritual practice.  It is part story, part guide, and my great hope is that it is helpful to anyone struggling through a difficult or transitional season.  The title we have settled on is A Good Way Through.

If you would like updates on the publication of A Good Way Through, you can sign up for my email list here.  If all goes as planned, it should be available sometime early in 2017.

Blessings, my friends!  Thank you for reading.

-Krissy

The Last Twenty Percent

I’ve been thinking about the last 20%. My ankle is 80% healed, my house is 80% put together, and my book is 80% finished. The last 20% is taking longer than expected.

I asked Dave about this last night. He said that, maybe, the last 20% is actually 50% of the project, but we expect it to be 20%, which is why it seems to drag on and on. The creative rush is over. For all intents and purposes, we could be done, if we were satisfied with a mostly-together house with some disorganized closets and nothing on the walls. My book could be out there for the world in just a few weeks if I weren’t concerned with making it the best book it can be.

The last 20% (which may really be 50%) takes discipline. It requires a different kind of creativity – not the flash of inspiration kind, but the kind that is honed by hard work and risk and learning from our mistakes. It requires help; for some reason, my own strength is never enough to get to the end.

With much of my life in the last 20%, I ask the question that comes to me often: what does it look like to live well in this season?

Here are the things that come to mind today.

• Don’t rush. It’s easy to want to just finish the book and finish the house and use my ankle the way I always do, but that could land me with a sloppy book, a helter-skelter house, and another injury. I need to take time to sit on my front porch and drink a cup of tea. I need to stretch my ankle every day. I need to sit with blank walls for a while and to read a book about writing. I need to give myself space for inspiration and time for rest.
• Find a new kind of creativity. Right now, I need to be creative about my time. Preschool is over for the summer, and I need to come up with some new ideas for what it looks like to be a writer + mama.
• Form a team. With my book project, I have hit the stage where everything is new. I’m learning what it means to hone a manuscript, about the elements of production like the cover and interior design, and what it takes to publish, market, and promote a book. I am developing a new skill set, and I need a lot of help. I am thankful for the people I am working with who are passing their skills along to me.
• Remember what is important. Though I want to get all of this done right now, I also don’t want to become so task-oriented that I miss what’s right in front of me. Perhaps this is a lingering lesson from my weakness. I need to spend time with friends and play with my children.

What else does it take to finish well?

Weak

On Saturday, as we packed up the last odds and ends and our friends started loading boxes into the moving truck, I fell out the door.

The dining room of our rental house has double doors but a single step onto the patio. We always kept the step-less door closed, until Saturday, when we were moving furniture.

I went down hard on my ankle, spent the rest of the day on the floor, and the early evening in the ER: sprained, not broken, but a boot and crutches until I’m pain-free.

I’m in some pain, but mostly I am just mad. I’ve been looking forward to unpacking and organizing this house, our house, our very own house, for the last two months. I’ve arranged it in my head, dreamed of what I’ll put on the open shelves in the kitchen and where I will hang which curtains. Four days into our move, and I’m still on the couch with my leg up. I can’t even carry our baby.

As I wander about the house on crutches, looking at boxes I want to unpack, I learn a lesson in lovely contrast to my lesson of a week ago: I am weak. I cannot do or be all that I desire. Sometimes I can’t even get myself a glass of water.

I am enough, but not enough.

This week I have been overwhelmed with gratitude. For this house, which fits our family just exactly right. For my family at Open Door, who had our entire truck packed and then unpacked in two hours. For my sister, here from Charlotte, who I trust to organize my house for me more than anyone else in the world.

I am mad, but I am grateful. I am strong, and I am weak. So often the things I feel and the things I learn seem like opposites, but they are often two sides of one coin.

I expected to enter my new neighborhood competent, confident, organized, and strong. I planned neighborhood walks and dinners out front right away. Instead, the first view my neighbors had of me was my sister pushing me from the car to the house in a jogging stroller. I entered helpless.

What am I to learn from my weakness?

A friend of mine asked me the other day what I’ve been praying for recently. She said that sometimes bumps in the road like this are answers to prayer.

I was puzzled. I have been praying for wisdom in parenting.

Yesterday I started to put some of the pieces together.

I spent the morning on the couch with my leg up, answering question after question from Everett about death. “When will we die? Will we all be together? What will it feel like when God takes off our shoulders?” (We talked about getting new bodies.) At one point he turned his tearful blue eyes on mine: “But I will miss you, Mama.”

In the afternoon, at the end of a rough day for naps, I rocked my sweet, sniffly Asher to sleep in my arms. And because I had no choice, because I couldn’t carry him to his crib and let him sleep there, I stayed. I sat and rocked with him in my arms and I read a book. The sweetness of his snores and his soft cheeks and the way his eyelashes lay just so and those few hairs behind his left ear that are just a little longer than the rest… I soaked him in.

Did I twist my ankle so I would pay attention to my kids instead of putting the whole house together in a two-day whirlwind? I don’t know. I do know that I twisted my ankle because I was moving too fast and not paying attention to what was in front of me. I’m still mad, but seeing my children, really seeing them, is a gift.

And so, as I rely on those around me to care for me and my children, my prayer from last week changes:

You are strong. I am weak. Sustain us.