A Woman

‎"...A woman who is living out her true design will be ‘valiant, vulnerable,
and scandalous.’ That’s a far cry from the ‘church ladies’ we hold up
as models of Christian femininity, those busy and tired and rigid women
who have reduced their hearts to a few mild desires and pretend
everything is going just great”
...(John Eldridge, Wild At Heart)

I hear these words and my entire being lets out a great big exhale. Yes please. No more frantic, lonely attempts to be "just right". No more expectations that a "godly" woman feeds her husband's ego until he explodes. No more false smiles. No more cringing from a deep and sorrowful heart cry simply because we are so terrified to observe our own broken hearts. No more backbiting and gossiping from beaten and abandoned hearts.

Let's all just say it how it is. Women are meant to be fully alive, wholly loved, deeply respected and rooted deep in healthy and faithful relationships. We are created to have strong and passionate emotions. We are formed, both internally and externally, to be lovely and strong.

Whoever wrote the manual (which, by the way is NOT the Bible) that says good Christian women should be weak and should "bear up" under someone's anger, addiction, selfishness and pride should be called to account.

Whoever decided that women as a whole should be superficial and flighty should spend a day immersed in the inner workings of a truly free woman. I think he/she would be surprised at what they find.

I've read a few articles about this passage from Wild At Heart - all of them fiercely offended that John Eldridge sees women in this light.

To John Eldridge, I say, "Hell Yes!"

Let's let women be WOMEN.

Not busy and tired shadows of who they are CREATED to be.

I'll step back down now.... ;)

Old Spaces

On Sunday we rearranged our entire room. This was not a normal "move some furniture around" kind of project. We are getting ready for Daisy's arrival (I know - I still have 4 months of gestating to go!), so this was a big deal. Since we are having a home birth we needed to make room for the birthing tub. I really have no idea how big it is, but I'm pretty sure the tub+my many birth attendants+my midwife will equal a giant need for more space.

We also have a few outlets that have been sparking. Creepy, I know. Lucky me - my husband is a talented handyman. He knocked that out in about 10 minutes. And then there was the deal with the cable. Moving the TV cabinet to the other side of the room meant moving the cable. Once again - I have that handyman on call. Still, it was a long and frustrating day.

At the end of it all I was achingly pregnant so I laid down on my comfy bed. I realized as soon as I laid down that I was laying in the same exact spot I had been laying in when I discovered my husband's deep addiction. It's been 3 years since we last lived in my parent's house. It's been 3 years of sorrow and yearning and loss. It's been 3 years of victory and hope in small, significant doses. And, here I am in the very same space I had been in the last time I was pregnant. But this time it was so so different.

I sat in the realization for a moment, remembering how my life had crashed down around me that day. And then I thought about God's mercy. He never half way heals us. He's all the way or nothing at all. This is how full force my God is: not only have things been changing and healing over the last 3 years, but I will give birth to my sweet girl in this very room. In the same space that has housed such sadness and destruction I will take part in something holy and sacred.

My last birth was traumatic and scary. I was alone and lost. This birth will be full and safe. And it will be here, redeeming this space; redeeming a lost piece of my marriage.

I'm ready :)

The Prayer

A friend of mine posted this on facebook this morning and I just kept reposting it.

The more I read it the more I FEEL it.

It's stunning and true and deeply powerful.

So I want to share it again :)

"You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace." - St....Augustine

I've been really truly contemplating what is actually Biblical vs. what is tradition in the Christian faith.

This small quote seemed to stir up something ancient and universal for me. THIS is the God who was and is and will be. This is the great and mysterious Creator. This is the Unexplainable.

May we ALL be moved to hunger and thirst for more; to search and pray with an open heart. May we discover what is essential to our faith and be relieved of what is merely causing our ears to grow deaf, our eyes to grow blind and our breath to grow short.

Courage

I am not a fan of self portraits. They make me uncomfortable. I imagine people standing in their bathrooms, with their cell phones, pouting into their mirrors. It seems more silly and vain than artistic.

However, I HAVE seen self portraits that are VERY moving. Artistic and meaningful photos taken during moments of self reflection.

I remember seeing a photo my cousin had taken for a photography class. It was intimate and beautiful. It was also the first time I didn't resent someone for taking a photo of themselves (I know. Really, I have no business judging people for taking photos of themselves :)).

Since I've been SO miserable with my expanding body, and since I don't want to pass through yet another pregnancy without any photos to look back on, I've taken on a photographic project.

The dreaded self portrait.

I am basing my entire project on this one quote:

"Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared." (Eddie Rickenbacke)

I don't want to spend the rest of my life avoiding the things that scare me.

I want to adventure. Adventure takes courage. And "there can be no courage unless you're scared." :)

I'm scared of what I see reflected in my own self portraits. I'm scared of what they say about me. I'm scared that I will never feel joy in what I see.

So, I'm stepping COMPLETELY outside of myself to capture the truth of myself.

And I'm posting these photos because that scares me even more.

So, here's to Jesus.

Here's to the the hope of freedom.

Here's to fear and courage.

Let It Be

What is it about being lonely that is SO gripping?

Why is it so powerful? It's only a feeling... it's only perspective.

I'm pretty sure that, most times, lonely isn't really about being alone...

It's probably more about being forgotten... or lost.

And most people... okay, me... can be completely surrounded by people and still feel lonely.

It's weird, isn't it?

I've been thinking about it a lot today. I wish I were the kind of creature that could detach from emotions. I wish I could shrug my shoulders with a great big, "Oh well. What's next?"

Too bad. I'm not.

Instead I've got to figure out how to sit in it and let it be okay.

Let lonely be lonely.

Matthew 15

I have 3 weeks left in my 2nd trimester and I'll be honest - I'm starting to feel enormously fat.

I'd like to say that I am one of those happily expanding mamas. I would LOVE to enjoy every extra pound, knowing that it is nourishing and protecting my baby. But I'm not. Instead, I do what must be done out of love for my daughter. I stay healthy to keep her healthy.

I gained almost 60 pounds when I was pregnant with Aravis and 45 when I was pregnant with Judah. I am desperately trying to avoid the scale this time around because my body "sickness" is grappling for control.

I weigh myself when I am at my midwife appointments and not at all when I am at home. I am eating as much high protein, vegan, fresh food as I can stomach (and, as of today, Trader Joe oreos just for balance :)) I go to the gym 5 times a week for yoga, pilates and the treadmill. I KNOW I am healthy.

But, still, I look in the mirror and I see things growing. Hello! I'm PREGNANT!

Oooooooh that old evil disease of self hatred. Why am I so surprised that it is looming over the joy of my sweet, growing girl?

Yesterday I happened to read one line in the Message version of Matthew 15...

"Listen, and take this to heart. It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up."

I get this now.

It's not just what I choose to swallow - the sickness, the lies, the distorted image in my mirror - that pollutes my life. It's MORE SO what comes back up. It's what comes out of my heart, my mouth, my actions. It's the way it affects my life. And it doesn't feel too good when it's on it's way back up.

Even though I haven't, for even a moment, given in to the physical manifestation of my self rejection, I am still living under the banner of it. Waving over my entire life is a thick, dark sheet of joyless decision. I have already decided that I am completely unacceptable. I've swallowed that mindset. I've absorbed it. And it makes me sick.

We aren't designed for death and sin. Those things are foreign substances. They are toxic. But they are constantly set before us.

And it's not just what we swallow that pollutes us. It's what we vomit up.

Sick Days and Adventure

So, today is day 5 of Kindergarten and the famous school germs have gotten ahold of my cute little Kindergartner. Poor Aravis has already missed a day of school due to a nasty cold. To be honest, I'm okay with that :)

She's been a little sniffly for the last few days, but last night I heard her growling in her sleep (Not snoring really - but growling. Not in a creepy way. It was pretty cute). By the time she woke up this morning the girl was coughing andboogery. So I called her school and took my kids on a morning hike to fuel up on some vitamin d.

This is NOT the time of year I like to hike. It was quickly approaching 100 degrees at 8:30 as we headed to our favorite reserve, but we were well stocked on water and wearing as little clothing as possible.

For some reason, as soon as we hit the trail, Judah was clinging to my hand - afraid of snakes!

He's never been afraid of ANYTHING on a hike before and we've never even seen a snake out there, so I was a little confused, but happy to hold his cute little hand.Aravis marched ahead of us scouting out the land. She was pretty certain our goal was to climb to the top of the mountain (didn't happen).

Halfway through our hike I realized that I had been hearing a sound behind the loud cicadas the entire time. Sigh. Rattles. We'd been tromping along all this time and had - not once - heard that famous rattling. So, we turned around and hightailed it for the car.

The second half of our trip was not as relaxed. But I didn't freak out (still kind of shocked that I didn't). I just told them to listen to the sound of the rattling and move away from it. We made it back to our air conditioned, enclosed car and drove the short distance to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for some iced tea and green juice.

Lesson learned: trust the two year old.