beloved.

Last year at this time, my friend Knuck and I set out to read the entire Bible together in 12 months. We were going to encourage each other to stay on track, keep a blog and maybe even someday write a book about the experience.

Well, I am currently reading 2nd Samuel.


Yes, in one long year I made it through 10 of the 66 books of the Bible. According to my handy schedule, I should have reached this point last February.

But oh, how fitting a book to be failing with.

First and Second Samuel mostly tell the stories of David - how this little shepherd boy was chosen by God from all of his older brothers to succeed Saul, Israel's first king. How he single-handedly took down the giant Goliath, led the Israelite armies to victory, escaped the revengeful Saul and led the united nation of Israel. I've said before that David is one of my favorite people in the Bible and his stories reminded me of why.

David screws up all of the time. Repeatedly and stupidly and blatantly. It seems as soon as he gets back on his feet, he falls again. But, I’m always surprised at how simply and quickly he bounces back from these falls. I guess it's because I’m the type of person to stay down and wallow, hide and perseverate on what I did wrong. Plans crumble and I bite the dust, hard and I wonder where in the world I went wrong along the way. Because isn't that the hardest thing? To entrust to God with my past, my activity in my own story. It’s hard to trust that there is a divine plan in failure, when that failure scrapes at my overachieving heart with such intensity.

We know that David wrote most of the Psalms - they function somewhat like his prayer diary. My Bible has notes on which Psalms line up with different events recorded in 1 and 2 Samuel. When David is being hunted like an animal by a jealous Saul, mourning the death of his sons, or repenting for his many failures, we can read his responses to God during those times.

I'm struck by these prayers.

So many of the Psalms start in despair, matching so many of my prayers. But the end is where my perfectionist heart is taken aback. They most often end in joy, self-assurance, self-reminder: this God is mysterious, and powerful, but He is GOOD. 

Through and through. 

David has a fierce awareness not only of his failures, but of God’s goodness. He trusts in it completely and trusts that it is a ferocious, bottomless love for His people. David believes that no failure or fall could ever stack up against this Love. 

And maybe this is what David understands, what I need to study.

David knows who his God is, over and above his circumstances. 

and he knows that he is loved.

And maybe this is the reason for and lesson from pain, the seemingly pointless failures and falls. This is the asset in my losses. Maybe the Good Shepherd gives and takes away to remind me of where my open hands should be reaching. I don't have a kingdom at stake but there are idols I fall before every day. And maybe here, in the losses, the falls, the confusion He is saying:

LOOK.
LISTEN.
None of this defines you.
You are not your relationship. You are not your gifts. You are not your looks. You are not your health. You are not your job.
You are Beloved and you are Mine. And on that your identity shall rest.

When I wrap my hands around things that could be taken from me: a job that I could lose, a relationship that I could screw up, then my life becomes a frantic scramble to hold tight to that thing. My priorities shift and arrange around that one thing. Because on some level I know it's broken and it's finite.

But what if I could try every day, like David, to wrap my hands, heart and identity around the one thing I know to be steadfast, pure and whole?
And when I failed every day, what if I just kept trying? 

And what if my priorities and habits started to form around that quest? 

Wouldn't that be better than building around something broken?


And when hardship came, wouldn't I be in a better place to respond?

I know there are mild voices that will suggest 'you are your career' or 'you are a daughter' or 'you are a wife.' and I need to respond (wearily), "No, I am Beloved. Those things spring from the life in that truth."
And then there are the nastier voices, the fearful lies that will say, "you can't do this, you are scarred, you're not worthy, you're too broken." And to those voices I need to roar,
"NO! I AM BELOVED!"
And when seasons of doubt come and a sad and general stagnancy mourns, "you're alone in this" or "this is as far as you'll come", it needs to become as steady and automatic as my heartbeat:
No
No

NO
NO.
I am Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.


Beyond all of the crumbling, finite idols I throw myself before daily - the broken names and identities I trust in, the failures and the falls, there is a pure, good and unshakable voice that calls me Beloved. And that's what I need to chase. That's what will keep me close to God's heart, in every victory or defeat.

"For God alone, o my soul wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken." - Ps 62:5

_________________________________________

Like what you read? 
I'd love it if you'd follow me here on Blogger, or as MaJeCla on Twitter. 
Share, share, share - let's up those marketing stats! 
Thank you, thank you, thank you in advance.

(I warned you that this was coming.) 

thxthxthx

Dear That Time I Ran Through The Fountain On The Greenway,

Thanks for existing as you do, in the middle of summer 2012, late at night and a little hazy from free festival wine. I think that on some level, the freedom and buzzing exuberance I felt (before, during and after you took place) propelled me boldly through my 25th birthday and into this brave new re-adventure. 

I'm giving myself one more crack at this publishing game and whenever that starts to scare me, I think of you and remember that the best writers live wild and well. Parts of me have slunk or gotten chipped away these past few difficult years and your memory never fails to reconnect me - even momentarily - to my deepest, truest, most alive self. 

Also, you are one of my favorite Boston memories to date. 

Also, I love that a man in a wheelchair flew through the fountain just as I was leaving. He not only makes you a more completely perfect story to tell, but his abandon makes me feel extra brave. 

I owe you one, 

MC

=========================================================================
Where did this weirdness come from?
Lately, I have become so enthralled by this writer that she seems to have seeped into my brainwaves. I've started thinking in thank-you note form. And as a firm believer in a good thank-you note - and all forms of gratitude - I am really quite okay with that.
Do I hope that I eventually am able to think and write normally?
Sure, but in due time.

mumford.

Drew pooped his pants at school when he was 8. It is one of the best stories I have ever heard and I make him tell it all the time. The Poop Story is one of the most frequently and shamelessly used tools in our conversational arsenal as a couple. 
Double date need an icebreaker?
The Poop Story.
Party getting boring?
The Poop Story.
New friendship needing a test as to whether it's worth our time?
THE POOP STORY.
(Is that weird? Are you curious now? Do you want to befriend me just so you can hear it? SEE- IT'S MAGIC.)

The Poop Story has never failed us, and there are times when I feel guilty that I don't have a poop story of my own. Like I'm really not really pulling my weight in this marriage. After all, the best story I have is The Mermaid Story and it isn't even really my story. It belongs to my brother and Tara Lipinski, God bless her heart. 

...Sometimes I start to write a blog post and then I get distracted and forget about it. I found the above paragraphs, written over a year ago, filed in my 'drafts' folder under the cryptic label 'mumford'. 

Where was I going with that story and how was I going to bring it back to Mumford???
Maybe I wrote it on a Vicodin bender after my wisdom teeth removal?
I haven't the slightest idea.

But, after I read it, I couldn't bring myself to leave it behind, so instead I used it to wickedly lure you in to this blog- and you fell for it because everybody (whether secretly or boldly) loves bathroom humor. So let's pretend I made a really witty and agile segue from that tidbit into what I am about to say:

========================================================================

Readers, I need your help:
I am working on a comeback. I need it to be big. Like, Britney big.
I know I've said it before, but I'm getting back on that wiley old horse named Authorship. It feels like the horse is oh, about 5 stories tall and I need to construct scaffolding just to get back in the saddle. But, I really want to do it and you can help me. (Please, help me.)

My first step is revamping my dusty old book proposal from 2 years ago. Social media has come a long way, even in two short years and I'd like to include some stats. Of course, my stats are currently less-than-impressive. The kids I used to nanny have more Twitter followers than I do and as you can see in the bottom right hand side of this screen, only 60ish of you actually follow me here. Can we try and change that? It's relatively easy to follow me here (Mom, just put on your reading glasses and click "Join this site") and my handle on Twitter is MaJeCla (I was starting to get a lot of creepy werewolf-fanatic type queries, so had to change things up. Thanks, Twilight.)

As a warning, I will be making a similar plea at the end of every post from here on out. That might get annoying, but since I gave you fair warning, you need to be okay with it when the time comes. 

Whew. Glad that part is over. It's weird to promote yourself, isn't it?
(Not as weird as blogging about poop).
True.

For my part, I vow to make it more worth your while than it has been in the past.
I promise to post more than once a trimester (why do I still divide my years into trimesters?)
I promise to study my worn copy of Bossypants and try to be funnier.
I promise to use my brand new Smartphone to tweet like a maniac.
What else do you people want from me? I really want to know! Comment away.

(Or, if you wanted to share your own poop story in the comments section, that would also be appropriate and welcome.)

Thanks in advance.

fitness, fear and former things.

I've been working out a little bit lately. 

Those of you that know me, know that this is headline news. 

I am not a person who works out. 

I am a person who inadvertently gets exercise while riding my bike to an ice cream shop, dancing like a fool at a wedding or running to catch a bus.
I am a person who lives above a yoga studio, yet has only attended one class even though my membership is discounted and only then because I was promised sushi afterward.
I am a person who wears athletic gear to run errands for the smug and ridiculous satisfaction that the strangers around me probably think I came from some sort of cardio class. Suckers.  

I've had my fair share of beach highs, How I Met Your Mother highs, and even cheese highs...but I've yet to understand the famed 'runner's high'. And, luckily (thankfully) my Asian metabolism graciously allows for this. 

But lately, I have been on a Chris Powell high. 

Is anyone else out there a fan of Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition? No? Well, that's weird.

Chris Powell is a personal trainer who became famous for helping one of America's heaviest men lose over 400 pounds in 2 years. He travels around the country, facilitating these year-long 'transformations' of the country's obese, and documents their weight-loss journey. He looks like a beautiful little G.I. Joe, sounds like a teenage boy and HE MAKES YOU WANT TO GET RIPPED.

His first workout with a client is what he calls the 'fight or flight workout'. He says he can tell within the first hour of the workout how the rest of his year with this client is going to go. He pushes them farther than he knows their physical capabilities to be, so he can watch how they react. Most of them give up and try to walk away. They say "I can't! You don't understand!" and he will always come back with a resounding,

"WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF?"

Chris gets it.

Every single one of these people end up blurting it out. It's always, always trauma. Abandonment, abuse, rape, failure, loss - Chris ever so compassionately explains that this is how people become morbidly obese. They don't just love food. They're all burying fear, burying that nasty voice in their head that whispers lies all day long. We all have that voice, we just drown it out differently: drugs, alcohol, relationships, knowledge, fitness, music, work...food.
From the first second of the workout, Chris shouts encouragement at his clients. He tells them "You are worthy! I chose you! You can do this! You are capable!" - and he says if you watch closely, you can see the moment when they stop listening to him - when the struggle exposes that fear and they start listening to its voice instead. He says you can see their physical stats drop, their energy decrease, their focus waver. And as a viewer, it gets frustrating. You think "what is wrong with you people!? Here is a nationally recognized expert in weightloss! He spent the last few days at a health institute with you, determining exactly what your body is capable of! Why would you doubt him??" But that's the thing about fear, especially when you're used to burying it:
Fear gets loud when you start to fight it.

Sometimes truth sneaks up on you.
Sometimes when you watch TV to hide from your own problems, God says 'nice try' and teaches you anyways. Sometimes the most important lessons come from the most unlikely sources.
Mine came from a 355 pound woman named Jacqui. She was the saddest, most insecure person I had seen on the show and I was certain she would be a 'flighter'. When that breaking point came, Chris told her,
"there's the door - you can leave whenever you want to."
This poor girl was sobbing from sheer exhaustion but she struggled to her feet and she said,

"I can't let my fear own me any longer."

And isn't that what it boils down to?
We've been over this. We know we're created for a fight, not flight. We know we're created to fight side by side. We know we have tools to give each other the courage we need.

And at the end of the day, who owns you?
What voice are you listening to?
I mean really listening, not just hearing and acknowledging. I mean trusting with all of your heart, your future, your health, your finances, your beginnings and your endings.

We all have that voice in our head that whispers lies. Call it Insecurity, Stress, Doubt, Sadness, Anxiety - it goes by many names, but if it's not Love, it's Fear.

......

I know that whoever you are, you are fighting a battle, in some way or another.

Maybe it's a smaller battle, one that nibbles at you a little every day, but doesn't own you. Maybe it's the fiercest of your life and you feel alone. You are not.

There's another voice. The voice of an expert. The being who knit your cells together. The being who has already numbered your days and charted your path. The being who knit Himself some cells, just so he could come down here and have them torn apart to show us this:
You are WORTHY!
I CHOSE you!
You CAN do this!
You ARE capable.
FEAR WILL NOT OWN YOU ANY LONGER. 

Because Fear is a liar and we have a choice, always a choice, about who we listen to.
These battles have been fought. He goes ahead of us to be sure.
Sometimes, when I lose focus, get weak, give in to Fear, I think of the Israelites in Deuteronomy. God has gone ahead of them into the Promised Land,  conquered the giants who lived there and then He says, exasperated - "This is your land! I fought to give it to you! Go up and take possession of it!"
This is your life. This is my life.

I don't have all of the answers, but I do know that listening Fear is always a waste of time. These are our battles, but the voice that will give us the strength and courage to overcome is not the lies in our heads. It is the voice that says:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored,
and I love you.

Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

::Isaiah 43

b+d

Why do I love weddings so much? Thanks for asking. It's because, given our physiological makeup, our society's influence and our nasty human nature, a lasting marriage in this day and age is almost 100% impossible. 

And I LOVE when people try to do impossible things. 

For those of you who asked, here is what I read at Brandi and Danny's loveliest of weddings. If you think it sounds eerily familiar, you'd be right- I pulled some of it from what I read at Big Guy's wedding here . Artistic license, kids. 

In the book of Revelation, Jesus’ disciple John is trying to describe his vision of Heaven. He is the only man I know of to see Heaven and come back to tell about it. He describes it the best way he knows how, which amounts to a lot of really bizarre metaphors and illustrations. But the one that fills me with the most hope and the most joy is this:

John, trying to cram all of the perfection, beauty and unity he saw up there into our whisperingly fragile language, describes Heaven as a wedding feast. 

He describes the meeting of God and His children as what we just saw, what we stood and rejoiced in, what we marvel over time and time again : a bride, making her gorgeous and thrilling walk toward her first love.

We’re in the middle of something achingly beautiful and sacred. Something that’s been planned for years, something that echoes with significance and eternity.

We’re here today to celebrate the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.

The most important thing I’ve been told about marriage is that we don’t have it in us to succeed at it. We’re all broken – we’re not whole enough or pure enough for things like unconditional love or faithfulness. The best thing marriage will do is throw you at the feet of our God who is.

In truth, weddings are beautiful because God is faithful.

I’m reminded of His faithfulness as I see Brandi walk towards Danny, knowing her journey the way that I do and knowing that she really has been walking toward him for years and years now. I’m reminded of the watch that Brandi wears all of the time and how Danny found it when he was a little boy and saved it, hoping to someday give it to the woman he loved. And his faithful father led him straight to his Brandi-lin. You two have spent your lives seeking and capturing beauty and God led you here, to each other.

This is something to celebrate.

He went before you all of these years, bringing you to this place. And He will go before you always, being the strength you need to choose Love, the grace you need to choose hope and the wisdom you need for all of your adventures.

I’d like to close with a verse from Deuteronomy. It’s from a speech Moses is making to the Israelites – they’ve been wandering the desert for 40 years and at the edge of the promised land, they stop- afraid. Moses stands before them and starts weaving a beautiful history for them, reminding them of their journey to that place and how God has gone before them, faithful, every step of the way.

He tells them:

Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.

He is faithful, He makes us more than conquerors, bigger than our giants (?) and stronger than our fears.

Love goes before you, like He always has.

And Love will always win.




***Like what you read? I'd love if you'd follow me here or on Twitter ( @WerewolfJesusBk) . That's right- this girl is stepping up her marketing game before the big proposal submission. Help a sister out!

WHAT THE- (part 1)

i know i say this every once in a while, when the bro in me wants to warn you, readers, that we're about to dive into something not suited for a first date discussion...but this time i mean it:

it's about to get real.
really real.

drew and i had a nice little chat about Hell before bed the other night. (nothing like some light pillow talk...)
i've been thinking about it ever since.

i took an apologetics class in high school, which is where we were basically taught to 'defend' our faith against those vicious non-believers who would start attacking us just the second we graduated. (and it always seemed a little ironic to me to believe that something is absolute truth but then learn to defend it with my stupid human words.) one question they taught us we would be asked is this:

why would a good God send good people to Hell?

and in some ways, it's a perfectly logical question, given the depictions of Hell most of us are raised on. the movies, the christian conversion pamphlets, Dante, etc. if that was all i had to go on then, yeah- i might ask the same question.
why would a good God turn Gamemaker (couldn't help myself with the Hunger Games reference) and mastermind a torturous prison for people who don't profess faith? if satan is His enemy, why could He build him a volcanic playground and give him people to torture?
in short, why would He use His good powers to create evil?

and in my almost 10 years since high school, out here in the real world, i have yet to be asked that question. and maybe that just means i am not out among the people i should be out among. or maybe my friends just don't care.
but i've personally never had a problem explaining this to the imaginary people who ask me this from time to time.

if you take out all of the cliched images and corresponding assumptions, it really is quite simple.
at least i think so.
then again, i always tend to oversimplify things.

if we believe in a perfect God, then He would necessarily be perfectly just, perfectly peaceful, perfectly loving, perfectly kind, perfectly fulfilling, etc etc etc. if this good, perfect God creates us with free will and asks that we love Him and choose to be with Him eternally and we-by profession or action-reject Him, we would be rejecting all of the things He is.

do you follow me?

that means that Hell is not a place He masterminded to punish people who don't like Him. that would just be so silly and petty and...human. Hell is the perfectly logical outcome of our rejection of His invite. it's a vacuum created when Love, Peace and Kindness are removed. it's what we're left with when we opt out of The Giver of every good thing. and that makes perfect sense to me.

so no, i don't think Hell is a parallel dimension that also somehow exists at the molten core of Earth. i don't think demons will poke us with their forks and toast us over fires. i think Hell is what a soul feels when it's left with its choice and that choice is the absence of God. when the Mercy and Goodness woven throughout our broken world is lifted and the soul is crushed with the weight of everything imperfect. everything unGod.

yes, the Bible says that there will be groaning and gnashing of teeth and burning fire. but, in the same way that Heaven is not really a wedding, something tells me that Hell is not really a lake of fire. but really, how else would you find the human words to describe the harrowing sorrow of an existence without Goodness. we humans, by sheer Grace, have never known that feeling. we've never been touched by that white-hot anguish. it's hard to even imagine, much less capture in our helplessly small words.

so, why WOULD a good God send good people to hell?
He wouldn't.
and He doesn't.

more to come.

for samurais and leprechauns.

I don’t know if it’s the samurai or the leprechaun in us, but from the stories my parents tell, my brothers and I were some spunky little kids.

they tell how my big brother received a tinfoil bravery medal for calmly riding his kindergarten bus from one end of the route to the other when the bus driver forgot to stop at our house.
 they tell how mute little toddler me found my voice to scream at playground bullies picking on my brother.
they tell about little Ryan, sitting through 22 stitches to his 4 year old face.
we had some guts, some grit.

Little kids are spunky. Little kids have bizarre reserves of courage.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about courage as I write this Katniss series and fight my own battles. Sometimes I look at my life and think ‘when did I get so fearful?’ ‘what happened to that little lioness, finding her voice and facing her monsters?’

It seems the older I get, the more aware I am of the harshness of this world and the more fearful and guarded I become.

Am I the only one who wishes she had the courage of her 5 year old self?

We use the term ‘bravery’ a lot with little kids, in the very physical sense. Tinier versions of ourselves had a lot of things bigger and scarier than us to face. Big dogs, big cars, big noises, big Chuck-E-Cheese characters. As adults, our ‘strangers’ and ‘bullies’ and ‘monsters’ take on the form of less tangible fears. Illness. Failure. Depression.Unemployment. Death. Divorce. Loneliness. Debt. – and bravery becomes less quantifiable and more elusive. More complex.

I’ve been attending a Presbyterian church and the service has more liturgy than the services I am accustomed to. I’ve grown to love this liturgy – the steadfast cadence of tradition – it makes me feel grounded and surrounded. One of my most cherished components of the Presbyterian tradition is the “Extending of Peace”. In the most modern sense, this is a “meet and greet” portion of the service, where you greet your church family and welcome visitors. But the hard core Presbyterians actually use this time to extend peace, which thrills me. The first time it happened, I was having a dark day, fighting some battles and feeling stormy and anti-social. An old woman approached me and before I had time to look busy or run to the bathroom, she asked me my name. I told her and she took my hand in both of hers, looked into my eyes and said my name and then simply “the peace of God.”

Now I’m not a person who is given to dramatics or exaggerations, but dammit, if I didn’t feel peace coursing through my veins, calming my storms.

I so often forget the power of the Spirit that we as God’s children have living in us. I forget how the deep calling out to deep can shake the foundations of my day. I forget that we’re agents of peace and vessels of the Spirit, passing peace from soul to soul.

And I wonder if something similar happens with courage.

Bear with me.

I’ve shared how it’s been difficult to start writing again. Difficult to face my monsters and be brave, put on my armor and fight. It seems whenever I’m ready to lay down and give up, someone sends a message or writes a letter or gives me a little pep talk that encourages me.

I mean it literally fills me with courage.

And I wonder if that’s the key. 

Is this why kids are so brave? Because we tell them all of the time that are capable of winning their battles? That they are worthy of the fight? Because it’s so easy to tell a kid he is smart but somehow so difficult to tell your coworker that they are patient. If we see a little girl on a bus, it’s so easy to say “well don’t you look pretty!” but when is the last time we told our aunt she looks pretty or told the cashier at rite aid that she has a nice smile?

Like the passing of peace in a Presbyterian church service, can we pass courage to each other? Like the lighting of candles at Christmas eve, could we make each other stronger and braver?

I’ve talked about fighting, I’ve talked about armor, I’ve talked about being each others’ shields. But what happens when all of those things are in place but you’re lacking courage?

What if you’re an adult, facing your adult-sized monsters and you just don’t feel brave?

I understand that our courage should come from Christ, that perfect love casts out fear, that He that is within us is greater than that which is in the world.

I know that.

And I know we all know that.

But perhaps there is a function of the Body here that we’re overlooking.

I saw a quote on Pinterest the other day that summed it up well:

“we could discover the mysteries of the universe if we could stop being dicks for 5 seconds.”

(sorry for the language, Mom) but this is what I'm really trying to say.

How different, how much braver, how much more proactive would we all be if we took the time to extend courage to each other? Maybe it’s because I’m a New Englander and we are notoriously cold and reserved. Maybe all of you big-hearted Midwesterners and laid-back West Coasters and sunny Southerners encourage each other all day long. Maybe Boston is a little too long on intellect and short on goodwill.

As my brothers and I were growing up, so full of scrappiness and zest, my mom always quoted Thumper,  that wise Disney sage: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But to reverse Thumper’s logic –

If you have something nice to say, SAY IT.

Make someone brave. Extend courage.  

Let’s be nicer to each other. Let’s win some battles.

katniss part 1.25

oh my GOSH it's embarrassing to share with you how many life parallels i felt while watching Bridesmaids. there is so much i want to share about how (sadly and comfortingly) i am kristin wiig's character, annie - but first, i should explain:
i am the type of person who gets sucked right into a movie- any and every movie. i find someone in the movie i relate to and i just...embody them for the next hour or so. this is probably why i don't do so well with war movies and horror movies. and why Homeward Bound was so confusing.


at the point in the movie when the cop-with-the-great-accent (wish i could remember his name and wasn't too lazy to look it up) is pushing annie to start baking again, i looked down and realized my knuckles were white. i have some bony-ass hands and i was clutching the armrest so hard my skeleton was popping through. i became aware of the MASSIVE amounts of tension i was feeling on behalf of annie and myself in my weird, movie-fusion mind.
we (annie and i, that is) couldn't believe he would suggest such a thing!
our bakery just went bankrupt a year ago!
we had poured our heart into it, not to mention our life savings!
doesn't he know it's not so easy to just "get back on the horse"!!??


sometimes the things you love - be they cupcakes or books-  turn on you. like a beastly little snapping turtle, they whip around and bite you. and heart-healing isn’t so easily remedied as a snapping turtle bite. there’s no protocol, no frame of reference, no ‘if symtoms persist after ___ time, consult a physician.’

speaking less cryptically, it has been hard to start writing again.
i’ve spent the last year and a half kicking a rock down a road- if a rock was my manuscript and the road my mind. it’s hard to understand sometimes why things don’t work out and how resources disappear and when to keep trying and when it is wiser and gentler to put things to rest.

like annie, i guess i have been worried that if i try again, if i open up my dreams again, with all of their fresh skin and scar tissue, that it will just be another sadness, another disappointment for myself and everyone in my corner.

but after all of that katniss talk and the responses that came in, i have to admit: that’s no way to live. hiding doesn’t count as living. and simply living doesn’t count as fighting.

so i will take a cue from annie and just bake one cupcake.
a baby step.
a baby blog post.


and i'll just end with this:


in my first katniss post, i talked about the armor of God being open on the backside - a sure sign we're not meant to retreat.
well, the second thing my mom told me about the armor of God is that the type of shield referenced as the 'shields of faith' we are to be wielding is an interlocking type. so this armor we've been left with and the fight we are fighting is not meant to be a solitary one, as much as it may seem that way sometimes.


i'm blessed with people in my corner who fight with and for me. people who hand me over to my heavenly father and sit with me in silence when there are no words to say. of course, much like annie, my first, second and third reaction is to refuse help, choose to fight and flail alone, and then cry about how alone i feel.
this is selfish
and it is a choice - one it took me a while to realize i was making.
if you're fighting your fight and feel like you are alone, look around. what are the choices you are making? do they alienate you from the rest of the Body or do they link you in for protection?


you are a piece in a larger picture.
your shield-your faith- is a piece in a larger machine.
stop pulling your cog from the machine.
stop withdrawing.
stop it with the pride.
stop depriving the rest of His Body from the life-giving joy of loving you.
because you never know who else is left exposed when you take your shield and strike out on your own.


don't be like us. (me and annie, talking in creepy unison) don't let months go by before you give in and ask for help/admit you're sad/let someone lift you up. because falling back into a line of shields that link with yours is probably the greatest strategy of all.