Pieces

Healing is what God feels like on this side of Heaven. It's the brutal process of being broken open and put back together. Each time we are rebuilt we collect more pieces than we originally had, we become bigger. The old pieces are redeemed, the new ones illuminate it all. In the end we find that we are bigger and brighter than we ever could have hoped, and we slowly begin to trust the breaking.

Hope Street Blue

The first time I went to Cambodia I was 17 years old. Our team was building a house for a grandma who was living in a shack. We painted the house a bright blue color. It was stunning.

I came back a couple years later and found an entire row of houses had been built after hers. Each of those families had a house built by this same organization, each one was that same bright blue. They called it Hope Street. That street was a symbol to the community that there was hope, there are people who care for you and will love you when you have nothing to offer. That organization I worked with has now built over 50 homes throughout the provinces, and almost all of them are painted Hope Street Blue.

The time I spent with that organization sometimes seems like a lifetime ago. Lately I've been consumed with the tough work of healing, afraid I will never move past my own trauma. People have been telling me that if I want to pursue life as a missionary I will have to hide certain parts of me, and I was beginning to believe them. I started to wonder if god had a blueprint for my life and I took the wrong series of steps, now I was left carrying empty dreams.

Then this weekend I went on a mission trip to Mexico with my church of misfits. They allowed me to come with all parts of myself. None of us felt the need to hide or change to fit into this idea of "missionary". All we did was show up, embracing ourselves and each other. We gave one another hope and healing by bringing all of our hurts and hangups to the table.

As we painted a school together I looked down at my hands and noticed the paint was all over me. Much to my surprise, it was Hope Street Blue. A flood of memories came back and in that moment I realized how interconnected this whole experience is. The hope I saw in Cambodia was the same hope I saw in this Mexican school, the same hope I felt around the campfire with my church. My story has Hope Street Blue sprinkled all over the place, not a single experience has been wasted.

You see what I'm realizing is that God is not standing in the sky with a blueprint, waiting for me to make the right moves. No, God and I are creating something together. It's a grand tapestry, full of my darkness and my light... With strands of Hope Street Blue dispersed throughout.

I see now that I can keep creating the life I long for. 

I'm Ruined

One of my favorite stories came from my leader and close friend in Cambodia.

During her missionary training a teacher pointed to her and looked her in the eye, he shouted "You! You are ruined for the ordinary."

I love this more than words can say. Sometimes when we were on a crazy adventure or seeing something that was too beautiful for words, we would bring this up.

"We are just ruined for the ordinary!"

Because when something amazing has happened to you it opens you up, it makes you bigger than you were before. Even if it is the most painful experience of your life, you can see it through until it gives way to beauty and hope. Eventually you find that you don't fit into the small boxes that life originally gave you.

I've seen the beauty that different cultures bring to the world, so I'm ruined for the American Dream.
I've known the suffering that life can bring, so I'm ruined for easy answers.
I've experienced abundant life, so I'm ruined for complacency.
I've been loved for who I am, so I'm ruined for shallow relationships.

I am so very ruined, and I love it. Because all of the things I have been ruined for are so small, and what's left is fullness of life. Full of love, full of healing, full of heartbreak, full of laughter... and anything but ordinary. 

The words behind the words.

I've been thinking a lot about words lately.

The words we say, the words we don't say, the words we use to soften the blow.

Sometimes it seems that fewer words would serve us better. Yet we are afraid of the power they hold, so we add on to them to protect ourselves. Or we choose words that will make it clear what we mean, while still maintaining our plausible deniability.

It's when we say "I'll pray for you", but we really mean "I'm scared of what this means for you".
We say "I love you, but...", we really mean "I'd love you more if this wasn't between us".
We say "That's interesting", we really mean "I can't wrap my head around this".
We say, "I love everything about you", we really mean "I love you".

We all know when it's happening. We see what is meant behind what is said. Yet we keep going anyway, saying everything except the one thing we really mean, hoping someone will read between the lines.

I won't say it's good or bad, the way we use our words. Because so often it comes from a place of wanting to protect, whether it be protecting ourselves or others.

It's interesting though. 

Name It

I had a conversation with my spiritual director this week about names.

My childhood was something like falling down a mountain. It came about with such a speed and intensity that at the end I wasn't quite sure what had happened to me, I just knew it broke me. Now I've picked myself up off the ground, and I am realizing that I need to climb back up the mountain. Slowly, steadily, and naming my surroundings as I build a proper path.
My path.

I can look at the area where debris was lodged into my side- abuse.
I can see the point at which I hit my head and forgot where I was- depression.
I can find where I began grabbing at everything, looking for something to hold on to- codependency.
I can locate the exact point at which I thought it was over- fear.

As I go back to the places that broke me, I can see them for what they are. I can make sense of the situation and heal the wounds as they present themselves. Because there is a power in names, and there is a power in me that is capable of climbing this mountain. 

Who I Am/ Who Am I

"I don't know who I am anymore!"

I shouted this in the kitchen today. Then I promptly took it back.

Because the reality is I know more about who I am than I ever have. For the first time in my life, I can clearly see where I'm coming from. I see my hurts and hangups, I see my hopes and dreams, I see myself in an entirely new way.

I'm just realizing that the person I am is very different from the person I pretended to be. I am everything I swore I would never be, everything that used to scare me. I think deep down I was afraid of the fullness of who I was, so I stuffed it down and became who I was expected to be instead.

So here I am, in the eye of the storm that is myself. Everything around me is falling to pieces, but I am standing solid in the center. It's new and it's beautiful and it's me.

Question and Answer

I've been thinking a lot about this lately- questioning. My life feels like one huge question mark right now. How did the past shape me? What do I want for my future? Who am I now? Is who I am even compatible with the life I want? Where does "God" stand in the middle of all this?

All the questions.
All the time.

It can be exhausting. Because each time I think I have found an answer, that answer brings about even more questions.

I used to cling to my answers. Lately some of my old answers have finally fallen away, and I am finding that I have more space without them. There is more room to exist in questions, there is space for growth and healing and new life.

The reality is, the answers will never be enough. Answers are finite. Our answers used to tell us that the earth was flat. It was only continued questioning that brought us new, truer answers. We continue this process over and over, as humanity and as individuals, we desperately seek answers until we realize they are too small. Then we ask new questions, we make new answers, and the cycle continues.

The problem with an answer is it has an end point. Once you have reached the end of it, there's no room for anything more. That answer will keep you there as long as you let it. It will tell you what to do and where to go, it will control you.

Questions though, they are whimsical. Like a dance or like the wind, they don't tell you what you're going toward but instead call you deeper. The questions in and of themselves reveal to you who you are and what matters to you. They give you space to be who you need to be, you can hold them as you are becoming. They will be patient with you, and they will never demand that you arrive or finish your work with them. You can ask the same question for ten years, and you will find that it has grown and evolved with you. It will stay as long as you allow it.

I love when someone is in a state of questioning and allows  me to witness it. It's a beautiful transformation that happens, when people ask the questions they were so afraid of and find freedom on the other side. It's the stuff of life. I love watching it in other people, I'm learning to love it in myself.

So please don't cut off your questions, don't shut them down with easy answers. Because these questions are shaping and carrying you. They are teaching you who you are and giving you the space to grow. Love your questions. In your questions I see who you are, and with each question you are more beautiful than you were the moment before.