Dwell

I have gotten my head kicked in the last several weeks.  Do you know those weeks?  Where things are said about you-true or untrue-you don't seem to get much grace or understanding, you can't seem to do anything right or well and as soon as you stand up and turn, you get punched again.  I. Was. Down. It's not really people--for we know the battle isn't flesh and blood- but the Enemy really kicked my legs out from under me.  

I found myself shutting down.  Changing how I was going to respond in areas I had felt passionate about.  Some of my closest friends feared my light had been dimmed.  I was letting my new puppy outside (I know...you're questioning my sanity) and I stood alone and wondered "Am I getting depressed?  What is happening to me?"

I finally began a diagnostic check.  How are my eating habits?  Am I eating too much sugar?  Have I slowed down on exercise?  Do I not want to do things I enjoy?  

I knew where to start physically to check on myself.  But spiritually...where did I land?  For the most part, I listen and read good, sound things.  My focus seemed to be on right things.  At one point,  I listened to a sermon from a church in Texas I like to listen to.  I usually only listen to the lead pastor but for some reason, I didn't turn it off when one of his younger associate pastors spoke that morning.  He spoke about identity--about his profession and his skin tone and his talents.  And he asked what if something happened and he couldn't preach?  Or when he isn't young and cool anymore?  I don't remember anything else he said because the wheels were turning. 

I have said since Scott did that my identity wasn't shaken.  That who I am wasn't in being Scott's wife or my kids mom.  And I mean that.  Scott didn't make me who I am.  Or change me.  He complemented me.  Championed and encouraged me.  But I realized in these rough weeks, that maybe my view of my identity had deviated just a tiny bit. 

Had I started viewing my identity in light of my gifts?  In what I can do for God?  In how He can use me?  And not in Him and Him alone.  Eeek.  It's so closely aligned.  I want to live for Him and serve Him. And those are good things.  But.  What am I made for?  My identity isn't in my gifts, but in the Giver of those gifts.  I am made to know Him and dwell with Him.  He dwells in me.  Dwell--I love that word.  Not visit or vacation there. Not stop by.  It means to live there.  That's it.  That's what I was made for.  To love and know Him and to be known by Him alone.  If He were to take out my voice and my legs which help me speak and do, am I still Lauren?  Can I still please Him?  Absolutely.  If He chooses to use me, great.  And if He uses someone else, great too.  He doesn't need me.  I dwell with Him and walk in obedience.  And that is it.  He does the rest.

I am pulling myself out.  Or rather, He was right beside me all along and has begun to pull and push and reshape.  Sometimes that's painful.  Sometimes it's more simple than we make it.  EYES ON HIM.  EYES ON HIM.  

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91:1-2

Both-ness

Both-ness.  The both-ness of God.  The both-ness of grief.  In my head, I have made this word up.  But it's quite possible I'm not the first person to try to coin it.

I had already spoken on Matthew 11 to our team on a small mission trip that morning.  Specifically, the 'take my yoke' part of the ever famous 'my yoke is easy and my burden is light' passage.  That morning with our team left something to be desired, in my opinion.  So a few hours before I was to give the same message again--to our team again but also the men and the staff and volunteers at the mission--I went away to a quiet spot by myself.  And like God often does, he demolished my talk and rewrote it.  As I was walking back, trying to hash out what God had said,  a friend stopped me and I tried to explain--"I think God showed me His both-ness".  

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus tells them to come to Him and He will give them rest.  We like that rest part!  'He makes me lie down in green pastures'.  Yes!  I so badly want to lie down! But God showed me in his re-write editing time with me that the very next sentence, just on the other side of the period from rest, was Take My Yoke.  No filler words to separate.  Right there.  Rest. And guidance.  Rest. And discipline.  Rest. And direction.  Direction with a tug---where He goes, I go.  I mean, the reality is, it looks like a headlock, right?  It doesn't look cozy.  Just on the other side of rest. 

And He is both.  Not even one sometimes and another in another circumstance.  Or a different day.  But in the both-ness of this All Powerful God, He is rest and direction simultaneously.  He is rest and guidance AT THE VERY SAME TIME.  It is restful that He guides me.  It is restful that He ought to be who I am in the yoke with, not myself!  

His both-ness is overwhelming sometimes.  Human yet divine.  The sacrifice yet risen.   Freedom yet yielded to Him. It allows me to feel both-ness too.  Sad and hopeful.  Missing and loving.  Strong and scared.  Because He is both, and I am made in His image, sometimes I am both too.

This Easter, so many feelings of both-ness flooded.  We buried Scott on good Friday a year before.  But I got to see the resurrection power of Jesus in so many lives in Mississippi just before Easter this year.  Both-ness.  I think Solomon understood it in Ecclesiastes 3.  A time for everything, sometimes together.  But I want to make sure I keep fighting for the both.  To mourn and dance.  To plant and pull up.  To be silent when it's time and to speak when He says.  I see His both-ness in my kids and our lives.  I see them fighting to believe when they doubt and laugh when they're also sad. I watch them love people when they want to pout and serve when they want to be seen.  God's both-ness--His power and mysteries and invisible qualities are here and alive and moving.  

Where have you seen God's both-ness?  Do you lean in to the rest and the yoke, or just want the good and not the hard from Him?  It's a hard question... some of us feel like we've gotten plenty of difficult and would like a reprieve. But I'll tell you....His nearness and intimacy in the dark and muddy is rich and filling.  I know His grace and sustenance carries me when I feel broken and wanting.  If you don't know Him-or want to understand--let's get coffee.  I want to help you see Him!

One year

Some of you ask me what it's like--trying to understand what I must feel.  It was a weird week.  Friday was a year.  I was told I would dread the days leading up to the year, but then survive.  So I kind of expected that.

What I didn't expect started Monday.  I woke up before my alarm--which isn't normal; I like to sleep!  And when I woke up, I stared at the ceiling with an attack of feelings--I felt tired like I'd been up all night, but I hadn't.  I felt anxious.  My stomach hurt.  And I felt scared.  Scared that he was going to die.  I laid there and stared.  My emotions didn't match the physical feelings.  I didn't feel sad per say.  So what was happening?  I talked myself through the fear first--'Lauren, he died a year ago.  You know that."  Okay... so what's the other stuff?  In a moment of clarity, I thought--"This.  This is exactly how I felt a year ago."  Scared. Anxious. Afraid of what was to come.  It was as if the grief wasn't stored in my emotions but was in my physical body.  It was incredibly strange and foreign to me.  I got myself together and had to get through my Monday.  That feeling too was familiar.  I couldn't give into how I felt, then or now.

Tuesday I woke up and it was similar.  But instead this was a flood of vivid memories of the last several days.  I could see him pursing his lips so I couldn't give him pills and my mom's voice telling me it was time to call hospice.   I could feel his skin and see his face and the faces of people that day.  It was so real, I felt like I was there.  

I showed a house that morning to another widow-about a year ahead of me-and she talked about the vivid memories the week before.  She was trying to warn me, just a few days late.  There isn't a template and I'm not getting much advice on how this is going to play out.  Most days I'm grateful because that would probably annoy me.  No 2 of us is the same.  But!  It is a tiny bit comforting when someone makes you seem normal, at least for a moment. 

Sometimes the Enemy tells me I'm doing it all wrong.  That I should regret and even feel shame for some of those days.  And some days I believe him.  The first 6 months, all I saw flashing across my mind were things I should have done differently and ways I hurt him.  But as I fight through and crazy memories flood, sometimes, in spite of it all, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and pride in my people.  I can see my boys, waiting on call in the middle of the night, for when I might need them to help me lift him or move him.  They had incredible care and gentleness.  The love and respect oozed out of them, looking straight into the eyes of a man that had always been so strong.  I see my girls hugging him and loving on him instead of feeling awkward because his body felt different and we weren't exactly sure what to do.  

My kids have continued to fight and serve like that this year.  They have made hard, life changing decisions and could use their circumstance as an excuse to just stay put.  They serve their friends and strangers.  They're wrestling out their faith. And as much as I was overwhelmed with some hard pictures in my head this week, these pictures flash too.  It's a strange, contrasting gift.

As I look ahead at year 2--I don't have any strong words.  I have and continue to barely be able to look a week out.  I suppose that's the best place to be--God being in control and Lauren just not. A friend used the word sustain this week and it's been bouncing around in my head.  He sustains me.  It means to strengthen or support physically or mentally.  I have literally felt that this year.  Him holding me up.  His support.  My pastor called this week to encourage me about God's mighty right hand in my life.  I know His mighty hand has sustained me.  And while I still sometimes physically shake my head in disbelief that this is how He wrote this story--I trust Him. 

My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.  Psalm 63:8