The One Where No Title Seemed Right

So, it's August. You deserve a big HELLO that's been 5 months in the making. The last time I wrote it was March and I was dreaming of spring. It's now the end of August and I'm giddy for autumn. Here in my Little City/Big Town the weather has been A-mazing. Usually we're sweating to the oldies remembering the good'ole times we had in dreadful winter. Not so this year. Not so.
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That part was written a week ago. This week it's been 100 degrees... literally and Sunday it will be September. In case I don't say it, welcome September!
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I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, she's been gone for 5 months and she's talking about the weather? THE WEATHER!! Well... my response to you is.... yep. It's hard being gone 5 months and then trying to catch up without being too overwhelming. So my default was the weather, but I lacked a transition. I've been gone too long. Bare with me.

So... the quick update so that you can make sense of what I'm about to say is:
In the span of 6 months 3 people I cared for deeply died. And 3 others were diagnosed with cancer.
I fell apart emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
After months of perpetual grieving I came back to life.
I postponed leaving for London one year.
I began eating less and moving more.
You are now caught up.

The other day I was running (because I run 3 miles everyday now! I know right. DO you even know me anymore??). My path, originally completely unintentional, gives me a view of the hospital my friend lived in the last months of her life. Everyday, I run by it and think of her. Some days are more emotional than others. Some days I'm more exhausted than others, you know how that goes.

Usually when I round the bend at the hospital there is grown up prairie on either side of the path. Just the day before there had been. But that day I rounded the bend to find the prairie on one side had been cut down. In the shadow of the looming hospital, standing next to the naked land my heart began to ache. I continued putting one foot in front of the other but my mind would not move forward. Why would they cut down my prairie? It was so pretty, so peaceful, a little hideaway home for animals of the woods. Why would they cut it down like that, without warning, without notice? As I ran slowly by it again I tried to pry my eyes away but could not. I wondered why I was so emotionally attached to this prairie land. I looked to the opposite side,  where there was lush growing prairie and beyond it the hospital. And the tears began to flow. I missed my friend Jenny. And as confused as I was about the prairie land I was confused about her death. And in that moment I was oddly comforted by the words of John 12:24, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives.

In order to preserve the prairie it had to be cut down. It's a strange concept that from death will come life. But Jesus is kind of in the business of doing strange things that seem counter intuitive. I've seen this truth in my own life over the last few months of mourning. I've been led to a life filled place because of the death that once surrounded me. How many times have we heard of someone making a positive dramatic life change because of their loss? This is Jesus being faithful to His promise that from death, life will spring. 
I miss my friend dearly. But I'm convinced that, just like on the opposite side of my path there is still lush green, wild prairie there is beautiful life springing up in me because of the life she lived. 
I of course didn't always have that perspective. There were many days spent on the couch or in bed avoiding life. We'll call those my "Reliving Dawson's Creek Days". I questioned everything and shouted psychotically at God when my silence treatment had grown too loud, only to retreat back. I'm so grateful, on this side of it, that He can handle my outbursts and not just handle it but knows me so intimately to know what I'm actually saying under and through all my hurt and mourning. He has proven Himself more faithful and loyal than I know what to do with. It's because of His gentle kindness that I am gladly back at pursuing His plans for me in London after a few month hiatus from support raising.

There has been much pain and sorrow but I've also been able to experience more life and joy because of it. I've been encouraged to whole heartedly pursue losing weight and making healthy decisions in general. I have said yes to wonderful opportunities and no to things that have no value. I've treasured friendships and family more than I ever have. Life has come and is coming, but I only know that because death was once here.   

spring is coming

I parked under a tree and came back to a car covered in sap.

Driving away I, irritated by the spots on my window, sprayed them down and wiped them off.

Later, streaks still spreading across my window, I again cleared it off.

It was then that I realized, in the dark of night,

with one headlight beaming ahead, that sap was on my car.

Sap.

The trees are awakening from their slumber.

Though they look dead, bare and fragile arms reaching to the sky,

snow encircling them, deep underneath the topsoil of this earth

there is life percolating.

Life is spreading through the veins of the trees.

Life is seeping out, clinging to what it touches. 

Spring is coming. 

There are no blossoms, they sing no song of warning,

But there is sap on my car.

Spring is coming. 

{abundant life. really?}

I got the best news of my life and then I got depressed. 

True story. I could explain the whole grueling mess but let's suffice it say that following God's calling is often followed by trials. This was my experience and it has not been pretty. 

There have been many a "gray" day in the past few months. Days where I was so overcome by despair and hurt that though the sun was shining I could not drag myself out of bed. I could not interact and engage with the world around me. It has been fascinating to me to talk to other people who have walked through times of depression. A characteristic that I have exhibited as well as others is lack of motivation to shower. Y'all, I LOVE being clean. I LOVE the scent of my body wash. I LOVE when my curls do their thing. LOVE IT. I'm so for real when I tell you I could not do it. 

I've been rocking this bun on the top of my head for months now because even after finding the motivation to shower I don't care enough to do anything with the mop atop my head. Makeup has not touched my face but once in the past several months and that was to take a picture that would be going to the masses. And then, that makeup stayed there until it sank into the abyss of my pores or smeared my pillow cases. 

It's funny how depression manifests itself differently in different people. Some pull at their hair creating bald patches, some overeat, some hide away for days on end. Funny was maybe not the appropriate word, interesting, it's interesting. 

What I'm learning in the midst of all of it though is that even here in this gray place there is a wide spectrum of emotions to be experienced. Even in gray times there's still a place to experience joy and deep happiness. There is a place to actually be at peace and for my mind to find rest. Even here in these gray days.

Today, it's dreary out. Clouds hover low to the earth, puddles form on uneven ground. I'm moving to a place where this will be the norm and I'll have to learn to live in it. Depression will not always be the norm for my life, trials however are and likewise I'm learning that there's life to be lived in the gray days. There's life to be lived in the midst of trials. And there's life to be lived in depression. 

John 10:10 says The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Y'all this is GOOD NEWS! News that I need to remind myself of daily. Jesus Christ came so that we, you and me, would have life and not just life but abundant life. I had to Google abundant life and this is one beautiful description I found : superabundance, excessive, overflowing, surplus, over and above, more than enough, profuse, extraordinary, above the ordinary, more than sufficient.

This is not a meager living God is promising. He is promising extraordinary life both after we depart this world and now. I'm letting that sink in and wash over me. He's not waiting to give me a surplus of life but He is giving it now. 

One description said, " A quantity so abundant as to be considerably more than what one would expect or anticipate." It's reminiscent of  1 Corinthians 2:9 which says, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him."

Trials. Hardships. Maybe even depression. But He is giving life in the midst of it. That is His promise. And He is faithful to His promises. 

Like Whoa

Do you ever have those times when you look at the trajectory of your life and think WHOA? I finally had one of those moments today.

It's been since October that I've written on this little spot of mine. 4 months ago! My life is tremendously different since then and yet monotonously the same. I've been approved to move to London this year. Though I've been preparing for it for months now and chatting surreal-ly  with dear friends and family it wasn't until today that it became in the slightest sense, my story. 

I sat in a home with others listening to a friend talk about London. I listened and smiled remembering my own experiences from the summer. As he talked about various needs and thoughts he had I was keenly aware that this information being processed in my head at that very moment was not distant and unrelated to me but that in fact is what I'm entering into.

I am moving to London. Me? WHOA!!!! 

Ya'll!  If you knew half of the person I used to be before Christ, you'd be astonished too. For. Real. My new life looks radically different from the life trajectory I had. And I have no other response but WHOA!

Colossians 3:10 says, "and we have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." 

I love this so very much because it gives me a secret insight into this new life I've been given. I know what the end result will be. I will be more like my Creator. Beautiful? Glorious? So amazing? Yes, but.

This process is not overnight and it's not easy. My old flesh is die hard. And it seems the more I commit myself to putting on the new self, the more my old self bucks against it. So this is where I've been. Caught up in the putting on of my new self while hourly slaying my old self and its ways that lead to death. This is hard work. 

Many people think the hard work starts when you do the thing you're called to do. Hard work it is, but I'm learning it doesn't start there. It's actually starts that moment when you, with reckless abandon, for the cause of Christ in the world, give yourself away to Him for His purposes. BAM! HARD. WORK. 

So I look at where I've been and am humbled that my Creator has and is redeeming my brokenness. I look at where I'm going and am stunned that this new life He's given me will (and is) being used up for Him. 

Whoa.