31 Days of Being Present

Update: June 19, 2017

The Thirty One Days were spent mostly writing on the napkins during the margins of life with very little recorded for eyes other than mine and God’s.  Life broke wide open as life tends to do….

Having been poured out for 44 years I am learning that pouring out with words and plan sometimes doesn’t move past the napkin or journal.  I will restart with a goal of 31 but not in as many days.  We shall see.

Thirty-One Days of writing about being present….published, unpublished, with my favorite felt tip in my favorite journal, on this blog, on paper napkins, or in the margins of my calendar.

This space, this very public but hidden space will be played with, muddled through, learned from, and in a regular state of change.  Every day will be a new day as I land here with my words and a new understanding of sharing these words. Writing late and early and during the in between, the lack of editing and typos often making it through the blur because life is breaking wide open and still I will share the moments with misplaced modifiers, replaceable commas, and words in the wind.

Post 8 ( I have given up over a year later with days in a row)A Real Good Story

Day 7- Present For Eachother

Happiness is hearing my college girl, a few friends, and all the sisters together a few feet away. Watching DJ race across the yard with a, “Sissy!” and knowing by 10 am Zachy will be here is almost more than I can contain. We are not perfect, we struggle, and cry, and get too loud. We sometimes can’t recall the next best thing next and this momma forgets the important stuff far too often. But, we are family and there is no greater love on this side of heaven than the fierce love this family brings to the table when we all need one another. Don’t let a tough season get in the way of family. Love your people, people….Continue Reading

Day 6-Is It Possible?

Could it be that all of this can coexist and mingle and tangle and breathe in and out simultaneously and that the depth of brokenness and the hidden cracks are leaving space for safety to wiggle through the tears and pain and giving strength not stealing it? Could it be that I am not giving up or done really done but by giving in I am more here than ever, more available than understood, and present….just in it? Continue Reading

Day 5-Breaking Apart and Breathing In

Sometimes home is breaking wide open; we are not a broken home, I am a momma, who has been broken, that has concluded with great fear and trembling my brokenness does not exclude me from beautiful pouring out of family and all that comes with it…..Continue Reading

Days 1-4  journaled in ink on trains, planes, and old missions

Day 1-
Called Yours by the Lord
YOU are calling me by name and it is the name YOURS. Disconcerting and comforting all at once, I try and wrap my head around this idea. I have been called by many names and called myself out by names…lazy, exhausted, sad, angry, frustrated, full, empty, energetic, kind, organized, mean, wife, daughter, mother, sister, friend, broken, better, hopeless.
YOU, You, Lord….call me Yours. Because You call me yours, I can be ‘in it’. I can be present in each place that I land, in each place that I land. I can be in it all, with it all, not anxiously waiting for things to come, go, or stay, for names and ‘known by’ to be heard or silenced, but to be present in You called Yours. I can be present because of what you call me….’Yours’

Day 2-The day that will remain silent

Day 3-
I have been captured by my own anxiety around all feelings including anxiety. Irony-yes, but by sitting still and being present in the very places of -pain-hope-joy-fear-anger-grief-sadness, they can no longer capture me for taking captive. I have been gripped by the idea that if I lean into the waves of overcoming-swallowing up-rushing ever-present grief and conflict, both inside and outside of me, they lose the power to drown me. I am resting, present in the enveloping of the very place, stuff, and feelings that are actively pushing and pulling. I take long deep breaths to find that as I gain footing I am at shore with new deep beauty surrounding me on every side, the beauty of not having just survived the wave, but having become, of becoming, and being a woman of greater depth after leaning into the wave of the place and time that captured me. Healing and living have become possible in presence.

Day 4-
Embracing joy and grief and not finding them exclusive of one another is my challenge. Simply grasping that they are not the difference between life and death. They are weaving in and out honoring all of the life and all of the death. I find that ironically embracing the difficult can bring the residing joy through it all even the pain. Grappling with the big stuff in the small space, the moments of truth all caught up in the living while trying to stay alive.