I Fight For Hope.

But I do fight for hope. I do fight to believe. I fight to keep files of "home" ideas and books that I like. I fight to think my family still has the potential of something to be. I fight to think that there can be opportunities and jobs for me.

But in fighting for hope, I don't know how much is just pipe dreams. Or how much I set myself up for disappointment, so I learn to self-protect. I fight to think that God has something great for me, but it is balanced out with my current reality.

So in honesty, I do fight for hope. And "fight" is exactly what I do. Part of it is inbred in me, part of it is how I was raised by my family. So part of me is fighting, part of me sees reality. But either way, I fight for hope, praying that some day I'll see.

Hope Surrendered.

My counselor asked me last week and this week the same two questions:

1) What have I lost? As if to say, what all am I grieving?

2) Do I have hope?

And herein lies my question: How do you look for hope, when all you do is surrender?

I think about all I've lost, and can name far more than this blog will allow me to reveal... but just to begin...

~ My mom (my best friend, my confidant, my supporter, my encourager, my foundation)

~ My sense of family (how we are knit, how we work, what that looks like)
In this comes everything from the dismembered family picture to the relationships that have severed and sewn... and what it looked like with us around the kitchen table.

~ My sense of home (how many times must a girl move? How many times do I continually pack up my boxes, and in return, packed up my life?)
In this adds up moving states, changing roommates, physically moving my books and boxes, mentally and emotionally restructuring what "home" looks like each time...

~ My hope for home. Because the deepest part of me long for it. For a home of my own, decorated and welcomed with my decor, with the sign of "home" from my mom, with "my" piano, my dishes, my blankets. For a place to welcome people, create a cup of coffee or tea for them, and gather with them on the couches or around the table. But every time I allow myself to be able to catch a glimmer or glimpse of this possibility, the reality is smashed, and again I have to surrender it. And just recognize that it may never be. Its not like I can pay for it as nanny, and no other job is able to come out of me and therefore a home may never be...

~ My job/career. I quit my third "adult" job last week. And it makes me wonder whats wrong with me. I thought I surrendered enough when I left my last job, but apparently not. It makes me reexamine my calling and my career, surrendering the idea that I may ever find a place for me. I want to defend parts of it for myself, that two were inner city and one had five preps, but the reality is, I keep surrendering it and have "lost" this sense of identity.

~ My finances. This is paired with the job, but a whole other issue altogether. I literally don't even open my online bank account, because I have no idea what is going on and don't want to get anxious about it. So I just live simply and let it go.

~ My friendships. Though some of these have definitely been strengthened, others have definitely been surrendered and allowed to lay to rest. It's recognizing what my friendships are, what they were, and allowing them to be and adapt. Yet there is grief and hurt understanding in some of the reality.

~ I can go on with a lot of intangibles, like hopes and dreams. Thinking by now I would have a family... I wanted to be married by age 18... And everything from kids to ideals and the things that I thought made me, me... Or to my physical self, and realizing that even that is needing help... Or to situations that are buried, now far away, like needing the encouragement of teachers back in May...

So I look at this list of all that is lost. And I know some would contradict me, or try to give positive spins. But the reality is, there is a lot lost. I look at this list and wonder: what then, is left of me?

So she then asks what it is that I hope, and if I have hope... And I wonder with this, why hope? Why does it matter that you hope when everything you hope for is ripped away? When everything you hope for is cut off, impossible, never given, or not reality? It doesn't make sense to me just to hope any more when I know that hope will just disappoint. I know that you can pile verses on here like sand on a shore, but sometimes it seems the sea shows a lot more of the sand than the shore.

Why hope for a house, when I know its impossible financially. I might as well just face it and keep packing boxes and scrounging around from place to place. Or sell the things that I have or collected or give them away.

Why hope for a husband, when it doesn't matter. When I can't even find guys strong enough to walk with God and with me.

Why hope for a niche, when my track record doesn't look so good. And I don't know if my career can fit my personality. Is everything that pays going to either bore me or wear me out?

I realize this blog sounds depressing, but don't necessarily think that of me. It's just me facing this reality. I try and not be woe-is-me about it all, or make myself a martyr, but consider it less of being bitter, and more of surrender. More of just saying "Okay God, I guess this is it... I guess this is where you have me..." And letting those dreams and ideas go and just learning not to care about them.

I told her "I fight for hope" and I choose those words wisely, because I know the importance of hope, so I fight for it. But let's look at the reality, some days it doesn't make sense. Why fight for hope, when all you do is surrender?

Everybody Has A Buddy.

Everybody has a buddy but me. Everybody has a bond with someone who is next to them, but me. Kelly has Josh, Blake has Melissa, Dad has his new girlfriend, and there I sit like the stray dog wandering around. Everybody has somebody to walk through this experience with them, but me. Everybody has somebody that sits next to them at the dinner table, to hear their stories, to share in the ache, but me. I'm not saying its easy for any of them, or pity-partying me, but some days I hate the fact that everybody has a buddy but me.

Tilling Up the Soil.

I was talking with a dear friend over tea a few weeks ago and sharing and crying and drinking from her as much as much as my tea. She is like a warm embrace, and spreads this easily to me and all the others who enter her door. Some nights there are cloth table clothes and napkins spread, and others there are grills lit or fires burning. Either way, the welcome is offered and into her hug I am given a home.

Well, this particular Saturday morning was rainy with an autumn brisk. It was perfect for the cozy comfort of her kitchen and watching her cook, with the lingering conversations of her and her husband. They are like parents to me, deeply respected and friendship woven through.

So I was asking and sharing and mulling over my soul. Expressing my ups and downs and letting it tumble out. Her gentle voice soothed over me and one expression has stained me:

"Christina, God is tilling up the soil right now, and the rain is your tears."

There was freedom given in these words. Something in it released me of my need and want and expectations, and let me see Gods use of me and this time in a different way. I have been wanting to commit myself, to plant and harvest and dig in roots. But my endeavors to do so seem to keep coming undone. So as I conveyed this, her words instead were given. They were grace to me. Allowing me to see something greater and be okay right now with me. To regard this period in my life as God tilling up the soil... which is he is. Digging and planting and plodding down seeds. Sometimes with gentility, sometimes with shovels and rotor tillers and plows beating in.

But either way, it made me see that God is at work right now, and letting that be. That in these times of devastation and concern and helplessness that I see, God is tilling up the soil and doing a good work in me. That he is preparing and pruning and scraping the soul. So it makes it easier to bare, knowing even in this, I am still in his care.

Antiqued Jar.

I want to relish it. To put the beauty of solitude in an antiqued jar and cast it as a character on my window sill, being able to dapple and dig into it as I need to. To captivate the essence of silence and peace brought to life through the roaring of waves, beating against the ocean shore. The Atlantic swells within me, it's spacious advances come to me, as if to open and beckon, release me. The wide open air releases my lungs and pulls the strain out of me, like bubble beads of water cast upon the shore until even the last had dissipated back into the sea.

I want to be back there, swimming in the seventy-eight degree water, salt on my lips and dusting white upon my skin. I want to continue to somersault and swish through the surfer's waves, with the blessing of quiet and stillness in my soul. No books touched on my blanketed sheet, no journals written, no words said. Simply hours of solitude, quiet. Just the travelers skimming the edge of the sea, and me.

I want to capture back this day. This knowing again that I do have roots and I will have butterfly wings. This unearthing of my soul, and knowing it took a day to get there, but balance it seems I have finally achieved. I won't be naive, thinking that this will last forever, and I will never mourn anymore, or cry, or be caught in anxious attacks, or feel the schizophrenic white rapid rivers of tumultuous emotions running through me -- the intensity of the low and great as the high, and how immediate it transfers from one to another. But today, I am achieved. Today I am relishing the balance. I am relishing me. I relish feeling the depth of my soul, but in the calm state of content. I relish the sedate state of my mind and gather it as gold.

I sit here, lingering over coffee under lamplight at a historical house, tucked away in Columbia, South Carolina, my last detour of this rest. I wish this sabbatical could also linger as such. I know I will go back and feel flustered with files, claustrophobic with finances, pressured to secure work, and hours comforting and calling friends. But these things aren't bad, they are just life. And I make the choice of how I look at them. I make the choice to let them bind me down upon return, or to take each in stride, marking my days and carefully creating them to be mine.

So as I relinquish and relish this gift of beauty, this sabbatical breath, I also covet it and quest to let it bide. To take it with me and continue to make it mine. To mark these coming days with it, re-entering into a life that lives with a sabbatical, sabbath rest.

Jesus Withdrew.

This morning, one passage keeps mulling around in my soul. Twirling, fluttering, and perching upon it until I quiet myself to rest and reflect.

"...Jesus often withdrew to lonely [solitary, quiet] places and prayed..." Luke 5:16

I typed the phrase "Jesus withdrew" into Bible Gateway, to discover the Lord's heart in these matters and observe the private practices of him as such. Eighth passages match these exact words, enough to testify of his endurance of need to draw himself away to pray. He would withdraw "privately" and "again" by boat, by himself, by way of mountain. At times, he would gift himself in the presence of his companions, encompassed by the strength and stubbornness of the disciples, I'm sure clattering about their own ordeals or latest of events. But many times, and often, Jesus would withdraw by himself to solitary, quiet places to pray.

I reflect on this as I sit, bundled under covers of a king size bed, squared away from social gatherings into my quiet suite, comforted by the pillows lining my bed and the words that unravel from my hands. Books sprawl around me, waiting to be rediscovered again. All of them I've read, but they are my closest of companions, my dearest of friends. They tell me others have walked this road before, they tell me that life will win. They give me the gift of grace and they embellish on the events within.

So I withdraw these days to a quiet, solitary place. I walk these streets alone, pacing the Market, dawdling my toes in at Waterfront Park, and spreading a sheet at Isle of Palms. I withdraw myself and into myself to uncover the deepness within and learn to breathe again.

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house

and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." Mark 1:35

~~~
Scriptural References:
Matthew 12:15 Matthew 14:13 Matthew 15:21 Mark 1:35 Mark 3:17
Luke 5:16 Luke 9:10 John 6:15 John 11:54

Dressed As Me.

All I could think about was airing out my soul, so the thought of "dressing for Charleston" never occurred to me. But I laugh as I walk into Nine West on Lower Kings Street with my two dollar bills in hand, asking for change for parking, dressed in my favorite Boulder T, clam digger capris, and Adidas shoes. If anyone knows Kings Street or Nine West, you know how funny this is and why people on the sidewalk are wondering why I laugh aloud to myself.

My green Boulder T is my favorite, combined with my rustic, wrinkled, and relaxed navy clam diggers that leave strings dangling at my knees. It is my perfect "being" outfit. It's what I wore the day I drove South, the days I hike, the days like today when I air my soul.

So it's comical still that I'm dressed as such, laughing aloud and going mentally through pearls and dresses in my closet. Alas, this is me. I laugh. So make-up less and free, I walk, I laugh, I gleam. I throw my Vera Bradley over my shoulder, and walk the streets of Charleston, dressed as me.