Raw & Vulnerable.

Dating Josh makes me raw and vulnerable. To a way that I can't even put words to. There is a sense of ripped open heart amidst the hope. Two parallel universes colliding and meeting all in this swift experience. It's the talking to someone everyday again, the opening my heart to vulnerability, the willingness to let someone inside, the begging for trust once again. It tears at me and makes this week one of the hardest weeks I've had in a while. More tears have been shed, more anger displaced, and more anxiety in my chest than the previous months combined.

It's all the tender places in me being exposed again. It's all the softness in my heart being carefully unwrapped again. Its the naked willingness to...be.

My mom loved so unconditionally. Never questions, never hesitations, never analyzations, never wonderings. She was pure, common, captivated in love. I have story after story, card after card, lyric after lyric to prove it. She was so... good. So genuine, so true, so trustworthy in the way she guided and guarded and loved and protected and pushed and released and kept open arms ready for hugs all the way through and since.

I can't expect of Josh what I knew of her, I know that. But I also know I have tightened reign on my heart and emotions and love and people this year. I have learned. I have had to. I have come up with discipline, with systems, with the smallest pores few can get through to protect myself. I have had to learn to build up walls, to pour heavy and structured concrete through them, and manipulate them and truth in order to keep them up and not fall down. It is a matter of emotional survival. To get the truest me now, you have to really work at it, and be constant and pure through it. Otherwise, you, like everyone else, get the guarded eighty percent of me, but I still withhold the deepest depths of the twenty for me, for God, for those closest of friends I dare expose and allow into. They hold it like wheat and chaff and take me each grain, and I trust them completely and honestly and vulnerably in it.

But this unearthing with Josh is new. It is risky, it is fearsome, it is SO challenging! No one ever told me that love could be so scary at the same time. I've never been more afraid in my whole life. He's worth the willingness to dare to do it, but most nights, I still cower for a moment in my bed and wonder how I'm going to get to the point of trusting him, and if he really is worth and willing walking into my wilderness now. He's said so, but to show that he does is a risk he's going to have to jump cliffs to take -- he's going to have to ask and listen to the depths of who she was, what trials were like, how my family as discarded itself since them. He's going to have to know and go through that with me. Because he's never going to have access to my heart without walking through the depths of the Jordan with out it.

I'm literally scared out of my mind. I get to see him tomorrow (thus why all this boils to such tension now that I'm willing to put it here on paper). I just want to hug him and hold him and lay on a blanket for hours under the sun talking and being with him. He's incredible, he's amazing, he's like a puzzle piece to me. As I said to my friend Kate earlier this week about him, "Could God really be this good?" And she said yes. But I'm still scared. Because I know I don't want to put pressure on him that shouldn't be there... but it's still there. It's there because of who I am and what I've been through. It's there because I've already had scary late-night phone calls and jump when it does the same now. It's there because I've already risked my heart, raw and vulnerable, and don't know where he's willing to walk in the softness of the hot blood of that... and how much more I can bleed before I just simply can't bleed any more. It's there because I'm ripped open already, raw and vulnerable.

Pursue My Heart.

My friend and I roll over about what it means to have your heart pursued. She's been through a few relationships in the past years, most ending because the guy stops pursuing her heart. He stops chasing after her, stops coming after her like a lover, stops taking the time to know, to plan, to create, to encompass all of who she is with a willingness to love and care and risk and be patient to unlace her. Her words come back to me often these days; I can hear her in my ear through the phone, "He just stopped pursuing my heart. He just stopped really trying to get to know me, to really get to know who I am. He stopped pursuing my heart."

Her words always break me, but in a good, hard way. In a way that echos her sentiments and makes me wish I could send her love like that. Wish I could grow up a man for her with all that strength and courage and desire to know her and dig deeply into the heart of her. To see the incredible woman and survivor and writer and thinker and lover that she really is. When a man gets to unravel all of that, he will grow to desire her like a persual that will cleave to take his whole life to get to chase after her.

I want this for her. And I don't want her to grow okay with anything less than that. She won't; I know her heart. But I wish so deeply for someone to care so passionately and intimately about her that he never stops, never cares to do anything less than to pursue her heart the rest of her days.

I gathered an incredible letter this morning, pouring over it with coffee and muffins in my little kitchen with blooming peach roses engorged with color and blossom scent, like partaking in a love so deep that it is Divine. The letter was mapped out in pen from God, written through my hands, but in His words for my journal. He coursed through His love for me, His desire for me, the worth of my heart, the value of my soul. He spoke of His pursual for me, over me, and to me.

God pursues me. He chases after me. He lingers at my doorstep, he sends prodding messages through the day that make me long for Him. I long to sit with Him, to drink coffee with Him, to dig in deeper to the chemistry of the glory of who He is. He wants to know my soul, he chases after my heart.

I long for another lover to do this. Another man sent from God but in human flesh to model His love for me as a husband, so may I as a wife. I wonder what this looks like in a human form, in earthly behaviors, in fleshly attitudes. Our dwellings are here, but God has created us with longings in his image. I long for a man to pursue my heart in a way that shows his intimate joy in my pleasure, in my depth. To take the time to calculate and plan what things would make me happy and to know responses to my hardship that allow me to unravel. To pursue my heart.

I know, we are in human form. We are flesh-like creatures. We are fallen glory. But my heart still longs to be pursued this way. Just as I wish this deep, empassionate, fleshly love affair encounter for my friend, so I long for it for me; and for all of us, from God. And this morning, God crept right up to me with blooming roses, creamy coffee, and a letter of love from the depths of his heart to mine. This morning, He pursued my heart.

Just Let Me Cry.

"Don't do anything, just let me cry!" were Garrett's words this morning, under the covers at 11:30am. He's been having fits all week, so on edge with all the adjustments; I think he can feel the stress of his family and mom and baby and all. And he's living in a way that has every nerve tense, so he screams and cries and rebells and pushes boundaries at the drop of a hat.

But his words were fitting and profound today, as I tried cuddling to him, tried holding his hand, tried singing hymns and lullabies, tried snugglign stuffed animals, wrapping in favorite blankies, telling stories. In the midst of red rubbed eyes and swollen noses and cascading tears, he screamed in a way that could not be argued against: "Don't do anything, just let me cry!"

Isn't that the way life is sometimes? Aren't there just moments were you want to scream out to the world "Don't do anything, just let me cry!" and have your hand held while you weep, and let it be okay?

What peace this child brought with his words today.

Rainbows.

So, if you read my post from yesterday, you know I was in need of seeing God. Literally, I went for a walk and asked Him for a rainbow, yeilding somehow a sign from his promises.

But then:

1) I got Love, from Taylor.

2) I got a phone call from my dear friend Missy... who, I forgot about during the hoopla of weddding events yesterday. But she was calling to remind me of our date today.

What!? YES! Praise Jesus! RAINBOWS! She was coming to Columbia, SC for a China event with her boyfriend and I've been planning to meet him (uh, them-- smile!) for a couple of months now in Columbia today. But alas, in my self pity and swimming of a day yesterday, I forgot when I was writing. And then wham, God slammed me with a Rainbow. Stickered right there on me.

Missy is here! Missy is coming to Charlotte! Missy is going to be my friend, my Love today. Missy is going to eat dinner with me, do some great adventures, see my new place, and share her Love, her boyfriend, with me.

Praise God for pre-booked plane tickets and precious people and Rainbows!

Love, From Taylor.

So today I got a gift from God. I stood outside Barnes and Noble and a woman said, "Taylor? Where is Taylor?" And I got loved.

You see, most of you know this, but it has been a hard week with floods and packing and moving... Add to that Garrett and I living in his neighbor's house every afternoon because of showings to sell their house, and my roommates wedding events last night and all day today, and you have a girl on Zantac, Celexa, Pepcid AC, Xanax, and Tylenol PM. Yep, all of 'um. With a little bit of Vitamin B Complex and coffee thrown in just to keep the blood in my veins.

So I grabbed my Taylor T-shirt. The gray one sent me to me when I got accepted, worn all these years and still soft and cuddly and my favorite. It is home to me. It is love and memories and hugs. It's couch-sitting in Olson, coffee stirred at the Jumping Bean, meals at the DC, chapels, laughter, tears... Friends. Love. It is the women who still today, I call when I just need someone.

And today, I needed someone. I came home from the wedding and cried. Spread right there on my bed in my dress and pearls and tears streaming down my face, my Morgan dog under my arm (from Garrett's naps), and my Jesus Calling book in my hand... and cried. All I wanted, more than anything in the world, was one of my friends or family to just show up. To have booked a plane ticket this week to come here and just show up and and suprise me and be present and somehow pour love on me. To show up to protect my heart from more isolation and conjured strength and independence. I just wanted to be loved.

(Now, realistically, I know this is ridiculous -- people do love me, they do fly here, they do drive here, they do call, they do write, they do send things, they do pray... they DO love me... I know!)

But I crumbled. So I covered myself in my Taylor T and stumbled over to Barnes and Noble to steal Internet since ours is still disconnected.

And this woman met me at the door, and asked about Taylor.

And then said she was a Taylor grad! She was joyful, and I was emotional. And we just connected and melted. She savored her memories; still meeting with friends from the class of 1985 every year, the last weekend of July, rotating houses. Through births and deaths and weddings and transitions, they have held together. I was so encouraged. And then the Lord added the special blessing -- that she goes to my church! So tomorrow, I will eat lunch with her and her husband.

When she left, I hugged her. Standing right there, outside of Barnes and Noble. Just the Taylor name is a logo, a stamp of approval, a sign of common language and commitment and understanding. A comfort. An encouragement. And I left with tears overflowing from my eyes, but a hug from her and from God and, in a way, from all my Taylor friends, in my heart.

Oh, P.S., did I mention she stayed in Room 115/116 (?) -- the EXACT room on First West that I lived in, directly across the hall from the bathroom! Sacred Space!

Do They Get To Cry?

One other trickle has coursed through my mind the past few months... but I haven't been able to put words to it yet... I wonder: Do they get to cry?

Do the women in poverty or war who lost their child to famine or disease get a chance to cry? Do the children who are orphaned so early due to AIDS or attacks or trafficking get the opportunity to mourn? Does anyone hear them? Does anyone care? Does anyone hold the hand of the young, struggling mother who cannot nurse to her breast? Does anyone sit and cradle the child who stands now alone? Does anyone carry them through those first days, those years?

I am 'allowed' to cry; I do cry. The comfort and prodding of others suggests so, that I face mourning, that I grasp the reality of loss.

But sometimes I wonder... is even that a privilege? Is the ability, the opportunity to mourn, to grieve, to wail, to cry, withheld as a right given just to people like me? Or are they too, given the space, the friendship, the community, to be undone and cry some days too?

In The Midst...

In the midst of my tears, and many choice words, I still am reminded of those women. Of the faces and places and spaces of their dirtied feet, their worn and calloused hands, their hungry children.

I look around am beyond frustrated that my new furniture is splitting from water damage, that our carpet is coming undone again, and that this home just feels like a spike collar around my neck...

And somehow, in the midst of my personal despair and self-pity and frustration, I still can't get over that they are such stronger women than I. That they live in forest or huts, that their meager meals offer nothing to spare, that their homes are forsaken.

In the midst of my hurt and anger and wanting a Mama Bear, I remind myself that I was privileged to have one. And the thought of plane tickets to Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia) surge through my mind. Like wishing I was called right now to serve in an orphanage instead.

In the midst of my frustration, sorrow, self-pity, and tears... I still, I always, think of them.

Fatigue.

So I've been lagging along this week and the past couple. I was a Christian resource website and up popped a quiz: "Am I too tired?" So I took it. This is what it came back with:

Fatigue is serious. A break won't relieve it. You are suffering from chronic stress, depletion of adrenaline, immune system deficiency. You can relieve this form of fatigue only by making major lifestyle changes, including possibly finding a new work situation. You could possibly benefit from professional help.

All week, I kept referencing this remark, because it somehow it felt like because I was "tested" the assessment could prove to others that I am legitimately depleted. (Okay, I confess, I know it is a website test, and what does that say... but still...)

I moved. I am still in havoc of that. I in a roar of chaotic family relationships, and not sure what to make of some guy who lives 7 hours away. I am still in turbulence in life. I called my sister today just to talk to someone who went through this whole past year. Though we have caught different angles on it, it still feels like a life line because she hasn't forgotten, doesn't forget everything of hell we have went through and still see. And she knows it isn't just facts to me, or tales made up, but she sat in the court rooms, she witnessed the police arriving, she received spatting from dad, and disappointment from others, and still feels that tightness in her chest, like me. Somehow, the words we shared about it just felt like empathy, and let me rest a little, knowing we were both still in it and both still aware that this was all still happening, and this was still our life. We have not forgotten. Nor will forget.

And in the midst of this, I am finding myself so depleted of life and energy that I lie on the couch again. I canceled plans two nights in a row this week, came home early then Friday night, and now sit here again Saturday at 5:30pm, hoping to stay inside these rooms of shelter. I am spent. I try to grab bits of life here or there -- bookstores, mountains, kayak... but deplete of energy so fast that after about 3 hours of anything, I have to come back and rest for an hour or two to regather enough momentum to go out again.

I didn't pick up my phone for one morning this week, and then went to respond to my messages, and there were 8 new ones in my inbox. Eight. Whew. Some good, some business, some not much of anything. But still. I am thankful for my friends who keep giving and calling and loving. I feel terrible that I am not even close to as good of friend as they are. But please, for these moments when I am done, when I am spent, please continue to offer my grace as I wait beyond reasonably long to get back to you. I love you. Love you. Love you. Please forgive me. I am spent.

So I sit here again, wondering how else to change my patterns, my insides, to give consistent life back to my self. I know I need routine. I know I need spiritual consistency. I know I need deep friendship. I know I need still, that constant trust and respect and love that I receive from many who have loved on me. Please continue to love and carry and pray for me in these moments and hours of fatigue. I do find good in the days and laugh and giggle and play, but I still need to seek so much more solace, and find nests of safety for my soul.

Places of Rescue.

This week has been a hard week. It has been filled with turmoil of resurging winds. First, the overarching rides of wrong apartments, misplaced floor plans, and continues carpet complications. Then came the Ikea disorder; the doldrums of double places for rental trucks, duplicate phone calls to carefully place orders, drives to the warehouse with then an empty marketplace, more phone calls and delivery options and three hours later, still defeat. A returned, unfilled rental truck, overcharges and arguments, and finally, defeat.

I could only be tough for so long. My backbone of strength gave way and tears flooded my cheeks instead. I used to be told repeatedly that I was too sensitive, and I needed to toughen up. The problem is, I'm made sensitive. So I can only be so tough for so long before I break back into a china tea cup and need to regather strength to come back as a painted, hardened coffee cup again.

So I fled. I grabbed nothing but my ipod and never even walked in the doors of the house I no longer wanted to see or wanted any association with. I crept each mile with gaining speed to get out of this area I know as South Charlotte to forget the people, the places, the city which gnarled me and was throwing me up like Jonah in the vomit of the whale.

And to the mountains I tread. I laced up my hiking shoes, let my paint-splattered capris dangle with strings, and moistened T-shirt loosely fall over me and caught ahold of the mountain space. I nooked in the corner of an over-hanging tree, sauntered along root-covered paths, and just let the breath escape me, and recenter me with the sound of weekend boaters. Refresh. Renew. Replenish. Regather. Rescue.

The mountains. Morrow Mountain. One of my favorite places of rescue.

And this pattern of broken defeat continued today. I woke up this morning with clutching feelings in my chest and crawled out of bed for coffee and the morning news on my new couch. A new day. A new pattern of grace.

But within an hour, dishes already clattered and broke. Pieces shattered across the counters, and cracked platters crested with crumbs of what used to be beauty. Twice.

So I crawled back into bed. Mortified, discouraged, defeated. Just dangling, and lamenting for one piece of wish or hope or grace or dream. I let the covers close over me, and the scent of lavender be a soothing reminder of life and living and lavished love. Then I laid with my journals overlapping me and words being reminders and letters of His love.

"The Lord takes great delight in you.
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17

"Therefore, I am now going to allure her,
I will lead her into the desert
And speak tenderly to her...
In that day, you will call me,
'My husband';
You will no longer call me my master...
I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
In love and compassion.
I will betroth you in faithfulness
And you will acknowledge the Lord."
Hosea 2: 14,16,19-20

And ended with his words, given to me over and over and over again...

"So do not fear.
Do not be discouraged.
I will strengthen and help you..."
(Repeated in some form in Joshua 1, Isaiah 35:4, Isaiah 41:10)

And now I sit in my second place of rescue. In Joseph Beth. An independent bookstore, close to my heart. It is huge, with hardwood panelling and stone fireplaces and water trickling over glass. It holds shelves of books -- of travel, of literature, of contemporary authors and issues. Trinkets for reading or writing or storing or sending line parts of tables and sprawl in segments throughout the store. A hazelnut latte sits in my desk with a warmed, banana nut muffin, spread with butter and sliced into pieces, while more books and Bibles and journals lay surrounding me and the words scrawled across the scenes of this blog.

It is my second place of rescue. So different, so opposite of the first. It is again reinforcing the dichotomy of me: now I sit with slanted heels under red-painted toes, my favorite brown eyelet dress covering like billows of beauty and layers. Purple sparkles dangle from my shoulders while pearls enamor both my ears and hair. I am quiet, soft, feminine, me. I am rescued once again, in a place that holds a careful atmosphere, almost composed as comfort for me.

Relaxed. Refreshed. Renewed. Rescued. The ramblings of the mountains, the rest of the bookstore. The places of Rescue.

Cracking My Armor.

Okay, for all you girls out there who can't believe this, I'm finally giving in and writing about it. You can blame me later. We can laugh and talk about it, or joke about how it didn't work, but I'm giving in just this one day, this one time, anyway.... So, you better laugh and enjoy it while you have the chance... :)

He's cracking my armor. I try to keep it up, to keep letting the phone calls pass me, his messages, wait in the inbox, and his persistence get beaten down. But instead, he's cracking my armor.

His name is Josh. He lives in D.C. And I know him from when he lived in Charlotte. I met him in September, but didn't see him again until March. And now, I don't know what to do with him. He calls, he cares, he questions. And he won't let me go. In a good way. Not in a stalk-you kind of way, but in a way that no matter how much I try to wiggle my way out from trying, he just steps back and lets me be.

But I was reminded again last night by his soothing voice, that he really is the greatest a guy could be. The short of the story is: I flew back from Denver and had delayed flights, went straight to rent a 16 foot moving truck, drove it myself to a different city, loaded a table and chairs, and then moved that same day until 1am... Then the next day, we found out they put us in the wrong apartment, the carpet had to be re-cleaned, then was ruined, and now needs to be completely taken out again, amongst other problems like freezing cold showers... I called Josh the next day and tried to laugh and make light of it and just treat it like no big deal, and gloss over and ask him about his day... but instead, he stopped and said, "No way, you're not getting off that easy... how really are you doing? what's going on?"

And I was unarmored. Men don't treat me like that. Besides my closest girl friends, no one treats me like that. So when he said that, I just wanted to cry, to melt right down there in my car and admit defeat and hurt and everything that smoothed off me like melted butter. I didn't. I held it together, but just added a sentence or two to admit to him a segment of my frustration. And he listened, cared, persisted, and ended our conversation with, "You can do this. You can do this, Christina. You can do this."

And all day today, I can't get over the impact of those two shared ribbons of grace in words. And today, he's flying to California, and still called before his flight, and left a message again mid-day.

I can't get away from it. I don't know him in the way dating couples do, I don't even know what to call him. He lives in D.C. I live here. But somehow, over the distance, he still has unarmored me.

~~~
Okay, girls, there is your fun... your long saga that I lost myself in writing the words, but remember now once again, that I am sharing them with you... :)

Refugee.

I keep thinking about them, these refugees. From the Congo, the Sudan, Somolia, Burma, and countless other countries. I keep thinking about them.

I keep thinking about them packed up, moved out, moved away. Cast off, shoved forward, and left mobile. I keep thinking about them.

I keep thinking about them. Caring their children. Dragging their one tattered bag of belongings. Watching their burning houses. Looking back over the left dead.

I keep thinking about them. Homeless, lifeless, aimless. Wandering. Left with no one, or no where.

I keep seeing their faces, thinking of their stories, and remembering their essence.

These are the faces I remember. These are the ways that draw perspective. These are the ones, the lives, the people, the impact, that remind me. I keep thinking of them, as days I feel like a lost and wadering refugee. And when I think of them, remember them, I am grateful and inspired by them. They are people of lands I do not know, but whose hearts I feel like I grapple with, trying to get used to, and let their stories stand as reminders to me. So I think of them. And press on. Like a homeless refugee.

I keep thinking about them. These refugees.