stories and songs

​Hello friends!

Here's the second blog post that I wrote in late 2016.  Although my experience now is much different than it was then, it really does give you a small glimpse into what life was like for me until this year. And, you know what, life is still messy! But, our stories are the places that we get to identify with one another and remind each other that we're all human. Each of us made in the image of a perfect God who delights in us as He enlarges are capacity for deeper understanding of what it means to be His.

C S Lewis has this great quote that says, Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'

My hunch is that some of you may be able to identify with me in some way.  I guess that makes us friends:)

Have you ever come across a song or a poem or a story and thought any of these thoughts?*this was totally written for me!*this was totally written about me…. is someone watching what goes on inside my head?*I’m pretty sure that if I tell anyone I like this, they are going to see the pain that I keep hidden in my heart.*Wait, if someone wrote this then maybe I’m not alone. Maybe, just maybe, there are others who have some of the same struggles as me.Ok, maybe you don’t have that kind of conversation in your head, but I sure do.  There have been SO many things I have experienced that have led me to one or all of these responses. Movies like, “Good Will Hunting”, books like “Lila” by Marilynne Robinson and songs like “Out of Hiding, Father’s song” by Steffany Gretzinger.  I love all of these so much!  I know, it seems weird that the things that would bring me comfort would be a movie about a young man who has no family, who experienced deep abuse which left him feeling isolated and alone.  Who sabotages any relationship that brings him into real intimacy, keeping others at a safe distance. (Except for his best friend who he’s known since he was a boy who knows how he got where he is and is loyal to the core with a hope for his future. Oh how I love that guy too!).  It’s strange I know, but for some reason that place that the movie takes me, into Will’s head where the wrestle is, it’s so familiar it feels like home to me.  For a couple of hours, I don’t feel alone.  I am with a fellow sojourner, another human, (I know Will Hunting isn’t a real person, but you know what I mean:) whose story resonates with mine in some way.Or the day or two or three that I get lost in that book about the story of a young girl who has experienced abandonment, who adopts the idea that it’s better to be alone than to depend on anyone.  Watching her navigate through life with this idea and observing what it looks like for her to consider taking risks and often choosing not to. Choosing to stay alone. I follow her story, longing for her to risk it.  I find myself reading with a deep hope that she will choose something different and at the same time, I get it. I listen to the same tapes in my head, telling me it’s better to stay alone than risk rejection and the pain that comes with abandonment.  But then, she does it!  She takes a risk with an unlikely human and he is safe and good.And then there’s the flip side, watching what it’s like for those who come into contact/relationship with each of these characters.  For Lila, this gentle-man, who doesn’t pretend to understand her, but thinks she’s worth it.  Worth living in the tension of her not always believing his love for her. Someone who doesn’t have the same wounds but wants to pursue relationship and struggle to understand, while also getting frustrated by the things that seem so simple and easy to them.  Watching how the main characters in these stories protection keeps danger away, but also robs them of the beauty of a relationship of trust, makes me pause.They somehow inspire and encourage me to consider taking more risks.But, do you want to know what else I really love about these two stories in particular. They both leave the struggle in place.  Neither one, eliminates the struggle, but authenticates that life is not neat and tidy.  It’s messy.  Life has a tension to it.  We all love the tension when it’s on a screen or on the pages of a book, but when it’s our real life stories….not so much.  We want to order up a life of ease, but that’s not the reality of life on this planet.  As I enter into both of these stories I feel the angst on both sides.  I feel the angst of the main characters, as I explained earlier, but I also sit in the tension of the characters on the other side and it gives me greater understanding courage to believe that there are others who want that with me too. Think I’m worth the struggle, even when it’s frustrating for them or for both of us.And then there’s the song I referred to at the beginning, “Out of Hiding Father’s song”. This song is a call to me. A call to you. An invitation to lay aside the fear of intimacy, even for just a moment at a time, and draw close.  The truth about His presence, His story, His longing for us to come close to the One who loved us before we even knew what was love.  And, you know what?….He’s better.  Better than each of the other characters in that movie or that book.  He doesn’t make any mistakes, doesn’t have any agenda, except for our wholeness.So, I’m grateful for stories. For people who tell their own stories through the stories of characters on a screen or a pages of a book or notes in a song.  I want to stay in the struggle just long enough to notice the off ramp to intimacy and step into His courage to turn the wheel of my heart towards my real home.