Revealing Grace

Quite a while back my community group in Arizona was sharing our stories of faith. I opened up and shared, through teary eyes, about the voice I had been hearing in my head that was telling me it would be better off if I died. I’ve written a little bit about that before and how scary it was to hear such a convincing voice.  The next day our community group leader, Brian, came by the office where I was working.   “I’ve been thinking about what you shared with us last night,” he said. “Now, I am not a prophet or anything, but I just feel like God wants me to tell you that that voice you heard was not for you .”   At the time, I was skeptical. The voice had been convincing and I knew I was struggling through depression, but I continued to listen.   “I think you heard that voice so that you will understand,” he continued. “I think God wants you to understand what your kids [on the reservation] go through, what people who are in that kind of pain hear and...

My heart song is poetry I think. Its lame, I know. But when I am truly deep within an emotion, I pick up my phone or my pen to express it and it always comes out in poetry. So I roll with it. Grief and loss, betrayal- it all requires a lot of different emotions as we process. Things felt in one moment may be the opposite of things felt in the next. It is all important and always valid. So here is a little poetry from the other night when I could not sleep and I could not see the beauty in the pain. Here is a glimpse into what my heart sometimes feels when I breathe in the solitude and I hate every part of this stupid rebuilding (my life, my trust, my self) process. **If poetry makes you cringe and think of high school english class, don't be intimidated or skip over this one. Poetry is just a paragraph with weird spacing and capital letters. I believe in you.** Shattered Shaky Bordering on the line between I'm ok and I can't do this today. My skin is but a thin ...

My soul needs the mountains to breathe. The mountains are where I can think clearly, where I can put one foot in front of the other and grow stronger emotionally, mentally, and physically. They are where God speaks to me and where I find the space to hear Him, where I can sit by a rushing stream with my brother and we can listen to our surroundings and be at peace. So this past weekend I went backpacking with my brother in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is a fact that a weekend in the fresh air, by mountain streams and without access to phone service, is more healing to me in this season than most anything. I will admit that I went into the weekend angry. I was/am so angry at my husband for what he has done to me, for the ways he has betrayed me. I started hiking and I couldn't shake the bad thoughts. My therapist says it would be less normal if I wasn't angry, so I gave myself permission to be mad. But as I continued up the mountain I reminded mys...

Have you ever had those days where you just don't feel ok? Sometimes weeks pass. Weeks pass and nothing seems to get better. But the last shred of optimism clings to you like a shadow. Eventually there must be a corner. There must be a step that leads to a new horizon. Surely peace is just a few steps away from the pain. This idea gives you the kind of hope that makes you feel like you can breathe again. Surely a new horizon will cause the bad feelings to peel away as a snake sheds its skin and make you new. Surely , the optimistic shadow whispers with a push, you must keep walking to the corner.  So you walk. And you walk. And you walk. But that corner never seems to come. There are other corners turned but they all seem to lead back to the same place and the shadow of despair looms large. People join your walk for a little while, but they don't understand what moves your feet, they don't know for what you search. Eventually they go off on walks of their own an...

I'm tired. I am tired of this season, of feeling down, of waiting for something good to happen or for the next chapter to begin. I am tired of wondering and questioning, of not sleeping enough and sleeping too much. I am tired of not knowing what I am supposed to be doing and I am tired, mainly, of being still. When I was in Arizona I had it all- a house, a husband, 2 dogs, a job, teenagers to care for, and mountains to hike. I had purpose. I had people to take care of, to feed, to clothe. In fact, for the last four years in Arizona my whole life has been about pouring into others. I was caring for teenagers, friends, my husband, and yes, even my dogs. And then all of a sudden, I have none of that. Not even one little ounce of it. All gone. All stripped violently from my arms in a story that is too long to tell you right now and too fresh for even me to fully understand. I went from having everything to having nothing. I had a life and now I have a blank space before me that...

August 7th: 12:21am If there was an ocean out my back door I would walk right into it and let myself sink. The weight of this sadness would lead me straight to the depths and it would make no difference. For I am already there, in the depths of the darkness, in the pit of death surrounded only by the bones of those gone before me. I cannot feel the light within me. My arms are weak, my legs unstable. Piece by piece I shut down until what is left is just the shell of me. Consumed by fire I am just ash and dust. Yet I still have to walk, and breathe, and pretend that I am truly alive. But life is no longer in me. Nor hope or joy. I am but dry bones and I am forgotten.  There have been a lot of days in this process when my journal has looked like the entry above. Strength in hard times is a many faceted thing and sometimes, it just isn't there. A lot of people have told me to feel whatever I feel in the moment, to let myself process. For me this means writing it down. I have alwa...

I think that it is a stupid symptom of our society that we think we need to hide our pain from each other. We think that no one else wants to hear it or perhaps that they will not love us anymore if we show them. We think that their life is probably perfect. That's ridiculous.  God's love is shown in mighty ways when we trust each other with our pain. There is so much healing in vulnerability. But it is not an easy task. My confidence has been shaken. I apologize for everything. Anything that maybe I possibly did wrong at one point in time, I now apologize for. Because I feel bad. And I worry that I have done wrong by people that I love. Its a twisted symptom of the situation. I have lost my confidence. It is temporary but it is difficult. Temporary.  I think of my life as a tapestry. It is made up of threads. "Time heals," they say. I believe that, but only because I believe that with time, more threads will be added to my story. What has happened in the...