When Being a Girl is an Insult

"Come on, girls," she shouts to the nearly all male baseball team from the sidelines, the annoyance clear in her voice. "Let's get it together." She offers a little chuckle, to lighten the insult, but beneath the laugh is the clear evidence of a type of thinking that was thought to have disappeared a century ago.

Earlier, another insult was hurled across the ball field, this time by one of the players at first base. As the ball came across the field, not close enough for him to make the catch, his response to the player at fault was, "Come on! You throw like a girl!"

I sat on the bleachers, hearing my femininity thrown around as an insult, as something inside my little heart broke.

Because since when is it okay to use who I am, a woman, designed in the image of my Creator, as an insult? Since when is it okay to admonish someone that they are less than they should be because they are doing something as a woman or girl would? Since when is it okay to use a male as a standard, and a woman as sub-par?

And most importantly, why are we still okay with this way of thinking? Why do we still allow those comments a place in our sports fields, and a place in our thoughts?

It has taken me years and years to just begin to hold my femininity in my hands and be okay with it. It has taken me a long time to see that as a woman, I hold beauty and emotions and a wonder that Christ has delighted in blessing me with. It's a challenge every single day to counter the lies that this culture tells that our beauty is found in an outward appearance or that as women, we need to throw femininity aside to be equal to men. As a woman, I am delightfully different than a man because we were designed that way. I am in no way superior. I am in no way inferior. I am equal, amidst our differences.

And so when I hear those insults echoing across a ball field, and echoing through this society, that kind of thinking breaks my heart.

Because we are beyond that. We are better than that. We have come so far in our understanding of who men and women are and who they were designed to be - and those insults? They should be a heartbreaking thing of the past. They should be no longer.

When Water Washes Away Your Words

When we had the flood in the basement, it washed away not only books, drywall, shoes and clothes, but it washed away something very precious. It washed away my words.

It was a blue journal, with purple binding along the side. On the front was a tree, raised leaves that I can still feel on my fingertips. I remember the moment in the bookstore, slipping it out of the bookshelf from among the myriad of others calling out for my attention.

In that journal were my words. It held words from the ending of my time at university, and the beginning of my trip to Africa. It held tears. It contained joy and triumph. Across its pages were the paintings I had created with my words, bits of my soul slipped in between the strokes and lines.

I long to live a life not only in the present, but a life that looks back, too. My journals let me do that. They let me see where I've come from, because as I see where I'm coming from I see where I'm going, too. I want to look back and see how life, how God, how people have shaped me. I want to remember who I was then so I can know more deeply who I am now.

The water stole my journal, blurring the words and marring the book with destructive mould. The book was slipped into a garbage bag with junk, the meaning and worth known only by me.  It shouldn't bother me as much as it does. I'm struggling to remind myself that the process of holding my pen to paper was just as important as the end result of the filled journal. I'm trying to remember, and be thankful for the fact that although water stole my words, it can never steal my voice.

{But still my heart is hurting a little bit to know those precious words have slipped away forever.}

Surpassing all Understanding

The other day I sat across from my doctor and listed the symptoms. Anxiety. Racing heart. Nausea. Shaking. 

Before he responded with his diagnosis, I could already hear the words he was about to speak whisper into my ear. Panic attack. And sure enough, seconds later, he proceeded to confirm what I already knew. We talked about options; we talked about a solution and thankfully, underlying his words was the reaffirmation that I needed to hear: you'll get through this.

The other night, as my mom sat across from me on my bed, and I recounted to her the conversation between my doctor and I, she frowned and put words to questions I too have wrestled with. "But I don't get it," she said. "How can you have panic attacks when you have the peace of God?"

And I sat, stumped by her question, because in all reality I just really don't know.

But tonight, questions stir in my heart because I wonder.

Does the peace of God mean the absence of anxiety? 

If there's anything my life has taught me, it isn't that Christ necessarily seeks to take away trials from us but rather He seems to want to walk through them with us.

And I just wonder, if even in the midst of a panic attack, His peace is found in the Hand that holds mine and gently whispers, "Breathe. You've got this. You'll be okay." And in doing so, those times of severe anxiety don't reflect a lack of peace but rather peace that surpasses all human understanding. Instead those times reflect the great presence of Peace.

I'm reminded of the verse in Exodus, "The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still." The battle was never averted but rather God promised to fight it for them. He was just as present in the midst of the battle as He would have been in its absence!

And I wonder if maybe, just maybe, His Presence and Peace are just as present in the midst of anxiety as they are in its absence.

Just a Little More Grace

The other day I got a text from a friend:

"So, any new year's resolutions?" 

I thought about it for a moment. The freshness of a new year brings new hope, new encouragement, the blessing that your actions will be fruitful if you just put your mind to it. The past year, the slate listed with failures is wiped clean, and the new year promises steps forward and no stepping back. It's the perfect opportunity to dream. To resolve.

But for me, I've learned not to mark the beginning of a new year with ways to change because I want my life to be one where I'm always changing, always challenging myself, and always growing.

So instead I choose my word. I choose a word that sums up what I want to learn this year and how I want to grow. Last year my word was wait, and without a doubt 2012 was a year of waiting. Sometimes painful waiting. But I learned patience, and I learned trusting in the waiting {but even then it will probably be a lesson I learn again and again through this life}.

This year my word is grace. Because it's in His grace that I am made new, and it's through His grace that I experience His love. It's in the grace that has been offered to me by His Church that I found the freedom to offer grace to myself. And I've been wondering what my life would be like if it was marked by the kind of grace that He offers me. 

What if I turned the other cheek more often than nought?

What if I offered forgiveness when it was least deserved, when it hurt so much to offer that grace that it made me cry?

What if I, in grace, held my mouth closed and only offered words of conviction when the Spirit led?

Grace. I'm learning that grace reflects Him, because we live in a world where grace isn't offered very much. We choose to give what's deserved. We chase after the one that's wronged us. And I just wonder what this life might be like if we all gave - and received - a little more grace.

So that's my word. Here's to a beautiful 2013, filled with challenges and laughter and tears and grace.

{Linked up to the OneWord community here.}

Sitting in the Graveyard

My heart is heavy tonight. It's still beating .... but it's bruised, and it's a bit battered, but it still beats. And I am listening to that sound, as if it is a lifeline, uttering a prayer of thanks with every new sound.

Because sometimes life is so hard.

And it takes leaving your country, your home, your family, your friends to be in a space where you can finally feel that. It takes losing all of the things that hold you up ... to be in a place where the only place you can land is in His arms.

It takes being in an unfamiliar place, I think, to finally venture into grief and let yourself feel. Because when you lose something, it's easy to walk around the grief, to stare at it, to wish it away, to pray it away, to lose yourself in the familiar because grief is anything but. 

But you can't bring building supplies to the graveyard. There's a season of life, when dreams have been shattered, and you have lost what you never thought you would, that you need to sit in that grief and that heartache. 

And although it's scary, and it hurts, I might have finally walked into that graveyard. For a long time I've sat and stared at it's gates, and there have been moments when I've dared venture in, but the truth is, being sad and feeling my grief is the hardest thing to do.

But I think I might be ready to sit. I think I might be ready to leave my building supplies behind and just sit in the graveyard. However scary and painful that might be.

Because I am reminded that however scary it might be, however dark it might seem right now, the sun will rise and illuminate even the darkest and scariest graveyard. I know, for my hope rests in Him, that there will be a time when the sun, in its beauty and glory, will remind me that I too can rise. 

Dear Younger Me

Dear younger me,

I find you on the floor in your bedroom, cuddled into the corner of your closet. You are holding yourself tightly; arms wrapped around your knees, your body curled into the fetal position. Your hair is damp and your moans illicit pain deep within my soul, for your heart is breaking, slowly, into tiny little pieces.

I sit beside you and see these pieces of your heart scattered around you. I see how you have felt a piece chip away every time your parents have passed each other by with silence and a mere nod; I have seen how pieces fell the day your mom packed up her things into bags and boxes. I know that your heart feels scattered right now: you are fragile, and are clutching to your heart's broken pieces as best you can. I wish I could tell you that a year changes things, and that your heart is put together as time passes, but sadly, the adage that time heals all wounds isn't true. Only God can do that, and His timing isn't ours.

I see that your lips are moving slowly, and I can make out your prayer. It's more of a cry, really, and I hear the desperation in your voice. You are begging God to take you home into His arms, to free you of this pain and darkness. Although you can't see it then, you will see that God answered your prayer; just not in the way you thought he would.

As you journey through the next year in your life, you will struggle every day. You will feel pain, some days more heavily than that moment in your closet. But what you will find is that in your pain, and amidst the broken pieces of your heart, God is your Home. He is your shelter; He is your strength. He doesn't leave nor forsake you. This will be a lesson you will have to learn over and over; and it's a painful one. But you will start to see how this is truth.

You will learn that it is in the broken places that we sometimes discover wholeness. It will take some time, but you will see that your pain has shaped you into a beautiful caring, loving individual. You will learn that what others intend for a curse, God intends for a blessing. Your pain has allowed you to feel more – for you are broken to be healed to be broken for others. You will find beauty in this brokenness, my love. I know you don't feel like it right now, curled into yourself on the floor in the closet. But you will. This I promise you.

Love always,

Your older self

Jumping into the abyss

I've been struggling since I got here in Africa. Most of the time, I am blogging about my daily activities here, instead of writing here at my normal blog. I've felt a bit lost since I've arrived, homesickness and culture shock wrapping themselves around me and making it incredibly difficult to adjust to my new surroundings. Today, amidst a bumpy morning filled with longing for home, I wrote this journal entry, which is a mishmash of prayers and thoughts. Who God is to me is growing so much larger - and I am learning, even amidst confusion and feeling lost. I am thankful for that today.

"What is it that I so badly want from home? Because really, do I even have a physical home? In that thought I think of Jesus, who had no place to rest his head.

I just long to feel myself. I long to feel confident, joy, peace. I long for my familiar faces I so love. I long for the freedom to be able to talk to strangers and have them understand me. I long for familiar food, familiar things that make me feel like I have a place in this world. I miss worshipping in a place where I understand the songs and words, where I feel part of a community.

I think I'm being challenged on my image of God. I see Him so much as an overseer, a director, an instructor. But I long to see Him as my Brother, friend, even moreso my Father. I always feel like there is a big gap between us, and consequently I feel like the closeness, that intimacy, is lost in that abyss.

What is that gap, God? How do I change that?

Maybe I need to be willing to jump into that darkness, that gap, and trust that He'll meet me in that in between.

I feel like here bits and pieces of me are floating. I feel like coming here maybe was sort of my jumping into the darkness. And I'm floating, but mostly I am feeling like I'm drowning. I am missing the sure ground under my feet. I am missing the light, the assuredness I felt. This gap, this space isn't fun or safe like I thought it would be. It's anything but. And I'm sorry, God, for that being true. For I once prayed that I longed to be stripped of everything familiar to have just You. And I suppose, deeply, I still want that. So hear I am, in a country far away, stripped of everything. And I'm terrified. I'm drowning. I'm searching for you. 

Why did I automatically assume that the removal of my life, my family, my friends, my comforts would mean finding you? Was I foolish enough to think that you can ony be found in a place of loss, in a place unknown? You aren't dependent on circumstances, or time, or place. You said to search for you with all of your heart and we would find you. Maybe searching with all of our hearts means losing famly and friends, home, security. But maybe, just maybe, you are more concerned with our hearts and that we are searching for you from wherever we are. 

I can't believe I didn't get that, God. I am sorry - but thank you for showing that to me now. Thank you.

It's okay to be missing home. It's okay to be missing family. It's okay to be missing my Thursday night dates wth my girls. All of this is so wonderfully okay.

Because what matters the most, here or at home, is that I am searching for Him with all of my heart. I can do that at home - and I can do that here. I can do that in the middle of a lecture or the middle of a staff meeting at work. I can do that here, in the middle of a busy, crowded, shouting marketplace. Wow.

Please, Jesus, protect me from losing sight of this - bury this truth deep within my heart, so deep it is permanently written across my heart."

Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive. (Jeremiah 29:12-14)