Safe Places

I should totally be working on my notes for Bible study tomorrow night.

But instead I'm hopelessly distracted by thoughts of what's going on around me/us.
(Hopefully I'll be able to get it all out before work, so I can actually get some work done today...)

This morning brings an early conversation from one of my girlfriends.  Her family was thrown a HUGE monkey wrench; and she's been coming out of the protective cocoon she created in the aftermath.
She's doing awesome.  (thank you, God!)  Much MUCH better than I would be, if I were in her shoes.

We're talking about plans for the weekend, the family gathering we're trying to put together last minute, to celebrate Thanksgiving with our group; our tribe; since we'll be scattered on actual Thanksgiving.

I'm loving this.
We're a safe place with each other, to each other.
We know we're all in different places in our lives, in the physical and the spiritual.  We (the girls) laugh at how we've got 4 decades covered in experience.  But never in my life have I seen four decades of women get along SO well.

We each have something to offer one another, and it's just usually, simply, who we are; something God knew we'd each need.

It's when we, okay fine...  It's when I start thinking about how to do this, or how to do that, that I get all preachy, and bitchy; thinking I know what I'm talking about.

Sigh...

I'm so thankful for all my safe places.  Not places I can go to, but places where I can be...me.

For my teachers who witness my moments of idiocy, my breakdowns, times when I open my mouth, thinking I know what I'm talking about, showing my tail.  And yet, they either ignore my idiocy, or gently guide me away from it. And they still continue to teach me.

For my husband, who sees all of it:  the questioning side, the confident side, the creative side, and the destructive side.  The learning side, the selfish side, the giving side.  The only one this side of heaven who knows my heart.  He may not know what to do with it at times, but he loves me anyway.

For my girlfriends, who've seen me show my tail, and then so graciously let me know in their own way that they love me, despite my imperfections. (I'm hearing a "Bless her heart" in there...)

I used to be jealous of times when my girlfriends would hang out, and I couldn't be part of it.  I would try to move heaven and earth to get to be part of their gathering, That's what my selfish, prideful and center-of-attention personality demanded.

And then I realized what a blockhead I am.
     Who am I to think that someone needs me around?
     Who am I to think that I can teach someone anything?
     Am I not still a student myself??!!

I have to keep this thought at the forefront of my day; or I become useless.

God isn't going to use me for what I know, He's going to use me for who I am.


Wait a minute...


That "I am" just got caught in my throat...

Veteran's Day, Birthdays, Tribes and Other Mental Vomitus

The ever-shortening weekends leave me ragged. 
    
Not enough time to get done what always presses to be done, I find myself longing for the workweek, so I can ignore domestic chores again, calling it "for the benefit of my sanity".
 
It's a vicious cycle, one that I'm choosing to ignore.  There are far more pressing items to contend with, such as a brain that won't shut down; thoughts that can't be organized.

So excuse my rambling thoughts, as there is absolutely no cognitive order to any of it.  I need to process it all, and this place is how I do that.

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Realizing as my husband walked out the door that today's his birthday, I was overcome with guilt that I didn't plan anything in advance.  I am usually the one in the family who makes a big deal out of birthdays. 
I prayed a quick prayer, that God would show me what to do, special, for my hubby, while I writhed in my busy-ness.
I was not really expecting a response, but I definitely got one.

"Don't use your relationship with Me as an excuse not to think."

Uhhhh...crap. 
That does not help. 

At all.

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Today is also Veteran's Day. 
A day of reflection for me, one near and dear to my heart. 
I find my small-ness in this day, not a product of, or a result of, but rather a tiny cog in the mighty military machine of this country.  Twelve years of my life given to this country, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

It isn't for the experiences, it isn't for the mission that I ache with remembrance.

It's the people. 

Some of the most amazing people I've known in this lifetime served alongside of me. 

Others served before me, setting the stage for legacy upon legacy of national service and dedication that could only come from the generations before.

It's the closest my 'pre-Jesus' life offered of community, outside of family.  (Yet in a dysfunctional family kind of way.)

So this weekend, when we learned of the unexpected passing of one of the guys we turned wrenches with, the strangest thing happened. 
My heart kind of broke.  We weren't close, but plenty were.  He was an AWESOME person.  One of the funniest people I've worked with, and made a sometimes really hard job not so bad.

He's not the only one, there have been others. 
Zooming out from the perspective of my life, and those in my sphere of influence, the grand-ness of the day presses in. 

I am not an attention person, so the discomfort that comes from all the recognition on Veteran's Day is unsettling to me.

Especially when there are others who have given so very much more.

Thank you doesn't seem big enough, appropriate enough.  But this humbled and thankful heart says it anyways. 

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The trendy word going around in the discipleship circles is "Tribe".

At first I scoffed at the choice of such an odd word.
But the more I looked at the group of families we've been planted in the middle of, I'm finding that the word just fits.

One of my girlfriends and I discussed it on the way home from a retreat last weekend; a conversation that dominated the majority of the three-hour trip.

How each of us, (speaking for the girls) have something to offer someone else. 

(I'm sure it goes the same for the guys, but we laughed about how they didn't have a clue about these things the girls pondered over.  Fast forward a week, and a cold-morning conversation with my hubby over coffee and cigarettes on the deck totally proved me wrong.)

Every single one of us is in different stages of our lives.  Yet we stand together in a bond we can't fully understand yet.

We support each other, no matter what form that support comes in.
     Sometimes it's in the form of a collective prop, holding one another up in the hard times.
          **Believe me, there are hard times.  This is Life. There are always hard times.**
     Sometimes it's in the form of a listening ear, and hands that are opening the beer or the bottle of wine.
     Sometimes its coffee on the porch, Halloween candy, and a fire pit. 
     It's been words of encouragement for steps taken towards callings, and it' been the grass-cutting fairy.  The dog sitters, the girls' nights, the (attempted) monthly dinners, the help while one is away.
     Sometimes it's the prayers for understanding, other times it's the prayers for peace, for clarity, for perspective. 

There is the grace to realize we are all very different people, and the love to know that who each other is.. is okay. Right where we are.

Community. 

The bigness of the term seems too large to grasp sometimes.  But that's when God shows me I'm sitting right in the middle of it, almost wherever I am.

I see it in my military family.
I see it in my church family, small and large.
I'm starting to see it at my work.

And again, instead of seeing my "role" in all of it, I'm seeing the tiny cog that I am. 


This mighty machine of dead bones with regenerated flesh, with renewed breath in its lungs.

Sandspurs

I'm sitting in an uncomfortable place.
     (Nothing profound here, I'm literally sitting on the uneven stone cap of a century- and-a-half old civil war fort.)

My discomfort keeps me switching positions,  shifting my weight.

It's not til I pull one foot up underneath my other leg that I see the bottom of my shoe.
    
These things have been collecting on the soles of my shoes, and very 'princess and the pea', I see why my feet were starting to ache.

In between the traction-grabbing grippy knobs (like I need those), is a whole mess of sandspurs.

Not making the immediate connection between their name & why they're stuck to my shoes, I reach down & try to brush them away.

 

Once the flash flood of profanity subsided,  I thought I might be in trouble.

 

This was going to take some time.  

Very gingerly, one by one,  I have to s-l-o-w-l-y remove them.  The tiny needles have pierced the soles, & I brought nothing with me that would make the job easier.  Excision with my fingertips has become an exercise in surgical precision.

 

As I pluck away,  I try not to focus on the pain.   I let my mind wander.

 

     Why in the world do sandspurs show up in the places we like to escape to?  The little buggers pretty much go unnoticed in our relaxation,  until we go off the beaten path.  It only takes once.

     How long have these things been in here??

     Had I not say down here,  would I have seen them?

 

Had I not done something different,  I never would have seen the amount of junk  accumulating while on my afternoon walk.

 

They're everywhere!!

 

As I finish with the soles,  my eye catches one on the side of my shoe.

      There's another.
          

           And another!

They're intertwined in my shoelaces; they're clinging to my pant legs.

They're hiding INSIDE my pant legs, poking my skin; wrapped up in my socks.

 

How does that even happen??

 

Thoroughly miffed now, invisible needles stuck in my raw fingers, I am totally distracted from my prayer time.

 

I stand,  go to brush myself off.  My eyes grow wide as I realize that I've been sitting in a whole pile of the damn things.

 

Ugh.