My Spiritual Life: Doubt

Doubt becomes WONDER 

~ Audrey Assad

I’m besties with doubt, in my early thirties this unraveled me. I can clearly recall sitting at Harmon Park in Kearney wondering how I was going to have a meaningful conversation with the young woman I was preparing to meet.  How when when my faith felt so shaky, so unsure would I have anything of value to lend her? At the time we served in a church that was built around certainty. If we weren’t certain we didn’t do it. If we weren’t certain, we were doubting and if we were doubting, we were sinning.

So there I was swinging and crying and mad because I wasn’t certain of anything. I wasn’t certain God was good. I wasn’t certain he was faithful.  I wasn’t certain we wouldn’t get to the end and find out it was all a sham.  I had a choice to make, was I going to be real about my doubt or was I going to pretend to be certain. The choice was HARD! This wasn’t safe. This wasn’t easy. This could be the undoing of me. I was certain of one thing, judgement loomed just around the corner.

That night I sat in my living room across from this beautiful put-together young professional, who was everything I was not, and said, “I have to be real, I have some doubts.” Her response was relief that I, a pastor’s wife, would also doubt. That I, someone who was supposed to have it all together, would say through tears, “I don’t know, but can we figure it out together.”

But, like I said, I’m besties with doubt.  This wasn’t the first time I admitted doubt and it wouldn’t be the last. But it was the first time I let someone in on my secret. It was the first time I noticed words like “wonder” and “mystery” in scripture and began to make friends with doubt. I made it my bestie. Now, I want every doubt I have about Jesus, the Bible, and the church to lead me to wonder, that magical feeling of awe. When I question the way we handle different issues within the church, I want to link hands with doubt and wonder, not always the magical wonder but the wonder that leads to questions and doesn’t just accept answers, like, “because it’s the way we’ve always done it.” This wonder asks and digs and keeps asking.

Here is my promise to you, when you doubt, I will link hands with you and doubt. We will wonder together. Sometimes, we will stand in awe at the profound mystery we have stumbled upon and other times we will ask as many questions as we can.  We will become besties with doubt.

My Mommy Life - Knots

I would be a better mom if I could get rid of the knots inside me, the things that trigger me and make me crazy. I would offer greater wider spaces for grace if I knew that space for myself. I know this because of the knots already untangled, the shame already put to rest, the space for grace already offered.

I have found it to be consistently true that people who have dealt with their own shame are less likely to shame others. I have also found it to be true that those who have found wide open spaces of grace are able to offer those to others.

The difficulty is... how do I do the hard work of untangling? 

Once upon a time, I cross-stitched and once upon a time, I crocheted. If you know me, you may be giggling right now because these are detail oriented operations. There is counting and special stitches and ridiculous hours of hand cramps and neck aches but I did it because the mature women around me did it. It was possible that this would be the key to my maturity. Both of these activities nearly always required me to untangle knots.  Maybe this is why these women were mature, they had the patience to find and untangle the knots. They knew which knots to cut and start over and which knots could be easily untangled. 

I’m now looking at the handiwork of my life and trying to decipher the same thing.  I know that some knots need to be completely cut away and I need to let go and start over.  Others can be easily untangled, it’ll take time, patience and energy but over time the knot will be freed and the thread ready to stitch something beautiful.  I want something beautiful...not something crazy...not something triggered, but something full of grace and exquisitely beautiful.  

As I ponder the nature of knots, I recognize that they have some wisdom to lend me.  The process of untangling emotional and long-held-onto-belief knots is very similar to the process of untangling physical knots.

First, follow the string. What was I feeling before I snapped, lost it, went crazy and flipped my lid? Emotions are crazy destructible magnetic little buggers. They attach themselves to the wrong things and place blame in unlikely places. For example, one morning I may realize that our money in our food budget has been spent for the month but we still have a week left and at the same time one of my children is disrespectful. I am likely to blame my frustration on my child’s disrespect when the real culprit is my anxiety about money issues.

Second, ponder, get curious. Why would it be that this would cause me anxiety? Is there something in my past that leads me to believe that this is worthy of being angry, scared, anxious or nervous over?

Third, tell yourself the truth.  "I want my kids to do what I say when I say it.  My need for control is not their problem and not worth hurting our relationship."

Finally, fix what you broke and start making something beautiful out of the untangled knot.  Say you are sorry to people who were hurt by your emotional outburst or silent treatment and move on.

I know that being a better mom, means dealing with my own junk.  This is hard work and the harder our kids are the more aware we have to be about the knots in our lives.  I'm working on untangling, how about you?

The Reading Life

If you know me, you know I'm a bookish sort of person.  I have been bookish since I can remember and could read Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Superfudge and later tales like The Hobbit  and A Wrinkle in Time.  Sometimes my bookish tendencies get me in trouble, because I would definitely mostly rather read a book.  Sometimes it also confuses me.  I like to be with people, I do a lot of extraverted reading, at ballgames, at coffee shops, in the park, in the car with the kids screaming, places where there are external noises to keep me moving. 

I began to feel guilty about all the reading. Shockingly, there were comments from people around me, because that's what we, the human race, does best, ignorantly comment -
                                    "How do you read so much?"
                                    "Do you do anything else?"

Of course I do other things, I'm the mother of 5.  But here is how I read so much, it's a priority.  I don't watch much TV.  If I'm digging my way through a lot of books I won't get on social media.  I have no games on my phone and I don't play games.  If the kids are watching a movie, I snuggle too, but probably read a book instead of watching the movie.  If its half-time and everyone goes to get a snack, I stay put and read a few pages.   Basically, I always carry a book with me.  Last night I headed out to watch some volleyball and in my bag I threw in a book with a super appropriate title.

I didn't crack open the book, not even once. I caught up with a great friend, but I was prepared, just in case.  On a side note, the girls were on fire last night, it was a great game.

The thing is, I read a lot because I love to think and take in information.  Even the lightest book is a place for me to think deeply.  I have taken the StrengthsFinder several times and my number one strength is always Input.  I get energized from input of information.  In Anne Bogel's book, Reading People, she also talks about her strength of Input and how that impacts her reading life.  I read because it is an outflow of my strengths.  I read because the Input of information makes me feel alive, just like making music makes my husband feel alive.  For me, reading is not an escape but a way to make my world bigger and my life richer.  Okay, you got me, sometimes reading is all about the escape, ignoring the hard tasks and negative emotions, but more times than not it is the way I work through it.  When we got our boys I read every book I could on attachment and international adoption and transracial issues.  When I started to feel like my world was very small in regards to race, I started reading the stories of people with different backgrounds.  When I can't understand my husband, I read books on marriage.  These books mentor me and grow me.  I tend to read a wide variety of books and I'm not interested in just reading what I agree with, reading books that stretch my brain brings me energy in an unique way.

This is my current stack, including a few on my Kindle. I just noticed there is only one fiction on that stack and no classics.  That is a unique stack for me, but September is a unique season of learning and growing and grabbing a new rhythm.

I would love to know what you are reading and any recommendations you might have.  You can follow me on Goodreads to keep up with my reading life.

Fear is a BULLY

Last weekend we went to one of our very favorite places, Vedauwoo.  My 6 year old was super excited when we got there, he was going to climb the highest rock and scale the steepest surface.  But suddenly, without warning he was frozen and proclaiming to the world that he was going to die.  There are places at Vedauwoo where this an absolutely logical fear, he just wasn’t in one of those places.  He was probably about 6 feet up and surrounded by boulders to help him make his way down the 6 feet.  But all he could mumble over and over was how he felt like he was going to die.  The prodding of his mom didn’t help, the goading of his sister didn’t help, and the motivating of his aunt didn’t help.  Eventually, his sister picked him up and handed him to her boyfriend to carry down.  To get past his fear he needed something or someone to move him.  Fear does that, it causes us to stop and become illogically frozen.  Often this happens in a place that we really wanted to be in.

I, too, know fear.  I have had this dream, this dream that I keep massaging and manipulating and pondering but never doing.  I dream of writing, and blogging and speaking.  I did what one is supposed to do when they have dreams, I made a goal.  By September 1, 2018 I was going to have a more professional looking blog.  I don’t.  I don’t because I can’t make myself sit down to design it.  Why would I have a goal that I cannot make myself sit down and do?  Because I’m living in the land of procrastination, the land where fear overgrows its space and traps emotions and actions and keeps them from moving.  Whether I want to or not, it is time to dig deep into myself and ask what I am so afraid of...

I am afraid of not writing anything worth reading.  What if my writing is ordinary and just like everyone else and nobody wants to read it?

I am afraid of being a fraud and not really being an expert in anything.  And even more disturbing, to be called out in my lack of expertise.

I am afraid of not making time.  It’s easier to spin out of control in the busyness of nothingness than to really set aside the time to observe life and think deeply, to be thoughtful about my life and those around me and observe the patterns that emerge.

I am afraid of being vulnerable and writing IS vulnerable. Enough said.

To my fear I say, you don’t get to bully me anymore.  I am posting an imperfect blog on my imperfect site.  I am setting aside time and taking the leap.  To you reading this, you have permission to ask what I am writing and where I am speaking and how my new blog is coming.  And when my vulnerability causes me to want to freak out, I’ll smile and tell you what I am doing and thank you for asking, because fear doesn’t get to be a bully in my life anymore.