Pregnant

I started a writing project this week.

I shouldn't advertise it. I should just quietly write until I have amassed enough momentum and - well - pages, to convince myself that this is a real project, that I will truly work on until it is finished.

It was the same when I was pregnant, some people wait to make it public until they are past the first trimester. This is wise, because the risk of miscarriage is greatest in the first trimester. If you haven't told the whole world you are pregnant, you won't have to give all the difficult explanations if you do miscarry.

But I told everyone right away. My thinking is, if I am going to go through a tragedy, I am not likely to suffer silently anyway - may as well let everyone in on it early so they can all follow along as the plot unfolds. Besides, I'm simply not mature enough to keep it to myself. I'm like a little kid who has to tell everyone on the street about her new dress - it is such breaking news.

So, I am pregnant: with a book. The big thing here is not that I might actually write a book, as in complete and bring it to publish, although that would be huge and is almost impossible for me to believe. The big thing is the process and how much, how very, very much I have experienced God in it.

A number of years ago I read a quote, which I will here probably mangle:

"Too many people die with their song still in them."

That idea (if not the exact words) hit home with me, because I have often felt that I have a 'song' in me that is yet unsung.

As I have written for two hours a day this past week, I have finally felt that I was singing. There has been a coming together of all the things that matter to me, with a strong sense of God's smile over it all, and a kind of encompassing satisfaction that I have rarely felt in my life.

This week it was easy to make the two hours every day, because my daughters were away at a summer arts program. Next week they are home, and the week after that homeschool begins again. As well, I know that the euphoria I feel now will dissipate, and the writing will bog down. It will be hard to keep believing that I am suppose to do this, that God wants me to and that it is not just silliness or selfishness, or dreams of grandiose.

So I hope, by telling everyone, that I will force myself to keep going - if only to save face. And I hope, by writing my experience of this past week, that I can come back to it as an Ebenezer of sorts to remind me how much God was in this at the start.

Because if I can just remember that God started it, I can relax and know that He will bring it to completion.

Being me

Yesterday I was out on the trail again, overlooking the valley - which is finally soft and green - and I was talking with God about this blog, telling Him how much I miss it, and how I feel happier when I am writing - more alive - more in touch with Him. As I stood there the wind blew strong against me, and I had a memory.


Years ago, I was reading "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire", by Jim Cymbala. I was sitting on our deck, with my back to the fence-rail. I was reading about people whose lives had been wonderfully changed by God's work, and I put down the book and just prayed, "God, I wish You would do that for me. I don't care whether you change my past, or heal my past, or what - but I wish You would heal me of the consequences of my past."


Now, you have to know that our deck backs right up against our neighbour's garage wall, so I had by back against a 5 foot high fence, behind which was a very small, grassy, corridor - maybe 4 feet wide - and behind that a full wall. And it was a still, breezeless day.


I prayed that prayer and suddenly a strong wind blew from behind me, I felt it blowing my hair forward and pushing against the back of my neck, and as I wondered about where such a wind could come from, it was as if I could see a dark mist coming out of me and swirling away in the wind. The wind carried it right away, and I knew that I had been healed.


Over the next days and weeks I could tell that there had truly been a change. Things that used to bother me were just no problem now. So much of my self-doubt and negative self-talk went away that day and never returned.


So, yesterday as I stood there on the ridge and felt the wind blowing strong against me, it reminded me of that day years ago. I realized that one reason I don't write in here - or anywhere - is that I listen to negative messages: I am too analytical, too obtuse, too complex, too self-absorbed, or else too fluffy, too inane, too ... foofee.

Another time I was denegrading myself for not keeping our yard prettier. I don't like gardening, and I was whining to some friends about how I almost dislike summer because I feel so guilty about not gardening. The man, Randy, look straight at me and said, "Lorrie, just let it go." I didn't even really understand what he was saying. He had to explain that I needed to let go of the guilt. It's okay to not like gardening, and my yard doesn't have to be pretty. Let it go.

Somehow, that freed me. I haven't worried about it since. I don't like gardening and it shows in my yard. I am okay with that.

I think God is showing me that now I need to let go of the negative messages about my writing and just be who I am. It's okay to be me, even if I am self-absorbed, overly analytical, or obtuse.

Who knows, maybe if I am honest, and just be who I am, God will change me, and we can all watch.

Thirst

Jesus said, "If you are thirsty, come to me."

How can I get it so wrong? I fall into the trap of, "When I am good, I can go to Him."

I can't go now: tired and grumpy, whiney and lazy.

But isn't that what thirst is? Need?

It is exactly when I am all those negative things, and more, that I can run to Him for comfort and help. I meet the pre-requisite.

Winter and Spring?

It was harder to see the green fuzz on the trees today, because clouds are blocking the sun, and there is snow falling.

But still, I know spring is coming. Just not today, is all.

Winter and Spring

I want to write a short post.

There.

Just kidding.

I want to write a short post, but actually say something. That's harder.

I ran this morning, before church. I haven't done that in a long time, partly because it has been dark outside. My dog and I ran 'the point trail', which is the local name for a trail that circles along the top of a very large flat hill, so as I run along it I can look down at various points into three different valleys or, three views of one large valley. One view has a river which is finally free of ice and running heavy and brown, the other view is mainly creek and highway, and my favorite view is all trees, mostly Aspen.

Last October the whole valley was a vibrant yellow and then the winter winds blew all the leaves away and left the too familiar naked, spikey tree skeletons, stoically standing their watch through the endless, dark months.

The winter winds also blew away most of our retirement wealth, and my father, and my husband's father. It was a long and deeply cold winter filled with debt, cancer and loss.

This morning as we ran, the sun shone down into the trees and I could see the sage green spring growth beginning. It was just a whisper of green, more a shadow than a real thing, and maybe someone less hungry would not even have seen it. But it is there.

It tells me that over the next two weeks spring will come, and winter will finally have to let go.

And it always will. No matter how long, how dark, how deep and cold is winter, it always has to give way to spring. Always.

And one day, the spring will be forever.

Small steps

I haven't written in here for a very long time. I feel a bit sheepish. Whatever that means.

So I re-read "Crowds of Grass" (a post from January), and am freshly inspired.

For what it's worth, I haven't done much running, weightlifting, or housework either - just been feeling kind of unmotivated.

I've done alot of Sudoku though. There's something pretty satisfying about that, when the numbers all start to cascade and fall into place after long, patient figuring. I find it strangely comforting.

This morning I put my shoes on. Which means I intended to work today, and not just do sudoku. I went downstairs and did some weights. It felt so good, why do I stop? But I know why I stop. I stop because I have days when I have little or no energy and the mere idea of lifting a weight is too heavy to handle. So I don't.

I think it would be so much better if I did it anyway, if I said to myself, "Do it badly. Lift a 2lb weight and only do it 10 times." Instead I don't do it and then a kind of inertia sets in. The next day I don't want to either because I am still feeling icky, and besides, I didn't to it the day before. Then the days slide by and it's a week, or a month. Then I have to start all over again.

There are a number of things in life which, to do well, need to be done regularly. Lifting weights for three hours every once in a while would only cause strain or injury. It would not strengthen. Whereas lifting weights a few times a week, even poorly, would.

Housework is kind of like that, too. So is prayer, well, except that a long spell of prayer wouldn't cause strain or injury. But if it is not accompanied by regular, or constant prayer, it is of so much less value.

Other things that are better for being done often are: writing, and parenting.

So that's pretty much my life. Most of the things I really care about are things that require constant attention. I keep trying to schedule them all in, between homeschooling, church activity, time with my husband, and down time. Sometimes I don't do so well. I guess this past month has been a month of catching up on down time. Which is okay, I tell myself, and not at all related to list-making, quitting list-making, or passing or failing as a human being.

What I want to learn, though, is to give myself permission to do a thing poorly, if that is the best I can do for that day. I really believe that doing the thing at all is what encourages me to do it again the next day, and that doing it often is what causes me to get better at it.

I would love to leap over the mountains but if I simply cannot do it, then I would rather climb them by many small steps than stay forever in the valley.

No "To Do" list and what I am learning

Easter is over and I am going to break my fast. I am going to start listing again – but quite differently than before.

I want to stop though, and write down some of what I have been learning through this odd exercise:

1. As Colleen predicted in her comments, the important and necessary things are getting done, usually when they need to, sometimes even earlier.

2. Because I can't write a thing down when I think of it, I often do something quite radical - I actually start it. This has resulted in less procrastination.

3. I find myself consulting with God more often, and He is a far gentler and more winsome task-master than I am.

4. So far I am finding that my energy levels more closely match the required volume of work at any given time.

5. I am learning to think through a day more carefully, and as Stephen Covey so famously says, "begin with the end in mind." This means things like getting started on dinner around lunchtime, and just generally doing the important stuff first. I am learning to allow the little stuff to be little stuff, and let it fall in wherever it most naturally fits.

And here is the very best one:

6. I am beginning to believe (or maybe beginning to begin to believe) that what needs to happen will, really and truly, happen: when it needs to.

What that is doing in me is very nice. I am feeling less driven, more peaceful.

I had no idea, when I started this, that it would so directly affect that root of drivenness in me. For years I have had a disquieting sense about the way I live my life: that I am missing something, getting it all wrong somehow.

I was a disorganized, scattered person growing up. Desiring to 'get my act together', I read many books about time management, discipline, and so on. I learned such useful tricks as: if it really needs to get done, put it last on your list, that way you know you have to keep moving through all the other items.

I learned how to ratchet up the pressure. Yes, those systems work, that is to say, they kept me running. And that is how I truly felt, like I was running from the start of the day to the glorious moment when I dropped, exhausted, into bed.

I'm not feeling that way lately. Yet, I am hardly less productive.

And I am happier.

Now I just need to keep on. There are voices on the edge of my mind warning me that this is a bubble that will soon burst. They mutter that this will only work for a short season, while I don't have too much going on. When life gets busier, and it will, I will have to return to the high pressured pace.

But that is dead wrong, because the thing about living high-pressure is that I start to choreograph my time without reference to God. It matters more that I accomplish certain things, than that I listen for Him. What I am trying to learn now, instead, is to cultivate peace, based on the truth that God cares more about my activity than I do, and all my goals are safe with Him. Yes, there may be times I will have to move quickly, there will be times when much needs doing in a short time, but it doesn't have to be without God.

That's the big deal. It doesn't have to be without God. I am not alone in this. I am not even in charge of it.

I am tempted to write: “He leads this dance.”

But I won’t. (Well I did, but only to say why I won’t. That doesn’t count does it?) Because honestly, it still doesn’t feel much like dancing. It feels better, but not that good yet.

I think, though, that I might be in the dance studio.