Tender Heart, Thankful Heat

Happiness and joy are not the same thing, you know that, you’ve heard that a million times, but I’m going to make the case that thankfulness and joy just might be.  For Christmas this year, one of my best friends made me a gratitude journal and encouraged me to really focus on all I’m thankful for in 2015. It’s been amazing y’all!  Actively practicing a language of thanksgiving is transformative. At the very least, thanksgiving is the soil in which joy grows.

That being said, I’m going to be really honest here. It’s pretty easy for me to give thanks for the small things.  Like when the weather’s beautiful, or after something great happens at work, or when I get to spend time with the people I love—I’m pretty quick to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for those types of things. But Valentine ’s Day was this past weekend and I discovered that giving thanks for the season of life I’m in at the moment, when I’m not particularly thrilled to be here (to put it lightly), was not something I was willing or able to do.

When we’re disappointed, when we’ve been hurt or left out or let down, we often are NOT feeling thankful for our present/current circumstances. When we’re hurting and in pain it’s hard to be thankful, even though we are called to give thanks in all circumstances.

It seems unfair that God should ask us to be thankful when our hearts are breaking. Forcing a smile when all you want to do is cry feels hypocritical and wrong. But this “fake it till you make it” mentality isn’t what God’s about.  Read the Psalms, read Lamentations, or any of the prophets for that matter. God invites us to tell him it like it is, with all the ugly, raw, bitter, emotion we can muster. We’ve bought into this lie that as believers, we aren’t supposed to feel anything other than “happy”. Consequently, we exert an insane amount of time and energy manufacturing a superficial façade out of shallow “happiness” to hide our pain, when in reality, life in Christ wakes us up to feel things more deeply than ever before. The world hardens and numbs our hearts so that it takes more and more to move us toward compassion or anger.  Dulled and unfeeling, our hearts are no longer filled with compassion and fail to spur us into action to ease the suffering of our neighbors. 

I can’t even begin to fathom the tenderness of the heart of God. God, 100% holy, righteous, and good, is moved by even the smallest plea from the weakest believer.  As we grow closer to the heart of God, we too begin to feel more, not less.

So when life sucks, when we feel the bitter burn of rejection, when our eyes and hearts are opened to see the suffering in our world, and it hurts so much you can hardly bear it,  it’s a sign that we are in fact coming to life. That the work God began in us is continuing to mold and shape us. And that’s what we can give thanks for.  As we give thanks for these things, for who God IS for all he’s done and all he promises to do, slowly but surely we find our hearts moved to a place where we are able to thank him for our present too.

Broken Heart

Before Christmas I mentioned that I’ve been waiting on a lot of things… but really, I've just been waiting on one thing.

   

For months I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would give me this thing that I desired so desperately and guess what? —He didn’t—and my heart was absolutely crushed.

Here’s the thing about a broken heart…

Your heart holds all your emotions safe and sound, like a cute little cup. When your heart breaks, all those emotions come tumbling out all at once in one confusing jumbled mess. Anger, fear, despair, sadness, perhaps a brief glimmer of happiness or a gentle nudge of hope—you feel them ALL at once as your heart is shattered into a million tiny pieces.  

(For someone who prides herself in being a highly emotionally stable person, suffering from a broken heart was particularly unsettling and incredibly stressful.)

I don’t know why your heart may be breaking. Maybe you didn’t get the job you wanted, or maybe you just lost the one you loved. Maybe you’ve been betrayed by someone you trusted. Maybe you’ve witnessed an important relationship come to end. Maybe this was the first round of holiday’s you had to spend without a loved one. Maybe Kroger doesn't carry your favorite kind of ice cream anymore, I don’t know! Whatever the reason, here’s something else you need to know about a broken heart…

Take care that you don’t get lost among the pieces. When your heart is broken it is SO easy to get trapped in a pit of self-pity. I’m not saying that you shouldn't grieve. No, no! By all means, take time to weep, to morn for your dashed hopes and ruined dreams, but don’t get so lost in your own heartache that you can’t see others who are also hurting or how God is working all around you. 

When you’re hurting, when your heart is so open and raw that even the littlest things can cause stinging pain, it’s so tempting to try and work things out on your own, to barricade your heart and refuse to let anyone near you. Don’t do that!  Community is important in all seasons of life, but particularly so in times of heartbreak. I’ve come to discover that while it can hurt to hear how God is working in someone else’s life when it feels like he’s all but completely forsaken you, it’s a good, healing-kind of hurt and serves as an important reminder that he is still in fact working.     

Now I realize that the source of your broken heart may very well be the result of feeling that you don't have anyone to turn to in this moment. Maybe you've just moved to a new city and don't know anyone. Maybe the people or person you thought cared about you the most is no longer in your life for whatever reason. My prayer for you, is that you would be brave and bold and begin the slow, often awkward and occasionally frustrating process, of plugging into a community. I pray that this year welcomes you into a place where you feel a sense of deep belonging, a place where you know you are both wanted and needed.  

And if you were one of the those dear people who bore witness to my heartbreak (and consequent near complete emotional breakdown) —and you know who you are—thank you for sticking with me and helping me sweep up the pieces. You da the best! 

Resolutions

I’ve never really been one to make New Year’s resolutions. Having spent the vast majority of my life as a student, fall and the start of a new academic year always marked the beginning of a new season in my life. January 1^st as an opportunity for “starting new” just never made any sense when I knew that in just a few days I would go back to school and very little, if anything would change.

However, this year I’ve found myself very much looking forward to the New Year. Maybe it’s just a sign that I’m getting old or something, but this year I cannot wait for January 1, the mark of a promising new year full of new adventures and new beginnings. My heart aches for the newness of a new year and in response to that longing, I’ve decided to make some New Year’s resolutions and to share them with y’all so that I will actually stick to it.

SO-- here my resolutions for 2015

1) Read more

I was having dinner with my friend Lauren the other day and she was telling me all about the books (PLURAL) she was reading and I realized that I really missed reading. I used to read all the time. Classics, biographies, romances, sci-fi, mysteries—pretty much anything I could get my hands on.  But then college happened, and the term “recreational reading” was all but lost to me. So in 2015 I’ve decided I’m going to read more and I’m looking for suggestions! Better yet, bring me a copy of your favorite book to borrow. 

2) Have people over more often

Hospitality has really been on my heart lately. It makes me sad that we don’t spend more time in each other’s homes, so in 2015 I’m going to try and have people over at least once a month. So if I invite you over for dinner, please say yes!

3) Stop charging my phone next to the bed

I’ve gotten into this habit of checking my phone last thing before I go to sleep and first thing when I wake up and often any time I wake up during the night. While constantly checking my email --there's really no need for that. Contrary to popular belief, I'm really not that important ;)-- and scrolling through Pinterest for hours may not be such a big deal now in my 20’s, I’m aware that it’s a habit that will stick and I don’t want to be that person who’s always checking email and never really seems present when she’s in her 40’s. This resolution really isn’t so much about spending less time on my phone as it is an intentional reminder that NOW matters. Each morning, when I reach for my glasses or to turn on the light, instead of my phone, I’ll be reminded that that while I can look forward to the future, I can’t neglect the present that will inevitably shape that future.

the time I lost to the printer

The day started out innocently enough. In fact, as I left my apartment, breezing up 75 in zero traffic, I was filled with the wide-eyed hope and eager expectation all good souls feel around Christmas time.  Little did I know that was all about to change, and that in one fatal moment all that holiday cheer would be completely overtaken in an ill-fated battle with modern technology.

Walking into my office cubicle at exactly 8:15 I found myself with a solid 45 minutes to prepare for my 9:00 meeting. All I needed to do was run an easy report and print a simple spreadsheet and I would be on my way, and with 45min I was in no rush. I had plenty of time... 

So when 8:35 when my coworker peaked over the cubical wall and cheerfully inquired if I would like to go grab coffee from the cafeteria, I happily agreed with the simple caveat that I just needed to "print something real quick." 

Pulling on my coat and grabbing my coffee cup I clicked print and snapped my laptop shut. But as I was walking out the door I thought to myself, "Better take one more copy--just in case." So I turned around reloaded the computer, then the file, then printed another copy. No problem right? 

WRONG! 

8:45, I swing through the copy room to grab those three silly little sheets of paper only to discover that the copier is currently spitting out what looks like a 1000 sheet job. 

"Awh man," I thought to myself, "I'm caught it in the middle of someone else's job. What on earth are these crazy people printing anyway!?" 

As I picked up the top sheet to investigate, a wave of horror washed over me. That stupid printer was spitting out page after page of empty excel columns. Even as I struggled to comprehend what I had just done, I sprang into action, frantically pressing any button that looked like it might possibly make it stop, while simultaneously yelling at it to do just that. 

Hearing my distressed cries, another coworker ran to my aid and also began pressing buttons too, all to no avail. IT JUST KEPT PRINTING.

Looking back, I'm grateful that by this point, everyone else in the office had left to go get coffee because if you would have peaked into the copy room in that moment you would have found a girl in near hysterics flinging open all the printer doors, picturing herself drowning in a never ending stream of printer paper. 

When it finally became clear that none of this button pressing was working I ran back to desk to try and cancel it from there, but it was too late. I had been beat--soundly. 

At 8:54, with no time left for coffee, I carted my stack of shame back to my desk and attempted to find the three sheets that I actually needed, before heading to my 9:00 meeting, utterly defeated.