being fearless in the face of hopelessness

“Perfectly Willing to be Perfectly Human”

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Midwestern cold knows not mercy. It crawls and creeps into every crevice until even the breath you take is sharp against your lungs. The kind of bitter that leaves you nauseously trying to warm your fingers against your dad’s chest when you wear the wrong gloves.

I held the barrel as steady as I could but still it wavered. My adrenaline made it difficult to sight in that small spot behind the shoulder where he’d always told me to aim. On an exhale, with the heat of my breath forming moisture beads on the gun, I closed my eyes and pulled tight the trigger. The deer never took another step.
“You got ‘im,” my dad said. All his words were edged with giddiness and somehow the mistake of washing my hair with Pantene instead of doe urine was forgotten. (I may be admitting a near 20-year secret that this wasn’t by accident. Sorry Dad- we all have our limits.)

Trauma works in a similar manner. Sounds, smells, images on a billboard or commercial, and suddenly like the deer I cannot take another step. It’s a bullet between the eyebrows of my past. Unseen until it’s too late.

This anxiety disorder thing I became aware of when I was thirteen and pimpled. This thing I’m still learning to manage almost two decades later. It can throw me into defeat about as fast as a deer drops. I start to believe I’m stuck and wonder if I’ll forever be doomed to a life of fear. Talk of hope begins to feel like a hoax.

Professionals call it “all-or-nothing” thinking. Isn’t that a dainty little package? I prefer to name it a “slippery slope of lies,” or possibly even “perfectionism.”

When I can pull myself far enough away from this type of thought-processing I start to ask questions like: What if I embrace the difficult, ugly bits of my life along with the graceful? How would it look to say yes to the hard the way I say yes to the easy? What if beauty is in the ashes and connection happens from being vulnerable about our wounds?

“What if part of God’s message to the world was you? The true and real you?”   -Donald Miller, Scary Close

My past doesn’t define me. Speak. Believe. Repeat.
But it is part of my story. And I think that might just be okay.

“I am willing to sound dumb.
I am willing to be wrong.
I am willing to be passionate about something that isn’t perceived as cool.
I am willing to express a theory.
I am willing to admit I’m afraid.
I’m willing to contradict something I’ve said before.
I’m willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one.
I’m willing to apologize.
I’m perfectly willing to be perfectly human.”   -Donald Miller, Scary Close

One Thousand Wha…? Meandering thoughts on Ann Voskamp

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“We look and swell with the ache of a broken, battered planet, what we ascribe as the negligent work of an indifferent Creator (if we even think there is one). Do we ever think of the busted-up place as the result of us ingrates, unsatisfied, we who punctured it all with a bite? The fruit’s poison has infected the whole of humanity. Me. I say no to what He’s given. I thirst for some roborant, some elixir, to relieve the anguish of what I’ve believed: God isn’t good. God doesn’t love me.”            -Ann Voskamp

Wait. I need to read that again. Maybe twice.

“Take it slow,” says a friend, to which I wonder, is there any other choice? I feel like I’m reading the pages through finger-smudged glasses. My mind squints and demands, “Come again?” as I muddle through the rhetoric.

I landed at Starbucks this morning kidless, (WordPress is underlining that word in bright red right now but I’m using it anyway. I like the way it sounds. In fact, I’ll repeat it.) kidless, watching a long line of fellow addicted patrons ebb and flow through the drive-thru. A black Buick, a first generation 4Runner, swanky women whom I guess to be from the million dollar homes in Castle Pines, just-ripe teens texting in their boredom and obsession with modern culture, and suit jackets on their way to a meeting. I nestle into a corner with my books, my laptop and my journal. I have over two hours to read, do a writing practice, edit pictures, browse the internet. “This is going to be good,” I post on my Facebook status.

Oh, was it.  

“I read a chapter a day,” another friend says of this wildly popular book. Yes. Seems like a good pace. I’ll do that too.

The yellow ribbon of the bookmark I’m borrowing slumps over, smashed between ink and paper. I pull on it, ready to get the “shoulds” out of the way. You know the ones. “I should read something that draws me to God. I should read today’s checklist Bible verse. I should journal my heart, pray.” And then I’ll get to the fun stuff.

But I never leave her words.

I linger, copy, and am pulled closer. I nearly cry behind the metal post in the floor-to-ceiling window at the coffee bar. I am gripped, while preschool pick-up time runs faster and faster toward me.

“I wake to the discontent of my skin. I wake to self-hatred. To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary.”

                                                                             -Ann Voskamp

I’m held there, struck by the courage of this woman’s journey. Not from the “poetic” beauty of her sentences, though they are beautiful. Nor from the fresh, pure perspective she offers of gratitude, though it’s stirred me deeply. What’s incredible is how she approaches a crossroads and has the fearlessness to keep going.

“The sun climbs the horizon. I throw back the covers, take another breath, and begin. I GET to. I GET to live.”

                                                                              -Ann Voskamp

She does not stay in hopelessness. She does not end at the grief, depressed and ungrateful. She pushes, seeks, and claws until she finds more.

There IS more. Much, much more.  

“At the Eucharist, Christ breaks His heart to heal ours-“

                                                          -Ann Voskamp