Be Quiet

Words don't always flow easily for the writer all of the time.  Sometimes beauty is hard to create through the written word.  Sometimes we are quiet. 

My heart feels grieved by all of the hatred and ugliness that seems to be flowing from everywhere.  Around the world, in our country, in debates about flags and gay marriage, in senseless acts of violence, in the toxicity of racism, in idiotic stories continually posted as truth on social media.  In Christians behaving like Pharisees and self-righteous assholes.  It's been hard to not become filled with hatred myself.  When I'm not wanting to tell people to shut the eff up, I mostly feel sad.  So, so sad.

I started the heavy duty medication for my RA.  I'm currently somewhere in between being okay with it, feeling very not okay with it, and feeling like some kind of failure.  It's amazing how this disease continues to invite me to shame and how willing I am to accept.

We have been going through a painful growing process ourselves as church-goers and Jesus-followers.  I briefly wrote about our church going through changes and after much wavering and sifting through feelings and losing most of our community, we have decided to stay where we are - only because really we feel as though God is asking us to.  It has been an emotionally exhausting experience and more than anything, I've realized how fragile and broken the church is.  And how desperately we all need Jesus.

Lately, I have been introspective about the idea of friendship and more specifically, the kind of friend I have showed up to be.  I've recognized how quickly I tend to write people off.  If I know you might bail, or move away, if you're too much like me, or not enough like me, or you're not available for me the way I want you to be, I stop pursuing any kind of closeness and quickly detach.  I have been unkindly picky and have been sitting in a puddle of my depravity as I look at what is true about my heart in those places.

And I've been living too.  Summer is in full swing and we have been grilling out and swimming and staying up late and memorizing Bible verses together as a family.  We have Tommy's birthday next week and a day trip to the beach planned with our friends next weekend.  Our vacation is two weeks away and Todd and I are so incredibly ready to have a break from normal life, even if it means traveling across the country with our boys.

But for the most part, my words are stuck.  They are stuck in the bullshit garbage of the hatred that is oozing out all over the place in our world right now.  They are stuck in complicated feelings over a disease I am having to accept that I have.  They are stuck in places we are growing and healing and ever changing. 

Maybe sometimes though, it's okay for them to be stuck.  Sometimes it's okay to just be quiet.