let’s be on the same team

Tanner and I have recently been talking to our mentors about personal and marital growth, as well as hopes for the future.  They were talking about perspective shifts that transformed their relationship, and this statement was at the top of the list. They said whenever they get in an argument or a passionate discussion, one of the most helpful things is when one of them pauses and says, “Let’s be on the same team.”

The idea wrapped up in that statement is that if we, as a unit, are on opposite teams, neither of us ever wins.  If our marriage is a competition, and I crush Tanner in winning against him, we both lose, because our marriage suffers.  However, if we are on the same team, we both win, regardless of whose thought was “right”. 

I want to be on Tanner’s team.  I also want to be on my fellow trainees’ team.  I want to be on the universal Church’s team.  I want to be on God’s team.

How often do we face an uncomfortable situation with the statement, “I hate the idea of doing this thing, so I know God is going to make me”? Yikes.  That mindset completely pits my hopes against God’s great good thing for my life, and if I push and strain against Him, Jonah’s story proves the point: in any relationship where I fight to win over the other person, we both lose. God gets rejected and my hopes are ultimately crushed. 

I want to face the future by aligning myself on my husband’s team, and together choosing to be on God’s team. If we’re trying to win, I’d much rather win God’s way together.

nora

seven years ago, 

I wrote about a girl named Nora. 

she was me and 

I told the tragedy of my life. 

and it sounds melo-

dramatic because it is, and yet

that’s what I did.

I wrote about gut-wrenching grief, and

sorrow, and guilt,

about imagined happy endings

and reality

as bitter and harsh as it seemed

to me.

seven years ago,

still seems so starkly present sometimes

those dreams still alive

and yearning for people and places 

unavailable

so strings of past possibilities 

snarl around spools of

present realities and it sounds

melodramatic 

because it is, but that’s what I did.

and sometimes it’s hard

not to do what you’ve done forever.

seven years ago

I had no clue how much I would grow

or what I would try

to hold on to, or that I’d want to.

and seven years is

not as long as I thought it would be

so there is still grief

and dead dreams and guilt and some sorrow

but there’s still hope and

imagination for tomorrow.

If you had told me seven years ago that the burdens I carried were not only shared by God, but not necessary for me to carry at all...I would have believed you as I shifted the emotional weight around inside to make it more bearable. 

I am where God has me today, and today I’m remembering the burdens, not carrying them. It all sounds so melodramatic, but in seven more years, I wonder what I’ll look back on and say “Oh...sweetie, if only you knew...” And I think that’s part of living. And those are my thoughts today.

thoughts on psalm 16

“the Lord is my chosen portion

and my cup.”

that means I chose him and he

had already chosen me,

insignificant me —

led and kept by holy God,

held and protected against all odds.

he is a mountain

so i will not be shaken.

the Lord is my portion:

behind,

beside,

before —

the Lord is my companion

and he will not abandon

my soul.

prayer

how often do I pray for situations beyond my personal circle, influence, or circumstance? how often do I bring the burdens of my country, the orphans, widows, and wounded before my God? how often does my hurt and empathy for the global situation bring me to the throne of heaven to meditate?

honestly?

hardly at all.

it is the year 2021 in the year of my Lord. I have watched him save, provide, and protect over the last 365 days and over those days the blessings are innumerable. if you’ve read my blog before today, you know all that, yet today I am still convinced of my selfishness in my thoughts and petitions before God. I am convinced of my ability and responsibility to talk to the Creator-Savior of the universe not just on my behalf, but for the world. 

and if that isn’t a new year’s resolution, I don’t think I know what is.

yuletide

This Christmas has felt a little...uncomfortable? Like, homemade gifts but somehow Tan and I aren’t giving each other anything. There’s so much sentiment in every moment and lingering fatigue always lining it. Inadequacy feels like the demon dogging every step.

That inadequacy makes my culture clash with my faith. Americans are adequate. We’re the best, the most independent, the most self-sufficient. And yet God wants me to be dependent on His strength, because the job He has for me is not able to be completed with human ability. I wonder if the constant awareness of inadequacy is a blessing or a curse.

So I guess we move forward into the New Year, we keep trusting, and we keep knowing God’s way will be the way.

hello again

I have written and rewritten a post called "hello again" almost every week this month, and it never seems to say what I want it to say. This post is going to say none of those things whatsoever.

Tanner and I visited Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, and I had the chance to talk to his Aunt Jody. She talked about his grandmother (her adoptive mother) and how she poured her heart into her grandchildren. She talked about the deep sorrow that always seemed to be present in Grandma's heart, despite the space it shared with a love for God and and joy overflowing from family. She told me that I have Grandma's spirit.

Now, obviously, she doesn't mean reincarnation, because I was in my late teens, early twenties (I think) when she died.  She meant that our souls were made of the same stuff. We are both proof that sorrow and joy are not opposites, that both can thrive in one's heart soil, that love has nothing and everything to do with grief. Grandma was a poet, an amateur artist, a strong heart with perhaps not the thickest skin.

Aunt Jodi asked if Tanner and I want any of Grandma's things before she gets rid of most of it. We asked for her poetry. I want to understand the woman everyone says I remind them of. I want to know the woman that poured so much in the man I married, so maybe I can understand him more. I want to know her, because maybe she will help me know myself.

leaves fall down

Another week of online class, another week close to shorts season being over.  The nights are cold enough for flannel and wool socks; the afternoons retain enough summer for shorts and sunbathing.

I started this post over a week ago. 

Almost all the leaves have fallen. We have had class in person for almost a full week now. It's shocking how swift seasons shift.

Here's a poem that sums up some of my thoughts lately, in case you missed it on my Instagram story:

the good life you know

might not be the good life you have.

i remember

(a phrase i overuse in poetry)

i remember

in the trailer

we didn't have much,

but always enough

for my parents and their friends

to have fondue and play uno

at night

and i

thought, "this is the good life,

the one i'm supposed to chase."

but that belonged to them

and even then

just for a season.

that's the good life i knew,

as opposed to the one i have,

neither meant to last

more than a season.