Brave, Anyway

Category: BraveGirlJournal

  • Crankypants Notes

    Crankypants Notes

    Hurry up and wait is the current story of my life. Rush to get into the parent pickup line, then wait while teens saunter to cars filled with other rushing parents. Rush to the airport, then wait because the plane isn’t even there yet.

    I generally make notes while I wait, and the tone of those messages is greatly impacted by the music choice I’ve made that day. Hollow Coves and worship music produce calm and thoughtful words, while The Beastie Boys might lead to firm or cynical words.

    My notes usually go somewhere later – logged in a contact management system, pasted into a journal, or sent in an email. But occasionally I open my notes and find that my screen is full of oddball entries that had nowhere to go. They are just mini-rants from days I did not choose peace, or my crankypants notes.

    Emus are supposedly docile. Except the females.
    They are the queens of crankypants.

    1. My box of Raisinettes has never made it through the previews. Also, $5 for a box of Raisinettes is highway robbery, so I will continue to buy movie candy at Target and sneak it into the theater.

    2. The time for living my best life is half over. I will waste none of it eating asparagus or honeydew, wearing a bra that’s uncomfortable, or drinking cheap wine.

    3. When you’re young, bras can be cute or sexy. When you’re old, bras have a job to do.

    4. Top 3 things that are not going to work for me: places without AC, anything starting after 8 pm, and people who don’t choose my girls or put my girls first.

    5. In a presentation about growth optimization, I will spend a dumb amount of time thinking that I missed the opportunity to establish evenly distributed growth of menopause pounds.

    6. Value propositions aren’t just important at work, when reviewing contracts and partnerships. We need to fully understand what we and others bring to the table. And then not waste time.

    7 Pruning is a critical component of growth.

    Your 15 minutes are up.

    8. Grief photos don’t include makeup; those are called sadfishing photos.

    9. If it takes alcohol for you to get up and dance, just don’t dance. It’s not good.

    10. If someone who deals with criminals tells you “(person) has done some of the shadiest shit I’ve ever seen,” what level of shady even is that? It turns out there’s a name for it: white collar shady. Won’t the real shady please stand up?

    Emus are one of the dumbest birds on the planet. I guess the message in that is time spent being a crankypants is when we’re at our dumbest.

    Hangry Emu
  • Green

    Green

    The year of firsts is done.

    We’ve celebrated all the birthdays and holidays without our Dads and Grandpas. Sometimes we stared at empty seats. Sometimes we took fancy dishes to the couch so a meal seemed nothing like it did before, in a layout where no one was missing. Sometimes we spoke their names. Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we cried and sometimes we couldn’t.

    Grief is not just about physical separation, a loved one being in another location and not accessible to you. It’s also about what the people who are gone will miss in your life and what you will miss out on because of their absence. For little girls who always assume their Dad will walk them down the aisle one day, grief involves reimagining how big events might go. Grief is about accepting what is, and the loss of what might have been.

    Part of why grief is different for each of us is that we process loss and change differently, but also that whoever we’re grieving was a dozen different people. They may or may not have been different with different people, but it’s more that each of us sees others through our own lens – the lens of who we are. Every single person who knows us might describe us differently based on how they encountered us, how we treated them, what they needed from us, what we needed from them. Some people would tell you I cry easily, others would say I’m cold and stay focused. They are both right. One person’s “what a great gal” is another’s “she was a real b word.”

    Humans are complicated. Sometimes we hurt people, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. Sometimes we love extravagantly. Sometimes we offer anger and sometimes we offer grace. We can all grieve the same person and yet grieve different people, because we grieve imperfect people.

    Acknowledging that your loved one wasn’t perfect does not mean you love them any less. It isn’t something we need to feel badly about – it shows that we love with grace.

    The easiest grieving, if there is such a thing, is by people of faith for other people of faith. We don’t miss them any less but we know with certainty where that person is, that they are happy, and that we will see them again. One of the toughest is a child for a parent. Children seemingly go through the same stages as adults, but the foundation and security adults have isn’t firmly established yet for young people.

    Grief will not end now that the firsts are behind us. Perhaps it will actually get tougher because its timing is not as predictable or because forever settles in. While it seems like we’ve reached a mile marker of some sort, I’m not sure it really means or feels like anything.

    What does feel right is that the end of the first year is also the end of winter, and the beginning of spring. One of the colors my Dad loved was green. In the springtime he’d say look at how green everything is! and point out that trees are the most green this time of year. Green is the color of life and rebirth. Of renewal and growth. It’s yellow and blue mixed, or the combination of warmth and hope with calm and strength and peace.

    Green is the color of forward.

    He makes me lie down in green pastures,
    he leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul. Psalm 23

  • Purposefully Seeking Purpose

    Purposefully Seeking Purpose

    My word for this year is purpose.

    I’m not attached to it, and unlike other years I’ve not spent a lot of time thinking about it. It doesn’t feel right and I just don’t love it. In fact, whenever I hear or encounter it I move to focus on something else. Maybe I simply haven’t been ready for it.

    Much of the last year has felt like a trip through the car wash, gear in neutral, with all sorts of things happening around me. But now I’m driving out, rolling down windows, tentatively driving into warm sunshine after a pressure wash.

    I can focus on things that used to be painful, and I am no longer afraid to let my mind wander. So I found myself annoyed this week when I couldn’t get a song that I haven’t heard anytime recently out of my head: The Byrds singing Turn Turn Turn is just awful.

    To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn turn turn…turn it off! And for the first time I realized that to everything there is a season is a biblical thing and I went searching for it. And to my surprise, the word purpose is also there.

    KJV Ecclesiastes 3 says “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

    We have a purpose. Each of us. Figuring out our purpose can be a daunting thing, and I think a lot of us never do it. What’s equally important I’m starting to think, and perhaps not always as big to tackle, is looking for and seeing the purpose of events and seasons in our lives. What is our purpose in them? What is their purpose in us?

    Proud VCU Momma!

    There are visuals all around me marking the passing of seasons, and the passing of purposes. The bracelet around my gear shift tells the story of a college Mom now, after so many years highlighting childhood cancer awareness. The walls in the room over the garage tell the story of a toddler playroom then paint projects then pajama parties then PlayStation competitions – the seasons of childhood and the seasons of motherhood.

    But now a new season is approaching, and with it a new purpose. Maybe it’s been there all along, and I’m just now approaching it. Or maybe it’s been pursuing me and I’ve been running from it.

    My first lesson in purpose in this season is that I have to purposefully seek purpose. (And I’ve already lost the first quarter – yikes!) My second lesson is that it sometimes takes a new season to reveal the purpose of events or people or things in your past ones. For things to come together. To fulfill the promise in Romans 8 that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

    One Dad’s Bible at another Dad’s desk.

    Thankful for nudges, crappy songs, old bibles with new lessons, old desks made new and glorious, and old me made new.

  • February 16

    February 16

    A year.

    It’s been a year since my Dad died.

    It’s been a year since my Dad passed away.

    It’s been a year since my Dad went to heaven.

    Just typing the words makes me feel like I can’t take a deep breath. Like a brick is laying on my chest.

    I hate that I didn’t talk to my Dad the day he died. I love that the last time we did talk he was focused on how he might get someone stubborn to believe in God and go to heaven.

    He was a prayer warrior, a prankster, and a protector. He was tenderhearted and yet he was steel.

    Sometimes I look at the girls and think he’d be so proud of them and how they’ve handled this year. And then I think he sees them and he knows.

    Valentine flowers

    I picture his smile when I see yellow flowers or smell honeysuckle.

    I picture him holding his hands up in prayer every time we left the house as I watch Audrey walk to the bus stop each morning.

    I picture his hand placed lightly on my back, encouraging me, each time I have something new or hard to do.

    Perhaps because I was searching for them, this year was filled with signs he’s still close. Eagles hovering near the house. People named Paul. Finding long forgotten books.

    I love opening up his old bibles and books and seeing his handwriting, his highlights, and his notes. I had a full circle moment last week that I know would have brought him such joy. It came via a text from Ella. She took one of my old bibles to school with her, and on a night when she was struggling she opened it to see a 25-year-old affirmation of mine: The healing power of God is working in me right now.

    Thankful for his example.

    Thankful for almost 50 years with him.

    Thankful his prayers are still at work today.

    Thankful his example is still at work today.

    Thankful.

  • Freedom With No Answers

    Freedom With No Answers

    Today is my Dad’s birthday, and in just two weeks the year of freedom will draw to a close.

    I’ve spent months trying to figure out why this was the year of freedom, taking notes when freedom thoughts hit me and assuming that by year’s end it would all come together and I would understand. And yet, still I do not understand.

    In fact, I’m just confused. And the coconut cream from one of his favorite boxes of chocolates offered me no clarity. The mailman also did not deliver.

    Every year until this one, I’ve been able to reflect on my word for the year and clearly see the areas of impact and why God planted that specific word in my heart. I didn’t have an epiphany this year, perhaps because this year has been pretty taxing or perhaps because I’m just not smart enough to see the overall message. Maybe both. Or maybe my notes were just bad.

    * The freedom that comes with procrastination is not nearly as precious as the freedom that comes with proper preparation and timing – the latter freedom comes with no anxiety.

    * Ella could not wait to be the age of 18. The age of freedom! It’s so funny how not free and still reliant we are on real adults at that age. Ella’s graduation into legal adulthood did bring about a new freedom for me that I unexpectedly really enjoy – stepping back, guiding only when asked, seeing what she can do and seeing what God is doing through her.

    * There is freedom in death, for those who died and for those still here. Freedom from the aging bodies and sickness we have in this world. Freedom from the expectations of others. Even when we miss people terribly, it’s okay to acknowledge that some things may be simpler when they are gone. It doesn’t mean you didn’t love them wholeheartedly; it means you’re able to be honest with yourself.

    * We all have the freedom to put things in God’s hands. When I do this, it’s almost always as a last resort when I’m exhausted. I need to start doing this much sooner so I can feel peace and freedom faster.

    * Paul wrote in Galatians that we must hold on to our freedom. The context is different but the message applies in all sorts of areas: it is our job to not let go of the freedom we have. Falling back into behaviors or thought patterns that aren’t good for us requires action on our part, not just a hope and a prayer.

    * When I was a youngster studying history, it seemed like freedom of speech was to ensure truth could always be spoken. The further I get into adulthood the more it seems to allow communications of anger and hatred to flourish.

    * The path to freedom is primarily paved with forgiveness. Of others and of ourselves.

    * Sometimes I put on my face creams in the wrong order. This does not mean I have too many creams or I am ridiculously old. It means I am tired. Or perhaps I am exercising my freedom to mix them all up to make a paste to see if they’ll work better as a group.

    * One person’s struggling partner is another’s ticket to financial freedom.

    * We can spend so much of our lives hoping to one day be free from things. Fear. Jobs that don’t fulfill us or that drain us. Old heart wounds. Sometimes when we’re struggling – many times, I think – it’s our job to free ourselves and we just don’t do it. And the thing that keeps us from freeing ourselves is laziness. It’s easier to complain, blame others or wait for magic than it is to take action, ruffle feathers, or make changes ourselves. The freedom in change is so worth the pain of the pruning.

    Yesterday on my way to pick up Ella for her Christmas break, I thought about how my Dad used to make the long drives to get me at Emory. Halfway to Richmond with my whole music library on shuffle, Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus) by Chris Rice came up. Although the song was already a few years old by then, I first heard it not long after my Papa died. I have never made it though the whole song without crying and this year I’ve hit next within a second every time it comes up. But yesterday, for the first time in a very long time, I listened. I sang all the way through and I did not cry.

    I did imagine my Dad laughing as I sang the last part. Perhaps the path to freedom is in keeping perspective: I may not have answers today, but I’ll one day laugh on Glory’s side. And with my Dad again.

    Sometimes the way is lonely

    And steel and filled with pain

    So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then

    Cry to Jesus

    Cry to Jesus

    Cry to Jesus and live!

    O, and when the love spills over

    And music fills the night

    And when you can’t contain your joy inside, then

    Dance for Jesus

    Dance for Jesus

    Dance for Jesus and live!

    And with your final heartbeat

    Kiss the world goodbye

    Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory’s side, and

    Fly to Jesus

    Fly to Jesus

    Fly to Jesus and live!