Doing It Scared (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Thursday morning I printed off a how to manual for formatting the inside of a book and sat outside highlighting the parts I thought would apply to the job ahead of me that afternoon.  It was a beautiful fall day, enough to warrant (in my mind) printing the 70 plus page manual.  Looking up, I caught this picture of our rooster, Joker silhouetted by the sun.  You can see the farm stand in the background.  

I started formatting around noon and by three o'clock I really wanted to go into the house for a drink of water or cup of coffee, but I made myself stay put in the Ikea chair in my office.  If I pushed, I could finish formatting the inside layout of my forthcoming book before the kids’ bus rolled over the hill to drop them off, and I really wanted to be done.

Thirty more minutes and I had done it.  All eighteen sections of my book were copied, pasted and formatted into the layout template I purchased online.  I felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head and I had spent the last four hours struggling to breathe for fear one finger-stroke would blow the whole book out of the water.

//

This is how a lot of self-publishing has been.  I was scared and overwhelmed by websites like Createspace and Canva (Never heard of them?  I hadn’t either.) but I found them and set up accounts.  I didn’t understand book formatting lingo and the specifications necessary for designing a cover layout, but I googled instructions, read them, and did it.  Every week brought a new skill to learn, a new figurative blank page that terrified me to the core. 

Making dinner in the kitchen while the kids watched TV in the afternoons, I would sense my fear and anxiety.  Why am I so anxious?  I wondered.  

Because I don’t know what I’m doing, came the reply.

It turns out, I don’t like not knowing what I’m doing. 

But I also tried to find perspective, You didn’t know what you were doing a week ago when you designed the cover, but you figured it out.  You can do this too.

I thought of all the times I’ve walked blind into new challenges, and although I don’t like it at all, I kept on groping my way along the path of self-publishing.  I think this is what some people call, “doing it scared.”  The idea of doing something despite your fear and not allowing fear to be the boss.  Maybe “doing it scared” is the secular version of “walking by faith, not by sight.”

// 

This is one side of my self-publishing story - I've done it scared. (Although I think the term 'terrified' would be a more accurate descriptor.)  There’s been value in the challenge of learning new skills and overcoming hurdles.  But it’s also been exhausting.  

  

Friday night, I finally submitted all of my files to Create Space (Amazon’s self-publishing site).  This was the one step I was most nervous about.  After submitting, I felt a breath of relief.  Then, I laid down on the couch and fell asleep at 7:00 pm and slept straight through until the following morning. 

I think it’s important for others to be aware that there’s a real cost to doing it scared.  And, because of that, I’m not sure it’s a value I altogether promote.  It’s ok to be scared and important to not let fear be your master, but sometimes our fear and stress are telling us important things too. 

“Doing it scared” can only take us so far without things like, “doing it together” and “doing it with grace and a heaping dose of help.”  Although I’m proud of myself for the work I’ve done these past two months, I’m not unaware of the cost.  

Also, I’ve not, by any measure, done it alone.  I’m grateful for those who’ve come alongside of me to offer advice, encouragement and support.  I hope my experience will help me remember to take notice when others around me are doing it scared.  Those are the times when we need to lean in and offer  help and support.  

What have you "done scared"?  What was it like for you?  

*   *   *

It's official!  My book, Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry is coming on November 7th!  Feel free to share this image on social media and stay tuned next week for more info one ways you can help get the word out.  

One advance reader gave me a great compliment today.  "It felt like sitting down with you over a cup of coffee and listening to you tell stories.  I didn't know how much I needed it."  

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

Do Not Despair (Holes, Laundry, and Dead Mums)

Six boys scanned the yard from late afternoon until dusk.  They walked with their heads down, six pairs of eyes scoured the not-yet-green grass.  Each step bore silent anticipation, nervous chatter bubbled up around their listening. 

When the metal detector beeped, they cheered and rallied around, shovel in hand.  Not-yet-green turned muddy brown as they dug holes haphazardly throughout the yard. 

Holes, all through the yard; potholes, ankle-twisting pits, mower-wheel-swallowing craters.

That night, after getting groceries and returning a movie while listening to a radio talk show dissect presidential politics, my husband arrived home agitated.  He was in a state as he filled me in on the groceries, the politics, the hole situation.  The way he talked, our yard was a war zone, the site of asteroid and comet landings, a grand canyon of potential grass laid to waste by six boys and one shovel. 

It was dark out, I had no way to confirm or deny, so I accepted his wild eyed assessment at face value.  Holes, everywhere.  And politics on the radio on top of it all. 

We complained about our ruined lawn and ruined country, feeling old beyond our years and went to bed early.  But in the dark, our minds raced and nerves jangled.   

//

I opened the door to the bathroom closet today and found laundry piled knee deep. 

I shut the door tight and left the room. 

All day that pile grew in my mind’s eye – waist deep, chest deep, until I was drowning in it.  Add to it the pile a mile wide in the twins’ room, the remains of the stomach bug laundry waiting to be folded and there’s nearly enough laundry, I’m sure, to fill in a good many of the holes in our yard. 

//

Something about those holes and the laundry remind me of the dead mums I wrote about on Monday.  Last fall they were a riot of burnt orange and red, waving their hands in the air all along the side of the little house.  But then cold weather came and they died back.  Flowers rotted, leaves shriveled, curled, brown until all that remained were the ugly husks.  Those bare, brown bones rattled at me all winter long, untidy, a reminder of unfinished business and I stared back at them from the kitchen window.  There was no door to shut on them. 

At the first whiff of warm air and sunshine, I marched out to attack the brittle branches like they were my mortal enemy.  I cut my hands on them, eager for the pleasure of their demise.  Take that, mums!  I snapped and twisted, conquering one small corner of disorder as if its tidying might hold the key to life.

Mid-twist, though, I noticed what hid at the base of each frail and failing branch – small, ruffled, green leaves, the beginnings of next year’s joyful riot.  Here I was, like those boys, finding treasure in the dirt (minus a hole, of course).  I continued to twist and break, more respectfully now, looking no longer to rid us of the dead, but looking for signs of life. 

//

The morning after hole-mageddon, I looked at it from a different angle and with new eyes I saw more than holes.  I saw my son excited to impress boys his own age, thrilled to have an awesome toy for once, to be the envy, the star with a shovel in hand.  I saw the treasure in his delight and it made the holes less glaring.  Walking outside later in the day I was surprised to find most of the yard still intact.  It would take six boys more than one evening to dig up two acres of land. 

//

There’s so much to fear, so much to overwhelm in this life.  The bones of things unfinished rattle at us, hard work is easily undone and more hard work awaits.  This is so very true.  Fear looms large at night, in winter, in the mud-before-spring season of despair.    

Do not despair, little ones. 

God is always doing something new, do you not perceive it?

Go dig a hole.  Tend your garden. 

Do not believe fear's whisper in the night.  

The good work of our hands, the feel of the earth between our fingers, the labors of love for a household, these all remind us - treasure is buried everywhere.  Even, maybe, at the bottom of the laundry pile.  

Open the door, dig deep, look again, always.  Treasure is buried everywhere.  Do not despair. 

Broken Beloved (for everyone ashamed of the pills they take)

Photo credit

Often, it’s a restless night and bad dreams that tell me I forgot.

Other times it’s the way I snap and growl at my children in the morning.  It's not that they’re worse than normal, but I’m less tolerant, carrying my own internal agitation which they scrape against like matches, igniting a latent fury.

//

Before bed and after TV, my husband takes the dog out into the darkness to pee.  In the dim kitchen I grind coffee beans for the morning’s brew, adding water and a clean filter to the pot.  Then I open the hutch's glass cabinet and grab the red bottle.  Opened, little oval pills scatter across the palm of my hand like seeds. 

For months, maybe even a year, I cut them precisely with a pill cutter.  Then one day, in a pinch, I realized they could be broken by hand. 

One and a half pills daily seems to be enough to do the trick.

//

Toward the end of summer, for various reasons, I decided I wanted to cut down to one pill, decreasing the dose by a third. 

It would be simpler, I told myself. 

Maybe I’ll lose weight, I thought (as though the daily consumption of potato chips couldn’t possibly be to blame for a recent weight gain). 

I’ve been so sleepy lately, maybe I’m over-medicated, I considered.    

The psychiatrist, hearing my plan, looked at me with surprise. 

“Usually the dose that works is the dose you should stay on,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “I want to try.” 

What I didn’t say was that I didn’t want to be on medicine, I didn’t want to need it.

//

I’d done enough googling to know coming off of antidepressants can be complicated.  I decided to drop the dose by a third every other day for a while and see what happened.  One pill one day, one and a half the next, and so on.

The problem was, I was nearing the one year anniversary of my psychiatric hospitalization. 

And I was preaching again for the first time in a year. 

And we were in the run-up for the annual back-to-school transition which, with four kids in three different schools, lasts well-over a month. 

And transition makes me anxious.

I tried, though.  I did.

What I found is I was more anxious, more irritable, more snappy.

I was a worse mother without that little half pill.  Unreasonably irritable, yelling and stomping rather than “using my words.”  It reminded me of the months after the twins were born, when I struggled so with my oldest son.  He would have been better off if I’d had those pills then. 

//

“It’s only been a year,” my counselor says, “give it some time.”

Ah, but me?  I want to not need.

Only now, what I want more, is to be a mother who doesn’t scream and shout in rage.  I want to be a little more able to go with the flow (which is the only way to go anywhere in a family of six).  Maybe if I had more control, more money, less kids I’d be able to structure my time, my life in a way that kept me from needing those pills. 

Yoga morning, noon and night. 

Health food. 

Meditation. 

For now though, when I look at the real choices before me, I pick up that red bottle and break the pills, like pieces of communion bread - grace I need, grace I cannot afford to do without.    

//

I have a friend who was wounded deeply by someone she loves.  After years of struggle and heart ache she considered breaking the relationship and felt God giving her the freedom to do so.  

Then, also, my friend felt God’s invitation, “Why don’t you try just loving the one who hurt you as God’s broken but beloved daughter?” 

I was thinking about that today.  

Thinking it's true, really, of all of us.  

We are God’s broken, beloved children.  

Maybe it would all go a little better if we thought of ourselves that way, as people who need.  I am God's broken, beloved daughter and I will take grace as it comes, however it comes, even if it arrives in a little, red bottle.     

I Feel Insecure (and What My Husband Has to Say About It)

I sat at the kitchen island prepping brown paper bags with the words, "Beloved Child of God."  Over and over I wrote with permanent markers in one color after another.  

Everyone who attends the As a Child Retreat will get a bag. Meant to trigger memories and fun, each bag holds playdoh, a bouncy ball, a lollipop and a colored pen.  

For months, I've been planning, praying, gathering materials for this retreat and now the day is almost here.  But last week, as I wrote those letters over and over again, I felt a creeping dis-ease that multiplied throughout the day.  By evening anxiety was spinning a sprawling web through my insides as I tried to explain to my husband how I felt. 

"I feel insecure," I said.  

Naming it helped, giving words to the way self sometimes crumbles in on itself, searching for something, anything solid to stand on.  

Finally, tired of sinking in my own stew, I asked my husband, "Is there anything you can say to make this better?"

Without a second's pause, he replied, "You're a beloved child of God too." 

Simple truths have a way of cutting right through the haze, don't they?  

I gave my husband a small glare.  By that point I was fairly attached to my pity party and, in the end, I envisioned a bag of chips being involved.  

But he was right.  

Later he told me how funny it was, watching me writing the same words over and over again, but not letting them sink in.  

"Beloved child of God."  

Yes, that's the heart of it.  Isn't it?  

Those four words offer the most solid ground I know.   

Thank You (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

(This past week marked the one year anniversary of my admission to a local Psychiatric Hospital due to the sudden onset of severe panic attacks.  I took this picture of the outside when I went back this week for a routine appointment.  You can read more about my journey by clicking on the anxiety tab under Topics.)

Sometimes we must talk about darkness in order to better talk about light. - Kelly Chripczuk

Palpable fear, fog descending on the brain, blood pressure slipping and sliding while the extremities go weak.  Dizziness, anxiety and an unbearable desire to flee.

This is what I felt this past Friday morning walking into the lobby of the Behavioral Health Unit where I was hospitalized last summer.  I was there for a routine Psychiatrist appointment.  

I wasn’t feeling well.  Tired and stressed from a long week of classes, I had a brief dizzy spell in the morning.  I wondered if something was off with my blood pressure – it can tend to run low. 

As I drove, I thought about asking the psychiatrist to check my blood pressure.  She’s a medical doctor after all and, at the least, she could call in a nurse.  I pictured myself in her office, with that black cuff around my arm.    

What if they sent me to the ER?  The same ER where I waited for almost twenty hours last year before admission. 

What if going to the ER caused me to panic? What if I couldn’t stop panicking?

I spent the whole thirty minute ride to the hospital psyching myself out.  By the time I got there, I was jacked up on anxiety.

 

After parking, I pulled out my phone and took a few quick pictures of the "courtyard" - a small fenced in area where supervised low-risk patients could take a breath of fresh air in the afternoon and evening.  

Entering the building through double glass doors, I crossed the dim, brown interior.  Facing the receptionists’ large cubicle, I worked hard to force words out of my mouth in a stream that seemed natural.  I wanted to run back out into the sunny blue day.  Instead I sat and waited a good twenty minutes.  I picked up a magazine and read fluff articles about combating clutter while talking myself down.    

On the drive home I was physically sick.  I kept an eye on the shoulder looking for places to pull over and vomit.  A headache formed behind my right eye and stretched its way down into my neck and shoulders.  Thirty minutes later I ran into our empty house and knelt on the floor dry-heaving into the downstairs toilet.  My kids were still out picking berries with a friend.  The dog looked curiously at me. 

When the nausea passed I took some Ibuprophen and sorted laundry, placing the kids’ new school clothes on clean white hangers.  Exhaustion hung around me like a shroud, sleep was all I could think of, but I was scared to sit down, scared to lay down, afraid anxiety would pull me under.    

Finally I walked out the back door and into the yard.  The grass here is brown in patches, scratchy like straw, starving for rain.  I sat down on a little slope facing toward the garden and flowerbed.  The dog flopped down beside me, panting and squinting in the sun.

I leaned back onto the ground, my arms outstretched on either side, palms down into the grass.  The grass pricking my hands reminded me of the summer before, when I stretched out in the grass in the fenced in hospital yard.

“Thank you,” I said, aloud.  The words sprang unbidden from my lips, pure, like water from a deep, cold spring. 

I was home and the earth was solid and the sunshine warm.  No one  was there to hear me.  But I’d like to think the dog and the browning grass and sunflowers nearby nodded their heads ever so slightly in agreement.  

(Friday was the worst day I've had in a long time, but I'm happy to say it's passed and after some good rest, I'm feeling much better.)

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

Me and Van Gogh (You Are Not Alone)

The Good Samaritan by Vincent Van Gogh

While the kids watch TV my husband and I steal a quiet moment at the edge of the yard.  Sitting side-by-side at the end of the driveway, the garage shades us as we talk about the morning’s sermon.

“I really liked the painting,” my husband says. “It makes me want to have more paintings of gospel stories.  To hang them in the house.”

That morning I spoke on the parable of the Good Samaritan and rather than making a formal power point presentation, I used Van Gogh’s rendition of the story as a visual backdrop to the discussion.

“Yeah,” I reply, “It really helped me when I was preparing.”

It’s one thing to read about acts of love, another to see them laid out stroke, by stroke in rich yellows and blues.

“I found a post where someone wrote about it,” I add.  “It’s by Van Gogh.  He painted it when he was in an asylum.”  Tipping my head to the side and shrugging my shoulders with my hands spread wide I add with a grin, “So . . . you know . . .  me and, Van Gogh.”

We exchange looks and laugh.   

“Yeah,” he says, “You and your pal, Van Gogh.”

//

Parker Palmer struggled with debilitating depression.  As did Henri Nouwen. 

When I was in the psychiatric hospital last summer, I gathered these names and held them to myself as evidence that mental illness and hospitalization didn’t have to be a stigma.  Their stories gave me hope that despite struggles, my life could proceed with productivity and meaning. 

This past Sunday, after reading about his painting online, I added Vincent Van Gogh to my list.

// 

This week I’m approaching what my counselor eloquently referred to as a “tender anniversary.” 

A year ago this Thursday I had my first panic attack.  My heart beat furiously, waves of heat and chills ran through my back.  My stomach flopped.  I lay on the living room floor, unable to get up.  I called my husband at work and asked him to pick up our kids and come right home.  I canceled my plans for the weekend, which included preaching, and made an appointment with my primary care Dr. 

Still, the panic continued, pulling me under, like a rip tide.  Six days later we woke a friend in the middle of the night, asking her to come and stay with our kids while John drove me to the ER.  The next evening, after a long wait, I was admitted to the Behavioral Health unit. 

I’m telling you this because it happened.  It's part of the truth of my life.  I’m also telling you this because it happens – every life is filled with shadow and light.

And lastly, I’m telling you this because I want you to know that you can add my name to your list. 

When fear rages and panic sets in. 

When you’re unable to eat, unable to sleep. 

When you make a difficult Dr. appointment and fill a prescription you’d rather not need. 

When you or your child needs to make that scary trip to the ER, to be sheltered for a while until the meds kick in. 

You can add my name to your list.

Me and Palmer, Nouwen and, of course, Van Gogh.       

Linking with #TellHisStory.

Seeing the Psychiatrist (I Don't Want to Forget)

“The babysitter’s coming tomorrow.”  I say as we shuffle back and forth in the bathroom getting ready for bed.  “I have to see my Psychiatrist,” I add, drawing out the word in a way that makes it sound fancy.
 

Even now, seven months after hospitalization, I’m still uncomfortable with the idea of being one of those people.

“When was your last appointment?” my husband asks from his seat on the radiator, speaking over and around the toothbrush in his mouth.

“Um, I’m not sure.  Maybe February?” 

At the sink, I pull my toothbrush from the cup and squeeze out a daub of toothpaste.  “It’s kinda silly, I still have prescriptions I haven’t filled because I’m not going through them as quickly as I could.”  In fact I’d been tempted to cancel the appointment this week – it felt inconvenient, coming on my kids’ first day of spring break and unnecessary as I really didn’t need any refills. 

After a pause, I add, “I think it’s important, though, to help me remember.”  Then, in case he doesn’t know what I mean, I continue, “I was in the hospital, ya know?  It was a big deal.  It is a big deal.  I don’t want to forget how hard it was, how close we were to the edge.”

The edge of what, I do not say, but I feel it.  The edge of darkness, the edge of all-consuming fear.

“Do you feel like you forget?” he asked. 

“Yes, I do.”

I forget because I don’t want to remember.  I forget because no one wants to talk about it, hardly anyone asks.  I forget because I’m afraid – afraid that it happened in the first place, afraid it could happen again.

The pill bottles help me to remember.  Pulling the two red bottles from the cabinet, putting in the extra time to cut pills down to size for the days and weeks ahead, feels like a welcome humility.  

I continue to see a counselor, perhaps more often than she thinks I need.  Those hours set aside on the calendar remind me to look at myself, to come up for air and do a systems’ check. 

And the appointments with the psychiatrist who listens briefly before handing out her scripts, they help too.  Driving up to the building, I enter the same door I excited that bright August day.  Every time I face that place, I face the past; I face a part of myself that paid a price for being neglected for far too long and I remember.  

I don’t want to forget again. 

It may seem counter-intuitive or self-punishing in some strange way, but in the Christian tradition we acknowledge remembrance as a necessary part of the journey toward healing, toward resurrection.  This is what we do in Lent and Holy Week.  We re-walk the steps, re-read the texts, take, break and eat the wine and the bread.  We re-enact the suffering and saving so that we will remember.  

We don't want to forget.  

We tell the story of our own bondage and salvation; we return to the tomb if only to remember how cold and deep the darkness was before we saw the first piercing shaft of light. 

May your remembering be blessed.  May you find the courage to not forget.  

A Box Full of Kittens (The Power of Presence to Heal an Anxious Heart)

“What this place needs is a box full of kittens.” 

This is what I told my fellow patients, my therapist, and anyone else who would listen in the psychiatric hospital this summer.  I wasn't really kidding.

My kids were spending a good bit of time at a friend’s house where kittens were in high numbers and they were enamored, but not as much as I.  Sitting on my friend’s couch in those stressful weeks leading up to the panic attacks and hospitalization, I felt the old familiar calm sweep over me as I nuzzled a snowy white ball of fluff who purred and clawed against my chest.

My last night in the hospital I sat talking with my husband via an old black phone with the classic silver cord and buttons –like something straight out of a 1980's phone booth.  

“You’re never going to guess what I saw tonight,” he said. 

It was late August and after tucking the kids into bed, he noticed a small animal scurrying across the kitchen toward the laundry room and back door.  At first he thought it was a squirrel, but following slowly he realized it was a small, gray kitten.  Then the little scamp was off and running out the same open door he crept in, disappearing into the dark night. 

“Really?!” I asked,  “Are you serious?”  

It seemed like a sign, a good omen, that little gray visitor padding in quietly like fog in the middle of a dark night.  He never showed up again, though my husband called and left food by the back door.

The following day, after my discharge, we drove to pick up our kids.  They piled out of my friend’s house, tumbling and climbing on me like love-sick puppies.  On our way out to the van they showed me another pair of kittens who’d shown up during my hospitalization, two more strays. 

Are you surprised that when my friend called the next day to see if we wanted the kittens, I said yes?  

She delivered them herself, like one delivers soup to the sick and we drank them in as the stress and worry of weeks slowly worked its way out of our family system.

//

I always had a cat as a little girl, always. 

I used to list them by name to impress and wow friends with tales of their adventures and unfortunate demises.  We had indoor-outdoor cats and they all, invariably, slept in my bed.  They were my babies, my companions.  I mothered them before I knew what mothering was.  Their calmness and acceptance of my quiet, slow ways nurtured me before I even knew I needed nurturing. 

I have a picture of me as a little girl holding some of our first kittens.  In it, I am sitting on the stump of a log with one cat tucked under each arm, squinting into the sun.  Thinking about it now, it occurs to me how many pictures we have of me holding the twins in a similar position - one on each side, two lovable lumps of little boy. 

Both, the kittens and the twins, opened me, opened my heart, my body, to love.  Both brought healing and resurrection in their own mysterious ways.

//

We got two kittens this summer when it didn’t make sense and brought them into our chaotic home, our anxious hearts.  Soon evenings in front of the TV included a pile of kittens in my lap.  Cooking dinner was not complete without someone climbing up my pant-leg to beg or riding tucked into the front of my hoodie, a little furry face peaking out, a soft purr humming against my heart. 

They're our children’s pets, but no one seems to need them as much as I do and my children, in their intuitive wisdom, seem to know this too.  Every day, multiple times a day, they find a cat and, carrying it through the house, present it to me like an offering. 

“Special delivery,” they say, lifting the cat toward my waiting arms.  With open, outstretched arms I welcome them, drinking in again their sweet, unexpected grace.   

Linking with #TellHisStory.

Are you a cat lover, a dog lover, a wild ferret lover?  Tell me about it, I'd love to hear how animals bring healing in your life.

Comfort (Advent Week 2)

An American soldier is comforted after learning of the death of his friend.  

Korean War 1950

Comfort, O comfort my people,
   says your God.  

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
   and cry to her
that she has served her term,
   that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
   double for all her sins.

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
   and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
   and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
   and all people shall see it together,
   for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
   And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All people are grass,
   their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
   when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
   surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
   but the word of our God will stand for ever.
Get you up to a high mountain,
   O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
   O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
   lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
   ‘Here is your God!’
See, the Lord God comes with might,
   and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
   and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
   he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
   and gently lead the mother sheep. 
                          - Isaiah 40:1-11 

“I can’t sleep,” I would say, turning to my husband in the early years of our marriage.  

Half asleep, he would raise one arm and gently caress my hair, his hand warm and calm.  

“Noni-noni,” he sang, a simple song of three notes that repeated over and over and the simplicity of touch, of repetition and love fell like a blanket over me, a tender comfort that held me to the present enabling me to pass through the small, dim doorway to sleep unafraid.  

//  

When the twins were coming my husband stood at my side and repeated the words of Julian of Norwich over and over again, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  This, in front of the four nurses, midwife and two doctors, the anesthesiologist and doula who crowded the room.   

Eyes locked on his, I listened and breathed into the unknown, relaxing my body to make way for new life.  

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  

Baby A came so quickly like a match bursting into flame and Baby B was wrestled feet first into the light and I could not stop bleeding and my husband was so simultaneously exhausted and thrilled.  

I lay awake all night, in pain, in fear until the angel came in the morning in the form of a nurse full of bustle and command.  “Do not be afraid,” she said, “you won’t need surgery.  You’re going to be ok, let’s try to get you sitting up.”  

Weeks later I did need surgery, but the angel’s words and the words of Julian of Norwich carried us, carried me, like the shepherd who gathers the lambs, who gently leads the mother sheep.  

//  

The panic attacks came fast and furious like the longest, hardest labor I’ve ever known, wave after wave of fear and anxiety that cut me off from my own center, from the ability to relax and surrender.  My husband’s body offered a tangible comfort as I leaned back in his arms, his flesh connecting me somehow to the present which I felt otherwise unable to access. 

When the worst was past I lay in bed fearful but exhausted, desperate to rest, and he sat beside me stroking my head, my arms, offering comfort as one would to a trapped and wounded animal.  

Eventually I asked him to repeat this phrase, “You are floating in a sea of love,” and he did so over and over as I drifted, finally, into a shallow peace. 

//

“Comfort, O comfort my people,” God told Isaiah, "Speak tenderly, that the worst has passed."  

Yet work was still to be done – the making way for the One – the great upheaval that precedes all new life.  In the midst of this, the prophet Isaiah murmurs like a husband to fearful Israel and the pain of the present agony is placed in the context of God’s constancy, the presence that does not wither or fade.  

This tender comfort is what allows Israel to lift her weary head, to look up, climb up to the heights and find her voice returned with the renewed strength of one who has passed through the night and survived. 

//

“Do not be afraid,” the angel tells us at Advent; tells Zechariah, Mary and the shepherds.  

“Comfort, O Comfort,” Isaiah is told.  

And these words of tenderness fall upon our weary heads like a warm and gentle hand.  

//  

Christ has come and yet the tumult continues as the whole world trembles in labor for the kingdom which is already and not yet.  And we, Christ’s followers, must go like Isaiah, to the rough, desert places of fear and pain, must offer our hands, our whispering voices to carry each other through the night.  

“Do not be afraid.”  

“All shall be well.”  

“Lift up your voices,” the Lord has come and is coming still.

I'm grateful to be joining with authors Winn Collier and John D. Blase to reflect on a lectionary reading for each week of Advent. Stop by their websites for another angle on Isaiah's text - Winn is pastor of All Souls Church in Charlottesville, VA and John is a poet and author of the beautiful book, Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas.

This post is also linked with the Unforced Rhythms community.