Restless.

I don’t sleep…well. I don’t sleep well enough to feel rested, ever, these days. In fact, it is 2:45am, as I type this. I’m tired.

Every night, around 2am, I wake up, and my brain starts going. I think about how similar this is to something I experienced when I was pregnant with my first child. When I was pregnant with George, I would move all day, and then finish dinner, finish cleaning the kitchen, maybe take a bath, and then lay down to go to sleep. I would get still for the first time in the day, and the baby would start moving. It was not subtle movement. These were acrobatics. It was like he knew that it was safe for him to move when I was still.

My heart does the same thing. The reality is, it’s easy to shut off your brain, but it’s not easy to shut off your heart. When I lay awake, I don’t think about work, or the things I need to do.

I think about pain. I think about how to alleviate it. I think about the times my heart has hurt the most. I think about what I can take responsibility for, and what I can’t. I think about the difference between the self-aware and the rest of the world. I think about people who are content to live in the dark and those that embrace the light. I think about why we’re all here and what I need to accomplish while I’m here. I think about how the world jades (breaks – a word that can be used interchangeably) some and not others. I think about the ones who don’t think about those things at all…and how it makes them, equally, simple and fortunate.

I think about the fact that we are all built the same way, with the same equipment, and how me make choices that change the trajectory of our hearts in the world. Some are awake. Some are knowingly numb…they choose it.

These are deep things to be thinking about in the middle of the night.

I think most people can identify with this, and it’s a real Truth Bomb that is painful to admit…

Most of the time, my packed days, intense work schedule, and constant movement have more to do with my avoidance of getting still enough to feel, than they do for my desire to move. Isn’t this true for most people?

Because if we feel, then we might hurt, and in this world, we can’t actually feel anything without the greater feeling that we need to do something about that feeling. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hurting. So sitting still in those thoughts is hard.

The world says simplified things like “You just need to be happy….just do what makes you happy,” without any consideration of the aftermath of that mindset. Do what makes you happy….in the moment, even if those choices hurt us in the long run.

Ha! It is the biggest lie, and we buy into this bullshit. We buy into it because being “happy” calls for a numbed, copacetic, unaware existence of looking to the things around us to give fleeting moments of comfort. It does not call for any profound commitment to any belief of rock of truth in our existence. It calls for a weakness in surrender to the things of the world…that’s it.

Y’all, it’s easy to be “happy.”

Jewelry makes me happy.

Pasta makes me happy.

A clean house makes me happy.

These things make us comfortable, but these things cannot bring us joy.

Oh, and there’s a big difference, by the way! Don’t fool yourself. Happiness is fleeting. Joy brings you peace. They are quite different.

Here’s the catch, though: in order to attain peace, we have to walk through the hard stuff. We have to hurt. We have to grow. We have to heal.

And healing is hard work. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves.

But IS healing hard work? Is it?

Think about how you heal from sickness or surgery.

It’s actually just a lot of rest. Drinking water. Watching TV… It’s a lot of waiting.

Do we wait to be healed or do we run the rat race of life, thinking we can do it ourselves, without the help of something/someone greater?

Lily Tomlin said,”The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” This is one of my favorites….so true! It’s exactly how I see the world…frantically running, fighting, and doing. As rats, running this race, we aren’t actually helping our cause much. We’re just getting more and more tired. I am exhausted.

Sometimes, it is just as important to get still as it is to move. I have to remind myself when I feel these things, in the middle of the night, as my mind races to find the “answer,” when I’ve already got one.

The answer is in another one of my favorite quotes from Proverbs. ^“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

In the moments when we are still, and hurting, and it’s uncomfortable, we can choose a couple of things. We can fight like hell for control, or we can lean in, and let the Healer do his work. In the times that I fight it, overthink it, overdo, and grasp for control, I actually feel more out of control. It feels a lot like drowning to me….flailing until my body finally goes limp, and I say “I’m done. I give up. Help me. Please!”

If we’re being honest, we’d admit that getting still is the greater fight for most of us, because it feels a lot like helplessness, unless you know with all certainty that there is someone there fighting for you.

Who is your someone that fights for you?

Is it you….who fights with all that is humanly possible until you drown?

Is it your money, that will eventually run out?

It is your happy moments that won’t sustain you forever, as all of your moments cannot be happy?

Is it a God who never fails?

Get still. Lean in. Rest in this last truth bomb.

“Our heart is restless until it rests in You.” ~ St. Augustine

Now…the hard part. Letting go.

Let’s try.

Hold.

I’m a visual person.

When I read books, and new characters are introduced, I actually pause, use my finger as a bookmark to hold my place, and try to imagine what a the character looks like. Are they tall or short? What color is their hair? What do the expressions on their faces look like…when he scowls, laughs, or cries? Does she have an overbite? Is she frumpy? Is he classically handsome and gruff in nature, at the same time…or is he just an ugly human being, all together?

Part of the adventure in reading, is that you get to create an entire world in your head right along with the story. It’s safe. You see what you want to see.

However, in movies, it is laid out in film, there for your voyeur heart to witness, and nothing is left to the imagination. You see what they want you to. This is the beautiful and dangerous things about movies. Some things cannot be unseen.

Images have so much power, and we cling to them to give us strength when we need it. People are searching…they are searching hard for inspiration, hope, and strength. Sometimes books and movies have the power to give those things to us, because they are something that we willingly sit down to, in focused attention, and soak in what we take in. There is one in particular that I imagine a lot, in prayer, when I feel like I’m about to break. It’s from Braveheart.

It’s a scene of resilience and strength, where the enemy charges William Wallace and his men, at full speed, with cavalry and spears in their hands. The men stand there with blue painted faces, shields and weapons in hand. The Calvary charges, and William Wallace says, “Steady.”

The Calvary comes closer, and Wallace says “Hold.”
Charging ahead, and Wallace says, “Hold.”
Still closer…and Wallace bellows, “HOLD!!!!”

As they approach, with spears raised, Wallace screams, “NOWWWWW!!!!!!!” and his army raises their spears as the horses approach. They were ready for what was to come. His army is unshakable, as all but one of his men stared ahead with steely eyes. In a moment of fear, Hamish (Wallace’s best friend) glanced over at Wallace with a “Are you sure about this?” look…but he stood steadily. As an aside, every person I show this to, notices that split second of uncertainty in Hamish’s eyes…it’s only a split second, and we are all acutely aware of it…probably because we are all thinking what he was. When are you going to move on this?!?

I love this scene because it reminds us of the fact that there is always a plan, and just because we don’t see it or understand it, doesn’t mean that God is not at work or that He doesn’t exist. He really does have it all figured out, and he doesn’t need our help or approval to make it so.

I know that by the time this battle took place, Wallace and his men were tired. They witnessed the deaths of friends, for a cause they were told was unimportant. Yet, they persisted.

As a boy, Wallace grieved the death of his father and brother. He was a common man, and not treated well. He had to marry the love of his life in secret, and ultimately witnesses her cold-hearted murder, by the hands of men that tortured her before her death. I can’t ever bring myself to watch that scene…it hurts my heart too much.

Some things cannot be unseen. Hold. I’m sure he whispered it to himself, just as much. Hold on…better things are coming.

We are capable of of great things, and we give in to despair, so easily.

Why?!? What do we believe we were promised? That life would be easy? That there wouldn’t be hardship? That it wouldn’t call for perseverance?

This last year, the boys and I lost the place we called home to a monster called Harvey. We lost my father shortly after. He fell and hit his head, and was rushed to the hospital. The next day, after a night full of tests and staples, he was taken back to the hospital and would stay there for the next three weeks, until he was sent home to hospice. He was a cancer patient, and his heart was so weak that it could not continue.

The boys had just changed schools, and everything felt unsteady. There were so many nights that we cried ourselves to sleep together, with hands clasped in desperation, but I could hear it…God saying, “Hold.”

Some days, George (my son) was Hamish. “I can’t, Mommy,” he said defeated, holding on to me, teary-eyed. “This is too hard.”

Some days, I was Hamish, as I cried in the shower where they couldn’t see me. “I can’t,” I said to God, with tears rolling down my cheeks, waiting for the water to wash them away. “This is too hard.”

And God whispered “Hold.”

We clung to that word. We trusted in it.

We stayed still as God said “Hold.” We moved when God said “Now.” It was painful, and hard, and peaceful all at the same time.

Once, my friend Elizabeth and I were in conversation and she said, “Sometimes, it’s just as important to stay still, as it is to move forward.” These are some of the best words of advice anyone has ever given me. It’s true. I have lived and survived in the Still, and I have lived and survived the Movement.

We survived those nights, and the morning came. The joy came back. The peace came. We have grateful hearts. We are joyful.

Sometimes we want to move straight into action, but God whispers “Hold.”

Recently, George shared that he has been bullied at school since around January. This boy whispers things in his ear like “You are weak, and I am strong,” on a weekly basis.

It broke my Mama heart, and I was angry when he told me! I was ready to charge! I got out my computer, and tried to portray calm, as I shakily wrote the teacher an email. I was so furious that someone could treat my child this way…he has such a sweet heart for the world and people around him.

As I typed, I calmly asked George, “What is your response to this boy when he says things like that to you?”

He looked up at me unshaken, smiled, and said, “I am not afraid of you.”

I was in awe of his calm and confidence, and I am every morning, when he bounds out of the car with a smile on his face and marches into school, like the little soldier that he is.

God does not send us into battle without a plan, and most of the time, we don’t need to move in it. It moves on its own.

We simply have to trust in it.

Even when we are shaken.

Even when we are moved.

Even when we are unsure.

We must hold onto the promise of the plan and better things to come.

“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you…plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11

Hindsight’s 20/20.

I am ashamed to say that I ordered a lavender honey latte today, and I do not have the chic, plastic-rimmed glasses to go with it.

When I was a girl in Catholic school, I attempted to fail the eyesight test every year. Everyone in my family had glasses, and I desperately wanted them.

Shocker… I was a talker and comedian in school.

As it occurred to me, my teachers would not allow me out of that box. However, the students with glasses were let off the hook for slipping up, as they appeared to be intellectuals. So (not sure how I got here), I saw glasses as the quick fix to ensuring that I would be taken seriously.

My performances started in 4th grade. I would walk into the testing room of the school, each year and (not-so-subtly) try to fail the eyesight test. It hadn’t occurred to me that Mrs. O’Brien was probably on to me…even though I tested with better than 20/20 vision every year, previous to my failed attempts. When I got into 7th grade, we lined up to take the test. I walked in, stared at the chart, and as I started to read the top letter as an “M,” Mrs. O’Brien interrupted me, “Ok, Lisa. That’s interesting. You read it perfectly last year. So, let’s try that again, please.”

Sigh.

I rattled them off. “E, F, P, T, O, Z, L, P, E, D…blah, blah, blah. Can I go now???”

School Nurse and Killer of Joy. “You don’t know anything.” As a child, I constantly murmured this in my head and under my breath.

I was never given the clearance to go get my eyes checked.

Throughout high school, I purchased fake glasses from a local accessories store, and just owned up to the fact that I had perfect vision, but I chose to wear glasses because I thought they looked so amazing!

When my second son was born, my eyesight changed, and I excitedly drove myself to the optometrist and sat for the test. “Hormones,” she said. “It’s probably your hormones, and if it’s not hindering your eyesight as you drive, we can wait another 6 months to test you again and see if you actually need glasses.” What the?!? You don’t know anything…I murmured in my head.

I asked to try on other people’s glasses to see what I would look like with them on…this baby was not impressed 🙂

I couldn’t even win at failing. I scared a baby…a BABY!!! Look at me smiling next to him in that picture…what a weirdo!

My eyesight was too damn perfect, and I resented it! I didn’t know anything.

I still watch people that wear them, stare as they walk by, and admire their glasses’s color or shape…but I’m not meant to wear them. “Why?” so many of my friends and family asked. “You should be glad that you don’t have bad eyesight, Lisa.” my mother would say, as I would roll my eyes, murmuring “You don’t know anything,” in my head. I just wanted them, badly…and they weren’t for me. I wasn’t created with the eyesight that warranted them.

Isn’t this what we do???

We look at things we want and what others have, and we obsess over them. Sometimes, we try so hard to push the square peg into that round hole, when it’s just not meant to be! I was guilty of this. We all are, at some point.

Brene Brown said, “When we deny our stories, they define us….Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” Genius…because when we let go of shame and stop trying to be successful or beautiful by the world’s definitions, we become these breathtaking, unique specimens of what we are meant to be!

Still, we want things that are (possibly) not meant for us.

To be taller. To be thinner. To be richer. To have more stuff. To have better hair. To have thinner thighs. To have kids. To have more kids. To be married. To be divorced. To be liked. For life to be easier than it is now. To have complete control over it.

What if we were grateful for what we have? What if we were grateful for where we are?

What if we embraced discomfort…and if out of our comfort zone were the only place we could grow and flourish? What if that place of surrender was the only place you could get what you wanted? What if we just leaned into our situation?

What if taking control of our lives, actually looked like surrender?

I was thinking about the idea of surrender the other day, and it’s a funny thing, y’all…

In war, surrender usually leads to defeat.

BUT…in love, surrender leads to deeper love.

What are we so afraid of? There is no war against us in this life! As I see it, every true desire in our hearts was placed there for a reason, and those desires will lead us exactly where we are meant to be.

I couldn’t get glasses. Eventually, I stopped trying to win that battle, and I leaned into the other things.

I sang. I played. I wrote. I connected. I leaned into all of it, and the more I did, the better I knew myself. The more I did, the easier I excelled.

In her book, A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson speaks to the role of fear, how it holds us back, and what we are meant to be. This is one of my favorite quotes….

Lean in to who you are called to be.

Surrender fear, shame, and control.

Lean in, and see where that takes you.

Hope.

In the last 9 months, the idea of “Hope” is constantly on the forefront of my mind…the idea, and even the word itself appears in my daily life, all the time! When I get still, I think about it deeply.

I was reading my book the other day (White Oleander), and it talked about the notion of hope…I’m not sure if you can see it clearly, but I circled it for you so you can zoom in. The passage ends with, “Despair was the killer. I had to prepare, hold hope between my palms like the flame of the last match in a long Arctic night.”

I read it over and over again, as I sat outside, eating my sandwich, while people passed. I always giggle to myself about the irony of it all – that while I am having these profound moments in my life, heart, and mind, the world continues around me.

The same thing occurred to me, as my father was dying, because as I was sitting in the quiet of my parents’ bedroom…praying the Divine Mercy chaplet, and crying at my father’s bedside, and pleading with God for a miracle, and feeling Heaven calling him so intensely in that small space, and losing one of the greatest loves of my life – My Dad – with the hospice nurse and my family beside me…the world continued.

The landscapers mowed lawns, while I sat in that bedroom…

…the bedroom that my father walked out of when he finished getting ready for work in the morning, smelling of aftershave.

The dog walkers walked their dogs, while I sat in that bedroom…

…the bedroom that my father charged from in the middle of the night, like a super hero, when I’d cry out because I’d had a nightmare about witches or vampires.

The families strolling their babies, while I sat in that bedroom…

…the bedroom that was the heart and foundation of the love my parents had together and the home that they built for us.

Watching my father struggle to breathe.

Watching my once vibrant father slip away, one breath at a time.

The world continued…as we sat in that bedroom.

It still continues.

We are no longer in that bedroom.

We still hurt.

And what do we have left in moments like these, but Hope?

Hope…that God will heal hearts and walk through the fire with us.

Hope that one day…we will be the ones on the outside, laughing and delighting in the small moments, again.

I feel it everywhere, and it is the only thing in this world that keeps me going in the hardest moments.

I took this photo the week of my father’s death, in one of his weakest moments, and I even questioned why I was doing it at the time. I’ve been waiting for the right time to share it, and I want to describe the significance of it. It is so powerful!

Here’s the story behind it…

My father wanted to get up from his chair, and he could no longer walk. He was too weak. As my mother hoisted him up into her arms, she explained what she was doing. She held him up, and swayed with him back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, until she could turn him enough to sit down in his wheelchair.

“We dance together,” she said, and my mind flashed back to the memory of my parents dancing in the living room together, when I was a little girl. I smiled and delighted in the thought of it. My parents didn’t always see eye to eye as time passed. There was a tension between them, and we could feel it in our family.

Even though my father was sick, this was a cherished moment in time. They were embracing one another, and I could tell my father was so grateful for my mother in this moment. We knew he was not going to live much longer, and I just wanted to remember them loving one another fiercely, after he was gone. So, without thinking, I took out my phone and snapped the photo.

This was the last time they would dance together. He was laid in his bed shortly after, and he did not get up from it again.

Two weeks after his funeral, I was visiting with a friend, and I showed her the picture. We zoomed-in on it, and admired the beauty of it together.

With a smile on her face and tears in her eyes, she said, “It’s funny how God works, isn’t it? You were praying for a miracle and for healing, and look what God gave to your family…he did not spare your father’s life, but He absolutely gave you and your family a miracle and healing…just not in the way you asked for it.” Then, she pointed at the picture.

It was only then that I noticed, in the zoomed-in photo, the picture hanging on the wall behind them, and Jesus’s outstretched arm over my parents, as they danced together in the living room.

This is a picture of healing.

Of love.

Of miracles.

Of hope.

This week, a friend asked me how I keep such a positive attitude when things seem so dark, and I said, “Hope is a powerful thing, and if we believe that God is as big as we say He is, then we also believe that anything is possible.”

Hope is a blessed ointment, which gives strength to the wounded and the living.

Hope keeps us believing that joy can come after pain.

Hope helps us breathe, when we believe that we can’t go on.

I need it, badly. You need it. We all do.

Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all…”

I hear that sweet song and its urging!

Can you hear it?!?

Listen.

It is a beautiful reminder that Hope lives.

And so the adventure begins.

I am doing this…finally!

I love to write, share what’s on my heart, and what moves it deeply.

My friends and family say “You should write!”

I don’t know about “writing,” but I will definitely share.

Since I was a girl, I have been acutely aware of the fact that I am not meant for Here. My mother says that I would often come into the house, dirty and sweaty, with adventure in my eyes. I remember playing outside in the sunshine and the rain, climbing trees, and running until my heart felt like it would burst. I also remember the pain of skinned knees and hurt feelings. I remember the ring of dirt in the bathtub at the end of the day. I remember how big my heart loved, and the feeling in my chest when my heart cracked in two for the first time.

I live for these moments, that feeling, that dirt, that pain, those tears, and the smell of the rain coming…because those are symbols of freedom and life to me.

As an adult, my commitment to myself is to keep that pure part of my heart alive…to delight in it, to guard it in a place where nothing can take it from me, and to share it with those who need the light. “Here” can take it from us. I have resolved that it will not take it from me.

If you can identify with this, then you know that some people might call people like us “Crazy.”

I can think of a hundred other words…

Free.

Unashamed.

Dreamers.

The Brave Ones.

…Just to name a few… but not crazy.

I am not meant to stay Here. No. But I am meant for a purpose in my time Here.

I guess you can say that I am a rebel with a cause…it is to share Hope.

So, my commitment to you is this: I will pour my heart out onto these virtual pages, and I will write about what moves me, in hopes that it moves you, too.

In hopes that something I share might give you the magical feeling in your heart, that I have in the purest part of my heart…

In hopes that, if you feel hopeless or without purpose, some word or moment that moves me might help resurrect the purest part of your heart, too.

I hope to make a difference in the world. That is all.

“To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – that is to have succeeded.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson