There were a few times that I had a bad attitude.  Once or twice.  There were a few times that it felt like the sun would never shine again, even though it was 95 degrees.  There were times that I was angry.  Times that I muttered things like I hate my life.  There were times when I wondered if life would ever get easier, or if it would always be hard forever.  There were days I woke up counting hours before they would end.  July 14, I woke up wishing it were today.  And now it is today.  There were those nights when I could not sleep, days I was too tired and moments when I could think of nothing but the refuge under my covers.  Except it was still 95 degrees.

I've been considering the prospect of making an effort to think about more good than bad.  I've been speaking to myself about seeking things to love rather than hate.  I've been encouraging myself to smile more than frown.  

Today, as I drove home from my tutoring job, I couldn't stop smiling.  Smiling in part because we only have two days left.  Smiling in part because I've learned that just because things are hard doesn't mean they aren't worth the work and the pain and those days when you can't help but count.  I feel like I've come out on the other side and I feel like my muscles are a little bigger, my endurance a little stronger, and my experience a little wider.  I have a few more ideas about how to handle a situation when motivation is outside of my control.  I've gained an insight or two about point systems for attitude adjustments and I've realized how far a little compassion can go.  I've seen the effects of lesson planning out of anger and frustration.  More than anything, I think I've faced my fears.  I feel as though I've jumped a major hurtle in the opposite direction from anxiety-driven avoidance.  

I've learned a lot of new things this summer, due in major part to necessity-- I did not choose any of it.  I went into many things kicking and screaming, looking for ways out, looking for ways to be present as little as possible.  Now that I write that, I'm a little ashamed to write that.  But nevertheless, in my ever-honest tone, I'm afraid to say it is true.  It's been a hot, suffocating, tearful summer of hurts.  I feel like most of the time, my attitude merits me little credit in lessons learned.  Like it would serve me right to forfeit any meaningful lessons learned through it all.  But even so, grace is reality and I am left only holding the growth come from the struggle.  oh me.  

I drove home smiling.  Hoping, praying, that it is true what they say about middle schoolers: they get more out of it than they will ever allow you the satisfaction of knowing.  I hope that when he thinks about reading, he will remember Monopoly games and basketball and the difference between real and fake words.  Maybe.  Maybe I'll be the only one who learned and that would be enough too.

I remembered the other day that not everything is about me.  I got this strange feeling that perhaps there is a world outside of me and that maybe if I just stepped out of that square, I would find air to breathe.

School starts in three weeks and I'm not sure I've ever been more relieved.  My new job starts in two and I've never looked forward to such a job.  I want to quit dressing buns and shouting patty counts.  I want to stop wearing red t-shirts and eternally itchy hats.  I want to be free of it, but I also want to be free of bills and debt, so therein lies the dilemma.  I think sometimes maybe I would like to run from the summer entirely.  Except for the other sometimes that I don't.  Maybe just certain parts of the summer would be better off erased.

Maybe.

Who am I?

There was a great post on Jim's blog today about identity. Who are we? Who am I? Who are you?

I remember being in high school and asking the genuine question What does it mean to find my identity in Christ? I'd been hearing this phrase all my life, almost as some essential command. "You just aren't finding your identity in Christ, and that is one more thing that you are doing wrong." But it seems over the years, I've come to the place where I understand that idea a little bit better as believing Christ when he tells me who I am. When I hear his words say, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation," and when I consider God's proud proclamation "It is good," after his creation of me. Who am I?

The passage that Jim posts today argues that who we are lies beneath everything else-- our core self, the self we find when we stop thinking and start becoming aware of our spiritual selves. And who is that spiritual self? What defines and directs that self?

I've been forced lately to consider more how big Reality is in relation to my circumstance, in relation to my mental state, in relation to how I feel about my life. Is God bigger than constant schedule changes? Is God bigger than changing paychecks, changing jobs, changing meeting times, changing ideas, changing feelings, changing circumstances? And does my identity go deeper than my first reaction to all of these changes. Am I still the same acceptable person when everything seems to go wrong and I don't seem to have the mental and emotional capacity to handle it? Is there a "self" deeper from which wisdom and peace and grace do eventually flow? Is there a deeper self that is forgiven and loved regardless of how my surface self naturally reacts?

I have to believe that there is something bigger than this, bigger than my present life. I have to believe that I am not my circumstances, my job, my talents, my possessions, my education because what happens if I loose these things? What if I go off the deep end beyond reasonable capacity to think and feel in healthy ways? Is there still something under that that defines me? Do I remain in His grip? Can I still redeem my "New Creation" coupon?

Who I am? I woke up this morning feeling the essential wash of sleep-- I need a new day today. I need a new week, a new month, a new heart. Yesterday was a hard day and today would be a good day to forget all about it and move on. I think it is so easy to let the bad days pile up and allow them to define who we are. Maybe another section the author on Jim's blog could have added was "Am I my bad days?" Perhaps more than we realize, we allow our days to pile up and dictate our identities rather than accepting the new sun as it rises and giving ourselves a second chance to realize what is really true about ourselves beneath it all. Today I am not the mistakes I may or may not have made yesterday, but I do still love the same things and I am still the person that God has been making me. And that is good.

I need a new day today. Do you? I need the night to wash over it all and start me over. Bring me back to the place where I began-- in his hand. Because that is where I find myself.

Remember

When the waves toss and change abounds, the call to remember whispers silently through the trees, grounding our hearts and renewing our spirits. Remember the first look, the first touch, the first love. Remember what dew me into his arms, remember his faithfulness. Remember what he is really like. Remember that intimate night in the upper room he spent with his closest friends and remember I was there too. Remember each time the bread and wine enters my twenty-first century body, I am taking his image upon me-- making the memory of him part of my own flesh and blood. The flesh and blood that walks around hugging an smiling. Remember that He is my first love, remember his presence in my spirit, his voice, his touch. Remember his reality that encompasses the small pieces of seven-dollars-an hour, rolls of film, grades and tomorrow. Remembering how to find myself and my life first in his love for me. A love that gives everything, body and blood for me to know the life he knows for me. Remembering old songs, old rooms with old chairs. Hard floor under knees bent dedicating all these little pieces of my life to his hands, his calling. Remember that first love, that touch, those people-- the place where it all began-- it has never moved, although my vantage points have shifted. Remember who I was and who I became. Remember the call to a new life, new spirit, mind, heart. Remember old seasons as others shuffle messily in. Remember to seek him who made the Pleaides and Orion, who turns deep darkness into morning and darkens day into the night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them upon the surface of the earth: the Lord is his name.

I haven't written much of substance for a while now. It's been a hard summer and just a few days ago, I was counting the weeks before the season ended, longing for the relief of only school's stresses. In a few weeks, a new roommate will come, a new job will start while others may end. A few weeks out and a difficult class will end, the nights will cool and it will be fall. And I will look back, I am sure.

This has been one of the most difficult seasons, perhaps this entire year has been the hardest. I look back and reflect on the choices that seemed to play a vital role in my arrival here and still, I would not change a thing. I have discovered many lessons that could only be learned through risk and experience. I embarked on many new journey's this summer. Taking jobs with little to no information prior. Registering for classes not knowing how they would be funded. Taking on a task I never thought would be mine.

But this week, the load seems to be lightened. Paychecks that have been awaited for two months finally arriving. After long weeks and numerous frustrated complaints, my time is more firmly in my grasp than strangers'. Taking risks about hours and times and shifts and covered. Wondering if it will be enough, knowing that health demands it. And being so glad that the risk was taken.

The grass never got too far past brown and some plants are drooping, but the electric bill is reasonable and the neighborhood quiet. I've felt surrounded by friends, felt the joy at a hammock, a few trips to the swimming pool, a drive up the canyon, despite the heartache of remembering.

I imagine I'll look back and see that things have changed in me this summer. A sort of trial-by-fire growing up adventure of behavior charts and exhausting masses of creativity in attempt to make an eleven-year-old like both me and reading. I'm in the midst of working through the temptation to please everyone. I just want to do the right thing and feel too young to know what that means on my own. But maybe the reality is that I know more than I think or it really doesn't matter that much.

This summer has brought me face to face with many old and deep fears. Relationships in teaching, speaking to parents, visiting homes, communicating when we do not speak the language. Entering the lives of people who have only been "them" until now. And I am reminded again that people are certainly just people.

I can't stop thinking about how wonderful it feels to have my own life back. To hold in my hand the weight of balance in my own life. The exhilaration of having put my foot down with the words "too much" and walking away. The freedom to look out for my own interest when it seems no one else will do so. Standing up for myself and to myself.

This has been a summer unlike any other-- I suppose there have been few that are the same. But I've missed some rituals. Have I adopted new ones? Perhaps. But, through it all, I know I'm loved and I know how bleak it all seems, there must be hope at the end, right?

I am tired
and broken
and tired again

will there ever be a stop?
Will it ever get easier?
how long will this night last?

I am tired
My kness weak
My heart heavy
My stomach churning

I want out.

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

For the past few months, as I reflect on what the last year has been and where I've been in the midst of it, I think back often to dreams I had a few years ago as I finished High School and began college about finding a meaningful community. I think in those days, I had this vision of community as always having a group of friends to do things with on Friday nights, but I realize that my definition has shifted a bit as I've grown and learned through the experiences I've had.

One of the principal reasons I ventured off to Idaho was in hopes of discovering this illusive community and, even now, I realize a significant part in that discovery was a release of old definitions of what such a love would mean. I don't see community anymore as this wonderful church body where people don't talk behind each other's backs and it doesn't matter where you sit in the auditorium. I don't look to this ever-holy "unity" in which people all agree and smile. I have learned that perhaps community is about experiencing a love that you can't help but pass on.

When I look at my time in Idaho and other experiences I had along this road to "community," I realize a major lesson I've learned is simply how to love from the example of those who loved me. I suddenly see myself standing on the other side of this river with a new perspective on what it means to care for and be cared for. Reflecting simply on questions that people asked me that I wouldn't think to ask myself. Remembering what it was like to be all alone in a new place and how much it fulfilled my needs simply for someone to offer a ride or a washing machine or a meal. Remembering needing a hug and drives through the car wash at 10 p.m. with someone who was sent to show me what real joy is.

And so, here I am, almost a year later and looking around at yet another season of community. A swarm of people swooping in on a living room full of boxes. Walking into a gathering that feels nothing like church and feels more right than ever.

I am learning in new ways what he meant when John said that we know how to love by the love that the father gives. And I am beginning to see that the relationships that we hope will somehow surround us do not necessarily come in crowds, but come in lessons on how to give that same love away. Through moments of loneliness and helplessness and darkness, I learn how to best love those who need it most because others came along and loved me when I was there. Through the pain of rejection and fear, I am compelled to show others there is a new reality. Although at times, the thing just needed is a hug or a quiet "I love you," I am learning that love does not always mean an overflow of affection, but sometimes simply a sincere constancy, a quiet faithfulness that simply whispers that you wait with open arms.

I have been very blessed to live in the company of many who have taught me to love well. I have been given the gift of companionship that allows me to practice small acts of love through washed dishes and watered plants and early morning wake up calls and something about that practice gives me a lot of confidence in my own ability to love well. Through His image of love in others, I learn what the love of the Creator really looks like.

Maybe finding peace in community is reducing your expectations. I occasionally find myself contemplating reasons for being friends with people and, the older I get, the more irrelevant this activity seems. It saves me a lot of time if I choose to love those who are placed in my proximity rather than spending energy on determining if they are worth my time. And through this realization, I find that the relationships I have both hold more weight while also freeing themselves from my grip. My role is no longer winning people over or proving myself or contemplating the value of my time spent with these people-- I simply look for ways to love and do so as I have the opportunities. Sometimes seasons are short and other times, long friendships are formed.

Somehow, I don't find myself asking as many questions about community these days. Perhaps finding the thing that makes community right isn't as illusive as I thought it was. Or maybe it just isn't as perfect as it is simply good. Perhaps the thing I was looking for was other people to fulfill me when the reality is that God is trying to get us to understand that he is enough for us and when we just love, he'll provide the rest. Maybe his plan is to get the ball rolling by sending a few people to show us love and then it snowballs from there. I don't know if community always means sharing every meal or having someone you can always count on to lend you a lawn mower, but maybe it is simply staying in a posture in which others can borrow your lawnmower if the opportunity should arrive. Perhaps.

"Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

Learning to accept. Over the past week or so, the need has arisen to consider whether or not accepting that which has been given is worth the sacrifice. In the midst of the necessity to hand over pieces of my life to other people, I am learning to accept what I am given, trusting that he will fulfill this promise to provide, regardless of what I think I would have chosen for myself. Accepting weeks full of work, stress, and hardship along with long weekends with nothing to do but wonder if I'm going to get enough hours of work to make it.

I've also been thinking about accepting other things too. Yesterday I spent the day with a family I love dearly while also sorting through all the complication of what relationships mean with people who are so close and intertwined. As is so often true, the most meaningful times in life often require the most work in sorting out self from community. Who am I? Why I am the way that I am? Is this "self" that I see moving about acceptable and right?

In the last year or so, I have begun to observe the tendency of our family to make commentary on one another's appearances. When we first see each other, we often say something like, "I love your shirt. Is it new?" Or "Did you get your hair cut? It looks different?" As if sizing up one another's dress and personal grooming should have some sorts of bearing on our identity as a family. I wonder if at times we are calling up old comparisons between ourselves and other groups of related people that we once hoped to be accepted into.

Yesterday, I got out of the shower in my parent's basement and sorted through my overnight bag, wondering which shirt would bring me the most praise from family members as another thought entered my mind: What if I simply focused on the reality of who I am regardless of the clothing I wear or my need for makeup (which I don't wear regardless of the "need").

For the past four years, this weekend in July usually brings the need to board a plane and fly to the west coast for a certain annual conference. A few years back, I was sitting outside at one of the many umbrella-ed tables spread throughout the sunny courtyard talking to a good friend about how these mid-year conferences often serve as deeply meaningful rituals of remembrance and renewal as well as acceptance of new calls. I have always been one to dive deep into reflection on where I've been and where I'm going, but I've found in the last few years, this sort of self-assessment has become more difficult as my personal growth seems to have become increasingly less discursive. It is more difficult now to mark areas of growth as life has become more complicated.

But as I spent some time in reflection this morning, I began to think about the question of whether or not I've become a better lover in the last year. Have I grown more deeply into the person of love I've been made to be since last July? I started thinking about my stress level and how this effects my relationships with other people. I started thinking about times spent with friends that seemed to be filled with uncertain questions of anxiety rather than the enjoyment of their company. I started to wonder about this sense that I often hold myself back. I started thinking about what it would be like if I could return to the place where I simply allowed my real self to flow out without a worry about what that person was like. And then I came to this question: Is the person that would come flowing out be acceptable?

We work so hard at posturing. I pack certain clothes for times I gather with my family. I wonder how I could get rid of my acne. I worry about being judged for the discomfort I feel in some social situations. I fear the opinions of others about me coloring the opinions of their friends. I wonder if there will be any actions that I take that will not be commented upon. I hope that certain bad habits of mine will for once escape the dinner conversation. I worry that one wrong move will cost me the job I desperately need. And in the midst of all of this, I forget that who I am underneath it all is loved and accepted. That I am spotless and blameless through the love of the Father, who sees only the Beauty that he created.

So I am in the midst of a lesson on accepting. Accepting the next four days of nothing much to do but enjoy my life. Accepting the person inside, underneath all that I put on. Accepting the fact that I'm not sure who I was a year ago and I have no labels for the person I am today accept for one that is lovely and held in the hand of the Father who provides all things. Accepting the assurance that man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.