a tree in a story about a forest

Several weeks ago I said that I wanted to spend some time talking about books that have meant something to me over the past few years. I thought I'd continue that discussion today.

It's difficult for me to do really thorough book reviews, because when it comes to books that I love, it's hard to know where to stop. I could probably talk for days on end about all the ideas, thoughts, and dreams that get stirred up inside of me when I read a book that I love. One little blog post is insufficient to relay what a particular book means to me, because I think that a good book becomes a very personal thing and intersects with some deep emotional places within us.

Anyhow, moving on with my insufficient blog post. The book I want to talk about is A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I've actually written a post about this book before, a few years ago, closer to the time when the book was released. But the other night I couldn't get to sleep and the book was flashing at me like a strobe light from the dark book shelf. So I picked it up and started to read it again.

A friend of mine once said that you know what your favorite book is by the number of times you've read it. I think this is true. My favorite books are those that never get old no matter how many times I've read them. They become new each time and I connect with the characters or the message in new ways, depending on what's going on inside of me. So, I suppose this book by Donald Miller should be added to my favorites list, right along with Family Happiness by Tolstoy and East of Eden by Steinbeck.

The first time I read this book, I was about eight months pregnant with Lucy. I read it in bed as I felt her perform gymnastics inside of me. I think it got her excited too. I was so pumped up about the premise of the book--the idea of "living a good story"--and I was excited about how this book converged with so many things I'd been studying in my MFA program. The book planted a big seed inside of me...a seed that started to germinate about a year and a half ago when we started the adoption process.

I picked the book up for the second time when Chris and I were fervently praying about adopting. The words in this book were the push I needed to start the process when we did. It inspired me and told me it was okay to be afraid. It reminded me that if we wait for the perfect time to start living a good story, we never will. So we jumped in with both feet, hoping and praying that God, the Author, would work out the kinks in timing. Suddenly I felt like Chris and I were making an intentional and calculated move to live a better story and this was exciting. Something deep inside of me that had been dormant for a long time--perhaps forever--had opened it's eyes and started to see clearly.

And now, here we are, only about 6 weeks away (Lord willing) from getting our little guy, and I'm re-reading this book again. The adoption journey has been it's own story, one that is just beginning in so many ways. I think I understand words like "process" and "waiting" and "patience" and "trust" better now than I did a year ago, and I also better understand what Donald Miller means when he writes that "you become the character in the story you are living, and whatever you were is gone." I'm starting to wrap my mind around the idea that it's not necessarily about the conclusion, but how the character is changed by the story at hand, and I can see a lot of ways that this story is changing me.

I read a part of the book earlier today that really hit me, so I wanted to spend some time talking about it. It's so in line with so much that I've learned just in the past month so it got me really psyched when I read it. Donald Miller writes (paraphrased),

I was a tree in a story about a forest and it was arrogant of me to believe any differently...and the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree...and I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it meant to be a tree in that story.

I mentioned in a recent post that I had the opportunity to speak at Celebrate Recovery several weeks ago. I was so scared. I seriously thought I was going to hyperventilate before getting up on stage. But one thing I kept telling myself as I sat in that chair in the auditorium, my hands sweaty and my heart palpitating, was that this is not about me. My sponsor kept telling me that too. "This isn't about you," she'd say. And I knew it was true. It was about God and the story He was telling through my life, and it was just my job to put it into words and to speak those words into a microphone so that other people in that dark sanctuary could hear about it. It wasn't my job to know how my words might impact the story that God was telling through other people or to worry about whether or not my story was important enough to be told. It's kind of my story because I'm living it, but ultimately, it's not about me.

This thought did help me push through my fear of public speaking. It silenced the voices in my head that tell me my story isn't extreme or important enough to be told. When I could view my life as a small chapter or sub plot in the epic, eternal tale that God is writing, then it freed me from caring so much about what people thought of my story or what judgements they'd make on me. It really took a lot of the burden off and made me excited to share about what God had written in my life so far. It allowed me to take myself seriously enough to speak, but not so seriously that I'd buckle up in fear. It made me want to speak so that I could bring Him praise, and I am learning that life is so much more meaningful when it becomes about Him--when it stops becoming about striving to bring myself praise for a story that's not really mine anyhow.

I read this verse the other day:

"Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Heb 13:15-16

How is praise a sacrifice? I thought about it. It felt like a sacrifice to get up on stage that night and praise His name. I feel like it should be easy to praise God in front of other people, but it was hard. I was nervous about it all week. I didn't sleep well and I spent a lot of time preparing and praying about what I wanted to share. It feels like a sacrifice to write on this blog sometimes, putting things out there for the faceless and nameless public to read. But regardless of comments or site-meters or popularity, something inside of me keeps spurring me on to share my life and my story with other people, even if it's just in this quiet corner of the blogosphere. It's not always up to me to control who hears...just that I keep offering the praise, the fruit of my lips.

I guess He's created us all to bring Him praise in different ways...sometimes we speak this praise, sometimes we write it, sometimes we sing it or play it on an instrument. Sometimes we run it, sometimes we draw it, sometimes we cry it, you fill in the blank. We live it in the stories He's writing for us and it's vital that we share it in the way He's designed us to.

Overall, I think that incredible things happen when we are open to sharing our tree stories with the other trees around us, because this gives us a deeper understanding of the forest story and how our tree fits into the forest.

Tess came home from preschool a while ago saying, "Sharing is Caring." How true that is. Sharing is caring...and sharing is sacrificial and scary too...and sharing gives our lives meaning.

I'll conclude with the words of the brilliant Mary Oliver:

"I don't want to live a small life. Open your eyes, open your hands."

***

What are some of your favorite books?
How does your tree fit into the forest story?
How is praise a sacrifice for you?
How do you share your story with others?

endings and beginnings

"To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go."

from "In Blackwater Woods" by Mary Oliver

***

I came to the end of my journal yesterday. I have gone through two journals in the past ten months, a new record for me. Writing on the last page of my journal yesterday felt symbolic--it was an image that captures the season of life I am currently walking through--a season of many endings which are quickly bleeding into a wild sea of change and fresh beginnings.

I bought a new journal at Target last week. It is bright pink and spiral bound. This morning was the first time I wrote in it. There's nothing like a new journal, a fresh page to write on, a book full of emptiness waiting expectantly to be filled with words, impressed by pens, and crinkled by fingertips. I wonder what will be written in this new journal. Amidst the clamor and chaos of this morning, feeding and clothing the littles, I only got to write one thing in this new journal, but I believe what I wrote is significant given the upcoming adventures this journal will contain. Exodus 33.14:

"My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."

Regardless of the changes, uncertainty, and chaos ahead, I hope I am able to cling tightly to my God and find continual rest in His Presence.

***

Endings make my heart full. They are a time to reflect, commemorate, and celebrate. Sometimes it's hard to see growth and progress when you are in the thick of the journey, and I'm thankful for the moments when I can look back on the trail that was often too dark or windy to understand and slowly start to make sense of it. I may not know all of the "why's" but I can see how the girl who started the journey has been molded into a new creation. These moments are a gift and often become pillars of faith to cling to when the road dips into a valley again.

Last night was one such moment for me. I have been involved in a ministry called Celebrate Recovery for about a year now. This has been a trying year for me, one of immense change, soul-searching, and growth. At times I wanted to give up, throw in the towel, and say the whole thing was pointless. But last night I got to stand up on a stage in front of a lot of people and give praise to my God for the supernatural changes He's worked inside of me. There are so many changes and I feel butterflies in my stomach thinking about it all...all the possibilities ahead...all the ways the trials of this year have better equipped me as a mother to Ren and my girls.

But, as I shared up on stage last night, the biggest change I've experienced over the past year is coming to believe more deeply than ever that God loves me. This sounds like a pretty basic thing to believe as a Christian, but I've been a Christian for over fifteen years, and I would say that it's only in the past year that this truth has become alive and real to me.

My friend Tracy shared this quote by Dan Allender on Facebook last week:

"To meditate is to chew something over in your mind until it runs wet and sweet into your heart."

And so I would say that the biggest change over the past year is that I have learned to meditate on God's love for me...His love has been in my mind for years, but has now run wet and sweet into my heart...into my bones...into every breathing cell of my body...and every other positive change in my life is merely a ripple effect of His love.

Coming to know God's love more deeply is setting me free. This belief is so central to everything else. Believing this frees me to trust Him, which in turn frees me to stop trying to control my life and the lives of others. I can give this heavy burden back to the One who was meant to carry it all along, and I can rest in His goodness and His plan. Receiving His love is allowing me (like Mary Oliver says) to love what is mortal...to hold it against my bones...and to let it go when the time comes. This year has been a time of letting go of a lot of things...things and people I was meant to love fiercely but never meant to grasp so tightly...never meant to carry...never meant to try and save. Letting go is sad...at first...but then there is freedom. Last night signified the end of a journey I've been on over the past year...but in many ways I realize that this is only the beginning. In a way, it feels like life is really about to start. My hands are open.

***

"And now, with God's help, I shall become myself."  --Soren Kierkegaard

don't force it.

It's French press Saturday again and the house is silent. Even the washing machine has stopped running and all I hear is the faint hum of the refrigerator, a few birds outside. Ah, yes.

I've been thinking lately about how our lives gradually unravel, like threads in a tightly wound cord. With each slow turn, the threads become a bit loser and begin to separate. Eventually, one can start to see each individual strand and how it fits into the whole.

Or perhaps our lives are more like books that can only be read one paragraph at a time. We cannot skip ahead to read the final outcome. We cannot know how the plot will twist and turn or how our character will be shaped by the events and people that weave in and out of our trajectory. We can only know the part we are reading now, in the moment, and each paragraph gradually alters how will things will play out in the future.

This is how life has felt lately for me. I am an odd one. I like to read books and magazines from back to front, or sometimes I like to plop myself right in the middle and skip around from there. This drives my left-brained, linear-minded husband absolutely mad. But me, I am not so linear. My mind likes to flit and float around, jumping associatively from one topic to the next. It sometimes resists a neat and orderly narrative.

But there is no jumping around in the narrative of my life, no option to read from back to front or to start somewhere in the middle. There is only here and now--there is only the sentence that God is currently constructing, one word at a time, and each word is formed based on the one that preceded it. Sometimes the process feels painstakingly slow. Yet it is in the slowness and stillness that I'm learning to listen to His voice. I'm learning to slow down myself, to trust that He will uphold my character through all of the peaks and valleys, twists and turns ahead. I don't need to rush the story or try to force the action before its due time.

Don't force it. That's what I keep telling myself. I'm aware that I've tried to force many things in my life, and I'm equally aware of how unnecessary it is. I don't need to have it all figured out. I don't need to make decisions before I'm ready to or before I'm required to do so. Wait and trust, wait and trust, I say.

I dropped my last poetry class a few weeks ago. It is the very last class I need before I can begin my thesis. I am so close, yet so far away from finishing this MFA. I knew in my gut that I needed to drop it. I knew that with everything that's going on in our lives right now, I would not be able to get my mind into it. I need to be fully present and engaged in what is happening right now--with God, with myself, with my family, with Ren. I can't do that and school. Besides, if required to write poetry at a time like this, I'm pretty sure my poems would end up sounding a little something like this:

The cat sat
on a mat
and then it
ate a rat.
What do you
think about that?

So, as of now, I'm registered to take my next class this December. I'm thinking that our lives might be a bit more "stable" at that point, but who knows. Most people say that the first year post-adoption is insanity, so I will have to cross that bridge when I get to it. If I don't take the December class, then I'll be dropped from my program and I'll have to reapply again if I want to complete my degree. If this happens, I'll also be required to take three extra classes that weren't required when I originally started the program. And to be honest, I'm okay with all of that. I want to finish this degree...I have come so far...but I am also at peace if for some reason it doesn't work out and I can't finish. I don't want to force it if the timing is not right.

Sometimes other things come along and get in the way of our plans. Sometimes, something big, like Love, gets in the way, and our trajectory is forever altered, our original plans get modified, and who we become is no longer compatible with the dreams we once had. We become different and maybe we learn to dream even bigger dreams than before.

Who knows what lies ahead in my narrative? Only God. Who knows if I'll ever finish this MFA? Only God.

But one thing's for sure.

I'll never stop writing.

French Press

is becoming a habit. I used to only pull it out for special occasions, and then one day I thought, that's silly...why not use it everyday?

I like the little swirly thing the coffee does with the different shades of brown. You don't get that effect with regular drip coffee because the filter catches all the oils from the beans.

Coffee is one of the greatest gifts of God to man. I have needed a lot of it to keep me going this week. Chris is at the gym with the girls and I stayed behind to recharge a bit. This quiet time at home on Saturday mornings is becoming my time to make French press and write and reflect on the week.

This week we have been recovering from the intensity of our house-hunting trip and the girls have been adjusting too. I think we are still all settling back in. Chris and I got home around 11pm on Easter and we hit the ground running on Monday. Our LOC showed up on our doorstep on Monday afternoon, so the rest of this week has been like a return to this time last year, when I was up to my ears in dossier paperwork. The arrival of our LOC launched the last leg of paperwork to get our boy, including another massive stack to be sent to US Immigration and another stack to be sent back to our agency. We are in the final round of getting immigration approval for our boy and also applying for his visa into the country. This process has so many steps and layers, it's hard to keep track, but it's all becoming very real. I mailed out the I-800 and LOC package to immigration on Thursday. I checked and rechecked and re-re-re-re-re-checked that sucker. We can't afford for it to be sent back to us and redone for minor errors. It's meticulous and tedious and it makes my head hurt just thinking about it, but I pray that every box was checked, every "i" dotted and "t" crossed. Whew!

I just got to thinking the other day that I should probably start buying boy clothes. I suppose I've waited because 1) I didn't really know what size to buy for Ren, and 2) It just didn't seem real yet that we'd actually end up with a son at the end of this process. Perhaps this sounds strange, but I've been staring at papers for over a year now, and I think there's still a part of me that wonders if we'll just end up with a big stack of paper at the end of this...a paper child, so to speak. I suppose it's similar to carrying a biological child and feeling like you'll be pregnant forever...that no child will actually come out of this whole deal. But this past week I started to wrap my mind around the reality that there WILL BE a BEAUTIFUL flesh and blood BOY when this is all said and done. And he will need boy clothes...and boy toys. My denial is waning. Move over Barbie, it's time for some planes, trains, and automobiles!

In the midst of regrouping, unpacking, doing laundry, and paper-chasing, we have also been bidding on a house all week. Chris and I have been searching for rental properties as a back up plan, or just as a potentially better plan than buying, but each and every house that we found had "just been rented" to someone else. These properties had also "just been listed," so it seemed like God was closing the door to renting. Long story short, after a long week of praying and counter-offering, we have agreed on a sale price with the seller of this home and we are under contract! We still have some hurdles to get through...the appraisal and the inspection...but we are really excited.

Sometimes I don't like writing "update" type blog posts...it can tend to feel tedious and tiring...but I want to remember everything that's happening with us and how all of these events are transpiring. There's so much more to share, so I hope to write more in the coming days and weeks. That's it for now. Gotta clean house for my Red Tent Dinner tonight!