In the dying of the year

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It has been a grey and heartsore kind of day. This afternoon, we went to visit my grandma in the home where she now lives. She's a shell of who she used to be, and it breaks my heart to see her and the women she is surrounded by. Dementia is vicious and insidious. It steals the people you love from before your eyes, leaving behind a ghost of who they used to be. My grandma used to be capable and loving, and a voracious reader. She loved cooking and baking, and I was so looking forward to having her share the recipes and secrets that had to wait until I was old enough. Now, she cannot hold a cup of tea in her hands without someone supporting her, and even then, she cannot remember what she is supposed to do with it. She won't eat or drink of her own volition, because in her mind, she has only just eaten. At one point today, one of the women got too hot and stripped off her shirt and bra. I looked around for a carer, and another woman told me off for looking around because she wasn't talking about me. The confusion and hopelessness are palpable. 

I feel so bruised and vulnerable. It seems that 2012 has thoroughly kicked my butt. My heart has been broken again and again, for loving God and His people and His world. It seems I prophesied better than I knew when I named this blog. I chose 'love' as my one word for this year, and I've still barely scratched the surface of what that means. I might love well, but I am so very bad at being loved. Maybe that means I don't actually know love that well at all? This could become either very existential or very convoluted, so I will stop. The idea of one word for the year was never to build a rod for your back, but to lean into God and see your life changed by Him, through living intentionally and with commitment. All I have learned of love is that my heart is not my own. In giving it intentionally to Him, I have given permission for Him to direct my passions and my feet. I want to live His heart for the world, and this world is hurting and that means my heart hurts too. Days like today leave my heart physically aching in my chest. 

I do not know very much about what next year will bring. A still small voice whispers that it is the year when everything changes, but guessing on what that means probably will not yield much in the way of revelation. I could probably guess until the end of days and still get it wrong.

I love the Agatha Christie quotation at the top of this post. That is what I want to speak into my life. Hurting and broken I might be, but I am alive in the world where my Saviour walked. I know Him a little, and He knows all of me - the good, the bad, the ugly, the hidden. I think we are walking in momentous days, and it is of no use to wish that this lot had fallen to someone else. We must simply live the days we have been given, and do what we can with them. (As if there were anything simple about that.) We do what we can, we offer our loaves and fishes, and then watch as He makes a miracle. 

Leaving the ivory tower

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I am trying not to be afraid of the blank page, and I am trying to do things that bring life. Writing and reading are both life-practices, and I’m doing a little better with one than the other. Reading is a lot less vulnerable – I can react and process in the quiet of my mind, and I can learn things, safe inside my ivory tower.

I think Jesus asks more, though. I don’t think He’s the biggest fan of ivory towers.

There’s no point reading a book about intercession if I’m not going to engage with the call to intercede. There’s no point reading (and breaking my heart over) Half the Sky and not beginning to act. You can’t read about becoming the ‘you’ God intended, nod over all the wisdom, and then not act. You can’t read about overcoming an eating disorder and pretend you’re not still fighting your own.

I can while away the hours of my life by watching Grey’s Anatomy or playing on pinterest [both of which are fine in moderation, right?] or I can try and be brave and get vulnerable and meet new people (how?!) and live the life of intentional, incarnational community that I dream about. I can read all the Kathy Escobar and Jen Hatmaker and Sarah Bessey and Ann Voskamp and Danielle Strickland I like, but at some stage I have to get off my butt and do something and not just sit in coffee shops with the books and the blogs.

Someone somewhere once said that part of growing up is leaving the coffee shop and actually doing the things that for so long you have talked and dreamt about with grand idealism. There are stories to be lived and told, with all their disappointment and hurt and hard work and hope and glory and Kingdom. I’m sick of disqualifying myself and seeing only my inadequacies and brokenness. While I might be inadequate and broken, my King is not. His strength is made perfect in our weakness, and it is only Christ in us that gives us hope of glory. Inasmuch as this is about me leaving the coffee shop and doing something, the beautiful paradox is that really, it’s all about Him. 

Broken Hallelujah

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The lesson about the beauty of brokenness is one I am trying to get into my bones. But my word, it does not come easy. Offering Him a broken heart, a broken body, a broken hallelujah seems poor recompense for the grace and mercy He pours out, but that is all I have to give.

My latest relapse into anorexia made it so hard to praise Him, to sing my hallelujah. I pretended for months that I was fine, and then had to fight so hard to eat when I stopped pretending. All that pretending and fighting absorbed everything, and it was a miracle I made it out of bed every day. It was a miracle every time I made it to work. All my fight went into trying to eat one meal, two meals, three meals a day. I'm still not back, and it's such a bitter thing. I hate it.

This time around, I realised that I starve my body when my heart is love-starved. It is a silent, desperate cry for love, but so often, no one notices anyway. I sometimes manage to remember that He sees and knows and loves, but our invisible God has invisible arms and how is that supposed to work when a girl just wants to be held and loved? 

In refusing to nourish my body, I lost the ability to recognise or receive the goodness of God. He became insubstantial and far-off, and the familiar litany of lies had a field day. The labels that I slap all over myself got so numerous that they were all I could see. Broken/ugly/unloved/unlovable/invisible/voiceless/unworthy/not enough... And I could continue ad nauseam.

A shift began to happen, though. My manager took off her manager-hat and asked me how I was and helped me find a mentor. (We won't mention the fact that God told me to ask C about being my mentor months ago.) Through some Holy Spirit mystery/mischief I was able to strip off my mask the first time we met up. The second time we met, we both ended up crying in the corner of the pub. There is a redemption happening here, even as I was completely redeemed by Love Incarnate 2000 years ago. 

I am standing bare before my Daddy in full acknowledgement of my brokenness, and learning to sing out that broken hallelujah again. I am in pursuit of the wholeness He gifts, and I am walking on holy ground. This advent season is one of waiting and dreaming and learning, and there is something new coming. I am reading Isaiah and listening for His whispers and writing a journal of gratitude and trying to return to my first and greatest Love. A broken hallelujah seems like a poor offering for Him, but it is all I have to give.

Linking with Prodigal and SheLoves today.