Everyday Life: Sing

Sometimes it gets all murky.

Why I come here and open the flood gate to my heart waters, sharing pieces of life I'd maybe have trouble finding words for if we were in person enjoying a morning together beneath sun while watching little ones play in the still-green grass of late August.

Why I open white pages and scrawl out our story, pushing publish without not knowing who exactly is reading our open-book life.

Why I ever thought anyone would want to come into this space and linger for a few moments of the day.

Why I open myself to the criticisms and opinions and allow voices that aren't always kind a microphone of sorts.

I go through these waters every so often when life starts swirling and churning and kicking up sands and muck. In fact, there's been so much muck and mud swirling and churning that its kind of drown out my voice and let me quiet here and well everywhere.

Yesterday a good friend, a soul friend, emailed sharing much of these same heart aches and growing pains that stir when it comes to writing our lives and stories onto pages for others to read and share.

She called it something along the lines of existentialism about blogging, which made me laugh, too, amid the seriousness of this creative pondering and I immediately thought of a song I used to sing my heart out to while driving -- Straylight Run's Existentialism on Prom Night. And as I ruminated on her words and other friends' words, I began making a playlist because I'm always so influenced and motivated and freed by music.

In the murkiness, the words from friends and the words in song were just what I needed to sit in stillness and let all of the sediment fall to the bottom around my feet until the water started getting clearer again:

"Sing with your head up,
with your eyes closed
not because you love the song
but because you love to sing."
{Copeland}

As I quite literally sang, all those whys I was asking and other people often ask me -- all the sediment -- fell to the bottom around my feet -- leaving clear water in their settling.

While I do sing because I love the song

I sing mostly because I love to sing.

And I think most of the time

we all just need to throw our heads back, close our eyes

and sing.

{If you're feeling like you might need a little encouragement to sing your passion, you can listen to my playlist on Spotify for free.}

Bigger Picture Moments: The Question I don't Know How to Answer

Editor's Note November 2012: If you are looking for information on restoring your digestive system, please know that The Body Ecology Diet helped me, but it didn't completely restore my health. My body actually stalled out on the the diet, and I needed to go off it to heal other parts of my body. You can read about my last steps in healing by clicking here. 

It's the question I don't know how to answer.

When we walk into church and we're greeted by faces familiar with the prayer requests.

Or when I workout at my club after a long stretch of vacation.

In responding to emails

texts

phone calls

greetings.

"How are you?"

And the truth is I know.

But I don't know.

I am better, yes.

But I'm not better.

I'm well.

But I'm not totally well -- totally recovered from the monstrosity of a gut flora imbalance that not only wreaked havoc on my digestive tract but also my mind, my emotions, my vitality, my energy and my sense of mental and even physical, yes, physical balance.

I've healed in so many beautiful ways, and I'm better.

But I'm not.

Yet.

And I keep saying yet.

Because, honestly, I'm still waiting for the restoration, for the full healing to sweep over my body.

And that's funny because I haven't exactly known what it is that's still not right other than something is still not right. I've been walking around not completely sure of what's out of balance other than the obvious smattering of seemingly unrelated physical persistence of feeling slightly off kilter in stance coupled with headaches and food sensitivities and other abnormal but mostly boring and mild annoyances.

Until I wasn't.

Monday afternoon, a little call from my primary care physician with the results of an easy saliva hormone test gives name and precise diagnosis to what I've been long been told is a hormone imbalance of some sort.

The call sent me into a tailspin of memories as we talked about this being both the likely cause of the two miscarriages last fall and the likely cause of all my latest ailments, too.

But it's fixable, he said. There are creams, shots.

I don't want that kind of fix.

I'm not a throw-a-patch-over-the-hole-in-the-tire kind of girl; I'm a find-the-stretch-of-road-where-my-car-ran-over-the-nail kind of fixer who wants to clean up the box that spilled so it doesn't keep happening.

And that's a lot harder because it's not just a matter of finding someone who understands my body in that kind of detail; it's money, time, energy and effort {on repeat}, all of which are resources that have dwindled significantly during these past nine months of focused healing.

I tossed myself into bed Monday evening completely overwhelmed at the thought of starting fresh with this new but actually old health issue and resigned to prayer and reading my Bible when Jesus seemed to ask me the question I've kind of come to dread: the old "how are you?" but in Jesus speak.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burnt out on religion?"

Except, in that moment, I didn't hesitate like I normally do when asked, filtering through what I want to say and what I ought to say and what would be short but complete enough to be honest and genuine.

Instead I just breathed out what I really felt, what I've really been feeling.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. And yes.

"Come to me, and I will give you rest." {Matthew 11:28}

Haven't I come so many times already? I asked.

My morning devotion came to my mind immediately, a barely audible whisper reminder.

"You have not because you ask not." {James 4:2} ... which was followed by "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find." {Matthew 7:7}

And in the stillness of confession, of answering the question to which I'm always struggling to find the perfect reply, I realized that maybe it's not so much about finding the right answer but finding the rest that allows me to say no matter the circumstance

that even though I'm well

but not totally well

 it is well

so very well

with my soul.


Each Thursday we come together to share the harvest of intentional living through sharing a piece of life gleaned: a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week. Link up your gleaned moment this week at Jade's!

Link your moment at Jade's this week!