Always, We Begin Again

I have been on a journey lately (well, by lately, I mean my entire life with actual understanding of the journey and a precision in focus the last 2-3 years). This journey has been the journey of discovering me; experiencing me; being me. To some of you this idea of discovering yourself may sound foreign or unnecessary or un-relatable. And that's ok. For me? It is everything.

I grew up in an environment of expectations. Unspoken (and sometimes spoken) rules and standards. There were certain ways you did things, and that was how they were done. There were certain expectations of what life looked like, and that's how you lived. In the midst of this environment, my soul encountered deep tragedy early on. My response to that tragedy has been self protection. And self protection took root in me becoming what I thought everyone wanted me to be, and killing/hiding/suppressing the parts of me that didn't fit the mold.

I sought to be the best at everything I did. During my partying days, I was the hardest partier. When I decided to follow Jesus, I became the most hard-core Christian (which for real... let's diagnose EVERYTHING wrong with that concept and understanding... the most "hard-core Christian?" What does that even mean?! here's what it meant to me ------>). There was a mold of what it meant to be a Christian. What it looked like. How you acted. What you did. In the culture I came to know Jesus it looked something like this: I quit drinking, smoking, swearing, using drugs. Sexuality quit existing. Hang outs became prayer meetings, worship sessions, bible studies, evangelism events. I read my Bible everyday, memorized Scripture, and knew my theology and could debate others theological. I stood up for the gospel in class. But in this I lost who I was.

Time out. Before you get all up in my business with your "But the Bible says we are to die to ourselves to gain Christ" business, let me just say YES I KNOW THAT. And yet held tight with that tension is that "Before I was formed, he knew me" and "I am fearfully and wonderfully made". It's this idea that Peter and Paul both died to themselves, but their journeys looked different because of WHO THEY WERE. I became what I thought I was supposed to be, and in that lost who I was...who I am. Then more tragedy and devastations came, and eventually I shut off completely.

My weight is the physical manifestation of this reality. A few months ago I was talking with Jesus about weight loss and one of the things he said to me in response to my heart was that it's going to take a while because this is a holistic journey. You see, I focus on weight loss at a physical level. But God is restoring me holistically in this journey. This is the journey of taking back what I shut off. What I lost. What I let go of but should have held on to. This is the journey of Annie. This is the journey of Andrea.  This is the journey of fullness and becoming me. And it's going to take time.

I am always so quick to want to get to the finish line. I rush everything. I want to arrive before I've even left. But in this process God is slowing me down to teach me. To show me. To help me enjoy me.

Always, we begin again.

I feel like I'm starting over today. But the truth is, we are starting over in each moment. Each moment of life is a moment pregnant with newness. I am restructuring my life and how I view and see things; how I dream and go after the world. I am learning to stop and smell the roses. I am learning to enjoy each moment. In that, I am learning to embrace and accept myself as I am in this moment. My tendency is to focus on where I am going (my top strengths on Strengthsfinders and Futuristic and Strategic...so this is like breathing to me).  And in that tendency I tend to see what I want and where I want to get to and focus on that and become disappointed when today I'm not in that, rather than stepping back and celebrating and acknowledging where I am today and basking in the glorious moment that is now; the glorious me that is now; this moment in time I will never get again.

There is so much to learn from rivers. Constantly flowing.

This is not where I intended to go with this post. I was going to write about the passions and emotions I have discovered and how I'm learning to listen to my desires to understand more of who I am and how I tick. And that post will probably come. Perhaps even later tonight. Perhaps next week. Perhaps over the course of my life. But this is where this post went, and that's ok.

Until next time, Know you are loved and valued and cherished and treasured and wanted and desired for no other reason than you are you.

I love you.

The Space In Between

I hate in betweens. I know they are good and have purpose. But I don't like them. I don't like the tension they create, the back and forth of it all.

It's like seasons. I like summer. I like fall. I like winter. I don't like the in between days of the seasons...where it snows for two days and then disappears into 70 degree weather. Make up your mind weather. Are we wearing shorts or is it time for the boots to come out?! And I don't like spring. I know that sounds crazy, because I should like spring, right? That's when new things are born, we come out of the rest and slumber of winter and reawaken into the beauty of nature and creation.

Maybe the deeper truth is I don't like change. And yet if things didn't change I would get so bored. Ugh, I am a walking paradox. Think about it. I don't like the cold frigid winters, or the muddy turmoil of the thawing into spring. Yet (and please know you can all quote me and remind me of this when i'm back in the Minnesota winter) sunny and 70 all year gets boring!

I am a walking contradiction. I don't like change, yet I love new things. I value security and steadiness and yet am not fully me if I'm not laying it all on the line and going after bigger, deeper things.

The in betweens prepare us right? They prepare us for what is next. The warn us of what's coming. They beckon us to celebrate what is and has been as we prepare to move forward into what is next.

I think what I don't like in the in betweens is the loss. Even though it's preparing you for a new season and that is exciting, there is still the loss of the old season.

It's like Starbucks--I love that Christmas means peppermint mochas, but it also means the retirement of the pumpkin spice latte (yes I know you can technically order this all year round, but I don't... I roll with the seasons). Or it's like an expectant mother. Gone are the full nights of sleep. And while it's preparing you for post-baby, the baby isn't there yet... it's a sleepless night because of the discomfort of the end of the in between season... you're living out the reality of the next season while still waiting on the promise of the little one to arrive.

Ugh the in betweens. Perhaps I'm bad at them because I lack patience. I'm always wanting to get to the next thing, to move forward, to master the season or training or learning and move forward. But perhaps the training to be mastered in the in between is that things constantly change and we have to learn to roll with the change.

I feel like with my personal life I have been sitting in an in between for quite some time. And I feel strongly that the time has come to step out of the in between and move forward into this next season. But it means things are going to change. And it means things I valued in the season are going to be lost. I can't step into the next season still living the way I do in this one. I can't have a total physical transformation and not change what life looks like today... otherwise it would already be happening.
I have to say good-bye to what I've known and who I've been so that I can step into what I know and who I am.

I don't know what I look like on the other side of this journey. I don't know what life holds on the other side of this journey. I just know I cannot stay here in this place any longer.

It's time to move forward...into a new in between... out of the old in between.

It's everything I want...and everything I fear. All at the same time.

I'm stepping into love. I'm stepping into me. And letting go of all I've known.

A Writer's/Prophet's Wrestle.

I shouldn't be typing this blog right now. I should be working on my school work. I should be working on my organization assessment. I should be doing a lot of things. But truthfully, I want to bitch a little instead. That's not even true. I don't want to bitch. I want to spill my heart on canvas. I want to spill my heart and what I just realized about myself, even though it exposes so much in me that I long to keep disclosed, from being revealed. Because I want to be perfect. I want to appear perfect. I want to do and say the right things. I want to keep everyone happy always. But that is not a reality in life. That is unhealthy. That is a by-product of being raised in a co-dependent environment, where the lie was implanted deep within me that as long as everyone was happy and everything was smooth I would be ok. But you know what? That has a price-tag on it too. And that price tag is me. And I am done paying the price for others happiness with rejection of myself: my wants, my needs, my feelings, my emotions, my reality, my experience.

I think what's hard is it's a fine line right? Like, I don't want to become this hard hearted mega bitch who disregards others. No. That's not the point at all.

The point is, I want to learn how to really love and embrace me and accept the deep pits of who I am and how I feel while still fully loving others.

My weakness and one reason I call myself a shitty prophet is that I care SO MUCH about the opinions and perspectives of others, because I genuinely love people and want them to be happy. But the second someone else's wants take precedence over my needs, a dangerous line has been crossed.

I'm not sure why I just went on that ramble, but I'm going to leave it there. Raw and exposed. Shitty prophet style. Because maybe by exposing my mess and chaos and wrestle you can find peace and confidence in yours.

Do you want to know why being a prophet is so hard for me? At least today's reason? Because I love wrapping things up with neat bows. I love order. No no, that's not the right word. I love compartmentalizing. I love it. I love everything to have its place and to not be messy. But you know what? LIFE IS MESSY

And do you want to know why I like it that way? BECAUSE THERE IS FALSE SAFETY IN THAT. I get a sense of safety from everything having its place. But it's false safety because I was born and created to take risks. Big risks. And to get messy and play and explore. And yet this need for safety hinders me at times because I have to choose: safety that breeds contentment that births parts of my soul falling asleep or Risk, that causes me to confront and address every lingering fear inside of me, that causes me to cut parts of my soul (that yes produce growth and health, but the cut fucking hurts more than anything in that moment), that causes me to stretch myself and go beyond myself and risk every safety and security measure I have known to protect myself with.

Self protection man. Ugh that's a weakness I possess. And I think sometimes in the Christian world we like to call self protection "wisdom" or " guarding our hearts" or "self control". And while wisdom, heart guarding and self control are good, they are NOT self protection. We are called to be vulnerable. Self protection is not vulnerable. We are called to love. Self protection does not love... it seeks self. It seeks me. We are called to love ourselves, but there is a difference between loving myself and protecting myself. I'm tired you guys. I'm tired of constantly being on guard. I'm so tired. And yet I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid to really love with complete abandon. I'm so afraid to press into my dreams because it means risking EVERYTHING.

By why hold on to what I cannot keep?

Oh, and I am so tired of the Christianese of it all. "Just have faith" "Just trust God". Yeah. I get it. But as Peter Steinke writes in his book "How Your Church Family Works" " Those who insist on a 'pure' faith unstained by human emotionality make the denial of reality a condition of faith."

Here's the deal. I can trust God and be scared shitless and want to run away all at the same time. I can have faith in Jesus and yet holistically and authentically acknowledge every part of me that resists him that moment. I can want to run full steam into every dream I have and yet be aware of how afraid I am of everything going wrong and falling flat on my face. I can choose to jump off the cliff in faith and yet hold tight that if I somehow don't manage to fly in that moment, there is a good chance that I'm going to  die. I can follow Jesus and yet realistically acknowledge that while I am willing to pay the cost, I'm aware it may completely destroy me.

I don't like addressing hard truths with people. Especially when I know they just don't understand them.  Because let's get real. The human condition when we don't understand is to either reject what's presented or turn on the one presenting it.

The call of a prophet is this: To hold out vulnerably exposed the precious heart God has given you, repeatedly hoping someone picks it up and celebrating when they do with great joy. Yet experiencing more often than not the deep rejection of the things found in the heart, and in turn then the rejection of the messenger.

And yet for me, to not fully expose my heart with what God has put there is to kill myself before you get a chance to. That's a dangerous line. Because in that I destroy myself, I hinder what God wants to do in my life, and I make a poor assumption about you--that you are going to reject my heart/message, reject God, and/or reject me. What a horrible thing right? Isn't that the very thing I fear? So in protecting myself, I do the very thing to you that I don't want you to do to me. That's horrible. And yet let's get real. Isn't that the by-product of fear in all of us?

You want to know why I don't like being a prophet? Because more than anything it makes me get real with the condition of my own heart. And my heart, while full of beauty, has a bunch of ugly shit that needs to get worked out. But you know what I love about shit? It's the best fertilizer for growth. But when dealing with it... it's still shit. It still smells. It's still disgusting. It still has the potential to spread disease and health issues. And yet I enter my shit and expose it with the hopes that it really will turn out to be fertilizer and will grow a crop of beauty.

Why "The Shitty Prophet"

One of the obscure dreams I've held in my heart for a long time is to publish a book entitled "The Shitty Prophets", which would be a book comprised of stories of encountering God in the most unthought of and unimaginable places in the most not what you would expect ways.

Today when I woke up I thought "What am I waiting for? Permission to entitle something 'shitty'? Permission to fully be me and express my worldview and thoughts? Someone to tell me it's ok to be who I am and say what I think, how I think it and see it?" Because this is my life. My life is a series of God showing up in all of the places that religion says he won't go in ways it says he won't operate. It's the story of God speaking to me and calling me when I was drunk and high on cocaine and pot. It's him using a summer of binge drinking to heal my soul. It's God's pursuing love encompassing me in the places that if I was God I wouldn't go.

Essentially, the premise for this blog is that I am the worst person God could call to be his ambassador. Seriously. I just don't fit the stereotypical mold. And yet I'm called. And while I grumble and bitch and moan about it from time to time, and while I don't walk it perfectly, I have indeed accepted the call to follow God anyplace. And I've given God my entire heart.

So this blog will be my stories. Some crazy ones. Some raw, intimate, real ones. Some theological ramblings and musings. And the space in between. Whoever you are reading this, if you decided to come along for the ride, I hope you enjoy it. But moreso, I hope you encounter God through it.