Taking Comfort in Nonconformity

May 10, 2013 by 26 Comments

rbfmfcomfort

I have a hard time letting go. It’s why I wrote about it for 31 Days.

I find myself thinking I need to twist and turn and conform to some better version of me. Usually in the afterglow of feeling confident. It’s a place I seem to return to often, a conversation with myself like the lines of a play I’ve memorized all my life. My intonation and voice never quit good enough. To me.

H and I wind our way into the center of city life on the wrong side of the road. The chaos and nonconformity makes me feel at home and strangely significant, uniquely fitted among the messy and broken fragments of life.

We walk pressed together under the canopy of an umbrella H holds over us, rain spitting from heaven. But I want to feel it, cold and wet on my face.

The gold chain of my purse hangs diagonal over my black overcoat, white polka dot scarf loosely wrapped around my neck. Rows of black bowler hats idle in front of Harrods waiting to be haled for their paycheck. But we keep walking the familiar path we traveled the same week last May.

Choose the square table for two in the large plate glass window, next to the family speaking English with heavy accents. The family behind us speaks French. Or is it Italian?

“You sit facing the window,” H says, “so you can watch people.”

We order gnocchi and stems of chianti, sipping and savoring time. And suddenly, someone nearby screams a sneeze at an unusually high decibel. And the entire restaurant breaks out in corporate laughter.

Perhaps we find ourselves best in the comfort of what isn’t home.

rbfmfcomfort1

Joining the Five Minute Friday community at Lisa-Jo’s with a snatch of time from our journey through England this week. Pictures from Oxford and surrounding villages. The word prompt is Comfort.

5_minute_friday

Filed Under: Five Minute Friday Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When You Feel Invisible

March 6, 2013 by 56 Comments

rbinvisible

I sit in the passenger seat, wiping my sweatshirt over my streaky sunglasses while H locks up the beach house. He crawls in behind the steering wheel and I push the hollow sigh right out of me. “You know, I didn’t get any photos of the girls,” I tell him.

“She probably wanted it that way,” he says with a grin.

“Yeah,” I shake my head. “You’re probably right.”

A few hours earlier, their four voices trail off into a muffled high pitched giggle as they close the door behind them on the first floor of the beach house. I whip my head around, look to see if she took it with her. But my camera, it’s still lying on the kitchen table in the same place.

My daughter doesn’t want me to take photos of her anymore. It was my last ditch effort to capture her seventeenth birthday celebration with three of her friends. I assured her several times it was okay to take my camera on their beach walk before the four hour car ride back home. Capture photos the way she wants to remember the day. And at least there would be something.

I pick up the camera, carry it outside and wait on the second floor deck watching for the crown of their heads beneath. “Hey girls,” I call out when I see their braided locks. My voice startles their jaunt down the steps under a tree canopy, but they keep on walking.

Not one of them looks up at the sound of my voice.

Am I invisible?

Poised with the camera propped up in my hands, I watch as they cross the street, parading single file up the sandy dune and slowly disappear fanning out on shore. And she never looks back.

rbinvisible1

There is a tendency to think that when you feel invisible it means you’re not valuable. Lately, I’ve spent too much time looking at statistics, worrying about what I should be doing, fixated on turning heads. I’m not my best when I confuse who I am with what I do.

And the truth is I need to feel the weight of being unseen. To realize I care too much about being noticed. Even as a mother.

Because most of what we do, the way we leave our imprint on the world, will never be seen. But God sees. We are not invisible to Him.

As I feel the breeze blowing my ponytail I wonder, is God waiting for me to turn my head and smile in surrender, while I’m trying to harness time and bottle it?

Yeah, I think this is exactly the way He wanted it. No pictures, just memories of watching His girls grow up. Invisible memories made for holy eyes in a sacred spot.

Linking with Jennifer, Jen, Heather,Laura andEmily.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Trading Your Message and Platform For The God-Sized Dream

January 18, 2013 by 48 Comments

rbmessage

“Darn it, I forgot my camera,” I said to my son. I didn’t think I would need it. It looked cloudy and overcast out my dining room window while I was getting ready to take him to school. When I pulled out of the neighborhood and saw the pink backdrop illuminating a field of naked trees I felt God say, “It’s okay, you need to listen; take in what I’m going to show you today without the distraction of your camera.”

Dressed for a morning walk on the beach, I drove with the windows down, pulled in to my regular sandy spot on the way home. I don’t mind the stench of fish anymore. It smells like life to me now; of celebrating His creation. But today, the smell hangs unusually heavy in the air.

When I cross the threshold from parking lot to beach, I interrupt a seagull family reunion on the shoreline. A woman wearing sunglasses and running shoes holding a camera in her hand walks up behind me. “I forgot my real camera,” I tell her, trying to capture the family photo with my phone.

“So this is where the fish are, huh,” she replies.

That’s when I realize it. These aren’t just a few fish strewn on the beach, and this is no family reunion. There are spoils of fish to feed thousands of hungry birds.

rbmessage2

I zigzag my way around the silver carcasses, avoiding their bulging eyes and scarred bodies lying like wounded soldiers in the sand. And suddenly I remember what I said yesterday in my blog post, what He told me a few days earlier:

“We’re not meant to catch every fish, or the eye of every reader, or the heart of every man. Just those he gives us. And that is enough.”

My hand gapes over my mouth and tears drip down my cheek. His message wasn’t finished. He was giving me more.

“There are more than just a few fish to catch Shelly.”

And as I continue down the beach, my eye hooks on a stubby stick pushed in the sand marking a message. Really?  Two love letters in the sand in one week?

rbmessage1

The longer I walk, the smell of life transforms to the putrid smell of death. What I saw still haunts me.

Scattered silver scales and sawed off fins stretched in obscene piles as far as my eye can see; armies of seagulls standing still, yards away from the fish. As if the riches of their morning breakfast transforms to a plate of grief.

“They represent forgotten souls strangled by evil’s bony fingers,” he whispers. “Gasping for breath because no one told them I could save them.”

“The smell is horrible,” a beach walker calls out to me holding her arms open, shoulders pulled up to her ears. “Why do you think this happened, why are there so many fish on the beach? I’ve never seen this happen before.”

I wanted to tell her it is a message from God; He’s trying to get our attention. The smell of our sin reeks. But instead of that I say, “Maybe God wants to feed the birds this way today.”

Am I like one of those seagulls, stuffed full with the riches of His goodness, standing on the sidelines of lost souls while they die without hope? Walking among scattered carnage keeping the message of Truth to myself.

rbmessage3

What do you do when you realize your dream isn’t as much about a book, or a platform, puny words knocked out in a blog post or being known? It’s bigger than that. It’s God-sized.

Because lasting fulfillment isn’t in dollars, approval from others, a golden ticket, and the way favor found you one day, or in the numbers you anxiously seek. It comes from the welcome of those waiting with arms outstretched at heaven’s gate. The ones He sends to you today, to reveal His Kingdom now.

Fulfillment is in the Message, not the method.

Fish need catching. Many will die, pushed up on the shore of life’s frailties before they hear the message of hope. Are you willing to tell them, to be the messenger?

I sat down on a jagged rock, looking into the sun rising slow and shimmering over the water, watching the waves break over the groin, and surrendered. Surrendered perfect prose, saying the right thing, a platform, a book with my name on the spine, friendships, and being known or unknown. To deliver the message. His message to the hopeless from the life He gave me.

rbmessage4

Are you ready to catch some fish with me?

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why I Decided To Stop and I’m Asking You To Join Me

January 10, 2013 by 46 Comments

rbsabbath1

When I opened the door of the china cabinet to carefully pull a platter out among the crystal and silver, the Shabbat candlesticks caught my eye. H picked them out for me while on a trip to Israel a few years ago.

He stopped suddenly on his jaunt through the living room when he saw me holding them up to the low afternoon light filtering through the window making the blue glass translucent. “Hey, why haven’t you used those,” he asked. That’s when I got the idea.

Observe true Sabbath. Every week.

On Saturday, as the sun began its descent, I stopped packing ornaments in attic boxes, put the candlesticks on the island in the kitchen and watched the light flicker toward peace. Left dishes in the sink, vacuum parked next to the empty Christmas tree, sat down and closed my eyes to welcome rest.

And a few hours later, while I lounged in front of the television with my family sans a computer on my lap, I turned to H and admitted, “This is so hard for me.”

Oh I had the lists rolling through my mind of things I could be doing while sitting there: Addressing thank you notes, organizing my editorial calendar, responding to comments and emails, making grocery lists. But I let it all go. To watch the Notebook for the cazillionth time.

“I know,” he said, “But this is good. It’s the first time you’ve been engaged with the family like this in a while.”

His admonition alone makes observing Sabbath worth every minute but it’s about more than just engaging with my family. I’ve noticed it in the summer, during our two week family vacation and over our Christmas break. The way joy and perspective return in seasons of intentional rest and break from routine.

rbsabbath

For most of my life, Sunday ends up being a weaker version of the rest of the week. I take a nap or read a book after church but I’m usually pulled like a magnet to productivity after I’ve had those few hours to rest. And Sabbath isn’t about resting so I can be more productive. It isn’t about me at all.

Sabbath is the beholder of beauty. The binoculars capturing the panoramic view behind the Plexiglas wall of creation, where time stands still long enough to see grains of sand without touching them.

And I’m thinking if this is something hard for me to do, then maybe it’s hard for you too. So I’m proposing the Surrendering to Sabbath Society. A sisterhood of fellow pilgrims hungering for more of Him.

Want to join me? Observe true Sabbath together this year?

And I know heeding one of the Ten Commandments doesn’t save my soul. But it refines my faith in a meditation of unfathomable beauty. Now instead of resting to make it through the next week, I’m working my way toward renewal, with Sabbath as the destination.

Because one day a week, it’s good to take my hands off creation and remember why I create.

rbsabbath3

If you are interested in joining me in the Surrendering to Sabbath Society, email me at shelly@redemptionsbeauty.com to say, “Yes, I’m all in.”

What’s in it for you?

Weekly encouragement and conversation with you about making your Sabbath successful. And I’ll share a quote or idea from one or several of you on my weekend post with a link to your blog if you have one. Let’s do this together, shall we?

Inspiration for this post comes from Chapter 1 of Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner and Chapter 4 of Wonderstruck by Margaret Feinberg. Other reads: Circle of Seasons by Kimberlee Conway Ireton and Rest of God by Mark Buchanan.

My friend Kristin Schell chose Sabbath for her one word this year, then joined with a friend to create 52 Sunday Suppers with family prayers. You have to go check it out!

I’m delighted to join the writing team at Imperfect Prose this year at Emily Wierenga’s place. Today’s writing prompt is Create. Won’t you come over and visit the link up of beautiful writers?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Looking Back to Move Forward

August 15, 2012 by 42 Comments

It was the protein powder. He put my sunflower seeds and blue corn chips in the brown paper bag with handles when he mentions protein powder. It made me think about how I used to make Trader Joes protein shakes with vitamin swirls for Murielle when we lived in Phoenix.

He told me he’s a chef. Asks me if I like to cook.

I said I do. I like to cook. But I don’t like to clean it up afterward, so I find myself making things based on how many pans get dirty. He cooks and cleans up too because they have a two year old at home.

“And he’s a lot of work for my wife,” he says holding dark chocolate, waiting for my empathy. So what age was she when you started making those protein drinks,” he asks.

She was two.

I load frozen cartons into freezer bags in the back of my mini-van like a gypsy shuffling her wares. The chicken nuggets she nimbled watching Blue Clues lay on the top. She still craves them at sixteen.

Louise pulls up beside me. We drive together across the parking lot, share birthday tacos in clothes from the back of our closets. Conversation waves about hormones, her pregnancy after forty and ambivalence about cutting the curls from his golden crown of a year.

Murielle was two the first time I cut her hair, I tell her. Those thin wisps with stray curls hanging past her shoulders, my friend Claire cut them off the first time. Her little frame sat atop phone books, draped in a towel under the orange tree.

Louise excuses herself from the half empty water glasses. I text Murielle, ask her what she’s doing.

A few hours later, I sit next to her, swivel in the black vinyl with my Kindle and reading glasses. We discuss the color in the mirror while Julie watches. I ask my first born if she’s nervous. She smiles and says no. Her toes wiggle in the sandals I convinced her to buy at Macy’s. I’m trying to read the truth under that plastic cape.

When Julie pulls the paddle brush through a tangle in the long shiny, I tell her that Murielle went through a year of combing through matted clumps after long days of swimming when she was in the fourth grade.

“I still get them Mom,” she says.

I didn’t know that.

I spread out the pizza dough I bought from the chef at Trader Joes, paint it with pesto. Harrison pulls himself up on the island across from me, talks to H about his computer. His teenage legs stretch out longer than mine now.

We touch noses, eyes press together blurry when I tell him I like it when he sits here. Remind him that he used to sit in my lap, hunched over in my hands. He giggles.

“Mom, you’re having a day of remembering things about us,” Murielle says as she pours Coke over ice next to him on the island.

I didn’t notice it until she said it. How I prayed for my kids this morning and God answered in the retrieval of childhood snapshots like sitting on the couch lapped with memory books.

Because sometimes we hold dreams so tight they have to be let go in remembering, one clump of moments at a time flying free.

What are you holding tight that needs letting go?

Linking with God Bumps & God Incidences, WLWW, Walk With Him Wednesday, Life in Bloom.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When You Aren’t Ready to Answer . . . Love Waits

August 8, 2012 by 46 Comments

Squawking from a tribe of geese gliding over the lake surface startles me awake from sleep. When I roll over, I hear Him say, “This is a lesson in letting go.” But He’s not talking about the geese.

Over the past twenty-four hours, we’ve been dumping buckets of lake water into toilets for flushing, cooking eggs on the barbecue and catching mice that scurry among the dirty dishes lining the counter in wait.

We’re a few too many days without a shower.

We scoop bowls of chili by the light of two red pillar candles; wash our hands with wet wipes. When we need milk from the refrigerator we make sure not to leave the door open so long the food will get warm inside.

It’s our vacation.

It makes sense to me now, why I felt so strongly about buying that battery powered lantern at Costco before we left home. When the cashier asked me how I was going to use it, I had no idea it would be our main source of light in the aftermath of a storm.

On our second day at the family cottage in Ontario Canada, I answer the phone hanging on the wall with a towel around me to soak up water droplets cascading from my swimsuit.  It’s my uncle, warning us about the storm headed our way in just an hour, in case we were planning to be out in the boat.

Through the kitchen window, I watch kids swim in the lake, a canoe family paddle by, boats pulling tubes of laughing kids in the distance. It’s hard to believe this sunny sky would deceive me.

But the earth’s been holding her breathe so long here, she finally exhales a fury of wind and rain a few hours later. Gales so strong they snap trees like matchsticks, push anchored boats around like toys in a bathtub.  The ground becomes a battlefield of sticks raining from branches.

I couldn’t feel more helpless watching it unfold from my spot at that same window.

And I hear him ask me again, “What do you want me to do for you?” the same way he asked me on the dusty road the day before.  He shows me through the strength of a storm, the smallness of my eternal expectancy.

Because we can pray for rain, anticipating a drink to satisfy thirsty soil, and forget He holds water in the heavens like a balloon waiting to pop. We can ask for a juicy ribeye to satisfy a craving like the Israelites and get a storm of 105 million quail on the front lawn. (Numbers 11:18-20)

He holds our dreams in the palm of his hand outstretched like this too. Do we dare think our dreams, our prayers, larger than his hands? Or too insignificant to utter?

Hours before the storm, I walked along the Bonnechere River, stood on the shore of mirrored trees and said how good it is to be here, surrounded by what looms larger than me.  Remembering that God’s dreams for me, and you, they stand taller than our perspective. And fear keeps life stuck small.

I cannot control the yelp of a flock of geese before the sun sets golden, how fast the wind blows or where it chooses to snap a tree. I don’t determine how or when rain falls, the way sunlight makes a leaf glow. How succulent an ear of corn grows on the stalk or how sweet berries taste on the vine.

A cool breeze kisses my cheeks, head sinks back into the pillow and I do the only thing I can control: pray specific prayers. And while I wait and listen to the silence of letting go, I’m praying that the truth of His words back to me will stick to my feet like yellow pollen falling in spring, leaving an imprint of His glory wherever I go.

 “It’s a frightening thing to open oneself to this strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go of our sane self-control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting it go is part of listening to the silence, and to the Spirit.” Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water

This post is a continuation from Monday’s post, inspired by The Circle Maker written by Mark Batterson.

Also linking with God Bumps and God Incidences, WLWW, Walk With Him Wednesday.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Letting Go Of The Right To Be Loved

July 19, 2012 by 65 Comments

Its early morning on the island, when the light casts shadow on marsh grass and egrets stand stick footed, frozen in stillness.  We walk side-by-side, father and daughter down the causeway before applying suntan lotion on sandy beach towels.

We’ve only done this once before, had this time together alone at the beach and I can tell by the pace he keeps, the smile on his face, there is joy to do this with me. We’ve never settled into being comfortable with this kind of being alone. Circumstances separate us when I am just three years old. How do you get to know your father in just one week over the summer?

I’ve never escaped the grief of what divorce does to a family. Maybe I never will.

As we talk about kids and work, his hobbies, thoughts about retirement, he says he probably should’ve never been a father, that he isn’t very good at it. And maybe for him, that was an apology of sorts for not being there for me in the way he could’ve been if things were different.

But when he said it, what I heard was this: You should have never been born because your presence makes me feel like a failure. And I opened my fist full of rights to be loved by a father that day and let those seeds blow into the wind and scatter on the sticky mud.  Because I don’t want to be a reminder of failure to anyone.

There are different types of failures. The first isn’t necessarily the sin-type of failure. Rather, this is when we fail to live up to some expectation we have of the way things ought to be  . . . .  the thing about this type of failure, whether real or perceived, is that it reminds me of my own limits and takes me to a place of recognizing I can’t make this life work the way I want, no matter how noble or worthy or good my intentions. ~Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl

And being a daughter to a father that says he never should’ve been one, feels like pushing a broken down car on a hot day. It takes effort and time to get to the town of relationship and sometimes you just give up and walk away because the distance seems overwhelming.

That doesn’t mean your heart stops beating love in trying to make it work, you just let go of the expectation that it’s going to be something other than what it is.

It turns out Jesus, he stood there holding the key outstretched in his scarred hand the whole time. He walked on the road that day with my father and I. Stood in the place between my expectations and reality, the wounded, empty place that neither one of us can fill for each other.

The hard shell of entitlement to be loved by a parent, it cracked off me and washed away in the tide that drifted in to fill the empty places full. And just like that water coming in and going out, His love is steady and sure, isn’t limited or shifted by our failures or good intentions as a father and daughter.

The disparity between expectation and reality, it’s Jesus.

Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman inspires this post; Chapter 16 entitled Safe, Even in Failure. I’m giving a copy away before I leave on my vacation because it’s just that good. Leave a comment on the blog and I’ll add your name to the drawing on Friday.

 Linking with Life in Bloom and Thought Provoking Thursday.

   

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts