On letting go.

There are so many cliches on this subject that it almost feels unnecessary to write about it, but there are so many of them for a reason--we all need to let go of something every once and awhile. I have been thinking about this concept quite a bit lately and what it means for my life at this time, in this space. Let go. Of what? Bad relationships? Perfectionism? My dreams for the future?

All I know is that is has been gnawing at me, tugging on my heart and my head in small ways that have been difficult for me to acknowledge. Mostly this was because I didn't know what it was that I was supposed to be letting go of, and I was scared of what it would mean for me if I did. We all know that letting go is hard, and there are so many valid reasons for this. We don't like the unknown, for one. But what if the unknown is better than the known? What if by letting go we are actually latching on to something instead?

I have struggled with depression my whole life. It is familiar to me, almost comforting even. There is something about my sadness that is very grounding in its nature, letting me know who I am and how I feel, however miserable that may be. And I like it. I like the predictability of my depression, the constancy of it. I like knowing how I feel and what to expect and how to view myself. It's comfortable. It is safe. It's easy. And in some dysfunctional way it feels right, more true to the unassuming reality I want to believe in order to stay in my box. But it's not accurate.

I am a beautiful, strong woman. I have gifts and talents, compassion to offer the world. But I'm scared. I'm scared that I'm being too confident, too hopeful in the future that I have planned for myself. I'm terrified to let go of the identity that I spent 24 years carefully protecting. The identity that was defined by who I thought I was, rather than who I was not. And let me tell you what I am not--I am not weak, shallow, or unworthy of love. I am vibrant, full of life and joy and laughter and ready to embrace these qualities as TRUTH. This doesn't mean that I don't have my days of sadness, my moments of doubt in myself and the people around me. What it does mean is that I am willingly letting go in order to hold on--to hold on to hope, goodness, and the knowledge that this world is waiting for everything I was born to be.

I want to practice letting go in order to hold on. Releasing the things that are toxic, the doubts that threaten to take me over, the shadow of my old self. It's not easy. It's uncomfortable. It feels like maybe I'm doing something wrong by willingly letting all this light into my soul. But if I can so easily believe the dark, what is stopping me from doing the same with its counterpart? If I am going to anchor my heart somewhere, it better be a place that will be able to weather the storm. Because the waves will come, and at times they may seem higher than what we can manage. But if we can latch on to the belief that we are worth fighting for and that we are capable of the fight, than the only thing that will sink are our doubts.

 Let go. Hold on. Allow yourself the opportunity to experience the best things in life, the ones that require vulnerability and courage. There will be storms. There will be wreckage. But there will also be a lighthouse to guide you through because you lit it yourself. You may not make it right away, and it may feel better to turn back. But the darkness does not define the light--you do.

Let's risk the ocean. There's only grace.

Unconditional confidence.

“God would seem to be too occupied in being unable to take His eyes off of us to spend any time raising an eyebrow in disapproval.” 
--Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart

I want to be loved. Actually, I want to be known and loved, and we all know these are two very different things. There are parts of me I don't like. Parts of me that seem too dark, that I try to hide from others. I am guarded. I will share absolutely anything with you about my life, but there is a difference between knowing someone and knowing them.

Sometimes, I look at the people in my life and I think, "If they really knew". If they really knew who was under here, who I was at my core, they would run. I feel that I am unlovable. That the parts of me that are accepted are just some misrepresentation of myself that others are tricked into liking. That I could never be enough, will never be enough, just as I am. 

But then I look at the people in my life that I love, who I have loved over the years. I look at the people I have helped, and who have helped me. Some of them are ordinary by the world's standards, but are still extraordinary to me. And then some of them are extraordinary by the world's standards, but still have ordinary problems underneath. Who decides what is extraordinary anyway? And how do I see beauty in so many others but fail to see it in myself? What makes me so extraordinarily ordinary compared to everyone else? 

But seriously. When someone says they love you, why is it our immediate reaction to assume that there is some SECRET PART of us that they could not POSSIBLY LOVE and have somehow NOT SEEN in the millions of years that they have known us? We must be really good actors. Good for us. I'm not sure how that works out in the end though, when our friends do see those parts of us and SURPRISE--they don't take their love back.

Or maybe, like me, you have people who have rejected you in the midst of a hard season. People who have told you that you are, in fact, not enough. That you are too messy, too much to be loved. And it has stuck with you. It's hard to shake, that feeling that you are broken, not together enough to be accepted by the ones who are important to you. There will always be those people, the ones that make us feel small, that reinforce the lies we want to believe about ourselves so that we can say--SEE? I told you so. 

I'd like to argue that those people are not truth-tellers. That there are parts of them that they are afraid of, that they don't want to be reminded of, that they can only encounter with judgement as a way of protecting themselves. The truth is that we are all imperfect. Who said that means we aren't valuable?

I have a friend who once said  he had unconditional confidence in my goodness. I love that. Unconditional confidence. That no matter what I did or how I screwed up, it did not change his knowledge of who he knew me to be. That I did not have to be defined by my failures or my successes, that I was worthy right were I was, in the middle of my mess. 

Believe the people who believe in you. The ones who know who you are when you can't remember anymore, who refuse to give into your very convincing argument that you are not, in fact good enough. But more than this, believe in yourself. Believe in yourself because you aren't doing anyone any favors by living in the shadow of all that you are. And you ARE so much to this world. You have so much to offer just by being you, right where you are. 

Researcher Brené Brown says, "Until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart." As much as I don't like to admit it, I think this is true. It is necessary for us to learn to love and accept ourselves if we are going to make a life out of loving and accepting others. To continue to reject our positive qualities, the gifts we have been blessed with, the fact that we are enough--it is to live a lie, and there is no honor in that.

So step into the light. Embrace the truth of who you are, living with unconditional confidence in your own goodness. Let yourself be celebrated by the world because after all, you are the only one we've got.

Redeeming and being redeemed.

I tend to break a lot of things. I don't know if it's habit or a brain deficiency or just plain clumsiness, but it certainly is a flaw. My family and housemates are patient with me. Though they surely cringe inside when they hear the familiar shattering, they don't seem to mind too much. We all have the things we forgive in others, and I'd like to think this is one of mine.

Usually, you throw something away once it's broken. But every once and awhile there'll be something that you cherish--something that holds great meaning that you can't seem to let go of. So you get out the super glue and hope for the best. If you are lucky, you will be able to find all the pieces and put them back together. Some pieces may be beyond repair, and you have to do the best you can with what is left. Either way, you put great effort into mending the beloved object, and you are so thankful that you are able to redeem the essence of what it was that you don't mind the sight of cracks or the fact that it may never be perfect again. It's yours and you love it, cracks and all.

Sometimes I feel like I have been pieced back together like this. I have been broken, shattered against the realities of a careless world. My jagged edges have been glued together with all sorts of messy bandages, some which have worked better than others. I have grown and changed and rearranged the parts of who I am, sometimes trading the pieces, sometimes leaving them behind. And so here I am--art in the making, a perfect imperfection that doesn't always make sense.

Often, we feel as though our pieces are barely holding together, threatening to fly apart under the pressure of living. Particularly in our twenties. In these years, everything is changing all the time everywhere, everyday. It's as if the universe got too excited and couldn't wait for the rest of us to catch up. It's quite uncomfortable and frightening, realizing that we are not the people we thought we would be at this time. Realizing that control seems out of our grasp, and the firm hold we felt we had on who were and what we knew of the world were the first things to go.  The pieces are there but that's just what they are--pieces.

But: "There is a crack in everything---that's how the light gets in." 

I am certain that if there is one thing that this life is about it is redeeming and being redeemed. We need our pieces,  all of them, to be made whole. We are a mosaic of experiences, each important in forming who we are and who we will be. And we are healing. We have our cracks, our rugged edges and even the pieces we aren't sure will fit. There are days we walk through the fire, sure we will be reduced to ashes by the challenges that seem too difficult to bear. But we aren't. We are stronger. We are ourselves yet so clearly changed, and we wonder at the process of it all.

And so we move forward, broken, healed, and beautifully redeemed.

The lifer.

Working at Mont Lawn Camp is the hardest job you will ever love. Many people come in and out summer after summer, but the ones who stay are truly special at heart. We call these people "lifers"--and my beautiful friend Danielle Goncalves is certainly one of them.

Danielle has worked at MLC for eight summers. I cannot think of anyone else who loves our inner-city kids more than she does. She has seen campers grow up into counselors, into adults who are making a difference in the world. These kids are family to her, and they know it. They know she cares for them, they know she is there for the long run. They know they can count on her--she never fails to be gracious, compassionate, and accepting of who they are, where they are. She is passionate and committed, proving to her campers that there is nothing they could do that would ever make her give up on them. 

Because of how much she loves and believes in camp, Danielle has brought many people into the MLC family through the years. Her husband Isaac is one of them. After getting married (at camp of course), they moved to New York to begin Mont Lawn City Camp--a new program that serves the community year-round. Though they have faced many obstacles, God has proved faithful over and over again within their ministry and life. Their vision for this program is full of hope and light--and despite discouragements they have never turned back. In fact, their hard work has proven fruitful, as they are about to open a community youth center in the South Bronx this year. I know without a doubt that they will continue to bless the kids and families within this borough, and absolutely cannot wait to see what God has in store.

As if she does not already have enough on her plate, Danielle is also getting her Masters in Clinical Social Work. I am beyond proud of her! Though she hesitated to become a social worker, her special gifting with children and her heart for this population prompted her to apply and be accepted to this strenuous program. It is such a privilege to hear Danielle talk about what she is learning and the kids that she gets to work with day in and out. She puts everything she has into her work, and her love and respect for those she serves is incredibly evident. I know that the kids can feel that love, and I am confident she is a blessing in every setting that she encounters. 

I also have the great honor of calling Danielle my friend. Throughout my four summers at camp, Danielle and I would meet early in the mornings by the lake for coffee and prayer. These are some of my dearest memories from MLC, ones that I constantly refer to when I need encouragement or reminders of God's love. We have been through so much together, and she has never let me walk through the darkness alone. Holding my hand and my heart, she patiently sat with me through some of my hardest moments, loving me through the pain and standing with me on the journey. She is an irreplaceable part of my life, and I could not love her more.

Danielle is an MLC lifer--but she is also my lifelong friend. I know that no matter where we are or what is going on, she will always be there with a cup of coffee and a ready prayer. It's so exciting to think that I will be moving to NYC and get to live life with her once more, and the
thought of getting to be a part of Mont Lawn City Camp as a volunteer brings so much joy to my  heart. I love you Danielle!!! Thank you for being a lifer.

beauty bought with pain.

"The joy and beauty of freedom and love must be bought with pain"
Gerald May, Addiction and Grace

Beauty. They say it lies in the eye of the beholder, and I think this may be true. I've seen it in the trash dumps of Nicaragua, where orphans selflessly saved their scavenged food to take home to their families. I've seen it in my at-risk city kids, resilient and fearless as they performed on stage during a camp awards ceremony for their peers. I've seen it in my special needs classroom, where laughter was always the first and best medicine. Beauty is everywhere, you just have to know where to look.

I think the thing that we forget, however, is that beauty must come at a cost. Not a monetary cost, though some do try to buy it. But a personal cost. A fight. An interaction with pain. And mostly, we don't like this. I know I certainly don't. In the fast paced world that we live in, we want things now. We want them to be easy and quick, we want them to be free. But light cannot come without darkness, and true beauty is not always immediately attained.

To me, beauty is often about the struggle. Why are we moved to tears by soldiers coming home to their families or Olympians winning their first medal? Cancer survivors and excellent teachers? Kids who are heroes...really anyone who is a hero? We are struck by their example of love and sacrifice. Their choice to fight for purposefulness in the place of being complacent. It means something because it took something to get there.

Sometimes it means giving up a dream, and other times it means fighting really hard for one. There is no formula, no typical and perfect example. But we all know it when we see it. We are moved, we are full...we feel a certain amount of freedom and love. It is the truest form of living, and we are blessed to experience it. It gives us hope for the future, and something to strive for in the present. It's real. And we need more of that. More genuineness and truth. More light. More beauty.

And it doesn't always have to be extreme. We are beautiful just by being who we are--flaws included. By choosing to acknowledge someone who is suffering, or by striving to be different than the status quo. And that can take work at times. Mustering up the courage to be authentic in a culture that is frequently fake is no small task. We are likely to experience failure, haters along the way. Change is a process, and pain is often part of the deal.

One of my favorite verses says this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. The land of the living. That's here--that's now. There is goodness to be found this side of heaven. There is redeeming work being done every day, both big and small. You have your own handful of beautiful moments already, I'm sure. You also have your share of pain. Take heart. The beauty that comes from brokenness is not wasted. But you get to choose what you do with it.

Beauty bought with pain. May you find the courage today--it's worth it.

naked and unashamed.

Some people really don't like nakedness. Some people do. I have always been indifferent to it. As a child, I had quite a few health problems. Being in and out of hospitals and doctors appointments were synonymous with being unclothed. There really wasn't much of an option there, and so I learned to be unashamed in my nakedness.

And I think that is always the way I operated with others--physically, emotionally. There were some things that were out of my control, and so I learned to be OK with showing others my proverbial naked parts. I could talk quite eloquently about my problems, about my pain. I was open in who I was because I figured at least then I had some control over how others perceived me. I could dim the lights on my nakedness, hide the parts that I wasn't so proud of, soften the edges and angle my heart so that what was reflected was that which I had carefully constructed for others to see--and nothing more.

In short, I faked nakedness.

I figured that sharing my scars, being willing to show them up front and warn people of them beforehand was equivalent of the same vulnerability that comes with nakedness. I thought that if I could just tell people who I was--negative aspects and all--I could achieve the intimacy I wanted. That I could explain away my issues and perhaps fool them into thinking about me in the way that I needed them to. I wanted to be naked and unashamed, but really I was neither of those things.

I didn't even know how to be naked, and I was constantly ashamed.

And I was afraid. Aren't we all? Aren't we all terrified that we aren't good enough? Normal enough? Unique enough? And so we hide in our nakedness. We do it in lots of ways and convince ourselves that we aren't. We think that if we are exposed, we will be rejected.

And there is some truth to that. Not everyone is worthy of our nakedness. Not everyone is to be trusted. But that doesn't define our worthiness, our beauty despite our shame. True vulnerability comes when we are able to accept ourselves as we are. There are people who help us with that, who help us to see that our shame is uncalled for and that it is OK to be naked. But ultimately, it is up to us. We have to learn to love ourselves with grace and kindness, we have to learn to be naked and unashamed with ourselves. 

If you are like me, you may have entered a season where you don't really have much of a choice. You may be tired, broken down, and unable to hide it as well as you did before. You may find yourself completely bare--scrambling to cover yourself up and ashamed by your nakedness. You may feel painfully vulnerable. My advice--embrace it.

Be naked.

And learn to be unashamed. Love yourself, your good and bad parts, because they make up who you are. Be compassionate towards yourself in the same way you would to those around you. Recognize that it is within our nature to be imperfect--we were born that way and will be that way until we die. Don't rush to clothe yourself or try to cover up your shame. It's OK to be naked. It's not anything that everyone hasn't seen before. You aren't alone.

Naked and unashamed.

the bees have it.

My backyard has an alarming amount of bee activity. Whenever I am reading a book or trying to enjoy a meal on my porch, those bees are determined to ruin my experience. I used to think that they were vindictive--out to get me for mowing down their pollinated flowers. And really, their persistence has no bounds. I will be sitting INSIDE my house, and hear those gigantic bumble bees thumping up against the window...over and over again.

This is always rather amusing to me. Observing from the safety of my kitchen table, I will see the same exact bee flying directly into the window pane without ceasing or much regard for bodily harm. Either they are incredibly resilient or increasingly dumb. What are their motives? Can they see me? Do they just have no better sense of direction? Do they enjoy the pain?

And then it hit me--I am not much different than those bees. Human behavior seems to have a tendency to fall back on what is the most comfortable and the most safe--the most predictable, really. For me, depression has always been a constant. I know what to expect from my depression--what to expect from myself. I know who I am in the midst of pain, and I know how to handle it. I define myself within this space, and readily RUN smashing back into it as soon as I become afraid. I know to expect hardship and sadness. I know how to harden my heart in anticipation of disappointment.

I don't know what to do with joy and vulnerability and hope.

And so, I am very much like those bees. And while I think that I am protecting myself by running back to the safety of the wall, I'm failing to see the bigger picture--the picture that my friends are able to see and point out to me. I am so concentrated on running to what is familiar--the pain, the depression, the Sarah that is her problems, that I fail to see the destructiveness of my actions. I am so focused on being safe, on guarding my heart from being hurt, that I miss out on the joy of the moment. I am trying so hard to brace myself for the worst to happen, that I forget the possibility of hope and goodness.

In an attempt to be comfortable and safe, I embrace the discomfort of pain as reality.

The thing is, those bees have a whole backyard to explore. They have a whole world to get to flying to. They have chosen a reality (unfortunately the reality of death by house siding) because they can't see the bigger picture. They run into that wall over and over and over because they won't chance trying something new. They refuse to consider other options. And so they are smashed to pieces--slowly, bit by bit, until they can no longer fly at all.

I don't want to ruin my chance at flight. I don't want to be like those bees. I want to live out of hope and anticipation of joy, not depression. I want to start believing in my ability to fly, to expand my borders to a larger area than just my backyard. I want to choose to acknowledge my own goodness because that is what is real- that is who I really am. My behavior, my all too often decision to run into the same wall over and over--that's not me. That's my choice. And it's a bad one at that.

Next time you find yourself going back to the same negative thought, pattern of relating, or general life choice, remember--you can change your flight. You can head in a different direction.

Cultivate hope simply because there is hope to be found. Within your world, within the people around you, and most of all within yourself. You are worth your set of wings--don't destroy them just yet.