Bloom Where You're Planted

As usual during jail ministry, the lessons we discuss with the inmates turn out to be the ones we most need to hear ourselves.

After sharing the Sunday readings, we ended up discussing the New Testament reading from Colossians the most.  As we discussed with the ladies the choice before them, to use their time in jail as preparation for their life when they get out, or to simply mark time, one of the women said, "whatever brought us here, God wills that we are here, so we kind of have to bloom where we are planted."  We talked about thanking God in all our circumstances, even the ones we don't want and even actively resist.

Boy, was THAT a cold bucket of truth to dunk in.

Wherever we find ourselves, there is a reason.  If we are trying desperately to leave, but still find ourselves there, there is a reason.

It is no secret that I feel the circumstances of my life here have changed to the point I'm practically desperate to leave.  Yet, I am still here.  Many job interviews later, I am still here.

Still.  Here.

I can mark time, or make the most of it. I can be angry and resentful, or I can thank God for having a decent job, dear friends, and many creature comforts.

What I have been doing is mostly complaining, worrying, grasping at straws, winding myself up, and feeling rather wretched rather often. That did not get me relocated any faster.

So, here I am, feeling like all I did this past year was mark time. Probably that really is what I did.  I can't see any area of my life that I improved appreciably.  I haven't gone the extra mile to improve my mind or health or finances. I have not made extra effort to develop relationships.

A year from now, even if everything goes to complete hell, I would like to look back and be able to say I Tried.  Maybe I wasn't successful, but I gave my life everything I had in me.  I did not just watch the year go by.

Bloom where I'm planted.

The Great Wall of Anger

Anger is a wall built by two people.

Everyone knows someone who seems chronically angry.  No matter what adversity they face, the go-to emotion seems to be anger.

I get that.  I was like that for a long time.  Anger made me feel powerful and in charge... unlike sadness, which made me feel pathetic, or hurt, which made me feel weak.

Most negative emotions left unchecked can build walls between people... Sadness can shove people away. The unhappy person builds a wall between herself and others.  Anger not only shoves people away, but causes the shoved person to build their side of the wall.

Let's face it, the Great Wall of China was not built to keep out the chronically depressed northerners.

Anger isn't a primary emotion. Anger is a reactive emotion.  You start with another emotion and it moves to anger.  Shock, sadness, anxiety and shame can all move quickly to anger.

The reality is that anger is no more powerful than any other emotion, but left uncontrolled it can destroy love so much faster than anything else.  I've witnessed this anger drive families apart -children from parents, spouses from each other,  best friends.

Nobody wanted it or intended it, but that is simply what that anger does.

It took some pretty intense work on my part and some divine intervention from Jesus for me to stop using anger as my default mode and just FEEL my feelings.  Learning that Feeling weak, pathetic, sad, frustrated, ashamed, or overwhelmed does not have to lead to me picking a fight or throwing a temper tantrum took a while.

I'm thinking about this today because I had an encounter yesterday with someone who also seems to struggle with anger.  He was disappointed, but what radiated from him was anger.  Since I was the focal point, I was paying attention and silently calling on God to bring calm to the situation, which He did.

But I've been fighting him in my head since then, and working on the foundation for my side of the wall.

Everything I Meant to Say

Nothing drives home the message I am a better writer than speaker than being interviewed.

I was so excited -Shannyn Caldwell from Peter and Shannyn In The Morning on Family Life Radio asked if I would be interested in chatting about my blog, particularly the post "Letter to the Upstart Blogger."  Heck yeah!!

I swear I had all kinds of beautiful thoughts right before my mind froze and I think I likely babbled. I'm not really sure.

BUT, because I am a blogger, I have this opportunity to write what I meant to say.

Our hearts are weird.  I don't mean just single people. This is the human condition.

I wanted to emphasize that as a single person, it is very important to appreciate and value the people who are in our lives.  Sometimes we can look so hard at what we want and don't have (spouse, children) that we don't recognize the love that is right there in front of us.

The people who are present in our lives are the ones we are meant to love and be present for.  No, we won't be a primary relationship for them, but that doesn't mean we aren't important, cared for, loved.  God placed us in this amazing time and place for His purposes.  I think part of that is to learn that we count, too, even if we aren't married, and that those people we have in our lives count, too, even when we aren't married to them.

It can be so hard as a single person to continually be the one reaching out to create community, but that is perhaps the burden, that God granted "that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved, as to love..."

and the Prayer of St Francis ends thusly, "for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

And that is the irony, isn't it?  Just when you are at your most tired and lonely, the person you likely least expect will turn around and remind you that you have a space in their weird little heart.