.

I’m noticing more and more silver strands highlighting my dark hair.  They’re becoming a part of who I am just as much as the faint lines that now map my forehead and the corners of my eyes.

Just as much as the words that I bleed here.

My intention with PrudyChick.com is to always write the truth of my life.  To not hide behind a veil.  That isn’t to say there aren’t things I don’t share with you here.  There are things in each of our lives that aren’t meant for public consumption.

I’ve struggle sometimes because my writing over the last year hasn’t been necessarily light.  But my life over the last year hasn’t necessarily been light.  It has been heavy with re-learning to stand and re-learning to hope and re-learning to trust God.  And I want to share this fight with you because I know we all at one time fight this fight.

In my Story 101 course, we’re focusing this week on writing the hard thing.  I’ve struggled the last couple days with what I need to write because I’ve tried so hard to be as transparent as I can be not only with you but myself.  The handful of things that have crossed my mind I usually quickly dismiss because they don’t feel as hard as what I know some of my other course-mates have dealt and are dealing with.

I struggle to accept the validity of my hard things because there are others that are so much worse.  But that doesn’t strip away the validity of mine.  Mine are hard things for me, just as yours are hard things for you.

Whether you have a blog that you share with the world, or write out your hard things in a journal that may one day be read by your great grand children, or you paint them out in an art journal do the one thing you can.  Simply bleed.  Pour your heart out.  Share the things you need to for public consumption.  Those that aren’t write out in allegorical prose or a shorthand known only to you.

These things make you who you are.  They have formed the DNA of your soul.

I’ve allowed more silence in my life since I got back from Moldova.  It’s almost as if my soul is craving it and who am I to deny it?

There is benefits in silence.  Not just for listening but for just being.  To strip away the noise of your day life.  It is, in a sense, like running a defrag on your computer.  Realigning yourself.  Getting rid of the junk and the garbage that takes up too much space not only in your mind but your soul.

Last weekend my husband and I went and saw a movie.  As the “pre-show entertainment” ended and the theater got ready to begin the previews I was struck forcefully by the amount of noise around me.  I felt as if I were drowning in it.  I wanted to close my eyes and block out the talking and the popcorn crunching and the rustling of whatever.  The noise was deafening.

I’ve thought of this repeatedly this week.  My class for Story 101 is currently exercising a week of silence.  An entire week of turning off the noise (e.g., social media & internet) and just allowing ourselves to listen and realign.  So I keep thinking about that noise in the movie theater, and how much that noise exemplifies our lives.  We don’t notice how much our mind and soul are getting bombarded with noise until one thing gets turned off, and we’re hit with a hurricane.

We forget that ten years ago we didn’t have all of this.  We forget that we existed for thousands of years without the entire world in our pockets or on a screen dancing in front of us.  We believe that were we to turn these things off, we’d not know how to function.  And maybe some of us wouldn’t.  And that’s more than just a little sad.

I encourage you to add some silence into your life.  Allow your mind and soul to realign.

“Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. – Amir” – Khaled Hosseini

i’m probably the last person you should come to for hope.  i mean i had an entire year i devoted to learning to hope again, and after 366 days of trying to do so i arrive at today and i still struggle with hope and i still struggle with trust and i still struggle with dreams and i still struggle with wishing.

but the fact of the matter is that we all do.  even the best of us find it difficult to trust over something.  we all face fears and resistance.  we all at one time or another want to give up.  we’ve all had a dream dashed to the ground and some of us still live with the fall out years later of hope deferred.  not that we’re dwelling there, but there is pain when our dreams don’t come true and there are some of those dreams that we will always feel pain over not seeing them come to fruition.

i once wrote about a definition of hope being a small haven.  i still love that definition because when my doubts become larger than my hopes i need some place i can feel safe in.  hope doesn’t always feel safe though.  sometimes we need to feel brave and courageous just to have a little hope.  but hope is still a place, even in our doubts, where we can abide.

so, maybe the only encouragement i can offer you in your doubts is that you’re not alone.  your mother, your father, your wife, your husband, your child, the lady in the cubicle next to you, the guy in the $70k car next to you at the stop light.  they’ve all known doubt.  they’ve all had dreams & hopes broken like fragile, priceless glass.

…and maybe that’s the only way you can see hope as a haven right now.  that you’re not alone.  and that’s perfectly acceptable.  and maybe you need to sit with your doubts for a spell.  and that’s also perfectly acceptable.  and one day after that season your hope and your faith will be a little stronger.  and that will be absolutely fantastic.

“And yet when I wish to explore how faith works, I usually sneak in by the back door of doubt, for I best learn about my own need for faith during its absence. God’s invisibility guarantees I will experience times of doubt. Everyone dangles on a pendulum that swings from belief to unbelief, back to belief, and ends – where?” – Philip Yancy

GIVEAWAY!!

it’s been a while since i’ve had a giveaway and i’m feeling rather giveraway-ish.  to enter to win this original art piece (by me) simply follow the rafflecopter’s friendly questions.

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today’s post is part of story 101.

I’ve become an expert at holding.

My breath
My feelings
My anxieties
My fears
My dreams
My worries
My clenched hands
My heart
My opinions
My cares

I don’t release very easily.  For a number of reasons.

I don’t want to be a burden
I want to be the strong one
My heart is just to fragile to trust again
I’m afraid

Maybe this is my problem with flying.  Toni Morrison once wrote that in order to fly you have to give up what weighs you down.  Only she said it with a bit more of a colorful description.

To fly.  To break the bond between my feet (heart) and the soil of this earth I’m going to need to release.  To exhale the all the things I’ve been holding onto.

I’ve become an expert in holding.

And maybe that’s okay for right now.  But one day I’m going to have to let go and release the things I’m holding.

.

Today’s post is written as part of Story 101.

My skin stained from years upon years of dust built up on the forgotten and unused.  My fingers stained from marker, pricing our possessions that at one time possessed us.

Staining marking the opening of grasped hands and the letting go.

My hands and arms have become more and more over the last year a canvas for paint & gesso, markers & ink.

Another opening.  Another letting go.

Hands & heart grasped so fiercely closed.

This life I long to live so so closed off to the sense of touch, the act of feeling.

With pain and ink I do my best to crack open this hardened and roughened shell.  To open my heart that has grown painful from the atrophy it’s learned while being so clenched.

These feathers that I’m attempting to unfurl, these wings I’m longing to put to use, there’s been pain in the opening.  There’s been pain in the choice to use them and not continue to sit in my pain on the ground.  Pain in letting go of my need to feel justified in my anger & bitterness.  In my self pity.

Yet, the opening has been healthful & good.

My friend Elora terms it “Playing in the pain”.  It’s the living it out in the midst of agony of redemption and sanctification.

And there is beauty there.

I was making popcorn the other day at work and as I stood there watching the bag puff up I realized that’s what I’ve felt like over the last week or so.  All this internal energy and combustion building, building, building, pressure upon pressure upon pressure waiting to burst me at the seams.

And it happened.

I exploded {figuratively…well…….sorta}.  I was done.  Remnants of every piece of me lay all around, shrapnel imbedded in my limbs and mind and heart, and I felt there was nothing to do but withdraw.  To tell the world in a shouting whisper that I was done, that I couldn’t take any more of her, that I needed to concentrate on ME for a change.

And that’s what I did.

I’ve talked about self care here before, and I’m learning how many different levels of self care there are.  How it can be anything from shutting yourself away for an afternoon to pouring your heart out to a confidant to cleaning your kitchen to abstaining from social media.

That’s where I found myself early last week.  Needing to shield myself and close myself off to the outside sources that come across my social media feeds.

I needed to give my neglected introverted soul a sabbath of quiet.

It’s been nearly a week and I’ve been loving the solitude I’ve built around me.  It’s been healing.  It has reminded me what is important to me and why I need to protect that.  I so often forget that my worth doesn’t come from the number of likes on a photo or the lack or responses to a tweet.

I believe the problem is that we don’t realize we need self care until it’s too late.  It’s after we’ve exploded at our husband or broke down in the kitchen after dinner came out of the oven burnt or we’ve threatened our kids within an inch of their lives.  We’ve been so conditioned – and rightly so – to be others focused.  Most of us have been taught from childhood to not be selfish, to think of others before ourselves.  And while this is inherently right, I think that we’ve missed an important concept.  And that’s what I love in learning about self care.

That self care doesn’t mean you’re selfish, it doesn’t mean that you don’t think of others needs above your own.  Instead…..instead it creates really the opposite reaction.  I’m learning that I can’t take care of my husband or my home if I’m not giving myself the care she needs.  I’m learning that some of the expectations I place on my husband on how he should treat, love, care for me are often times my soul simply telling me to take care of me.  To nurture myself.

I’m learning that when I take care of my soul, that one that is introverted, I love my husband so much better and find joy so much easier in our marriage.  Of course that isn’t to say that he shouldn’t love and care for me.  It just means that if I recognize a need within my soul and don’t tend it I’m much more likely to snap or explode at Shawn.  Thereby finding it much more difficult to have a joy filled marriage.

My challenge to you is when you find your seams at the point of bursting like a bag of microwave popcorn take some time to nurture your soul.

Are you good at giving yourself time for self care?
What are some of your favorite forms of self care?

I remember where we ate dinner that night, I could even show you where we sat.

I remember crying, sitting, kneeling on our bed, while Shawn stood in the doorway separating our bedroom from the short hallway of the rest of the upstairs.

Because that night was a pivotal change in my relationship with God.  Things would never and could never be the same as they were.

After years, literally years, of praying and asking God for a change in our lives, and seeing the hope of that change coming to fruition, when that door was closed words spewed from my lips accurately describing my feelings of being abandoned in the middle of the ocean.

I struggle to be honest with you here about all of this.  To be honest in just how devastated I was left.  How this devastation left my relationship with God in ruins.  Because I grew up in church and good Christian girls aren’t supposed to lose faith or hope or shout bad words at God.  Don’t get me wrong, I grew quite apathetic to the “Good Christian Girl” label in high school, and nearly 20 years later hasn’t changed that one bit.

After waiting and praying for years and having a hope of change snuffed out like it was a useless candle, trite statements I’d heard all my life about God’s goodness and faithfulness were just as useless and stupid as it seemed my prayers were to this God who was supposed to be good.

He didn’t feel good.  He felt distant, like he couldn’t care less about me or my husband or anything going on in our personal lives.  The anger I slipped on that night was a brutal anger.  It kept me up at night.  It swelled in me like a hurricane.  And to be perfectly honest, I nearly let it ruin a friendship.

Like I said it was a pivotal night in my faith.  God and I are back on speaking terms and I do my best to be honest with Him and re-establish my trust with Him.  Some days are harder than others.  Some days I still want to say bad words at Him.  Some days I do.

I struggle with my faith and I wonder if it will ever be as strong as it once was.  I wonder if I’ll always have pain with these scars.

If you’ve been here.  If you want nothing to do with God or the trite statements, no matter the good intentions, I know what you feel.  I know the frustration and the anger.  If you’re the one feeling abandoned, I’m not going to be the one to offer the sentiments you don’t want to hear.  I’ll simply sit by your side and hold your hand and say I know.  Because I know that any sentiments to God’s goodness at this point in your journey aren’t going to help you heal any faster.  And the healing takes as much time as it needs to.

I know there has been the sound of crickets here more lately than the sound of my voice.  I don’t write as much as I used to and that has been for a variety of reasons.  It’s been even longer since I posted 1000 Gifts and even that has been for a variety of reasons.  The hard days don’t often lend to thankful ones.  Your grey clouds are truly grey and show no hint of silver linings and so you take the clouds and the rain and in the rare moments appreciate them.

I made a declaration to live alive and I’ve admitted that it is at times quite difficult to break the bindings of the grave.  This morning, blinded by the dawning day as I made my way to work, I was gently reminded to just live.  To simply breathe in and out and let that be my focus and goal for today.

0521 Shawn asking me to lunch
0522 Late nights, dessert, coffee, and three of my favorite people
0523 Friends that encourage me to Fly and point me in the direction of the sky
0524 Gold painted feathers
0525 Gentle reminders to just live
0526 A bunch of pink Ranunculus in a purple vase
0527 Seven years at a job I like, & an increase in pay
0528 The warmth of the pre-spring sun on my shoulders
0529 Dinner with two of my Moldova teammates & their husbands
0530 Holding my newest niece

What are you thankful for on this first spring Monday of 2013?

I have to be honest and say that the choosing to live alive is a lot harder than I thought it might be.  One does not generally have to strive to live.  Yet I find myself having to put forth effort to give breath back to this life.  And during the hard weeks when simply getting out of bed to do the daily deeds of life is excruciating, the effort is all the more difficult.

In the last month since I declared my intention to live my life as what I actually am….alive, it feels as though all the smoky tendrils of death are wrapping themselves around my fingers and legs and arms with even more strength, trying to pull me back down into the grave.  Death is greedy.

Death was overjoyed at my willingness to lie in the cold rock tomb viewing the outside world in a faded black and white.  Death doesn’t like me to see things in color, to see the vibrancy and vitality of everything around me.  And so it pulls and it swears and it whispers lies of comfort to try and make me stay.

Choosing to be alive was really my first step in beginning to fly.  And both – the aliveness and the flight – wrestle with the contentedness of remaining where I’ve been for so long.

Bringing life back from death is a supernatural act, no matter how you look at it.  It takes breath that isn’t my own to restitch sinews of muscle and to fill lungs that some moments I’d rather not go through the pain of having my chest crushed just to have my heart restarted.

You have to admit, dead really is so much easier than alive.  But there are advantages to being alive, to feeling breath catch in your throat and your heart skip several beats as you inhale the ocean filled air.

And that life, the life that is truly lived as alive is worth the pain of resurrection.

And I’m choosing to hold onto and believe that, especially when it feels death’s grasp is digging deeper into my flesh and saying, “No, stay here.”

These past few weeks have been very difficult ones.  Wrenching of my soul difficult.  Anger, wanting to find comfort in hiding in a dark closet difficult.

Not in the hoping, trusting ways though those have certainly played their role.

While it seems this week I’m slowly breaking out of the cloud I’ve been in, the effervescence still leaves me winded and tied down.

I’ve noticed more than ever this week flight.  Contrails, birds, airplanes.  This morning I even saw birds flying in a perfect V pattern.  Everywhere I look, it seems I’m seeing or hearing flight.  And weekend before last I had an image of sailing through the clouds.

These last few weeks I’ve felt that I’ve been grounded, tied down, shoved in a dark cave that at times caved in and I found myself under a pile of rocks and tree roots and dirt.  But this week, it feels as though the dawn is coming and hope is once again finding her feathers.

We recently made a huge decision that is going to require steps of faith and trust and patience and believing when there is nothing to see to believe in.  This decision has left me estatic and scared.  And I know I’ll question our timing of making this decision and wondering how just how and if it’s going to come to light, and at the same time feel peace that we’re taking this step right now because we need to.

Because it’s right.

It’s going to be probably a couple months {at least} before I’m able to share with you this decision we’ve made, but I covet your prayers.  And I’m certain the Hearer will discern your words with our situation.

It’s been exactly one month since I landed in Chișinău, Moldova.

One month.

And if you’ll allow me my sentimentality, the weight of the distance from here to there is extremely heavy today.  So heavy that tears from the missing grace my eyes.  It’s a raw mix of emotions that on one hand I feel like I was just there yesterday and on the other it feels like {in the words of my dear friend Jenni} a brillion years.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about and miss the country and the people.  A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about the girls in the restoration home that we met.  Of Vladimir, Ben, Sergei, Sergei, Peter, Natalia, Olga, Alla, & Polina.  Our new friends that are doing the hard work.

I may get a little overly excited when I hear Russian and will play over and over videos I recorded with Russian in them.

Moldova did more to me than just change me and did more than just steal my heart.  I can’t fully explain it.  As I struggle with this trite life I lived and re-acclimating and at the same time not wanting to.  Ever.

I have plans to go back.  I’m just not sure when.  I will, of course, keep you updated.

I’d love to have a garden.  A small patch of earth glorying with heirloom tomatoes, green beans, butter lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli & cauliflower, maybe some beets that in my spare time I’d learn to pickle and in the same process dye my hands a beautiful hue of purple.  Oh and there’s flowers too.  Ranunculus and Sunflowers and Snap Dragons and Irises and Daffodils.  I’d love to have all these and more.  To have a cactus garden with succulents and prickly little cacti that bloom with resplendent flowers.

I’d love to have earth in my back yard that would allow such things to grow instead of clay and desperately dry earth because HELLO I live in Phoenix where rain is so rare it’s a magical thing.  I’d love to be able to keep plants alive…because Lord knows I can’t even keep cactus and succulents alive.

There’s been a theme of garden since I came back from Moldova.  The Art Journaler is focusing on secret gardens this month.  My anthem from coming back from Moldova has been Beautiful Things by Gungor.  I’ve listened to very little music since I got back from Moldova.  My heart and soul have longed for silence and I’ve given them that gift.  Yet, when they need to hear melodies they long for this song and this song alone.

Perhaps it’s the blooming of life after living as if I were dead for so long.  Perhaps it’s the revelation of hope and of flight, but these lyrics that speak of life out of dust is what my inner being is meditating on.

“All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all”

Maybe it’s that I need to see the beautiful things of my life because they are sometimes hard to see.  Maybe it’s allowing myself to believe that a garden truly could bloom in this desert.

“All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You”

Even though I’m starting to hope & trust again, and slowly building my wings, it’s difficult at times.  It isn’t that I doubt God’s faithfulness and goodness because I see it in the lives of others.  It’s believing that He is faithful & good in my life.

When I was in a kid I entered the science fair at our school.  My experiment was planting seeds to see how they grew under different environments.  The only one that survived was one that was in a dark closet with a pair of nylons over the Tupperware container.  (See even back then I couldn’t keep plants alive….I may worry for our children.)  Sometimes it is out of the darkness of our lives that we see growth.  We are stretched and seeds are planted, and in the darkness the beauty begins to take root and a garden is created.

- lyrics by Gungor, Beautiful Things

I walked across dust covered dirt, covered with cigarette butts that seemed to have fallen like hail across the grounds.  The bright white towers jutting up into vivid blue sky beckoned me to their refuge, while the wind whipped at me.

I could have sat in that small cross shaped room and taken in the art of God and the art of God for hours.  I wish I could have whisked away the tourists and taken the room for myself for what it really is.

I grew up non-denominational in faith, but I’ve learned the sacred and the holy is everywhere.  Dinner over looking a city, being taught to knit in Russian, driving through Arizona deserts & frozen landscapes of Eastern Europe, a Catholic Mission in the middle of the Sonoran Desert & shuttles in former Soviet cities.

Because my God does not reside in protestant churches only.  He is a God of nature and a God of quiet moments between friends.  He’s the God of a pilgrim coming back to life and finding flight in wood pews.

In the darkened alcoves of the mission I was greatly taken with a need to light a candle.  To whisper a prayer.  I struggled with the thought of paying $3 for a candle and to say a prayer to God which I knew didn’t require payment or the striking of a match.  I wish I’d paid the $3.  I wish I’d taken that moment for holy communion.

Because my faith is more than just Sunday mornings, any my faith is more than just scriptures read.  My faith is meeting when I’m called whether in centuries old churches or within the pages of a novel.

I remember as I walked the grounds of the mission being struck by the fact that this holy sanctuary was in the middle of a desert.  A sacred place for weary pilgrims.  An oasis in the midst of dry circumstances…both figuratively and physically.

What is calling you to sacred today, are you meeting there?

Adam wore a faraway yet intent look, as though he were listening to some wind-carried music, but his eyes were not dead as they had been.  He said, ‘it’s hard to imagine I’d thank a man for insults and for shaking me out like a rug.  But I’m grateful.  It’s a hurty thanks, but it’s thanks.’”*

I laid in bed Wednesday night dreaming dreams for my future, wondering what those dreams would look like in reality.  Earlier in the evening I had been going through my Instagram feed looking for a photo to share with one of my friends.  As I looked at all my old pictures I noticed something.  I noticed how alive I used to be.  How I noticed the color of grass or a ripe watermelon.  How I used to be joyful.

Lying in bed dreaming these dreams and thinking back over the pictures I used to take, I was suddenly hit with the depth of my deadness.  I’ve lived the last 15-16 months as if I were dead.  Hope gone.  Dreams not dared to be dreamed.  Courage an ocean I did not want to stick my feet in.

Dead.

It’s easy to live dead.  To lose sight of the beauty in life.  To give up on yourself and your future.

I’m tired of living as if I am dead.  So I’m making the decision to live the way I am.  Alive, blood pumping through these veins, a heart that needs to dream of her future.  Lungs that inhale & exhale.  Eyes that long to see and experience beauty.

I’m not sure how exactly I begin living again except making the decision to do so.  To take off these burial clothes I’ve strangled myself with and rinse off the scent of myrrh.  To with as small steps as I need, to exit the tomb I’ve resided in.

Upon making this decision, I felt like the first of ready to fly feathers is being added to my wings.  Some days I don’t feel ready to fly, or like I even can, but it’s encouraging to see at least my wings begin to grow.

I feel like Adam Trask of East of Eden after Samuel Hamilton punched him.  The feeling and discovery of the grey scales falling from eyes and life being seen, and realizing just how dead you’ve been living and how much more life is out there.

*Excerpt from East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Do you remember our first Valentine’s?  The very first one, when this relationship between you and I had literally just started 11 days before hand.  How could I know that night that 16 years later we’d be married, creating a life, falling deeper in love.  I burnt myself that night.  I was so nervous about making dinner for you the first time.  I don’t think I even told you.  I still remember making stuffed shells and garlic bread.  Going to see the re-launch of the first Star Wars.  Maybe we should recreate that night some time.

I know I say this often, but you are my favorite.  Thank you for allowing me to stretch and learn.  To test my wings and the room I’ve needed to trust in hope again.  Thank you for being solid rock under my feet when I felt and believed everything else was sinking.  Thank you for believing me me, and sending me away.

I love you more than I can put into words.  I love the way you make me laugh and how you make me smile.  I love that we’re building a future together, and I can’t wait to see what it brings.  I love this beautiful dance.

The day before in the monotony of my job, of entering invoices, clicking here and there I believe the fire started.  I sat staring at my computer screen wondering why in hell I wasn’t doing what I’m passionate about.  Why I’m sitting in a cube 8 hours a day instead of working with orphans and/or doing orphan care the way my soul cries to do.

I’d had enough!  I missed miss Moldova more than I thought I would could.

For my introvert self the constant influx of people around me wore my edges thin.  Thankfully, our team is an amazing, understanding group of women.  When one said they needed their space we all were willing to give it.  I couldn’t have asked for a greater group of women to have traveled with.  But for this community starved woman, this woman who craves shared moments with friends over possessions, the influx of people was a sweet nectar.

I miss it.  Oh how I miss the community I had with my team, that I had with a people group I could barely communicate with.

On that same Saturday, the hard one, I had a chance to sit across from a friend and allow her to speak into my life.  She has done a number of short missions, and lived in Bosnia for all together 8 months.  She put words to the emotions, I still can’t.

During the course of our conversation she shared one of the differences between the US and places like Moldova.  When you have little money you value different things than when you have money.  We base our happiness, and in some cases our joy on the money and things we have or don’t have.  She shared that in Eastern Europe where for many people having a cup of coffee out is a special expense, that shared cup of coffee is more about those you’re communing with, than getting your daily dose of caffeine.  She told me that there they live in financial poverty, while we in the US live in emotional/communal poverty.  We’ve given up knowing our neighbors, long talks with friends, the joy of just being together; but we’ve gained our houses and our cars and our American Dream.  We’ve gained, but oh what we’ve lost.

I shared that during our house visits we visited a young single mom who served us traditional Moldovan cake & tea.  Her family isn’t rich by any means.  The poor in the US would seem rich to them.  But when I looked in her eyes I saw joy.  I saw a contentment for what they had.  And I saw that it was a joy for her to give out of her little to bless us.  I experienced that with everyone I met while there.  They aren’t defined by the lack of money in their bank account.  They’re defined by who they are, how they love.  And oh they love well.

Over the last several years God has been changing my perspective on my faith.  Like I said I crave those moments with friends more than I long for a new pair of shoes or the latest technological thing to have.  I’m a woman with no local community and I am starved for it.  The things that line my walls and fill up my floor space mean nothing.  When the lights are low and the TV plays another show, it’s simply a band-aid.  My soul and my heart feel just as impoverished as they did before I put the band-aid on.

How are you living rich today?

When my OneWord for 2013 became evident, I knew that there would be literal flight in my year of Fly.  I was four months past agreeing to go with Children’s HopeChest to Moldova.  A decision that meant literal flight across the US, Atlantic, & Western Europe.  It would be my first trans-Atlantic flight.  My first flight out of the country.  My first stamp in my first passport.

The flight to Munich wasn’t an easy one.  I was fortunate to have a two seat row all to myself, but that brings little comfort when a there is crying baby somewhere behind you, and a talkative couple in the row immediately behind you.  Sleep doesn’t come despite the fact that you took a sleep aid, have ear plugs, & a sleep mask.

And then there is the air itself.  The air that you’re traveling through at upwards of 600 mph.  Our flight to Munich was a turbulent one.  It hit me that even though the sky looks smooth, even though the flight path looks to be without bump or pothole doesn’t mean that it is.  This was a reality I needed to learn.  My year of flight this year isn’t going to be a smooth one.  There is going to be {has been} some bumps.  I need to accept this.  I need to remember this when I find myself brimming with anger again.  I need to remember that turbulence are going to come and it is my duty to power through them and come out on the other side.

We landed in Munich to a blanket of snow already on the ground and more dancing its way downward.  The six of us that flew from Charlotte to Munich deplaned the only way you can…slowly.  We stretched tired, tight limbs, and dreamed of cups of coffee.  We joined the rest of our team already at our gate and awaited the prognosis.  We were shuttled to a tiny plane where we climbed snow covered stairs.  Truth be told I had my own little presidential moment waiting to board, where I wanted to wave & send my love to my adoring citizens.   After we boarded we heard the news…..delayed.  Estimated take off time….an hour and a half later.  I settled myself into my seat, read my book, and watched the falling snow.  An hour and a half quickly became a half hour and next thing we knew we were being de-iced with a compound that reminded me greatly of the pink slime of Ghost Busters, and within another 15 minutes we were off.

As I sat there on the runway, book in hand I was taught another lesson.  A delay is not a permanent stop.  A delay does not mean that you are grounded for good.  It is simply that, a delay.

There was nothing I could do about the delay in Munich.  No matter how tired I was of being on planes or how much I wanted to see Moldova’s borders I had to wait.  The same is going to be for me.  Sometimes it’s going to to take some time getting off the ground.  Hope and grace are going to never seem to find wings some days.  The only thing I can do is abide.

On Saturday of our time there I was feeling “flighty”.  I’d been surrounded by the Russian language for many days, I was dreaming in Russian and only understanding “да, да, да” (“yes, yes, yes”).  I decided to look up the Russian translation for fly.

летать

Pronounced letat, I was drawn to these mysterious characters that sound little like the English version.  I wrote it out on my hand with black sharpie.  A reminder for my day.  I had a great, profound word spoken over me because of this simple word I chose to let my year be defined by.

The jet lag is getting better.  I think.  Just when I think I’m getting over it, I find myself falling asleep at 8 PM.

This last week was a difficult week.  Between jet lag and missing, back to work and struggling with emotions & anger, I wanted to do nothing less than hide myself in a dark closet.

Saturday I had a good, long conversation with a friend who lived in Bosnia for all together 8 months.  What a gift it was to be able to sit across a table from her and have someone put into words the emotions I wasn’t able to.  To have someone sit across from me and understand exactly what I was feeling.

0511 Walking in falling snow in Moldova
0512 A new friend making a special trip so I could get the one gift for myself that I wanted
0513 Not having horrible headaches after a week of drinking more caffeine than I probably do in a year
0514 Seeing Shawn standing in the airport waiting to pick me up, and then having roses in the car waiting for me
0515 Lazy Sunday reading
0516 Meeting social media friends in real life & allowing them to become part of my life
0517 Dancing traditional Moldovan/Russian dances with a lovely group of young ladies
0518 Being taught to knit by a lovely Moldovan teenager
0519 Experiencing another culture, & having it steal my heart
0520 Vanilla with chocolate chips & pistachio ice cream in a waffle cone in the heart of MallDova.

I lost it somewhere between Greenland and Canada.  Giant, fast tears.  Sobs catching my throat in the darkness of the airplane. Anger and questioning God over the persistence of evil and injustice.  I lost it again literally the precise second wheels touched airstrip in Chicago.  Missing.  The distance between here and there realized.

Moldova touched me in a way I wasn’t expecting.  She stole my heart, and refuses to give it back.  Not that I want it back.  I’ve fallen in love with Chişinău and Moldova.  I wish I could rip open my chest and show you just what I experienced.  How I felt at home among the masses where I could not understand but a few words.

Yet, now I face my reality.  Work.  Life.  Busyness.  I feel the threat of forgetting pushing its way in amongst the busyness of life.  I don’t want to forget.  I don’t want to lose this fire or this anger.

I bought a Matryoshka in a quaint little shop in Chişinău.  It is the one thing I wanted (besides the other two things I thought of after it was too late) to get myself while in Moldova.  Our translator Ben made a special (perhaps slightly out of the way) trip so I could get one.  {Bless you Ben}.  I haven’t decided where to set her, but I know because dust and life happens, one day she’ll be slightly forgotten, a layer of dust accumulated.  I don’t want this to be the same for my trip to Moldova.  I don’t want it to be just another souvenir on my shelf.  I went too far, experienced too much, was moved too drastically for this to be the outcome.

So, I do what I can to prevent this.  I think of the country and city often.  I have a single Lei (currency) in between my phone and it’s case.  I wrote on fly in Russian on my home page in Firefox.  Little things.  Little things that will hopefully help me not forget.  Little things that will keep this fire for justice burning.

I’ve reached the “I’m ready to go home” point despite the fact that my heart is breaking about leaving.  If only I could teleport Shawn, our Chihuahuas, and our bed to Moldova I’d be good.

This morning day was hard.  The ugly cry I expected to happen every day broke through on multiple occasions.  There is so much about this city and country that rips my heart out and tears it into a billion tiny shreds.  I look out at her through the windows of our shuttle and like Jesus cried out to Jerusalem that He wanted to gather them under His wings, so that is my heart too.

I want to whisper to her people that there is hope, there is identity, there is future.  She doesn’t see it, she doesn’t feel it.  I am taken aback that it would be me that would long to hold each person’s hand and say hope is there, as I’m the one still struggling with the concept of hope.

I don’t know what my purpose has been, with my coming here.  I didn’t have any special skills to share, and in fact more times than not I was the quiet one observing everything.  Taking in the girls we met, the city, the history.  Falling in love.

Last night I point blank asked our host, Vladimir, what specific ways I can be praying for Beginning of Life and for Moldova.  I can’t tell you how heart broken I am for this city.  I’m moved by his, and his team’s passion for the people.  For their hearts to live, and serve the people here missionally.

Below are the specific areas of prayer that Vladimir asked for prayer in:

Beginning of Life

To move all of their student & youth projects to the building where their church is located.  They are currently doing all these projects that aren’t in the schools in their office.  It is a small space, and the church building would give them one floor plus a basement.

Turn the upstairs portion of their office into an art center.  For two purposes:  art therapy; and an art studio where children & teens whose parents can not afford art lessons can come and learn to paint, draw, etc.

Funds for all the projects and they currently have – which includes a teen print magazine & the student training projects; and all that they are longing to do.

Team & vision.  I will say right now that Vladimir and his wife Julia have a fantastic team at BoL.  They all have servant’s hearts, and do so selflessly.  We were around his core team the entire week and not only do the love Jesus, they have serious love & passion for Moldova.  They are the individuals that are igniting a fire in the young people that will change the country.  Vladimir asked that we pray for the team and the vision.  That they would be united.

Moldova

When I asked how I can pray specifically for Moldova – besides the expected prayer requests, his immediate response was corruption, corruption, corruption.  I can’t share details but some of the things he shared with the few of us that ate dinner with him last night, makes me seriously want to spew really bad words and punch some people in the face, and even then I’m not sure I’d be done.  All that to say – please pray that God would raise up righteous men and women in the government.  Pray that the corruption that is literally dissolving the country would be eradicated.

On a personal note – early in our trip I made a note in my phone to ask Vladimir about the need for a second Restoration Home.  When we talked he said, yes of course.  There are thousands of girls here that they can serve.  I am praying that God will provide a second house for them by the year’s end.

Our God is a might God.  I’ve been moved so by His grace and redemption while on this trip.  I am expecting big things for BoL and Moldova.  I would love it if you would join our team in praying for these things.

From the bottom of my heart, thanks to everyone who was praying back at home.  Your prayers were felt and we saw God move in fantastic ways.  Please continue to pray as we all head towards home tomorrow, and in the days and weeks and months that follow.  Thank you again.  Much love….