Journaling to see

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. I’ve pondered about whether I would again. Studying Romans 8 changed me profoundly. So much so that my ability to write as also changed, and I’m not sure I’ve found my new feet yet. At some point, my writing felt more academic and less personal. I was a little bored with it, so I felt you for sure were too. It feels like my identity has shifted somehow. Almost as if my insides are stiller and calmer somehow. As if the part of me that could write things interesting to read was based on the part of me making observations out of my anxieties.

Now that I am rooted deeper into the gospel, what is left to say?

Yet, that cannot be exactly true. Because you don’t know what has happened in the last few months. I find myself journaling to see.

I tend to be a detailed person, so I am going to try to tell you only the ones I need to see and not the whole kit and boring caboodle.

1. School started in August. For the very first time, my kids were away, and I was home alone.
2. I did not manage my “free” time well.
3. This led to me applying for an internship with Chrystal Evans Hurst.
4. 2017 was a year of Pursuit, and it was a year of good things. So to end it, I accepted a place on Chrystal’s mastermind team. This would help me with my “free” time problem.
5. January began that term with her team. But also in January, I wanted to take on the world. Exercise, eat well, manage my time well, work for Chrystal, be a good mom and wife.
6. Somehow #5 led to my demise, and I couldn’t add all the things into my life, even though I thought had lots of free time and margin.
7. February, I did tons of work for an online bible study for Chrystal. Now, I am one of 12 or so members of the team, but my job was curating the content from her book, She’s Still There, to use in the study, which began in March. I paged through every chapter of her book (30). I found quotes, reflections, made prayer suggestions, put together the key scriptures and memory verses. In addition, I wrote bible exploration ideas to teach women how to use the bible on their own, me being the overseeing one of two doing this. For two or three weeks, this took all my spare time.
8. By March, I had a lot of mounting tension in my life. This so much so that I told a friend I could no longer walk with her in the mornings. Which created its own tensions, one being that I pretty much need daily exercise to sleep.
9. Also in March, my mom went to the ER and that began a month-long process of taking her to new doctors, which seemed to take a toll on me. All my time was spent, between volunteering at school, working for Chrystal, and running my mom to the doctors, I too was spent.
10. Also, that month was “spring break,” which ended up being spring stress. We took a little family getaway, and it was the most stressful family thing I’ve ever done. I think I had a lot of stress internally to begin with, but by the end, my nerves were shot and I had more internal stress than before.
11. By the end of the week, I took myself to the ER, the day before Easter. Easter is the day we have a big celebration at my home, with family, friends, and neighbors, so that has its own joy and stress. This started my own round of doctor’s visits.
12. April was less hectic, but the tension was still subtly there.
13. April was the month I led a women’s bible study at church. I’d been asked and said no. Well, no one said yes. I prayed about it and felt like God said to do it. Often, leading can be stressful, but this study was easy peasy and lifegiving.
14. But by the end of the month, I was having another episode similar to the one that led me to the ER. Luckily, my doctor followup was the next day. The doctor noticed the effects of what had happened to me lingering in my vital signs.
15. He suggested I wear a heart monitor.
16. May was another chaotic month. I got the heart monitor to wear for two weeks.
17. The following Monday I got the yellow fever vaccine. “Yellow fever?” you say. “Why?” you say. Because in July I am supposed to finally go to Uganda. The vaccine, however, made me so sick time temporarily stood completely still. I only knew a stomach pain I’ve never experienced before, and having stomach issues, this is saying a lot. I didn’t think I would make it to Africa much less the end of the week. But I’m still here.
18. May also kicked off summer book club, which I am leading.
19. May is hectic because the end of the school year push and doing all of the things for school happens. I wasn’t very successful in finishing well, but the kids finished nonetheless.
20. Also mostly in May? I wrote a massive amount of commentary on Matthew 13 for a Bible lesson at church.
21. The end of May, however, meant a sense of slowing down. All my doctor’s results came back fine, which was good and disheartening at the same time.
22. We took a vacation to the beach, and for once, I was able to really breathe again, despite practicing deep breathing techniques all month long as my heart thumped unusually.
23. The beginning of June was the final doctor follow-up, in which he dismissed me. I decided to take charge of my own health story because no doctor will.

What I didn’t list was the usual family stresses like tween angst, marital ups and downs, feeling alone. Technically, all three of my kids are “tweens,” but I’m only categorizing two in that category. What I have learned looking at this list is that my stress was unusually high even though I thought it was normal. What I also see is that I have a low tolerance for busyness. I need a high amount of margin. The stay at home mom life, though don’t always see it as ideal, is probably at least the best life for me right now. To top it off, I wasn’t writing.

When I am not writing, words are building inside of me. I would be a talker, except I don’t have people in my life that I think will want to listen to me. This is not a commentary on my people, but a commentary on the way I perceive life and also a commentary on my personal history.

• I have a history with my mom that makes me want to be a really good mom to my kids, which means I don’t tell my kids all the things. So my kids know me, but only the mom part of me. This is good and healthy.
• I can and perhaps should tell my husband all the things, but it is very unsatisfying to talk and talk and to receive only silence in response, so sometimes, we continue with our easy way of things, me feeling all the angst all the time until the tears come. He wants to know why, and the words lodge in the back of my throat stuck down where I think they belong.
• My mom tells me all the things but never asks me about all my things. When I try to tell her mine, I usually regret it.
• I have lots of acquaintances in my life, lots of people who say they care about me, lots of people who perceive me as a friend, but there are few whom I perceive as a friend. Friends who listen and care 100% about molding me into a more godlier woman.
• Blogging too is supposed to be intentional, not a place for people to listen to who I really am. That’s the perception anyway.
• Social media is a poor place for calling people to listen.

What social media is teaching me, through mostly Beth Moore, is that you share the things that give you joy to the people you love. That’s the vulnerability you share, and it draws you into deeper connection with one another. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to do this. This, I think, is why I’ve found frustration in blogging. It’s not from the heart as much as it should be.

I want to be an influencer, but even though I did all the things seen in the list above, I’m not built for influencing. I am built to live small and a little hidden – hidden under the shelter of His wings.

The truth is, I have been questioning the point of me, why I exist. I want to be good at writing or good at teaching or good at mothering or being a wife or being a friend, none of which I think I really am. Currently, I am not even good at being. 🙂

This post is too long, a bit pointless for my readers, and too detailed and personal. Yet, it has been 100% edifying to me, as I watch the sunrise and hear birds tweet. I am deeper in tune with who I am and what God is doing. I can see the me I lost and begin again.