This Little Light of Mine

Every year for many years, my mom has organized a county-wide Christian women's retreat in East Tennessee. When I've been able to attend, I've participated in various ways; I've photographed and sung and taught breakout sessions, and this past year I was a main speaker. The theme was fear. I went into the situation feeling like I had some thoughts to contribute.

Generally, I feel tired after speaking; in recent years, I've noticed I feel tired even after teaching, but the fatigue that set in after this event may have been unprecedented. I was motivated to drive home that evening (and was rewarded, later, for making that decision) but needed to stop several times on the three-hour trip just to stay awake. I felt exhausted and heavy, awkward and almost bruised, like I'd fallen or run into a wall.

As time passed, every time I thought about my part in the event, I felt...icky. I'm generally confident in my words, so my discomfort was unusual. I was sure I'd said the wrong things in the wrong way with the wrong spirit. I suspected I'd been controversial, possibly offensive. I tried not to agonize or even mull over the situation, but for months, it was in the back of my mind, bothering me.

Then I allowed someone's words to wound me. I don't know this person but had known for years that I disagreed with some of his theology, so I have no idea why I internalized what he said...unless because I was already so busy second-guessing myself.

Two months after the retreat, my mom came to visit. She happened to have with her the recording of the event, and I asked to listen to my part. I can't express how much I dreaded hearing myself but had been so unusually miserable that I felt sure I'd said something for which I needed to repent. I just wanted to identify it and move forward. I cringed as my mom pressed play.

Listening to myself was an interesting exercise because I heard nothing to regret. Of course there was room for improvement (There always is!), but I didn't hear anything like what I'd expected. Instead, I heard myself trying to find points of agreement and connection, taking special care not to disparage others. I heard myself sharing active pain and struggle, also some hard-won wisdom. I was especially interested in the points at which I'd gone off script because it seemed possible to me that someone really needed to hear the things I hadn't planned to say. What a relief! How much energy, I wonder, had I wasted by allowing my mind to play tricks on me?

I have always blogged to write myself down for my children, and if that's all I accomplish with this post, I will be satisfied. But this is what I want to share, today, and it's nothing new:

Let your light shine.

If you're in Christ, allow the Spirit within you to be your guide. Allow God to open your mouth and give you words. You will know when it's time to speak and what to say. No one can better advise or inform you than God within you. You will know if your message is true, and if it is, don't second-guess it.

Your pain is not off limits; in fact, your pain is your power. It just takes practice to know how to use it! If you practice enough, your pain will light your way into spaces you never imagined. You'll look around, and no one else will be there to do the work that needs done. There will be no competition; no one else will even want to do it. You may not want to do it, yourself, but you will know it to be your work, and you will be equipped to complete it.

Those who are wise in Christ know: in the Kingdom, we are short-handed. (The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.) There simply aren't enough willing hands. There is far more to do than what is being accomplished. Be inspired: you are desperately needed! Stay in the Spirit, and get to work.

Waiting by the Berry Bush

This blog will be nine years old in less than two weeks, but it has been well over a year since I've written anything new in this space. Cade asked me about my writing, recently, and I think maybe that's what I needed: for him to ask. I think I've relied on his interest in my writing more than I'd realized; I think, as fellow creatives, we've nudged one another forward for a long time, and when we didn't (or couldn't), we both struggled creatively. I did, at least.

But what I told Cade when he asked about my writing is also true: that for awhile, his plot line was the most engrossing one in the story of my life, and I didn't feel free to write it; patient enough to somehow disguise it; and certainly not inauthentic enough to avoid it in my writing. I still don't.

Imagine the two of us, though, in the very back of our new yard where, at dusk, the bunnies slip from a blackberry bush to taunt Lucy the Beagle. Lucy is a hunter's reject, but maybe she's been healed in our home, as I witnessed her chasing a rabbit just two days ago. At any rate, imagine it: Lucy has darted around Cade's feet and out the door, and almost five years into our relationship with the dog, we all know her bright heart; we know she can smell her way home, that she will return if she can. But we don't know most of our neighbors (or their dogs), and there's no area code on Lucy's collar; we know no one who might find her could guess it. Meanwhile, cars zip by on Old 109.

Cade is especially close to Clementine, and Lucy is Clementine's dog. Clementine is struggling with the move more than the rest of us put together, and she's in the house sobbing at the thought of losing her one. last. friend. At the back of the yard, I recognize Cade's discomfort, although most of you wouldn't; he's quiet, as always. He could be a rabbit, himself, for the way he holds himself alert and listens for the bay of the dog, looks intently into the brush for the white tip of her tail even as I have settled down in the grass, to wait.

"Do you think I should go in after her?" he asks.

"No," I say gently, "it's not a good idea. There are sure to be snakes in there."

"Don't you care about Lucy?" he snaps, uncharacteristically. "You don't even seem upset."

"I care," I say. "I'm praying. Are you praying?"

"Yes," he says quietly, "I am."

Much later, after the dog is safely home, after Clementine has stopped crying and gone off to sleep along with her younger siblings (and Lucy, exhausted by her great bunny chase), Cade and I sit quietly among our books. "You know how, earlier, I didn't get as upset as you'd expected?" I ask him.

He looks up and nods. His great, grey eyes search my face.

"That's what parenting you has taught me," I say. "It's taught me not to get upset until I know there's something to get upset about. Papaw tried to tell me, but I had to learn it for myself. Parenting you has taught me not to make things worse by getting upset. It's taught me not to waste my energy. It's taught me that--when you're out of my hands--I need to wait and pray for you to come safely home, that maybe you will, that maybe everything will be okay."

Cade nods again, slowly, and holds my gaze long enough for me to know he knows. Then he turns his eyes back toward his book. The chemistry between us is right; it is what it was for 17.5 years and what it wasn't for two years, and in a nutshell, what I really want to share is how I understand more, now, about beauty from ashes than I ever did, before. About David's Ziklag. There were moments in which I honestly didn't know if we would survive, and you want to believe I'm being melodramatic, but even if you've been close, you haven't seen through my eyes. It has only been by God's hand that we have made our way, here, to this good place; it is a mighty hand.

I can breathe, again. Maybe even write.