(this photo is not of the horses in this deep thought, just one of the many baby animal photos I stop abruptly to snap)
there are some really pitiful gray horses on a little county road I travel frequently
my sonās nana would say how āuglyā they are every time we passed them and to be fair, they actually are
the living conditions are tough – junk on the unkept land, no shelter, I donāt even know
at one point these animals were pathetically emaciated and the sheriffās department was there every other day- Iām sure answering the call of a concerned citizen
today I drove by and saw the neighbor across the street feeding them – the same man Iāve seen feeding these animals for years, driven by him literally hundreds of times with a little pail of food, on the other side of the fence, hand feeding this crew to their delight
and to his
I noticed and then realized how he always has a kind, soft expression on his face as he tenderly cares for them
scruffing their little heads as they aggressively devour the contents of his pail
and the deep thought washed over me
maybe itās my made up version of what is going on but i really believe itās the truth
he isnāt judging
anyone
not the owners of the animals
not the situation
in my mind, heās judging nothing
heās also not devaluing them because they arenāt the most beautiful horses in the pasture
his one and only goal is to care for these animals that are vulnerable and canāt care for themselves
he happily walks over day in and day out and helps a situation that needs attention with love and compassion
he doesnāt try to delve deeply into the why
or try to understand how things got this way
he doesnāt try to change the owners actions
or get angry because the owners arenāt doing what he is doing
or responding the way he responds
heās not feeling superior because heās doing the right and best thing
heās not on FB announcing how awful these people are and how wonderful he is
or in the office on Monday morning yelling about his crappy neighbors
he is simply, happily, quietly and lovingly attending to a situation that needs attention with love and compassion
deep.
thought.Ā Ā
āHumanity shares a unique bond with God, characterized by deep personal intimacy and the invitation to foster a beautiful world. The nature of humanity’s relationship with God stands apart from that of the rest of creation. We aren’t merely inhabitants of this evolving terrain but its designated stewards. Humanity is empowered not with unchecked authority, but a deep-seated duty. Our role? To protect every tree and every creature, ensuring all thrive under our care. In this way, we mirror the care, grace, and compassion that God extends to us.ā- A Beautiful Year in the Bible
Being out of the game for basically a year, AND it being steamy hot, i was going to start slow but i decided to challenge myself. I connected two loops B and C at Tyler State Park for a 5.5 mile trek. That may not SEEM like a lot, but it was A LOT!
Sometimes I stomp out anxiety and fear, sometimes I pray. Today, I stepped onto the trail and started talking to Him. He had the audacity to interrupt me and tell me to just listen this time and He had a lot to say. Not only was it mind clearing and therapeutic to push myself in the heat, but it created the opportunity to REALLY listen . . .
ā¢Slow down when you need to, instead of continuing to tough it through life pushing Pushing PUSHING until you are ādone.ā Slowing down isnāt comfortable, but if you donāt, you may not make it to the end.
ā¢Listen and respond to what your mind, body and spirit are whispering to you before it becomes a scream. The whisper is easier to resolve than the scream.
ā¢Keep trying between each stumble. Each time youāll realize the confidence is building up.
ā¢If you look back, you can see where you got lost and know that you donāt want to get lost there again. And yet, donāt keep looking back, look forward to the beautiful path ahead of you with hope and wonder and expectation.
ā¢Some lost hikers looked at ME and decided I could save them . . . Pausing to allow plenty of time for laughter. . .
My son has been navigating life with me for 34 years and 7 months and could fill in the gaps here, and plenty of you know the stories and know what happened next š š¼. Thank you AllTrails for coming in clutch.
And the always random that never stops for me
ā¢Does my Vault Arms hat make me look like Iām packing heat? Because people stare and Iām okay if they think thereās a pistol in my Osperey.
ā¢Those red shrooms in Super Mario are a real thing. I saw one.
ā¢The smell of dog poop on the trail gives me a skush bit of anxiety. IYKYK. ICYDK – I broke my ankle hiking in November stepping around a pile of dog poop.
Iāll never stop saying how incredible nature, the outdoors, trees and peace are for your mental health. When you find a prescription that works, keep using it. This is my prescription.
I have many blogs written that have to stay stored āunder my pillowā for now and possibly forever, but I think my new series will each be what I heard on the trail because it is good stuff 100% of the time. And itās not just about the trail.
The commonly used expression to indicate that no human, or even a set of humans, can fully raise a child. It takes many to set examples, to love and teach, correct and encourage.
A week ago on Motherās Day, a thought washed over me, carrying with it a past memory.
Beauty in loss.
Ruth Ann Young.
A force of nature in many ways with a huge vibrant personality until her last day, she is the link to my first awareness that beauty in loss exists.
When the unexpected death of her daughter shattered her world, she exemplified the delicacy that can be seen in great loss. The shockingly harsh brokenness of time stopping, ripping back the layers of the unimportant and revealing the valuable.
The vivid memory of her at Tishaās funeral and the gathering at her home after has been imprinted on my mind for over 30 years, making its way back to me in the randomness that such memories elicit. This is the image that trailed behind the thought of the beauty that can be present in loss.
She wore a soft cream colored outfit that day – a sweater and pleated skirt – with classic jewelry, her short hair curled and back combed with the precision that distinguished this as a special occasion.
She looked beautiful, elegant even, and I remember staring at her in awe. As a very young woman with a two year old son, her grandson, and little life experience with such a trial, I saw her as the eponymous face of grace and dignity staring directly into the eyes of tragedy.
Even the noticeable ache in her expression delivered its own unique kind of beauty as she smiled through her brokenness, small tears forming in the outer corners of her eyes. I remember looking on in awe as she worked the room, greeting family and friends, making everyone else comfortable in her own special way. I have a vivid memory of walking closely past her and realizing she was handling this so much differently than I had imagined. It was the same woman Iād witnessed at other, happy, gatherings. Friendly. Social. Welcoming.
Now broken.
Given thought, we can all remember the many small moments that create our perceptions about, and connections to, others. This was one that undoubtedly bound me to her in my heart. Her grace, linking eyes to all she came in contact with, creating warmth and unity.
Over the years she mostly never faltered from being that exact same person. Even when, years later, she again experienced the unthinkable, the loss of her other child. Her son.
The formation of that Mothers Day morning thought reminded me of the end of her life. I needed her to be in that same cream shade that had made her look so ethereal on that soul crushing January day in 1993. In anotherās view it may have been a boring choice of color for such a vibrant lady with a deep, loud laugh. In my view it was anything but. It was fragile and beautiful, soft and strong all at the same time. It gave a gentleness to a woman that had lived through so much and had so many reasons to be the opposite, yet smiled and lived and loved until the end. Itās a color that exemplified an angelic quality for such a beautiful soul.
As she laid there, finally at rest, I saw that same gentle face, yet no tears were in the corners of her eyes. All the burdens and heartbreak were gone, no more smiles through suffering.
No more suffering.
A woman that had run a good race. It was a good, God given reminder for me that day. If we allow it, beauty can come from all circumstances.
I walked in the kitchen and opened the narrow drawer at the far left end of the island. My mission was probably a sharpie, tape, maybe a pair of readers or a lighter. I canāt remember now but what I do remember is the biggest smile spreading across my face and grabbing my phone to snap a photo of the contents of the drawer.
The junk drawer.
As soon as I opened it, I remembered the conversation I had a few nights before.
During a fun exchange about a little bit of everything – a chat so good and spontaneous that time passes without realizing the extent – we discussed the junk drawer.
āYou know the drawer everyone has that has tape, pens,ā he said. āYes, of courseā I say. āThe JUNK drawer. Super glue, sharpies, batteries.ā We laughed.
āWell,ā he says. āafter my divorce I spilled out the ājunk drawerā and examined all of the things in it to see what was there. What needed fixing or throwing away.ā
āAhhhh.ā I immediately track with him.
After several back to back life events in a few short years including lots of death, a bout of deep depression, and a going off the rails of sorts, that unearthed more than I knew what to do with, I wrote a blog. In it, I used a trash can being tossed over and all the garbage spilling out, uncovering the old junk at the bottom. That stuff that had been deeply buried, looking at what was there that had been hidden so many years. I let down my guard and told him part of that story.
One manās junk drawer is another womanās trash can.
When I opened the drawer that day I realized, Iāll never look at another junk drawer the same again or without thinking about him and that conversation. I sent the pic of my open drawer to him. To be honest, I was somewhat envious that he had thought of a better image to represent his situation than I had to represent mine.
Trash is just, well, trash. Itās all in the same category. Itās all getting tossed, taken away, never to be seen again.
A junk drawer, however, with all of its arbitrary contents, is another thing all together. Some of these items are, well, trash. Theyāre no longer usable and will get tossed. Their purpose has been fulfilled.
Some of the things may be a little broken, not quite perfect, but still able to be used for the purpose they serve in your life. These items have to be examined and carefully considered before choosing to keep them or chunk them because maybe they were hard to use, difficult at the time, frustrating or painful even. Many of those things, after sitting in the drawer for a time, reveal themselves to be purposeful after being hidden for a while.
Other things may be new but had been forgotten. They were at the bottom, buried by the trash and the not perfect. Youāll excitedly pull them out, exclaim how you forgot you ever had them, so thankful that you found them again, and work really hard to keep them at the top, remembering to use them on a regular basis.
Hereās a thought based on some hard earned experience. Be careful of what you put in your junk drawer, particularly while cleaning it out. An empty junk drawer is vulnerable, longing to be filled and sometimes will accept items that were meant to be trash all along.
Iāll leave that there for what it is.
Iām going to go clean out my junk drawer . . . while I finish cleaning out my junk drawer.
I became a mom exactly one month after turning twenty.
More specifically, I became a single mom exactly one month after turning twenty.
At a time clouded with fear, immense pain & rejection, tears, uncertainty, pointing fingers and whispered rumors, deception and anger, itās as if I was riding in a vehicle that flipped over like a stunt car and went the opposite direction it was going. The life I was living and the one I dreamed of quickly and abruptly were different. Dreams, plans, high school memories, whatever were sharply extracted and replaced with a mission to raise and love a child, a gift, I didnāt expect.
This baby boy and I grew up together and it was my mission to love him, provide for and protect him. Heās brought immense joy, fun, laughter and a big side of fear and pain to my life that Iām forever grateful for.
Along with that, I knew there were things that hurt and felt āoffā in ways. It was many years before I understood those things needed healing and restoration. Hurt and rejection, grieving the loss of dreams of us as a family, long held shame, and eventually the grieving of the man that was the other half of my baby.
In the last few years, Iāve done work and more work in many ways that revealed so much of that. Itās been an ugly and painful process. A game of tug-of-war with myself, others, and God. As I sit on the passive side of the game, giving more and more of myself in surrender, Iām seeing something incredible for the first time. Iām seeing God beautifully restore things that I had no idea were even part of the brokenness of the situation. There are so many but one really shook me.
This past weekend, I met some friends out of state that I have come to love deeply and are part of this entire healing process. We had plans to attend a college football game. It was to be incredibly cold and raining and up until the morning of the game I considered not going. Iām trying to live life to the fullest and soak up every moment given so I went anyway.
As expected it was raining non stop and very cold. The lower attendance allowed us to move down into lower level seating on the 50 yard line. As I sat in the stadium, taking in the deep colors, all the sounds of players and fans and bands and canons something hit me.
We left at the half and went to a well known bar. It was jam packed full with happy, fun-loving fans. Whatever vision can be thought about a college bar, this was it. As someone who can struggle in these types of crowds, I didnāt. I had a few beers, soaked it all in. The experience had a meaning I didnāt yet understand.
More beautiful moments happened over the weekend and then I headed home Monday.
On my drive home, which is lengthy, i reflected on life right now. A year ago, I was deeply and darkly depressed and filled with anxiety, making hideous choices and breaking my own heart over and over. Now, today, I am protective of my heart and my peace. I realized two things. I have been feeling true and deep joy again. Something that felt so frustratingly elusive not even a year ago is filling my life daily.
Hereās the big one, though. The thing that shook me as I headed back to Texas. The college game in the rain. The college bar with a big ole crowd. God gave me an experience that I missed as a young single mom. A genuine college game day experience. I never felt the loss of this but the Lord, in his abundant goodness, knew that I needed that moment to fill in a little crack that would just add to the wholeness Heās giving back to me. I knew in that moment, heading East, that He has me. Heās going to restore all of it, even some things I donāt think of. Every tiny crack will be filled in and it will be a beautiful patchwork of a life that I once struggled to understand.
āThe Lord says, āI will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you.ā
I recently had a conversation with a friend – a young, single mom that often writes thought provoking, beautiful and ārealā posts on Facebook. I developed a deep respect for her years ago when she bravely wrote about bettering herself and rising above her circumstances as a single mom of two. I knew then that we had a connection. She was me. I was her.
Her latest entry is an amazing few paragraphs about Fatherās Day and I sent her a text stating how she should start a blog.
This sweet mama has also been a supporter of all my antics – my actual blog, my random crazy thoughts, and ādeep thoughts with Melissa.ā She gets me and she reminded me of this – telling me how she āalways wants to hear more of what Melissa has to say.ā
Bless her heart.
But. I started thinking.
I explained briefly why I havenāt written in a long time. As a true āexternal processor,ā the reasons came out.
This one is for you, girl.
The last year has been one of the most debilitating years of my life. It wasnāt one thing, or another thing. It was many years of dysfunction and pressing down of issues that erupted. It was a popcorn maker, over filled with kernels, pop, POP, popping until the lid explodes open, gushing the contents onto the countertop, then the floor – waves of bursted little nuggets of corn, overflowing with a vengeance into a messy, chaotic pile.
I never thought I would be okay again. Truly. I was in the most excruciating state of chronic anxiety and depression. I stopped caring about myself or anyone else. I stopped loving music, art, creativity, life. Pretending I was okay was a game that I thought I had mastered. The things I did to mask pain broke my own heart.
When I would think about the blogs I had written, I was terrified of the vulnerability I had shown. I considered deleting all of them and trying to pretend they never existed. There were people that reached out to me that were inspired by them. There were people that used my own words to manage me. I was paralyzed by both of those things.
In January of this year, many things changed. A rough case of Covid slowed me down and the exhaustion lasted months. During this time, where I had really come to the end of myself, I remembered that in a few passing conversations over the last year, God had used some friends to plant a teeny tiny mustard seed to tell me about a group called Freedom.
I signed up and it began in February. I can still remember walking in, wearing a three piece suit of shame, guilt, and brokenness. Chaos swirled around me like one of those little gnat nests you walk through in the summer, that you canāt escape from. I couldnāt even express the mess that was my life. I could hardly breathe. Most weeks, I would step through the door and feel as if I had walked off of a battlefield. Tears would rise before the group ever began.
Somehow, despite everything, I committed to never missing a session and attending the final conference. I succeeded. Thirteen weeks plus an intense conference dealing with so many things.
By the end of April and the final conference, the āthingsā began making some sense. Healing began happening. Small glimmers of peace peeked through the chaos. Some wounds didnāt feel like deep, painful, bleeding cuts, but more like scars. Forgiveness began happening. What seemed like things I would never understand and would never stop hurting, turned into the very things that God used to get me to where I was. Suddenly, divinely, I was no longer in the valley. I was baby-stepping up the other side, sometimes even seeing the mountaintop. I spoke to a friend this morning and we both agree on one thing. To our human brains, where I am now really makes no sense compared to where I was.
Pausing here to say this. If youāve got questions about what Freedom is, contact me. Iāll always share the goodness that is this course.
In our conversation, my single mama friend mentioned how her life was so much better now, lived in peace. As soon as I read these words I had a realization that I shared with her.
Chaos, lived out for so many years, is whatās often more comfortable for me. Anxiety hits hard some days and fuels the flames of chaos like the wind feeding a pasture fire in a dry Texas summer. Sometimes, choosing peace is the harder, more unnatural thing for me. Occasionally, I choose chaos. The shift is that more often, Iām picking peace and Iām going to continue to fight for it.
I could wish a million wishes that the things that led me to this place would have never happened, but I donāt. I really donāt. God used all of those things to propel me here. This area of choosing peace over chaos. This place of healing. This place of waiting. This place of being willing to be used by Him. This place of surrender. This place filled to the brim with the most incredible people to walk this journey with. This place of being real and vulnerable, as scary as it is. This place where the popcorn kernels are at a good, safe level and if a few nuggets get burned or overflow, they are quickly scooped into the trash. Thereās a balance here, and it mostly feels amazing. Not perfect, but amazing.
Add Turkey, cooking until brown and cooked through.
Add tomatoes and bell pepper and stir in.
Note: you could add in some corn, black beans, other seasoning such as chili powder, etc here. Iāve done all of those and they are great but Iām trying to keep this lower carb.
Stir in rice and broth. Lower heat, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Check occasionally and add more broth as needed.
Itās a week shy of 4 months when I walked into The Press to work out that ā¢oneā¢ day. That one day that I was just going to ‘test run’ the working out, and had no real plan for continuing on. A day, or maybe a few, that I imagined would be another mark disappointingly drawn into the loss column and tucked away in that failure file in the back of my mind.
One thing about those painful past dieting “failures” – they leave scars formed over a base of fear. I say that to say this. Itās frightening to list wins and successes out loud, as if doing so will create immediate destruction on any hard-fought-for progress. Iām going to do my best to kick the enemy out of that thought and give an almost four-months-in eating update that WILL include the wins.
My dieting resume is crowded with plans that are mostly complex to track – calories, points, logs, weights, measures, formulas, extra fat, no carbs, no fat, āfreeā foods and on and on and on. Itās no wonder my food confusion had truly peaked out after my last diet – keto, for the curious.
A few weeks in – somewhere around the beginning of last November – the first food conversation with Berry happened. It was basically this, āletās eat whole, good quality foodā and he then jotted down a general outline of how to eat at each meal. Notice I didnāt say āwhatā to eat, but āhowā. (Iām no food expert and therefore am leaving out the specifics of the āhowā but will say that no food groups are excluded and none are eaten in excess.).
For months I had been having the instinct to eat whole, unprocessed food – and had been considering doing the Whole 30 diet, although that wasn’t what he was referencing in our conversation. I wanted to test the theory of taking out the ‘junk’ I was eating to see if my aches and pains, headaches, and overall blah feeling improved. He wanted to make this process simple.
When he said this, I told him I was completely on board, but I have since tried (more than once) to complicate matters (always!) by asking about macros and my fitness pal and etc. āLetās just keep KISSingā he said. (Keep It Simple Stupid, in case youāre confused).
SIMPLE! The little, but oh-so-big, thing thatās been my hearts desire for my life for the last several years. While I hadn’t previously lined up my need for simplicity with my eating, the encouragement to eat basic, whole, whatever-you-want-to-call-it foods sounded glorious to me. Additionally, another door was opened wide to my thinking – āwillpower is an endless resource that you have to use,ā he told me one day. You know those incredibly elementary things you hear and think, āwell duh.ā Mmm hmmm – this was one of those moments.
In a world that, since I was a teenager, had been the most complicated, gut-wrenching mess and one person comes along and gives me a three ingredient recipe that I can easily understand and implement: KISS + Willpower (mix in giant spoonfuls of encouragement as needed) created a life-giving, uncomplicated eating plan.
It possibly sounds absurd that I have neither thought of nor been told to use these simple tools and, whether I have or not, it resonated with me. As with other things in life, when we reach our low point, suggestions are received differently and I think that was why this was the perfect combination for me. A low point with the complex and tangled web of disordered eating, years upon years of diets and failures, plus all of the chaotic thoughts, crashing into someone who realized that keeping it simple was key for me. Again, I know that this meeting was a Divine connection from the beginning.
Iām in NO WAY implying that this has been a breeze and that I donāt struggle. Trust. Iāll explain that part later. What I AM saying is that in the win column, I have almost four straight months of eating with this ārecipeā – simple foods, mostly meal prepped (not a ton of eating out) and when certain cravings happen, I mostly always remember that God has given me an endless supply of willpower. When I donāt remember, heaps of encouragement are mixed in.
Additionally, I havenāt had any ‘true’ binge eating episodes in these close to four months. I say ‘true’ because my mind is a work in progress. With some transparency, I will say that I have had a few set backs that shook me to the core and came unexpectedly. Each setback turns into a days-long, soul-crushing episode and that is just the painful truth of it. The difference, however, is placed solidly in the win column. In the past, these things happened in secret, in a black hole of lonely and quiet where no one was the wiser. These times, however, I talked through each of these painful ordeals and learned some pertinent, although hard, lessons.
As the months have ticked by, I have become more aware of just how hard it is to suddenly drop disordered eating – my coping mechanism. In the beginning, it was simpler, as if I were starting yet another diet. The difference now is that I’m in the midst of making a life change, backed by the knowledge of the eating disorder and over a year of work to understand that. Thankfully I have the support of others who have trudged the murky waters of becoming free from their own coping mechanisms, and have helped me understand what can only be described as the big mess in my mind. The details of this feel too personal to divulge, but I will say that the feeling of being lost has been a miserable place to be. “You’ve been turning left and now you’re turning right and you’re lost,” I was told. Lightbulb moment number 523 in this long journey – that is exactly how I feel.
While this time period has been an emotional roller coaster, Iām not putting it down in the loss column. Instead, Iām calling it a win for two reasons. One, Iām trudging through it, for the most part, without giving in to any old coping mechanisms, so that I can see the light on the other side.
Secondly, I’ve been able to connect with people who understand this phase and have explained it to me so well. The main someone that has helped me with this is my son, Blake. During his own addiction recovery, there were times when I was at a complete loss as to why things were so rocky. In all of his explanations to me during this, my own, confusing time, I now know what he was dealing with in trying to ‘turn right’ in his life. It’s harder than it looks, friends. If you can’t understand why, just trust me.
In closing, I want to clarify something that has been on my heart from the very first post. I never want to convey, seemingly simply, that self-esteem, value as a person and self-worth are tied to the number on the scale. In my own journey, that is the case and started very early in my life, snowballing and becoming my deeply disordered way of thinking. The harsh reality, seen more clearly now from a new lens, is that no matter the number, I never saw myself any differently. The bigger, and likely harder, part of this journey is not just about losing weight, but also that those things will be restored and I will see myself as I truly am. For the final four-month-mark win, I will say that I have seen a few glimpses of her, restored Melissa, and it feels pretty dang good.
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10
Every first weekend in December for at least the last five years, my daughter-in-law, Virginia, and I spend 4 days together, with 16 other women, at a creative retreat that is essentially a bed & breakfast with a space for creativity. It has, to the joy of my heart, become āour weekendā
This year, the retreat didnāt happen for a variety of reasons. Cancelled two days before we were to leave and determined we were going SOMEWHERE because of the generosity and encouragement of my sweet Blake, we were on a mission to find an alternative location for just the two of us. I was super busy and told her ājust find something and Iām good.ā She sent me some options, we picked one in Carlton Landing, OK. Booked and excited, but no clue where we were going, we just knew we were clocking out Thursday morning.
Thursday morning arrived and I was going in every direction trying to get ready to leave – I had numerous texts going- personal and business, a little drama in some areas, emails and messages for my business that I was trying to wrap up, and a friend who had a hard situation to where I felt it was a priority to talk to him with my full attention.
I started packing randomly and, flustered, I text her, āIām so sorry Iām running late.ā āIām just sitting here, in silence , reading,ā she replied, ātake your time.ā
Dang it I love this girl. We were starting out with one of the weekend goals- peace, not stress.
Our original creative retreat was āamazingā to a healthy minded person. The house smelled of food 24/7, cooked by the sweetest staff and that guests are served family style, in abundance.
Personally, every year something unknown left me feeling āweirdā and I had to step out, be alone, and try to regroup, many times in bed filled with anxiety and self-hatred. I had no idea, until this year and all the work of eating disorder recovery collided with preparing for this week, that what I had been experiencing was the painful effects of over eating – some binges – for days in a row.
Before we cancelled, I talked to Berry about effective strategies for making this situation work and we had a fairly solid game plan, but I was in no way settled in my heart about going there. No matter how much we talked it through and he ever-so-kindly agreed to help me navigate this, I couldnāt wrap my head around it. Sitting for four days and eating those foods didnāt feel right in any way. Little did I realize how grateful I would be that we canceled the retreat.
On the 4-hour drive to Carlton Landing, Virginia and I had the most beautiful conversation and so much fun. I felt peace settling in with each mile driven. She has been in my life for about 8 years and I love her more all the time. During this entire journey, all the way back to my time with ML, she has had the desire to be involved and walk with me but I hadnāt really known how to make her understand. On the drive, she opened her heart to me, telling me, as she had been for weeks, that she wanted to walk with me in this and to do it WELL. In the car, under an umbrella of peace, I really heard her. She had prayed for Jesus to be in her words, was praying for me, wanted me to never be alone in this mess – and I could feel that she truly cared and that overwhelmed me.
She had already met me where and how I was on many occasions in weeks prior – in parking lots, struggling, at my house, all twisty, hugging me so tight I could feel her heartbeat. But in this four hour, easy and stress-free car ride, I TRULY heard her and the pivot was that I allowed myself to BELIEVE it.
Additionally, in that four hours, was her understanding of me. I am still struggling with this all being ātoo muchā for anyone. Itās too much for myself many days so thinking that anyone wants to be involved is hard. She does, though, and I was able to explain more about what I was going through, the depths of the dark days, the fears the enemy spoke to me so harshly at times, and we discussed this blog. Each word I spoke, and those that I have written, she was able to understand it all more.
Here is a recipe we can all use, created in a 4 hour car ride to Oklahoma. To truly walk side by side with someone in this complex life, in a world where we were never meant to be comfortable but need to āmake it workā while we are here – pray for one another, listen to each other, seek to TRULY understand them, walk arm in arm with those that you know God meant to be in your life. That may be a big āole group for you, but for me, in this season, itās three amazing and empowering people that I cherish and I wouldnāt have it any other way. The importance of this is beaming into my life right now. In so many ways.
Every time I hit āpublishā on these blogs the enemy works on me hard. I feel so fearful that I will be completely misunderstood, possibly even shut out by some, but she, and so many others, are rooting me on, encouraging me, keeping the tank filled with all thatās needed to continue this journey – to run this race with endurance. Encouraging and powerful words spoken to me over and over, most of which are things that I have never before considered or seen in myself. All of these carefully chosen words are being poured into me by people that care and are speaking life into me. They are healing the most broken parts of me.
When this eating disorder journey began in early 2019, ML told me numerous times I needed a āsupport system.ā I didnāt know how to allow anyone in – I was fighting to understand all of this myself and so to explain to anyone else seemed far too daunting. Now, here we are, with four hours alone to bond and develop deeper and deeper trust. Any balking on my part of sharing thoughts was met with āget it out.ā
In the pitch dark of night – you know, about 6:30pm – we arrived in Carlton Landing, OK with a tightly woven bond of trust and understanding. Four perfect hours, set aside by God, for us to know each other on a deeper level and under no pressure to ābe onā or āentertainā or ācare forā. It was glorious time, set aside by God for this very purpose.
That first night was a ghost town in Carlton Landing. We hopped in āourā golf cart (turns out it wasnāt ours at all and that was part of the weekend shenanigans), laughing gleefully and cruised this dreamy neighborhood, fully decorated in Christmas lights. We found the pool and hot tub and ONE family.
The next day started with her coming in my room and telling me to come look at this greatness – and what greatness it was. Godās handiwork was on full display. We were facing a huge lake, in this community that can only be described as Mayberry.
After discussing and realizing the hard effects on my emotional state after eating poorly for a full weekend at the retreat, we went to the grocery store and carefully planned each meal, that we prepared ourselves. That may not sound like a vacation to most, but for me, that simple act salvaged my self-hatred that had plagued me each year.
In case you havenāt seen the score card here is a recap of the ways God orchestrated the most beautiful and perfect time, in what originally seemed like a mess.
-The original retreat was canceled.
-The realization of how that retreat affected me emotionally caused a new and beautiful plan – we have permanently cancelled it but will still leave town every first weekend in December – just the two of us – for a mother-daughter weekend. Location is TBD and we have big dreams.
-We were given four beautiful hours of spectacular bonding and understanding time that I will never forget or take for granted
-We were at peace, with nothing to encumber it
Thatās just the start. Thereās the rest of the weekend.
We relaxed, walked everywhere, stayed active (as opposed to sitting all weekend after over eating), hot tubbed, polar dipped (you know, bucket list #53 and also Berrys fault – he told us cold water increased metabolism), rode golf carts, met the sweetest people, made fresh greenery wreaths in the city pavilion, laughed and laughed some more, sat on the overlook on Lake Eufaula, gazed and amazed at the feel of this beautiful community, inhaled peace and exhaled stress, sent tear soaked prayers down the stream along the nature trail, baby hiked, and then ended the weekend at the most beautiful service at the community church.
Four days of pure blissful perfection. Understanding. Knowing someone I love so deeply even more. Feeling Gods beautiful creation of nature surrounding us. Meeting new people. Laughing hysterically. Each thing carefully and beautifully orchestrated by God.
As Iām finishing up, I keep thinking of two things.
The first is this verse – āFor everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heavenā Ecclesiastesā¬ ā3:1ā¬. The creative retreat held so many fun memories, but itās season has ended and that is totally okay. There is never good in trying to keep making something work that really no longer does.
The second thing is this. What i saw as a mess in the chaos surrounding the retreat cancellation, turned into the most beautiful time of connection and renewal. I am choosing to see this as a picture of this journey as a whole. The deeply chaotic and painful moments are going to reclaim what has been lost and create renewal. The light looks a bit brighter from this perspective.
just the good stuff please 