Tag Archive for: joy

Round 2

/in

By the grace of God; Eric, Lilah, and I will be welcoming a baby into our family in November. The last few months have been emotional and physically exhausting, but we are so very grateful and do not take this gift lightly.

In the spirit of full vulnerability, I want to share my initial reaction to my pregnancy:

Pregnant. The digital pee stick told me so. Well to be fair it told me “no” twice first. But, in the middle of a hectic morning, “pregnant” flashed across the teeny gray screen. My stomach leaped with excitement. Another one. More cute fingers and toes, sloppy kisses, and little baby snores. But quickly followed the dark thoughts that know how to steal my joy: more sleepless nights, postpartum emotions, breastfeeding, sickness, tantrums, not knowing what the hell I am doing. Can I even do this? Two? Can I even handle one? Actually, let’s be honest, can I even handle myself?

But this is what I know to be true, when I am uncertain of my own abilities:

“Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ to my right, Christ to my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down”

-St. Patrick

We are so thankful for this adventure. And I will try to be as honest as I possibly can throughout.

Love to you all, my friends!

Lizz

The Place That Brought Me Back To Life.

/in ,

I look at this picture, stare straight into the eyes of this woman, and I catch my breath. There was a time I hated the eyes that stared back at me, banged my head against the mirror in agony, shuddered at the thought of my future. My life is not perfect, but there is a strength and a hope that was never there before. I am thankful for my journey. So thankful.

Spring triggers the memory for me. The smell of new rain on the earth, bonfires, the feel of warm sun on my face. The most unlikely of places brought me back to life 12 years ago.

We weren’t really a camping family. Sure, I ran around barefoot all summer and climbed trees like a monkey, but nothing that quite prepared me for this.

I arrived terrified beyond anything I’ve ever felt. The truck bumped along the gravel driveway for over a mile before grinding to a hault next to a brown ranch building. I went in the front door with only the clothes on my back, and came out ready for the next two months of my life. My hiking boots pinched my feet, and the cargo shorts they’d given me clashed terribly with my new yellow t-shirt. I climbed back into the truck, refusing what they called “the last supper”, a Big Mac and fries, before making our way slowly up the mountain to the drop off point.

We stopped at the edge of a thick forest, and the door opened beside me. My driver helped me out of the truck and clipped my pack to my back. Another man was waiting for me by the woods, ready to take me to what was next. I wanted to scream and cling to the bearded man who’d brought me here. I’d only known him for a few hours, but the sound of his truck driving away felt like deep abandonment.

The new man hiked in front of me as I stumbled along behind. My pack was too heavy for my small frame even though it had barely anything inside. By the time we arrived at the campsite, my hips had been rubbed raw.

Little did I know the hardships I’d experience over the next two months; the agony of missing family events, of finding out I would not be going home again, the physical pain I would overcome as I hiked through the Blue Ridge mountains. But deep suffering does something to us doesn’t it? When we are stripped of everything we find something underneath it all. We find grit we didn’t know was there. We find those many wonderful things God gave us as babes that we forgot were even there.

I struggle with suffering. I want it to go away. In fact, I spend much of my life subconsciously trying to avoid it. But when I stop and really consider, suffering is what grounds us. It grounds us to God, ourselves, each other, our humanity. Over the years has come this understanding that for us to fully live as we’ve been created to live, we must experience suffering. Our choice is how we to choose to navigate through the hard.

Make the LEAP.

/in ,

For 16 months I attended an all girls boarding school. It was so damn hard, but I crushed it. As I was preparing to graduate and go out into the world, back into the chaos, I completed two action plans, assignments to help me set my mind on what is to come. I stumbled across them today as I attempted to navigate the great abyss that is my computer desktop. 18 year old me, so long ago, and yet in an instant it all comes flooding back.

            As I get ready to leave SRA I take away the ability to feel my emotions, but not let them overwhelm me. I have the motivation to complete my schoolwork on time and I have more confidence in my ability to do the work well. I am very well aware of my creativity and have confidence enough in my creative abilities to pursue what I love to do in college and probably even beyond that. I eat now to strengthen my body, and I run because I love how my muscles feel when I do. I am aware of my body and what it feels like when I dance or run or play a sport. I look in the mirror without cringing and usually I smile at myself. Things with my family are still pretty rough, but I have learned that I can’t change my family and also from that I have to accept them the way they are. Honesty is the best policy, even if it’s hard and even if someone else lets what I have to say hurt them. Relationships are still hard for me. Although, I have worked on being honest despite what others think and working on not using other people to validate my self worth. I like to lead, but sometimes take charge when I don’t need to. I’ve found my voice and am using it to stand up for myself and to just say what I need to say. I’ve also learned that life goes on until you die and that things just aren’t perfect, I’ll be making mistakes, learning and working my whole life.

Emotionally, I’ve found emotions that I never let myself have, like happiness and excitement. I’ve been able to see my intelligence as something enjoyable, not just a useful thing during the school year. I have found my creativity and use it to do really relaxing things, like paint on a sheet and get all messy or even just coloring in a coloring book. I’ve also taken to reading children’s books to myself which helps me connect with the little Elizabeth inside and also helps me to relax. Well, like I said above, when I dance and run I like how I can feel every inch of my body filled with energy. I love the way it feels. Corny, but it’s almost magical how I feel like i’m floating; once the adrenaline starts flowing my muscles just relax.  Really though, I’ve learned that there’s no magic wand in life. Yeah, sometimes things feel magical, but life isn’t a fairy tale. I have to work for what I want. That concept is magic in itself.

                       I see doubt as my biggest challenge after SRA. When I doubt who I am then everything just falls apart from there. I also think that isolating will be a big challenge because it’s still a lot easier for me to not tell people how i’m feeling or what I’m thinking especially when I’m at home with my family. Keeping commitments has been really hard for me recently and I think it will continue to be a challenge. Especially the little commitments are hard, like going out to dinner, or attending a graduation party. When I don’t keep my commitments I start to feel bad about myself, but I also hurt other people and sometimes even lose their trust in me to be there when I say I will. I still tend to be pretty judgmental, especially of guys, which is one of the ways I avoid intimacy. It’s like an automatic reaction when I meet someone or I feel like we’re getting closer. When I get depressed then I spiral down from there, which goes along with the isolating kinda. As I write this I feel like there are a whole lot of challenges after I leave SRA. Some of them I probably don’t even know about yet. I’ll have to take them as they come.

                       When I’m faced with challenges I know that I have my friends from SRA. I can call them anytime and they’ll talk to me and help me see things from another perspective. They’re just great girls and a really great resource. I like to have a lot of inspiration around my room. My contract is on my mirror, my bulletin board is motivational and I really like quotes so I try to put things like that around so that I see them and they remind of who I am and all that I’m capable of accomplishing. Depression is more like a signal really. It tells me that there’s something that I’m not sharing, not addressing, that I’m holding back. I think mostly, it will be about using my resources; the people I trust in my life, and what I’ve learned.

I had no idea what would what was in store for me. The harsh lessons learned in college, the emotional turmoil as I began to realize that the therapeutic work I had done didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I needed to face. But then again, I also had no idea how I would TRIUMPH! And never in a million years would I have been able to imagine the life that I have now, the person that I have become, and the many things that I have learned over the last 10 years. Cheers to you, my brave 18 year old self.

Thank You. Love, Me.

/in , , ,

I was 16 years old. Sitting alone in the middle of an international airport. I knew my dad would catch up to me soon. I’d just escaped a plane ride to a destination I greatly feared. I had every intention of bucking up, bravely enduring the trip and what was to come after, but in the end, the fear was too great, I had to get off. He had followed me, I know he had, grabbing our bags in the process. I knew I was in trouble.

I was ashamed, still afraid, trying to get control of a situation I had zero control over. You see just 24 hours earlier my parents had told me I’d be going to Georgia, to a therapeutic wilderness camp. I’d looked it up online, researched my fate, made peace with it. But as the hours passed, It felt too scary, I wanted to be brave, but I couldn’t.

Back at home after our first attempt to go, the fear overtook me. I sobbed, I self harmed, I screamed a million obscenities at everyone in my path. I was 16. Bigger than a child, but yet still a kid. And I was scared. Scared I would never make it through a wilderness camp, scared of what life looked like ahead of me, scared I would never live a life of peace and joy.

So much in my past that makes me cringe to remember, that causes tears to roll down my cheeks when I write about it. “Who even was she?”, I wonder aloud. “Thank God I’ve grown,” I commend myself, “I’ll just forget about it all, leave it in the past, cover it with this newer model of myself. One that is a little more mentally stable, more sure of herself, more socially acceptable”.

God, no I hope I never do that. I hope I never forget, never stop sharing, never stop thanking little me for everything that has come before now. I’ve been fighting since I was a teeny little thing. Fighting for a better life, for hope that I knew deep down existed. Battling mental illness, and traumas that rocked my little epathetic self. How brave I have been. How dedicated to my future, to the real me that lives deep down inside, to exposing the mess and embracing the truth. So brave.

It’s so much easier to blame the past isn’t? Or to mourn everything that the past could have been had we only done something different. But we didn’t. We have done the very best we’ve ever been able to do in order to survive. The “me” we are today has everything to do with all that came before, the person we’ve been, the choices we’ve made. We are they and they are us.

I’ve been brave. I’ve been strong. All that I am has brought me to this place.

Thank You. Love, me.

? Marisa Kinney photography


I’ll leave you with this, my friends:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3Y_YiZp6gM

“I am the Lord your God, I go before you now
I stand beside you, I’m all around you
Though you feel I’m far away,
I’m closer than your breath
I am with you, more than you know”

When your joy has jumped ship.

/in ,

What a loaded season. For all of the joy and festiveness, there is equally as much pain and sadness. Wounds are that much deeper around the holidays. The loss of loved ones, sickness, mental health struggles, financial struggle, relationship hardship, loneliness. The holidays seem to open the wounds and pour salt directly on them. For many, the holidays are a time of memories and tradition, so when that is lost or doesn’t feel like it used to be, there is much pain.

I’ve experienced both types of holiday. The ones where joy and laughter abound, and the ones where I can’t keep my head above water. But as a general whole, I always feel stressed around the holidays. Expectations are high, and consumerism is rampant, and my heart gets bogged down with it all-trying to find balance, rest, and peace in the midst of it.

What happens when our joy has jumped ship? When we’re trying to find that bubble of wonderment in everything we do but it’s just gone missing? The messages around us are clear-do more, be more, buy more. I wonder what would happened if we moved into the lack of joy. If we didn’t find fear in it or judgment, but just acknowledged its presence. Could we find the bittersweet? That place where pain, joy, and gratitude meet? Could we honor the journey and not wish it was something different?

It’s okay if your joy has jumped ship. In fact, it’s normal. Most of us are faking our way through the holidays in one way or another (and life for that matter). Its just not human to keep it together all of the time. I would even argue that we were created to journey, not just to arrive.

Having joy in every circumstance is a tall order, one that gets a bit misunderstood I think. It’s more than a smile and a warmness in your belly. Joy can be a distant understanding of Gods ultimate goodness, or a fractured memory of a loved on peeping through the darkness. It might not look like you have any joy, but I bet it’s there-looking so much different than the Christmas decorations say it should look. It might be tattered, broken, dusty, dirty-but it’s there!

Your joy hasn’t jumped ship, it’s just in a different package than expected.

Love you guys, wishing you true peace and rest this holiday season and throughout your lives.

**special note. Let us be sensitive and overwhelmed with awareness and empathy for those around us suffering this holiday season.**

Getting Over Myself

/in , ,

It sounds harsh, but it’s really not. It’s actually the most self loving thing I do for myself. It’s what I do when all other options have been exhausted, and all that’s left is me and a pile of things I am wallowing in.

Mind you, I’ve been in therapy for almost my entire life. I know all the coping skills and therapeutic jargon. I spent two months in a therapeutic wilderness camp and 16 months at a therapeutic boarding school. So you might say I’ve made a lifetime of working through my issues. That being said, I haven’t been able to rid myself of my humanness, and so, many of my issues still remain. I’ve learned over the years that there are times when I need to really nurture the sensitive parts of myself and times when I just have to get over it.

And the best thing is all I have to do is snap my fingers and voila! I’m over it!

KIDDING.

It’s a state of mind and active work.The thing I’ve been struggling with the most recently is my brand new post baby body. It is not easy to watch your body change throughout pregnancy, and even less easy to watch it stay the same after. For some, the baby weight comes off steadily. For others, like myself, healthy eating and balanced exercise does nothing. And guys, it’s been really hard. To not fit into my favorite outfits, a meltdown leading up to any event that I can’t wear Erics t-shirts to. My perfectionist little self doesn’t know what to do with this body that I can’t control. Everyone can see I’m not “perfect”-que panic attack. This struggle is the perfect “get over it struggle” and here is why:

  1. I am not currently struggling with an eating disorder
  2. I am doing everything I can (in a healthy way) to keep my body nourished and strong.
  3. I had a baby 8 months ago
  4. Hormones are still wacky

The above reasons show that I am in an overall healthy emotional state, doing my best to change my situation, which includes factors outside of my control. That last one is a huge one. Baby weight is out of my control. Totally. I’m doing my best and it’s still here. So basically I have two options.

  1. Spend the summer miserable and hiding in Erics old lacrosse pinnies.
  2. Recognize it’s not ideal, give myself grace, buy a few new outfits that work with my current self.

Spoiler alert: Ive chosen number 2. But it’s not over yet. Daily I must remind myself that it’s not the end of the world. I’m okay. It’s summer and I don’t have to wear pants if I don’t want to-YASSSS! My journal is filled with reminders. The mornings are filled with music that uplifts me and points me to Jesus. My thoughts repeat over and over “this body gave me Lilah. I honor this body for its strength”.

If I am not intentional, then choosing to get over it is pointless. You must get over it every single day, hour, second. Bettering ourselves is HARD work. That’s why sometimes we choose to just be crappy people or wallow in crappy situations. But wallowing steals joy and purpose. And I want both of those things in my life. What about you? What do you need to get over?

Love to you on your journey. It’s all so worth it.