HARD TO HANDLE

This much coffee is a sure sign I am not handling anything...

I want to talk about something chewy again.
Of course I do.
I chew on lots of stuff.
And when it bugs me...I have to get it out.
Like snake venom.
Or splinters.
Or spinach in my teeth.


How many times have you heard this phrase:

God will never give you more than you can handle.

I remember the first time that I heard it.

My older cousin had just died in a drunk driving accident.

Adults around me were dropping that phrase like it was the next diet craze.

And here's the thing....

that sweet little saying

is

absolute

#BULLSHIT

How does it make sense

in this world

that God would never give you

a puny, 
selfish, 
whiny 
human

more than YOU can handle?

*
It doesn't.
*
I often (ok....always) have more than I can handle.
I am prone to hyperbole but I am not exaggerating here.
I'm relatively safe in my western, entitled life.

And most days I still CANNOT EVEN.

So why is this a phrase that 
safe and comfortable western Christians 
want to throw around?

What is comforting to us about believing that 
God 
dishes out exactly the right amount of pain
 that we can handle-
Alone?

***********

I recently read For the Love by the incredibly brave Jen Hatmaker.
Don't know her?
Fix that.
Tout suite.

thanks to Cooking with the Johnstons for the picture above.
For the Love.  Buy it!

For perspective on challenges I could be asked to 'handle',
 I try to place myself 
in the shoes of someone who has had 

terrible, awful events outside of their control

occur within their life.

It helps me put what is happening in my life into perspective.

I try to imagine 

how it must feel to have this phrase
 said to me when:
*

 my livelihood is eliminated
*

my sister is raped
*

my brother over-doses
*

my son starves 
*

my government is overthrown
*

my crops are burned 
*

my apartment is shelled
*

my school is unsafe
*

my water source  is contaminated
*

my body is diseased
*
my life is over

And every time I imagine it
my instinct is to curl up and die.
There is no comfort in this phrase.

None.

We need to stop saying it.

In most cases
the perpetrators of evil are humans.
In others-there is no real blame.
Natural disasters happen.
People die.
It is the way of life.

God does not create tragic events
so that humans

can prove their ability to handle their shizz.

No.

On instagram?  Follow @thejoywarrior  

It helps me remember that God 
didn't set up my life
so that I could dose myself with pain
in amounts that my tiny body could handle 
ALONE.

There is no way I was designed to handle this life alone.

****

So what is it about this phrase that keeps it in our toolkit?

For me, it's the independent behavior it validates.
I think we all know by now how much I love 
to SEEM
like I have my life together
and am handling it like a pro.

source

See?  

Look at me WINNING over here.

Not needing anything 

or anyone

because you know...

God has my playlist SET!

And whatever crap this life throws at me

it is my JOB to handle like a Boss.

(Which used to mean handle alone).

The thing is...I cannot handle my life.

Not alone.

Not without God.

from ibelieve

I am pretty sure that the 
really heavy, hard stuff in my life

is there so that I will eventually 
GIVE UP.
So that I will realize

that in order to deal

I need to reach for God.
So that I reach for the one 
who holds my soul closest
and in his hand.

TRUTH #2 (A PRAYER FOR THE DIVIDED)

Speak your truth.

Hear your SELF.

If there's one thing that I've learned in the past few days

weeks

months

years

It's that we're all the same.

Your truth is my truth.

Even when I don't want to agree.

Even when your truth paints me as a monster.

A whiner.

An idiot.

An uppity woman.

A liar.

A racist.

An elitist.

The MAN.

A bitch.

Out of touch.

Cold.

Remote.

A failed hero.

Practically a devil.

Against you.

For them.

THEM.

I am those things.

I don't want to be those things.

I would go to all kinds of twists and turns to make those things untrue.

I might call you some of those things back.

I might deny you

your truth

your existence.

I might hide out in fear.

I might cower behind my God

my family

my skin

my faith

my safety

my comfort.

It wouldn't change anything about how you see me.

It would most likely just reinforce those things

 that you already know about me.

It's your truth.

And your truth is my truth.

Truth is truth.

You win.

We do.

US.

My truth is different.

It's ok to be different.

There is grace enough at the table to be shared.

No one can take the grace from me (or from you).

It's not ours to give.

(Thank God)

My truth is that you are scared.

Angry

Enraged

Broken

Broken-hearted

Comfortless

Alone

But my truth is also that you are

Capable

Enough

Beloved

Known

Heard

Necessary

Essential

Valued

Tell your truth.  

Your truth is my truth.

My God is big enough to handle it.

I can love through most anything TRUE.

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR

When we are afraid, our instinct is to look away, 

blame someone or something else, 

say it isn't our fault. 

Breathe.

See.

Pause.

These are very hard things to do in the face of fear.

And there is so much fear in America right now.

It feels too simple to me to say that we are dealing with racism and stop there.  

We ARE dealing with racism. 

Please don't misinterpret my intentions or simplify what I'm trying to say before I say it.

It seems to me that we are dealing with something more than racism.

Something wicked and sneaky and banal in it's evil. 

It seems to me that we are walking around trying to numb ourselves from so much....

we're not just denying that 

black lives matter or

 that gay lives matter or

that blue lives matter or 

that unborn lives matter.  

I'm worried that our underlying belief is that NO LIFE matters.

I'm worried that we're afraid to admit that to ourselves.

And yet...I wonder how much your own life matters to you.

I know that my life didn't matter that much to me.

And most people would generally consider me a successful contributor to society.

What does that say about how much we love ourselves?

 I FOR SURE did not love myself.

And I didn't think I was supposed to.

That made it easy to use myself up.

That makes it easy to operate from fear.

I have learned that we can love someone else exactly as much as we love ourselves.

Exactly that much.

And not a speck more.

God really gets this.  

I think that is why we get messengers to tell us these simple yet confusing things.

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.

Not more than yourself.

Not less than yourself.

Exactly as much as you love yourself.

This took me a while to process.

Like...a looooong while.

I spent a lifetime of denying my own value.

I looked for my own happiness through exclusively focusing on other people.

Love to me was done best (and maybe only) through using myself up.

Pain was the path.

Self-care was the cost.

I thought that the amount of love that I felt for my children was limitless.

But as my love for them grew, I realized that what I had thought was limitless before, was minute.

And as my love and care for myself grows...I realize that my capacity for love hasn't been tapped yet.

And here's the craziest part....the more I care for myself, the more love there is to give.

Love is not limitless.

Love is fueled by....LOVE.

And that has to start with taking care of yourself.

You can't do that in fear.

You can't do that with hustle.

Love is not the hamster wheel, the 'right' car, the cool crowd.

Love is listening to the small still voice and then doing the next right thing.

Even if the next right thing is sitting down.

Hugging a friend.

Telling someone no.

Love is understanding that no lives matter.

Until all lives matter.

Here's another thought...as my love for myself grows

so grows my love for my children

and so grows my love for other people's children

and then there goes my love for other people.

I am positive there are still blind spots that I have.

Places where I've still got hard cold judgement instead of compassion.

I found one last week.

This is a lifetime of work.

More than enough.

that's why Mark 12:31 is so important.

There are two things we need to do.

Only two.

Love God with our everything.

Love each other as much as we love ourselves.

When we get through with that, we can worry about the details.

It is much harder to look into our fear, sit down with it and let it teach us about our own darkness. There is so much fear that is choking us right now. 

Friends....what would happen if you sat with your own fear...for a minute (or a day) to acknowledge it? Would the world stop or would we know where to begin?

Great Expectations

Have a seat.  

Breathe deeply.  

These are things that my heart needs reminding of often.  

But today, I was reminded more viscerally than usual.  

There are some people floating around the world who expect lots of things from me.  I am just going to call them the EXPECTORS as short hand.  There's more than one of them and most (though not all) are related to me in one way or another. I am so much better than I used to be about these trigger happy folks.  But every now and then I almost play Russian roulette with their bullets.

Here are some of their bullets:

Act like a ....

Honor your ....

Pretend that we are...

Come to ...

Let me move in with you

Give me money

Save me from myself

Help me continue my fantasy

Tell me my drinking isn't hurting anyone

Tell me it's ok that I hate myself

Agree with me that those people are less than

Listen while I spew hatred towards people you love

Better yet, join in on the spew so we can really bond

SEE ME!

MAKE ME MATTER!

They never ask what I want, what would be best for me...they just insist INSIST INSIST that I am supposed to do what they think is best.  

See what I mean.
That requires some pause.
and some Dolly.

That's actually how I've learned to recognize a bullet.

It is aimed at me, meant for me but...it's about THEM.

It's their pain wrapped in shrapnel with a charge attached for big impact.

Usually the EXPECTORS use some form of scripture to support their beliefs.  

I love the WORD.

I can't EVEN when the WORD gets twisted.

But that's a longer story that brings out more bullets.

I have learned to let these things pass through me.  

Mostly.

All of this makes sense from their perspective.  

They really believe that what is best is what they are asking from me.  

Today was a really good day.  

I turned bullets into lessons.

Tomorrow, one might clip me-it's ok.

I can do hard things.

I was...in fact...MADE to do exactly this thing.

And if I get clipped, I will sit with my pain and learn the things I am supposed to learn.

I will say thank you to the pain.

Today I remembered that we all have lessons.

We are all children of the Creator.

What shows up is what we need to heal and do this work.

Rock on mama.

DEAD BUNNIES

In our first house, we had a nice big fenced in back yard.  The fence was pretty tall and gave our two dogs plenty of room to run and play.  We built the fence though so it wasn't the most...professionally built fence.  There were a couple of angles and gaps at the base that allowed lots of bunnies to come in and out of our yard.  

Some very irresponsible bunny parents decided to nest just on the inside of our fence-repeatedly. They did this in spite of the two vigorous dogs that came out to inspect every inch of the yard several times a day.  They did this MORE THAN ONCE.  I mean...I can't say for sure that this was the same bunny pair but it seems like they needed some kind of bunny graffiti...don't build your house here!  It is not safe.  Is there a department of social services for bunnies?  if there were...these parents were the poster children for it.

Our dogs liked to chase balls.  On more than one occasion, I held my hand out to receive the ball and instead had a dead baby bunny dropped into my hand.  Or what was left of the bunny.  This is the stuff of nightmares.  My sweet predators would look at me expectantly...waiting for me to come over in a fit of wiggling joy.  They expected laughter and joy and lots and lots of treats.  

What they got was something much different.  I would go from reached out hand to an immediate yelping scream of panic followed by ranting, cleaning things, sometimes crying or gagging.  Their expressions of loving confusion would turn immediately outward to try and figure out what was disturbing me so badly.  Run to the fence and bark.  Look up in the trees for squirrel patrols on the offense.  Someone I love is under attack!  Let me solve this problem right now!

Never once did they connect my reaction to the gift that they had just given.  In their minds, nothing could be finer than a dead bunny in the hand.  Except maybe two.  

The fact that this event happened more than once says something about my sanity I think. 

Why did I keep holding out my hand to take the gift?  How many times did I get something wonderful in that hand?  Slobbery, yes.  I mean...I never actually got anything in that transaction that I would have personally wanted to put in my own mouth.  But usually the gift was something that gave my sweet friends immense joy and satisfaction.  I throw the ball, they go get it and bring it back.  Happiness expanded!  So, I played my part and did what they expected to feel like life was ordered correctly.  Until I couldn't.

When you get something given to you with exactly the same joy, exactly the same enthusiasm and look down to find something utterly terrifying...what then?  Does it diminish your love for that friend?  Does it call into question all of your own likes, dislikes, happiness and motivation?  Even if it doesn't do that the first time...eventually, you begin to question whether taking gifts from that friend is a good idea without checking them out first (preferrably from a distance).  And you can often be reminded...at completely unexpected times....of that time they gave you the dead bunny.  Even if they never give you one again.  

In this life of changes, I am learning to recognize all sorts of 'Dead Bunnies'.  There are tons of dead bunnies floating around my life.  

I, in fact, have a very strong ability to tolerate piles of dead bunnies.  

As long as I don't look at them too closely.  

As long as I don't focus on where I want to go with my heart or my life.

As long as I ignore my own value.

what's so awful about a dead bunny (metaphorically speaking?)

Well....I think it's so awful because it's something beautiful, warm, and sweet...that has been destroyed and twisted.  

I don't want dead bunnies.

I want live bunnies.  

That bring real joy when you hold them.

Not remind you of all the joy you could have if you were good enough.