Stuck in a Moment

I spent most of this weekend at the Women's Retreat for my church at a beautiful retreat center in lovely Racine, Wisconsin.


It was good. Lots to chew over. And fun to get to spend a day and a half talking, laughing, learning, and sometimes crying with awesome women. Some I already knew well and loved, and some new friends that surprised me with their candor and humor and insight.

But really what struck me about this weekend was that I was not the one doing the crying. For the first time, actually probably since I was 16 years old, I attended a church/retreat event and was not "the crying girl". I didn't have anything heavy on my heart. No particular losses, griefs, fears, looming traumas, issues or baggage to schlep around. No acute ones, anyway. It was remarkable to feel that free. It was so novel to be the woman handing the tissue box to someone else. To listen, engage, advise, without the ache of needing any arms to hold me up or shoulders to cry on.
My biggest angst of the weekend was that Hubs was finally home for the first weekend of our Summer of Awesome together, and I was in Racine. The only gnawing fear was whether he would remember that he had to get up to give Auggie his medicine by 8am. Wow. That was really it.
And throughout the weekend of teaching and worship and talking and listening, the TRUTH that jumped out at me was the fact that I have been blessed with a sweet sweet season after years of pain and fear, and I get to live in it for as long as the Lord lets me. Without guilt, without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Here I have been lead into a time of calm, of love and community and relative stability, and I have continued to look for cracks. Find fault. New things to envy, old hurts to dig up and examine. New uncertainties to wring my hands about. We were reminded by the retreat speaker that one of the big ways evil undermines God's blessings is by trying to convince us that the good gifts we have been given are not that good. Not good enough. And when I believe that lie, and doubt God's goodness, I get stuck on a treadmill of discontentment. Ick. That's not where I want to be or how I want to live.

Now, let me just say that there's nothing wrong with being "crying girl". Sometimes the heavy times last a loooooong time. But to keep dragging your shoulders through the sweet seasons, head low, on the lookout for all the ways the good gifts are not as good as you thought they would be? Wasteful. I'm squandering the goodness that I've spent so long pining for. It's a new time. I get to be the giver, comforter, healer, helper, listener.

I've always struggled to live "in the present". I've lived most of the last 15 or so years straddled between grieving the past or dreading the future. But why wouldn't I want to live in the present when the present is so good? I don't want to stay stuck in the desert years of sad and heavy, especially when I look up now and see that all that sand has finally given way to the beach.

It is true that I don't know how long this will last. But I want to live in it. Every day, with gratitude and abundance and with my face shining in the sun. The rain will come again, I'm sure, and God will be with me in that time again too. But I honor God by living in the glow of His light while the sun is shining.

Somewhere in my heart, I feel a quiet nudging, a grin: "Get up and enjoy the joy. It is your turn."