Learning To Love Where You Are

“I am just in a transition”

I can’t tell you how many times I have said that over the last 4 years. I’d run into an old friend from childhood at the store and the inevitable “What are you doing these days?” would come up. I would stammer and stutter and try to explain why my life sometimes feels like it’s come to an ordinary halt.

When I moved into my parent’s house in the winter of 2019, I expected to be here a quick six months. I had been laid off from my job and was trying and failing to find another. I was considering a shift in my career from being in the hospital 24/7, as an in house provider, to a more stable schedule, but I was scared to make the move. I eventually landed a good job with a decent schedule and was finally on track to make my way out of the giant hole of debt that I had accumulated over the years of bad spending habits and little to no paycheck.

Then the pandemic happened.

More change, more shifting, more pivoting and redirection. My stable schedule was erratic and out of control. I was working 60 hour weeks again with little to no extra compensation. I hadn’t had a weekend off in months.

I felt so unstable, so out of sorts. I felt like a boat without an oar. A drifter.

I needed something to hold on to and it was that one little word. Transition. “I’m not here forever.” I would remind myself. “This is just a season.” If I could just fix my eyes on the prize, turn my gaze toward the horizon of “getting there and out of here” I would be okay. Because “transition” meant I was moving. Things were changing, even if I couldn’t see it. I was going somewhere.

The days fell off the calendar and months turned into years and yet, I was still in the same place.

I thought about that word “transition” recently after I finally moved my old desk out of storage and into my room. When I started to limit my time on social media back in March (you can read more about that here) my dreams of writing and blogging resurfaced hard and fast. I had given up blogging when I moved out of my apartment because all of my things were in storage and to be honest, I didn’t feel at home. I didn’t have any space that was truly mine.

I knew deep down though that blogging and writing made me feel alive. It spurred creativity. It brought me joy, even if it didn’t look like I wanted it to look.

So, off to the storage unit I went. I picked up the desk and loaded into the car, got it home and cleaned it up a bit. I had a pair of old dining chairs from my first home in the attic too. I dusted one of them off and added it to the space. Piece by piece, mixing in some old with a little new, I created a home for my creativity.

I am sitting here now as I write this, thinking to myself, I wish I had done this sooner. I held myself back because the desk didn’t look like I wanted it to. It was a shadow of a former life I’d lived and I thought it would bring me sadness. I thought it would remind me of the things I had to give up to get here. I wasn’t where I wanted to be, so what was the point of trying?

But, ships cannot sail for forever. They have to lay anchor eventually even if its just for a period of time. Then the thought occurred to me….if I’m anchored…. I’m not drifting. I’m not being carried away by the whims of a wind I cannot control. I am rooted and present.

For years I felt like being present was like giving up. I had to sacrifice my dreams and ideas for the realities of now. I had to wait to celebrate. But, being present isn’t about giving up at all. It is truly surrendered living. It is focusing in. It is daily bread. (Matt. 6:11)

“You just have to wake up every day and love where you are.”

- Angel Strawbridge

My favorite quote as of late is one that I heard while watching my new favorite show, Escape to the Chateau. Dick and Angel Strawbridge were living in a 2 bedroom flat in the east end of London and traded their fast paced and hustled lifestyle for a 5 story, broken down and dilapidated French chateau.

Episode by episode they go through the house and renovate each room. In one of the episodes, Angel is redoing an original idea she had for some wallpaper because her first idea didn't work out like she had envisioned. (The irony.) She is talking about living in the mess of her renovations while working on making things new….

You just have to wake up every day and love where you are.”

I love this for so many reasons. It is simple but strikingly profound. Learning to love where you are starts with being present. It is a choice. Fixing your eyes on what’s directly in front of you and what you have. This kind of living creates space for gratitude to enter in. It cultivates love, joy, peace and patience.

If you don’t love where you are right now, how can you learn to love it? What can you bring in, take out or keep so that you love the life you have been given, this very moment in the present?

What is your anchor?

Memories of Grandma on Her 90th Birthday

Today would have been her 90th birthday. Ninety, long and prosperous years she would have been here. A very long life lived indeed and yet it still feels like she was taken too soon.

Its weird how grief slams into you sometimes. A friend of mine recently grieving the passing of her husband said, “the milestones are easy, birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. It’s the landmines that blow you away.”

You never see them coming.

Like the day I realized my grandma’s name would never be on the list for my wedding or baby shower. How I can’t call her and ask her for the recipe for her chicken and noodles because I just can’t get it right. Mornings spent crying quietly in my office, overwhelmed by life and wishing I could stop by her house and tell her how much my heart hurts.

I would find her in the kitchen, just like I always did. At the stove, wooden spoon in hand, making food for her people. She would have gotten up early that morning, before the sunrise no doubt, and put on a pot of coffee. She’d start the biscuits and brown the bacon. She’d set out a plate for my grandpa. They would eat together and read the paper and talk about the day’s events. At some point he would head to work in the same denim pants and pearl snap workshirt. A pencil in his pocket. She would go about her sewing. Her needlepoint, her knitting and her crochet. She was always working on something in her shop, draperies, blankets, quilts and more. Then she would go back to the kitchen. She’d maybe make a few pies for the bake sale on Sunday or cookies for a neighbor. She scan her favorite magazines and clip a new recipe. A new crochet pattern. A blanket for a new baby. She would decide on a color and head to the store for yarn. She would do crosswords and sudoku. Another cup of coffee. She’d make lunch and then supper and go to bed tired ready to do it all again the next day.

Of course, she and my grandpa traveled and spent time doing leisurely things with family and friends, but sure enough as the sun rose and set, they were always doing what they always did. That’s struck me differently as age has has weathered my soul; how much my grandma was like Jesus.

I knew my grandparents loved the Lord. I was raised in the church pew right next to the both of them. We sang songs out of hymnals and had revivals. They tithed and they gave abundantly so that people could know Jesus. But, the thing I remember most about my grandma was not that she could recite scripture or that she was full of theological knowledge. She never recalled a recent sermon to me. I honestly rarely ever saw her reading her Bible, even though I know she did.

She just used her gifts. She served.

She supported every endeavor, every contest, school event, pageant, dance recital, theatre show and more. Her children and grandchildren were the apple of her eye. The loves of her life and everyone knew it. She never knew a stranger and she always kept her word.

Just like the Father’s love for me. Consistent and personal. Unwavering and unconditional.

She poured her heart out for her people with her own two hands. She took the time to sit and listen and see people. She prayed for me, no doubt, harder than I have ever prayed for myself because Lord knows I went wayward a time or two. She never closed her door. There was always an invitation to sit and eat and share.

Even without asking, I knew I was welcome anytime. She would see me coming up the driveway from the kitchen window and open the garage.

And I would find her in the kitchen, just like I always did.

I'm Leaving Instagram For Good

image via Floral Deco

Coming out of the last year of the pandemic, I was tired.

The world was on fire and I was using every ounce of energy I had to haul buckets of water back and forth to the battle lines.

I was worn out, dry and desperately needed a break.

I usually spend a little time each day journaling to work out feelings and thoughts and over the last year I began to recognize a pattern.

I would start and end my day with social media.

I didn’t roll over, turn off the alarm and log on, but I would sit at my desk at the start of the day, every day, and catch up on what I “missed” overnight. This was usually minimal, but the compulsion to check was so strong, I would do it without even thinking. Then, every evening after my routine of a relaxing bath I would sit in my robe for an hour or more and scroll. Instagram, Facebook, then back to Instagram, back to Facebook, as if something life changing was going to be posted in the few minutes since I had left the app before.

During the day, I checked social media at stop lights, waiting for tables at restaurants, in line at the grocery store. Every where I went, social media went with me.

This went on for quite long time and I started to see that social media - particularly Instagram - was setting the tone for how my whole day would go and how it would end. If I saw something that made me mad, I was angry about it all day. If I saw something that made me anxious, I was anxious about it all night. A roller-coaster of emotions that I was so tired of and yet, every morning, I bought a ticket and got on for another round.

Come the end of February, I was so done with it all that I decided it was time for a break. The Lenten season was approaching and I decided this time I was serious. I had taken “breaks” from social media before, but I would still secretly log on from time to time. I couldn’t stand to not be “in the know.” (In the “know” of what I am not really sure.) 

So, I did it. I gave it up for 40 days. Deleted the app off my phone. No flirting with goodbye, no post about it warning my “followers” (cringe). I cut it off cold turkey.

What followed was a truly life-altering perspective I had never been given before. When I say my eyes and ears were truly opened, I mean it sincerely. Without all the noise that social media created for me, I was able to listen…

Here’s what I learned:  

I am less angry. I try to pay more attention to the ways I am feeling in certain situations (thank you therapy) and I was noticing after my absence that I was dare I say… happier? Or even joyful? How could this be?

Inevitably, every day, something on social media would make me angry. It didn’t have to be anger over silly things, a lot of my anger felt righteous, I was angered over things like injustice, poverty, oppression, sexism and racism. But, I noticed that most of all I was angry about the people who didn’t seem to care about the things I cared about. I was angry over his post and her post and on and on…so much that I would stay angry over it for days.

Can you imagine what that kind of constant emotion does to your body and your spirit? I can tell you what it does. It festers and then breeds and eventually becomes bitterness and hatred. You start thinking things about the people in your life that you never thought about before. You become so infected with anger that it develops into avoidance and isolation. You label people and cut them off.

James talks about anger in James 1:19-20. “

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

David Guzik goes along to explain what this looks like in his commentary.

“We can learn to be slow to wrath by first learning to be swift to hear and slow to speak. Much of our anger and wrath comes from being self-centered and not others-centered. Swift to hear is a way to be others-centered. Slow to speak is a way to be others-centered. In light of the nature of temptation and the goodness of God, we must take special care to be slow to wrath, because our wrath does not accomplish the righteousness of God. Our wrath almost always simply defends or promotes our own agenda.”

I wasn’t just quick to become angry, I was inviting anger in, every single day, multiple times a day and often first thing in the morning. I was seeking to accomplish my own agenda through what I perceived was my righteous anger.

I compare less. I don’t think this will come as a shock. It’s not some new revelation. Social media is curated life content no matter what way we try to justify it.

For me, I was noticing all too frequently that my life didn’t look like other’s lives, especially as a 35 year old single woman. I was starting to take inventory of all the things I thought were missing, instead of giving thanks for all the beautiful and wonderful things I have. I was so worried about my timeline, using other’s timelines as a yardstick of comparison and I was inviting others to do the same with my carefully curated content. I was a willing participant. I noticed this particularly when several of the older, single women I followed were starting to adopt or foster children and seek opinions about their fertility being unmarried. I began to worry I wasn’t taking the necessary steps to assure myself that I would have a family one day and the fruit of that worry was anxiety and depression. My burdens for how my life should “look” were increasing and heavy and yet, Jesus continually calls me to take on His yoke, which is easy, His burdens which are light. The fruit of His paths for my life are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I am focused. I get a high on accomplishment. I have used all the tools and read all the books on how to increase productivity in my life and yet somehow my productivity and my motivation have continued to decrease steadily over the years. I couldn’t understand it. I was setting goals! I was spending hours of time each month planning out my days, sometimes down to the hour, to get things done and yet I was actually getting very little accomplished. My plans were great, but the execution just wasn’t there. I knew deep down my time spent on social media could be contributing but I truly didn’t know it was a main factor until I gave it up.

Since I have been off social media, I’ve accomplished more in the last 40 days that I have in the last 2 years and that is not an exaggeration. I had started and stopped so many projects, including this blog, because I got distracted by social media and what was happening on it. Now, I am motivated to get down to the things that matter the most to me because the distraction has been non-existent. I am able to be fully present and alive in my own life without the need to curate what I am doing in the moment for content to share. I still take photos and videos on my phone but the compulsion to let others in doesn’t exist anymore, in fact, I am feeling pulled towards the opposite. I want to savor the sacred and keep it close.

I do not spend money like I used to. I could on average say that instagram would cost me a few hundred dollars a month if not more. It is ripe with consumerism. Everywhere I would turn, someone was telling me to buy something and I was telling someone else to buy it in return. My clothes weren’t trendy enough, my makeup wasn’t fresh enough, my house not organized enough, my car not clean enough, my food not fancy enough, my travels not frequent enough. Nothing. is. ever. enough. to fill the gaping wide hole that is consumerism and I was inviting it into my life every day just like I was anger and comparison. Starting my day with rotten emotions and a sense of scarcity.  Draining my bank account for frivolous things that will be considered obsolete in a year. It’s no wonder companies spent over 40 billion dollars on social media marketing and ads last year. That number is projected to be 50 billion this year. Fifty billion dollars spent just to show me what I should buy… that doesn’t even include the money I’ll spend on the actual products.

I spend more time with God. I left this one for last, but it is the most important. I knew when I was feeling the nudge to leave that it was the Holy Spirit who was so gently inviting me to do so. I didn’t feel condemnation, I didn’t feel guilt. I just felt there was more.

I had decided while I was fasting social media that I needed a study to occupy my time at the start of the day that I otherwise would have spent scrolling. I settled on Erin Moon’s study of Ecclesiates for the Lent Season and it was balm for my weary and dry soul. Many of the things I believed I was hearing from the Holy Spirit were confirmed through the study. I had brought two very big and specific requests before the Lord that I needed answers to and he answered them so very clearly, I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed because I never would have heard the answer had I been angry, comparing, distracted and consuming. 

And, I think this is what it looks like to walk with Jesus. He just lovingly invites us into a better way. A way in which I desire to hear what He has to say about me and about my purpose for life through His word every day. A way in which my heart is turned and tuned to others in person, around me. A way in which my life bears the fruits of the spirit.

I know there is more to explore as I have decided to continue with severely limiting my time spent on social media after my fast. Will I leave it forever? Probably not, but I am leaving it for good. For a better version of myself than when I am on it. I am sure I will share the big events and small joys from time to time, but my goal is to be in constant examination of the fruit that is the product of my choices, asking myself is it rotten or is it ripe?

Does everyone have to leave social media? No, because this is my story. Social media for me is what something else might be for you. Or maybe its social media too, but that’s not for me to decide. This has simply been a story of the ways in which Jesus has invited me to go deeper, to right my ship and stay the course. He is teaching me that His ways are higher than my ways, all I need to do is stop and listen.

Matters in Mothering

image by Jacob Lund

I remember the sting of disappointment, sitting in the bathroom at a church function, my mother and a mentor trying to comfort me with words that fell flat. I went over and over the tryouts in my mind, “I did everything perfectly,” I thought, “one of the cheer coaches even told me I was so making the team. How did this happen? Why didn’t they pick me?” I didn’t care about the singing competition I was currently involved in, one where I would go on to do very well. I wanted to be a cheerleader and my junior high heart was broken. 

A few weeks later I heard one of my friends, who had made the team, was having a party for the new squad. A way to celebrate making the team as if being on the team wasn’t good enough. I - being the junior high girl that I was - mentioned it to my friend. I got a consolation invite to the party the next day at school and decided to go. It was awkward to say the least. The banner in the kitchen with all of their names on it. “Congratulations! You’re a Cheerleader!” I don’t really remember much else about the night other than the obvious. We probably prank called some boys. But, I will never forget how I felt. 

I was me and they were them. 

Fast forward a decade. I was going to a baby shower for a dear friend who had moved out of state and came back to celebrate with her local friends. I was so excited to see her and share in her joy of welcoming a new baby into her family. I remember arriving and saying hello to a few of the women in the room that I knew, grabbed a drink and joined the circle of women discussing the woes of motherhood. Potty training and sleep training. Breastfeeding. Toddlers and tantrums. Birth stories. First babies and Fourths. Ironically, my entire medical career up to this point was centered around mommies and babies. They truly are my greatest joy. And yet, in that circle, I had never felt so isolated and insignificant. So alienated. 

Suddenly I was back at the party in junior high. Just different decorations. 

Podcasts, blogs, instagram accounts, small groups and bible studies, all dedicated entirely and exclusively to marriage and motherhood. I remember a few years ago when I started a bible study just for single, unmarried women, a space just for us. I got messages asking me why married women weren’t allowed and I was advised against narrowing my audience. 

These types of scenarios have continued to happen throughout the years of me walking my life path and friends walking theirs and for the longest time the resentment burned deep, smoldering into bitterness below the surface of a painted on smile. Do they care about what is going on in my life? Will they be happy for me if I decide to travel for 3 months out of the summer instead of having a baby? Will they celebrate me going back to school to get my masters degree to become a nurse practitioner like they would if I had gotten engaged? 

And in the middle of it all, despair set in and rooted out my joy and my hope. Social media became a cesspool of comparison. One evening on the phone with my mother I told her I wanted to just disappear. Because what did I have and what did I matter if I had no one in my life that counted on me? If I died, I’m sure people would come to my funeral and be sad, but would there even be an impact? Would people actually feel my absence? 

“Am I really even a woman if I’m not married and a mother? Do I really matter?” 

Behind every lie is a fear and behind every fear is an idol and deep down inside I was believing a deadly lie. 

The lie: I am not a woman because I am not a wife or a mother.

The fear:  I am unimportant. 

The idol:  Approval of man.  

I had long held onto the idea that my life didn’t matter as much as a wife’s or a mother’s did because I didn't have someone to care for. 

But all along… I did. 

I care for my grandparents when I visit them on Fridays after work. 

I care for the children in my job at school when they’re sick and scared. 

I care for the teenage girls I lead in a small group on Wednesday nights.

I care for the young women I mentor throughout the week, grabbing lunches and coffee, taking time to listen and give them space to have a voice. 

I care for my friends who are mothers when I watch their kids, take them meals and do their shopping. 

I care for my niece when I sing her songs before bedtime and love her with a fierce love like I would if she were my own. 

I care for my church when I tithe. 

I care for my community when I volunteer. 

I care for my people when I pray. 

I am a mother, I’m just a mother in other ways. 

Ways that matter just as much as being a biological mother, because there are people out there who need us to be the bridge. The hand that reaches out in the darkness and calls them into the light. 

And suddenly a shift in perspective happens. A clear lens, over the view of my reality. I matter when I have long believed the enemy’s lies that I don’t. An attempt on my life and the path God has laid before me, to discredit me and create a chasm of resentment between myself and the other women in my life.

To separate. To isolate. To destroy. 

Isn’t that how this whole thing started anyway? In the garden, the enemy attempted to discredit God and all he had built, all he had planned, all the glory and beauty all around, with one lie, to one woman and it worked. (Gen 3:1) 

Eventually God’s plan prevailed, like it always does and humanity was rescued, but not without suffering and years of pain.  

The desire to marry and one day hold a baby of my own, in my arms, will never wane. But this time, this precious and fleeting time, until then is still so important. 

I will give my life to serve the ones God has placed in my path until the gift of marriage and motherhood changes me and the course of my life forever. 

And I hope that you will see that you matter too. That you are a mother in so many ways. A care-giver, a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, a meal when they’re hungry, a blanket when they’re cold, an encouraging word when they’re lonely, truth when they feel afraid, a bandage when they feel broken.

There are so many people who need a mother and there is a mother inside of us all. 

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The Hierarchy of Pain

What a time to be alive, huh? 

image by Andrew Neel

Quarantined in our homes with nowhere to go, no one to see, no plans to be made. I’ve been out of work for three weeks now. It’s felt like 6 months. I left my office for spring break (I am a school nurse) thinking I would return in a week, back to my routine. I haven’t been allowed back in the building since. I really miss my milk frother. (Afternoon lattes were my thing.)

I expired the limits on my social media use about a week into this gig. Only one hour of Instagram a day? Get real. I’ll admit, I’ve spent a lot of my quarantine time browsing about other people’s lives. 

I’ve run into scores of really great memes, some recipes I am excited to try in the coming days/weeks and I’ve shared my adventures in bread making and failing (RIP twisted cinnamon loaf). But, I’ve been triggered too. Isn’t that what social media is for?

While most of the things shared have truly encouraged me and warmed my heart, a few things have made me scratch my head and say, “REALLY?”

One thought in particular was shared about this year’s high school senior classes missing out on the events reserved with a specialness just for them. Baccalaureate, Prom, state tournaments, choir contests and most of all, Graduation. I’ve felt profoundly sad for them, knowing what a huge milestone it is and how they will be missing out. The closing of one chapter to open another. Not to mention how profoundly sad I feel for their parents and family. Do you know how hard it is to get a kid from crib to cap and gown? Hello.  

Many have shared the same sentiments and expressed them on social media. The responses have no doubt been a combined lament and disappointment, but one reaction in particular caught me off guard.

“Seniors this year are sad about missing graduation and other activities when the seniors of ‘64-’70 spent their senior year at war in Vietnam.”

I sat with it for a minute like, “woah, so true.” and then I was like, “but……. it still sucks and it’s still grief.”

It’s still suffering. It’s still pain.

When I was in grad school I spent my nights working 12 hour shifts in Tulsa and my 16-18 hour days (and some all nighters too) an hour away in Joplin, Missouri doing clinical rotations and studying for exams. I was exhausted to say the least. One morning I had expressed my feelings to my preceptor when she asked me how I was doing. Her response? “I wasn’t allowed to be tired because she did it with a husband and kids.” I wasn’t allowed to tell her I was tired ever again, she said. 

Her response to my experience didn’t give me perspective. It didn’t make me step back and say “Oh goodness, I should really check myself.” It made me feel insignificant. Belittled. Weak and unable to rise to a challenge because her challenge was harder. It created a chasm between the two of us and made me want to avoid her emotionally.

I’ve been reading “You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb, a famous therapist in LA known for writing a book about the time she spent in therapy.  It’s a catchy read and extremely eye-opening. She talks about the Hierarchy of Pain and how it doesn’t exist. 

“Suffering shouldn’t be ranked, because pain is not a contest.” 

Yep, that’s right. It’s not a contest. But, somehow, it is, because we humans cannot settle our competitive spirits to save our souls. We do it with everything and it starts in the womb. How big is your baby? How will you birth that baby? How will you feed it? 

So when life - quite literally all of it - from how early we learn to walk, our first words, our grades in school, how well we perform in sports and extracurriculars, getting into college, GPA in college, interviewing for our first job, performing well at said job, when we get married, who we marry, what our wedding looks like, when we have our first baby, when they start walking and saying their first words to how early we retire and how much money we have in our 401k - is a contest and we are born into a world of competition, we are naturally inclined to compare pain and suffering as well.

But friends, grief is grief. Suffering is suffering. Pain is pain. 

It’s true that no two situations are the same but, trying to place them on a scale of “who’s is harder or worse” benefits none of the parties involved. It gives one person a false sense of ego and the other a lesser sense of self and robs them of processing their emotions. It says to the suffering, “your pain cannot possibly matter here because my pain was worse.” You aren’t allowed to be sad about not getting to experience your graduation day due to being quarantined because those seniors were at war. How does this narrative help? 

Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. 

It ineffectively disconnects both people from their reality and stunts growth and healing. 

Life is hard enough trying to wade through the present competitions, how can we set aside the need to “have it harder” than someone else and just be willing to say to someone, “I see you and I hear your pain. It’s hard.”

How do we get to this place? Where we can sit with someone else in their pain/suffering/grief without comparing it to someone else’s or even our own?

We have to go to the root to get to the solution. The condition of the heart where we are deeply satisfied with the accomplishments of self, even the accomplishment of experiencing pain, suffering and grief.

That condition is called pride.

“Lust, envy, anger, greed, gluttony and sloth are all bad, but pride is the deadliest of all, the root of all evil. the beginning of sin. Even pride is most likely to stir the debate about whether pride is a sin at all.”- Michael Eric Dyson 

Pride. That one sin none of us really thinks we deal with, but we do. I deal with it. 

The pride I feel in being single and having accomplished my dreams of becoming a nurse practitioner at a young age. The pride I feel from getting a masters degree from a prestigious university. The pride I feel in having started a successful small business as a photographer. The pride I feel I have travelled the world. The pride I feel that I give to the needy. The pride I feel that I have done the deep work of healing in therapy and counseling. The pride I feel in being a well-educated white, middle class woman. The pride I feel that I tithe. The pride I feel in knowing Jesus.

Pride is the ugly, twisted root beneath the tree of comparison and competition. 

“By pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well advised is wisdom.” - Proverbs 13:10 (emphasis my own)

David Guzik writes, 

“excessive self-focus and self-regard—constantly generates strife. When people are focused on their own exaltation they will always attempt to advance themselves at the expense of others.”

We don’t get to decide whether another person’s pain and suffering is valid.

When a person comes to us to share pain, grief or suffering it’s because there’s a trust that’s been built. A safe space to share has been made. What a gift! What an honor that they would feel safe enough to open their heart and be vulnerable with us. Will we choose to destroy that space with our selfish pride or foster growth with encouragement, truth and love? Will we be able to shut down our inner ego desperate to compare and compete and be willing to see and hear someone and validate their hurts and grievances? 

Will we hurt or heal? 

How has someone truly sat with you in your pain/grief/suffering? What are the ways you can choose to sit with someone else?

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The Walking Wounded

image by arturgutowski

Why do we leave wounds open and bleeding? Festering, inviting the hurt to sink down deep, infect the flesh and rot the bones. 

I’m eating cookies as I type this. Not entirely appetizing, but I am a nurse in another life. Sorry if you were enjoying this essay on your lunch break. 

I’m not talking about physical wounds, like deep lacerations or burns. Even burns are an entirely different story. I’m talking about emotional wounds. Things that cut you to your core, so deep, you alter your entire existence to manage your day to day. 

Abuse. Neglect. Rejection. Withdrawal. Malignment. 

Oftentimes, these wounds occur in childhood, but a lot of them occur in adulthood too. Most of our adulthood wounds are common ground where our childhood selves have played for years. Screaming for help to heal and we continue to ignore, or worse, we don’t even see they’re there. 

When I did my med-surg rotation in nursing school, in the hospital, there was heavy wound care involved.  I actually skipped the day I was meant to spend an entire 8 hours on the “wound care cart” because I had little desire to patch holes in skin all day. That’s what wound care is. Cleanse. Treat. Bandage. Repeat. No thanks. 

When imobile patients lay in hospital beds all day, without a proper turning schedule, they get pressure wounds. The pressure cuts off the circulation to the surrounding tissues and the tissue becomes infected and dies. This process leaves gaping holes in the flesh that can often tunnel and create new ulcers in other places. In a perfect world, patients are turned by the nursing staff every 2-4 hours, relieving pressure on the hot spots, like the hip bones and buttocks, to allow the blood to keep flowing. Keep the tissue alive. 

We don’t live in a perfect world. 

When I was in school, I had a patient with two, stage four, decubitus ulcers. Decubitus ulcers are the medical term we use for pressure wounds. The wounds are staged or “graded’ according to the flesh, muscle and bone involved in the wound. Stage four means the flesh is rotten to the bone, through several layers of tissue and muscle. It’s the worst it can get. 

We packed the ulcers with medicated gauze, but not before we debrided the wound. The debridement was always the worst. You have to remove the bandages from the previous wound treatment and the soiled gauze (puss and blood) from the wound so the wound can heal. Tweezers in hand, pulling away black, sometimes green, rotting flesh and soiled bandages to expose healthy, new, pink flesh underneath. The process is truly gruesome. You can smell a stage four pressure ulcer from the door. 

After the wound is cleansed, fresh, new medicated gauze is applied and fresh bandages are applied on top of that. Wound care is usually done every 8-12 hours or when the bandages are visibly soiled. Eventually the skin regenerates and heals and the wound closes. This takes weeks - sometimes months. 

And the thought of it never occured to me in the emotional sense, the same rules apply. The medicine won’t matter if the infected tissue is still sitting on top of the stuff you want to come alive. 

You have to debride to heal, there is no other way. The stuff that’s dead. Black. Rotting. Soiled. It has to come off. And it hurts. 

We usually give some pretty potent pain meds before we clean a deep wound, because the removal of the bandages and infected flesh is painful. 

What I can’t figure out is how we expect to go through life unattending to our emotional wounds for years when we would never let a physical wound go that long without treatment. Eventually the infection, from a wound that deep, would get into the bloodstream and you would become sick and die. 

Is emotional death as serious and physical death? I think so. 

I have recently been face to face with this issue over the last year of my life. There are certain triggers that when set me off, send me spiraling downward into a hole so deep and so narrow, it’s hard to escape. Thought processes I have been accustomed to my entire life that are just now coming to a head so intensely, I decided there was no way out but through and I needed professional help. 

My soiled, rotten bandages had to come off. I had tried it my way for years, just packing on medicine, without pulling away what was really rotting and dead.

 Self-help books. Avoidance. Denial. Blaming. I am really good at blaming. “They laid me off. He rejected me. She bullied me in the workplace.” 

I started intense, weekly therapy in June of 2019 and my life will never be the same. 

Now it’s like living in a daylight I didn’t know existed. Like being a prisoner in a dark jail cell for so long, you can’t remember what daylight looks and feels like. And I said to a friend recently, “I feel so happy that I am finally at a healthy place mentally and emotionally, but all the while so sad for all those years I lived in darkness. Because this is the capacity at which I was to be functioning all along.” 

But did taking off my dead skin hurt? Like hell it did. 

C.S. Lewis puts it into words in a way that I simply cannot. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace is talking to his cousin Edmund about his experience with Aslan. 

“...I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn’t that kind of fear. I wasn’t afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it—if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it.” And I knew I’d have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains… there was a garden—trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well… The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first… So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place… But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before... Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.” “I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund. “Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”

I’d turned into a girl again. I wasn’t what they said I was anymore. I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. I am finally becoming who I was meant to be all along. I had finally taken off my dragon skin... but I didn’t do it alone. I did it with help from a few very close friends, family, a licensed therapist and Jesus. A path I truly believe God had intended for me from the beginning. A road to healing, recovery and a heart fully alive. 

The good news is, my story is not an isolated incident. It is not a unicorn or lightning in a bottle. It can be your story too. Freedom is waiting for you, underneath all that life has used to cover you in a skin that’s not truly yours.

Is it scary? Sure it is.

Is it worth it? It’s life or death. You have to choose. 

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