FERVENT

: having or displaying a passionate intensity

Are there certain words that are a part of you?  Words that reside deep inside you, that hold a special place in your heart? Are there words that bring to mind a vivid mental image each time you hear them? Or perhaps words that instantly come to mind anytime you see an image?

As I was walking this morning, I happened upon a dead squirrel.  I was startled, quickly adjusted my stride to miss the poor creature and, within seconds, was contemplating the word fervent.  You might rightly be wondering why.  It was because the squirrel was stretched out, like a football player reaching for the goal line with every ounce of his being.  For me, this posture of stretching beyond our natural or safe boundaries will always be equated with the word fervent.

Years ago, I was studying the book of Peter with a group of women.  Being the Word Girl that I am, I looked up the Greek origins of the words of the verses as we went.  There is a verse that says, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."  Another version says, "Keep fervent in your love."  I read a commentary that described how the Greek word ektenes means wholly stretched out.  That was interesting - and painted a rather vivid picture of how God wants us to love each other - but I might have only remembered that in passing had the word not been called to my mind later.

At a spring women's retreat about five years ago, I experienced my first moments of silence with God.  It was a directed silence and only lasted a couple of hours.  I can remember leading up to this retreat that I was so excited to try sitting in pure silence with God.  I had a list of things I wanted to pray about and I was ready.  I got my blanket out, laid down in the sunlight, opened my Bible and my mind and heard God say to me, "Those things you wanted to talk about?  You already know the answers to them, don't you?  Here's what I want to talk about.  I want you to love me fervently."  I was not planning on hearing that, I can assure you.

But that conversation with God prompted me to look at my relationship with Him and see how head-oriented it was.  I loved looking up the Greek for the verses we were studying, loved reading commentaries on the verses, loved diving into God's word.  And God wasn't telling me there was anything wrong with that.  He merely showed me how very safe it was.  Because studying something and falling in love with someone are two very different things.

That first taste of silence whetted my appetite in a way I never could have imagined.  And I'm sure it's no coincidence that it was in that silence that God asked me to think about loving him in a stretched out, vulnerable way.  Because that's what loving fervently is - it's vulnerable, it's exposing and it is risky.  I saw that part of it right away and, quite honestly,  I still struggle with that aspect of living and loving fervently.  I want desperately to be authentic, to be real, to be fervent.  But I Do. Not. Like. Being. Hurt.  And when I open myself up to give and receive love, I'm allowing for the possibility that good and bad may either one come - pain or beauty might walk in the door of my heart.

I want the strength and courage to die like that squirrel I saw this morning - stretched out to give and receive all that life has to offer.  I don't want to live and die curled into a ball, safe and secure - but I fight these tendencies every day.

I have been feeling overwhelmed this week, day after day, moment after moment.  My mind has been skittering from item to item on my to-do list.  I have worried about everything from scheduling time for my daughters with their friends to scheduling a parent meeting to what I should do about standardized testing.  I have felt stretched thin, but not stretched out in an "I claim this life as mine" kind of way.  

This morning, my daughter A read to us from the Jesus Storybook Bible as we ate our breakfast.  She read us the story of the Israelites and the parting of the Red Sea.  After she finished, I read the girls one of my favorite verses from this story, Exodus 14:14. It says, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."  

I think this might be the key to living fervently: letting God do it for me.  On my own, I am hesitant to stretch myself out, fearful of being not enough, afraid of being hurt.  Sometimes I need to just be still and let Him doing the fighting for me.

LONELY

1 a : being without company : lone

Yesterday, I drove A and B to Kentucky for camp.  This is A's third and B's second year at Barefoot.  I first heard about Barefoot at the church we used to attend.  Each year, they would play a video that showed this fabulous camp with kids of all shapes, sizes and skin colors doing art, sports and learning about God.  It made me cry every time.  I remember thinking, "I can't wait until my daughters are old enough to go there!" 

I blinked and they were suddenly old enough.

Last year, B went with a friend.  But that friend is a grade below B, so she was slated to attend a different session this year.  I tried to find another friend to join her.  I checked with two other families that I thought might enjoy the Barefoot experience, but I couldn't find anyone.  So I signed her up hoping that there would end up being a familiar face or that she would quickly make a friend.

When we arrived yesterday, K and I walked her sisters to their cabins.  We dropped A's stuff off first and then headed over to B's cabin to help B put the sheets on her bed.  B's cabin was mostly full when we arrived - or it seemed so because all of the bunks near the door already had occupants.  The counselor was there and remembered K from Barefoot Day Camp, where she coached K in soccer.  B was very quiet as we made her bed up.  I could almost see her folding in on herself, like a box that folds up when not in use.  When we stepped outside, B looked... I have trouble finding the word for it.  Was she stunned that she really was there without a friend?  Wide-eyed at doing this alone?  Or was my nearly fearless child afraid?

"It's going to be OK," I reassured her quietly.

"But I'm the only white one," she whispered.

"I know," I replied.  "Maybe some other girls will arrive that look more like you.  But E, the girl in the bunk below you, has a very kind face.  Maybe you should try talking to her.

B nodded, unconvinced.  K and I started to leave and B said, "Can I come with you?"

"No," I said.  "We're going to leave now.  I think you should go back into your cabin.  Try to find someone to talk to."

I am not a parent who lets her children get out of their commitments.  But I came oh-so-close to telling B, "Call me if it doesn't get better.  I'll come and get you."  I did not say it aloud, but my heart said it.

On the drive back to Nashville, I was pondering the whole situation.  Should I have sent B a different week?  Was there another friend I could have asked after the first two couldn't go?  I felt like as my heart was breaking, God whispered to me that sometimes the hardest things in my life have been the things I learned the most from.  While this is absolutely true, it was less than comforting to hear this in relation to my child.  As much as I want my children to grow into who God has made them to be, I would love for that to involve less pain, less hurt, less wounding than my own path has held.  Yet mere hours before dropping B off, I wrote her a note that I hid in her suitcase.  It said, in part, "Be who you are this week.  But be open to God showing you more of who you are."  Was he going to show her through loneliness?

It's not unlikely.  The day before taking my girls to camp, I had lunch with the women who were in my spiritual direction group last year.  When we stopped meeting officially in May, we agreed to try to meet monthly for a meal to stay connected.  Over lunch, we were talking about friendships that shifted and changed.  One of the women was talking about a party where some people purposely avoided talking to her.  I told her that my counselor once told me that the more emotionally healthy you are, the more likely you are to be lonely.

"Why is that?" she asked.

When she asked this, I realized that I'd never asked why.  I think I didn't ask why because as soon as I heard it, it rang true in my heart even if I didn't know exactly why.  So I did the best I could and told my friend that what I've experienced is that the more closely I listen to what God is telling me, the more I veer from the prescribed, common path.  This makes me lonely because there are people who don't want to journey with me when I am not going where they want to go.  This loneliness I feel makes me lean in closer to God and listen more closely, which creates this cycle of being closer and closer to God, but perhaps without company on parts of my journey.

B is more self-aware than most ten year old girls.  She knows who she is and who she isn't.  I suspect that some of this emotional health she has does make her lonely at times.  I don't know the right way to parent her through this.  Thus far, I've tried to affirm who she is, give her tips on building friendships when she asks and, above all, love her.  This last one is easy because I think she's an amazing girl - one of God's best creations (alongside her sisters, of course).

And while she may be lonely at times on her journey, I am praying for God to send her people who see how lovely, strong and amazing she is.

UNFURL

: to release from a furled (wrapped or rolled close to or around something) state

It was roughly a year ago that I chose the word unfurl for 2011.  Perhaps its misleading to even say I chose the word.  I prayed for several days about what my word for 2011 might be and I heard "unfurl" as a very distinct response.  I was puzzled at first, then accepting.  Until early January when it hit me that this unfurling was a process that was likely to leave me very vulnerable.  I had a very clear mental image of an unfurled flag being whipped around in gale force winds.  Not a comforting concept to kick off the year.

Tonight as I contemplate the word - and my year - I see it a bit differently.  Tonight, I'm struck by the fact that an unfurled flag does not do much on its own.  When there's little or no wind, even an unfurled flag is calm, unlikely to be noticed.  Yet when the wind picks up - when the time is right - an unfurled flag billows, blows and points the way.  (I started to type "calls attention to itself," but I can't quite take the metaphor there if that might mean I actually need to call attention to myself sometimes.  I'll go with "points the way" instead.)

I've been very aware lately of how much God's timing is at play in my life.  I am spending nine months doing an Ignatian Prayer Cycle.  The idea is to spend a bit of time every day reading specified scriptures.  The reality is that I'm 8 or 9 days behind.  Yet yesterday's sermon and my own  verse tied together beautifully and made me thankful I've fallen behind.  I loved having my own quiet time reinforce the words I'd heard earlier that same day.  An unfurled flag waits for the wind's timing.  It doesn't - can't - do its job by itself.

But that same flag isn't always idle.  For the first time yesterday I served as a lay reader at church.  This means I read the first lesson for the day to the congregation.  It's an oddity (I think) that an introvert like me is good at public speaking.  But I am.  I had to read the entire first chapter of Jonah yesterday and I was nervous.  But instead of letting my nerves hurry me along, they made me slow down and read the passage better.  I went back to my seat feeling like I'd used a part of me that was meant to be used.  This is growth for me - to be active and participatory instead of deferring and accommodating.  This is unfurling - to accept that I have something to offer and offer it.  When the wind blows and God points me in a direction, I don't want to stay curled up and resisting.  I want to be unfurled and open to going where I'm sent and enjoying the moments when the wind is still.

BURDEN

1 a : something that is carried : load

Starting this month, I am participating in a spiritual direction group where we read set scriptures daily using lectio divina and do the Daily Examen.  Today I read in Matthew 11.  In addition to the assigned scripture, we were given these directions from our spiritual director:

Come to Jesus, ask Him, 'What are my burdens?" Hand them over to Him one by one. As you go through your day, if you find yourself taking the burdens back, be gentle with yourself, and hand them back over to Him. This is a spiritual practice.

The scripture was touching, but following these instructions was really enlightening.  Some burdens came to mind readily enough -

the responsibility for choosing (and sometimes executing) my daughters' education,
how, when and whether my daughters will come to their own faith,
running my household,
loving my husband well,
relationships,
whether I am inherently unlovable

And then I prayed for a friend of mine whose aging parent is having health issues.  I found I couldn't give up that burden because the burden wasn't mine to give.  This was very clear to me as I prayed.  I could offer my friendship over, but I couldn't lay my friend's parent on the altar because that wasn't for me to do.  So I offered up my friend and asked Jesus to carry her.

Since then, I've been pondering whether I am unusual, crazy or even flawed to see relationships as burdens that need handing over.

It's not that I don't like people.  I do.  I love my family.  I have many friends that I dearly treasure.   Yet I have time constraints and more desire for relationship than time to pursue it.  Is there something wrong with me that I need divine intercession to be present, loving and caring to other people?  Or is that just part of knowing who I am?

In reading about my enneagram number (9), I am beginning to see myself more clearly.  Something I read today talked about how 9s don't have defenses that the other numbers have, so life just feels like too much sometimes.  That really resonated with me.

I often feel like I am the burden - that there's not enough of me, that I can't do enough or be enough for other people.

As we celebrate Labor Day, these are some of the things I'll be pondering:

What are my burdens?

Do I carry them because I think I deserve to be burdened?

When and why do I think I am a burden?

And I'll be praying for the strength to hand these burdens over, again and again.