Miracle: Rediscovering Grace in the Restoration of Faith

December 4th

Miracle: Do you feel you experienced or witnessed miracle this year? How so?

It might depend on how you describe a miracle. Some people describe seeing them in the moonlight, or in the sunshine, or in how the rays of sun glisten through clouds.

Miracles, for me, come through receiving grace. It seems that it often takes feeling a hurt deeper than you ever have felt before and sensing that your friendships, or your job, or your sanity will come crashing down. The sense of feeling as if you don’t do something and quickly you’ll never recover is what I call grace and a defining moment. 

A long-term relationship ended just shy of one year ago. It pained me and yet I so desperately wanted to prove that I was going to be fine and that I could move on, I pushed myself to move on and be alright without ever actually confronting why it hurt so bad to begin with. Several months passed before I realized that this "thing" I wasn't dealing with could destroy every other relationship I had: feelings of doubt, feelings of mistrust, and a general feeling of abandonment. 

I was exhausted - emotionally, hurting and fearing that the people I love and who I believe cared about me and sustained me during the initial difficult time would back away. 

Tired, feeling very much alone, and with nowhere to go, I went to a Church. It wasn’t like any Church I’d ever been to... a satellite campus and broadcasted at  a high school auditorium. Yet, I walked without resistance into the quad of the campus to see a sign that said, “A Place Where It’s OK to Not Be OK.” I immediately felt tears streaming down my face. 

I was undoubtedly torn. At one point, I didn't know who I could trust nor did I know why I wondered and doubted that. This Church I had just walked into announced they were starting a series called, "Torn: Trusting God When Life Leaves You in Pieces." 

The Pastor, Jud Wilhite, said at the beginning, "Maybe you don't know why that relationship ended, or maybe you don't know why it hurts." The tears at this point poured down my face. 

I thought, and somewhat still believe that the people I wanted to confide in, or had already vented to, may have considered me too emotional, or presumed I would have already moved on. I felt as though also these people I loved had their own concerns that I didn’t want to bother them. My ears heard the words, "It's not about you." 

My heart ached. Of course it wasn't, it was about all of them. I wanted to be there for my friends and for my family but knew I couldn't because the hurt I felt inside was greater than any love - at that moment - that I could receive or offer. 

Drug addicts.

Domestic violence victims.

Assault survivors.

Foreclosures.

Job loss. 

And so on... 

Many of us often rationalize that our hurts, a simple breakup, or the natural end-of-life death of a loved one, are not significant enough in either the eyes of God or our peers because our neighbors may be dealing with something that much "worse" or difficult.

In discovering grace, it becomes known that it doesn't matter what it is because you're the only one who is experiencing it. Only you know what it feels like to lose the job, to be abused, to have lost your house or try to quit... something. The one common theme is that each of us can be torn by that one issue only one of us knows about. That's where we can come together. 

So, when I realized my life had left me emotionally in pieces, I chose to seek my faith. It was the beginning of the return back to feeling at peace with myself, at the risk of losing loved ones and friends in the process.

Whether fortune or unfortunately, I had to work at rebuilding my faith, then myself, before I could tackle anything else. It's now all an evolving process. 

Torn: Lyric Video from Central Online on Vimeo.
My prayer for the end of this year, is that through the restoration of faith and self-worth, may also my relationships with family and friends be restored too. That also, one day, if a friend is hurting and feeling like they need to climb out of darkness, I can either have the awareness or the invitation to offer a hand in that climb.

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Putting the Puzzle Pieces of Life Together

In five days it will be one year since I started this blog process. It started out as one kind of journey, and as life changed, it has become another. 

Writing often helps one put the
puzzle pieces of life together.

The other night, while on an airplane traveling to a getaway I wrote a poem. Writing, for me, has always been an idiosyncratic process. It just happens. When I write what reads like a poem or song lyrics to me the words flow in one stream of consciousness. Once, I wrote a two page poem, front and back, while in between classes in college. I had about seven minutes to do it.

Sometimes, with writing, the words just come because the story is already in the author. 

At the top of the page on yellow legal pad paper I wrote, “Written just shy of 11 months from the day since my life changed (not that anyone is counting).” I wanted to put some finality on the shock that comes when a relationship ends; or rather, when my relationship ended. 

If you remember, I started this blog because my boyfriend at the time would call me things that hurt my feelings. The ending of the relationship though, when that happened, it hurt more. Then, there were a lot of other feelings that came out over the course of time. Removed, I finally had a way to address what it felt like in that instant that everything changed. 

Who knows, maybe this will help you or someone you know deal with the pain, heartache, grief, or whatever it is. 

I don't know what you just said.

I'm sorry, I missed it.

Tell me one more time that everything

is not alright.

Cuz I can't think.

I'm lost inside.

I can't find - 

Where am I supposed to go?

You said goodbye, I know

That part I got right.

I'm sorry, but I don't know why?

Tell me one more time that everything

is not alright.

Cuz I can't hear you.

I'm not listening.

I can't find - 

Where am I supposed to go?

You're gone, You're gone.

I'm all alone, all alone.

Just get up and say goodbye. 

It's not for me to leave.

I'm sorry, you've got to go.

I don't know what you just said.

I'm sorry, I missed it.

But that don't matter now -

You're gone, alright, and out of my life.

and now I'm free

Thank God you had to leave.

I am free.

Now that I'm who I'm supposed to be.

And I am fine.

Everything is alright. 

How do you deal with loss? With heartache? What’s your method of dealing with what you know to be good (like the ending of a relationship that should have ended) and also with the sadness that it ended anyway? Do you allow yourself to realize that it’s alright and natural to feel both relief and sadness at the same time? Let me know what you think. If you want... 

Photo Courtesy:  http://uwbwritingcenter.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/confession-i-write-poetry/

I'm Not Asking "Why?" Anymore

I looked at my phone for what felt like hours waiting for it to buzz or ring or light up.

Nothing. 

My own wrestling with patience prevented anyone from contacting me first, or so it seemed. That’s because I would stop at almost anything to communicate with someone at randomized, seemingly perfect for me, moments. 

“Think about what you need to do for yourself in those moments,” someone said to me recently. I cannot remember the exact wording now, but they continued and said, “Instead of thinking about what hurts or why its hurting, try to figure out what needs to be healed.” 

Have you ever been hurt and knew exactly what you needed to do to help yourself heal? Could you figure out the first step? 

“That’s a good idea,” I said back. In fact, it seems quite simple now that I think about it. After all, when I was younger it was pretty simple to figure out the first step towards healing. 

When you fall down, you get back up again.

When I was eight, I got on my bicycle and started riding it down the steep back hill of our development. It’s not for certain, but I believe I might have been carrying other things with me, weighing down bicycle with a faster speed to the bottom of that hill. Half way down, the front wheel skirted right, the back went left, and I landed underneath it and the bicycle dragged me about ten more feet. I don’t remember if I cried, but I probably did. I have a scar on the inside of my elbow that reminds me just how deep the road carved into me as the bicycle dragged me down the hill. In that moment, I didn’t need to figure out why it hurt or what had happened. It was quite obvious! So, I, in a sobbing and tearful, bloody mess begrudgingly walked my bicycle back up the hill and home. 

Not all hurts are that easy to figure out, and for most people the hurts become a little more complicated when you get older. Not the hurts, but the cause, and the why sometimes is impossible to figure out. Then, sometimes, we, I know I do, get stuck in wondering why something happened that we cannot see the first step.

One thing is for sure, I’m not asking Why? anymore. 

As a child: “Why did Sigmund (the cat) die?”

Parent: “She wasn’t feeling well and she’s in a better place.”

As a teenager: “Why couldn’t I go to the college I wanted to go to?”

Parent: “Because it wasn’t what you thought it was going to be.”

As an adult: “Why did he leave me?”
Parent: “It’s for the best.”

It’s interesting, I think, that the answers are easy when we’re younger and they are more vague as we get older. More deeply, because when we ask such a deep question like, “Why did he leave me?” or “Why did she have to get cancer?” we most likely wouldn’t be happy with the answer. It would not bring us the joy that we so long hoped to feel again.

When I hurt, sometimes I hit the gym and I pound my feet on the rotating belt as if it were pavement. It’s as if I’m chasing after some sort of something on the horizon and I never get there. Other times, I hang out with friends and occasionally enjoy more than what I need to enjoy when it comes to wine. Or, I write down stories that I hope would make sense of the pain. 

Since my last post, I decided to stop asking why and just go to the source that my Grandma taught me as a young girl: my Faith. Instead of asking myself again, why did my life change in the way it did, I asked who will still love me tomorrow? 

If you’re not a Christian, or have never been to Church, it may not make sense to you. But, for me, the message that I knew, and had heard, and trusted for years was much more loud than it ever has been before. In Romans 8, the Bible says, If our God is for us, then who can be against us? 

That’s real soul food, and real comfort, for me, on this journey... to something fabulous. 

If you're interested in learning more about the Bible, please check out this website. 

All the Other Kids Grow Up Too

How many homes does one have in their life? Not just a house, but a home, a place where there is a sense of family or community?

I just had to come back one last time, sings Miranda Lambert in “The House That Built Me.” 

In 1994, I went to high school with my direction facing the rear view mirror. I thought if I could just return to middle school every now and then I’d remember what I was afraid I’d forget. 

Del Dios Middle School became so much like a second home to me, I spent afternoons in the teachers lounge. I copied papers and put spiral bound backs in student print out documents. Mostly, I chatted. 

“So, I have this teacher who....” 

“I want to be President someday, still, but....” 

Honestly, I don’t think I ever had anything interesting to say, but I didn’t want to leave. 

Just as much as I didn't want to leave, I was in love with my Grandma. When she passed away in 2006, I could't believe I hadn't returned to her home, where so much love could be found, in so long. So, in 2008, I made the journey. I thought, finally, coming home. But, Grandma's house wasn't Grandma's house anymore. I looked for any evidence that it was, and immediately, outside I spotted what was once my swing, worn, tattered, used, and rusted, yet waiting as if just to say "hello." 

My "Swing" Outside Grandma's House (2008)

You leave home, you move on, and you do the best you can, I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am. 

In 2002, I left my first job at what was then a Fox affiliate in San Diego. While working there I described it as a playground.

“Anne Marie, how can you run around barefoot!” someone would yell from the sports office.

“Because I can!” 

People would be tickled by the copiers, mini breaks were taken upstairs to make hot chocolate, and no matter what we all always went out for drinks afterwards. 

I remember this one time we convinced one of the main anchors and a weather anchor to come out to karaoke, something the rest of us did every week. Somewhere, on video, they are singing “I’ve Got You Babe.” 

When the men would sing, the girls and I would toss panties, yes panties, to them and scream like we were 17. The hostess of the karaoke night also worked at a strip club. She came with props. 

We had some really, really, fun times. Really. 

In 2009, I went back to that first job for a job interview. It was just happenstance, but someone who worked there when I did still remained and said to come on by. 

She took me inside the building, the same building that I had dreamt about getting lost in, and finding myself in, for the previous seven years. I had never left it. 

“Rust,” I said to her as I looked at the stairwell that had once been so clean and white. “Smudge,” I said again as I noticed dirt on the walls. I cringed inside a little because it wasn’t anything like coming home. 

Then, just as I felt a tinge of tears lulling me out of joy, I heard someone say, “Anne Marie.” 

Two years later, almost to the day, I returned to my latest home, hoping to take more than just a memory. For the first time, the place looked the same, some of the faces were still familiar, and the feeling inside was just right. I had come home.

Yet, I recognize there is always some nostalgia in “coming home.” Eventually, all the other kids on the street grow up and move away, too. It’s always fun when you come back to visit and there’s at least a few you can talk to at the mailbox, or catch up with during a morning run. Yet, they all leave too and we’re out looking for a new place to call home. 

They say home is where the heart is, and depending on who is in your heart, and what makes it beat, and has your chest rise and fall; it’s one place, or no place, or many places at the same time. 

I’ve found home in the teacher’s lounge at a middle school, in the studio of a TV station, on the stage at a bar on karaoke night, and in a little desert town where some people think you only retire, and ultimately, wherever the people I love happen to be. 

The Stuff that Makes Us Who We Are

So, this is home.

They, as in the ubiquitous they, who always happen to be around, always say “home is where the heart is.” 

As I write this I’m in my new home, but it is not home. It’s far from any home that I’ve ever known. It’s new, it’s empty, as in it is just me now, and my cat (and no, I’m not a “cat lady”), and a second bedroom full of boxes that have yet to be emptied.

However, when I think about this, isn’t that how much of us live our lives? We move from room to room, or house to house, with boxes full of stuff we have yet to unpack and explore? I mean this both literally and figuratively. 

“I don’t want to think about that.”

“It’s just dredging up the past.” 

“I have too much baggage.”

I’m sure we’ve all either said one of those phrases or heard them at some point in our lives. In my opinion, that’s a good thing. You want to know why? It’s because you at least recognize that there are some “issues” you have to work through.

Let me digress for a second. I hate the word “issues.” In college, my roommates and I were simply just growing up. We were out there in the world learning academic information that we hoped would carry us somewhere, and trying to figure out who we were, emotionally, at the same time. At any moment we had some sort of situation we would say, “Oh my gosh, she has issues.” 

Seriously, I could probably write a book about the “issues” we all thought that we had then. Since then, each of us have lived through experiences that were far more issue-based than anything we went through back then. 

Recognizing that we have the stuff of our lives that make us who we are is part of becoming an even better person. A friend of mine asked me recently, after this part of my life changed, to find out from my other friends how I could be a better friend. I took that personally and agreed that I had not been a good friend. 

Let me tell you something. Relationships, at least for me, seem to give me permission to distance myself from the people who have sustained me before, during, and after said relationship (or crisis, or medical issue, or major life event.) Those people are my friends, how dare I abandon them for something temporary!

This is just my temporary home. As Carrie Underwood sings, this is just a stop along the way, this physical place, this emotional state, and this actual circumstance that you, and I, and we are all in. 

There is always something far more greater than what we are experiencing. In the moment, it’s hard to see. It’s harder, still, to accept that sometimes. 

My point is, wherever home is, there will be “issues”, and recognizing them will only help you, and me, and all of us move forward to that “something greater.” 

Floating On the Wings of Earthly Angels

The healing is just beginning. 

In these final weeks of 2010, the healing is just beginning. It started with writing this blog. Everyone needs an outlet of some kind to identify why they are hurting and need healing in the first place. 

Putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keys on a keyboard, is one way a person can get close with their thoughts. Joan Didion once said, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” 

Perhaps, healing comes in a two step process when one is writing. First, the thoughts enter your mind. Then, there’s an adjustment between resting on a sturdy foundation and falling into a deep pool of uncertainty. At that point, if you’re writing, the words start to flow. Then, you start to make sense of it. l guess it was more than two steps, wasn’t it? 

This process, this blog is a way to heal, for me. It is my sincerest hope that if you’re reading this, and you wonder how to begin the healing process that maybe you find a nugget of hope, or process, or passages to sustain you. After all, the characteristics that make us all human come in the form of faith, hope and love and are sometimes masked as doubt, worry, or regret. 

Floating on the wings of earthly angels. I’ve said this statement a few times this week and at first it sounded quite holy and mighty. Then, I realized it just happened to be the truth. 

Sometimes, things change in our lives in a way that we don’t understand, or we have trouble accepting why things have changed, or just can’t get beyond being stuck in a moment. 

The healing process for me got a kick start because of others in my life. The recognition that people like you for you and for no other reason is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. People just sometimes show up. You have no idea who they will be or why it is them, but when they do, embrace them with open arms. I have to. 

I’m trying to like myself more. It’s really easy to give up on yourself when you’re so busy running errands, going to work, cooking meals, dealing with the kids, the cat, the dog.... You get the idea. You become exhausted. Remember when I talked about napping? We can’t do anything for anyone else if we don’t do something for ourselves. In 2011, I’m going to like myself more. 

You know, giving is not about the anticipation of anything in return, it’s about the genuine human character of the giver. People who give do so because they want to and because they can. 

And that, realizing that in order to really give, one must heal (which may involve forgiving oneself), accept love, and try to like themselves more and allow themselves time to do all those things, is the lesson learned in 2010. 

Oh, and to smile more. Maybe someone will smile back. 

Get Your Own Blog Prompts at www.reverb10.com

"Change, Big Or Small, Is a Real Challenge"

“... I will be in the hospital Easter, but remember I love you. God bless you, dear one.” 

My Grandma, always putting others first, in the Spring of 2006. She wrote the words in a Easter card, the last legible writing I ever received from her.

“I love you more.” 

My Grandma would say that to me each time she ended a phone call with me. I can hear her saying it to me, it’s the whisper of the faintest distance in the dead of night. In my heart I say, “I love you.”

I can feel her say, “I love you more.”

Since my last post about not wanting worry wrinkles, a part of my life changed. A significant part is no longer and now that is part of my journey.

I believe you don’t necessarily have to be a religious person to experience God’s grace. In a year, for me, that’s been full of changes, both good, and bad, and somewhere in between, grace defines me. 

She, my Grandma, taught me to affect my circumstances, and not to be affected by them. 

Tears, they may stream like a slow, but steady drizzle from a faucet, onto my face, down the curve of my lips, and into my mouth, but they are happy tears. The salty sensation, the cool wet kiss of my own emotions on my cheek, remind me again of the resilience, the promise, and gradual, if not certain, passage to happiness. 

My Grandma suffered a stroke in June 2006. I never experienced her the same after that. In my memory, she is this strong-willed person who said, “Don’t give up on me just yet.” 

She died a few months later. It was grief, and to this day, is grief of the deepest magnitude I have experienced.There is a hero for every person and in every family for different reasons and at different times. My hero is, and has been, my Grandma.

In the days, if not minutes, before she passed away, I wrote some words down that resonate quite deeply with me now: 

I’m going through the motions of going to work and doing my job and feeling like I’m a spectator of my own life. Certain things happen in slow motion because my mind is so preoccupied on what’s happening outside of the present moment that I forget to notice it. People talk to me and I miss what they say and sometimes don’t remember hearing them at all.  I’m told this is normal and that it will come and it will go. Then, for an instant, something triggers and I’m fighting tears, but just for a moment, until I return to my vacant mind of going through the motions.

Grandma wouldn’t want me to just go through the motions. 

It does not matter what loss one is experiencing, because loss is the one unifying factor of life. Maybe not loss, but the fear of failure realized, or the fear of loss realized, the fear, the very worry, and the edge of doubt you sat on top of, when it slips out, and it’s realized; we’ve all been there. Also, let me be the umpteenth person to say that sometimes loss is a blessing in disguise, we just don't know it yet.

It is the one thing everyone goes through and yet that does not make it any easier because of the circumstances and the people involved. It is really only being experienced in one unique way for each person grieving.

It hurts, because very few people understand, even though everyone can relate. 

I pray, one day, my children, whenever I do have them, I can share her eternal faith with them, so that they, too, might find a foundation and a hope for a future. 

Resilience, remember, is about accepting our circumstances even if they are different, or disappointing, or not what we thought they would be. We can do nothing, as Elizabeth Edwards said, but scream about what we have lost, or accept it, and try to put together something that’s good. 

Scratch that.

Great. 

Appreciate. Prompts at http://www.reverb10.com/

This year, I appreciate my friends, the many of them who showed up on the doorstep of my heart when I least expected it.

I love you more.

I appreciate the memory of my Grandma, and the lasting wisdom she instilled in me. Certainly, I appreciate the faith, and the gentle tugging of my heart, when she would rub the small of my back when I wasn’t feeling well, and gently squeeze me in a life-affirming embrace.