finding shalom

As you can tell, I haven’t been feeling much like blogging recently. Most of you know why, but if there is still those that don’t (I hate to do it over a blog but hey, that’s life) my dad passed away about two and a half weeks ago. There have been a lot of emotions and while I am no where near done processing, I did want to spew out a few random thoughts.
I’ve been listening to this Ben Rector song a lot recently. It’s called “Thank God I Miss You.” The lyrics are below, and they’ve touched my heart a lot. The truth of the matter is that I have a really hard time putting together words to explain how I feel. People ask and I usually give a shrug and an “I’m alright” when really there is a ton of other stuff going in my mind. This song says a lot of it. Mostly I can’t put together comprehensive thoughts about how I feel about my dad. Before his death we got to spend some time together and have closure, and I even got to do the eulogy at his funeral. The thing is, recalling all those memories of my dad makes me realize just how much I miss him and the impact he had on my life. The things he taught me, the way he loved me. I miss him.
But even just saying that doesn’t feel like enough to encompass what I feel. Ben Rector’s beautiful song helps me realize that although it hurts so much, I thank God that I miss him because missing him means that he was real. He was in my life and he loved me, I loved him too. I miss him because I allowed myself to feel and to love, even if that means unspeakable sorrow now.
for sometime I fear these words
are cheapened by the way they’re said
we do not mean them.
from a million miles away
words are all I know to say
so I am speaking to you right now.
so know I wrote this song
with all the words meaning what they mean
saying what they.
though it’s nothing you haven’t heard before
but I mean it more today,
believe me when I say,
I thank God I miss you.
I thank God I miss you.
from a hotel room and misunderstandings
my heart stands still and demands this candor.
although my hands shake I remain unshaken,
for the part that’s grounded is also taken
and that’s the way it should be.
The other thing rolling around in my head recently is this quote from William Irving that I heard on Criminal Minds this week. He said, “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love.” I think this quote is so beautiful. So true and so real in my life right now. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to miss him. It’s okay to love.
I’ve been very blessed by people all around me loving me and allowing me time to be. It’s hard, and although I know it happens, I wish this never happens to anyone else. This is hard and unbelievably different from anything I’ve felt. This Ben Rector song and this William Irving quote is where I’m at. it’s messy and difficult, but it’s where I am. Straight up, that’s life sometimes. While God continues to be amazing and real, life still moves in slow motion. hearts still break.

This morning at my bible study, Beth Moore spoke on Ester 4:11-17 and fear. Here are some of my personal thoughts on fear…
Fear is a funny thing. Most people have fears of things that are real, like spiders, snakes or the dark. But almost everyone has fear that is found deeper than those things. Our worst fears are not usually in the form of a thing we can identify but more so they are situational. Fear of death, of loneliness, of a loved one leaving us, of not being good enough. Whether we admit it or not, we have that fear that sort of eats us alive.
If we call ourselves followers of Christ we usually say that we trust that God will not let that fear happen to us. However, in doing that, we have placed a conditional faith on God. We are essentially saying, “God I’m trusting that you won’t let that happen because that would destroy me” We aren’t really trusting God at all. And when we do that, we’re only putting a band aid on an incision from surgery. Fear is something deep inside us, something that continues to torment us if we allow it to. We think that if that ever does happen then we’re ruined. We won’t be able to get over it, the fear is still there even if we say we trust in the Lord. I think we just feel better for a little bit.
See the thing is that the single most repeated command that God gives us throughout the Bible is this … “Do not be afraid.” Over and over again he commands us to not be afraid. And yet, we continue to be afraid. I mean yes, we’ve memorized the verses in the bible that say that the Lord will not forsake us, if God is for us who can be against us, and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. But when we get down to it, do we ever stop being fearful?
So then Beth Moore started to talk about courage. About how courage comes from the Latin word “cor” meaning heart. Then she said – courage comes from a heart convinced it is loved. In the New Testament Jesus says to his disciples, “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.” It’s not even that he’s really saying that they shouldn’t be afraid, he’s more saying that he is with them so they can fear not. He says “Take courage” as if he’s holding it out to them in his hand, like ‘here, take it. Come on, I’m giving it to you.” I think so many times we have this fear in our lives that literally keeps us from doing things, great things, and it’s like God is holding out courage and we choose not to take it.
In Esther, the fear was literally death. She could go in front of the King like Mordecai was asking her but the penalty was death. More than likely, in her mind, she was gonna be killed if she did it. It wasn’t like there was chance she wouldn’t be killed, the chance was that she would be saved. Being saved by Xerxes’ scepter was the exception to the rule. She was literally facing death, but chose to take the courage provided for her by her faith in God that He was there with her.
While I recognize that a lot of people are afraid of death, I’m not. I’ve come to term with the fact that I’m going to die and in all honesty, I’m not dreading that. The hope I have in Jesus (not to be all preachy) is that I get something better in the next life. So yea, that’s not my fear. But I do have fear and to be honest I have a lot of it. I didn’t really know it, but it’s there. It’s abundant and it runs deep.
The thing is, for the past year (literally, maybe more than a year) God has been trying to call my attention to this fact. He’s been using a lot of different people and scriptures to show me something and while I recognize those moments while I’m in them, I didn’t understand how or why they connected. That is until today. Until Beth Moore, in all her southern charm, called it all to my attention. A dozen or so conversations with mentors/friends/students. Hours spent poring over specific scriptures. Tears spilt in heartache over not understanding this pain and fear – not having a name for it. Beth tied it up in a cute little package and presented it to me… all the way from Texas… through a DVD … that was recorded long before any of this happened in my life.
(Not buying it? Yea me neither, it’s clearly the hand of the Lord. Beth’s just a vessel. I do understand that, don’t worry.)
There are a lot of fill in the blanks in Beth Moore studies. But today there was one left blank, and it’s a glorious one. Beth points out that when you’re facing any kind of fear there is a sort of “IF ____________________, THEN __________.” For a shallow/humorous example, “IF a spider crawls on my leg, THEN I will die.” When you put your fear in the first blank, you always have a perceived consequence in the second blank. For your worst fear, that second blank is the fact that you’ll be done, ruined, won’t be able to go on. But if you play it out, you find a different consequence. Keep asking yourself “what if that happens, then what?” and when you fill in that second blank, keep asking, “then what?” until you come full circle and realize, that at the end of your dramatic (although real) situation … there’s God. Even if everything in your life is lost, God’s still there. He’s still standing right there and He can help pick you up and carry on.
This is not to say that I’ve perfected it, far from it. I took some good steps today. I took the courage God was holding out to me and tried conquering one of my fears. But I barely scratched the surface. It’s a long road when you’re trying to conquer those fears. Because I tend to ask myself, is fear really curable? Will I ever get to the point where I don’t have fear? Or is it merely recognizing that I have the choice to take the courage I’m being handed by the God that created me?

So, I am a part of this bible study at my church that takes place on Tuesday mornings. We’re doing the Beth Moore Esther study (my first Beth Moore!). There are a ton of women in it and most weeks it’s the thing I look forward to most.
So there’s me, and a girl named Tate.. and then every other woman is married with children, some with grandchildren, some with grandchildren older than me. After the first week, Tate said to me, “Thanks for coming and bringing the average age down.” At first I was hesitant, I thought to myself that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do a Beth Moore study (too much dedication), I wanted something more with women my own age, or at least closer (too many stories that go over my head). Basically I came up with a lot of excuses but each time I thought one was legit God would sort of lean over my shoulder and say, “but you need this.” So I kept going, because who can argue with their Creator over what they need? I sure can’t.
So I go every week and sometimes sit through the craziest conversations, like two weeks ago when we started talking about beauty treatments and the room erupted with things like, “use olive oil instead of lotion” and all sorts of home remedies that I’m gonna be honest, sounded gross. Or last week when we got on a 20 minute tangent on disciplining your children…meaning beating them. Seriously. But also, I love it.
I love it because every Tuesday morning from 9-11 I get to open up the Bible with about 20 other women who love God and have lived life much longer than me. I get to learn from some of the finest women in our congregations but also, it’s a place where they honor my opinions, even ask for it sometimes. And not even in that condescending way that some older generations ask for our generation’s opinion, like, “Let’s hear from the twenty-somethings now.” More like, “Alicia, what do you think?”
I also love it because I am now in relationship with all these amazing women that I never would have even met until now. It’s so fun to walk into the fellowship hall and have all these women say hi and ask how my week was. I love it. It’s so fun.
Which also in a way makes me sad. Not for myself, but for the tons of young women my age that don’t take advantage of that. You see so often I feel like the 20somethings are constantly looking for a community of our own. Almost like we are looking for a church completely made up of people our age and we alienate ourselves from the greater christian population because we think they don’t get us or the way we want to live. I’ve totally found myself in this thought process, I want to find a group to study the Word with that are my age. I shy away from college aged ministry because well, I’m not in college and mostly it’s high schoolers who go to those things anyway. I also shy away from things that say “young adults” because it’s mostly really young married couples. or “singles” ministry because it’s like a dating game on crack.
I’ve been that person that makes an excuse for not having a community that I “fit” into, the thing is, in my lack of that sort of community I’ve found a different community. Not a perfect one mind you (besides I have a feeling no community can be perfect but that’s another post) but one that fulfills my needs and make me feel included and loved. One that prays for each other and challenges each other to be better at life. And only one other person is “my age.”
My fear is that we isolate ourselves from the greater population of our congregations. Don’t get me wrong, there are times that we need to be all about generational divisions. Youth ministry, children’s ministry… etc. But there’s also a time for crossing those boundaries and learning from each other. To be humble enough to know that you could learn a lesson from a 10 year old just like you can from an 80 year old.