Better than Average

Yesterday was ridiculous.  I felt like a parent who had company over and my children just didn't know how to behave.  Any time you bring someone new into your "home" you are acutely aware of everything going on around you.  Every temper tantrum, every bad word, every smart aleck remark, every lost battle.  The one time you want them to show off, they act up, and you're left trying to decide whether to shrug or apologize.


How do you explain love?  How do you teach someone to love a group of people the way you do?  "Hey, meet my family.  Ok.  Go love them."


It is surprisingly easier than it may seem.


In Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz he says, when explaining his new found love for jazz music, "Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."


So that is what I do.  That is my job, my mission, my passion.  To show others how to love, just by doing.  Leading the way, just with my actions.  Which is why if you follow me into that gym, into that cafeteria, into that classroom, the only preparation you're going to get is a role call.  


Because I can't tell you how to love them.  I can just show you how I do.


One boy was running around, or more like running away from a leader.  Two had switched names with each other and there was really no way to tell who was who at any given moment.  One was slurping applesauce from a cup and the fifth grade girls were on a whole other level.  

Another one of my older fourth graders was stepping up in a major way.  I put my new friend with him to work on subtracting fractions.  Usually, this kid is notorious for getting halfway through his homework and complaining about wanting to go to the gym.  He usually storms through a door or slams a stack of books, huffing and puffing.  Yesterday, however, he sat down.  Jaw set.  Bent over a few really hard math problems, and worked diligently until he was done.

It was heavy on my heart to let him know how proud of him I was.  I think I told him at least three times yesterday. But what was even more important to me, was that he heard me telling someone else.  So I sat down next to my friend who had been helping him, and I told her a little bit about F.  About his leadership skills, about what a good athlete he was, about how excellent his attitude had been lately.  How proud we were of him.  I watched the light flicker in his eyes even though he refused to make eye contact with either one of us.  And he only tightened up a little when I gave him a really big hug.  

Cultivating leadership is one of our greatest goals.

One day, Frank will change the world.  Just wait.  

One of my babies, the one who I've consistently had the most progress with, was throwing a temper tantrum over work pages his teacher had assigned.  He has a C in the class.  Because he wasn't turning his work in.  Every assignment he turns in, he gets full credit for.  100's fill up the columns on his sheet.  But each 0 brings his grade down dramatically.  Tears streamed down his face.  He was calling us stupid, his face all tightened up and his body stiff.  He's a small fourth grader, and more often than not all it takes is a big hug or a good tickle to get him back in shape.  But not yesterday.


Yesterday he was fighting all his demons.


Marcus finally came into the room.  He explained to Mary and me what was exactly going on with the homework and patiently stood there as T crossed his arms tight over his chest and hot tears slid down his cheeks.  We were all stupid, the little guy said.  We were all bossy.  We were giving him too much work.  


Finally Marcus looked at him and said, "You have a C, T.  That's average.  T, do you want to be average?"


And I saw it.


I always see it eventually.  


Looking back on your own life, think about those moments, which jolt you awake.  Which demand your attention and cause you to lift your head.  The moment when something clicks, something falls into place, something finally makes sense.  Maybe you're lucky enough to remember.  Maybe you've been lucky enough to see it happen in a child.


Do you want to be average?


I left the room.  Reduce stimulation, reduce distraction.  Promote organization and focus.  Encourage and correct and redirect.  That's our job.  


When the day was over, homework packed up, trash thrown away, most of the lights turned off, I went to find Mary and T.  They were putting his books away in his backpack.  The tears were dried on his face and the light was back in his eyes.  I looked at Mary for confirmation.  


"He did great, Miss Anna," she said.  "He finished everything I told him to and even started on another page.  He's so good at this, and I'm not just saying that."


I smiled and looked to T.  "Is that right, little man?" He nodded rapidly with his jaw set, like he always does.  I squatted down and pressed my forehead up against his.  (Think Boy Meets World.  Sometimes, you have to get really close to get someone's attention.  Sometimes you have to make physical contact to get your point across.) 


"Do know how much I love you?"


He nodded and both our heads moved.


"Do you know that I think you're one of the smartest boys I know?"


Nod.


"Do you know how proud I am that you finished, even when we had such a bad day?"


Nod.


"Can I get a hug?"


He threw his arms around my waist and squeezed tight and then reached up and kissed my cheek.  "I love you, Miss Anna."  


I sent him to hug Mary and we walked down to the gym together.


This is my life, friends.  


-


Today I am wondering if you want to be average?


How badly do you crave excellence?  


What kind of leader do you want to be?


Can you look at me square in the eye, tell me your name, and shake my hand -- proud of yourself and who you're becoming?

Chaos

I am supposed to be writing a paper.  I feel like that's all I do anymore.  Almost halfway through the hardest semester of my undergrad education, I am so close.  The only thing keeping me from losing my mind is that now I can say I "graduate this year".  The end is in sight.  And every reflection paper, every 8 am class, every lit review gets me one step closer.

I am one of the lucky ones.  Sometimes I have to remind myself of that, when things get really sticky and complicated.  I am one of them -- the lucky ones.  The lucky ones who knows exactly what she wants to do with her life.  A lucky one who knows exactly why her heart beats.  One of the lucky ones who has found her purpose.


I question it on a daily basis.  What I do is not fun.

Seeing children come to school in clothes that don't fit, with bellies empty, begging for attention.  Watching parents sit by idly.  Or worse, abuse and violate.  Too many selfish adults permeate my daily life.  Reeking of the drugs, which consume their livelihood.  Absorbed with skewed priorities, voices harsh, hands quick.  I see school systems, which lack adequate funding.  I see impatient or under-resourced teachers.  I see teenagers, already being stolen by a lost society.  I see independence in the faces and behaviors of five year olds.  And codependence in the faces of their caretakers.

What I see... on a daily basis... breaks my heart.

But something happens to me.  When I drive into that neighborhood.  When someone asks me about urban poverty.  When the topic of community development is brought to the table.  When discussing foster care and behavior modification.

Something inside of me catches fire.  And if you've ever see me there, you know what I'm talking about. Unless you've seen me with my children, you haven't seen the real me.  Unless you've been there with me, or sat across the table from me as I talk about it, you don't know who I am.


I chose to spend my Valentine's Day with some of them.  Dark, cold night walking up and down the streets of my most beloved neighborhood.  We ran straight into a group of teenagers who were smoking weed.  I was tired of knocking on unfamiliar, unopened doors and all a few of us wanted to do was stand in the street with these kids.  High or not.  That's where I wanted to be.

Chaos draws me.  I am drawn in, consumed by, enchanted with the chaos and noise of the inner city.  Its erratic rhythm matches up with something inside of me.  I am not sure which happens.  I'd like to think that my presence helps bring cadence and tempo to the craziness.  But I laugh, knowing it's their craziness, which brings life to me.

We walked into a house with one of my sweet boys from camp.  Two little boys in pajama pants, shirtless.  Inches taller than I remember.  Little sister playing with a deflated balloon in the living room.  Valentine's Day equalled too much sugar, too much energy.  The chaos pulled at me.

I am in my last year of undergrad.  In practical application classes, preparing for a final practicum.  Learning how to research problems and issues I am passionate about. I am painfully single-minded. A one-track mind, devotedly focused in one direction.  Their faces push me.  All comes back to them.  Whether it's macro practice, advocacy.  Community development.  Micro work.  Clinical work.

I am doing what I am doing because of five little boys who ran down Maxwell Street at midnight, far away from home.  I do this because of the three week old baby I was handed, while pit bulls guarded the marijuana in the next room.  Because of him.  Launching himself off the porch into my arms.

I do this because of words like "celebration".

I stood at work the other day and talked to a woman who had just had her house broken into.  Electrical box taken down, all the copper stolen.  She had come to get yogurt because there was no heat in her house.  She wanted some company, I think.  I had been working alone for four hours.  I needed it too.

She tentatively approached a subject some people would be appalled at.  Some people would, and will, argue to the death.

She told me she wasn't as mad about the break-in, as she was upset that we'd created such a system that this is what people resort to.

We talked about human dignity.  About what really makes people rich.

She had found someone, in me.  She asked about what I do.  And I watched her whole face soften as I told her.  She asked about my life.  About my current situation and circumstances.  Empathy and compassion lit up her whole face.

And I kept thinking, we need more people like you.


Which was what she told me when she finished her yogurt and got ready to leave.  She walked behind the counter, told me her name, and hugged me tight.  Told me she was proud of me.  That the world was lucky to have me.  That my children were lucky to have me.

Funny, I thought.  I was thinking the same thing about you.

What I do brings me face to face with angels and demons on a daily basis.

The war that is waged before my very eyes exhausts me.  The chaos that draws me, is a struggle.  A struggle for power, for authority, for dominance, for foundation.  Something is trying to hold its ground that we are trying to pry loose.  


My life is about the loosening and the binding.

About reading Dr. Seuss and anger management.  About mediation and hugs.  About gaining trust and the powerful confrontation of what has tried to take root.

And every time I come face to face with this life that I've chosen, I know this is the one thing I did right.

secrets

This is the place where I tell my secrets.

I sit in a mezzanine, strangely comfortable here.  Isn't that typical for me.  It takes me so long to get here, to this place where I can sink, settle.  It's almost as if I forget to look.  Forget to test and question, try it on for size.  So I've been sitting in the wide, over-lit, cold cafeteria.  When I could have been here.  The rain drives me to new places.  To new shelter.  I am hiding.  Sweet solitude.

I've been having nightmares.

And I haven't been writing here, because I'm not ready to talk about it yet.

I've been telling you my secrets for years and you may have never known.  But I don't know how to dance around anymore.  How do I build words around the things I don't want to share anymore?  How do I express myself, release the pressure, relieve the tension, without divulging more than I need to.  More than I'm ready to?

I have so much work to do.  But these words are a barrier, built up, and preventing productivity.

There's a new rhythm inside of me.  Rapid.  Praying for its strength.  Praying for its growth.  This rhythm is guiding me and re-shaping me in a way I had not anticipated.  In some ways, it is stronger than my own heartbeat.  More powerful.

rain

January 13th.  Friday the 13th.  Remember that day.  I'll have a story for you in a few months.  A story I'm not ready to tell yet.  A story that will take some time.

But tonight, the rain's coming.  It's been raining and thunder-storming here in Kentucky, in the middle of January, for a few weeks now.  Not much snow.  Just steady rain.  Lots of thunder.  Sharp lightning.

The rain has come to wash it all away.  To draw me closer to God.

As old, autumn leaves get washed down the gutters and sidewalks get washed clean in the downpour.  Puddles build and the raindrops hit my window, an irregular pattern somehow soothes me.

And right now, I need to be soothed.

Dirty Dishes

In an attempt to fix it, I made dinner.  Comfort food that my mama used to make.  Braved homemade biscuits.  And then stared at my tiny kitchen and realized I needed to wash the dishes.

One side of my sink is clogged.  The garbage disposal is broken and when I run the dishwasher, dirty water backs up and fills that basin.

I washed a few old dishes first.  Too old, too crusted with old food, too long sitting in the dirty sink.

I thought about Larry.  When we eat together, he never lets me wash the dishes after dinner.  Dishwashing is his therapy.  Because you dirty a dish, you wash it, and it is clean then.  You can put it away.  It is a mess you have the solution for, a mess that can be remedied.

I stood at my sink, my apartment filled with the smell of good food and burning candles.  My cheeks are raw and salty from all the tears I've cried today.  A year's worth of tears, coming all at once.  I scrubbed at the bowls and pots and pans.  I watched the clean, soapy water turn brown.  Cool down.  Fill with what is unclean.

I scrubbed.

And scrubbed.

You are supposed to find relief in the washing of dirty dishes, because you can wash them.  Clean them.  Put them away.  You can find a solution to the mess and fix it.

But these dishes would not get clean.

I washed what I could and left the others in the sink, soaking in soapy water.

That's all I could do.  The mess stares at me now, piled not as high as before in the sink beside me.  Still piled, though.

I knew this day would come.  As sure as I know my own name, as sure as I know my own heart.  I knew today would come.  There are a lot of other days I also know will come -- they just haven't yet.  There's some relief in the foreknowing.  There's only a little relief in the coming to pass of something apprehensively anticipated.  But only a little.

There are some dishes I don't know how to get clean.

There are some pots, so encrusted with decisions and consequences and the fruit of choices, no amount of scrubbing will get them clean.

But I had counted on this.  On the getting clean.

The raw feeling of eyes cried dry, the scrubbed feeling of cheeks wiped and covered.  Tonight, it feels like a stomach bug.  As disgusting of an analogy as I can work up.  At some point, you have nothing left.  At some point, you've emptied yourself of all of whatever's made you sick.  And yet your body still heaves, still retches.  Now your eyes blink, sure there is more salt where it all came from.  You're not done yet, your lashes whisper as they dry.

These dishes won't get clean.

And I'm not done with my tears.

Molly

I had begged and begged and begged Larry for a puppy.  He had brought a beagle puppy home when we lived in Richmond, but he was sick and barked all the time and we didn't keep him long.

So when I was eight or nine, after much persuasion, Larry brought Molly home.  Already named, so we wouldn't argue over what to call her.  If I remember right, he showed up at the front door one night in November.  And we all had to walk around to the basement door to let them in.  She'd just been spayed and couldn't climb steps.

I remember the six of us sitting in a circle in one of the rooms in the basement and Larry took her leash off. I sat cross legged and just waited as Molly cautiously checked all of us out.  And then picked me.   She walked tenderly over to my lap and curled in the space between my belly and my legs.

This morning, mom and Abby took Molly to Dr. Fred and they had her put down.  She had lost almost half of her body weight, had tumors, had lost the vision in her left eye, and kept getting stuck in corners.  Olivia thinks she paced the hallways because Molly was afraid if she laid down, she wouldn't get back up.

I've cried more today than I have in years.  I didn't realize how much I loved that dog.  Or how much I would resent myself for not being there when the last few minutes came.

She is buried now, underneath the swing in the back yard.  I got a text from Olivia this morning saying, "this is a real childhood home now, we have a pet buried in the back yard."  Damn any extra emotional attachment to that house.

I am the most selfish of people.  I cry even as I write this, knowing that only half of these tears are for my pet.  There is no way I could have been there.  No way I could have driven her to Richmond and then driven her body home and dug up the dirt to bury her.  I don't have it in me for that kind of grief.

But Abby did.  My sixteen year old sister who doesn't remember the house on Long Avenue without our little, whining beagle mix.  Abby was strong enough to get in the car and drive mom and Molly to Dr. Fred's.  She was strong enough to drive them home.  Strong enough to bury her in the back yard.  This is not the first time I've wished I was like my little sisters.  And it won't be the last.

I'm hating myself right now for not being there.  I am the one Molly picked that first day. My lap is the one she chose.  More often than not, she chose my bed.  She hated me for a long time when I moved out.  But more often than not, she would curl up against me when I cried.  I had no idea I was so attached until the tears came this morning.

Today I am thinking about what it means to make decisions about the quality of life.  The difficult, heart-wrenching decision between life and death.  Those decisions we make on a daily basis, and the circumstantial decisions, which alter the course of your entire life.  A choice between two options.  Maybe three.  So often, none of them feel like the right one.

The choice between life and death are not always so literal, so clear.  The metaphor is a strong one.  But when it is literal... the sting is sharper.

It would rain today.  I would have been surprised if it hadn't.  Rain, he said, washes everything away.

I dread the next trip to Winchester.  I can't imagine how my sisters and mother must feel.  Fifteen years is a long time for your ears to be filled with whining and the scratching of toenails on the floor and dog hair to be caught in your clothes.  But I've always had this different experience.

The being away and the coming back.

I didn't live there when he moved out.

I didn't live there when they brought that new, black puppy home that I still don't get along with.

I didn't live there when he moved in.

The next time I am there, I will have to go sit on the swing.

Twenty Seconds

We go and see a movie every Christmas.  One year, it was Marley and Me.  What a horrible idea.  We spent the entire movie bawling our eyes out, the littlest of the sisters curled up in one of our laps.  Every year since, the goal has been to see something better.  We cry enough on Christmas as it is.

This year, we went and saw We Bought a Zoo.  I was mesmerized by the trailer for this movie because it tapped into something sweet inside of me.  A deep desire to do something amazing with my life.  To overcome sorrow and loss and heartbreak.  To live a good story, to show children how to be brave.

I was not disappointed.  Surrounded by my family and a dear friend who I've adopted as a my own Haitian sister, we watched as they bought a zoo.  A rich soundtrack, intertwined with scores by Sigur Ros, emanated a ethereal sentimentality and buried itself deep in my belly.

But it was one phrase, drawn through the entire movie, which caught my attention.

All it takes is twenty seconds of courage.

The first time the line was said, my head perked up.  My ears pricked with the wisdom, with the truthfulness.  

So often, we try and live our lives courageously.  We crave bravery and covet those who seem to know no fear.  Personally, I envy those who are assertive.  Those individuals who stand up for themselves, who refuse to let themselves be walked over or taken advantage of.  

Some of us don't have such courageous spirits.  I sure don't have one. 

But what if all it took was twenty seconds?  What if I could muster up just enough for not even half a minute of the kind of grit it takes to fight hard and push forward?

I've been craving a different life.  A life different than the one that's been tripping me up for the past year.        Deep, I knew what it would take.  But as I have said so many times before, I thought those decisions meant walking deliberately into loneliness.  Into isolation.  I thought I was going to have to turn around and try and fit back in what I'd been cut out of.  But I knew I'd outgrown that place.  I knew that I'd let go, turn on my heels, and try and slide my edges back, finding them swollen.  Expanded and rough and unsuitable.

So I kept fighting.  The darkness is provocative and the ways of the world are a not unlike a snare.  I find myself in the swirling mess, fog rising and obstructing my vision like something of much more substance.  

Twenty seconds of courage.

Tears on the edge of a bed.  Waking up in safety.  Sweet words of comfort and affirmation.  Intentionality.  Pursuit.

Sometimes I fool myself into thinking that things must happen in the most dramatic of ways.  That there must be a clear end and a clear beginning and that I must be aware of the process.  As far as stories go, I have been writing one of great predictability.  In the anticipation there was a heavy measure of planning and withholding.  Waiting for a magic moment.  Betraying myself as a storyteller, I left no room for surprises.  For inciting incidents and pivotal moments, which may look like nothing more than saying no.

Which is what I did.

And then it happened.  Not like Hollywood.  Not like the novels.  Not an instantaneous transformation, not an overhaul.  Not the downpour after the drought.  But like a quiet unlocking.

Like shackles falling.

The light broke through.  Stronger than the darkness, this one ray of light illuminated something once hidden by thickest shadows.  

Twenty seconds of courage was all it took.  All it took for everything to start unravelling. 

Permission to be myself.  To use words I know.  To love the way I've yearned to.  To respond the way I've desired.  To look and see.  To help people find their lives.  To find lost children.  

Because that is who I am.  Despite the labels, words, curses the world has flung on me.  Despite the standards I have been asked to meet, despite the pressures of a corrupt and searching society.  Despite my giving in, despite my failures, despite my mistakes -- I am a good woman.

I say those words with much trepidation.  For fear they may not be true.

But my soul smiles weakly, battle weary and worse for wear, because I see.  I see the connection between my prayer and His answer.  A reckless prayer for community and for truth and for sincerity.  

Twenty seconds of courage did that.

I'm feeling less brave at the moment.  Curled up in my Goodwill chair and putting off going to the shower.  I'm going to need twenty more seconds tonight.  And twenty more tomorrow.  Every day until the end of all of this, I am going to need an extra measure of character and integrity and ... gumption... to be able to make this happen.

For crying out loud, I just love people so much.  It's this love for them that helps me muster up that which I need.  It's the seeing and the knowing and the feeling and the calling that's brought me here.  For such a time as this.  So I can look again at what the world has consumed and the church has condemned and see it for what it is -- a multitude of children who desperately need grace and courage.  

I am in love.  

Broken and tired and empty and not someone to be very proud of.  A Peter.  (It is not lost on me he is the same disciple Jesus came to call the "rock".)

Sometimes we wait for the right time for the right thing to happen.

When all along, the whole idea was to surprise you anyway.

And surprises never happen like that.

The Help

I did it.

I watched The Help.

I'd been avoiding it because a) I haven't read the book and b) it's popular.  I'm one of those really critical, snotty people who is skeptical of things that are highly popular with the majority of society.

Like leggings.  Twilight.  The Atkins Diet.  And online dating.

But I had a night off.  So I ordered spinach and feta cheese sticks (indulging, I was indulging) and rented The Help from Redbox.  Mostly because I can't listen to Pandora for one more hour without having something else to do.  And I'd already seen Water for Elephants.

I watched the first part of The Help with a friend a few weeks ago.  We fell asleep five minutes into it and I had convinced myself I was right.  Sub par entertainment for the masses.  One of those weird, quiet, disjointed movies I always fall asleep during.

But like so many things, it just wasn't the right time.  And when I tried again, I was enthralled.  When I tried again, it was right this time.

You is kind.  You is smart.  You is important.  

At the risk of repeating the cliche, the sweet quote that has already been worn out, its meaning lost because of overuse -- I am struck today with how much I crave hearing those words.  Seeing those words played out in actions.  Because more often than not in my life, I don't see it.  Not anymore.

There's been a radical shift.  An ever so slight turn of the kaleidoscope and shapes and colors fall into dramatically different patterns.  It feels more like a stained glass window has been shattered and I'm watching the cloudy, vibrant pieces fall to the ground in slow motion.

Sometimes things really just have to be destroyed.  Destroyed and rebuilt.  Let some light in.  Let out some stale air.

I had an epiphany a few weeks ago.  One about my worth.  About my standards.  About the way I allow myself to be treated.  About behavior modification.  And actually... it's kind of working: this epiphany, put into action, has definitely resulted in some change.  Change I didn't expect.  Change I was not prepared for.

I have an ability to read people.  To draw information out of them.  To pay attention and listen closely and learn, just by watching.   I hear things you didn't mean for me to hear.  I see the flinch, I see the flicker in your eyes, I see the way you hide.  I see the light in your eyes, the potential you may not even recognize, and the beauty in yourself you don't acknowledge. I also retain this information.  I am, in fact, almost completely built up with what I know about you.  There are times, so often, when I walk into a room and a barrage of this fills my ears.  (Think, Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty.) That steady drone of prayers, which soon becomes overwhelming, deafening.  I walk into a room and what I know about you, the familiar sound of your voice, the shoes I recognize, the quick eye contact ricochets off the walls.  Like so many blinking lights in a dark room.

Because to me, you are important.  Perhaps I don't find you particularly kind.  And some of the things you do make me think twice about calling you smart.  But you are important to me.  Because I know you.  You are part of my story.  I may have never even wanted you to be.  But you are there, written down.

I think you know this about me.  Maybe not at first.  But I think you find out quickly.  There are a lot of negative character traits in me, a lot of shortcomings, and a lot of flaws.  But I care.  A lack of empathy and compassion is not something I struggle with.  It is so easy, however, to not practice this.  To convince yourself if you are uncared for, unnoticed, disregarded, that the appropriate response is to not care, not to notice, to disregard.  This is so hard for me to do.  But at times I have done it. In a feeble attempt to save myself.  To keep you from having a part of me I can never get back.

But dammit.  I care.  A lot.

I think you are important.

Perhaps it is that I fail to see my own importance.

Which is why I put up with what I put up with.

And maybe the hurt and pain caused by the world has tried to mold and shape and conform me to something that doesn't fit.  Not even a little bit.  Hence, a disparity is caused.  The kind of disparity, which makes me sit on my bed and fight ill-timed tears.  Creating a hopeful, desperate moment of honesty.  The woman I am is battling the woman the world wants me to be, viciously fighting for the woman I am meant to become.

Even though you're important to me, I don't know that you have any place in my story.  Seriously.  I am about to start weeding out by requiring more.  It's already in effect.  And there is some beauty in it.  But also some deepest confusion.

I didn't expect this.

Extravagance

I have nothing left.

After being so sick it felt like someone kicked me in my ribs.
Another flat tire, riding on a spare until the bank account can manage another used tire.
Empty cabinets and an empty gas tank.

Hours are being cut at work again.
And a new semester starts next Wednesday.
In case I hadn't mentioned it before, a new semester equals new levels of stress and new stretching beyond what I believe is my capacity.

I've been saying this for a long time.  Despite how many times I say it, I always survive somehow.  It hasn't killed me yet.  And in the depths of need and despair, He always provides.  Always.  I'm still here.

But the provision is bare minimum.  Just barely enough.  A few extra dollars, a bag of groceries, a rim bent back into place.  Small miracles that everyone else sees as great provision.  But I am barely scraping by.  Just barely.

I know God can do more.

Why?

Because I've seen it.

I've seen Him hold back the rain at my request.
I've seen Him throw $3,000 at me, sending me to Africa.
I've seen cars start.  I've seen beautiful, beautiful things fall into place.

But it's been so long.

So when I said to my friend, "I have nothing left, please pray for me."

And he responded with, "be ready then.  God works His biggest miracles when we have 'nothing' left."

My response was instantly, "Bring it on."

Show me.  I'm ready for a big miracle.

Perhaps what I'm asking for is too much extravagance.  Beyond what I need.

We call this character the building.  The working in the just enough.  The learning how to live when things are tight and scarce.  How to depend.  How to make it work, despite all odds.

I've been doing this a long time.  Enduring sickness and pushing through an education and providing for myself.  I am on my own.  Today I'm bitter about it.  Today I'm hurt.

Last summer I stood in a group of hundreds of sweet, urban children.  My children.  Whom I love with a love so deep it hurts.  Who I'd die for, who almost every waking thought is spent on.  And I told God that I hadn't felt loved by Him in a while.  I missed that feeling, that sweet feeling of knowing that He heard me.  That He hadn't left me.  He swooped down then, in His way, and reminded me of the new way He was showing me love.

So I see.  Don't doubt that.  I see the way that He has given me just enough.

But I have forgotten what a big miracle looks like.  That big, unexplainable thing that you can't take credit for.  To be honest, and perhaps this is the problem, I've forgotten how to ask for one.

It's not money I want.  I know how to live on ramen noodles and gifted hamburger meat and free frozen yogurt.  I know how to walk to work and drive that spare tire to death.  I know how to cut corners and buy used clothes (if I buy any at all) and work until I fall over.

What I'm looking for is extravagance.  For the deep, supernatural expression of love.  The red.  The parting of the rain clouds.  Something beyond the simple, manageable.

Ungrateful? I know you're thinking it.  I know you're thinking of Paul, who claimed his contentedness in plenty and in want.  I know you're preaching faithfulness at me.  Faithfulness in the seasons of trial and hardship.  You're whispering Job's name.  The bravest, most righteous of you may even be whispering quietly behind my back that if I were to follow Him closer, if I were to be more faithful, I'd find what I am seeking.

I get it.

But I also know the God I love.  Remember that.  I know Him.  And I love Him.  However I fall short, this is true.

Quietly I remember another woman from that conference last year.  The one from Switzerland.  Who looked at me from across the table, even while I avoided eye contact, and called me Moses.  She had her story wrong, which I laugh about now.  But there was some truth, anyway.  She told me that God had told me there was water in the rock. That God had told me to hit the rock and water would flow out of it.  And I didn't believe Him.

The story actually goes: God told Moses to hit the rock and water would flow.  And Moses obeyed. Later, when God told Moses to trust Him, that He would provide, and not to hit the rock, Moses did anyway.  In desperation, in thirst, Moses hit the rock like he had before.  Water flowed.  But it wasn't what God had intended.

So maybe she was right.  Maybe that's what is happening now.  I've hit the rock before, I know water flows from it.  Cool, refreshing, what I need.  But He's told me to wait, to be faithful in my trusting.  He will provide.  Don't hit the rock.

But I need a big miracle.

Something sweet and unsullied.  I'm tired of having to dig through trash to find the treasure.

I need to know that the bare minimum is not all I get.

In just a few short days, my world will be thrown into chaos again.  Late nights, not enough hours at work, too much studying.  All working for a goal I've been working towards for almost seven years now.

I don't have much.  And I don't need much.

I also know my prayers are heard.  Because when I pray for others... things happen.  Things change.  Seas part and heads stop hurting and meals are provided.  I pray for others and I am heard.  My dreams are heavy with a barrage of their faces, the people in my life.  And I wake up with prayers for them on my lips.

I gave up a long time ago praying for myself though.  Those the prayers that aren't answered.  Daily I manage a chronic illness that no amount of prayer has eased, and I bear the scars of great hurts that were no fault of my own.

I feel myself funneled.  Like I'm journeying down this long corridor.  This long highway.  Exits are closed -- big, orange barriers impeding my departure.  Doors slam shut, bolts clicking.  Keep going this way, I am channeled in the direction I suppose is meant for me.

It is January.  And I am at the top of the roller coaster, about to descend into an exhilarating, terrifying ride all the way to May.

To May, when I leave.

Perhaps that is the extravagance I am anticipating.

But I have never been the kind of person that risked the hoping.

At the risk of sounding deeply ungrateful, I will remind you that every time groceries show up or there's money in the bank I can't account for, or when nothing changes and I still make it, I am thankful.

The deepest parts of me trust, because that's what I know to do.

But the tears are there.  Shedding them would be the only thing that would help.  But along with asking for big miracles, I've forgotten how to cry.

I just wish He'd hold back the rain again.

For Such a Time as This

What seems like a whole life time ago, I was asked to participate in leadership training in Pawley's Island.

Really.  It seems like an eternity ago.

A lot happened that week.  A lot of crying and unpacking and examining.  I was repeatedly told a lot of things about myself I already knew.  Some words put to some knowing I already had.  I already knew about my ability to listen, to hear.  They wanted to put a name on it.  Wanted to make it a game.  All I remember is I kept hitting this glass ceiling above my head.  So close, my breath clouded the window.

At the end of the week, I was emotionally spent.  Too much time with people.  Too much time talking about myself.  A lot of salt water and a lot of sand and a lot of heat and a lot of introducing myself.  This introvert was tired.  And my spirit was wrung dry.

On the last day we were standing in worship and I looked up to find Mike staring at me.

This is not what you want to happen in a room full of prophets.  No sir.

I can spot a prophetic nature as quickly as I can an asshole.  And when I looked up and saw Mike looking at me, I realized he knew quite a bit more than I wanted him to.

He wove his way in and out of the crowd and came to stand beside me.  He whispered to me, told me he'd been watching me.  And that I was Ruth.  That God knew how much I loved Him.  And how hard I was working.  I'd found my field and I was being faithful.  But Mike also wanted me to know that when he looked at me, he saw a vision of me laying at the feet of the Lord.  With all my wants and desires and dreams.  Specifically, he said, about relationships.  Especially the ones I hadn't even voiced out loud.  And God had reached to lay His covering over them.  All of them.  To bless them.

At the time, I thought this was phenomenal.  It was what I needed to hear -- this promise that God had heard, God saw, knew what I needed.

Amazing the things that slip through the cracks in the moment.

A few minutes after the session had ended, another leader walked up to me.  This leader had made fun of me during the whole week.  Specifically about how much I smile and being pretty and charming.  He approached me afterwards and apologized.  "I try and break down the defenses of people who think too highly of themselves," he admitted.  "It's my own coping mechanism.  But I see that is not the case here."  I turned blood red.  He told me I was beautiful.  Inside and outside.  Another leader approached him and interrupted, talking to me.  He saw the crack in me. He saw what everyone else was overlooking.

He talked to me about my outward beauty and my insecurity.  The deep, nasty thing that seemed to seep from the marrow in my bones.  He saw it.  The way it debilitated me.  The way it slowed me down.  And he called me out on it.

And then the first man said the words I too quickly forgot.

"You are beautiful, on the inside and the outside.  And I feel as though God is going to use your outer beauty like He did with Esther.  Not yet.  It's not happening yet.  But it's going to.  He's going to use your outward beauty, for such a time as this."

I had no idea what this meant.  And it seemed highly unlikely to be true.

Until last night.

Until last night when I was standing in my familiar place.  Surrounded by people I love.  People who have hurt me, used me.  Men who flirt and men who pursue and water guns and goldfish.  People who know my face and not my heart.  A few who I'd die for.  A few who I'd run to for comfort.  A few so strangely familiar.

Chaos happens in the blink of an eye.  Peace.  A fast moving body.  Broken glass.  A pile of men on the floor.

I am not the one who goes running to the rescue.  I'm the one who gets mad when people cause more problems by getting too close.  I'm not a rubbernecker.  I know what I can do, and in a crisis situation there is rarely anything my skills are useful for.

Rarely.

I didn't want to go last night.  I am sick.  Infected lungs and a tired body.  My heart is worn out from all the false hoping.  And as my phone beeps incessantly in my pocket, I just shake my head.  I am so over this.

You see, for the majority of the people in that room every week, all they see is what's on the outside of me.  Six months ago, seven months ago, that's what brought me there.  That's what kept me coming.  The friends, the music, the silly attention.  I shake my head as I think about how good I've become at deflecting an advance.  Prophets and assholes.  I see them coming and I run.

But had I not kept coming to this tiny hole in the wall, there are a few things that I never would have seen happen.  I have no doubt that God would have brought them to fruition in another way, with or without me there to witness.  But this was His plan.  To bolster my self confidence.  To build up what had never truly developed.  And to put me in the right place at the right time with the right people.

Because He's doing a mighty work here.

He's put me here, for such a time as this.  Not because of anything I can do.  But because of what He wants to do.  Through me.  Through us.  Together.  As witnesses to each other's lives.

A pile of bodies.  Broken glass.  I didn't want to go last night.  And as I saw it all rapidly unfold, I stopped.  Wait for the dust to settle.  Assess the damage.  Do what you can do to help.  Cause less harm.

And I found myself standing there.  Two inches away from his face.  Talking calmly in his ear and watching the tension leave his fists.  This is what I do.  I'm not good at picking bodies up off the floor.  I'm not good at breaking up the fight.  I'd don't pull you out of the burning car or pump life back into your chest.

I am the mediator.

I am the soother.

I am the one, given the soft voice, the steady eye contact, and the stubborn patience.

I am the one that talks you down from the ledge.

There are days when I still don't believe it.  When I catch a sidelong glance in the mirror before leaving and just shake my head.  When I kick myself for all the mistakes I have made.  When I bemoan my deformed back and my crooked teeth and my ugly knees.  When I wonder if I will ever be loved or wanted.  Ever again.

But the story is playing itself out.  And God has used what He needed to get me where He wanted me.  I continue to find Him in the most unexpected places.  This is how I know it is Him.  I hear the creak of the door and I look up and feel Him everywhere and I know.  He still hasn't left us.

He brought me here.  Using the very thing I did not believe I had to get me to stay.

Intertwining me into a story about His faithfulness and His desperate pursuit of us.

The story of our lives.

one last day

It's down to the hours now.  Six hours and twenty minutes before this year is done.  Before it's over.

Oh how I wish it were magic, that ball dropping, that ten second countdown.  As if... after 3, 2, 1... everything really did change.  Reset.  Turn a page and start over.

So much happened in 2011.  Isolated events, which changed our lives.  There were beautiful moments from the get-go, when we realized things would never be the same.

Much of the spring is lost somewhere in the recesses of my memory.  Like packed up boxes you shove to the corner.  I remember thinking I was leaving.  I remember trying to wrap my mind around being gone for a whole year.  But only vaguely.  What I really remember is the moment I woke up and realized I didn't want to.  And my path changed again.

My little sister graduated high school.  A bittersweet reminder of how quickly time passes and how much my heart belongs to my three sisters.

At some point in that lost span of time, I turned 23.  Finally the age when I thought everything was going to happen.  The special year that had been burned into my mind from an early age.  I'd always known it would be important, this year.  How could I have known?

It was very quickly after this milestone birthday that things did change.  I started quitting.  Paring down my schedule, walking away from roles of leadership, breaking down old boxes of toxicity, thinking I was going to get better.  That I was going to make myself well.

The month of June came, highlighted by an urban camp with some of my kids.  2011 brought me Urban Impact, I do remember this.  And am forever and eternally grateful.

But it the midst of the "quitting" and the "walking away" and the "resting" I was supposed to do, I spun around on my heels and submerged myself in some real inner city work.  And in June, I spent a whole week with some of these precious children.

But we also went to Icthus that week.  Taking a few teenagers with us to listen to the Christian hip hop and rap artists.  After a bet over a funnel cake, Kelsey and I met a pair of men.  After 23 years of believing, deeply, that I was unattractive and undesirable, in a moment there it all changed.  Like the I-75, I-64 split.  One road became two.  And I veered left.

The month of July is lost on me.  My blogs show no record of it, and neither does my memory.  I think I spent most of it drinking tequila at the pool with my step mother.  Tuesday and Thursday nights on Limestone with two girls with the same name -- one who would cherish me, one who would try and destroy me.  I think I spent July meeting people who did not know me.  Learning how to dodge persistent men, and how to get their attention, all in the same breath.  There was another camp in July too... an arts camp.  Teenagers learning how to think in a brand new way, to see with eyes scrubbed fresh and skin peeled back and sensitive.

August came.  I was supposed to leave on a year long trip, and instead I woke up under far different circumstances.  Laying beside my own mistakes and choices, the morning dawned and a squad launched.  And I was not with them.  Instead, I would drive to Richmond.  Steal a last kiss in a Dairy Queen parking lot.  Pack up a duffel bag and casually head to the airport.

August was Haiti.  Hot and sweaty and full of laughter.  Of remembering and "I think I can's".  Living with bubbles and children in my lap and dirty feet and looking through a lens.  He stole my heart, the quiet one in the corner.

Haiti was an escape.  A familiar place on an unfamiliar highway.  Like I took a pit stop, put all else on pause, and regained and recollected my heart and soul.  Testing brokenness, checking strength, challenging endurance.

I came home to a tiny little apartment right on campus.  With every intention of making this space my sanctuary, it only became my place for hiding my secrets.  The place I came once it was dark and stayed until it was light.  Apartment 6.  It is dusty with all the knowing, and the walls creak and moan with the heaviness of it.

September, like most of 2011, was full of mistakes, classes, and bachelorette parties.  I was chin deep in a 250 hour practicum with Urban Impact.  Stretching some muscles and conditioning myself in ways I'd never anticipated.  Working with 25 children who would steal whatever was left of my heart.

In September I got my hopes up.  And I was let down again.  I loaded up my car with another man's junk and helped him move, hearing the wind chimes and knowing that despite the running I was doing, God knew exactly where I was.  He was going to find me, wherever I tried to hide.  So I decided to quit hiding.  I ran smack dab into confession on Pine Street.  Pulled up into a familiar hug and ineffectively dodging the truth.  Confession has a way of letting all the air out of your defenses.

In October... I gained a brother.  My sister got the wedding of her dreams and dedicated her life and love to a man who actually deserves all of it.  Once again, our family dynamics changed.  He makes us better, this brother.  A gift.  Not just to my sister.  But to me.  This Christmas he hugged me, not letting go.  He held the back of my head and whispered, only half joking, "it's going to be ok, Anna.  It's going to be ok."

November, also a blur.  Lessons learned and heart developing more calluses.  It seems, the only ones who can break through the hardness, are small people with lots of love to give.

Ever since December, I have been fast forwarding to this day.  To the end of this year.  I've been beckoning it, urging it to come faster.  I've misplaced blame on the year 2011.  For breaking me in all new ways.  In destroying fortresses I have built and exposing a foundation stronger than I'd realized.

I picked up on a pattern.  Of a good year, followed by a bad year, followed by a good year.  This gets me a little giddy inside, knowing that if the pattern is true, a good year is coming.  That starting tomorrow, I will begin the climb into blessing.

Over the past few weeks God has sent encouragement upon encouragement my way.  Through random texts and facebook messages.  He has been reminding me that He has a plan.  And that through the sticky mess that is 2011, He has proven His faithfulness.  He is exercising His redemptive nature.  Beauty for ashes.  An invisible summer, found in the depths of winter.

In 2011, I learned where to place my walls.  Vulnerability and confession were abounding in the safest places.  I clung to the truth and consistency of a few, beautiful men and women whom God has given me as a gift.

In 2011, I found my confidence.

In 2011, I reestablished my passion.

In 2011, I lost a lot of battles.  And a lot of ground.

There is one last day.  Now, only five and a half hours until it's over.  I'm sitting here in the dark, getting ready to cook dinner for two of my best friends.  One who just got engaged, only a few hours ago.  I am thinking about my resolution this time last year.  To do better.

I failed.

But that happens sometimes.  Sometimes we try things and we fail.  We have good intentions and we mean well.  And we have no way of knowing what's coming our way.  No way to really prepare for the battles we are going to fight.  To predict the ways we are going to turn.

2011 was about a plot change.

Veering off onto a different highway, which would take me in a different direction, directly into the grace and mercy of God the Father.  Lots of construction on this highway.  Lots of fog and guard rails.

I did not do better this year.  That is my confession.  May it bounce off the walls and seep under the door.  May it be known that I never claim to have it all together.  That I walk around in my hi-top sneakers and listening to India Arie and cheering on the UK Wildcats and catching the eye of dark men and stealing the attention of small children.  That I am more and different than most will ever know.  And those of you who take the time to see, to learn, have my devotion.

I did not do better this year.  But there is hope in demolition.  In the middle of all kinds of dust and debris, bent metal, and caution tape.  There's a promise of reconstruction.  Of rebuilding.  Of sweeping away the old, to make room for the new.

One last day.  Just one, last day.

avocado

I came home from work tonight, not having eaten since a meal at my mom's earlier in the day.  One of my Christmas presents from her were the ingredients to make guacamole.  A healing agent.  Despite the fact that it was 11pm by the time I got home, I walked into my little studio bound and determined to make some homemade guac.

I pulled the avocados and the lime and the tomatoes and the onion out of the fridge.  Garlic, salt, pepper.  I chopped up the onion, put it in a bowl, and then took the knife to cut open the first avocado.  I rolled it around in my hand, a little bit wary.  It didn't feel ripe.

But I cut into it anyway.  Slicing it longways around the pit.

Not ripe.

I laid the avocado and the knife down on the counter and just looked at it for a minute.

The very thing I wanted was right there in front of me.

But it wasn't ready yet.

I could keep going, try and make guacamole with unripened avocados.

But it wouldn't taste good.

Everything was ready, prepared, provided.  Except for the last ingredient.

I would have to wait.  I would have to wait if I wanted it to be right, if I wanted it to be good.

Some things just take time.

This is Christmas

I have to allow myself some autonomy.  Usually, autonomy is not something you must allow yourself.  But I am my greatest dictator.  I am the one who is making the decisions, here.  I'm old enough to choose where I go, who I spend my time with, where I invest my heart.  Christmas is the hardest time of the year for me to do this, because of a deep-seeded obligation I feel.  But over the past four years things have slowly unravelled.  We have all grown up and apart and away.  And I find myself standing in a tangled mess of old traditions and requirements and twine for tying.

So I break the rules a little.  My own rules.  No one else's.  No one is really disappointed when I don't show up on time.  How narcissistic, to think I am always missed when I'm not present.

After four years of adaptation, I have freedom that I don't often embrace.  I am suddenly, that family member.  The one who comes late and dips out early.  I understand why he did it so many years ago now.

Yesterday I ate omelets at my mom's.  We opened just a few presents and then I left.  Short, sweet, and only a little Christmasy.  I was supposed to be on Severn Way next.  But I took a turn instead and prayed as I drove up a quiet street in my favorite neighborhood.  If I pray hard enough, they'll be outside... I thought.  Even as I whispered my prayer, I topped the small hill and saw them running around in the front yard.

Merry Christmas to me.

I parked and was bombarded.  By hugs and kisses and "miss yous" and the prophets running to the front door, brand new Nikes on each of their feet.  I spent only a little time there, with little girls dangling off my limbs and pulling at my clothes.  The big boys acted like they didn't want to be hugged, but they stayed.  They stayed until I left.  I kept saying, "merry Christmas" and they kept saying, "it's not Christmas yet".  If only they knew.

Then it was on to my Grandparents'.  The only house I have a serious emotional attachment to.  I walked in the door and almost ran into Grandmom, who was sporting a horrible bruise on her face from a fall the night before.  My Granddad was serious and quiet and detached, and I bolstered up my heart.  In myself, I felt this knowing.  A deep knowing that said, this would be the last year we did this.  He helped her climb the stairs in their age-old dance.  Sadness and age lingering behind them like a strong cologne.

Pictures, food, some gift giving.  And then Olivia sat down at the piano.  Thank the Lord I was sitting there, curled up in the big chair.  Tears welled as she played.  Looking like Larry.   In a face that really looks nothing like his, she set her jaw and set her eyes on something I have never been able to see.  Playing something by memory, something from her own fingertips. And she played.  I begged her not to stop.  This, this was home.

I left there early too.  After a big, hilariously awkward family photo.  Over the years, the size of the Vaughan family on Severn has dwindled.  But along with the unravelling that's happened, new members have been added.  And how well chosen they have been.  Seamless.

Quickly after, I went to a Christmas Eve service at a place I once called home.  Cried as they highlighted a ministry I work closely with.  And waited patiently through renditions of old Christmas songs, until I could get out.  Candle wax dripped down my hand as my eyes were drawn to the diversity in the room.  I knew where I needed to go now.  I knew where I'd find Christmas.  And it wasn't there.

To see them.

The rest of them.

Darkness highlights every fearful aspect of the ghetto.  Even Christmas lights cannot dull the ominous shadows that hang there.  But my heart does not feel it.  Light shines brightest in dark places, and I watch it go before me as I walk up to every door.

Three.  Their hair cut fresh.  Kisses and dish washing and mama on the phone.  This was a good idea, I knew as soon as I saw them.   I could have stayed there all night, and I think they would have let me.  I wanted to sit on the floor with the one who looks old.  Just sit there and watch Christmas come together.

At the next house, I knocked.  Hearing the shuffling inside, the familiar "who is it?", followed by the loud: "It's Miss Anna and Miss Chloe", and the immediate throwing open of the door.  He's getting skinny.  In the growing "up" phase, which comes before the growing "out".  Last week, I took him home sick.  He still has the remnants of it, dry lips and glossy eyes.  I gave him chapstick and tickled his baby cousin.  Lots of hugs and odd looks from a grown uncle.  We are strange to them, in our comfort and our boldness.  But every once in a while, I see a glimmer of acceptance.  A sweet opening of a door.

He came to the door in a robe.  He's mine, this boy.  A special part of my heart belongs to only him, because I chose him.  Out of the crowd, out of the chaos of a lunchroom, he wriggled his way into my attention.  This family wouldn't let us in, they never do.  So we hugged over the threshold.

After visiting at least eight of them, Chloe and I piled back in the car.  I don't know how we fit, swollen hearts and all.  But we did.

I found out that J and C ran to Keyaira's house this morning.  Excitedly proclaiming that their best Christmas present was seeing Miss Anna and Miss Chloe the night before.  Arguing about who got the better hugs.

This, this is Christmas.

It's been quiet this year.  More alone time than ever.  Chinese food and Redbox movies, quiet slipping aways.  It wasn't until tonight, after going to see the traditional movie with my family and Cass, that I felt the twinge.

The deepest twinge.

No tears this Christmas.  Just a deep, cold ache like I've been out in the winter wind too long.  A quiet asking, a subcutaneous loneliness.

It was not a bad day, this Christmas.  Not bad at all.  But Christmas stirs it up, sending it all down like snow in a snow globe.  Catching the light, falling back to the floor.

So we begin the quick descent to the new year.  And on my breath is a bold dare.

poison & wine

Life and circumstances will try and turn you into someone you were never meant to be.

I see it happen every single day.

And as much as I knew it to be true in the ghetto, it has become true in my own heart.

Freeze frame.  People are stuck in motion.  Laughing, talking.  Familiar faces surround me and I look at them.  Bits of their lives swirl around my head and I am overwhelmed at what I know.  And even more so by what I don't.  My eyes bounce from each corner of the room and suddenly, all is in motion again.

It stemmed from a deep feeling of defeat.  A sudden giving-up.  Circumstances had piled high around me, blocking out the sun like so much garbage.

From there, direct exposure quickly hardened my heart.  I learned much, quickly.  Seeing what I'd always assumed, but hadn't understood.  And before I knew it, there was little other option.  To survive, I had to learn.  To preserve what little was left of myself, I had to step it up.

So I'm sitting on this big, red couch.  With a sweet little one sleeping in the next room.  And Christmas starts coming tomorrow.

There are tears in my eyes.  Unbidden, as always.  But I suppose if there is a place to let them flow, this big, deep couch is the place.  No one to see.  No one to hear.

I learned how to play the game.  With the best of them.  To separate action from emotion.  To expect the worst and push hope deep, deep down.  Names flow through my head.  And it becomes clear to me why I have become so detached.  It is so much easier not to feel.  All this mess, these hot tears pouring down my cheeks.  I'd rather them not.

So the tears flow in the safety and privacy of this home.  I look out the window at this dreary, December day and feel my cheeks dry sticky with the tears.  No Christmas trees for me this year.  No lights.  No presents.  Just another day I hold my breath and barrel through.  The spirit isn't here this year.

In May I am supposed to leave.  Today, I am tempted to just pack up my station wagon and drive in some direction for some hours until I reach some place that is not here.  Deep, I know that Atlanta is six months away so that Atlanta in and of herself won't be my running away.

I'm pretty tempted though.  Because the only thing that even resembles a solution to this mess is to leave.  The urge, the itch, to just get out of here is so strong I can't see anything else.  The alternative is isolation.  The loneliness I know I must choose in staying here, the self control I must employ if I stay even one more night in Lexington.  I am overwhelmed with it.  Burdened by the knowing.  How do you consciously walk into such a thing?

I can stop playing the game.  I can remove myself from the situations, which are not bad in nature, but have bred deepest hurt.  I could turn my phone off.  Say hello and walk away.  But where do I turn?  Those situations are deeply similar, in both the sanctuary and the bar.  Where do I go that is safe?  Where do I go where I will not be met by the familiar face of that loneliness?  I have been forgotten in that place, and used in that one.  I have been replaced here, and walked all over there.

Everyone has an answer for me.  On their side, they see the solution.  Perhaps they even see the truth.  Less blinded by emotion or hardened by pain.  But it feels more like, in their blessing, they've forgotten the sharp pangs of this life.  I'm not sure they're not totally right.  Actually I'm pretty sure they are.  But ...

But I'm here, waiting for something I've not even been promised.  Wanting something with my heart of hearts, that seems so distant and so unattainable.  I feel nothing but unwanted.  Nothing but worthless.  Nothing but desperate.  Wanting only to curl up and be held.  Wishing that Christmas this year did not mean a lot of moving around and a lot of light cast on my being the only single adult Vaughan left.

There's an ugly paradox.  And it has a face.  Multiple faces.

Life and circumstances will try and turn you into someone you were never meant to be.

Even through the tears, I'm fighting.

And praying a most desperate prayer.  That the good would find me in the mess.

the heart of the city

I just finished one last thing.  250 plus hours under my belt, this morning I had a final meeting to wrap up my semester.  There are things that happen to you, things you choose, which you can quickly look back on and recognize the impact they had on your life.

I sat at a table this morning with five other people who have had such an intense impact on my life.

A few years ago I met Marcus in my sister's house as we packed her belongings.  She introduced us and he said, "oh yes, you're the sister who talks too much."  As much as I have always resented this negative character trait of mine, I wonder if he had any idea how true this was.

Yesterday I was part of a Christmas event with my kids.  More than 30 of them in the same barn at a local tennis club.  I picked up a handful of them, strapped them in my car, and carried them there.  The rest poured in shortly after.  It never fails, no matter how many times I do this, that my heart brims with love and devotion for these small people.

I watch "A", letting him roam and wander.  We keep him in our sight, but give him much more autonomy and freedom than the others.  He is old.  Fragile in all his brute strength.  There was a hidden joy bubbling up in him yesterday, a light rekindled in his dark eyes that captured my attention.

He was sick.  I heard someone say he was in the room and I dropped everything to go find him.  He looks grown.  In a way a fifth grader should never look grown.  I described him to a friend as one of those children who has so much anger and so much light in himself at the same time.  A visible, tangible battle waging before my very eyes.  Even in his sickness he saw me and ran to me, throwing his arms around me.  I spent part of the day rubbing his back, wishing he knew how hard we were fighting for him.

Another was sick too.  "Miss Anna, my head hurts" he said as he climbed into my back seat and buckled himself in.  He was subdued, quiet.  Definitely not feeling well.  He rubbed his head, his hands, gave him water, chalking it up to dehydration.  I kept one eye on him for the next few hours, watching him in his lethargy.  And I am who he came to find when the fever hit.  He leaned forward, his head on my stomach, eyes half closed.  "Miss Anna, I can't do this anymore".  I bent low, like my Mama used to do, and felt his forehead with my lips.  He was burning up.  I laid him down on a bench and went to grab my keys.  Maternal instinct kicked in and I carted him out the car, buckled him in again, and let him sleep in the back seat as I took him home.  I knocked on his door and was greeted by a much smaller version of my sweet "J".  I was told not to come in.  I was told I wasn't welcome, they'd take care of it.  And I watched as J climbed the stairs on all fours, my heart fuming with resentment because I knew he wouldn't be taken care of the way I could.  I was tempted to storm in, yell at them to pull up their pants, and carry J out with me again.

It's amazing I have even a piece of my heart left.  As much as they've stolen.  With their inquisitive faces and heavy attitudes and vulnerable spirits.  It really is a miracle I have anything left.  They've stolen it all, it feels like.  I'm okay with this.  I wish I could give them more.  I wish I could give them everything they need.

I haven't seen these two in a few months.  Schedules have kept me away from their site.  They are thinning out, getting taller.  New braids in their hair.  It's almost like a tradition, the way we do things around here.  I saw them walk in, planted my feet, and called their names.  Dark eyes look up for the source of a voice familiar to them and they take off running.  Never have you seen a child launch themselves off the ground until you've met my children.  She wrapped her arms and legs around me and "M" waited patiently for her turn.  Hurt runs deep.  Love runs deeper.  I replay images in my head as I embrace them.  Of "M" in a bathroom stall, screaming uncontrollably.  Of "N" leaning close to my forehead as we talked about grace.

They are mine.  And I love them in a way I didn't even know was possible.  A few years into this, I still have my doubts about my own capability.  Am I cut out for this?  Do I have what it takes?  When everyone else demands respect and obedience, when everyone else seems to be in charge, seems to know what they are doing, I often stand at a loss.

Last night I was walking through our city with two of my best friends.  Beautiful women who have rarely seen me in my element, but they know.  They know my heart and what pumps this blood through my veins.  To be fully known and completely loved is a miracle beyond comprehension.  And I am thankful for them.

We were walking through Triangle Park.  A place where so much life has happened to me.

I saw him then.  My snotty nosed, theatrical, intelligent older boy.  He and I do not get along.  Not even a little bit.  He makes me laugh uncontrollably.  But I have resisted, on multiple occasions, just tying him to a chair to keep him sitting still.  In the middle of discipline he often cocks his head, and in a voice drowned with snot just grins and shakes his head, "Anna, you know it's funny.  Come on.  Just laugh, you know you want to."  He was there.  Walking through the park.  In white Nike and a gold, fur lined coat.  I almost didn't go after him.  We don't like each other, after all.

But I did.  Because in the brief moment of hesitation, I heard Him say "he is yours too.  Go get him."

He ran from me.  I am not surprised.  But he was with his god brothers and cousins and sisters.  Children I didn't know... yet.  Within five minutes I had a big five year old sitting in my lap.  I was calling names and chasing little boys.  Swinging them up into my arms, carrying them on my back.  My two dear friends stood there, watching something they'd never really seen.  My heart exploded with the sweetness of it.

They are mine.  I claim them.  I ask for them.  I, along with a host of others, have rallied around them.  Daring the world to try to take them back.  They belong to us -- to the God who made them.  And in that moment, surrounded by Christmas lights, I knew.  Again and again I am reminded.  Only to forget again.  So I can remember, I suppose.  Because the moment of remembering is the sweetest.

I was made for this.


I am most myself when surrounded with small people.  Small people in need of a big love.  The fight in me, the energy I have left, belongs to them.  As much as they are mine, I am theirs.  What I wouldn't give to have a big house where I could take them all.  So that I'd know they'd get tucked into bed at night.  Eat good meals.  Learn about life in a way not so destructive.  So that they could play and be children -- small, small children who the world cannot touch.  My heart breaks for it.

In a year, the only tears I have cried have been for them.

I am better for this.  The past four months have changed me in a way I could never have fathomed.  The sweet moments when Marcus said, "you're getting it".  And the bittersweet ones when I ran face first into the things I am not good at.  The days I walked away in defeat.  The days I laid on the floor in a puddle of what felt like failure.

I am not done.

But I had to walk away this morning, wiping tears from my eyes, wishing the caring didn't hurt so much.  Wishing I was one of those lucky people who got paid to do what she loves.  Wishing there was room for me where there is none.

I am better for this.

I hope they are too.  My sweet ones.  After countless hours in the cafeteria and in the classroom.  Hundreds of long division problems and sounding out words.  Every fight, every match of strength and will.  Every demand for respect and obedience, every failure of mine to stop and see.  We push through and I only hope they hear.  I hope, at the end of every day, they know I love them.

With all and every piece of my tired, broken heart.