Repatterned

It's not a dictionary word, but it crosses my mind daily now. For the majority of the last decade, each year I've had one word that was supposed to be a theme for the year. Usually God gives me the word near the end of the preceding year. Last year about this time it was "health." A timely word. I can't believe what a different person I am just one year later. It was a bit of a ride, and I'm still not 100%, but I am doing so much better. Turns out the word was about my physical health (long story).

I'm doing just so much better that now I guess God is now moving to work on me more internally.  The word is "repattern." I think that's meant to address my mentality and patterns of thought around relationships, both in some specific ones as well as generally. Hitting rock bottom and then trying to climb out has uncovered this. This last year has been a process of realizing this lack of health, and I'm praying that this next year will be a process of truly dealing with all of it. I'm also realizing that process may include counseling.

There are all sorts of things that I was told or thought about myself that I believed and let shape me. Things I now "know" I'm not. I "know" because I understand these things in my head, but I'm still patterned to think them and live around them and therefore continue to be governed by narratives that are not true nor healthy. It needs to stop.

I'm not sure what exactly this looks like in the bigger picture. I do know that on a practical level it means not capitulating when I shouldn't, not apologizing and accepting responsibility for things that are not mine, not enabling, etc., but still doing all of these things with grace, nuance, and compassion. I have no idea how to get there. I just know that I can't stay here. I've been living in this unhealthy for so long and I am done. I want Jesus, I want His Economy to come and His Will be done--and I will work for it.

I heard someone say today that the kind of love we're called to, "agape" love, is a commitment to help someone become the best version of themselves they can become. That definition necessarily includes Christ because there's no other way to become that. That's what I want to do. Really, it's what I've always wanted but the patterns I've fallen into preclude that so I must be re-coded.

Here goes.

Sometimes Reasons Need Mercy

I’ve known at some point I would want to open up about the last few years on this forum. I have no idea who all actually reads this (I do know about a few of you), but this little blog has been a site of catharsis for me so I knew this would come at some point. Read at your own risk.

I made it through the longest fast of my life a few weeks ago. I was fasting for direction and cleaning house. I thought the “cleaning house” would come during the fast and had an idea of what that would look like. As usual, it didn’t look like that. The “cleaning house” has actually happened in these after-weeks. And it’s good. This is a part of it.

It’s a long story, and a hard one. I’m not sure when it all started, but I think it had already begun before law school. If that’s the case, it started at least 4 years ago. Anyway, whenever the slow fade began, law school accelerated it.

Where I’m eventually going with this is that I ended up in bona fide depression during law school and I wish I were exaggerating when I say I thought the whole experience might kill me. There were a couple of moments when I genuinely wondered if it might, and many moments when I actually wished it would.

I think it would be good for me to write about it.

I don’t need to go into too many particulars of all the events leading to the bottom of that pit, but here are a few:

• Leaving Alaska;
• Starting law school;
• An ADHD diagnosis;
• Trying to get through volumes of difficult reading (with ADHD);
• Trying to pay attention and follow difficult concepts in class (with ADHD);
• A car wreck in which I and most of my family should have died;
• Significant (though necessary) ruptures with unhealthy law school relationships;
• Trying to work and pay some bills while in law school;
• An internship in Italy falling through after I arrived there;
• No time to realize or process any of the above; and
• A lack of people around me that had known me long enough to know something was wrong (and help me get help).

That’s just some of it. Looking back, the first sign that something was really wrong should have been after the car wreck (May 2015). My father, mother, two sisters, and I miraculously walked away from a Jeep that rolled 1.5 times into a ditch and hit a telephone pole right above my head. The worst injury was my mother’s broken collar bone. The fact that I leaned forward in prayer for Jesus to literally “save us” is actually what saved me. I still shudder when I think about it.

My odd emotional reaction to the whole thing was genuine disappointment that I was still here. I struggled with why I was still on earth and a dear friend of mine who had also been in a car wreck a few years ago wasn’t. Normal, except that I was actually struggling with some jealousy: “why did he get to go Home and I didn’t?” I kept asking God. I chalked the strange reaction up to faith. Faith is weird, I thought.

I got through the next year of law school and the stress started to appear in my body. I won’t go into detail. I was just told that all the stuff happening to me was a product of “stress.” I made it through that year and I thought I’d landed the internship of my dreams in Rome that summer. I bought tickets, secured housing, and was on my way—on Cloud Nine. Finally, I thought, a breakthrough. Things were starting to make sense. The week I left for Rome things started to fall through. I got on the plane anyway, thinking that I could take classes in Rome again as a back-up plan (I had studied abroad in Rome the summer before--which is how I heard about the internship). That’s what eventually happened. The dream internship finally fell through completely in the first few days I got to Rome. I reluctantly enrolled in classes, and started some networking. Through some Divine Intervention, I found an unpaid internship in a little Italian business law firm that “happened” to be a few blocks from school. (If you’ve ever been to sprawling Rome, you’ll know that’s Providential.) I took it, and was immediately in over my head in Italian contract/legal terms. They were very good to me. But understandably I was reeling from the abrupt change of course. One that had game-changing ramifications for my career future.

So, the summer didn’t start out great. Suffice it to say, rock bottom happened in Rome, Summer 2016. I have since tried to put to words what that brief season felt like, but it’s hard.
It’s hard in part because some of it is foggy. I was not okay. It’s also just hard to articulate.

I remember a couple of weeks where I found it so difficult to get out of bed. I couldn’t fall asleep at night and then when I finally did, it was 3, 4, or 5 in the morning and so I couldn't sleep long before I had to get up and go to class or my internship. One day, I didn’t really mean to but I ended up not getting out of bed, groggily thinking no one would notice at the little firm where I was interning. I was wrong, of course. I missed work and finally got up when they messaged me to see if I was coming in. I apologized and told them I was sick, and that I couldn’t come in. I had never done that in my life. I didn’t realize what was going on, I was so far down a hole that I didn’t realize was a hole. And it wasn’t for lack of wanting to. It wasn’t for lack of prayer or faith or trying…I was either "doing all the things" or trying with every ounce of my ability to muster what it took to do the things—and failing—not realizing how dark things were getting in and around me.

I remember struggling with God and telling Him in the morning that He was the reason I was getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other. I knew that even though I wasn’t okay, that God knew what I was doing was out of worship. And I wanted that more than staying in bed--most days. I prayed my way out the door in the morning, through public transit and all the way to anywhere I needed to go.

I was regularly wiping up tears from the tile in my house after being on my face in prayer and then trying to hide my red face with makeup. I somehow was able to mosty conceal this from my roommate—who was going through her own version of depression (post-car accident, ironically).

I remember daily walking from class across the bridge to my internship and closely examining every car that was passing me by and daydreaming about one of them hitting me and knocking me into the Tiber river. I didn’t want to take my own life—that was not the “right thing to do”—but I actually wanted it to be taken from me. I had had a glimpse of what that might be like in the car wreck, and I just wanted that to happen. There was a tram that went across that bridge too, sometimes I'd imagine another pedestrian or bike rider accidentally jostling me onto the tracks at just the right moment. I remember some days sitting by the Tiber river watching the water flow and wondering if it was swift enough to kill me if I ended up in it. I still vividly remember the hue of water. I was obsessed with it for a short time without realizing it.

I think that my desperation probably sounded like anger toward God, but it wasn’t. It was just that: desperation. I was starting to get scared. All of my life, regardless of the bleak nature of the day, I had always been able see the next morning’s horizon. At heart, I’m an optimist. But I was losing that, and it was slowly terrifying. The “horizon” wasn’t just blurred, I actually couldn’t remember what it looked like. I only vaguely remembered what it felt like to see it, so I hung on to that, by choice. But the further I descended into where I was headed, the more scared I got—what if my rosy little life had shielded me from reality to the point that I couldn’t handle it?

Again, there aren’t really words to effectively communicate depression. One of the only ways I’ve been able to describe that rock bottom is that I was “seeing” life but unable to perceive it. I was going through all of the motions with no meaning because none of it would sink in, and I didn't know why. I didn't know how to make anything sink in. I went through the motions of everything I did: work, school, learning Italian, trains, make food, choke it down, coffee….more coffee. Try as I might, I couldn’t see past the hour or two hours I was living in. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, it was lack of capacity. I was praying the right things, I was telling God I trusted Him and that I knew He was doing something with the circumstances around me, that I knew He knew better than me….

I remember having a meltdown when I realized how soon the bar exam was going to come after graduation the next year and panicking. Later I was talking about it to a friend and trying not to burst into tears as I was discussing it with her and I was telling her that maybe I shouldn’t try to take the bar exam right after law school was over—she nodded, trying to understand, but also reminded me that the knowledge would be fresh in my mind if I took it right away. But I remember thinking that she didn’t understand how tired I was. It’s true, she didn’t, but I also didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be feeling those things. And I wondered how she wasn’t as tired as I was? Maybe I was just too weak for this, I thought. That certainly didn’t help thought patterns.

I couldn’t fathom making it so far as the bar exam, so I just decided to not think about it. I had so slowly faded into all of this that I had forgotten that it wasn’t normal for me to feel or think those things. It wasn’t until one day I was sitting in a two-hour class and I fought back a flood of tears for the entire duration of the class period, without knowing why. Something finally clicked when I realized I couldn’t hold myself together in public.

I don’t know why it took so long to realize. I called home, and I cautiously confessed to my mother that I thought I might be struggling with depression. She paused. So did I. Then she said, graciously: “Traci, it wouldn’t surprise me.” It brings tears to my eyes again remembering those words coming from my mother’s mouth. God knew I needed a loving voice of reason speak life into where I was. My mom did just that. She graciously walked me through all of the things I’d been through in the previous couple of years and added them up for me when I couldn’t. She calmly affirmed me and, above all, didn’t tell me I was crazy or needed to suck it up. She saw that I had had “one thing after another and depression would make sense.”

I remember falling apart on the phone, sitting on the gate outside the Jewish school next to my campus, praying none of my classmates saw me, and ugly crying to my mom while she spoke to me. I remember one of the military guards of the Jewish school coming over to check on me, and I remember trying to tell him that I was okay in slobbery Italian. He didn’t believe me (he shouldn’t have) but he left me alone. (I'm happy to say I find some humor in that memory now.)

Then I called school back in the States. I’m blessed to have gone to a law school that talked a lot about the epidemic of depression among law students and regularly encouraged us to tell someone if we were experiencing it. So, I did. I wasn’t at the “ideation” point of suicidal yet, but I was further gone than I had ever been in my life and I had no idea how soon I could get further—if that makes sense. I wanted to address things immediately. I was given a hotline to call and one of the professors in Rome (sort of disingenuously) offered to be there if I ever needed to talk. Whatever. But at this point, I had at least figured out I needed help.

I was supposed to fly to Alaska for my dear friends’ wedding, and then fly back to Rome to finish my internship. I remember holding my phone in my hand, about to call to  cancel my flight back to Rome from Alaska. I needed to be in a safe place and get help, I thought. But right before I dialed it dawned on me that maybe I should try going off my ADHD medication. Exams were over, maybe just try it, I thought. So, I did. I started sleeping a little better and the clouds started to lift, just enough, in a manner of 2 or 3 days. I was amazed. I called my nurse practitioner back in Minnesota and told her what happened and she told me that it was highly unlikely that it was medication related. Again: whatever.

I never touched that medication again. At that point I began the journey to try and manage things without meds. That included going to see the school therapist. I can’t stress enough: a good move. Through the course of our sessions, the therapist sort of echoed what the NP said in that, the medication was just a factor in the sh*t storm that led to my rock bottom moment. She also did the addition similar to the way my mother did, pointing out that in the last couple of years I’d experienced a significant number of the typical stress factors that often contribute to depression. I was grateful for the "validation" but at that point I believed I was out of the woods and over it. I could get out of bed in the morning and there was some kind of horizon, so I was fine, right?

Anyway, I made it through my last year of law school and began to learn about the benefits of guided meditation on the mind, exercise, time management, etc….I made it through the year but I now see that I was just too busy to actually know that I wasn’t fully healed yet. I was doing just better enough to get done what I needed to get done. I lasted all school year like that and then I left Minnesota to come back to Alaska for the summer. Then I sat for the bar exam in July of 2017.

Studying for that bar exam highlighted the fact that I was still not “out of the woods.” As it turns out, the journey out of depression has probably been just as long as the slow fade into it, and it’s been pretty difficult too. I’m only now letting go of “getting back to who I was”, realizing that I’m never going to be that person again, these last few years have irrevocably molded me, and I need to let God channel that into something good. We all know that’s not a day surgery.

Anyway, the stress to emotional turmoil ratio that ensued during the bar exam study last summer underscored that a) I was still not okay, and b) I needed to figure out space to deal with that. I had been planning on continuing on to law librarianship school last Fall. I ended up pulling out of the program last minute and taking a job as a clerk for the year here in Alaska instead. I wasn’t sure of my decision then, but I see God’s grace in it now. I have desperately needed this space to heal.

Providentially, I started to do research on ADD and natural ways to approach it. My research sent me on a journey of learning all about the connection between gut health and the brain. It’s fascinating and (quite literally) mind boggling. Early on, I read somewhere that there was a connection between gluten and ADHD. I decided to experiment and went off gluten.

I couldn’t believe the brain fog that lifted. It was actually a game changer. But, I still wasn’t sleeping well, and I was an emotional mess. I chalked it all up to studying for the bar exam (reasonable assumption given that it was genuinely one of the most terrible things I’ve ever had to do). Then I failed the July 2017 bar exam. Meanwhile, I was also learning that poor gut health can also be a huge contributing factor in depression. The more I read, I was determined that there was more going on that just “stress” and “ADHD”. I truly believed that God created my body to work a certain way, and something was interfering with that.

So then I started an Ayurvedic regime* to help try and “heal my gut” and clean it out to see if that would help with ADHD and depression. It was working! I was doing so well, I was able to concentrate at work, get exercise, I was sleeping better. I spontaneously stopped drinking coffee because I just didn’t want it anymore (yes, a brief existential crisis ensued). I was feeling better than I had in a while and it was even in the middle of the winter in Alaska! I felt like I was, again, finally “out of the woods.”

Then in January I went to Hawaii with my mom and sisters. We were only there for five days, but I spent the whole time feeling like I was trying to wake up. I couldn’t sleep, I felt achy and groggy and, most of all, frustrated. I came back home from Hawaii and I didn’t feel much better. I was so frustrated that I had been set back months. I was also scared because in Hawaii I had begun to feel physically like I had felt in Italy while depressed. I didn’t want to go back to that place. As I was having a moment of slight panic, I decided to go see someone.

I’ll cut to the chase: it took a few weeks but tests came back to show that I had a microscopic parasite in my gut, and some other stuff too. As a result I had become severely anemic to the point that my body was basically running on the iron I was intaking for the day. “That explains the fatigue” I heard over the phone. “Start taking iron right away.” Turns out that this parasite feeds on starch and carbs (gluten) and tends to come out when stressed. Side effects include (among other things), malnourishment, anxiety, and depression.

This was in February. Right now I’m on treatment to get rid of this thing, a strict diet of no grains whatsoever, and lots, and lots of supplements. However, it’s working—or at least it seems so! Based on how I’m beginning to feel, I’m realizing that I haven’t felt like I’ve had my own mind or body for the last few years. If I’m honest, I have no idea what healthy me feels like—there’s no telling how long my life has been affected by these microscopic organisms-non-grata in my gut.

At work, I can focus now. Turns out there’s also a correlation between iron deficiency and ADHD. I’m more productive and able to wrestle with more complex concepts. I even made it through working full time and studying for another bar exam with 0 medication.

In the last few weeks I finally feel like I’ve had a breakthrough healthwise. I wish I actually had words to describe how that feels. I am now so acutely aware of how my body’s health affects my mind and how both have been…on a journey. When I say “I’m feeling better” it’s not just that my gut is doing better, it’s that I can make it through a work day now without getting frustrated that I can’t tune out the people talking around me. I can work, concentrate, bill hours, and be productive—AND still have some energy at the end of the day. I’m not going home in tears at the end of the day wishing I could have actually focused on what I was paid to do and sorting through the guilt of that.

I can honestly say I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt this way. I can’t remember ever being able to get through a day like this without coffee or medication, or both. I have no idea how long I’ve had this parasite, and how long it’s been leaching nutrients from my body. There’s a part of me that wonders how long this physical intruder has shaped my emotional well (or not well)-being and therefore shaped who I’ve become. I am kind of looking forward to exploring what a healthy me is actually like. But, anyway, I also said I’d discuss what I’ve learned through all of this. If you’re still reading this, I’m impressed.

First, while I just outlined the bare events of the last 4 years of my little life, what is ever-present between these written lines (that I cannot truly do justice to) is God. While I have been all over the map physiologically, mentally, and even geographically, the ironic part is that I can say that the one area of my life that remained steady throughout all the other upheaval is my spiritual life. Still, I would not begin to say that I navigated all of the above well. When one is merely surviving, it’s hard to do it gracefully. I truly lacked grace in just about every way: for myself, for others, for the principle of process, for my geography sometimes…so many things. But as I look back, I see a writhing, weeping me at the foot of the Throne, asking God to keep me alive and give me what it takes to go through what He asked me to, with no idea what that would look like—and a daily prayer that I’d know it when I see it. And He did. I’m still here. I also see how God built discipline into me, and through this is giving me a foundation of compassion for others struggling with mental health issues.

Anyway, I’m not sure anyone ever does depression “well”, but if that’s even a thing let me be the first to admit: I did not. As a result, I lost some relationships in my life. Whether that is entirely on my shoulders or not is still something I’m sorting out. As another result, I failed the first bar exam. Yes, some of these things can be chalked up to an unwelcome guest in my body preventing it from doing what it was created to do—but, at least when it comes to some things, that’s a reason not an excuse.

I’m learning that sometimes people need to know their “reasons” for their behavior are heard, and grace is extended. “Love covers a multitude of wrongs.” (1st Peter 4:8) That’s what I needed. Thank God I received that from my mother, but I didn’t from some others. No, reasons are not always excuses, but they are not to be ignored either. Grace takes them into account. It’s so easy to put “mental health” into a box and divorce it from all other things and just call it selfish. In reality it’s so much more complex than that. And to really engage with this reality in someone else’s life takes discernment and involvement. I’m learning that, unfortunately, the Church is terrible at this. I want to be a part of a different Church. I want to see the reasons and move (with those I’m called to) toward health without allowing excuses. That takes a kind of love that’s perseverant and discerning. A, powerful, engaged, 1st Peter kind of love.

There is a sort of “meme” in the Evangelical church that goes “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” It’s patently false. He regularly gives us more than we can handle. That’s part of the point. I found out this week that I passed the bar exam the second time around. I remember hearing Beth Moore teach once on that part of the book of Esther where Mordecai looks at Esther and says, famously, “…who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) She said that often our “such a time as this” moment is when the “who knows” part of that sentence is turned into a “YOU know,” where YOU KNOW that there is no way you’d be where you are except by God.

I’m there. I don’t know what that means in the broad scheme of things as far as the “for such a time as this” part—and thank God I care less at this point, but the important thing is I know. I know that I would not have gotten through all of law school and finally passed that thing except that He carried me over the finish line. I KNOW. These last 4 years have made me face the extent of my broken humanity in ways that I never have had to before. I am more human than I ever understood. I can’t fully articulate or explain it. Here I’ve written a veritable treatise on what the last 4 years have looked like, but I can’t explain every moment of every case or statute I read and how often I prayed to my Father for clarity and understanding, and above all, focus about even the menial things. I can’t explain all of my interactions with Him and how intimately involved He’s been with this entire process. I would NOT be a lawyer but for Him. I know.

More than that, I’ve also come to grips with the fact that, while I have gone through the hell of my life these last few years, I am slowly becoming grateful for it. It almost makes me laugh, but this hell of my life is also the thing that is saving me from thinking I did it of my own accord. I can never say I did this all on my own that after what I’ve walked through.

THAT is grace.

I’m trying to memorize the book of James right now. Ironically (or not), as I’m contemplating the fact that a legal career is finally a reality in my own life I’m memorizing the second chapter which talks about the law. It talks about how you can follow all of the law except for one point and still blow the whole thing, but the punch line is counterintuitive: "mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13)

I needed mercy more than I knew and didn’t get it everywhere I should have. But, I’m learning that I’m grateful for that too because now I understand in a way I never could have without that experience that, truly, mercy does triumph over judgment. I need to understand this as a human, a Christian, a lawyer…a woman of God before all things. Mercy often (if not always) looks like peering beyond the symptoms and looking at what’s really going on. Sometimes the person going through hell doesn’t even recognize that it’s hell they’re in. “Who knows.”

Anyway, as I said, the journey out of depression has seemed just as long as the descent into it. I’m a little wiser now (I think) to say that I’m not actually sure if I’m out of the woods yet. I’m still processing and healing. My physical health has drastically improved and that’s done wonders for all areas of my life. I get sworn in a couple of weeks, and I’m praising God that law school is now irrevocably behind me.

Excited to see what healthy looks like.

Seriously, if you read all this I’m really, really impressed.


*If you're interested in gut stuff, I really recommend this eye opening book: The Prime, by Kulreet Chaudhary 

Thus Far

Today I found out I passed the bar exam. This was my second try. Words cannot begin to describe the exhilaration knowing that I am done with that part of my life—that I can continue in the legal field and I won’t ever have to do that part again. It feels amazing. I already feel lighter and I know that it will continue to sink in. That was an extremely difficult 4 years, and it’s over. Really, finally, and officially over. I get sworn in in a couple of weeks. 

There have been many congratulatory words today, which have been very meaningful. But I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to recognize publicly that this wasn’t me. Iknow that I didn’t do this myself. Yes, I worked hard, persevered, etc. But I wept when I finally had a moment: My Father carried me through this in a way I can’t really describe. I can’t put it to words right now, and maybe won’t be able to ever, but the important thing is, I know. This was the brand of difficult that won’t allow me to forget that I didn’t do this on my own.

I struggled with ADHD and depression all throughout law school. I finally got back to Alaska and it took me another 8 months to figure out that I was also struggling with health problems that contributed to both those things. I struggled all throughout law school more than I “should” have. (I say “should” because there’s theology there I don’t want to get into. The point is, I see God’s grace in it now, and it’s awestriking.) It’s taken me all year to crawl out of the hole I’d thought was “normal” and realize how unhealthy I’ve been—physically and otherwise—and I’m still crawling.  It’s taken me a year to get out of a pit of physical unhealth that I didn’t realize was largely (not entirely) the fount of my other emotional, mental health issues. I had flat out forgotten what healthy felt like. I’m only now starting to glimpse it again. It’s at once amazing and humbling. When we found out what was going on with me, my doctor said “I know why you didn’t pass the first time. We’ll take care of this.” And we are. Thank God.

But I know Who carried me. Who was there as I had to study longer, months longer than I had planned. I know what I’ve learned about perseverance and how not glamourous it is. I know the discipline and tears that I took to Him over and over. I know this wasn’t all me. I engaged with the process, yes, but it was only my Father that gave me what I needed to engage. This. Is. His. 

Somebody told me today that no one could ever take this from me. It’s sort of true, but it’s not really totally mine. It’s ours. We did this. He carried me thus far. I can’t take credit for this. And in realizing that I see the grace of God. For so many reasons He’s let me and carried me as we’ve walked through the hardest season of my life yet, but one of many things He’s protected me from in this process is my own pride: I CANNOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THIS. I DID NOT DO THIS.

Only I know this the way it needs to be known, and that’s all that matters. But I just want to say thank You, Father. You carried me thus far, and I know that. I know how much of this was You. Thank you from my tired, healing, full and humbled heart tonight.

I Love You.

Prayerful Ramblings

I’ve recently realized something about my prayer life: It was born out of my “control issues.”

I know, weird.

And before I say more, I should probably explain that I consider my prayer life the most important and intimate part of my multi-faceted relationship with God. Like any relationship, there’s a lot to it. But the bread and butter of my relationship with God truly is prayer.

Prayer happens in a staged setting in my mind. I’ve joked before that it’s my own “Mind Palace” (for you Sherlock fans). It’s sort of fitting. In my mind, when I’m talking to God, I’m in the Tabernacle that is outlined in the book of Exodus where God met with His People. What’s most meaningful for me is that it’s the first place that God organized to regularly meet and be in relationship with the Israelites, and it traveled with them wherever they went in the desert.

The Tabernacle was portable, and so is my Mind Palace. The idea of praying with such a mechanism came from my father, who has his own place that he goes to talk to God. When I was in my early twenties, I did a bible study on the Tabernacle and it changed my life. I understood God so differently through that study about Moses and when I began to pray using my active mind to channel my imagination for the purposes of conceptualizing my relationship with God. I am less distracted (still happens) and more purposeful. I have a whole regimen that I go through that takes me eventually onto my face, at the feet of my Father, in the Holy Place—the innermost chamber of the Tabernacle.

IT’S AMAZING.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking lately about what prayer has become to me and how. There was a time when I felt like God asked me to be willing to accept the “gift” of “intercession.” I use quotes because first, there’s all kinds of controversy around the word “gift” as far as spiritual things go and I don’t care to dive into that. Second, I say “intercession” because, well, so far it has ended up looking nothing like what I thought. I’ll come back to that.

So, my prayer life—and consequently my spiritual life—took off in my early twenties. Incidentally, that’s when I left home for the first time in my life. I graduated college at 22 and couldn’t wait to get out the door and travel. And I did. And…in so doing my little homeschool-girl bubble got popped. I didn’t have the support system I always had in my family and, while I had a good handle on who I was (or wanted to be), one only learns how to actually make that interact with the world by living and erring. And both of those things I did too.

So, when I left home, compared to the stable (and incredibly blessed) upbringing I’d been given, my life spun out of control. I had to figure out how to be an adult and who I wanted to become. And in the end, I had chosen to leave 22 years of home behind me to do that….

So, I am…an oldest child. To a T (no pun intended), and everything that comes with it:

·      Perfectionist

·      Bossy

·      Academic

·      Perfectionist (oh, did I already say that one?)

·      CONTROLLING

It’s that last one that I don’t think I’ve really recognized in myself until recently. Here’s why:

Somehow, in God’s grace, I figured out years ago that when I couldn’t control things, I had to take it to God and ask Him to. Okay, I read that and it sounds cliché and I hate that. But what I mean is that, somehow, by the grace of God something in me knew that getting on my face was the healthiest way I could channel my desire to manipulate and control others and my life. I didn’t but I did want to control others and my life. I mean, I had it figured out. But by the grace of God something deep down in me viscerally knew it wasn’t possible and I had to try something else.

I’m really not exaggerating when I describe some of the seasons of life that taught me to PRAY as blood, sweat, and tears. It looked like so, so many tears. Many different carpet marks on my face, lots and lots of smoothies and mugs of broth while fasting and lots, and lots…and LOTS of filled journals. But, not surprisingly, for the last decade my experience has been that said blood, sweat, and tears is all well invested because what ends up happening more often than my circumstances or situation changing is—I change. If I’m praying, in earnest, for what Jesus told me to—that is that God’s Kingdom and God’s Economy would come here to this filthy, beautiful Earth and His Will be done here as it is in Heaven—whatever Heaven really looks like—then I truly change.

I start to see things differently. I start to want different things.

I start to want to get up early in the morning to spend time with God because I hate the way I feel the days that I don’t. I start to want to wait to make a decision instead of just plowing ahead and doing what I think is best. I start to see people differently, I start to see past ugly situations and start seeing a different realm of spirituality beyond. One that Redeems where it’s permitted to. And…well, sometimes that vantage point is incredibly confusing. But it’s always exciting.

I am a completely different person than I was a decade ago. I say that with trepidation knowing that, ironically, though I see all the amazing work God has done in me these last 10 years, I am now more aware of my humanity and weakness that I ever have been in all of my life. (In reality, some of that’s healthy and some of it isn’t—I’m still figuring that out. That’s a different blog post.)

But here’s where the real epiphany happened the other day. For so many years, as I would pray over situations and life, I would sometimes see situations change but I more often saw myself change (yes, already talked about this, see above). But this is the amazing thing: recently, I’m starting to see more of both. I think that means that for once, and maybe it’s me being so aware of my own weakness and raw humanity, I might be more in step. COULD IT BE?!?!?!?!? I’m starting to see Him work in circumstances in some incredible ways. Maybe I’m actually praying the things that God wants me to pray for His Kingdom and I’m starting to grasp “intercession” in the way He intended for me. (?!?!?!?!?!?!)

Maybe. Either that or I just have had a powerful couple of months, I don’t know. It’s not comfortable, certainly, because humility rarely is, but I have to say that it’s amazing what’s happening when I get out of God’s way and I just start asking Him what He’s doing and if I can help. It’s exciting-hard. Yep, it’s a (hyphenated) word now.

I don’t know how long this season will last because, like everything else in life, my pride seems to ebb and flow. For now, though:

God I ask that You’d continue to show me who I am and Who I’m not. I’m a mess right now, and I’m sitting in the middle of a lot of mess that I’m not sure how much I created. But, I see You moving. And I want to help if I can—and should. I’ll be here and I’ll be talking to You about what I see. Just glance my way every once in a while to remind me You haven’t forgotten that I’m here?

I’ll be here. Sorting through this mess and healing, trying not to rush the process and praying, praying, praying for Your timing not mine.

If the last 3 years have taught me anything it’s that You do way better work than I do. Let me get out of both of our way.

"There's Grace for That"

I don't know if I actually thought this or just hoped: that because it was so clear that I was supposed to go to law school, God would bless the whole thing and I would own it. I would finish the top of my class and leave law school knowing exactly where God was headed with my degree and it would all make sense.

He definitely blessed it, but none of the rest of that is true. I'm learning that we are good at convincing ourselves that we don't have "expectations" about something, but then as we live out the situation God brings to light what our expectations actually were. And it's a test of character how we handle that.

It's that test of character that I've been starting to finally process, after 3 years of hell. I look back on these last 3 years and I see a narrative in which every last one of my limitations was tested.

Every.

Last.

One.

I'm sitting on "this side of the law" (or, hopefully...I find out if I'm actually a lawyer on Thursday), thinking about a thing Jesus said. He didn't mean for it to apply to this situation at all, but it's funny that it does. He said, basically, that the law will tell you how human you are, and how much you fall short of what God created you to be.

He was speaking about legalism, of course. More specifically, the Old Testament law. But it kind of works here. Or should I write:

Here, it is applicable. I hear my law professor in my head "here 'comma'...'therefore'.... But that's the thing. Right now I'm stuck somewhere in between the "here, 'comma'" and the "therefore". Or am I? All I've got right now is "therefore, Jesus."

I have ADD. I pray my way to work every morning now asking God to help me focus on my work and do good work, that I might earn favor with my employer. Who is very good at his job.

I'm needy right now. More needy than I'm comfortable being. I had a friend yesterday remind me how good I am at pouring out and not getting poured into. He's right, usually. But I'm not really sure how to be right now that I have so little to pour out. I'm fully tapped.

I'm tapped and fearful that, now that I'm back in Alaska, if I'm not careful the mild Seasonal Affectedness Disorder that I usually get in the winter could look a lot worse this year.

I don't want to go back to that place.

And then there's this: I don't know what's next. Do I pursue law librarianship? Will I pass the FSOT again--could this be the break I need?

God knows I don't want to get bored. I can't. I won't be healthy. But God also knows that without some key relationships in my life, I'm not healthy either. Will I have to compromise on one of those? If so, which will it be? Interesting that none of these questions are really new.

What's new is how much more aware and acquainted I am with my own humanity. I'm learning to let God have grace for that, but I would be remiss to not see how God has powerfully humbled me in these last 3 years.

I know that others look at me and think I "did it". But I know the truth, and I'm not just being cliché. I look back and wonder how I made it, how all my requirements and assignments got done and how...

*Sigh*

...how in Rome I kept putting one foot in front of the other, and kept getting out of bed.

I can't forget all that. I randomly find myself just saying to Him "I trust You." Or "I trust You with ____." And who am I kidding, that's not naturally me. THAT is fruit of this last little educational jaunt. The one that was about far more than the formation of just my mind.

I'm grateful, really, for this place. It's not comfortable. It's a place where I'm second guessing everything I say, move I make, whether I'm acting in the Holy Spirit or my own and wondering just how badly I'm messing things up, but where I keep coming back to something I often hear my sister say: "there's grace for that." And I trust Him.

I am so, so human. I'm more aware of that now than ever. But I hear that's when He does his best work. Who knows what's next. I just know (for the moment--again, I'm human) that there's grace for it.