letting go

Billboards

November 9, 2012 By AmandaBeth

I loathe hypocrites. I hate them so much I wish I could spit on them and tell them that they can’t love Jesus on one hand and say they hate Democrats on the other. These people raise their arms on Sunday and wish the Mormons would move to Canada. They tsk, tsk their way to Monday by whispering that gay people are harmful, rotten folk. It’s a black-and-white billboard that screams “Don’t believe me! I’m a walking double standard! My God is only as good and powerful and forgiving as I allow!”

It’s no wonder why so many people shun religion.

I’m just as bad. I might not hate Mormons or hold picket signs at abortion clinics, but I have my own brand of ugly. I accept that Christ can wash clean a heart, but it’s so terribly hard for me to forgive. I nod my head that we should love freely and give of self, and yet I’m as self-centered as they come. I see the world through my own eyes because they are mostly right. I mean come on. If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place. No one would contradict me, we’d all agree mushrooms are icky, everyone would listen to folk music on Wednesdays, and coffee would always be served hot with two raw sugars. Can I get a hell yeah?

I like to think of my own ideas as far superior to most like-minded people. So what if my plan has actual deficiencies, or that another human being can actually make a point that is equal and as valid as my own. If it differs from my own ideas, I pout and demand and bring up my version at every possible opportunity. Like a tiny sword a millimeter long, it might not kill. But it scratches and itches and penetrates a tiny bit of skin over and over until the victim just caves in from the torture.

I suppose I am also one of those billboards that must sound to God like nails on a chalkboard. Please do it my way. I have the answers. Sweet people around me, you are so cute and lovable but quite simply wrong. I need to control something to make my life feel important. I don’t show this interior self to everyone. I like to think of myself as magnanimous and loving and accepting of differences. And yet in the hole of my own little world I’m a selfish being who likes to direct outcomes. I use a lot of “I” and not a lot of “us.”

You and me? Well we are all in this together.

We are all hypocrites. Human beings are remarkably great at some things and so pitifully bad at others. And as it turns out we can’t label others with this title because we’d only be marking on ourselves. My 6-year-old told me over breakfast today that we all have “the sin sickness” that came from Adam and Eve eating the apple. It’s true, sweet girl. We all have the sickness that comes from sin, and to some extent we all say one thing and do something else so insanely off-course.

But it’s never too late. We can always change direction, and apologize, and forgive. We can lay down our picket signs and realize that without mercy we are all just broken-down hypocrites, screaming loudly and yet saying nothing. To witness, we must serve. To praise, we must be quiet. To change, we must break down our old selves and admit we are wrong.

We don’t need to control the world. We submit it all to Him, and accept the outcome with grace and humility. He is the master and orchestrator of all that is good. We are just innocuous players, along for the ride with the top down, laughing at the billboards along the highway.

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photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/codyr/234976867/

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, Religion Tagged With: billboards, control freak, forgiveness, hypocrite, letting go

Letting Go

September 20, 2012 By AmandaBeth

my daughter, now six

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Being a writer is hard. I love the feeling late at night when I finish an essay, like I crossed a finish line or finally caught a breath of mountain air. I like getting positive feedback as a balm to my itchy insecurities. And when I sent my novel – my baby child that stole nights and weekends and so many rivers of tears– off to my editor, I was grateful when she said it’s good. It’s actually really good. And yet agents email me saying “it’s not you, it’s us” and “we are so sorry for this rather impersonal rejection.” It’s a literary black hole, and you have to hold onto the railing to keep from being swept under.

I wish I could roll up my sleeves and go have a meeting with someone. I wish I could just go make something happen. I’d curl my hair and put on my heels and pound my fist on a desk. Progress will be made. Things will crawl off dead center because I know how to make people jump. I got a job once by making an appointment with the CEO. Somehow a job was created. A job I dreamed up in my head and convinced them they needed.

And yet here I sit alone, eating pistachios and drinking coffee and reading other people’s words. I try and let writers inspire me, and be thankful for their successes, and try and feed on the natural creativity that follows. I tell myself that God is listening and my blog followers are listening and these things matter. And yet my mind wanders off to bad places – dark caves where I’m nothing and my life is insignificant and my words are just cheap imitations.

I think about that time six years ago, when I lay in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling tile. After a prolonged labor and emergency c-section she was finally given to me, this beautiful gift from God that I didn’t deserve. She was so white and angelic and I wouldn’t let her go. But days after arriving home with my first-born they came to take me away, on some damn stretcher that held heart victims and dead people. There were doctors and surgeons and tests. There were re-incisions and pains and organs being shut down. I just kept looking at that ceiling tile, thinking God just wouldn’t do this to me and he couldn’t possibly let me die. Not now. Not like this. I’ve worked so hard, remember, Lord? I make things happen. Are you listening up there?

I asked for the breast pump, my body filled with drugs and steroids and horrible chemicals of all types, and forced that milk out through excruciating tears as each surge of the pump caused my scarred and infected abdomen to seize. But I was a fighter, and this wouldn’t break me.

See, God? This is what you’d be saving.

One night, a nurse came in. She looked right through me. You need to let go, she said. You need to let God to take over. I was angry. I was pissed off at her accusations. Who the hell are you, all up in my business about faith? Have you not seen how hard I’ve worked? Have you not seen my tears and heard my prayers? I am dying here, woman, with the fever and the infection and the chills. Can’t you see that I’m trying? Can’t you see I’ve not seen my baby’s face for weeks and this just isn’t working like I planned and I’m so damn sick of this place? Can’t you see that I have this tube in my throat and my husband isn’t eating and it just never ceases? Can’t you see that I don’t want to see a picture of her, my perfect three-week-old daughter, because it fills me with rage and sadness? Isn’t this enough?

You have to let it go.

I think about that night when I get this way. When I think I’m in charge. When I keep pounding away on the keyboard like the surging breast pump. When the devil whispers in my ear that my words don’t matter and a book deal is the brass ring and all this is just a big vat of wasted time.

Stand back, Devil.

It all matters. My words matter. My life matters. Whether it’s typing or living or birthing or dying, we all just have to let go. We aren’t the one making things happen. God makes things happen. We are just the instruments of his peace.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Motherhood, My life, Uncategorized Tagged With: birth of daughter, book deal, brass ring, letting go, words, writing

Rapids

August 25, 2012 By AmandaBeth

We are all just swimming upstream. The moment the wind calms and the food is plentiful and the credit cards are paid off, gusts once again sweep you off your feet. They swell and pull at you and whistle uncomfortably in your ears. Kids grow louder. Your temper grows quicker. The laundry piles and bills and coping skills get all worn and tattered by all that beating. Life passes by in a streak of runny watercolor because your vision is full of rushing tide and debris. Some folks can keep up, with their heads to the sky and their heart full of prayer. You roll your eyes at those people. It’s all you can do to just keep looking forward, wiping the water from your tired, red, tear-stained face. Funny thing is, you didn’t even realize you were paddling so hard until you look down and see the white caps of the rapids. Oh, for a moment of peace. For the winds to calm. Just a tiny second for your arms to rest.

I think now I’m supposed to talk about trusting in God’s everlasting arms. To let Him do the fighting and you just roll back in a starfish float like my daughter’s swim lesson and allow all your earthly burdens to melt away. That’s about the time I stop reading, because I’ve got things piling up and I just can’t hear any more about letting go. I’m not into vague fuzzy lessons on how we are all masters of nothing and should quit fighting. If I let go, I’ll drown. I don’t know about you people, but I just don’t have the luxury of letting go.

So I build up endurance and keep on swimming. I’m getting pretty good at setting my sights on the distance and finding friends to help make the journey palatable. I’m growing strong, and confident, and feel I have this life thing figured out. I thank God for strong arms and a fighter’s spirit and think I’m doing my duty.

But then the storm comes. Not the everyday storm that makes my lungs sting and my thighs ache from paddling so hard, but the black storm that hits me in the chest until I cry out of fear and pulls me into a hole and makes me think this is so unfair. I’ve worked so hard. I’ve been fighting the current. I thought I got this, but now I can’t see or breathe and I’m drowning.

It is then you begin the slow descent to the bottom. It’s a moment when time stands still, and you have the most peaceful conversation with your creator. You aren’t pushing. You aren’t moving. You aren’t wiping water from your eyes or trying to take in side breaths. You are simply lying there on the bottom of the river, watching all that rushing water above. The ironic thing is that fear is surprisingly absent and your heart is strangely full. And it hits you. God truly is more powerful than the river. His hands calm the winds and open your eyes and move the boulders, but all this time you were resisting. He puts you in a place to allow you to see this abounding truth, even when you were fighting with your fists and elbows and words against it. I will show you my love even when you don’t want to see it. Even if it takes you to the brink of death.

When you rise up again, gasping for air, you are astounded by the beauty you see. Your tears are clear, for through them you can see brilliance. The winds blow, but they don’t suck you down. There is a purpose to this struggle. And just like that, you find yourself letting go. You didn’t read it in some devotional or have it handed to you by a priest or hear it in some sappy Christian song. You let go because you were there at the bottom of the water, and rose up again. Because you felt such an overwhelming peace.

Let the gusts come. No bother. You can take it.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”

James 1:2-8

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