We ended the time together Thursday with a story:
Julie is a young woman who I see in my practice who asked that I share her story. She came to me as a new patient years ago when she was a newlywed and doing well. I enjoyed making sure that her sinuses were clear and she was doing routinely well.
Then one day, she came into my office, pale and broken and not herself. You see, her father, who had been so close to her, had just died suddenly. She wept and hurt and tried to get through it. But, she was now raising her baby and had lots to do, a job and a life and a husband and she really did not have time to grieve (or she chose instead to throw herself headlong into her life so that she did not have to think about her grief) so she tackled day after day.
After some struggles with burying her father, she seemed again to "hit stride" and be close to her usual happy life, with only some intermittent issues with anxiety. Then again one day, I saw her name on my schedule and when I walked into the room, I knew something was going on that was not good. She looked down at the ground, eyes red, tears flowing down her cheeks, her voice hushed. "Jacob has left me," was her only sad sentence. So, again she wept and cried and we shared the grief of the pain of her life. She seemed to somehow still function here and there for months after this. She began to go to try to involve God in her life some and yet her husband was really not interested in getting back together with her.
Then one day, she came into the office smiling and happy and much more her normal self again. She announced to me that she was just sure that she was supposed to be back with her husband again and that she was planning to go meet with him and announce her intentions to get back together, in spite of all that he had done to her and her little boy.
The next week she was back, the most beat down and sad that I have ever seen her - even wondering about the value of staying alive. "He didn't want me. He didn't want to get back together. He wants no part of me," were her words. Racked with pain, it seemed her entire existence was coming to an end.
We talked for a long time that day, and I began to remind her that she was a fabulous person, not because Jacob said so, or because she was married or because she was a mom or a daughter or because her dad said she was valuable, but because God made her as an amazing and intricate gift to the world. He made her just the way she is - she did not have anything to prove in order to "be someone" to God, or to me. She looked up, kind of not totally believing me. We prayed and she promised to begin trying to get in touch with God in new ways and to allow Him to be the One who gave her More to life.
She returned in a few days (I was checking on her because she had been having such a hard time the previous visit) and this time she still had a hurting look to her eyes, but she looked me in the eyes, and what I saw there was peace. She smiled when I came in...
She proceeded to inform me that she was already trying to involve God in her life more and she was beginning to realize that she had been searching for more in the relationships she had with her husband and her father. She felt that her entire self was tied up in these things and when she began to see that WHO she was God's child and that He loved her very much and not Jacob's wife or her father's daughter, she began to be more at peace with life. She still is not sure what direction her relationship will go - it is painful to her to see the destruction of so much of her life - but her changed perspective on life, pursuing God as her "More" instead of wife hood or daughter hood, has helped her so much already and her future is promising regardless of the path that her journey will take.
Now, by no means am I saying that being a good wife or daughter is a bad thing - it is a fabulous thing - but relationships with people, whether it be in Julie's way, or feeling as if you must always make everyone happy and always serve everyone, or feeling as if your life is over when your kids are out of the house and grown, must not become who you are. If they do, at some point in your life, you will have to face the fact that these things will never completely make you full and happy. If you do these things and make God the More in your life, you will find that these relationships have better perspective and when the troubles come, which they always do, life will continue to have meaning and purpose and there will be joy behind the struggles that you are having.
At More than more, we are continuing to try to find ways to experience life more fully, to get past the usual "more" that we find ourselves pursuing in everyday American life and that so seems to crowd out our joy and meaning.
We would love to have you join us 6/10 at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette, IN - here is a google map link
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=McAllister+Recreation+Center,+Lafayette,+IN&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.85226,91.494141&ie=UTF8&hq=McAllister+Recreation+Center,&hnear=Lafayette,+IN&ll=40.442505,-86.87439&spn=0.080738,0.178699&z=13&iwloc=A
6:45-8:00 PM - as always there will be free childcare for your kids!
Hope to see you there!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
A 2nd Note
I think my posts are too long - so I am trying to split them into more readable sections - let me know what you think...
Thursday after noticing handshakes, we noticed people. We looked around at each other and saw each other as people, full of joy and peace, full of pain and doubt and fear and hurt. We dared to step out of the life of America where we simply try to get to the next task and get it completed and into the real life of wonder where amazing people surround us everyday - each of us wonderful!!!
I told about a young man who entered my office just prior to our time together - he had just returned from Haiti. What he had seen there had devastated his heart. The heartbreak of the little children, hungry and hurting, will never allow him to return to normal again. He was so crushed that he struggled to even spend the money to come to my office across town and the $1 of gas that he was spending! That was money, he reasoned, that could have fed 2 or 3 of those kids, as he wept before me. There he sat, crushed, broken, by the pain of those kids and that country and his inability to feed them all, save them all, help them all...
You see, he noticed. He saw those kids as beautiful little creations, each with their own handshake. He noticed their brokenness and pain...and it crushed him.
The thing is, we are surrounded by a society of hungry children. Yes, there are those who are hungry and hurting right there in your town (and we should be helping them). But, even more than that, we are a society that has lost its meaning and joy - we strive for things that mostly have no meaning - we spend almost of our time trying to earn enough to pay off our credit card bills and to buy the next thing we want. We spend most of our hours and days trying to build up enough to have joy in a few moments - rather than having joy in the everyday. We are bankrupt and broken and lost and full of pain - this land is filled with people who need to hear about the life that opens before us when we dare to notice. They need someone to SEE them - to be crushed for their pain and love them - and then to know that there is HOPE. When we are noticers, we have the chance to give HOPE. We want to notice!
The problem is that noticing means that we must LOOK and then we must be willing to give up our agenda, our plan, our timing, what ever we had in mind for that moment, in order to notice them and care about them. We do this everytime we get together at More than more. We NOTICE.
Thursday after noticing handshakes, we noticed people. We looked around at each other and saw each other as people, full of joy and peace, full of pain and doubt and fear and hurt. We dared to step out of the life of America where we simply try to get to the next task and get it completed and into the real life of wonder where amazing people surround us everyday - each of us wonderful!!!
I told about a young man who entered my office just prior to our time together - he had just returned from Haiti. What he had seen there had devastated his heart. The heartbreak of the little children, hungry and hurting, will never allow him to return to normal again. He was so crushed that he struggled to even spend the money to come to my office across town and the $1 of gas that he was spending! That was money, he reasoned, that could have fed 2 or 3 of those kids, as he wept before me. There he sat, crushed, broken, by the pain of those kids and that country and his inability to feed them all, save them all, help them all...
You see, he noticed. He saw those kids as beautiful little creations, each with their own handshake. He noticed their brokenness and pain...and it crushed him.
The thing is, we are surrounded by a society of hungry children. Yes, there are those who are hungry and hurting right there in your town (and we should be helping them). But, even more than that, we are a society that has lost its meaning and joy - we strive for things that mostly have no meaning - we spend almost of our time trying to earn enough to pay off our credit card bills and to buy the next thing we want. We spend most of our hours and days trying to build up enough to have joy in a few moments - rather than having joy in the everyday. We are bankrupt and broken and lost and full of pain - this land is filled with people who need to hear about the life that opens before us when we dare to notice. They need someone to SEE them - to be crushed for their pain and love them - and then to know that there is HOPE. When we are noticers, we have the chance to give HOPE. We want to notice!
The problem is that noticing means that we must LOOK and then we must be willing to give up our agenda, our plan, our timing, what ever we had in mind for that moment, in order to notice them and care about them. We do this everytime we get together at More than more. We NOTICE.
Just a Note
Hey you all!
We had a great time Thursday night. It was a time to get our minds and hearts onto something "More" than what we have/had been living for. We find ourselves many times living out dreams to have more fun, more money, more toys, more sex, more power, more degrees and status, more friends, more escape and we find that when we get these things we find only emptyness - yes, fun for a little and then the need to go after something else to make us "happy" - as we continue this journey after something "More" we find more peace in the midst of where we are, more joy in the everyday - it is good.
Thursday we noticed handshakes - we noticed the character of the hand we were shaking, the callouses, the softness, the strength of the grip, the tremor, maybe even sensed the tendons of the hand, and if we dared, we might even look into the eyes of the person whose hand we were shaking - we find an unbelieveably complicated thing in a handshake - something we do many times per day.
You see, when you shake a hand and notice you, realize that in the instant of the handshake you know many things about the person whose hand you are shaking - you can tell the kind of work or hobby that they have (my surgeon's hands better be soft!) - you can often sense their fear (shaking or sweaty) or their confidence (real or exaggerated) and desire to dominate you (if they squeeze the heck out of our hand)and you make a connection with that person - whether you want to or not!
All this processing occurs instantly - you do not have to ponder on it for hours to figure it out - your hand gives the information to your brain and instantly you know all these things as your brain instantly remembers a million handshakes before this one and correlates this one to all the others! Amazing!
But, here's something funky, there are people who would have you believe that this is all accidental - that something this amazing came about by accident! This is ludicrous - this has the mark of all kinds of meaning to it - we cannot help but connect with each other...all the time!
You see, God made you this way! So, the next time you shake someone's hand - don't just cling to the hand and think about it - the person whose hand you are shaking will thing you are a handshake stalker or something - but notice how amazing it is! Tell God how thankful you are that He has made you so wonderful and invite Him to join you in your day. You see, I choose to not go through my life as a shadow of who I am, simply trying to produce and consume. I choose to notice the wonder and amazingness all around me - this frees my mind and heart to something "More" - God has given all this and when I invite Him into the moment and thank Him for the amazingness, my life gains a new fullness and meaning than I never knew before!
We had a great time Thursday night. It was a time to get our minds and hearts onto something "More" than what we have/had been living for. We find ourselves many times living out dreams to have more fun, more money, more toys, more sex, more power, more degrees and status, more friends, more escape and we find that when we get these things we find only emptyness - yes, fun for a little and then the need to go after something else to make us "happy" - as we continue this journey after something "More" we find more peace in the midst of where we are, more joy in the everyday - it is good.
Thursday we noticed handshakes - we noticed the character of the hand we were shaking, the callouses, the softness, the strength of the grip, the tremor, maybe even sensed the tendons of the hand, and if we dared, we might even look into the eyes of the person whose hand we were shaking - we find an unbelieveably complicated thing in a handshake - something we do many times per day.
You see, when you shake a hand and notice you, realize that in the instant of the handshake you know many things about the person whose hand you are shaking - you can tell the kind of work or hobby that they have (my surgeon's hands better be soft!) - you can often sense their fear (shaking or sweaty) or their confidence (real or exaggerated) and desire to dominate you (if they squeeze the heck out of our hand)and you make a connection with that person - whether you want to or not!
All this processing occurs instantly - you do not have to ponder on it for hours to figure it out - your hand gives the information to your brain and instantly you know all these things as your brain instantly remembers a million handshakes before this one and correlates this one to all the others! Amazing!
But, here's something funky, there are people who would have you believe that this is all accidental - that something this amazing came about by accident! This is ludicrous - this has the mark of all kinds of meaning to it - we cannot help but connect with each other...all the time!
You see, God made you this way! So, the next time you shake someone's hand - don't just cling to the hand and think about it - the person whose hand you are shaking will thing you are a handshake stalker or something - but notice how amazing it is! Tell God how thankful you are that He has made you so wonderful and invite Him to join you in your day. You see, I choose to not go through my life as a shadow of who I am, simply trying to produce and consume. I choose to notice the wonder and amazingness all around me - this frees my mind and heart to something "More" - God has given all this and when I invite Him into the moment and thank Him for the amazingness, my life gains a new fullness and meaning than I never knew before!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Notice
Hi! I just realized that my last post actually was published as a past post because I started it before the followup one. So...look past the "uterus" entry to the next one for the post leading up to this week's More than more time - this Thursday, 5/27 - 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.
Hope to see you all there!
Hope to see you all there!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
From the heart...and the Uterus?
Well, we sure are a prolific group - seems we have a way of having lots of children among us - sure does keep things lively! This was the topic of discussion this last time we got together - we had the extreme pleasure of having Autumn Renee with us - she is the daughter of Jenna and ws only a couple days old last Thursday! She is beautiful and perfect and amazing and all the adjectives in the world seem to not do her any level of justice!
Well, we talked about how her life inside her mom had some pretty major rough patches, and things seemed dark and scary for a while - just like life so often does. But, there she was, amazing and delicate and such a beautiful little gift to her mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and More than more - and it becomes very clear that when God gets involved in the lives of people there is hope. So...as many people in our group and probably many of you who are reading this need to hear as you struggle wit the circumstances of life - the heartbreak and pain and dark days that we all face - there is hope. This is what we are all about at More than more - we want to notice the Autumn Renees of the world and begin to invite God into the moments of our lives - in this we find newness in life and meaning and purpose!
If you are living in the everyday American dream of get more, become more, be more, buy more, have more and you are finding it empty and shallow and lifeless and you long for something "More" or if you are just curious about such a strange group of people, then we would love for you to join us next Thursday, May 13th, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.
Hope to see you there!
Well, we talked about how her life inside her mom had some pretty major rough patches, and things seemed dark and scary for a while - just like life so often does. But, there she was, amazing and delicate and such a beautiful little gift to her mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and More than more - and it becomes very clear that when God gets involved in the lives of people there is hope. So...as many people in our group and probably many of you who are reading this need to hear as you struggle wit the circumstances of life - the heartbreak and pain and dark days that we all face - there is hope. This is what we are all about at More than more - we want to notice the Autumn Renees of the world and begin to invite God into the moments of our lives - in this we find newness in life and meaning and purpose!
If you are living in the everyday American dream of get more, become more, be more, buy more, have more and you are finding it empty and shallow and lifeless and you long for something "More" or if you are just curious about such a strange group of people, then we would love for you to join us next Thursday, May 13th, 6:45-8:00PM, at McAllister Recreation Center - just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.
Hope to see you there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
