The sun rises spreading pinks and purples across the midwestern sky as I crawl out of bed ready for the daily routine. It feels good to be back into a routine and not throwing my little mystic, free-spirited beingness all over the place like glitter and then hoping I can make sense of where it all landed.
I still believe there is a beauty to that girl who loved her "free-spirited glitter days." I woke up with no plan on most days and I let myself be drawn, like a downstream river, to whatever and wherever suited my energy for that day.
To break free of the rigid lifestyle I lived before I let that wild-hearted girl awake felt like a dream come true!
But not all dreams coming true reveal a truth you expected.
You would think that the free-spirited lifestyle would be less exhausting, yeah? More rest. More play. Less rules & responsibilities.
Though, I discovered that after awhile it took more work for me to clean up the glitter than it did for me make a plan for the day, commit & follow through.
It turns out that it didn't matter what lifestyle I was living--free-spirited or rigid business spirited-- my efforts were never enough.
I was drowning in a turbulent sea of pushing and proving in both lifestyles and I thought "I better just keep swimming right?"
I believed in that saying, "You got yourself into this mess alone, you better get yourself out."
But the reality is that you can't swim when you're actually drowning. That's the point of drowning after all. And when you're drowning, you have no ability to pull yourself out alone. It's impossible.
So while I thought I was swimming towards some grand realization or a light on the other side of the tsunami, I was actually under the water, blacked out & slowly being pulled to the bottom of the deep blue sea.
On another note, not only was I unaware that I was drowning but instead of praying for what I needed, I was thinking of everyone else around me that needed my prayers "more than me."
I continously hung onto the thought that my issues were not as rough as other people had it and I better just "stop being a spoiled brat."
I heard a song lyric the other day that spoke about the notion of comparing our traumas to one another. I think the world is really feeling the weight of "We don't have it as bad as the people in Ukraine right now, let's not complain."
But in this song, the lyric was simple "I kind of feel like two things can be sad." #ajr
The reality is exactly that--two things can be sad.
The fact that your business hasn't taken off yet is sad. So is a war. Both are sad.
While I prayed out "just keep swimming towards the light" to my friends who I deemed had it worse than me, mine was slowly fading.
Towards the end, it got really dark and the thought crossed my mind
"Is anyone praying for me though?"
But hey, it was the best drowning I could have ever drowned because of what pulled me out of it: my inadequacies & my weaknesses.
It forced me to ask for help from the one being who is definitely always praying on my behalf.
Like most people, however, I had no idea how to "rely on Jesus" or "ask for help."
I barely knew how to ask for support from a human incarnate, how was I going to manage asking Jesus, in the figment of my imagination, for help???
Well, here's how it went folks.
"Um...hey? So I'm speaking to Jesus...I'm, uh, can you get me Jesus I mean? Like well, anyways, I guess I need help from that guy so can you get him for me? Are you here?"
It's still painfully awkward for me to speak out loud to Jesus but it is getting better. I mean, the reality is that I hate speaking out loud to humans in general so you can imagine how uncomfortable it is to speak directly to the guy we call the King!
Thank God, no pun intended, for the trash bin icon on voice memos otherwise I would have sent some really ridiculous voice memos to people in the past! It takes a lot of practice for me to formulate speaking words.
It's easier when I write because I visually see the words forming and this makes sense in my brain. When I can't see the word, the message disappears and then the whole sentence is gone and my brain is swimming rapidly through an alphabet soup trying to make words that I've already ate.
Nevertheless, I've learned how to speak directly to Jesus as if he is in the room. I've learned that all of my needs are worthy of being brought to the feet of Jesus; even the less glamorizing ones where I put myself in a hole and now I'm realizing I need help getting out of it.
I've accepted the awkwardness for what it is. I've recognized, "It's just me and Jesus in the room. Why am I tripping? There's no shame here."
It's easier to talk to Jesus in my socially fiddly ways than it is to talk to humans. Humans carry judgement and facial changes and tone of voice says it all, whether we recognize it or not.
And it's not that any of those natural reactions are bad to have as humans...if we did not have body language reactions, than we might as well be robots...alas, this is all to say that talking to Jesus is a lot easier than I thought.
In fact, talking to Jesus every morning has become a part of my 'less-than but still a bit of glitter' routine. It's comforting because He's solid, like a backboard on a basketball hoop and even though my aim is terrible, He makes me feel like I've got a little Jordan in my blood, you know? Take the shot.
And it's hilarious and downright silly because the shot isn't even this life changing opportunity I'm aiming for. The shot is always TODAY. I just want to aim and make it through today Jesus. What ya got for me?
The space of communication in the morning allows me to get my anxieties off of my chest in a wholesome way before I begin the day.
The words hit the backboard of Jesus, he feedbacks them to me in a way that brings peace... I catch the ball, I aim for the hoop and what would you know? I make the shot and now I know that I've already won the game and there's no need to throw any glitter; I can simply just begin my day with spirit.
Amen and ta-da!🙏