The lake

It’s funny. Last Sunday’s church service was about taking a pause. Living in the margins and all of that. And today…I’m at the lake.

I’ve wanted to go to the lake for a while. There was a point recently where if I could have figured out the feasibility of it I might have moved to the lake. At that point, I was running away though. This time I’m just living in the gap, the pause, the break of life where some things might be figured out. Where I hope to escape with some peace. And maybe even some sanity.

Last week was rough on the soul. Nothing specifically happened, and God protected me from all the things that could have been so much worse. I just came to realize where I really was with life, the parts I’d pushed down. The disappointments I tried to ignore.

I heard so much of my story in Annie F Down’s Remember God and it broke my heart. (The book is so good. My heart was already broken. I just realized it had been bleeding out on the floor for a while.). I needed that though. I needed to face the reality of my life, the good and the bad. The disappointment and the joy.

God grabbed me by the hand and said “look, it’s there. We’re gonna walk through it. Stop hiding. Stop running.” And so I’m at the lake. Not running but pausing.

And I already feel better. I started listening to Remember God again yesterday. This time I heard it differently. This time it gave me hope. This time I hear the promise not the pain. This time I know that God is kind. I know that he wants what is best for me. I don’t know what that looks like, and it still hurts in some ways but I know it will get better. I have hope.

My heart is still wounded. Life has sucker punched it a lot over the years. I realized this week how truly contradictory my life is. I love fall and all the things, but when I really think about it, really bad stuff happened in my life in the fall. The quote that everyone uses to love fall, “I don’t want to live in a world without Octobers” holds mixed feelings for me. Cuz my world changed one October.

But yet, fall has my heart still. Maybe part of the reason I love it is because even if, God still gives the gift of beauty even in death. The leaves die, and yet they are such beautiful colors. Right now, sitting on the deck overlooking the lake, hearing nature (and oddly crickets that normally terrify me…I know that’s weird) is so peaceful. It’s cool but not cold. A squirrel has been throwing acorns at me. All is right with the world. If only for right now.

And my brother, who is all the things I’m not, spontaneous, loud, carefree, just pulled into the boat dock. And my soul is at peace with all the things.

We will work on some soul stuff tomorrow but for tonight, my soul is breathing in the good stuff.