Dardanus Calidus: The Hermit Crab

I'm home in West Virginia for the week, helping my family settle in to their new house. Last week I graduated college. I spent the week of graduation watching my roommates pack, and I also helped a few friends move in to their new apartments. In August, I'll be moving all my stuff from DC to store in West Virginia, while I spend a year at the University of Granada in Granada, Spain with Assemblies of God World Missions.

As I was moseying along in my beloved Honda Civic yesterday on my way to CVS, I switched into autopilot mode. 

Not to scare ya'll; I mean I was still driving the car. 

Do you ever do that? Surely you do. One moment you're driving along and thinking about the cars in front of you and the "separate the hazards" rule they teach you in Driver's Ed. Next thing you know, time passes and something snaps you out of this reverie that had apparently consumed you. You're suddenly hyper-aware of the traffic in your midst, and of your hand on the wheel. You realize you had been consumed with the thoughts or memories or images or to-do lists running through your your mind instead of the road. 

Ya, you know. You know what I'm talking about.

So anyhow yes, this happened to me. 

In my reverie, I kept returning to this image: hermit crabs. I realized that, well… we're a lot alike, hermit crabs and me. Hermit crabs change shells all the time. When the largest crab outgrows his shell, he moves into a new shell, and the second biggest crab moves in to his recently vacated shell, and so on. They move down the line, all the way down to the smallest hermit crab. 

It feels weird and awkward at first to try the new shell on for size, and sometimes I wonder if a bigger crab is gonna come along and steal my place. What if I'm not ready to move to a new country for a year? Shouldn't someone else more prepared and brave and stable and talented take the spot? What if I miss people too much? What if this dream is, well, just a dream? What if I fail?

What if.

What if I never said those two words again to express fear over what could be, but rather used them to speak potential over what is. 

What if failure was instead not trying at all? What if it's not about me? What if I'm just the means to the end? What if I'm living for the applause of nail-scarred hands? (Thank you Mark Batterson.) What if I need to vacate in order for others to rise up? 

I'm running afraid but contentedly toward the grandeur of adventure and purpose. 

Pursuing things that make me uncomfortable make me dependent on God, and give me more adventure than I could ever create for myself. 

Four years ago, God moved me up to AU when I thought I wasn't ready. They have been the most transformative years of my life. 

Now, I'm movin' on.

If I were chasing dreams, I'd be disappointed with the life of a hermit crab. 

No place would ever be big enough. 

So I guess that is the cool thing about chasing God. 

God-sized dreams may keep us on our toes, but they are never too small. 

Nothing to Lose, All to Gain

Before I share with you a poem I wrote called Speak, I want to share with you some words of Rumi. They've been a framework for my life the past few months, in everything-- in my relationship with God, in my view of myself and my hopes and fears and control issues, in my roommate relationships, in my relationship with my boyfriend. The words are simply these:

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built up against it.

This, combined with a TED Talk by Brene Brown called The Power of Vulnerability, led me to writing Speak. It makes me scared to share it with ya'll (and reciting it at an Open Mic a couple weeks ago was one of the most nerve-wracking things I've ever done) but I know ya'll need to hear it. Though I still struggle almost daily with some of the things I wrote about, I'm on my way to being wholehearted. I'm learning that vulnerability has a purpose more than just talking about what I've been through. Not only does my own vulnerability help me build deeper relationships with other people; it also is a gift I give to others. 

Today, my gift to you is my vulnerability. Today, I say where I've been, and where I'll go no more. I say that where you've been matters. I say that you don't have to be there any more. Today, I want to say to you that YOU MATTER.
You are loved.
You are worthy.
You are worthy of relationships, of love, of wholeness.
And you matter.

Here it is. Enjoy.





__________________________________________

Speak.

You know you have the words.

Stop feeding yourself lies—empty calories, lies disguised.

Speak.

Tell Me more about you, daughter.

Speak to your heart, tell it to feel.

Speak to your heart.

It pumps blood

            rhythmically

            regularly

            predictably

Till the day you die and

Come here with me

Forever.

Speak.

Get to know yourself.

Come to love yourself.

Get acquainted with your inner beauty

            inner purpose

            inner soul

Get to know yourself. Get to know every nook and cranny, every hope and fear, every dream and wrinkle and crevice. Wear it out, wear it in. Get to know yourself. Get to know yourself like you know the stairs that lead up past your parents’ bedroom, how you know the second and fourth steps squeak louder than the rest and avoid them skillfully when you come in past curfew and—

Get to know yourself. Get to know every inner working, every colour palette, every hue and shade. Paint with them, and don’t be afraid to mess up. Art is perfected by mistakes and, there are no mistakes in art so

Get to know yourself.

Speak.

Speak.

Throw away the sharp words, the words sharp as the knives you keep beside the stovetop oven. Throw away the adjectives and adverbs and euphemisms and reveries you hold in that brilliant mind of yours but use as weapons of destruction.

If you refuse them means of edification, then throw them out, for

As they say “one man’s trash is another’s treasure” and

My darling, you are no trash.

you

are

treasure.

Speak.

You have words.

You have value.

Now, SPEAK.

Speak, and may it be an overflow of your heart.

Speak, and the words will come.

You will not be silent forever.

Speak.

Claim a spot, the spot I’ve saved for you, in this moment, at this table.

Speak.

This is not a fairytale, this is more than dreams. There is a reality that exists far beyond the sovereign state of your land deemed Predetermined Possibility.

And your name is not Cinderella.

At midnight you will not dissolve, along with your pumpkin carriage, into a life that relegates you to a cellar with rats and brooms.

Speak.

The only pumpkin in your life is that one you picked last autumn

when the sun was high and the air was crisp and

you frolicked in the field eagerly, expectantly;

acutely aware that you were alive, you were free, you had air running through your nostrils and through your hair and across your skin.

Don’t you remember? I was there.

Don’t you remember? I was there in Cape Town, too, at the table that night one year and thirty-eight days ago?

I was there in the chair, and in the night air

as you counted the stars [lost count],

as you listened to Charlie Fink and

got chills and

were dumbfounded—amazed!—I’d walked with you this far, carried you this far

on My back, on the cross

—amazed  you were worth it all.

You are worth it all.

So speak.

Speak!

You are not your own.

Speak, for others who listen.

Speak, for others who are deaf. Numb. Mute.

Speak, for your words are laced with MY power, MY mercy, MY grace, MY love—

the stamp of a Savior more powerful than any drug or law or lie.

Speak, for your words will rescue.

Speak of how I saved you

Speak of where you were, where you are no more.

            On the phone, 3 A.M., freshman year, suicidal;

            On the floor, by the toilet, trying to throw up dinner but too scared to actually

gag;

            On the bed, impassioned, carried away by the desire for bodies and not for

hearts, blinded by the need for Agape love you most desire;

            On the scale, convinced you were nothing more than the number you

weighed—a number that only got better as it got smaller.

You are worth more alive than dead

You are worth more out in the world than crumpled on the bathroom floor

You are worth more when loved as Christ loved the church and

You are worth more than a low number on a scale, ‘cause

the only time a low number wins is in golf

and you don’t play golf.

My child, speak.

For though you’ve walked through the shadow in that valley,

YOU ARE REDEEMED.

Redeemed, for a purpose.

Not only redeemed, but restored.

And others need you.

Give the gift of vulnerability.

I am sending you

I am with you

You are my child, and I love you.

Now go—and Meredith,

Speak.

reflections on a park bench in the 52 degrees February sun

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” ― Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

Today, I'm thankful there's more to living than just getting by.
Today, I'm thankful there's more to living than just being happy.
Today, I'm thankful there's more to living than just me.

I'm thankful for the beauty around me, inside of me, running through me.
I'm thankful for my breath, for the capabilities of my mind, for the capacity for change and growth and transformation.
I'm thankful that God made us beautiful.

Today, I'm thankful there's more to living than just getting by.
Today, I'm thankful there's more to living than just being happy.
Today, I'm thankful there's more to living than just me.