Blob

In church yesterday, we were looking at what is called 'The Blob Tree':

Our challenge was to look at where we felt we were spiritually in terms of following after the purposes of God and where we desired to be.

Which one do you feel like?

This is how I felt:

The person desperately grabbing onto, clinging onto the tree…a little way up there, but with so much still left to climb.

Situations in the past six months have seen me worry about finances, wonder about our future family, wish for healing for our current family, wistfully hope for a future job.

My hands raw and blistered from just trying to cling onto this tree, something stronger than me.

Barely surviving. Just about holding on.

My favourite part of my birthday is the cards/messages I receive. The narcissistic side of me wants to know what people think of me. But the sensitive and probably slightly insecure part of me wants, no, needs to be affirmed by words. Needs to feel the love, especially when far from home, that I am cared about, considered and matter in this world.

“Thank you for being you. Someone who refuses to settle for anything less. For fighting the good fight with the right gloves on, and for patiently waiting for the right ring to step into. I’m one of many in your corner. I truly believe in you!”

“It’s been an encouragement to us to watch you really support and love Steve through this rough time! You’ve really been a great role model.”

“I cannot thank you enough for the impact you had on my life.”

“You are the most enthusiastic person we know. You love everything and everyone.”

“Thank you for all your constant words of wisdom! You’ve spoken loads into my life and helped this young man grow!!”

“Although I don’t really know you, I know that you are so gifted in writing and having so much fun with friends and you are so full of love and joy!”

“You challenge and inspire me to be more just by being who you are.”

And my favourite:

“I know that you are in an awkward stage in your life, but I just want to say that it is no mistake that you don’t have a job. I honestly have seen you change more these past few months than over the past few years. You are in just the place God wants you to be in.”

When you look back at the blob tree, at the person I picked, you notice something special:

Beneath the clinging yellow blob, is another blob.

Streching an arm upwards

Looking for a way to get higher

Needing help to get to the next level

And in the frantic desperate clinging of the yellow blob, the green blob notices something that they want, something that they aspire to, something that they want to be a part of.

People are messy. And it isn’t restricted to the peeing, pooping and puking stages of our infant years.

It is unleashed into the emotional turmoil of relationships, the financial craziness of being a “grown-up”, the frustrating tangling of not being the person, not having the character we want to have right now.

But somehow despite that being messy, despite each feeling as if we don’t have all our stuff sorted out, we look to oneanother

For help.

Solace.

Guidance.

Support.

Words of affirmation.

We are not just blobs, fatty messes, with an indistinct form. We are not blobs of ill-defined shapes.

We are blobs, spots that make a mark on this world.

That make a difference.

That in a word, deed, action could profoundly impact someone’s life without even realizing.

That are used by Father God to bring love and hope to others.

He is not ignorant of the miserable mess of our lives.

Rather, He uses us in spite of our messiness.

You, little yellow blob, are important to the tree.

Feminists

Every since the days of the Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, setting fire to mailboxes and smashing windows to gain the right to vote, us women have fought to be equal.

Equal rights. 

Equal opportunities.

Equal with men. 

Though we are from Venus and they are from Mars, we desire to be just like them, work just as hard, be just as tough.

If it’s possible for men, it is possible for women.

Watching ‘The Apprentice’ either stateside or in England, the longest surviving females are either

the most ruthless (backstabbing anyone on their team)

or

the most risqué (willing to pose half naked on a bed for a men’s clothing advertisement).

While listening to Destiny’s Child ‘Independent Women’ and reading the Feminine Mystique, we have bought into the lie that we have to do it all.

Have the A* in school.

Have the glittering extra-curricular activity list.

Have the degree.

Have the princess-themed white wedding.

Have the businessman husband who modeled through university.

Have the career we dreamed of before we are 30.

Have the beautiful children who everyone positively comments on.

Have the hot body that makes other women jealous.

Have the fresh bread baking in the oven.

Have the beautiful house in the suburbs of the city.

We want to have it all.

We don’t want to be equal.

That is obvious because we reached that goal long ago and yet we still desperately strive to achieve.

We want to be more than equal.

We overcompensate putting in the long hours at work, home, with friends. Our calendars are bursting at the seems with coffee dates, lunches, parties, weddings, business meetings, after-school activities, extra-credit reports, volunteer opportunities…

As I sat on the bus between Birmingham and Oxford earlier this week (driven incidentally, by a woman) I enjoyed watching the countryside, the beautiful fields, and reading my magazine (it may or may not have been ‘Closer’).

And I felt guilty.

I felt guilty about relaxing. Enjoying life. Looking at the scenery. Taking time our to think. Being inspired by creative surroundings.

When people have asked me about my job situation, I have felt ashamed describing how I’m not employed and spent my days writing, babysitting, teaching English, spending time with friends, and seeking volunteer opportunities. I feel as if I should be a professional cake baker and my house should be immaculate and I should be picking the best of the seven offers of work I have received.

Continually people ask about when the first (and potentially only if labour is as painful as everyone says) Miller baby is coming along. I am fully aware of how hot and amazing this child will be, and feel that pressure that if I’m not working, then I should start churning the babies out, justifying my staying at home status, feeling (re)productive.

One of my favourite sociological concepts to discuss is ‘body dysmorphia’. Seen painfully in those who suffer from eating disorders or have had multiple cosmetic surgeries, it is when there is a perceived defect in our physical appearance thus we are unable to see ourselves the way we truly are.

We don’t know who we truly are.

Unmarried at 27 or {gasp!!} at 30 and granny is frantic with worry that we will be a spinster on the shelf with a house full of cats.

Disney repeatedly projects the notion that there is something wrong with women who remain unmarried and childless, turning them into the baddies (think Cruella de Vil, or Ursula).

Not on the fast track at work, or not getting enough promotions and we panic that we have wasted our life and have nothing to show for it.

We don’t know who are we.

We don’t know that we are beautiful.

We don’t know that we each have an individual life plan.

We don’t know that we have a purpose far beyond what we can even dream.

We don’t know that we are shouldn’t compare ourselves.

We don’t know that we are free from judging words.

We don’t know that we aren’t expected to do it all.

We don’t know that we are loved by a heavenly Father ordering our everyday steps.

We are intelligent.

Let us not be dumb.

Dumb enough to be fooled by the modern lie that

we are not a complete woman

we are not enough

we are not equal

until we are working 12 hour days at the office, with straight hair, a Vogue wardrobe on a shoestring budget and a house out of a Victorian magazine, all while home-schooling our perfect children.

Be who you are.

Happily working part-time.

With one child at home.

Single and loving it.

With curly hair.

Unable to cook.

Teaching difficult kids for love not money.

Creating your own style.

Whoppi Goldberg said this morning: “Take a little time today to enjoy the view”.

Because maybe,

Just maybe,

That’s what it means to have it “all”. 

Winter

Researchers have proved that November 1^st is the most depressing day of the year.

66% of the population feel depressed as they struggle: It’s cold, the days are darker, and you’re miserable because it’s the first day after you that beautiful night when you got an extra hour’s sleep.

Besides the excitement of wearing your cuddly seasonal coat for the first time, Christmas dinner and a debauched New Years Eve, there isn’t much to look forward to in Winter. By its very definition it is a dark, rainy, cold, bleak time where all you want to do is hide away under your duvet covers sipping hot chocolate and come up again in spring like a hibernating creature.

Life is winter.

Your excitement at moving into a new house is overshadowed by the fact that your husband is still working in your old city, and it will be a couple more weeks before you join him…

…Him?! A Husband?! I’m so far from a husband it’s ridiculous! If I have to smile fakely at one more Christmas princess themed wedding I might just scream...

Screaming kid, all through the night never stops, when will I get to sleep and return to a sense of normality?...

Normal. There is nothing normal about living in a different country to your friends and family. Nothing normal about feeling unsupported and confused and unloved…

Unloved. Cast off. Ditched. What kinda friend was she?!

She can’t be ill. Terminal? No. She had so much life. I’m not ready for her to

Curl

Up

And

Die.

That’s how we feel.

The problems trail behind us like a grocery list.

The pain we feel is as raw as the day we first got cut.

The people around you just don’t understand.

I hurt right now. So much and for so many reasons.

But I know you are hurting too.

And that makes it better.

Not in a morbid, “Ha ha, sucks to be be you” kinda way.

But in a, “This is who we are as humanity” kinda way.

Broken

Desperate people

Coping

Barely

Each day

With the trials that come along our way.

Sometimes we feel that we are the only one.

But we’re not.

We’re not so special that we have been isolated and set apart for all the worst things in the world to storm and rain over our heads.

Even though it feels like that.

I love winter for the sheer fact that despite the cold, snow and rain, I can put on my bright coloured sugar boots with leg warmers, a cosy hat and scarf, and go outside

And revel in it.

I turn the winter

Into my wonderland.

I don’t ignore the weather.

I find joy in it.

I find others who are inside, depressed by the darkened landscape of their lives,

And I invite them to come out and enjoy what they can.

We don’t ignore our problems.

We don’t forget them.

We just realize that there is more to our life than them.

Some of my problems will be better in a day.

Others will take weeks, months…maybe years.

But I have been promised by Father God that we can be sure that every detail in our lives of God is worked into something good.

Every detail.

Every tear.

Ever snowflake of winter.

Worked into something.

And that something will be good.

You can always find colour in winter. 

Photos courtesy of Paul Green, an AMAZING photographer!!