Gentleness

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This morning I drove toward the sun like a moth flies toward the lamp. I was reminded how gently the sun comes out everyday, so slow and patient. I lifted my hands up as I sang a song that has been my theme song lately, Brokenness Aside by All Sons and Daughters (if you haven't heard it, just Youtube it real quick). My word for the week is Gentle. I’ve challenged the young ladies in our Friday lunch book club to choose 1 word every week. 1 word in which we independently attempt to become more of every day. 1 word that might be challenging to put on every morning, but might add a sparkle to our wardrobe. They choose such hard words every week – Vulnerable, Inviting, Engage. The experiences they share when we meet every Friday are so fun. I’ve been so inspired by them.

As the weeks begin their own dwindling spiral to a cliff’s edge, I have begun dwindling toward the edge of insanity. My mind cannot stop, I wake up at night recalculating the 1 million and 2 things left to do before tearing away the final sheet before June. With this creeping insanity that has encircled me singing it’s own ear-piercing chants, I have become less gentle and more harsh. I have become less compassionate and more selfish. Less engaged and more autonomous. Less patient and more inattentive. Less forgiving and more hostile. So I’ve chosen to seek to be Gentle. More Gentle to myself and those I see everyday. This is why today I have locked myself away into my house. I painted, read, signed up for another race, bought a train ticket, a plane ticket, and found a sub for a few days of vacation next month. 25 was a blurry number in the making. I’m no where near perfect, most days I strive for that, but I’m too insecure, I’m too afraid. Plainly, I’m too of-this-world.

As I look at this week Gentle will be an enormous challenge. We have our dinner theater this Thursday. Sometimes I’m not sure I will live to see it. After Thursday I will pursue what I most fear. The future. I fear it because I cannot control it. I so desperately want to, but there is nothing I can plan. But I trust that He is joining me on this new journey.

I have chosen to leave my home, leave my friends and my family here in the Northwest. Several years ago I made a vow with a favorite friend that I would do whatever it took to prepare the world for the best thing they could know - eternal love. Promises are promises and He is preparing me to start and complete graduate school and move overseas to continue preparing. It breaks my heart into 100 pieces to leave these faces that I have grown deeply to love in the past 3 months. It makes me scared that I might move into another abyss, which I have just trekked from. I am afraid to hope for too much, because my hopes have been extinguished before. With all of this fear I have lost a part of myself. Somewhere in the dark, I think she is there. Somewhere there is a woman who is a daughter, perhaps a best friend. A spark of something good, not perfect, but getting brighter; a dream grown large; the right thing at the right time. A dancer, a singer, a thinker, a truth-teller. A connoisseur of all the things this wide world has to offer. A spirit that never stops seeking, a mind that is of its own, a heart, which has been hurt, but bears a strong resemblance to a daffodil: it always flowers again. She wakes with anticipation. Finds new hills to climb and when she begins to climb she finds momentum, more than she imagined. And there is Someone who promises her adventure, new places, different views, a chance to get lost in this journey, whom she is growing to love.

25 is new. It’s awkward. Calluses and scars have prevented roots from dropping anchors. Instead of protection, these calluses have been more like chains. But it’s time for a long soaking, like a long evening in the tub. Time to remove and hang this bravery up for the evening and soak for hours in this gentle, warm and frightening love.