Love:: life:: why?:: regrets:: and grace...

I've been thinking about stuff a lot lately, particularly with regards to how this year has panned out. Quite honestly, it's been quite the year from hell. It's funny because prior to this year, if you asked me if I could go back and change anything about my life, I wouldn't have changed anything. Everything that happened, regardless of how shitty it was, I thought of as something more to add to my experiences. But, as it happens, if I could go back and start this year over, I really would. I'd convince myself that home is where my real family is and go whereever they were. Maybe if you asked me in a couple of years whether or not I'd change all the happenings of this year, I might say no, but right now, I don't want it.

Such is life I guess. Maybe I lacked all the discipline in the world. Maybe I lacked the humility I needed to get on with what I needed to get on with. Maybe I lacked 'need'. I've always been a bit headstrong. Some people mightn't notice it but those who know me well, know that I'm quite stubborn. It comes from my mother.
I can walk with people for a while but for some reason, I always feel this great need to venture out on my own. It pisses some people off because one minute I'm with them, and the next I'll have disappeared (most probably across town). Then I get a text message, "DAMN LANI!!! WHERE THEY HECK DID YOU GO?!?! I HATE WHEN YOU DO THAT!!" "uh... sorry. I got distracted. I'm coming." It was really quite an empty apology because I'm not usually sorry. It's just what I do.

I was reading "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning yesterday. He retells Morton Kelsey's story of a traveller who comes to the edge of this huge abyss. There's nothing but a tight rope across it. Then suddenly he sees this acrobat dude coming across the tight rope. As the dude gets closer, the traveller notices that he has a wheelbarrow with him. When the acrobat gets to the end and the traveller finds himself standing side by side with him, the traveller applauds.
"Did you like that??"
"Yeah!!"
"Do you believe I can do it again?"
"Yeah totally!"
"Ok, get in the wheelbarrow."
So what does the traveller do? I'm not actually sure. I've never read the story.
It seems so easy to say I trust God. If he were to wheel me a wheelbarrow on a tightrope, I'm not sure I'd actually get in. It's really quite the story my life. My non-christian friends know I'm christian. But I find myself disliking typical christians so much that I try my best not to act like them. My opinions of everything are actually quite moderate but I express them in absolute extremes. I imagine myself with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. God's walking around trying to find us. I come out of hiding when God calls out, "Where did you go?" "uhh sorry God, I got distracted." And then I imagine myself walking home alongside the prodigal son. We've both tested the waters and found them too murky to swim in. And our old man welcomes us home.

I think these last couple of weeks have been the first time I've actually felt any sense of remorse about the last year and what's happened. I guess I had some things to learn. I guess I learned. I guess I learned what isolation is. I learned what it is to have people actually hate me. Some of it was with good reason. Not all of it but some of it certainly was. I recall lying on the shop floor in Samoa crying my eyes out and screaming at God, asking him where the heck he went. I get this picture now of people at a gym.
"Ima do some weights. Will you spot me?
"Yeah sure."
Perhaps God's something of a spotter. We have to carry the weights because that's how we get stronger. But he spots us. It feels kinda cheesey thinking about these analogies but maybe that's what God is like. He's pretty damn gracious.

I'm ok. I have a lot of regrets about this year. I regret allowing myself to fall apart. People always tell me, "Lani it wasn't your fault that stuff happened." No I don't take all the responsibility for all that happening. But I do take definite responsibility for losing my composure. When bad stuff happens, I tend to lose my head, and turn to all the wrong things, whatever I can get my hands on. Why is this not a good idea? Then I isolate myself for a few weeks and I don't want to see or talk to anyone. My friends are pretty gracious people. I walk away and I come back and it's like nothing has ever happened. Always they say, "hey Lani! Welcome back!"

Yay for::
God:: grace:: friends:: love:: wheelbarrows:: acrobats:: spotters:: learning:: welcomes:: ragamuffins:: open communication lines:: adventures::...