Deep Waters- I get up to write at 5 a.m.

 You can read the updated and edited version of this post on my medium, MeginLeaWrites. I typically edit and make changes to my posts there, but don't always follow up here.

Here is a direct link to the actual piece.

I’m on the over-priced yet completely worth it playmat, surrounded by some candles, and one flameless LED tealight. It’s 6 a.m. Jesse is asleep on the couch about eleven feet away. Abraham walks back and forth between my lap and the water bowl and his food. Jirem’s in my bed, our bed, snuggled with Eli, and Eden is asleep in her and Eli’s room in her crib. I’m sure you have some opinions about our current sleeping arrangements. That’s nice.  

I’ve got about 30 minutes before Eden’s wake-up call to me. I’m reading Psalm 77….yesterday I read John, and the day before. I don’t have a specific spot I’m reading right now. The season has been dry. I’m reading where I can get anything, feel something, find something. Asking God to speak to my heart and mind and break my heart of stone. I’m praying about how I yelled at my husband and my child yesterday, lost my temper… about things which were certainly justifiably things I should detest and they should grow out of and stop being ridiculous about, but I’m praying about my ability to endure and love better. Praying for their protection against my temper which climbs its way out of my woundedness on a daily basis. I’m thinking about how much I don’t deserve love and how much God lavished me yesterday through a young woman who has as many reasons as anyone else to be sad, lonely, or bitter about life but chooses to trust in her God and lavish love and pronounce peace and blessings over others. I’m wondering why it took me 13 years in New York to meet someone as utterly Christ-like in this way, at least, as her. I’m wondering when I stopped being like her and became something less. Indeed, I remember when I was her…when I moved here. Indeed that is why so many looked at me, blinking their eyes widely, and saying “who…no….WHAT …ARE you?” When I stopped being someone who Jesse described as “well, not like his brother had met before…” and not necessarily in a good way…because people did not know how to take that type of raw just utter joy in the Lord perhaps. I realize this type of kindness, sheer joy, love, exuberance, can get worn down and out quite quickly in NYC, especially if you live in a small, exclusive, community where faults are often masked as just the way things are, and criticism is part of the cultural norm much more than encouragement to be unique and different. Oh the need for diverse community experience. Oh the great need to expose ourselves to ways outside our own and find the goodness in them, to be confronted with discomfort and learn to adapt instead of asking the ones who make us uncomfortable to adapt to us. I digress.

I’m reading Psalm 77. “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” I feel God’s way has been through the sea, through great waters.

You’ve paused [here we go again- Megin is incredibly unhappy, is she not?] I realize I read that way. I must. I must read as someone who is quite unhappy….constantly talking about the great waters, the suffering, the pain, the struggle, the turmoil, the new things that break each week, or old things, like the stove. Better stated, the new challenges each week, whether they are new things or old things. The people who break me, hurt me. The recurring need to mount up, bear up, in faith, and soldier on…wearing armor….the shield of FAITH, as Eli likes to sing out loudly. Sword of thuuuh……SPIRIT! Helmet aaaaaaahv……SALVATION! Belt aaaaaaaaahv TRUTH!!!! He gets the others confused. We’re working on it 😊.

Am I unhappy? Yeah. Sometimes. Am I happy? Yeah. Other times. So overall what am I? Oh, I don’t know. Normal? Honest? I don’t know. Moody? I guess. Hormonal?? Probably. My sister reminds me every day that I’m still breast feeding and so my hormones are out of whack, and the way I feel is really just because of hormones. Maybe. But honestly, I can’t say that I feel soooo much different today, while breastfeeding, than I did during times when I wasn’t pregnant or breastfeeding or pre-menstrual or anything. I’m pretty sure that most of this is just me. Which causes people to message me on the side and say “Are you okay Megin? I’m a little concerned….” And then I double-take, “holy crap. What all have I said. Do I really look this insane?? Am I seriously off my rocker….reread the statuses….check the blog updates…. Ummmm okay nothing that my counselor hasn’t validated or that doesn’t actually make logical sense…or have an explanation for why I might feel this way right now.” I guess just not everyone shares this type of thing, and that’s fine. I get that. “Okay. It’s fine. Just confirm that you’re okay.” And then another “Oh- em- geeee MEGIN! THANK YOU FOR YOUR POST. YOUR NORMALIZE LIFE FOR ME!” Ahh, okay. There are others out there who are apparently living on the same planet upon which I’m living. Do things make me cry? Let me rephrase that: Do I cry easily? Yes. Probably because I care about what people think, or about what people are going through, too much. But also because people are not as great of communicators as they like to think they are, and aren’t as comforting and caring as they like to think they are either, even when they think they are trying to be. People often communicate in less than ideal ways, out of their own woundedness they don’t even know they have. That’s okay. I’m not trying to lay judgment. I’m just saying, the problem isn’t always “Megin is too sensitive.” Sometimes the problem is “Someone else is pretty insensitive or needs to grow.” And I don’t really mean to target anyone in particular. I just mean, basically, everyone. Okay. So maybe that targets people in particular, but not any one more than another. I think we’re all on our paths to growing. I love it that I have friends today that I was sooooo not that close with say 10 years ago, who used to make me cry when they talked to me a lot, and who I probably annoyed the hell out of, but today we are close. They have grown in their communication and empathy or perhaps sensitivity, crafting their discourse. I don’t know. They’ve grown somehow. And me? I have grown in my ….. I don’t know…. What’s the word for calming the F down and being more rational and less emotional?? And not taking everything completely personal? Or at least UNDERSTANDING why I take it that way?

“Oh no. You haven’t grown in that Megin. You are still wayyyy too emotional and take everything personal.” If you are thinking that, I would challenge that you might be one of those who still needs to grow in your communication, empathy, and crafting of discourse. [Cue someone unfriending me at this point, or taking major offense. It’s okay. I said I’m growing in taking things less personal].

We are people made in God’s image. That’s enough that we should work at loving each other. And loving another person means stopping to take the time to ask “what in me is possibly hurtful, harmful, judgmental, not okay?” I think I’m off topic now. This is not where I was headed. This happens…often.

“Your path was through the waters.” That is God’s path. It just is. 2020 is evidence that God leads the world through deep waters. Undoubtedly. Our faith must allow room for mourning, grieving, and then mounting up on wings like eagles.

In “Dog School,” (aka homeschool…aka my version of Classical Conversations mixed with learning to read and do math), we are going over the fruit of the spirit. Explaining joy to a five-year-old is not that simple. I want to be real with my son. I do not want to give him candy-coated answers. So for joy, we talked about how it is a sense, a feeling you get that turns into a state of mind, of comfort, or peace, or security, or the opposite of whatever the negative emotion is even in the MIDST of the circumstance that is producing the negative emotion. Try laying that on a 5-year-old. Thankfully my 5-year-old, while he still confuses 10, 11, 12, 20, and 21, is RIDICULOUSLY verbal and on his way to being most worthy of being a therapist to most adults I know.

We talked about the movie we watched the other day, and how he was scared, but then how he felt better and could watch it, even though it was scary, because I was sitting by him and holding him. He felt braver, though it was still scary, he knew he would be okay. I said, “yeah, that is kinda like joy. Strength in the face of the hardness still being there….” This ability comes from a security of something bigger than us there with us. Joy actually comes from God. We talked about how I can be sad about something, something big and tragic, but then hug my children, and snuggle them, and feel joy and thankfulness for them, and strength to endure, even though the bad circumstance is still there. Then Eli offered up, on his own, that sometimes, he feels sad about something and prays to God. And sometimes he prays to God when we don’t even know it, or if he hears mommy and daddy argue, and that he just feels better then, in his heart. He feels comforted. Right or wrong, I LEAPT ON THAT ONE, and said “THAT my son, is joy- strength from God.” He said “Yeah, because God is with me, and so I know it will be okay.” If I can teach my son that no matter the deep waters, God will be with him and he can endure….that is enough for me. I don’t mean that I won’t teach him practical skills for coping and enduring, but wow…the assurance, that he will survive?? That is priceless. I didn’t always grow up with that sense of stability. I grew up thinking, “Yes, God will be with me and it will be okay, but only if I pray enough and make sure I follow God’s rules.” Ugh. Bullshit. Read about the people of Israel. Read about the disciples. Read about the early church. Read about the great saints. They messed the crap up…a lot. Quit preaching works and obedience people. Start preaching about the God whose footprints are unseen but THERE through deep waters!

And remember, that means, you can talk about how tragic you feel, or sad, or unhappy. You can say things, even things that will cause people to message you and ask if you are mentally stable? Or message one another and say, “I think she’s not mentally stable.” Trust God to determine your mental state. Look to God to secure your mental state. And live in the midst of the great waters which evoke a great deal of various emotional responses….daily. A myriad, often. Sometimes, we go through seasons of still waters. Oh those seasons are wonderful. I love them. I rest. I soak up the sun and just sleep while getting a great tan. But in time, I actually talk to God a lot less. Maybe by the time I’m 90, if I live that long, Lord-willing, I will talk with God as much through the times of still, serene waters as I do during the times of deep waters. And maybe I can encourage some people to join me on this journey… actually, I’m pretty convinced most of you are actually on the journey already, know it or not. It resides below the surface. It’s there. Open up… you don’t even have to dig that deep. “What? You prefer the surface life, you say? Okay. That’s fine.” But, in my opinion, I feel like I should warn you, it won’t last. Those deep waters….they eventually bubble up, burst forth, break through; You are no dam my friend. And that’s fine. When your water breaks, whether it be a trickle or a gush, (like my analogy there? All the people who haven’t had babies or aren’t fathers to babies may not get it) I’ll be here. Life will be on the verge of being birth from you. IT’S INCREDIBLE….literally. Painful? Sure. WORTH IT? TOTALLY! and I’ll hang in with you down that path…because that is where God is- through the sea, through the great waters, leading us like a flock, footprints unseen. Amen.