Category Archives: My Story

The Voice

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Sometimes I think I would be quite a decent person if I could just shut my brain off.

I assume that’s where the voice resides, constantly churning out that inner dialogue that clogs my head and embitters my heart. Take, for instance, a Sunday morning fresh with the coolness of spring, The Husband beside me, music lifting the air around us, voices raised in unison, and I? I can’t stop glaring at the woman who persists in making her voice loudest, her hands raised highest, her solitary comments punctuating announcements and sermon. And the thoughts fill my brain, courtesy of the inner voice: judgments on her insincerity, her insecurity, her need to be noticed. And then…a new Voice. Sending reminders to my heart of all the times I’ve perceived myself unloved, underappreciated, treated unfairly–and acted accordingly. Of all the times I’ve been wrong, about myself and others. And I realize it won’t hurt anyone if I, each Sunday morning, start assuming the best about this woman.

Easier said than done. But that’s where it comes in that this gratitude, it is not just a game. Or an exercise in optimism, a glass-half-full, Pollyanna technique. It is both warfare and triumph, it both wields weapons and releases grips. And it just might save me.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t appraising my surroundings, all too often the people in those surroundings, and assessing worth. Perpetual student that I was, this was the currency in which I traded: do work, receive evaluation. I never got the memo that the classroom has a door, that it doesn’t extend to all corners of the earth, that people (including myself) are not made to be scored. I didn’t get that my value had nothing to do with anything I had done.

But tell that to the girl who got the second-best scholarship, who waxed up a mediocre molar, who travels among the machines at the gym prepared to defend the number of reps she completed to roving trainers. My defensiveness patrols my perimeter, ready to snap at expressed judgment, even as I dole it out silently. My excuse list is always ready.

And that’s where grace and its heavenly cousin gratitude come in.

Every time I abandon the shaking head, the “no”, for thanks, my judgment is converted to joy. Gratitude combats my inner dialogue of negativity at every point. It’s not just a mood-lifter, oh hell no. It is pure transformation, one moment at a time. It turns caricatures into personalities, snark into narrative. It makes the world bigger than I imagined, more than I can handle. Better than I dreamed. In sweeping broadstrokes, it demolishes my scoring system and creates art where I stand. I am surrounded by beauty I never saw before.

And I realize that it’s not the world’s bad news that keeps me from the whispered thank you, nor is it my own inability to say the words. All that separates me from them is faith, faith that there can be beauty rather than decay in everything from a stubbed toe to a searing loss, faith that there is more to the story than I can see from where I stand. Faith that there is another Voice, a truer one, subject not to the whims of this world or my mood, a Voice that knows and has seen everything and what’s more, can thread it all together into a masterpiece. Gratitude is another word for grace, another word for faith, another word for hope and love, and it knows which Voice to listen to.

Gifts

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I am an overachiever.

At least, I used to be. Throughout my formative years, I grew accustomed to measuring myself according to the letter or numerical value next to my name: on report cards, grade postings outside classrooms, standardized test scores. Each positive mark hovered in the box marked “achievement” for mere seconds before it converted to a stepping stone on the way to the next task. I was goal-oriented, always moving. I was my own Tiger Mom.

Life, for me, was never something in which I was immersed; it was always something I was building toward. I was the glasses-and-books version of Toddlers and Tiaras, the girl who found safety and meaning within the walls of classrooms, the pages of homework, the approval of authority figures.

Not that all of this is bad–“oh woe is me, I worked hard and now have a successful career, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen”–but it wasn’t until my carefully-constructed, risk-free plan fell apart that I began to realize that the best things in life? They are not reflected by grades or won through anxious clamoring. They are gifts received by an open heart willing to accept the limitations of its own knowledge and the mystery and unpredictability of a greater plan than mine.

One of the things included in that plan was a five-year stint in New York City that I never would have considered had I remained comfortably ensconced in my Bible Belt perch, had I continued being the error-free student, had my character remained pristine and my choices stellar. But the wake of what looked like destruction that I left behind in Alabama became the foundation for a life built not upon a perfect record but upon the gifts of grace bestowed throughout five years of gritty redemption.

I’m retelling this story, my story, because some of you are new here and may be in the midst of your own mess, surrounded by what appear to be dead ends and unfulfilled dreams. And my simple and loving question to you is, who do you think you are? That’s right. Who do you think you are to appraise the turmoil around you and deem it beyond transformation, to see it as The Way Things Are rather than the raw material that will make you stronger, wiser, softer, and more prepared to jump off the cliffs that lead to real love, true faith, and the You that you were made to be?

The Me I was back when life was safe and manageable would never have gone to New York–and she sure has hell would never have stood before the only boy she ever loved and tell him how she felt. (Okay, so she may have been encouraged by a bottle of champagne, whatever! STILL BRAVE!) And she never would have had the faith to wait for a full year, until the timing was right and hearts were ready, for him to come back to her and say yes. But those kind of gifts are worth every moment of harrowing grace leading to them, and so yours will be.

(Another thing she wouldn’t have been able to do? Open her heart and pour it out on a screen, behind which waited thousands of strangers, and press “post” to EG’s page. And that girl would never have known the gifts of support and encouragement provided by a favorite author and her fans, and the gifts of community and friendship promised to a heart open to the possibility of More.)

Happy Endings

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This time last year, I was rushing from my apartment in Murray Hill to a boutique in Soho, silently urging my cabbie to step on it as the back of my knees drenched his vinyl seats with sweat. I was headed to a book signing to meet one of my favorite storytellers, Emily Giffin, and The Husband (then fiance) was meeting me there so we could head straight to a benefit afterward, then to the wine bar with friends. (Just typing that sentence from our new home in the suburbs, where a wild night means TWO episodes of Tosh.0 and a vodka tonic, makes me tired. Big tree fall hard.) P.S.–note my red face and chest in the above picture. I was ridiculously nervous (as opposed to my baseline nervous, which is not to be shrugged at), but EG could not have been more gracious in the face of my borderline stalking. She signed my copy of Something Blue along with the “something blue” for my wedding–my shoes–while TH sat patiently nearby, taking pictures and not rolling his eyes.

So it’s rather fitting that this past weekend, exactly a year later, I took my seat in the theater for the movie adaptation of one of Giffin’s books, Something Borrowed. Twice. The Sis and I were booked to see it Sunday afternoon, but with a work-free Friday, I just couldn’t wait. I previewed the movie solo, then confessed this transgression on our way into the theater Sunday. The Sis gasped at my betrayal, then recovered and asked if it was good. And for the next two hours, we passed popcorn and M&Ms back and forth as we watched one of our favorite stories play out on the screen (with minor alterations), gleefully roaring at and repeating to each other the same parts as only our matching personalities can: lines everyone else missed, like “I did” and “That doesn’t sound right.”

In the aftermath of viewing that tale of a happy ending that only came after heartache, The Sis and I went to dinner last night with one of our longtime besties. She had a sparkler on her finger and a wedding in her future, and this cause for celebration was sweetly gratifying for me since we had navigated the treacherous terrains of college and the Manhattan dating scene together. For two years, we shared a shoebox fourth-floor walkup and hungover Saturdays, crazy nights out and greasy diner deliveries, laughter and broken hearts. We had coexisted among the high highs and low lows that only New York can bestow upon and hurl at a Type A, late-twenties girl who is having fun but sure wouldn’t mind losing the losers and finding The One any time now, thank you.

As I watched the movie, and listened to my friend tell her engagement story, I was faced once again with the reality of hard-won happy endings. Of complications along the way, what I used to see as pitfalls and obstacles that stood in between me and happiness–and how I secretly believed that they were red flags warning me that the joyful resolution paired with a catchy song didn’t exist. Not for me. Like Rachel, I had “no real faith in my own happiness.”

And to think, now, that without all of those trenches, I never would have gotten here. And never would have had the heart to truly love, to know The Real Thing when it found me. To feel the profound gratitude I do now, every day. I used to want to be one of those people who skated through life without difficulty or conflict, a person for whom everything came easy. There were plenty of them around me, and they seemed so carefree! My own parents, perhaps like yours, met in college and married at twenty-two, and I thought I would inherit their story like I did their DNA.  Then years went by and my singleness remained–and I realized that my bitterness quotient was about to explode if I didn’t tend to the life I was actually living rather than the one I had planned. As I set about doing just that, I began to see that none of us ever make it through this world without scars, even high school sweethearts. But now I know that there are no good stories without the messy parts. Tales without complications are rarely retold. Pain is one of grace’s greatest disguises, and how thankful I am for the transformation that always comes along with it. (And for the fact that I didn’t marry the guy I was dating at twenty-two or become a mother shortly thereafter…yikes. And amen.)

Fun and Games

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The Husband and I ended up having a weekend full of children, which I guess is good practice for two people thinking about having some of their own. But man, am I beat.

Our first foray into the small world happened Saturday, when we were invited by the Bro-in-Law and Sis-in-Law to watch their oldest play baseball. Apparently I assumed that the moisturizer-with-SPF I wore on my face would magically radiate to my chest and arms. I found out after an hour of baking time that this was not the case, and TH and I took his pink face and my fire-engine-shoulders home to recuperate.

The next morning, TH and I acted on our commitment to help out with the young children’s class at our church and showed up to a quartet of kids (our church is small) gathered around a folding table in tiny chairs. You should have seen the way the two boys’ eyes lit up when they saw TH, who to them appeared as a huggable jungle gym, and they began to climb as I sat next to the girls who were quietly coloring. The boys, whose hyperactivity was matched by their verbosity, then asked TH how old he was. “Thirty-two,” he replied, then they turned to me with the same question. I made the rookie mistake of asking them to guess, and naturally they offered, “Eighty?” The class’s regular teacher informed me that this was a compliment as she had been taken for ninety the week before, and my self-esteem recovered further when they re-guessed my age at twenty-five. Considering we were in God’s crib, or at least the community center that doubles for it once a week, I felt compelled to tell them my real age. “Thirty-three,” I said, figuring that was the end of it, then I saw the wheels in their heads turning and one piped up, eyes squinted in confusion, “But you’re older than him!”

Than he, I thought as I resisted the urge to correct a five-year-old’s grammar and TH laughed at the child-provided observation of one of the components of our relationship that he finds most amusing: my seniority. Within seconds, one of the boys asked TH, “Why do you laugh so much?” I considered the countless times I’ve been asked that same question in my life, another reminder of how our reactions to the world match up so well. Meanwhile, I glanced at the four-year-old girl next to me and she looked up at me and rolled her eyes, sighing, as if to say, “Such children.”

I kept watching TH as his comfort zone was repeatedly violated by a pair of boys he’s never met–boys who grabbed his arms and demanded seats beside him and leaned against him and hugged him–and he smiled through it all, grown-up kid that he is, wrestling with them and lifting them in the air and provoking generalized glee. And I realized once again, but in a new way, that before me stood the biggest reason I’d ever want children: so I could raise them with him. I know that, many days, raising kids will be a task for which we seem mightily underprepared. After all, we’ve grown quite accustomed to our “just the two of us” brand of life, our quiet times and our fancy dinners and our habits like grocery-shopping and gym-hopping that The Sis hears about and says, “GAH. You two do, like, everything together.” But I also know that, whenever they come, and wherever they come from, our kids will be so loved. And no matter how many we add to our roster, we will make one hell of a team.

Holes

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The Husband and I were looking at prints (or as he would call them, paintings–he calls all wall-hung artwork paintings; I love that guy) online the other day, trying to find a photograph of the New York City skyline for our family room. He asked me to choose between two, both of lower Manhattan: one with the World Trade towers present, and one with the double-light memorial instead. “The lights,” I told him, and he agreed. “That’s our New York.”

I never visited the city before 9/11/01, but I was there six months after to stare at the gaping holes that hatred had left in the ground. I will never know the searing grief felt by family members of the lost, but I have shed my own tears over the destruction. We are, none of us, an island.

When I saw the photographs taken in my home state yesterday–in particular a man holding his injured toddler son in his arms and sobbing–I felt the (in this world, all too familiar) shadow of sadness, of Why?, upon my heart. And there are too few answers for our taste at a time like this, when people are literally picking up the pieces of their lives. And these are the lucky ones. But then I looked at the background of the shots: of rescue workers, neighbors pitching in. Of the same toddler being carried by a different man, likely the father’s friend or relative, because, again: none of us is an island. And sometimes community is brought about in the most tragic of ways, but its beauty cannot be denied. Whenever love and goodwill are exposed, whenever they rise to the surface and push hate out, there is cause for thanksgiving.

My New York skyline was absent two towers, and for those who had been there during and before that great tragedy, they must have looked like gaping holes. But once every year, those holes are filled with light. I don’t know the answer to Why?, and I may not even understand the answer if it were given. Yet. But what I do know–and this I can say from experience–is that there is never rubble without redemption.

On Fear and Walking

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I walked into the office yesterday, my least favorite day of the week, and had to admit that things had not gotten off to a good start. Two hurried trips up and down the stairs at home to retrieve forgotten items, cursing under my breath, yelling frustration at myself. But it’s always what’s underneath the anger that undoes us, that leads us to break down or cover up, toward confession or hiding. I steeled myself against the rest of the day until I got the text from The Husband: don’t worry…His timing…out of your hands. And just like that, I was undone. In the best way. Reminded how known I am, how found. And by not just him. I released my grip.

Because the thing that is underneath the blustering anger is always fear. And the more I walk with Him, the more I am confronted with the ugly fears that I somehow never completely stopped believing, that still haunt me when my faith takes a nosedive and I forget His record, my story. The fear that I am irretrievably broken; that I will pay in punishment for my past indiscretions (and dear God, isn’t that a cleaned-up way to refer to that mess); that the bottom will shortly be falling out from under me. Life in all its imperfection has a way of revealing the holes in my faith, of pointing out all the places where I still don’t believe He’s good. Of making me think that I’ve figured something out in those moments, rather than the truth that my heart still makes hidden deals with the enemy.

Disappointment, hurt, brokenness–these will remain battlegrounds all my life.

And then I remember what I heard and read, that it’s not the strength of my faith but the strength of its object. The limb doesn’t assess my record when I grab onto it because it already assessed His–and it held. It will always hold, and that has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel at any given moment. My heart has been known to lie to me before. I will cast my eyes on something bigger, truer. More faithful.

I forced TH to go on a walk with me last night and he went, even though he thinks it’s kind of girly to walk (it is), because he loves me so well. And this loop around the neighborhood that I had designed in an effort to give us time to talk, to de-stress, to just be with each other–I began to make it anything but that. I pulled his hand, saying, “Let’s go faster! Get our heart rates up!” I set my eyes on the hill ahead and plotted our course. Then, the overwhelming smell of honeysuckle and flowers and cut grass–life growing. And TH’s slowed step, his look around at the green by which we were surrounded, his quiet beholding. And I remembered another course I had plotted, and it hadn’t included any of this. In all my planning, I hadn’t conceived this beauty. I stopped pulling, and I beheld.

By grace I am reminded of bridges I have crossed, of how they have held. I read, and know it is true because it is my story, that “trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.” And what of the connection between thanks and trust, the holding of it all together? I know who supplied those nails.

I am being asked always to consider the possibility of paradox, the idea that things are not what they seem–that they are more. And I open my heart to the thought that what looks like disappointment to me could be Him keeping a promise. And this, this daily walk with Him, I have been trying to direct it my whole life, pulling Him in all directions. Slow down, hurry up. And now I stop pulling and I behold. The hand that covers mine is callused and rough where mine is soft. It is scarred where mine is whole.

I stop pulling, and I walk beside Him.

Called

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This past weekend, The Husband and I decided to venture out of the suburbs and into midtown, specifically Atlantic Station. This little enclave is a planned community of shops, restaurants, and apartments crisscrossed by a grid of streets and all situated around a green area called Central Park. It’s a mini-New York City in the heart of Atlanta, except that there’s no Empire State Building or East River or diagonal strip called Broadway or Naked Cowboy. And the grass in “Central Park” is fake, not to mention about twenty by twenty feet. But there’s a Rosa Mexicano and a huge stadium-seating movie theater, and we’re suckers for both of those, so we went.

After stuffing our faces with chips and fresh guacamole and pouring tequila on top of that divine mixture, we headed into the theater and claimed our seats for the showing of Scream 4. Within seconds, it became apparent that Atlanta’s gay male African American community had joined us for the evening, and I don’t think I have to tell you what a bonus round that was: constant yells at the screen (“Ooh, girl, don’t open that door!”) and commentary (“What is she wearing? That is just sad”) combined to create one of the most entertaining movie experiences I can remember. The last time I saw a Scream installment, a caped marauder wearing the Ghostface mask flew up the aisle as the audience wailed in terror. This screening? SO much better.

And maybe that’s because the older I get, the less tolerant I seem to be of fear-inducing scenarios. In my teens and twenties, I displayed a high threshold for adventure: zip lines, bungee jumping, moving to New York City. Now, I get nervous with a little air turbulence during a flight, and if TH gets stuck in traffic that delays his arrival home, I demand constant updates. During our Fabulousss Movie Night, as the first scene came to life and I heard Ghostface’s familiar voice (one that is remarkably consistent over years and killers, a feat explained in the movie by a reference to the new Ghostface app–naturally), I began to wonder if I could still stomach one of my favorite genres. I hid behind my hand for the first kill but was gently coaxed out with high-pitched, surround-sound laughter. And so I made it through.

A cinematic gore-fest was an unintentional and strange way to kick off Holy Week, but it did leave me a little reflective afterward (then again, what doesn’t?). I thought back fifteen years to when the first Scream opened, when I was a freshman in college. Over the years and sequels that followed, I sat in theaters and squealed with friends and stepped back out into the sunlight to live my life, trying to figure out who I was as I followed the roadmap I had created. I had a plan–along with no idea of what lay ahead.

I’ve always had to be careful about listening to voices–I tend to ascribe too much importance to the wrong ones. My constant prayer used to be, “Thy will be done,” but as soon as I opened my eyes and found there was no list floating down from heaven, I set about constructing my own. I had no patience for the Voice that speaks in stillness and silence. I always had to be doing.

And now, at thirty-three–the year Calvary cast its looming shadow over his final days–I find my life, in many ways, just beginning. A new start and a true love and a real home, all in the past year. All that matters most has been gifted rather than attained. I am more tolerant of stretches of silence, of seeming inactivity, because I know who labors on my behalf and the truth that all his ways are not apparent to me, are not written on a calendar for my approval. More often they are whispers showing up in moments of gratitude, seconds of realization that for me, any shadows are just a “small and passing thing” and can be such only because they were anything but, on the path to that hill. I’ve learned to listen to the only Voice that matters, to recognize it above all the others and know that it is, can only ever perfectly be, what love sounds like.

Little Judgments Everywhere

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It was a Sunday morning just after church ended, and The Husband was sticking around to fulfill his duties for the finance team (Harvard MBA = proficient offering counter). To maximize our time (ostensibly; to avoid awkward mingling in reality), I headed out to pick up our lunches–separate and plural. Though TH and I have many things in common, his passion for Taco Bell is not one of them. But it was my first stop, with my bagel sandwich to be picked up afterward at the self-proclaimed New York-style deli. FYI: if you aren’t run by an old Asian man and don’t contain miniature-sized, maximum-priced snack foods stacked alongside open-air fruit and vegetables in a questionably-odored hovel, you are not a New York-style deli. Just saying.

I pulled up to the drive-thru behind a car driven by a twenty-something girl whose boyfriend sat in the passenger seat. After she placed her order and I prepared to move up, she opened her door and placed a tall paper cup full of soda next to the curb. She then proceeded to drive forward and crush the cup as she headed toward her food and a trash can conveniently located mere feet away.

I felt my blood pressure spike as the rage boiled inside my veins. I imagined scenarios involving confrontations and apologies and her eventual arrest. LITTERING?! I thought in disbelief, feeling like I was stuck in an episode of Mad Men and looking around for drivers drinking scotch and smoking while pregnant. Who does that anymore? All of a sudden I was the world’s foremost environmentalist, all heated accusations and inconvenient truths. Then I saw her face in her side mirror: tired, hopeless, devoid of joy. And I was torn between identifying with a fellow human being, exchanging shoes and such…or engaging in my favorite pastime: judgment.

One of my favorite people recently accused me of being hard on myself in my writing, and after thinking that’s what she said, I thought about how it may come across to others, this introspective blog-posting whose grand finale is always hope but not before some confessions occur. The truth is that if I added up all the judgments I’ve made in my life, those against others would far outweigh what I’ve spent on myself. I’m a member of Facebook groups like “I judge you when you use poor grammar” and “I judge you when you take the elevator down one floor.” I use sarcasm as a weapon of condescension. I read too much Gawker, whose (talented) writers have elevated cynicism to an art form and dressed it up with the name snarkiness.

I think, therefore I judge.

And every time I do, I steal from the connectedness and joy that could be mine and replace it with poison.

Melodramatic? Maybe. But I know, deep down in that place where I rarely venture because only truth is spoken there, that I am a judging machine. I can’t remember the last time I had a completely peaceful car ride, one that didn’t include the urge to throw up a finger and form a concomitant summary of another person’s character based on his driving ability. I am a sucker for a book’s cover at the expense of the story inside. Negativity easily becomes the order of the day without the vigilance of gratitude stepping in.

Because in this world where each of us is placed into a category according to where we live, how old we are, what our political affiliation is–do we really need the additional reduction that criticism provides, the packaging of an entire life into a sound bite? A story into a bullet point?

And then there is the central irony to it all, the truth to which I am being made ever more aware as gratitude smooths my rough edges and opens my narrowed eyes: I am that person. I am the person who has littered, cut others off, acted like a dork, dressed like a slut, lived out of my insecurities and my worst self. Anything I judge others for, I’ve been guilty of. And for me, wherever judgment should have occurred is where I received grace instead. Such a precedent should shut my mouth and bend my knees forever.

I sat in our sunroom yesterday, nestled in a chair among the trees and filtering end-of-day light, and excitedly opened the fun read I’ve been working on for the past week to its last few pages. A few minutes later I sat stunned at an ending that defied comprehension, a resolution that made a mockery of the characters I had grown to know over four hundred pages. An entire story drained of meaning by the author’s refusal of continuity. And I realized that the story written for me, the narrative I live, is preceded and defined by love defying lesser claims. That when I set up camp in the field of judgment, I break continuity and move away from home. That because someone took my judgment, I can be free–from it, and of it.

Water into Wine

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Over the weekend, some serious roadwork was accomplished without my consent. The area where Abernathy and Johnson Ferry Roads meet has been ablaze with orange cones for awhile now, and I thought they were just adding a couple of lanes. But as the CRV and I chugged along the pavement this morning, I felt an alarm go off in my head when my usual right-hand stoplight turn morphed into a long, lightless curve and I wondered if I had fallen asleep at the wheel. Had I missed the turn? For a couple of slow-motion seconds, I was completely disoriented. Then I looked up at the landmarks I know, the buildings I pass daily–and their presence told me to keep going. And soon enough I was deposited in exactly the right spot, headed north on Johnson Ferry. Right-hand turn no longer necessary.

The thing is, I’ve missed turns before. I’ve had hours added to trips, detours I did not pre-approve and was none too happy about. As a person for whom belief comes naturally–whose journey of faith has looked more like a curve than a turn, who grew up hearing about Jesus, who never suffered outrageous mistreatment at the hands of people who call themselves Christians–God has always been there, whether as a recipient of my praise or misplaced anger. When bad things happened, I always had someone to look to–and blame. Whenever I was diverted from my self-ordained course, whether in my car or in my life, I beat my hands on the steering wheel or clenched my fists and felt the anger rise, the frustration fill, and I looked accusingly at everyone else but in the deepest part of my heart I cursed God. I secretly thought the same of him that so many of my searching counterparts do: that he was Up There, out of touch and uncaring, spinning a wheel and deciding my life and changing my plans, remaining uninvolved Down Here as my heart broke and I crumbled.

The problem was never that I didn’t believe in him; I just couldn’t reconcile the things I heard about him with everything I could see around me.

And then, as the pain grew deeper and the way darker, all the words I heard from others grew more trite. God was letting this happen to test my faith? Great, so he’s Up There watching me, hamster in a cage, stumble through a funhouse of his making just to make me believe more? Or how about this one–that wrapped within every period of suffering is a lesson? So he’s a divine schoolteacher, rapping me on the knuckles so that next time I’ll get the right answer?

The God I heard about in others’ simple answers and quaint cliches sounded like a sadistic jerk. And did nothing to make my heart feel understood, or less alone.

I would do well to remember that: just like I didn’t find him in catchphrases and cure-alls, neither will others. I had to slog through the trenches of life, my hidden corners and dark depths, to know who he really is. To find that there are not always simple answers when it comes to faith. It lies in story, and we each have our own. And the story must be lived.

Last weekend I had some back-and-forth over this topic with one of the dearest people in my life. I thought about what my contribution to the conversation would have looked like six years ago, before my plan fell apart and I found truth in the rubble. It would not have looked like empathy; it would have looked like self-righteousness. It would have held more “This is how it is” moments and less “I don’t know”s. It would have been a list devoid of mystery, not a narrative full of twists.

I inherited a faith passed down through countless generations and mishandled along the way. For so long, I asked no questions of it, just grew more frustrated with my own doubts. I walked blindly down a path of my own making and called it His for years before things came to a head and I realized that the word I was using didn’t mean what I thought it meant–what I called Faith was just Religion, a self-improvement program full of props to make me feel better than other people. The faith I found on the streets of New York, in particular 69th between Park and Lex, quieted my efforts and replaced my pat answers with paradoxical, counter-intuitive truth. True faith will always be, in our own estimation, somewhat blind because the Almighty doesn’t tell us everything yet. But the vision opened to us when we unclench our fists and open our hands is beyond comfort or morals or lessons; it blows self-sufficiency out of the water and releases us from the burden of being our own gods. Not having all the answers is no longer a liability but an invitation into relationship. Into a story.

So many people object to my faith because they have been offended by it or its representatives. I have been offended, too–there are a lot of jerks out there operating under false identities (you can count yours truly among their former ranks).  But the greatest offense was delivered by the Gospel itself, which told me that everything wasn’t about me. And as long as I saw my place as a piece on a chessboard moved around for God’s amusement, I would have remained defiant. Instead, I know I have been written into a narrative of which my story is a tiny but imperative part.

I used to wonder where all the miracles were; why God no longer shows up in parting seas and water turned to wine. My life of religion was me standing in front of a bottle of Poland Spring, waiting for it to turn red if I prayed hard enough. These days I just head straight to Total Wine for my pinot noir, because my life is already full of miracles that only touch my consciousness because my eyes have been opened to see them. Storms that upend my carefully laid plans and in their seeming disorder create beauty beyond what I could have imagined; calm that pervades my soul in the midst of a world gone mad. I don’t have all the answers, but every day I find that what I do have is more than enough.