Posted on by She Who Rises

Just Be

What would it be like to “just be”?

As in, live “as is”, no changes, as today’s version – the exact same you that exists this second. What would it be like to be completely yourself without striving and straining toward some goal, some other version of you? Imagine it for just a moment. What’s there? What isn’t?

Is it enjoying a social situation freely without the pressure to make a friend, make a deal, be seen, or even unseen?

Is it exhaling and releasing your belly or the folds of your back to unravel, without a care, across the area below?

Is it placing a block on the past – a transparent wall that separates you from a joy, mistake, or trauma where your brain thinks you should live instead?

What would it be like to just be and embrace what is, whatever it is, right now?

Radical (self) acceptance. Would it be so bad?

Imagine that. A moment where everything that’s happened, everything you’ve witnessed, and where you are now has been totally and completely accepted… by the most important person, you. No bones to eat clean. No details to pick apart. Just be-ing.

I’m realizing that there’s so much more to see when I am present here and ok with what is. When I’m not obsessing over what I could’ve said vs what I did say or whether that thing will work out the way I hope or worrying about what new thing aging has assigned to me, there’s calm, silence, rest, and sometimes, if I’m honest, sleep.

Lately, this is where Jesus has been leading me. To “just be” is a whole new world for me… one who is either waist-deep in the past, picking apart the present, or running light-years into the future. To “just be” is radical.

So far, I like that worry doesn’t seem to live here. But I can’t say for certain what does. I’ve only just started to look around.

What about you? What do you see?

Posted on by She Who Rises

Looking for hope?

There’s a song filling every corner of my brain lately. It’s soft and somber, yet Gravity swells with emotion.

It paints a picture of us individually, worried, and stressed out over the details of life. Whether frivolous or meaningful, beautiful, or devastatingly painful, together they create an enormous weight, distracting us from what really matters and wearing us out day to day.

But what really matters?

Hope.

Not in things or changing circumstances. But, hope in a promise. And a hope that promises are kept by those who make them. Really, one person in particular. But back to the song.

Seeing all of your stress and struggle, God says, “Come up here with me. I want to show you something.” And clasping your raised hand, pulls you upward, from the ground through the atmosphere and beyond space and time, to the peaceful spot at his side. Sitting high above it all with your creator, you see what God sees.

High above the joy and the pain, you see beauty and order and process. And you realize that there’s more to all of this than you can see from your small corner of your world.

There are whole galaxies and universes upon universes being formed from nothing, stretched, destroyed, and re-formed anew. There’s an unknowable number of creatures, big and small, traveling carefully plotted paths that still, somehow, include a million options for them each to consider.

Complicated, yet there is a distinct order to what looks like chaos from down below. And it’s managed by one person, the one holding your hand right now.

… Sovereign … you are …

This part of the song stays on replay in my quiet moments.

Sovereign is a word that I know but rarely use. So I had to hit the dictionary to refresh my memory on its meaning and, among its definitions, found that it means: to possess supreme or ultimate power.

As in, one who has ALL of the power.

As in, the buck stops here. ✋🏾

It’s something to remember when you turn your attention back to the details of life. It’s something God has demonstrated in all manner of ways: here on Earth, in the heavens, in the Bible, and likely, in your life too.

That power, that reason for hope, is in these simple promises, from the only one who can always keep them:

I got this. And I see you.
I got this. And I’m with you.
Believe. Don’t doubt me.

Posted on by She Who Rises · 1 Comment

A hard lesson

Have you ever had to learn a lesson the hard way?

Maybe, as a child, you couldn’t contain your fascination at the flames dancing atop the stove, that is, until you got burned. I bet those flames lost their appeal real fast.

At the start, the thing, whatever it is, doesn’t seem dangerous, maybe even manageable. But eventually, we learn that what we see could only be the tip of the iceberg, and it usually is. There’s often a whole mountain beneath the surface. Unfortunately, the experience that comes with this discovery usually involves some broken bones, aka consequences.

In my journey with Jesus, I have sensed a guiding force that kind of taps me on the shoulder when I get too near dangerous terrain. It often signals me to “wait” or directs me to change course. Sometimes, it’s a gut instinct, other times it’s a still small voice that I don’t really hear with my ears, but sense somewhere within me. For years, I didn’t pay attention to either.

I thought I was wise enough to thoroughly assess every situation and make my own decisions. Most of the time, I thought those nudges were my fears trying to keep me from living. Just as often, I discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

By ignoring my gut and what I now recognize as the Holy Spirit’s leading, I was headed straight into a disaster, something that could ruin my life.


Case in point, the day of this car accident, I knew that I needed to stay home. I had felt the nudge to get more rest. I had worked until the wee hours of the morning. But I still felt pressure to make it in, albeit around mid-day. I was extremely tired, too tired to be driving, especially in snowy and icy conditions. But I did it anyway.

In the end, I totaled my car and got a concussion. Thankfully, I was the only person impacted, and my insurance covered everything. God absolutely took care of me. Medical bills were covered, rental car paid for and eventually, even got a new (to me) car paid for in (mostly) cash. I was struggling through some intense migraines but was told it was temporary. I had reason to hope. I was enduring the consequences of my own stupid actions while witnessing God’s faithfulness all at the same time.

Now, almost 5 years later, I’m still struggling with debilitating migraines, and some serious cognitive issues that I wasn’t even aware of until a few months ago, but now seem plain as day when I look back over the years. It’s been tough… I can’t lie. Some days, I feel like I’m drowning.

I have often blamed myself. I mean, it is entirely my fault. But blaming doesn’t fix it. I beat myself up, too, but that doesn’t help either. I hold all my questions and complaints from God until I collapse, unable to stand up under it all. I think, “Why would God want to hear any of that anyway?” Though, I’m sure God already knows.

I can’t begin to know why God allowed things to go this way. And I have no idea what I might gain by this prolonged suffering from a God that makes all things work together for my good. But I have noticed something worth mentioning.

He hasn’t left.

That guiding presence, the admonition to wait, that still small voice hasn’t evaporated from my days. It’s still leading – sometimes to bed early, away from overexertion, to time with him – in his Word, to the right doctors and specialists. I didn’t expect it, but I’m learning a hard lesson about God’s faithfulness. I’m learning that it’s constant, even in the face of my own failure.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Will I see you again?

Someone I used to know is gone… actually two of them. A brother and sister whose mother is a longtime friend of my family. We spent a little time together as young kids and got to know each other better as teens in the new city we had all somehow migrated to. Both in their prime and with a family of their own, they left this place only a couple years apart, just like they came into it.

I hadn’t spoken to either of them in years. Yet, I am certain that running into each other would have been a joyous occasion for all of us. More than joyous.

What do you say to a mist, a vapor that was the presence of a person you once knew?

She was low key and quiet. He was a natural leader who was a whole vibe all on his own. Both were cool with everyone, a rarity.

I have vivid memories of who they were when we were young. And newer ones through the eyes of the people who have known them in the time since. She had become a nurse. He an accomplished activist. By all accounts, they had remained the same.

To say that I am sad about their departure doesn’t capture it at all. Truth be told, I am ashamed of the gap between now and then, though I know it goes both ways. Life happens. It gets in the way, and before you know it, there’s a bookend. No visible next chapter in which to run into them again. I am sorrowful for my own loss. And I’m heartbroken for the people closest to them, those who will miss them the most. But there’s more.

The day he passed, I imagined that his sister would be waiting on the other side, ready to embrace him the moment he crossed over. I saw the joy on their faces upon reuniting, but also the somber realization of all they were leaving behind. And that’s when it hit me.

Where would they be? Where will their souls, the part of them that I knew, live from now on?

They belonged to a different faith tradition. I don’t know how their beliefs may have changed or evolved over the years. In particular, I don’t know what they thought of Jesus. And that’s the part that troubles my already broken heart.

How can two people, both beautiful in so many ways and who did so much good, not end up in heaven?

My memory took me to a story Jesus told about people who won’t believe (Luke 16:19-31). He said that if they are not persuaded by Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded by someone who rises from the dead. He was talking about the religious leaders of the day and the prophecies that predicted his life and sacrifice. They were stubborn in their disbelief and he knew that even his own dying on the cross and rising again wouldn’t change that.

My belief in Jesus, his words, and his sacrifice tells me that it’s possible that we won’t all be together again in the same place. The hard truth of my faith tradition says that no matter what we do in life, where we end up is based on a single thing. It’s based on a choice to believe that Jesus is who he said he is despite all of our doubts, pain, and unanswered questions. It’s a choice to believe in an eternal life with him or an eternal agony without him, however that may look.

What adds to my grief is the fact that I don’t know what they believed, and now it’s too late for me to do anything about it. I’m ashamed of my own timidity, my lack of courage, and my propensity toward distraction. I’m sorry that I didn’t at least say, ‘I want to see you again. I want you to live. So please, believe.’

I can’t say it to them now. And I won’t know the outcome of their journey until its my turn to make the trek. But, on the off chance that no-one has ever said it to you… I want you to live. So please, please, believe.

(c) creatorskind 2021-2023