Adventures

Recently I had a moment in the blur that has been my life and focused in. I began to realize exactly how much has happened over the past six months, how much of it has struck sudden and fast and faded into everyday use before I had time to notice it.

In the past six months I lived a lot, which might be why I feel tired as I write this. I learned how to drive and got my permit and then my license. I bought my first guitar. My brother, sister, and I took our first roadtrip without any outside supervision. I finished my third year of college. I started writing for one of the biggest Christian music sites on the web. My big brother, who had been my childhood hero, moved out of our house, and I became the eldest. I saw my grandfather flicker and fade, and shortly afterwards I stood to remember him... the first time we’d had to say goodbye to a member of the immediate family. I watched my little sister, who I have spent almost every day with my entire life, walk down her own path to Japan.

A lot of these changes barely skimmed the surface of my consciousness. It was a matter of simple survival, one coffee cup, one song, one sunrise at a time. But there was a point in April when I stopped for a moment as I was wrestling with some things through writing in my journal. I had been up late so many nights praying and asking questions with my guitar strings, and in the middle of the weary blur I felt some massive change bearing down on me. It was like standing in middle of a dark and winding road at night, catching a sudden blinding glimpse of headlights as an approaching car turns briefly into the open before disappearing around another hill. I knew I was going to be hit with something. I just didn't clearly know what.

When it finally did hit, it shook my reality sideways and inside out.

I am told so often that one of the things people appreciate most about my blog is my honesty, and because of that I feel I have to write about this in some sense, even though (to be completely honest) I really don't want to and I don't know how. But this is also my primary public platform, so I might as well say everything I need to say now, even if it costs me some pride.

Since I started telling people I am dating, so many people have wanted to talk about this, have wanted me to tell the story. I have been asked a lot of questions, most of them adding up simply to “why did this take so long?” Which for me is a funny question, because that question barely matters at all. People want the whole story, they want to know what was going on in all the years where I stayed so silent on the topic. I can't give people that. Sometimes I can give them a summary, but even that is far too long for this blog.

I can honestly say that this was not the plan. The plan was to stay single for the rest of my life, and to be happy that way. I had effectively built a reputation for being a hardcore cynic, and I liked that reputation, if I am honest. It was safe. In early April I actually wrote a blog entry apologizing for and explaining in some sense my cynicism, but I never posted it. It was easier to let the walls stand.

The shortest version of the story is this: I fell in love when I was 15, and I hated myself for it, and so I lied about it. There was never any hope in the situation. It was like fighting an endless war with no chance of victory, learning exactly how to maintain the fortress walls, how to direct the defense maneuvers, how to keep all the doors locked. It took practice, and it was hard. If I am honest, it was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. Even to remember enough to write this paragraph is like needles and knives against my skin. It was a terrible fight, and I was incredibly alone. I learned to be content, accepting that this was the way it would always be. And when it changed it was at first like a cannon ball to the chest.

So the answer to the question of why it took so long is actually kind of simple-- it was never an option. It wasn't like I was sitting in my room waiting for him to ask me for years. I wasn't hoping for or expecting that, especially not recently. Even six months ago this wouldn't have been possible— even three months ago, our stories weren't to the right point yet. I have said jokingly that it was his fault it took so long, but if I am honest, it wasn't my time yet either. This was not at all a part of my plan. But God told me to say yes, and so I stepped off a cliff. I'm still trying to decide some days if I'm falling or flying or both.

So this is the change. The last change in the world that I expected, but that seems to be the way that God does things. My head is in an awful tangle, and my heart is even worse. If I am honest though, it feels like hope.

I wrote on this blog a month ago that I had mostly given up on the concept of a future for myself. I said that the summer would be hard, and that music was the only thing I had left that made sense. But now the world has rearranged itself again (I really should learn to stop pretending I'm in control). I think in some ways I feel like I know even less than I did before, that things are less stable. But I feel like it is better this way.

There are a lot of memories that I still can't touch, things I still don't know how to talk about. There is a lot for me to learn. There are a lot of moments that are hard, particularly because of the distance, and particularly because of how many bad decisions I have made. But singing beneath it there is something that I didn't think would ever be a possibility... there is joy. And even five minutes of the joy that I have seen and been given by him makes all the years of loneliness and unanswered questions worth it. I feel terrified. I feel like the most blessed person alive.

There are some people who walk into your life and suddenly it’s flipped upside down. Jordan is, always has been, and always will be, one of those people for me.
- My journal, September 9, 2007

So here's to the adventure of losing illusions of control. Here's to waking up and relearning and change. Thanks so much to all of you who have been so incredibly supportive in the past few weeks with your messages and texts and phone calls and (most of all) your prayers.

Peace to you.
- Elraen -

Remembering

In my first two decades of life, one thing I have been oddly free from is the face of death.

Two nights ago, my grandfather on my dad's side-- my Opa-- flickered out and went home. I am trying to learn how to process it. I know exactly how I should be feeling and thinking. I outline it like a story with a script in my head. But I don't have the energy to follow the story. I barely feel at all.

I have two very vivid memories of my Opa that have been playing through my head over and over again. The first is from years ago, when I was 12. Around Christmas that year, my mother found a poem printed on a page on her desk. She asked where it came from, if someone had copied it out of a book. I was scared at first, wondering how I could have been careless enough to drop it. Eventually I admitted that I had written it.

My mother liked it enough that she put it in the family newsletter. I found this slightly embarrassing and quickly forgot it. But a few weeks later, I got a phone call from my Opa. I was baffled. I had never been specifically called by a grandparent before.

My Opa told me that he wanted to be sure to tell me how beautiful my poem was. He wanted me to know that it displayed a wisdom that seemed unbelievable from a 12-year-old. He wanted to tell me to keep writing.

I had been writing poetry for 4 years already then, and it would take me 5 more years to find my voice. But that was the first time I believed my poetry had any value. I had never believed it was worthwhile before then.

The other memory is stronger. I was 16, and we were gathered as a family in the mountains in north Georgia to celebrate my grandparents' 50th anniversary. I was at the height of the dark summer, the one with a story I still don't tell. I didn't talk to anyone. I spent hours wrapped in my walls of notebooks and pens. One morning everyone else was busy. I was sitting alone by a window, drawing and writing poems. My Opa came quiet behind me. He said hello and gently rested his hand on my shoulder. "You're a good girl, Mary," he said gently.

I would cry about it later, because I didn't understand how he could say that. It wasn't true, and I knew it. If he had any idea where my heart was, I have no idea if he would have offered those words. But I do know that the words stayed with me, written deep in my memory. In some of my absolute worst moments, he thought I was alright. He told me I had value.

These are the things that I remember. There are much bigger things my Opa did... a German raised in China who spent his entire life devoted to serving his Savior, teaching all over the world. His voice echoes in so many places. My siblings and I carry an incredible legacy. But I think right now, I'd rather remember the quiet moments... the gentle times, the small words. They are what I will hold onto as I say goodbye.

And I know there are many stories like this, stories that will be spun somewhere between laughter and tears over these next few days as family gathers to lay him to sleep under the grass. These are the things that are important now.

Switchfoot has a song titled Yesterdays. In this song they offer the simple phrase "every lament is a love song." And this means for me that maybe telling these stories, grieving, even shedding tears... it is a way of loving, of saying his life was beautiful.

I will write a song about him, soon. There is no melody yet, just half-formed words, but it's already pressing against my skin. A lament. A love song.

I am remembering, even if I don't yet understand. And I will tell his stories, the stories that will last long after the service on Wednesday. The stories that say something about the value of life, even if it carries the terrible weight of goodbyes.

- Elraen -

One More Year

I have now completed the simultaneously best and worst year of college thus far.

When I chose The Shadow Proves the Sunshine back in November as my theme song for junior year, I had no idea how accurate it would be. The contrast has been absolutely intense.

There have been primarily shadows for a long time now, with a few moments of quick and short-lived radiance like a lighter fluid fire. And yet, unusually, school has not been the problem. School has instead been almost a refuge. The steady rhythm of work and return has been a wonderful constant. While I’ve struggled with stretches of apathy more than ever before this semester, it’s been overcome.

Most of all, my school feels less dangerous to me now. Not that it doesn’t still feel like a cage; that’s what it is, so it will always feel that way to me. But now it’s a cage that I have accepted and learned to live in. I am not sure whether this is bad or not, but I have found that there are some good things in the cage with me that I hadn’t noticed before because I was so busy trying to pick the lock. Notably, there are a few people in here with me who are incredible. I have had a group of friends at school who I actually feel comfortable being around for the first time. I get the distinct impression that they actually want to be around, which is odd to me because there’s no reason for it. But it has been an incredible comfort to me to know that there are people to talk to at college events, to sit with, to go to shows with, to watch movies with, to stay up late talking to… these are things that I have never had before. My “social life” barely counts as such by normal standards, but just the fact that there are people around who know my name, who know the music I like, who and are willing to talk… that is mind-blowing and baffling and thrilling to me.

I think one reason why I’ve hated school so much less this year is that in the midst of everything outside of school, school has provided something that makes sense. I know exactly how to handle school. It’s a wonderful cause and effect situation. There is a fear of failure, it is true, but there are obvious ways to overcome the failure— I can simply work harder and the failure goes away. In the rest of my life, I can’t do that. Everything I have tried to do over the past few months outside of school, I have failed. No amount of work or striving ever makes any kind of impact.

I have slept less this semester than at any other time since my final semester of highschool. For long stretches of time I’ve been getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night... sometimes less. This is not always due to homework. It has made focus incredibly challenging. I have my own room now for the first time, which helps. Most nights I am alone in my room for 7 or 8 hours at a time before going to sleep. It is the only way I stay sane.

I am still sorting out the tangles of another year, and it is hard for me to say how God will use the things that have happened. But one thing I have learned is that sometimes, even despite the shadows, there is joy to be found simply in knowing sunshine exists. Even if you can’t see it or touch it or taste it. Sometimes I forget that my friends who live far away exist. Then they do something to remind me, or I look around at the pictures stuck around my room, and I am reminded. Even if I am not given the things that I need now-- friends close by, a hope for a future, even sleep-- I know that those things are real. Just the fact that these moments of joy and hope exist is enough to be sustaining, even if I cannot see them. I have had to learn more than ever before how to believe that God is still speaking even when I cannot hear Him.

I have one more year. One more year to learn to enjoy the things I have here instead of mourning all the things I have lost. One more year to learn to quiet my own voice enough so that I can listen. One more year to accept whatever path God has already set in place in front of me.

And maybe it’s too soon yet to hope for a change... there have been times this semester when even the word “tomorrow” has seemed like a hopelessly, impossibly brave idea. But there is something in me that is beginning to reach again for the idea that maybe this really is only the beginning.

Peace to you.
- Elraen -

Twists

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we react when something doesn’t turn out the way we planned it.

Last weekend was kind of a study in that. I had spent the past few months putting together a flawless plan that would have been absolutely fantastic had it worked out right. My dear friend Joy would be coming up on Friday. That night we would celebrate my birthday. The next day my brother Flynn, my sister Mercy, Joy, and I would go to Sixflags for the whole day. That evening Family Force 5 was playing, a band we all love. I had managed to get incredibly good tickets.

The first kink ended up being that we had far too much to do for Friday. I recognize now that I had been overly ambitious in thinking it was a good time to celebrate my birthday, but I basically wanted that out of the way as fast as possible. Regardless, celebrating my birthday ended up being allotted about 30 minutes of eating pizza with my family before Joy and I went to see Eisley in another city.

The Eisley show was good, but also not as planned, because the lead singer got sick so last-minute the band had to pull together a set that did not rely on her. They did an amazing job anyway, but it definitely wasn’t how they’d planned it.

The next day we headed to Sixflags. The day itself was pretty good. We rode a few of my favorite rides, and even in the long lines we had a good time talking. When evening came, we went to the big stadium where I’ve seen Skillet the past two years. The sky was cloudy, but everyone was hoping the rain would hold off.

We got to see Lecrae perform, which was excellent, and then we sat through Hawk Nelson impatiently. Right as Hawk Nelson was nearing the end of their set so Family Force 5 could play, someone came out and announced that due to lightning we had to evacuate (major flashbacks to two years ago).

We all shuffled out of the huge stadium. Joy, Mercy, and I sat down on an open area of cement and talked and waited and watched the lightning. Eventually they let us back in, and we sat down for a few minutes before they came back out and said we had to leave again. This time, Soul Glow (of Family Force 5) got up to apologize. They said that we would get to come back, but by this point I knew better. A few minutes after we got out this time, they announced that the show was entirely cancelled.

This was somewhat dispiriting. It is a three hour drive to Sixflags, and it is very expensive to get in, and all of us had made serious sacrifices to be able to afford it. I had managed to get such good seats. And we didn’t get to see them.

So we went and found a random Denny’s. We ordered pancakes and a bacon sundae and talked and laughed and greatly amused and confused our waiter. Then we started the long, long drive home.

The next day was Easter. This year our celebration was incredibly low-key. The rest of Sunday was a sort of steady downhill, enough so that I won’t go into it.

Suffice it to say that by the end of Sunday, so many things were going wrong that it didn’t bother me anymore. A friend of mine summed it up well: “Not problems, hilarious twists!” And that is sort of what it became for me. I simply decided not to take it too seriously. They evacuate us from the venue? OK, we’ll sit here in the rain and drink soda and make fun of the ridiculous country music they’re playing. They cancel the show? OK, we’ll go and eat bacon and pancakes and drink coffee at Denny’s at midnight. A sibling drops my birthday cake upside down on the dining room floor? Alright, I’ll pick it up, scrape it off, and stick it back together the best I can.

But there are other twists that are a lot harder to do that with. Sometimes some of the twists steal my breath for a while.

For years now, I have considered this upcoming summer to be very significant. I had planned for it to be the summer that I already had a car, that I went out of state to do an internship, that I started moving away from the prison of my college. That is so, so far from how reality is turning out.

I pursued three internships, all of which I was passionate about. Every single one fell through. I will spend all summer working at the library. I will not get to go spend time with all my friends in Colorado-- I’m missing the moot for the first time since 2007. My sister, who is one of my best friends, is going to be in Japan all summer, and though I’m ridiculously proud of her, I’m going to miss her terribly. This is also the first summer with my older brother moved out. All my friends from school are going home, and the two local friends who I spend the most time with are leaving for most of the summer too.

When I actually find time to think about these things, it proves incredibly discouraging. I have had a growing feeling for the past two years (especially as I approach graduation with absolutely no plan and no hope) that my future is sort of a lost cause.

But in the midst of this I am trying to remember again to look at all this, take a deep breath, and welcome the adventure. This summer I will do the only thing that still makes sense to me-- I will work as much and as hard as possible, and on weekends I will drive all over the state and indeed all over the country, chasing music. Two festivals and three individual shows are lined up so far. And if all of this is taken from me too, I will still be able to curl up in my room with my guitar... there will still be places for joy.

This is a blog post of questions, not answers. But I think maybe things I've said before apply here too. Maybe sometimes things have to be taken from us just so that we can learn that we never needed them. Maybe sometimes God has to black out every other light so we can see His light better. Maybe sometimes I just need the terribly painful lesson that I can’t make things work, and I wasn’t ever meant to (since when was it my right to order a world I did not create?). And maybe instead of letting all these hilarious twists trip me, I need to learn how to dance with them...

Peace to you.
- Elraen -

Cure For Pain

“Oh my God, can I complain? You take away my firm belief and graft my soul upon Your grief.”
- Jars of Clay

Every blog post I have written over the past 6 months has been born out of an intense struggle. This one is no different. It is my attempt at honesty over something that keeps me awake at night.

One of the things that frustrates me most is seeing people I love struggle and hurt. I know part of it is because I feel like I should be able to stop it (which is usually a foolish idea, as previously discussed). Part of it is simply that there is something in me that feels pain from the people around me the way other people hear their voices. It’s like a scent I can’t avoid. Another factor is that I have spent so much time focused on the hurt in people that I have simply forgotten that happiness and ordinary life exist.

There is a popular prayer in the Christian culture right now. It is a prayer that says “God, break my heart for the things that break Yours.” I think that if we actually realized what that would actually feel like, we wouldn’t throw it around so much. I am often terrified to pray that, because when He answers, it feels like more than I can bear. One of the hard things about understanding that there is only One thing that can make you whole is that you become acutely aware of how broken everything else is. And sometimes I spend so much time mourning that I lose focus. It’s not hard. There is a lot to mourn about.

The age-old problem of pain is one that I think we will wrestle with all our lives. For me, I see it everywhere. I see it in the painfully awkward family trying to keep their arguments down to whispers in a store. I see it in my friends who do not understand yet how much their lives are worth. I see it in my own family. I see it in Japan, in Libya, in Egypt. I see it in the dim-lit clubs, screaming with the electric guitars. It pounds against the walls of my heart day after day.

I would do anything to drown it out. I write words, I pray countless prayers through sleepless nights, I listen to songs and play songs, I give money, but I know that I am barely making any kind of dent. Even in the times when I feel like God has used me most, I know that there are so many places I will never, ever be able to go. Sometimes it overwhelms me until I can barely breathe.

The world is broken.

Heaven knows, heaven knows— I tried to find a cure for the pain. Oh my Lord! To suffer like You do— it would be a lie to run away.

- Jon Foreman

Over the past several months, my faith has often felt like a burden because of this. I can’t stand seeing how broken the world is, knowing we are called to shine into that brokenness, and knowing that still some will see that light and not understand. I can’t stand breaking over the things that break God’s heart. It’s hard.

I can’t pretend to offer many answers for this. I am still fighting. If you have any thoughts, feel free to share them. For myself though, there are a few things I have been learning (however slowly).

First is the simple fact that God is not just a God who says “look how broken My world is.” He is also a Comforter. He might allow my heart to break, but He will meet me in the midst of that. Jesus asks us to lay down our lives, but He has already given us hope, comfort, and peace through laying down His. I am prone to forget this, to pretend it doesn’t exist and thus to shut Him out.

Another thing I am learning is that I absolutely cannot function when I spend every moment of every day focused on the things that hurt. Yes, I am called to love, even in (especially in) the dark. But I have a tendency to focus on the darkness to the point where I lose perspective. Reality fades out. I have been reminded of how good I am at deceiving myself in this way over the past few weeks. When my family drove to Atlanta, there were some very hard situations I was dealing with. But in the midst of that, I had friends there who provided a safe place for me to come back to every day, friends who are like light and water when I am blind and thirsty. It amazed me.

This was echoed again this past weekend. A friend was visiting from out of state, and over the few days that we had with her we had some incredibly good conversations that were hopeful and brave. We also spent time just talking about movies and stories, watching music videos, and laughing. It was incredible. It was like being reminded of an entire half of existence that I had completely forgotten about.

We are broken, we are worn so thin. But somehow there is Light that fills these shells and glows through our broken skin.

There is a reminder I was given that I have had to repeat over and over again in the past few months-- the joy of the Lord is your strength.

I am fighting, I am struggling, I am so very tired. But I am learning that I will never get anywhere until I understand that strength to face this terrible darkness has to come from something outside of my own resolve. It has to come from Light. It has to come from Joy.

And when I am resting in that, then I have the strength to keep going. Then I can consider it an honor and a privilege to stand in the darkness, throwing handfuls of stars at the vast expanse of black night sky, praying that a few of them will stick.

“There will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart but erase your fears...”
- Mumford & Sons

Peace to you.
- Elraen -

Refrain: A Poem

Refrain
4-1-11

I am the shine beneath your eyes,
the blooming spark that never dies.
This shadow at your windowpane
will never silence my refrain.

When all the blood within you dries
I am the shine beneath your eyes.
With dark tangled around the sun,
your skin’s color might bleed and run.

But when starlight drowns in the shame
and when you quench the candleflame,
I am the shine beneath your eyes,
the call that bids you still to rise.

When nightfall sets in like a doubt
the bottom of your heart falls out.
I’m the hope that flutters and flies,
I am the shine beneath your eyes.

---

My "reject poetry" (the stuff I don't necessarily want to post on the writing forum I'm on) sometimes gets put on either my blog or facebook. I hadn't put one here in a while. This is a quatern, and it is written from the point of view of faith.

Falling Up

The story of the past six months of my life is the story of the struggle with grace and mercy. This is part two, I guess, to the post I wrote in December (High and Low).

I have thought a lot along the themes of inadequacy over the past few months, and about what it actually means to be enough. I have felt like I was betraying God by the fact that I am not who I should be. I do not love enough, I do not obey enough, I do not trust enough, I do not give enough.

Recently I have felt the quiet reminder from Jesus... that’s the point. You were not enough. That’s why I came to rescue you.

It is funny how, for me at least, accepting grace takes a much greater act of surrender than accepting condemnation. What is it in our human hearts that is so broken that it turns away these freely offered gifts, this breathing grace that waits at every moment to transform us? Why do we shrink from that? What are we afraid of?

I think I am afraid of a loss of control. It is so much easier to believe that we were meant to mend things, because that is in the field of the familiar. We get a false sense of security from the illusion of control. One thing I have learned is that in a sense a lot of our striving is a search to save ourselves. In a moment of bitter honesty, I had to admit to myself that in the past I have been obsessed with saving people because I felt that it was the only way to save myself from myself (if you followed that sentence first time through I applaud you, by the way). When I admit that there is absolutely nothing I personally can do to fix anything, that means a complete loss of control (“it seems honesty has finally got me to confess I can’t save anything”). And sometimes that can feel like dying.

Surrender. It’s like sitting back and letting every single thing you ever thought was secure shatter, holding onto only the belief that He will rebuild something better. When talking to people who are struggling with the Christian faith, I have found that this is perhaps the absolute hardest thing for people to accept. The reality is that when Jesus asked us to take up our crosses, He wasn’t just saying “come and suffer.” He was saying “come and die.”

I do not take kindly to that, if I am honest. I want to cling to my own concept of what it is to be good, I want to cling to my own sense of fulfillment, I want to cling to the picture of salvation that I have scratched out on the wall of my prison. Anything but letting go. Anything but admitting how needy I am.

I have found that complete surrender is different than we might think. Yes, at first maybe it will feel like dying, but only for a little while. Then it begins to feel a little like falling up... relentless, unstoppable motion, pulled towards the light out of the dark. When we surrender, we are drawn to God with a pull stronger than gravity. Grace is like that. It doesn’t give up. It keeps pulling, keeps working, untangling these shadows and straightening out the sunlight...

I am not enough. But Jesus is, and somehow He loved me enough to cover my inadequacy with His perfection. I fight so hard to try to gain something He already gave me, to deserve something that is by its very nature undeserved. Maybe it’s better to stop fighting. Maybe it’s better to let His voice speak above my noise. Maybe it’s better to let go, to fall up, closer and closer to the only One who holds salvation...

“You’re not guilty anymore, You're not filthy anymore. I love you, mercy is yours. You're not broken anymore, You're not captive anymore. I love you, mercy is yours...”
- Aaron Keyes

- Elraen -