Make the Rough Edges Smooth

Lake Coeur d’Alene is big enough to have waves, and I couldn’t help but look at the smooth rocks in the surf with trepidation last week. The water rushing over the rocks makes the rough edges smooth, and it sounds nice. It looks bearable and maybe even relaxing. I know I have lots of rough edges, and the hardships of life have made me softer, even as I have so far to go. In Isaiah 45:2, God says, “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth.” What if the rough place is my heart?

If you’ve been a Christian for a minute, you’ve heard Romans 8:28 in which we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. If you’ve been a Christian for two minutes, you know God’s definition of good isn’t always the same as mine.

In times of trauma, the line between my "good" and my perceived ruin feels paper thin. Imagine a storm on the lake, gentle lapping replaced by pounding waves, relentless, one after another. Instead of gentle rocking, rocks are thrown around, against each other, unresting. Maybe it accomplishes the same end faster, but is it really necessary? I find myself asking “why” a lot. Why this way, God? And where’s the line between smoothing a stone and pulverizing it into sand?

If God is a wave working for my good, and I am the stone in need of polishing, he feels downright cruel. This is where I’ve been for months and months. Mad at God’s seeming cruelty in the name of my sanctification.

The pastor preached on Psalm 16 this morning, and the middle of the psalm proclaims, "the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." As I read it today, a verse that I once loved tasted bitter in my mouth. I find myself believing that there is no one to stand up for me. My safest places, big and small, have been taken away: relationships, my home, my health which I guard so carefully, my perceived idea of the future I thought was mine. I rage at God, yet return every Sunday because if I don't have Him, I have NOTHING. Yet, I don't even feel like I have him.

Today at church I asked God once again, “can I trust you?” As I cried next to a friend while the church band sang, “glory glory hallelujah, Jesus you are good,” an unbidden image came to my mind. 

What if God isn’t the wave? What if he’s the shoreline? The foundation under the rocks and the destination and, most importantly, the boundary for the waters. I feel like those places in the Old Testament whose borders had been devastated and whose cities had been ruined, and I blame God because, isn't he in control? And doesn't he love me?

But Job 38:1-11 says,

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

“Who is this that obscures my plans
    with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
 On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—

while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?

 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
 when I made the clouds its garment
    and wrapped it in thick darkness,

when I fixed limits for it
    and set its doors and bars in place,
 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
    here is where your proud waves halt’?"

I know God can calm the seas, and he's not calming mine. I'm angry. But this is a small bit of hope I can cling to: he's still there. I picture him standing firm and saying to my calamity: "This far you may come and no farther" and I want to cry tears of gratitude, because maybe he still sees me after all. 

Write This Down

Last September, I started feeling a tug to write again. Like, really write. The One Conference lit a little flame, and small things kept popping up pointing me in that direction. I was in the throes of sleeplessness, but willing to hold space for this passion without feeling obligated to dive in. Then in January, life turned upside down and a big little voice in my heart told me unequivocally that this is the story you need to write. I know writing doesn't have to equal publishing, so with little to no pushback, I said yes to the "Big Magic" as Elizabeth Gilbert calls it.

Which also means that 6 months ago, I dove headfirst into some of the really good memoirs out there (a genre I'd previous been ambivalent about). I've been inhaling books on writing. I went on a reflective writing retreat in March, and I started thinking seriously about what it meant to be A Writer. And of course, I've been sitting down at my laptop to write. So far, I only know this: every effort I've made to sit down and write-- something that happens once every few weeks at best-- has been rewarded with a simple overtone of clarity. The art of holding my attention span to an uninterrupted task until I've wrestled the subtext out of a certain situation or emotion is a reward in itself. I strongly feel that if no one else ever reads my words, that's okay.

However, I wasn't holding so loosely to my words that I wasn't devastated when my toddler dropped my laptop, breaking the hard-drive, rendering the first 10,000 words of what I'd come to think of as MY BOOK un-recoverable. You'll ask if I had backed it up, and I'll tell you, of course I didn't. For the past 6 months, staying alive has been my mantra. Making it through one day at a time. Short-term memory and critical thinking have been reserved for life-threatening situations, mostly involving my children. The rest is just details (as those t-shirts from the 90s used to say).

So here I sit, mourning those words I poured out when the trauma was fresh, grasping in vain at the wisps of ideas that I know passed out of my head and through my fingers a few short months ago, but had been released from the forefront my brain because I felt they were secure on paper. Which is, interestingly, one of the most therapeutic things about writing! It's a fascinating sort of amnesia to read something I wrote any length of time ago. The words, their rawness and confusion, whether coherent or jumbled in nature, take me right back to the space I was in when I wrote them, but I never fail to see the situation more clearly re-reading my words later than I did in the moment.

But now, some of the most crucial words of my life have disappeared into the ether. This both reminds me that they must not have been the most crucial words, and also that words and ideas can be frangible but enduring. They are worth writing again, and worth protecting, even if no one reads them but myself.

Ham and Sage Pasta Toss

16oz gluten free pasta, cooked to package directions

1.5 cups beef stock

2 Tbs grapeseed or olive oil

1 lb mushrooms, sliced

1 cup diced ham

1/4-1/2 tsp dried sage

2 Tbs butter

2 cups fresh spinach, chopped

Bring beef stock to boil until reduced to about a cup (12-15 minutes) (Optional: add 1/2 cup red wine as well)

In large non-stick skillet pan, heat oil over medium high heat, saute mushrooms until soft, then add sage and ham. Saute ham until lightly brown.

Stir in butter and beef stock reduction. Allow to thicken slightly over 2-3 minutes and then stir in spinach and pasta (and 1/2 cup parmesan or Italian cheese if using).

Meals from Friends

We ate like kings in January. Literally in a 4 week period, I think I cooked twice? So so many delicious meals, and I feel so incredibly loved.

Literally every single meal was delicious, and made enough for leftovers. Sometimes lots of leftovers! Like two dinners, and a lunch and some left to freeze. It feels like my very own loaves and fishes miracle during a dark season.

A few meals really stood out and were very different than our usual far, in a good way:

Orange Chicken

Creamy Tuscan Chicken

Lemon Garlic Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

Ham and Sage Pasta Toss

Lick Your Plate Coconut Chicken Curry

Pasta with Turkey Meatballs and Broccoli