Echoing Words

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Proverbs 18:21

I love words. I write them, I read them, curse them, believe them and hang on them.

Words are powerful. Words are like a super hero who has the choice to do good or evil. They have the ability to heal a festering wound, the authority to devastate, or the strength to support and levitate. The scariest trait of words is their staying power. We all have words that echo in our head from decades past.

Sometimes words can transform you. Jason and I were sitting by my grandpa’s pond on a sunny day. I was not sure about him and he was sure about me. My wall was high and he was scrambling to break through. He leaned in, cornered me and gently said in raw honesty, “I want to take care of you.” The words were like an earthquake that shook my tall brick wall to the ground. Floods of tears held back by expert masonry work spilled over right onto his lap. Those words were the foundation of a lasting bridge between he and I.

Sometimes we don’t know what words we are going to hear. We wait for words of hope and hope if they aren’t what we want to hear, we will be ok. Words can shake you, knock the air out of your being and leave you lost. My family’s familiar faces did not comfort me that day. In fact, they did not look familiar. My tall standing father was slumped, he looked alone. Whiffs of bleach, squeaks of tennis shoes, constant ringing of an office phone seemed to go on for days as my family sat for an hour in the waiting room. The doctor came out to tell us the news, the words came at us like a slow and steady tsunami. We could see it coming and knew it could kill yet, had no where to run. The words that my fifteen year old brother had cancer devastated more than our home. The words cut up the inside of our hearts and scattered the pieces to lands we had never traveled and weren't sure we'd have the strength to go. As I watched my cousin hold up my father with a hug, we all knew that that this was a moment where silence held more power than words.

Then there are times when someone’s words set you free. Not too long ago, I felt like Eeyore, it seemed everywhere I went I couldn’t get out from an oppressive dark cloud. I felt down on myself. Why was life so full of adventure when I was younger? Life was suddenly so predictable. My faith used to be unwavering. Now I found myself doubting. I was skinnier and more smiley. Now my jeans don’t fit and serious thoughts painted my face. My goals and career seemed close within reach before. Now I am in school and my career is somewhere down a distant road. I felt imprisoned to the question…”why was life more exciting before?" Why have I allowed myself to take a step back when I should be leaps forward?” I never imagined myself moving “backwards” in life. Still, no matter the circumstances of life, I knew I had grown into a woman who knew better than she knew before. I wouldn’t have gone back to the old person I was because I had learned so much but according to the world around me, it looked as if I had fell into a pit and was stuck until someone threw me a rope to climb out. The rope came to me as I was sitting in class listening to my brilliant professor. I found that many of his words were beginning to poke holes of sunlight through my dark cloud. Each week, I “hung” on his words of truth and inspiration. One morning, his words were like a hand which reached deep into my heart grabbed a hold of it, shook out all of the lies and like a potter, began to pat truth and hope all over it. He said, “You know, sometimes it’s hard to tell if you are backslidden or if you are on a learning curve. “ An aha moment! A moment when everything that looked messed up was instantly deemed an abstract masterpiece of art. Suddenly, my life was something I was confidently proud of, even if the onlookers couldn’t see the rhyme in the reason. I finally could see it clearly…I was on a learning curve. My professor’s words set me free to ride the curve like a roller coaster, letting go of my grip and raising my hands high.

I will never take my words for granted. My words are my gift from my creator. My voice is my superpower. Our words tell our story. They assist us to love. They are our power to heal. They enable us to freedom, and they lead us to truth.

"i do"

Let’s face it. Marriage is an endangered species. Why commit the next fifty years of your life to someone when you have the option to try em’ out for awhile and then eventually find something better if it doesn’t work out? In fact, despite my conservative beliefs about marriage and family, I too…found myself reading a book entitled, “What are men for?” Before I met Jason, my ears would get hot and my heart would pound as …she …walked…down…the…aisle towards a life time of being with the same person for eternity! Sitting in the audience of each wedding I attended, my heart would silently scream…”run!” To my surprise, no one at any wedding I had ever attended actually ran. They stayed and vowed to give each other their forever just.like.that.
I knew I wanted to marry someday but if I reached down into the depths of the dark part of my heart, there in the crevasses…it didn’t look too promising. Most people tell you marriage is “hard but worth it.” To me, that sounded like a married couple telling me they would rather be single but had to tell themselves there was a reason for their suffering.
Now I realize that I am only 2 months into being an official “wife” but let me tell you that I am truly the happiest I have ever been. I believe that the marriage ceremony is one of the last most amazing things about our American culture…not to mention powerful.
As Jason and I stood, shoulders squared, eyes softly locked, “hearts pounding” and “ears hot”…it all made sense. I could never imagine marrying anyone because I had never met the man across from me. Marriage is not just a vow. It is the bravest most sober choice anyone could ever make.
There across from me, stood this man whom I respected and loved, who was willing to give me his heart, life, future, and life commitment for the rest of his life. There is nothing more powerful and intimate than making a marriage vow in front of everyone who knows you, loves you, and supports you. I am a very independent person but there is something about marriage that helped me take a deep breath and relax...security.
I now have a partner in life who can pick up the pieces if I can’t carry all of them; I now have someone who is on my team even if my team is losing.
When Jason made a vow to me, it was like one of the greatest gifts of grace I had ever been given. We both knew that the vow does not guarantee happiness or satisfaction. Standing there, we both knew that the only thing these vows guarantee is commitment…no matter if we want to run or not.

Where beauty grows.

I have never pulled a weed in my life and today I couldn’t believe it when the lady at Sebo’s swiped my card for a tarp and rain gear. Life seems to take us in directions we could have never foreseen. However, the one thing I’ve learned along these surprising twists and turns is to seek the lessons on these unexpected stops. I am no where near a professional gardener but in my opinion, God made plants a lot like people.
Yesterday, when I was replanting a tree, my boss instructed me to be gentle with the soil above the roots. “Most people think that plants breathe through their leaves but they actually breathe through their roots....” she said. Glancing beyond the Forsythia tree and fixing my eyes on the spot where the sun reflected against the angry churning Puget Sound, I thought to myself...”I have been trying to get through life breathing through my leaves but I actually breathe through my roots too.” We all do.
Some people’s roots make it hard for them to breathe and some people’s roots enable them to become a tall standing tree with branches bravely reaching high. For the first time in my life, my roots look like they are coming to the surface. For the first time...I can see them plainly. Until recently, I have kept them tightly packed and buried and I was trying to breathe through my leaves that everyone could see. It seems the more soil I uncover, the more I find roots which are twisted and curled. My roots were going off in a direction of their own. Some of the roots were influencing my branches to face toward the shade and some of them are the source of my greatest strength.
I got up off my knees to admire this Forsythia tree. As I stood back, it was easy to see that it wasn’t perfect but it was beautifully unique and the roots are the start of it’s beauty. I’ll never understand how warped roots can sustain such a good thing but I am thankful that the most lovely things in life are originate from a place of depth and growth.