shifting

this is a word I've used a lot lately -> shifting.

it's the word that best describes what's been going on inside me the past few months...shifting.

think "plate tectonics" and how the shifting that happens below the surface of the earth totally alters the layout of things on the surface. that's a pretty decent description; pretty accurately describing me.

i've probably been shifting all my life...starting out as the person God created me to be in the first place...impacted and changed by life experiences...attempting to alter the impact through therapy, spiritual journeying, and ongoing conversations with God and whomever might listen/engage at any given moment.

but there's been some exceptional shifting that's occurred lately - deep uprooting of things - releasings, freedoms, a coming-into-myself that feels like I'm perhaps getting closer to re-becoming the person I was created to be in the first place. it feels good.

no, it feels fantastic.

the past couple of years have had some significant bumps and bruises. disappointment has been a greater blow than I ever could have imagined (I had a therapist once who suggested I might be "disappointed" about something in my childhood... At that moment I remember thinking, "Is he serious?? 'Disappointed'?? I'm not 'disappointed' - I'm mad as hell!" It was only a few weeks before the truth about 'disappointment' began to kick in, and I - for the first time - felt the true weight of that word). disappointed, injured, altered - i have felt all of these things the past couple of years.

it was just a few months ago that i began to ask the lord to uproot these things in me. that quest led to a deeper self-awareness: the power that fear had in me.

if you know anything about me, you know I've had some experiences in life that could easily produce a root of fear ;)

but I've done a lot of personal work over the years - revisiting old wounds, addressing their impact, cutting loose the ties that were connecting me to the past and working hard to live freer in today. i practice trust, and am pretty intentional about stepping into realms that feel risky, primarily to get past the fear, and also to learn new things about what healthy trust can look like today. I "enter-in". i'm pretty intentional about that.

my work so far has centered around visiting old inner sites and working through those spaces to get to the other side and live differently as a result. because my work thus far has primarily been around old burial grounds, i was fairly caught off guard by new deaths, adult-onset-wounds that were having a profound impact.

and it's been through the recent stuff that i've been made aware of the depth, breadth and sheer force of power that fear had on my life.

fear is a powerful thing. it stops me dead in my tracks. it stops my breathing, quite possibly stops my heart, and i freeze up, unable to move. it's one thing to feel this way in a moment... you're walking down a dark street, you hear a noise, and everything in you says "do not make a move". with a bit of vigilance you can assess the situation, notice the cat in the nearby bushes, laugh at yourself (curse the cat) and move on.

it's an entirely different thing when you realize you haven't breathed... in a very long time. that was my revelation: i had been holding my breath. the bottom was falling out, and i was holding my breath. and eventually, i wanted to breathe again.

that's when i began to ask the lord to uproot this fear in me.

and although I didn't notice it right at first, s/he had already been doing so.

there's a lot i could say about the process, but mostly i feel like focusing on The Shack. i mentioned in my last blog that the book has had a profound impact on me. it has.

the funny thing is, a friend had given me the book back in february when she came to visit. i'd never heard of it, and i was already reading for school, so it sat in the same spot on my sewing table for two months before i tossed it in my bag as i headed out for vacation.

what i love about that is that i can look back now and know it was all about the timing. some things needed to shift more before i'd be ready to consume what The Shack had to offer.

without going into details about the book (some friends told me about it before i started reading it... and i really wish that hadn't happened. i know the beauty that can be had in the element of surprise, and i wish i'd been utterly surprised by the entire book - not just most of it) i'll just share some of the ways it's being used in my life.

i don't know if things go this way for you, but there are times when i am acutely aware of God "showing up" on my behalf. some call it coincidence, and that's fine. but in my life it is pure God. there has been a lot (lot) of that in the past few months - God showing up in the most distinct ways - it almost feels like s/he is winking at me like a good parent who just showed up at my ballgame and wants me to know they're there. and really, it has shifted me to a place of more constant awareness of the presence of God (point: God's been there - I'm just actually aware and noticing more; the change is in me, not God).

some of those winks came via geographical references in The Shack. it takes place in Oregon, and more specifically in a family vacation spot that our family made use of - - right down to the not-so-wild-yet-absolutely-annoying deer and the go-carts. the familiarity of the setting did more for me than i could describe here.

getting back to the more-impacting parts of The Shack - - as i read, a picture kept coming to mind... a root. a big fatty root sitting just below the surface. there was beautiful growth sprouting above the surface, but the root itself was big, thick, and heavy. in my mind i saw it as if seeing a cross-section of earth, cut away so that half the root was visible, but the other half was still attached to the earth, and the growth above and the root below were untouched.

there were two shoots of root growing off to the left of this big thick singular root. for the longest time (a few weeks?) i couldn't ever see what was coming off the right side of the root - but i had a feeling it looked a lot messier than the two neat shoots on the other side. eventually i found out i was right.

i should probably mention that i read The Shack twice - once, while on vacation, i read through it and finished it on a tuesday after i'd returned home. i recognized while i was reading it that i was going to want to read it again right away, so that freed me up from slowing down too much the first time thru, and allowed me to just get through it and get a feel for the big picture of it all. that tuesday when i finished it.... well, i picked it up again that night and started over. the second time through i took about three weeks to read it. it was through this longer reading process that much of the uprooting took place.

back to my root....

a number of the events and conversations throughout The Shack were playing grounds for my very own tectonic shift. i was acutely aware of the emotions that rose up at any given time, and i very consciously entered-in and gave way to them.

although i love words, there are times when there simply aren't adequate ones to describe a thing. i'm finding that right now as i type and try to give an account of what happened within, or what all i was feeling at the time. what i can say is: i was acutely aware. there were parts inside me that i don't often (ever?) visit, that were visited. places were touched - and i don't mean touched like a grandma describes a Hallmark commercial, "touched" - i mean they were accessed. places were accessed that i maybe didn't even realize existed. and as they were accessed, and as i intentionally went there, shifts began to occur.

i cried many times, reading The Shack. i sobbed. places deep within were accessed and touched, and somehow along the way, releasings occurred. there were conversations with the little girl in me... and there were conversations with the adult in me. and there were many, many conversations with God.

and bit by bit i noticed something happening with my root.

there were four sets of hands tending to my root... only one set was mine.

i had this little hand-shovel that was like using a teaspoon on a sand dune where removing the earth around my root was concerned.

but at one point the other three hands reached deep in the earth, all around my root.

"plink! plink!" went the two little side shoots to the left.

"pop!" went the main root.

"rrrrrrrriiiiiip!" went the mass on the right - as, one by one, portions of my root were pulled away from the soil completely intact so as to not leave any part behind.

and slowly, with great honor and care, my hefty fear-root was lifted from the soil and graciously carried to a nearby burn-pile.

the feeling i felt most was "honored". i felt like i'd been honored in the process - like the fact that i had this fear-root was so accepted and beautiful - and like it was being removed simply because it was no longer necessary. there was no accusation, no shame, no "you really need to let go of this thing, you know". just honor and recognition and acknowledgment and acceptance. and three gentle sets of hands tending to my root that was no longer necessary.

that was a significant phrase that went thru my head over and over again - that it simply was no longer necessary. it was that sensation that left me most at ease. even knowing my fear-root was on a burn pile bore no ill feeling with it. it was where it belonged - because it was no longer necessary.

the one thing that did make me nervous was seeing my soil there with the big gaping hole left from my missing root. i could feel the vacancy, and that was a little bit scary. but it was only scary for a few brief moments. it wasn't long before the three sets of arms came back to my soil, thrust themselves deep into it, massaging it to ready it for fresh seedlings.

and that's where i'm at today. my soil is fresh; it is root-free; and it is currently bearing tiny seeds awaiting growth.

i don't know what plants will come of those seeds, but i patiently watch for the first shoots. and if you've ever seen a young child squatted down by something they are intently watching - that's my posture. and i'm smiling.

i've been thinking a lot about one of my favorite verses in the bible. it's in galatians chapter five, verse one. it says simply, it was for freedom that christ set you free.

that verse has ridden with me for several years now - it was a truth i once knew just the outter edge of. today i think i'm more toward the center.

that's a bit of what's been going on with me lately.