Many times I hear this.  “You’re so brave and honest to say what you do.  It changes my walk and my perspective.  It makes me feel brave.”  It’s true I speak plain.  I am an open book, most of the time.  I can pull in fearful when someone intimidates me and self edit out of terror of their reaction.  I don’t like it when people are angry with me or don’t like me.  It makes me feel small and wrong.  And I scramble in unhealthy ways to make it go away.  But the truth is, what I feel doesn’t define my character.  It’s just sometimes hard to ignore.

But my words have become my “calling”.  I tell quick whoever lays admiration at me feet, “Before you consider this a virtue, consider that I find myself told to do this by my Creator.”  I fuel myself through writing and “work out my salvation” by sewing thoughts together.  It is true I enjoy that part.  The other?  The transparency?  The publishing of my guts?  I do it because it seems I’m “supposed to”.

When I start to doubt I’m making sense,, doubt I’m doing any good, doubt I’m coming across as anything other than a needy fool…..just doubt?  He sends me you and your words show me what He is intending.  This that I do pulls people into my journey, pulls people to consider Him.  I find myself surrounded by a cloud of witnesses right here on earth.  He cloaks me with you and we form a community who gathers up close and opens our hearts to each other.

He’s making us all brave, even if it’s just to whisper, “I feel that too sometimes.”  He’s calling us to press on.  This life is hard.  It’s harder still to feel afraid alone.  Or angry.  Or stupid.  Or joyful.  Or silly.

So I will cook up my word recipes and serve them up to you.  Please know how deeply it affects me when you swim up by my side in the life pool and whisper encouragement to me or tell me your own stories.  You become a part of holding up my arms to brave the doubt and continue my own calling.

I love you for that.

It’s a whirly wind of an evening and my girl and I are already in our pajamas.  She has tired all over her and her first “real” high school finals to study for.  We bought our dinner and brought it home to eat cozy on the couch.  I stopped at the store and replenished the candy for “my kids” at school tomorrow and it sits ready in the back seat of my car.   I’m settled in thinking through the day; the snapshot moments that my mind plays back.

I couldn’t sleep last night;  part caffeine, part menopause, part the weighty matter of waiting on forgiveness from someone rolling around in my mind.   Another friend sleepless popped up in a tiny message on my computer screen.  “How do you handle rejection?”, she asks in the middle of the night and I laugh soft to myself.  Irony.  “I don’t sleep,” I say.  “Give them time.”  I saw my own words on the screen and had my own answer.

My friend brought me Starbucks and we sat for a happy hour talking in the store, our words punctuated by the occasional kid that stopped by for a hug or a scoop into the candy bowl.  We talked all things that we understood about each other and I told her I’d felt like disappearing lately; fighting it.  “I haven’t been to church in three weeks.  I’m just not wanting to step out.  I feel like Vincent in Starry, Starry Night.  This world just feels too harsh to me.”  I shrugged and saw her look off distant and fight back tears.  “I need you there.  It comforts me to see you.”  I was startled that someone would say that about my presence in a big church building.  It caused me to sit up straight with resolve.  “Alright then.  I’ll be there.”

Then another friend, and we danced the happy dance that her new house would be hers to nest in before Christmas after all.    We each have  girls who are becoming fast friends and an eagerness to strip off what isn’t real and get straight to the heart of a matter.  We’ve both learned hard things the past week and cried shared tears of lessons humbling.  She tells me of the cupcakes she needs to run to get to pass out to her sons’ class for his birthday and waves a cheerful smile as she passes out the door.

I walk to the teacher’s lounge and happened upon a Christmas lunch prepared for all of us at the school and felt grateful for the lasagna and warm bread; comfort on a plate.  It was fun to sit across from teachers’ I don’t often have a chance to listen to and hear their stories.  I stopped to visit the accountant,  self described anti social who I hit it off with royal right from the start, and we talked how to pay for school when I didn’t know if I could.  It’s funny how the least likely person can be your cheerleader for the day.

I checked the clock.  It was time for the boy’s class to head to their room and stop by the store for candy.  I wanted to be there.  I’d sat hopeful each day for two weeks since the day I wounded him with my words,  and watched him pass me by without a glance.  I wanted to give him a chance to change his mind.  Today, he walked through the door.  I took in air surprised but didn’t move.  I was afraid I’d scare him away.  He pawed through the candy bowl with his classmates, staring down fixed and avoiding my gaze.  He chose a piece and walked back out without a word.  After class, he showed up again.  This time I took the end of my pen and touched his arm just slightly.  “I know you’re here.  And I’m glad.  I know it’s not what you feel like doing.  I recognize the choice.”  I hoped my pen had written that on his heart.

I remembered his father’s words.  “Be patient, Tamara.”  This was a messy business.   I was dying for forgiveness.  I was glad that my Father had already died for mine.

I’m chewing cud over here like a mad cow.  It’s what I do.  It’s also who I am so I do not apologize.  I am a thinker, a writer, a lover of people and what and who they are.  I am passionate when I care and sometimes it comes out all wrong and sounds like angry.   I will stay right there in your dirt while you sling it.  I will be the first to grab you and hug you when you throw the last clod, worn out mad or hurt, and wrap my arms around you even if it’s me you’re mad at.  When I love, I love even with the enamel on my teeth.  I’m worse than an old coon dog.  I will always come home to roost with you.

I am irritating that way.  I know that.  I love to know what you’re thinking.  I love knowing what you like on your hamburger.  I love knowing that if you’re mad at me you’ll yell at me if you have to.  Because then I know we’re safe for each other.   I am not someone to hold at a distance.  I laugh easy, I cry easier, I listen close, I pay forward in spades with hugs and empathy.  I make food and be silly and curl up by fires and roast marshmallows until they’re black and laugh at your jokes. I like the zoo and speaking nonsense. But at the end of the day, I won’t be held at a distance.  Distance feels like strangers.  It makes me feel like an intruder; like I’m being punished.  Like a waste of time and reason.  It feels like the invitation to the door.

I will push you past your comfort zone to take your hand and walk you into light you may not have seen before.  Because sometimes my flashlight shines brighter than yours.  I will stand close to you when you shine your light on me.  Because that’s why God puts us in each others’ lives.  And I will be the last to resist that.  I warm myself by the light He puts in you.  I want to challenge and be challenged.  Else why?

So “don’t stand so close to me” if you don’t want me wiping the mud off your hands after you’ve yelled at me and thrown the pickle off of your hamburger.  I don’t know any other way to be but all in.  I will do the diddy wop dance to make you laugh.  I will send you cards with little tiny people holding balloons that look pitiful to make you know that I miss you.  I will draw pictures in the steam of your window until you let me in.

I like red onions on my hambuger