I hope you fail (best words: part one)

My hands ache as I focus on the chords. Some come smoothly, others fumble forward.

It's my final day, my final grade. This one jazz standard.

It's me, this old guitar, and the professor, with the door open, the breeze flowing through. I take a breath and start again. At the beginning.

photo cred: Daemon, via Wikimedia Commons

I close my eyes and just play, and all of a sudden, I'm done. He nods. I can't tell whether I did well or not. I replay the notes in my head but they all blend together. And he nods again.

The whole semester of lessons had felt like I was failing. Not in that nice, everyone-gets-a-ribbon sort of way, but failing, making mistakes rapidly without even realizing it. Blending chords that don't mix. Strumming at the wrong time. Making my own rhythm and then relearning it again.

He starts to talk, and I feel like I know what's coming. That I'm just not one of those people who have rhythm, or are talented, or I need to practice more.

"You worked really hard," he takes a sip of his coffee and stands up straighter. "Elizabeth, I hope you fail." I freeze. He talks with his hands, tracing a concept in the air.

"You're going to graduate and get a job and make a life for yourself. And maybe you'll play guitar, and maybe you won't. But don't be paralyzed by perfection. You're going to fail at a lot of things-- it's called learning. And I hope you fail. I hope you play jazz songs your own way, and make paths where there are none, and take jobs and quit them.

You have this fear of failing, and it will paralyze you if you let it. The moment you really fail is when you stop trying. Don't ever stop trying."

--

I wrote those words down, and I found them today. I found them like a favorite song, like a letter from an old friend. They proved to be some of the best words anyone ever gave me. You see,

I don't play the guitar anymore.

I remember my favorite chords; I can pick some melodies. I have chosen jobs and moved my possessions, started hobbies and abandoned them. I am trying, moving forward, full force, with every melody I've got.

He was right: learning sometimes feels a lot like failing. But it's in that learning you find something out about yourself, something truer than safety:

You are incredibly resilient. You will try things and change them. You will risk and learn about yourself. You, you are your own person, with your own music. You are not alone. You are an always-changing, always-valuable story. And we,

we are waiting with sweet anticipation to see what good things happen next.
--

What are the best words someone has given you? Advice? Encouragement?

My dear, have gratitude.

It's raining.

Brake lights blur as far as I can see. If nothing changes, I will be late for work. It is a flat, gray, Monday and I don't see the goodness in it yet.
-

The man kneels beside his daughter and holds the bright blue bouncy ball that she's won. It's her prize.  She jerkily lunges to grab it from his hand, but he closes his hand around it and hides it behind his back. I look on, puzzled.

He makes sure she's looking at his eyes.

"This is a gift for you, my dear," he says, gently. She slows down, stops fidgeting.

He has her complete attention. He says something quietly, with the heart of a teacher. "Remember the gifts, my dear, and have gratitude."

He takes the ball from behind his back and opens his palm. She carefully takes it from him. Her new eyes scan this present for its value. This gift...for her. I almost forget that it isn't fragile.

-
With this one moment, I am all wrung out and undone. A million things go right in a day, and I only notice the wrong. I feel the fall all over again- spilled out so clearly in my striving, in my quick actions and sharp words. If it wasn't Eve, it would be me, remembering productivity while forgetting love. It would be one hundred small ways I overlook the good.

This is a gift for you, my dear. Have gratitude.

A loon flies out low along the water. I remember again that it is all gift- this sunrise, these breaths, my car starting. This life, so messy at times, with an extravagance that hides behind familiarity. I open my eyes wider.

I count more gifts; they multiply. For some reason, I start to include the things that are harder to label as gifts, like waiting and disappointment. I remind myself that redemption is a funny thing. It likes to use my broken pieces, nothing wasted.

The trees shake branches to some unknown hymn, and I know it's not a question of the gifts or even the Giver. It runs deeper than that. My own hummingbirds still and I wonder: will I be found grateful?

shake the dust.

"I'm not writing...much," I throw out casually, like it's not a big deal.

"It's just different now.  Harder.  I'm not sure if it matters like it used to."  I wriggle, even though I'm on the phone.  I don't like confessing this to my friend, and yet it's where I'm at.  She'll know.

Photo credit: Joe Goldberg- Seattle.

You see, I haven't felt really purposeful lately.  This summer, I'm not taking any classes.  I'm not a student. I'm working at a job that has nothing to do with what I've studied.  To quote my sweet friend Deeny, "Everything is up in the air.  Way up there."  And all of my big dreams have felt put on hold, at least for awhile.  It doesn't feel like I have much to say these days, or that any of my stories matter.

The honest thing to say is that it feels like I'm failing.  And when I told my friend that, she said, "To whom?"  It stopped me there, my insides a train that always runs too fast.

There is this thing about failure that deeply worms its way into our hearts.  There's so much pressure, especially us 20-somethings.  You need to know what you want to do.  You need to go to school.  You need to be the best, the fastest, the most successful.  It's like there's this unwritten law that you need to have your life together in a certain amount of time.

That's what has been on my mind lately.  That feeling of failure, I think it's powerful.  I think it keeps  people's dreams caged in.  I think it can keep us from being free.  It settles over us like thick dust.

If God really did create us as unique, bold, alive puzzle pieces of Him- then we all have different stories to live and things to do.  The dreams ingrained in us have a purpose; no two are exactly the same.  We each have places to go and people to love along the way.  How can you measure that?

What makes something a failure?
Is it taking too long?  Is it trying too hard?
Is it giving up?

These up-in-the-air seasons of life often lack a purpose that this world can identify.  The easy thing to do might be to call them failure and just give up.  The harder, more beautiful thing might be to open my eyes a little wider to seek out God's goodness.  Because it's here.

My words are for you tonight.  They've been hidden somewhere, in quiet, tight spaces but not anymore.  You see, if we are God's and He is ours, then we are His.  And there is no failure in that- only freedom.  There is freedom to do what lives in your heart, and I hope you do it.  I hope you dream and pray and sing and write and live.  Shake the dust.

-e

the grace of unraveling

Have you ever felt like there's no right place to begin?

That's what it feels like now, with so many words stored up for the keeping.  With every passing day I think, tomorrow I'm going to write this down. 

And after that, tomorrow I'm going to get it right.  I need some grace, because tomorrow always seems to feel like yesterday, and getting things right is a hard thing to do.

---

My world is swamped with reading, lately, and I've learned that my favorite part of stories is the unraveling.  There's probably a technical term for it, but I'm trying to be less technical these days.

The unraveling is the point in the story where there's just too much stuff going on.  There's conflict and pressure, and the main character is forced to move or change or do something that they wouldn't normally ever do.

It's usually the hardest part of the whole novel, but I've learned to love every second.  Why?

Because life happens in the hard places.

In the big decisions.  In the moments where it feels like there's just too much crap going on.  I get excited for a character because all I can think is:  This is going to make you better.  This is going to change you into someone you otherwise wouldn't have become.

And then the plot they planned on unravels, and the character loses his job, or her boyfriend breaks up with her, or there's an earthquake, or someone gets sick.  Everything falls through, and it's awful.  This is the point where I usually restrain myself from throwing the novel across the room, because things cannot. get. any. worse.

And then something miraculous happens: the character changes.  They realize that they don't need ______, ______, or _______ as much as they thought they did.  They find out who they truly are and how they want to live their lives.  The unraveling makes them re-think everything they once thought was so important.

Except when it's real life, and not just a story, it is so much harder to bear.  I don't like the unraveling when it feels like a season of my life.  Thankfully, I'm not currently in that season.  But I know some people who are in it.  People who are dear and loved, and maybe that person is you.

Dear friend, the unraveling is true to its name.  It will pull apart all of the things you lean on, and the things you think you need, and the relationships that aren't really good for you.  It will reveal all your weak coping mechanisms and unhealthy habits.  It will unravel who you think you are and what you think you need.

But even in its harshness, it is graceful.  In my life, it has been God's way of saying, You don't really need this, Elizabeth.  I am going to remove it from your life and you are going to be uncomfortable.  But I want to make you into someone different.

  

Because the grace of unraveling will change you into someone you otherwise wouldn't have become.

Someone that this world desperately needs awake and alive, growing and changing and living.  Someone who lets pain do its work, trusting that who they began as and who they are becoming are two entirely different people.

Someone who believes, even as life is coming apart at the seams, that what emerges beneath the surface will be stronger, and better, and more whole than it could have ever been before.

walking small.

Hey friends.

For the past ten days, I've been out of town on an adventure/vacation.  I have some  backtracking to do, but this is what's in my brain right now and I want to share it.

This summer has been a different type of adventure for me--not marked by motion or movement, but by staying.  I continue to wrestle with a sense of purpose, and direction beyond my time in school.

My childish impatience and tendency towards self-reliance would tell me I'm not doing enough, going enough, being enough, moving fast enough.  All of these thoughts collided together when wrangling my family through an airport tonight.

My two year old nephew insists on walking by himself.

He has trouble with his knees so he walks in this weird-wobbling-way, like an arthritic toddler.  You can tell his legs hurt, even from far away.  He's stubborn and fiestily independent, almost to his own detriment (sound like anybody you know?  haha)  He can't even speak in full sentences yet, so he strings together declarative commands to talk.

walk!  by myself! WHOLE WAY!

That's all I heard most of the day, spent in two different airports.  After vast amounts of walking, you could tell  he was exhausted.  Eventually my brother picked him up and put him on his shoulders. Instantly, my nephew started crying, screaming, and flailing his arm around.

walk!  by myself!  whole WAY!

But after a few minutes, the boy calmed down.  He started liking not having to walk on his tired legs.

"Lizzy!"  I heard him say my name and looked up to his big, toothy grin.  "Small!  Small!"

"What's small, Max?"

"Small!  People!  Daddy tall!"  And in an instant, I understood.  Everything looked smaller when he was on his father's shoulders.

Instead of having a knee-eye view of the people coming at him, he could suddenly see over them.  He didn't have to walk around people or bump into them anymore.  All of the obstacles he had been fighting to get around, he was suddenly carried above.

I think grace is like that.

So often I insist on walking in my own strength, and I grow too stubborn to let anyone help me.  Somehow I've been programmed to believe that self-reliance equals independence when nothing could be further from the truth.  I walk and stumble, trip, and bump my way through life, when all along my Father is trying to carry me.  He's trying to help me.  He's trying to love me, and I fight Him.

I want to walk. by myself. WHOLE WAY.

When I choose that, my problems and challenges can seem so intimidating and daunting.  And yet I insist, even demand, the knee-eye view of life.  I walk stubbornly, exhausted and worn-out, when infinite strength is right beside me.

When I climb on His shoulders, all my questions shrink.

My fears seem silly.  My worries collapse in on themselves.

Oh, how small everything is in light of the bigness of my God!

 His infinite wisdom.  His loving ways.  His passion for people.

Even in my seasons of change and big-decisions

I am still being carried on His shoulders.

And I wonder with a shiver of giddy anticipation-

can I even comprehend where He's taking me?

we are the rebels.

Dear friend,

There have been a lot of things changing and shifting lately, but I want to tell you about a puzzle-piece moment from this past week.

My grandparents are visiting from out of town.

They are my family's road map-- years of history about who we are and where we've come from and how we got here.  Their don't-rush-life rhythm reminds me to take things slow and let myself off the hook every once in awhile.  In their rare visits, they always bring this sort-of magic with them...this inexpressible magic of living life at peace.

We aren't the most peaceful people, though.

My family is not without their set of faults, as most aren't.  Maybe you have one of those families.

I think it's funny that out of everything, we don't get to choose our families.  We can't control them, just as much as we can't control choosing to be born or choosing to die.  We are given people and time, and it's up to us how we respond to them...with impatience at their imperfections, or with grace because they're ours, too.

All of this to say-- we're given flawed people, and we're flawed people ourselves.  That's what I was thinking about as we sat down for a family dinner a few nights ago, the whole clan.  My grandparents strongly believe in God, but they haven't always.  Just like my parents haven't always, and my aunts and uncles haven't always and some still don't.  But almost all of my family believes in God now, and I was thinking about how much of a miracle that is.

We aren't the most peaceful people, though.

My grandpa will tell you about how he used to live, humbly and honestly.  So will my grandma.  So will I.  We could fill a book with mistake stories and flaws and flat out sin.  We are not the "most-likely-to-become-Christians" sort of people; in fact, we're probably the furthest from it.  As we sat around the table, I took in all of us--ex-addicts, ex-alcoholics, ex-liars, ex-striving-to-be-good-enoughs, ex-everything.

We are the rebels and

we are the flawed and

yet every single day

we are being made new.

Even though there are decades and years between us, my family is a living testament that grace still makes beauty out of ugly things.

And the magic that my grandparents bring with them isn't a peace that comes from being perfect--it's a peace comes from knowing the feeling of being so flawed and yet being made whole.  And that's something we share, besides DNA, besides flaws, besides wild hair.

Grace.  We share grace.