Do you realize the power of words? That the entire meaning of a sentence or sentiment can change with just one?
In the Christian church growing up, even to present day, I’ve been taught that whatever comes out of my mouth is a reflection of whatever is in my heart. And, at first glance, most would nod their head and agree. (I mean, it *is* in the Bible.) But where it breaks down is when one particular word goes missing. Gets forgotten and overlooked. Is quieted. Abundance. . . . “It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” If I have an ugly moment, it does not mean that my heart is ugly….unless that ugly moment is an abundance of ugly moments. The way I see it – the elimination of that word does something dreadful. It creates a massive black hole of shame. And once in that black hole, it is really difficult to get out of it. It sucks you in, pouring on more and more shame, pushing you deeper and deeper into the abyss of “I’ll never be better…good enough…fixed…worthy.”
That is the tragedy of shame.
And then there is grace.
“Abundance” is a grace-word in this sentence. The grace in “abundance” doesn’t swing wide the door for unaddressed ugliness, no, as there is still truth that what comes out of the mouth is a reflection of the heart, but it does allow room for change, for progress, for intentional evaluation, for choosing better.
This morning, it was in a conversation I was having with my friend (who happens to be my coworker and worship pastor), he made sure the Bible verse had all of its words: “For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” And that one word pulled me out of a shame black hole at light-speed…unraveling a whole knotted-up, tangled-into-itself, lifetime spiral of shame. I almost felt it literally.
The older I get and the transformation that has come with cancer has taught me to pay very close attention to 1. “Why” (as opposed to settling for “it is that way because it’s always been that way.”) and 2. Grace.
And then I want to share it. Today I learned. . .
Today I…
Sunday: Learned
Monday: Chose; said yes/no to
Tuesday: Loved
Wednesday: Prayed
Thursday: Was challenged by/to
Friday: Am grateful for
Saturday: Saw grace in
*Post 1015
Soundbites :: 1/10/18 :: Post 132
Day 8 of round 5… The round itself was 2nd worse out of all of them but day 8 was the best day 8 I have had so far. The unpredictability continues…Tomorrow? Who knows.
I had a chance to talk with a dear friend tonight and some of the soundbites I heard myself saying are interesting…
“The darkness is a little less dark tonight”
“I am starting to see the possibility of upcoming celebrations”
“Today was a welcomed surprise”
“The next step is not easier or harder…I’m thinking of it as a different hard. But I’m so ready for it”
“God is teaching me how to live out lessons vs. just talk about them”
“Sometimes I wish for the bliss of ignorance but growth comes with knowledge”
As I read them, a theme emerges… lightness…hope…joy.
Thankful for that glimpse tonight.
Hard Questions :: 1/10/19 :: Post 485
I haven’t cried in awhile. But the tears are coming easy tonight.
Having a hysterectomy is no easy thing. They sure make it sound like it is, but it really isn’t. I mean I guess a pretty significant set of organs was removed and what was removed had much to do with regulation of hormones so I shouldn’t be surprised, but whoa.
The void, while assumingly small, hurts sometimes. Like hell. And that just sucks.
And the lack of hormone regulation, while a benefit in my keeping-hormone-fed-cancer-away, makes a mess of my body in so many other ways.
And the misrepresentation of the ease of this surgery has made for a confusing recovery.
What’s normal? What’s to be expected? What’s an issue? What’s a serious problem? What should I be feeling? What if what I’m feeling is different than what others feel because nothing really is predictable when losing hormone regulators without the option for hormone therapy?
What is getting tiresome is that I want to be well. I want to be confident that my body is recovering and healing and getting well and working to repair itself….
But, I’ve also been betrayed by my body. It let me down. It broke.
So, that leaves me with the problematic fact that I have trouble trusting my body to work like it’s supposed to….how do I know how to read my body and listen to my gut when what I have to work with is broken and beaten and never to be normal again? How am I supposed to know when something is a problem if I don’t have a very solid baseline? How do I manage my fear/trust scale and not jump to the worst-case-scenario-I’m-dying-conclusion when I’ve been blindsided by the TKO from the beast of cancer?
Hard questions. No answers.
(No 1/10/2020 post. )