Take for example, RETREAT!! or Retreat
RETREAT!!
Retreat
(For the record, this is just a random pic from the internet not where I was actually staying)
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When I told my troops to “RETREAT!!” I meant from the battlefield. But because God always seems to have gentler metaphors for me to live out than my own painful, fear-prone ones, I actually went on a retreat.(Insert spa-like music here.) I literally went to a retreat centre. It’s pretty much the gentlest, most hospitable, place on earth. I dare say the exact opposite of a battlefield. I did not get the irony until day five of my stay. Instead of crawling back to my trench to find ways to re-gather our life, I left the battle altogether and sat on the side of a bluff with the mountains and big Alberta skies, hummingbirds, blue jays and lots of mosquitoes too. I was cared for with homemade (gluten free) food, early bedtimes, afternoon naps, a lot of solitude and even more silence – basically all of it was tangible Grace for six days straight.
I feel hesitant to say I’ve been pulled out of the battle or pulled out of our sinkhole (cross my fingers) but it kind of feels like it. Since we tend to live into our metaphors, I am feeling grateful for the Grace that reached down and rescued me. (Many of you were givers of this grace but that is another post.) I’m sure it will take some time to make meaning of what I have sensed and realized from my time away. The last couple of days of my trip, I kept trying to write some of it down and it was/has been hard. It is hard because it comes out of a very deep place. A place where Spirits meet and it’s hard to find words for that kind of Mystery. But here is what I know…
I choose Life.
I choose life.
I choose life.
And I choose this life.
Yes, this life with Lyme.
Yes, this life with Lyme.
I choose life so that my kids have a mom who participates with them in life, leading and showing them how to live with courage and joy in the face of hard stuff. I choose life so that I can keep on loving my God, so I can listen for his voice, and hold fast to his love. I choose life so I do no waste the tremendous gift I have been given. I choose life.
Choosing life also means I acknowledge that life is organic. During my week away, I was intently reminded that life is like ‘the eternal cycle of the seasons’. We live in a society that manufactures stuff. This view of manufacturing even our lives is common in our culture. The problem is, manufactured stuff breaks (easily). The way we make and construct our lives leaves them vulnerable to breaking or shattering. But when we see life through the metaphor of the seasons, even in the barest, bleakest seasons we can wait with hope knowing growth and life is always happening even when we cannot see it.
Now to figure out what season we are actually in. It is quite possible this is (only) autumn (even though it has felt like a harsh winter). Things are dying off and turning brown and we are making new seeds for our next growing season even while everything in view is dying off. If so, I want to make sure our seeds can survive a harsh winter.
