try softer

I've been fighting hard these last few months...harder than I've ever fought. I've been fighting to get it together. Fighting to keep it together the brief moments when I do.

I've been fighting to adjust, fighting to let go, fighting to catch up, fighting to transition. Fighting to please, fighting to find my place, fighting to somehow succeed in this painful mess.

I've been trying SO hard to get where and how I'm supposed to be, and at each failure to do so, my urgency and frustration grows...I white-knuckle another attempt, and another.

This has got to get normal, this new life. This has got to get home, this new one. I've got to get stronger, this unprecedented pathetic, weepy version, this has got to get easier.

I've been trying so hard that just the phrase Shelley texted last week totally sucked the air out of my lungs.  Totally puzzled me to pieces.

Maybe try softer?

The idea came from a book she's-reading-now-I'm-reading, but just the idea of the title itself...of trying softer...has been gently but incessantly nudging me.

It's ALWAYS BEEN try harder.  

Always. Every hurdle and heartbreak there has ever been, "try harder" has been there for me. 

It has seen me through much, my relentless best efforts and unceasing "you can rest when you're dead" attitude.  

But what if? 

What if "try harder!" has become a stubborn stronghold of strength and success that is actually choking me out this impossible season? What if it has become an un-obtainable, un-healthy, un-Christlike model for my children? What if trying harder has actually become an idol in my life? What if relying on my ability to get through any storm has kept me from living truly abandoned to the Storm-Stiller?

What if "in the middle" is NOT the same as "stuck in the middle"? 

What if I can cease striving to get to the other side of this, and just be here? 

What if I'm not going to be a Missippian any more than I was going to be a Haitian, and just be the Christ-following foreigner I am going to always be?  

What if I don't need to stop crying...as long as I don't stop praising? As long as I don't stop praying? As long as I don't stop clinging to the Truth of Who He Is?

What if I am never going to fit in here...what if I am never going to feel at home this side...what if I am never going to get it all just right...what if I need help right now...what if I always will...what if I could allow for complicated...could allow for overwhelming...could allow for lonely...what if I could embrace His grace for ME...what if I could try softer?

We stood in the middle of a storm unfolding tonight, the kids thrilled by the whipping winds and the stirring sands and the lighting skies. As the sunset closed in, there was only a small strip of space between forever-ocean and forever-sky. 

Can I allow myself to stop battling storms so hard and instead stay right there in that space...small between His power and His grace, eyes fixed in wonder on Him, totally open-handed over what in the world He is doing?

Can we take all these broken, broken things and stop trying so hard...living in the here and now WELL while still honoring and tending to the wounds? Can we live full of love and forgiveness and justice and peace, pointing to Him with every action, and surrender all the waves and clouds to He-Who-Is-Above-Them?

My whole life I've been trying SO hard to overcome the world, with all the best intentions, with His glory heavy on my heart.

But what if I could try softer, instead...and let Him?