Cyndy

I got an email from Cyndy today. What a huge surprise! Especially after how I feel like we hurt them, and ran their hearts and emotions through the dirt. In addition, I have been called onto the carpet (at Fight Club) for not being real enough with people. For dodging the issues at hand, for avoiding difficult conversations, for running away rather than dealing with it. And here, in my inbox, is an email from a woman who I love dearly, but who I thought I would never get to talk to again. Amazing. Sometimes, it is very easy to see God put little relationship challenges and reminders that, "yes, I do need you to work on this area, Hannah." I think this week is an easy time to see God pursuing me again.

That doesn't mean that I am looking forward to the difficult conversations that I have been told by my sisters that I need to have with people. In fact, I am dreading all of them. I need to figure out how to tell a dear friend the level of upsetness that I am feeling and explain the wound that was poked recently. It didn't do me any good when I told my sisters that I know I'm being irrational and selfish and that her reasons were perfectly above-board and reasonable. Their explanation was that my feelings and wound are just as important as rational thought in this instance and if I don't address it now, it will only get worse over time. My thought that I don't want to lose a friendship over this is irrelevant because if I DON'T fix it, it could very well be the death knell for it anyway.

They speak truly. Too often I have watched myself withdraw from the hurt rather than address it and lose that relationship anyway. But, damn this is hard!!

Yesterday, Amy posted this in her blog: "[Jesus] never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, 'Be perfect,' He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder -- in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad." This speaks to me so much. I am realizing that I want to experience God and to change the world, but I don't want to have to go through the hard part of changing to get there. But, as CS Lewis so wisely wrote, an egg definitely can't learn to fly. It has to go through the long, hard, dangerous journey of turning into a bird, of growing the feathers and the wings before it can take its first leap. I am done being an egg. But now I have to go through my transformation so that I can enjoy the beauty of being with God, of doing her purpose. And right now, for me, that transformation involves having two very difficult, painful conversations. I'm chipping away at my egg.