The Rahab Resemblance

Ok, so sometimes I am really S-L-O-W.  I mean turtle-esque, no sloth slow.  Yeah, sloth slow.  Apparently I am also not a good listener.  I need to work on that.  I feel like the shower is a place where I get my best thinking in...I also feel that God talks to me in the shower.  That seems to be the place where people and issues get placed on my heart.  It seems random, but I know that I know that it isn't.

The last few showers I've had the pleasure of taking (I love living in the era of indoor plumbing!)I have just thought of Rahab's story. (You can read it in Joshua 2:1; 6:17-25; Matthew 1:5; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25)  I've felt drawn to her for a long time, I feel a kinship with her.  And initially I couldn't understand why I could relate so well to a prostitute.  I mean, I was like, really God?  I have parallel personality traits to a hooker?  Works wonders for my self esteem. 

In the bible she is most often called a Harlot, which would mean a woman of loose morals.  I read somewhere that she yielded herself indiscriminately to every man who approached her.   Nice, right? 

But somewhere in the latest shower moments, I've really been thinking.  We've all of us got some Rahab in us.  Maybe we don't indiscriminately offer our bodies to anyone who asks, maybe we yield our morals or our inner selves  to fit in, or we rationalize the yielding we do.  We rationalize over eating, over spending, gossiping, lying, stealing, etc.  What area of your life do you experience Rahab resemblance?

I can think of so many times I channeled my inner Rahab.  She was a thrill seeker, high spirited and independent.  Gee, ok, now I see some resemblance!  I always feel exposed, shamed and uncomfortable sharing certain parts of my life, as Rahab must have felt when she hid the spies.  But it is part of my life experience, part of my testimony.  I was a lot like Rahab in my early 20s.  It   took me a long time to realize you can't find love and respect in sex.  It's not there.  And it eats away at your soul.  One indiscriminate act at a time. 

And then, of course, for me, is the Rahabing of over eating.  I took to that as a way to stuff feelings inside, to give myself a temporary high.  I could rationalize eating too much or too many bad things like a champ.  I still can.  But I am working on my Rahab: The Redeemed years.

There is victory over our Rahab Resemblance.  She ends up marrying one of the spies of Judah she saved!  A prince of Judah!  Grace erased her former life of shame and  her name became sanctified and ennobled.  She is in the genealogy of Jesus himself.  Yeah, that's right.  Jesus has a hooker in his family tree. 

Grace from God takes away our shame, our sin, our guilt.  Rahab's story shows us a life full of grace.  Her courage in hiding the spies was Faith in practice.  And this was before she was saved!  She felt God's calling on her and she believed. Faith changed her heart, her life, her legacy. 

So, now I will purposefully channel my Rahab Resemblance.   My sin, my shame, my fears are covered by God's grace.  Rahab means fierceness and I intend to live my life fiercely.  With a heart full of concern for others and a Faith that saves lives. 

I want to leave a legacy of bravery, faith, courage, and love.  I want that to be my Rahab Resemblance.  

Identity Crisis- My Messy Beautiful

Identity Crisis- My messy beautiful!
 

I'm 35.  At this point in my life, I thought I would know who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.  Turns out, as I've been wondering what to do, who to be, Life happened.  And sometimes it happened in BIG BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. 

I feel like somewhere in the past, when asked the question "Who are you?"  I would have had a laundry list of ways in which to describe myself.  Ask me that question today, and I kind of sputter, and stutter and panic.  What else am I besides a mom?  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom.  My kids are awesome and strange, annoying and lovely, entertaining and exhausting...the list could go on and on.  I love them.  I would give my very life to protect them. 

But where have I gone?  Where is Trish?  What does she like?  What are her skills?  Where are her hopes and dreams?

Maybe I am the only mom who has ever felt her identity has been lost.  Maybe we all do at times.  Maybe, just maybe it's a good sign that I am having a identity crisis.  It could be signaling a new era in my life. 

I think in order to go forward in this, we first have to go back to before I became a mother.

In 2005, the world was my oyster.  I was 26, getting ready to marry the most amazing man and had a career that completely satisfied me.  I felt loved, valuable, vital, necessary.   I had great friends, a loving family.  Yes, I had my fair share of drama and pain in my life, but life was good.  I was good.   Content. 

I ended up pregnant very soon after the wedding (well, there went the let's wait a year idea!) I ended up finishing out my enlistment in the Army and moved to be with my husband.  A week after I moved to Ohio where he worked in Navy Recruiting, we welcomed our first children, TWINS!  Early.  Too early.  15 weeks early to be exact.  I was petrified.  We were out of town.  Alone.  Scared.  Stressed. Hopeful. Sad.  And added to all those emotions, I felt guilty.  How could I have not felt this coming?  How could my body fail me?  How could it fail my babies?  And in those first two weeks of the NICU, my confidence in self disappeared. 

Ava and Sophia, my beautiful babies, in constant struggle for life because of my failure.  At least, that is how I felt.  When Sophia passed away at 2 weeks, I feel I took all those things that made me uniquely me and locked them away, deep inside.  As If I was not worthy enough of having good things.  I floundered.  I flopped.  I flummoxed.  I simply couldn't deal with it.  And I had Ava in the NICU and she needed me.  My grief took second seat.  I zipped it up and put it away. 

Ava came home from the NICU after 3 months and  I told myself I should be thankful, grateful for Ava and I was, boy was I ever.  But a part of me was sad.  I was supposed to come home with 2 babies and I felt a piece  of me was missing, a piece of my family was missing. Again, I didn't let myself feel the pain. 

We'll fast forward here, I went on to have twins again, with some scares along the way, a month NICU, and then a cross country move.  I stayed busy!  A 2 year old and twinfants.  Decided to have one more baby and FINALLY, figured out how to have just one (thank you Jesus!)  And our family was complete.  As complete as it ever will be on earth.  Now my youngest is  2.5 and the feelings I have stuffed inside for so long are literally spilling out through any and every crack and crevice it can find.  And I find myself wishing I didn't have to deal with it all.

I know that I have to take that pain out and face it head on.  But it hurts.  It hurts so badly, it feels like I am back in the NICU rocking my baby as she takes her last breath all over again.  I want to run away from the pain.  I don't want to face it again.  But I didn't really face it before, I stuffed it down and secretly blamed myself. 

In my head, I know, logically, I am not to blame.  I took care of myself, I was under medical supervision and none of us saw this coming.  In my heart, my mother's heart, I started my motherhood journey feeling like a failure. 

I've come to realize that I can let tragedy, circumstance, life as it happens, define me.  But it also comes down to who I want to identify myself as being.  I can live in a place of sadness, I could become known as "the lady who lost her daughter." Or I can make peace with that part of my life.  There is no reason that would ever be acceptable to me that would make losing Sophia any easier and she will always be a part of me, my identity, my life, my family.  I'll always be her mother.  But I am also Ava, Tessa, Elijah and Levi's mom.  I'm Jason's wife.  Toni's sister.  Beth's friend.  I'm learning that my identity includes good, bad and sad parts.  I'm the sum of many parts.  And each tragedy, joy, tear, and laugh has made me into who I am today.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I still don't have an answer when someone asks me what type of hobbies I'd enjoy.  But I do know that I am worth it.  I'm worth the good things.  We all are.  We are brave and scared.  We are sad and happy.  We are timid and bold.  We are beautiful and messy.  We are brutiful, just as life is brutiful. 

 

Be known. Be loved. Be well.

I think I know what it is people need.  What people want.  People want to be known.  They want to be known and loved anyway.  It is a need in their soul. 

I think about this a lot.  I know being known is a major need for me.  Deep seated.  If I feel like people don't know me and I have no connection, I feel lost.  Sad.  Depressed.  Angry. 

Having people know you and love you, it's like a balm for the soul.  For your soul.  People need connection.  I know some people out there are far more solitary than I am.  I am an EXTROVERT in all CAPS with lots of !!!!!  It's true.  Being quiet is not relaxing for me.  I feel stressed in  alone times.  But yet, what I am saying here isn't that you need to be around lots of people (even though I like that) what I am saying is that people need people. 

Somehow, we as a society, have gotten into a weird worldview of not needing people, not needing help, being offended and insulted when someone tries to help.  I wish we could turn that thought on its head.  I know I feel the most contentment  when I feel known.  Validated.  Understood.  Loved. 

When I think of the people I know and see as the most happy, most content, most joyful, most well loved, I am always blown away by what those people have overcome.  The tragedy.  The pain.  The sadness.  The obstacles.  "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths." ~Elisabeth Kubler- Ross. 

And what got them through in every situation? I am willing to bet it all on faith and other people.  Friends, families, a random act or word from a stranger.  We have to be vulnerable enough to say I need help!  I need love!  I need you! 

So even if we are capable of making it through alone, let's just let other people love us through their actions.  Let's love others through our actions.  It's hard.  But we can do hard things.