The Good in Goodbye

I’ve never really been good at goodbyes . . . I find myself feeling quite choked by them – the impending moment when one must leave behind a moment or a string of moments that have altered your existence in some way . . . Perhaps it is the physical act of turning away that gags the heart.

 The word bye didn’t used to be as paralyzing as it is now – until a fated cold, winter night in January, I hadn’t realized just how suffocating having to literally say goodbye for good was. But, as life often does, it handed a blow that I was not prepared for, that I was not emotionally equipped for – and it resulted in a goodbye that would forever alter the tilt of my universe.

 So, no, goodbyes have never been great – they have been hard and full of emotion and excruciating . . . I can recall instances during my childhood in which my mom would tell me that things would grow easier the older I got and if I’m being honest, not much has really gotten easier with age that once proved difficult and painful in my adolescence. Girls still bite with words that are cloaked in venom, boys still use and love with a promise that is only fleeting and momentary in its beauty, and, even as I notice fine lines around my eyes and pluck a gray hair, or two, from the crown of my head, I realize I have many more trials to overcome before I can believably say I’m a gift to my reflection – I still have many a lesson to learn, period, before I sprout into the woman that I know is bunkered down beneath my rib cage.

 Along with promises of things getting easier with age and time, I was also promised that I would come to realize the difference between a decision being a good idea and a decision being a necessity. There is truth in that; I am lying in the midst of the bearing of that truth.

 On a clear, humid night, I was lying in the bed of a truck discussing a future that was never going to be brought to fruition and you were feeding me lines about a future that I almost started to believe in – but this is not reality and I am no longer the type of girl that is willing to give up valuables, like what my heart truly needs and wants, in order to claim you as a husband. 

 You throw promises at me, lob “well maybe when’s” my way, and then you kiss me feather-light and wrap muscles around me and I wonder just when they became muscles – just when, exactly, did you turn into a man with sinewy muscles in his arms? Because that’s what you are now – not the boy who let me run and jump into his arms in front of a red, worn, truck. You are a man – with a namesake and enough money to purchase a home and you are filled with words veiled as promises, but they begin to carry less and less weight and I’ve finally lifted off the blinders. . . I recognize your verbage for just what it is.

You’re a man now – not the boy I fell in love with and laid down for. You’re a man now – and I’m no longer a little girl – because kisses don’t wake long haired beauties from a 100 years’ sleep and the tooth fairy doesn’t carry around crisp, fresh, green-faced bills and you’re not going to make me a princess just through your eloquently pronounced love.

I’m no longer a little girl and you’re a man now and isn’t it time we both start acting that way – instead of meeting late at night, in secret, like we’re hiding from someone – because we aren’t, right? Or maybe we are – maybe we’re hiding from that young girl filled with the hope of what desire would bring and from that young boy who thought he could make all the promises she wanted to hear, and keep them, too.

Maybe we’re hiding from the innocence that we didn’t maintain for long, when we were together, and maybe we’re trying to hide from them, from those bright eyes and whispered I love you’s, because we don’t want them to find out that promises don’t always remain kept, that a dark room and shallow breathing don’t mean you’re grown, that a heart can change, that a tangled moment can be sweeter as a memory, that, more often than not, a first love is not synonymous with a final love.

Maybe we’re hiding because we don’t want that blue eyed boy and that green eyed girl to realize that goodbye just might be inevitable.

We don’t want them to realize, more importantly, that there just might be good in saying goodbye.

Uncrippling a Spirit in a Crippled World

"Then the Lord answered him, 'You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" -Luke 13:15-16

We live and love and breathe in a world filled with labels. Skinny, fat, married, single, rich, poor, believer, non-believer - and that is just the start. These labels are used so often, assigned so flippantly, that they often end up leading our hearts, our minds, our entire selves to the ultimate labels: worthy, unworthy.

It is likely that the labels we use to identify ourselves, the labels we succumb ourselves to, are not a direct assignment from our own giving. It is not as if we wake each morning, stand before the mirror and choose to allow this burden of labeling to sit upon and inside our hearts; it is not as if we desire such labeling to be at the very core of our self-talk.

Recently a dear, irreplaceable friend of mine was listening quite attentively to me, in the most basic of terms, tear myself down for the things I don't have, for not being labeled the things the world has taught me I must be labeled with, in order to be a fuller, more complete version of myself; in the middle of the verbal destruction I have mastered quite eloquently, she looked me square in the eye and said, "When are you going to stop leading with the things you aren't as your identifiers and start leading with the things you are?"

Because, you see, I'm never Steph Duff -  writer, lover of children and the melodious sound of their giggles, loyal friend, loud laugher, voracious reader and journal-er, and caffeine enthusiast, I am always Steph Duff - single, poor, fat, broken, weak, and full of inadequacies.

Her question stopped me cold - because, really, when was I going to stop doing that? When was I going to realize that a ring on my finger, a new last name, and a high paying job was never going to make me the most of who I was made to be? When was I going to realize that, perhaps, I just may be the most effective version of myself right now - poor and single and messy?

I think about the Woman with the Disabling Spirit in Luke 13; in a recent article for SheLoves Magazine, Jonathon Martin writes in his piece "Daughter of Abraham" of this very woman :  Her infirmity defined her to the world around her and to herself. She is the bent woman, the crippled lady. As a woman whose line of sight is always aimed toward the ground beneath her, she is not the sort of woman who would have had the confidence to call out to Jesus.
After reading this article, which you should check out here, I started to consider this woman, "A daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years . . ." whose eyes could only fall on the ground, whose body could never fully stand tall to greet people with a smile and I realized that, in the midst of always listening to the lies of this world, to the labels Satan has lobbed my way, I was spiritually just like this bent over woman. I am able to stand tall, yet I look away from others' eyes, I avoid mirrors as much as possible, I live with a spirit that has her eyes to the ground.

We live in a world filled with labels, in a world that is in a constant state of motion to inform of us of just what we must purchase to fulfill a, b, and c. We live in a world that is perpetually informing us of what we are lacking and what we must do in order to fulfill that lacking - only to let us down. We live in a world that we were not made for, therefore, our fulfillments are never going to run over, we are never going to acquire just everything we need.

In the moments after that conversation, after reading this particular article, it occurred to me that I very well may change my last name and wear a shiny bauble on my left finger; I may have all the money I could hope for and more and I just may find myself in a smaller jean size one day - but I will still yearn for more, I will still be chasing after another label, I will still be coming up short, feeling inadequate, and identifying myself by what I'm lacking instead of what I'm bringing.

Because I am not a daughter to this world, to our culture, or to every mean comment or look I've ever received. I am not a daughter to my weight, my paycheck, or the ex-boyfriends that have moved on and married. I am not a daughter to the enemy, to the lies of him and this world, or to the lies I feed myself.
I am the daughter of the King, to Abraham, to only the truth and identity that Christ gives me.

Martin says it better than I ever could: Weakness does not define you. Labels that have been assigned by others do not define you. You are daughters of Abraham, heirs of the covenant. You are part of God’s cosmic plan through which He will restore the creation—one of the ones through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed.
What Jesus says is the only thing about you that is true and the only thing that matters. Don’t let anyone else assign an identity, except Jesus. You are a daughter of Abraham–not invisible–and God wants to show you off to the world.

You are a daughter of Abraham - not invisible - and God wants to show you off to the world. (Emphasis mine)

It's time I stop counting the days until I turn the age that I must be married by, it's time I stop comparing my body to every other woman's around me, it's time I just STOP leading with what I'm not. And it's time I START leading with what I am. And Whose I am.

There can be nothing but promise in that.

It's time to loosen these bonds and to dance in this freedom.

Right Here, Right Now

So in a moment of uncommon bravery I submitted some pieces to an online Christian magazine that I am absolutely crazy about; I encourage you to check it out because it's what's up. Unfortunately none of my submissions were chosen, but I would still like to share them with you all. Here is one . . . I hope it lifts some hearts today.

            I compare myself to others a lot. If I’m being honest with myself I would have to say that it started long before acceptance letters from universities and job related insurance benefits were a priority. If I had to guess I would say that many of you compare yourselves to others a lot; I could probably even take a guess at where it all began, too – middle school. Ah, yes, the wonderful years of middle school when puberty kicks in, body parts start growing, and the boys start noticing. That’s where my relative experience with comparisons began, anyway. I was never thin enough, or tall enough, or fast enough, or tan enough, and I can assure you my hair never looked as good as everyone else’s did. It started out as a small issue that grew into an animalistic hunger – how could I tear myself down a notch in comparison to these other girls? And looking back, what made it all so much worse is that these other girls? They were my friends – I loved them, they loved me, but I was perpetually sizing myself up against them and completely disregarding the principles of genealogy and the simple fact that we are all supposed to be different.

            I wish I could say that those days are gone; I wish I could say that I got right with myself and accepted my body, my hair, and all its formidable parts just as they are. But I would be lying. It just so happens that, as we grow and mature and change, so do our comparison tactics; at least mine did, anyway. While I can’t say I long ago left behind the daunting task of comparing and contrasting my body with others, I can, and will say, that my body fell down a couple notches on the totem pole of my shortcomings.

In college it was my major; my major was much too liberal in comparison with more realistic majors around me. So often, when asked what I was studying at university, I would answer quite ecstatically with, “Creative Writing!” only to be met swiftly with a look of confusion and the ever-condescending question of, “Oh, and what will you do with that?” Many a night I would come home and cry, questioning whether I made the right choice by sticking with the pursuit of a degree that fed my heart more than it might feed my literal hunger. I compared myself to every Engineering, Education, and nursing major I came into contact with – and I assure you there was no shortage of them at Wright State University.

            After college it was a rainfall of comparisons – I was single and everyone around me was flashing big, diamond rings my way and having babies with quick precision. I was in three weddings in less than two years and I never had a date to one of them. I found myself looking at each of my married friends thinking, what am I doing wrong? Where am I not going in order to meet the right man?

Due to my liberal arts degree I was not quick to be hired post-graduation and once I did find a job, albeit completely challenging and fulfilling, my paychecks left, and still leave, a bit to be desired. So there I was – cashing my meager paychecks in the throes of single-dom and with a degree I wasn’t entirely using.

Shortly after accepting the job that I am still currently working at, I was invited to join a small faith community. To say this changed my life would be the greatest understatement I could ever utter in my quite verbal, over-articulated life. I was welcomed with open arms, my strength in the Lord grew by marginal leaps, and I was making friendships that I didn’t realize I was missing. But, through the joy of being surrounded by a community that was pushing me to be a better version of myself, I had lingering whispers in my heart and in my head – you aren’t as strong as these other women, you aren’t decent enough for these men, your love for Jesus is miniscule in relation to this family. I was stuck in a tidal wave of telling myself to plant roots with this community and telling myself to flee in the opposite direction from them; what could I possibly offer to this group of believers, to any non-believers that needed to hear the good news, when I was such a blatant mess?

So very much, I heard whispered in my ear gently.

Here’s the thing – in the midst of always trying to measure myself against everyone around me, God was already working in my life and on my heart. He had helped me to forge friendships with women who were living their lives as true, dedicated daughters of the King, He was giving me the opportunity to be a soft landing for students who are struggling with life altering circumstances, He was feeding me good news each morning in His word so that I could step up and be a leader for my parents and my brother. He was showing me love, showering me with grace, and sashaying me into a community of believers that would love on me when I needed it the most.

            In their book, Experiencing God, Henry and Richard Blackaby and Claude King verbalized these sentiments much more eloquently that I could ever hope to:

            Could God work in extraordinary ways through your life to accomplish significant things for His kingdom? . . . God wants you to be the person He created you to be and to let

 Him do through you whatever He chooses. When you believe that nothing consequential

 can happen through you, you have said more about your belief in God than you have

indicated about yourself. . . . God can do anything He pleases through an ordinary

 person who is fully dedicated to Him (47).

God can use me – right here, right now. And He is. He is using this broken, weak, poor, single, and defiant child of His in any way that He can to grow His Kingdom. He can use you, too – exactly as you are, in the spot you’re frozen to now. We need not compare ourselves, friends, to one another because Christ doesn’t want a gathering of clones – He desires a kaleidoscope of breathtaking differences.

When Words Are Not Enough

I tend to get very caught up in the small things of life - so caught up, in fact, that I lose sight of what and who makes my heart happy, of the roots I come from, of the freedoms I am afforded.

These are moments that, at times, cannot be given words . . . or perhaps, I am just not an eloquent-enough writer to give these moments words; so here they are - maybe with a caption or two, the things I so often look past, look over, or just choose not to see, at all, when I am swimming in my own selfishness. This weekend was a quick assurance that I do not know my heart or what it might need in the least . . . because I had no idea that this - these people, these minutes - were exactly where my heart needed to come back to, to heal, because it is where my heart began, in the first place.

The pure delight of a child's eyes is surely a kiss from God

 

Looking at this barn fills my heart with such love - this place makes me brave, this place is my roots

Looking out a backdoor and being able to watch simple growth from day to day is a promise . . .

Farm flowers . . .

Watching Joseph be a little boy brought such joy to my heart . . .

 

There are no words.

We are a family from red barns and football :)

Birthday songs, salutations, and celebrations

beautiful boys

This little girl surely has the sweetest soul - and reminds me so much of my great grandma Jo

 

 

Recently I've been reading One Thousand Gifts and it hadn't occurred to me how therapeutic listing small, daily blessings could be until I reflected on this weekend. My hope, for each of you, is that at least one time this coming week, you allow yourself to see something with the eyes of a child, you allow yourself to feel ravished over the beauty of growth and the color of nature, you allow yourself to be taken over by the One who knows your heart and just what it needs. My hope, for each of you, is that you allow yourselves just one moment, at least, to be completely in awe.

There You Are

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

With your big brown eyes, knelt over the noisiest toy fire truck in the county . . . With your long, curled eyelashes as you made 'tractor' sounds up and down, and up and down, the faded blue carpet of this childhood home.

As you walked to get your diploma all I could recall was the incessant motor noise you insisted on making, all I could recall were the faded brown of those infant-sized Carhartt's you eventually wore out, all I could recall was that you were once small - and now you are not.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

Shouting payday! at the top of your lungs in a bedroom where Pepto-Bismol exploded . . . Sitting on my front porch step painting over another layer of nail polish and talking about young boys at school that were cute.

I look at your pregnant belly pictures - counting down the months until you get to hold perfect, precious life in your hands and I remember the ache in the side of my stomach from laughter with you, I remember the "voice" we spoke in more often than not, I remember that language - so far from here - from where we both are.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

With your bright blue eyes - always eager. And you were always waiting for me, weren't you? With your curly, blond hair - It was your hair that first pulled me in, if I'm being honest.

I catch a sneak of engagement pictures - you're wearing that brown sweater I bought for you on our last Christmas together . . . And I see you holding your sweet, sweet baby girl with a bow in her hair and all I can remember is that hand-drawn tattoo on your undeveloped bicep on that first night we danced together, and all I can remember is the way your chin always rested just so on the crown of my head, and all I can remember is the life we attempted to build - before we ever knew it was going to break.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

Your raspy voice - calling out Aunt Yoosha's name, your raspy voice - calling out hello to me down a hallway that has known so many of my secrets . . . your raspy voice.

I see the number 40 anywhere and I'm back on the sidelines in a skirt that is too short, listening - waiting for your name to be ricocheted across the velvet, black sky, I see snowfall and I remember how the cold air bit at the tip of my nose - I remember how the tears must have crystallized right before they hit the ground.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

A first kiss, a first love, that time I swore I was just breathing for the very first time. A first loss, a first realization, that time I finally knew what not being able to breathe actually felt like.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

Oh, eyes like wildflowers . . .

Maybe when God is looking at our lives He always remembers us the same - that first breath of air after the immersion of a baptism - that first whispered prayer of feverish desperation for forgiveness and love, love, love - that first declaration that this path is not our own, it is not of our own making.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .

A child. We were babies. What did we know? How could we have fathomed the brokenness of this world? How could we have fathomed the repair we are provided to find . . .

{Keep your head up}

{Keep your heart strong}

{Keep your mind set}

Keep your head up

'Cause I'll always remember you the same . . .


*Italic words are song lyrics from "Keep Your Head Up" by Ben Howard*

A Letter He Will Never Read

In the dimly lit room, all I can taste is the shallow smokiness of your breath in the space between an exposed shoulder blade and my earlobe . . . I wonder if this might be what freedom feels like.

But you are not the sun on my face, warming me from the inside out. But you are not the aching hymn I sing in the quiet of an empty room. But you are not my redemption.

It's funny how I started this all out saying things would not happen, moments would not escape my grasp, I wouldn't lose myself once the stale air hit my skin. I started out saying all of these things - so sure I was in control, so sure I knew what I was doing - seeing you, again, and ignoring the gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I cannot say no to you, have never been able to say no to you, but here I stand - stomach beneath my feet, shredded pieces of a heart in my hands - no, no, no, no. . .

But you are not the sun on my face, warming me from the inside out. But you are not the aching hymn I sing in the quiet of an empty room. But you are not my redemption.

It started innocently enough; it always does,  though, doesn't it? Quick, biting comments - picking at each other for the sake of passing words into the air in between us - for the sake of keeping air in between us. And what were you thinking in those silent moments before you put your mouth on mine? That you no longer wanted that unnecessary air standing guard? That you no longer saw any reason to pick at me because you simply wanted to be at me? Because I might have wanted the same things - before and in the moments of its existence - but here I stand - questions firing with the precision of a gun salute at a funeral. Maybe that's what this is - a funeral . . .

But you are not the sun on my face, warming me from the inside out. But you are not the aching hymn I sing in the quiet of an empty room. But you are not my redemption.

In the moments after, I recall your hand; it had found the small of my back and then slowly curled itself around my own hand once it had found it. Is that what coming home should feel like? There was no noise in the darkness - only your swift whispers, more like thoughts, and yet - I heard it. I heard them. I heard you. I think everything was heard in that time - every word bustling in and out of our memories; yes, everything was heard but what my heart knew at its very core.

But you are not the sun on my face, warming me from the inside out. But you are not the aching hymn I sing in the quiet of an empty room. But you are not my redemption.

I decide I have you figured out - finally after all these years - and then you say something about my eyes. You say something about my eyes that is so raw and open it couldn't possibly be a fallacy. Where are you trying to fit me, I want to ask. Just what shelf, exactly, am I to rest upon? And then I remember that resting was never really a strong suit of ours - we believed only weakness to be in the resting.

But you are not the sun on my face, warming me from the inside out. You are not the aching hymn I sing in the quiet of an empty room. You are not my redemption.

I wonder if you're consumed by this in the same way I am - does it stutter your speech? Does it come near to infiltrating all your interactions? Can you breathe?

You are not the sun on my face, warming me from the inside out . . .

I don't think I ever permitted myself to bury this - reaction - between you and me. There was no mourning march, no dirt thrown over a box that once held a soul impassioned. This has never been buried - it just gets shoved to the side only to be brought back to life every "solitary" time we are eye to eye. There has been no burial.

You are not the aching hymn I sing in the quiet of an empty room . . .

How are you still so gentle? After the fires you've passed through? And how am I so open to it? After being burnt? We are completely separate and then we are in proximity and then we are too close for comfort. But there is comfort - in the separation, the proximity, the ways in which we cannot avoid each other. You should not be this comfort.

You are not my redemption . . .

It's strange - how in a seconds time I can be in the darkness of those four walls, sensing your movement before it becomes an action, matching your breathing chest rise to chest fall. In just one second I can describe the smell of your skin - it's salty, with hints of lemon, and the deep inescapable truth that you are no longer that boy I thought I knew once, but a man I may never be familiar with. I'd like to think you think of me as a wine - a biting heat to swerve a bad day better. But who really knows if you think of me at all.

You are not . . .

Ain't no talking to this man . . .

We are grown now - and what will that ever mean for either of us when we are making decisions like young kids? I just know one thing and it is the same as what I knew then - I cannot say no to you - I've never been able to say no to you. And in that dark room - I swear I became light.

But, you are not my redemption.
 

You're 25

Life is mystifying to me; I find that the older I get I am on a perpetual precipice of holding more clarity in my hands and fighting off multi-colored cloudiness. Each day I wake up and find myself thinking "you're 25 - where ya gonna go, girl? Whatchya gonna do?"

I am 25 and in the middle of the country - I am continually trying to figure just where my heart lies - in the country or in the city? And just what does that day about me, hmmm? 

I stand before students with a desire to change a cycle that they're not even aware they are apart of yet and I'm asking them to attempt at definitions; are you city or country? Are you respectful or disrespectful? Will you be the change in the classroom that your teachers need you to be? And who am I even? Just where do I fit into all those requests. They know no more about how their hearts will come to define them than I do.

Control is something that has begun to wane more than wax lately - my need for it, my anxiety over it - which is remarkable. And horrifying. Without this need for control just where will my time be well spent? Perhaps in working on my very own defining.

I wake up each day and think a plethora of ideas and dreams and beg a multitude of questions, but it all seems to come down to this...

You're 25 and you live at home with mom and dad - it's not always ideal, but it is home. You still want your mom when you feel sick, you can't really cook all that well, but your baking skills aren't bad - perhaps this explains that self esteem issue you have. You believe in snail mail, you have a heart for The Lord and struggle with His timing and plans every single day. You live in the middle of nowhere and most of the time it's okay - except when you're filling your gas tank, again, for the third time in one week.

You're 25 and are still finding out what true friends look, smell, and feel like - your familiarity of the type of friend you are to others becomes clearer in each passing moment and yet you find yourself looking out the passenger side window of that blue car wondering if you'll ever really get it right anyway... And while you're looking out the window hoping with a desperation that smells of baby's breath and bacon you see an X in the sky. Family defines you - at 16, at 18, at 25.

You're 25 and relationships have fallen by the way side and flourished beautifully with a different counterpart. The scars of your attempts of regaining your footing are deep and winding and still you are left wanting. Wanting and praying and waiting.

You're 25 and your eyes are still that same fiery color they were when you were three and your hair still pains you the way it did back before death stained the pages of prayer journals and your talks with Jesus.

You're 25, standing before a tall pine tree that's always been called yours wondering what is to come and what will become and all the while you're missing people you never thought you'd have to miss in the first place, but then it starts to feel normal... But who really knows what normal feels like anyway.

You're 25. And in what will seem like a few short hours you will be 26.