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It’s windy.
And rainy.
Somewhat of an ominous feeling–particularly exciting for a Salem night a few days before Halloween. This place is witch city and the additional impending hurricane makes it all the more crazy (like a ghost town, actually). Fortunately we’re not really within the line of fire (although we attempted to make it into the NYC area today but the threats of squalls and floods deterred us).

Life has been pretty low-key lately. Filled with babies and television and family and food… can you really complain about that? It’s like one really long vacation, only less stressful and with some work stuff on the side.

The last few days I’ve realized how terrified I am about the future. Too terrified to want to make a decision that seems like a long-term commitment. It seems easier to play things by ear, to not settle down, to not decide on anything at all. Time is going by quickly though, and I’m left with some pretty big-time decisions ahead of me.

In the midst of this, I’ve also become very aware that I want a family. It’s something I always said I wanted, but, truth be told, I think I knew I always wanted a husband but felt okay without the additional responsibility of what kids would mean. Babies were frightening and unfamiliar, toddlers were screaming, walking, needy monsters, and teenagers were out of control, near-sighted mistake-makers. No part of raising children seemed super exciting… it only seemed like one sacrifice after another. I never felt competent enough to successfully get kids to adulthood, either.

But then I started hanging out with babies. And one of my brothers introduced me to Parenthood. And then I’ve spent the last 2 months with my family… and I’ve been increasingly thankful for each of them.

I want a family.
I want to have kids. I want to adopt kids. I want to be married. I want to go through the hard stuff of everything that entails…because I’ve seen the joy that also accompanies it. I see the way it refines and changes you and the way you learn to live a life outside of yourself.

And so I’m scared.
I’m scared that as I’m in this period of transition that I’m just waiting for a season of marriage and family to finally kick in. It seems stupid to be waiting though. It’s like I’m wasting time. I don’t want to live life waiting. I want to be proactively doing things that I know I am called to, that I know I am passionate about. So, in the process of trying to sort through what that even means for me, I want to erase this thought in the back of my mind that I’m still just biding my time…that I’m still just waiting.

My oldest brother and I talked a bit about it the other night. He said, ‘It seems like God has a best plan possible for you right now and for you to say that your plan is better than His is ridiculous.’  Which is true. And it’s what I’m doing. I’m essentially saying, ‘Okay God…I’ll do this other thing until you decide to do things my way…. because my plan is the better plan. My plan is what I want more than your plan’.

The hilarious part is that everything is different in hindsight. Looking back at the last ten years of my life, I don’t regret being single for a moment. I love the opportunities that I’ve been able to have, I love the job that I was able to do, I love the people that I got to meet, the places I was able to go… and so much of that was possible because I didn’t have a spouse or a family to worry about or to take care of. It was only what the Lord had for me.

So why can’t that continue to be my mindset?
Why can’t I continue to trust that the Lord is taking care of me, that His plan is best… even if that never entails the things I think I want right now? Why can’t I live that way without having to look back and acknowledge it was better?

It’s kind of this vulnerable spot for me right now.
Still admitting that I don’t have these things and that sometimes I desperately want them…and hoping that people don’t ever feel sorry for me in the process. 

The good news is that I don’t have to make any big-time decisions about my life today. But, when I do (which is sooner than I wish)…I’m going to walk in faith that the Lord does have a best possible plan for me right now, even if it doesn’t include what I think I want. I don’t have to live my life feeling like I’m waiting for something better to come along. Perhaps I might live, instead, with the mindset that wherever I am… it’s good. A balance of being content, yet still pushing on toward what lies ahead…without some preconceived notion of what that actually is.

It’s a funny, complicated thing.
In the meantime?
My big decision will be what kind of topping I want on my pizza. I do love pizza.

Don’t feel sorry for me.
I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing right now.
And it’s good. 

Can you talk about the big ‘M’ without offending someone? Can you talk about it without being too crass or perverse or inappropriate?

I’m going to try to today…and I hope I don’t offend any of my readers. It’s been a topic that’s been brought up more than once and I’ve been too much of a coward to blog about it. I want to talk about it now because I fear the stigma surrounding it lends itself to something we only avoid discussing, when maybe we should do the opposite.

Masturbation.
The word itself is hard to say, look at, type.
I remember the first time that I heard it in a movie and I innocently asked my three older brothers and my mom what it meant. They told me to look it up in the dictionary. I did, but the words failed me. I didn’t grasp the meaning behind it and so I lost interest.

It wasn’t until a few years later when it all started clicking. ‘Oh, that means that??’
I can’t say I blamed my family for avoiding the awkward conversation in the middle of enjoyable family time…I probably would have done the same.

It’s a word that is dirty, shameful, repulsive.
Or, at least that’s what many of us have been trained to think.

There’s much debate over the issue, especially in Christian circles. It seems you either stand on the side of it being undoubtedly a sin, or you stand on the side of it being no big deal. There’s probably a few of us in the middle… and that’s where I stand.

I see both sides of the argument–but I’m not convinced that either are entirely correct. There’s not a lot (or any) biblical stance on this specific issue either. Many might argue that the scriptures on lust are applicable to masturbation…and sometimes they probably are. I could never say that they always are though. There are instances where I think it can be especially harmful to someone, but sometimes I think our bodies are in need of a sexual release.

I’ve had many a girl shamefully confide in me about this secret habit…and my heart breaks for them. Not necessarily because of what they are doing/have done, but because of the shame and humiliation that surrounds it. There are usually always tears, and there’s always the fears of being thought of differently that accompanies such a confession. It makes me ticked off at society… probably our Christian world than anything else. Masturbation, especially among women, is simply not something we do.. let alone something we ever talk about, right? And so, rather than exist in a fellowship where we can openly discuss hard topics and figure out where we stand on these issues, so many women vow to never speak of it. No one else has to know…it’s soon a hidden, dark secret. The more hidden it is, the more it affects us in negative ways. It becomes a slippery slope.

I usually approach conversations with girls about masturbation in whatever way I feel like they need me to. Meaning, if you think it’s a sin…I’m not going to tell you it’s not. If you don’t think it is, I’m not going to tell you that it is. I think both can be true. Most importantly, I want you to know why you think it’s a sin….just like I want you to know why you think anything might be a sin. Sometimes I think we get too carried away in what other people are telling us is sin vs. finding out for ourselves what is and what isn’t. And… isn’t it possible (or just true) that sometimes what’s sin for me is not sin for you and vice versa??

But, as far as masturbation goes…
Here are the instances where I think it can be especially harmful:

• in Lust (I would say if you’re masturbating to pornography, this would be a big clue… or if you’re thinking about someone while doing it)
• Addiction (the lack of self-control… of feeling like you need to do it all the time, that you can’t stop)
• Loneliness (letting it fill some sort of void, trying to get fulfillment from it)
• Impatience (not wanting to wait for the pleasure of what sex can bring)
• Control (doubting God’s goodness in your life and His desire for you to ever have sex…so you’ll just take matters into your own hands)

It’s pretty sweet to walk a few blocks, jump on a bus and less than thirty minutes later be smack-dab in the middle of New York City. I’m not sure if I’d want it to be my entire life, but for a month? I love it. Add in the fact that it’s fall and the weather has been a-m-a-z-i-n-g and I’m finding out more about the true joys of aunthood every day… it’s so good.

My brother and I ventured into the city yesterday and were able to get into a Broadway show for $27.00 each. We won the lottery. The show? We hadn’t really ever heard of it before, but with five Tony’s and some high recommendations from people in the business, we thought we’d give Peter and the Starcatchers a chance. We weren’t disappointed.

I laughed a lot at the witty lines and ridiculous facial expressions and while the show painted a new picture of Peter Pan’s life for us to consider, the following line was the one that really stuck with me.

‘It’s supposed to hurt. That’s how you know it meant something.’ 

In a dialogue between Peter and Molly (the ‘Wendy-like’ character in a story about how Peter got to Neverland in the first place) where good-byes are painful and heart-wrenching, Molly spouts this out.

As I sat in my seat, I churned these words over and over again in my head. Is that a true statement? Do the things that mean more, hurt more? I reflected over my past wounds and deepest heartaches, recognizing on some level there’s some truth to it.

The people that hurt me the most are often the ones that matter most to me.
The hardest people to leave are the ones that I care the most about.
The things I love doing are the things that break my heart when I think about never doing them again.

So, really… the pain results in the absence of the thing that matters most. It results in the absence of loyalty or love, or the absence of someone’s physical presence, or the absence of getting to do what you feel like you were made to do. But perhaps it’s not ever ‘supposed’ to hurt at all…it’s the just the reality of how things are. It would seem that the ‘supposed’ to should actually be that the people we love/love us would never hurt us, that we would never have to leave those we care about, and we would always be able to do the things we love. Right?

I wonder if the ‘supposed to hurt’ is the way we now dictate how much something or someone means to us. Sometimes it’s probably how we decide whether or not to remain in relationships: ‘the thought of not being with you is too painful to bear, so I must care about you too much to ever let you go’. Perhaps the pain we feel can actually be the result of other things, too…and we too easily mix it up with love and passion (maybe we have an unhealthy attachment/addiction and the thought of releasing is devastating…even though the thing/person didn’t necessarily mean as much as we thought it did).

This is the kind of quote from something that you remember and then take with you other places. You make it your facebook status. You tweet it. You make it look all cool and decorated and put it on your mirror. You remind yourself each day that you’re supposed to hurt because that’s how you know things matter.

And, I kind of think that’s bogus and dangerous–especially the more I think about it.
It’s not supposed to hurt…. even if it does sometimes. Pain shouldn’t be the norm, it shouldn’t be what we settle for, it shouldn’t be what we expect. It’s okay (and I think good) for us to believe that sometimes the people we love/love us won’t hurt us, that sometimes we won’t have to say good-bye, that sometimes we can do the things we love for the rest of our lives.

I think this kind of quote enables me to feel sorry for myself and brings out my inner drama queen. It causes me to think more about my current circumstances and forget about the eternal and the joy I have in that….all the time. A place where I’m reminded that there’s no pain, no suffering, no tears.

Do the things that matter most hurt most?
Maybe sometimes.
But not all the time…
And pain should never be our gauge for how much something/someone means to us.

It’s not supposed to hurt.
It can still mean something even without the pain.

Be wary of the words that can so easily be written on our hearts if they are not truth….even if it sounds catchy and witty and, well, true. Dig deeper.

We must.

There’s no telling what’s going to flow from my fingers tonight.
There’s no agenda. There’s no plan.

I continue to wonder how honest I am with this online community. How well do you feel like you really know me? How much do you trust me? Am I more concerned with the amount of hits I receive each day over the quality of what I’m writing? Probably sometimes, unfortunately.

I sometimes want to write about things that I’m too scared for you to see. Controversial subjects–things that may sway you to never read my blog again. Things having to do with sex, and image, and God, and doubt, and fear, and hopelessness, and hopefulness, and love. Things that are raw and honest. Things you might disagree with. Things that might make my mother cringe.

I don’t think we’re open-minded enough though. I think we, all too often, walk around too confident in what we believe to be true, without allowing ourselves to consider that something else might actually be true. To some extent this can be good–being firm in our beliefs. But, sometimes…. sometimes I think that our inability to even hear others out without judgement and condemnation makes us hateful and more self-righteous than ever.

I feel like I know less than I did ten years ago. I feel like I’m less sure of things…but, simultaneously more confident. It’s a great paradox, I realize. Maybe it’s because before I was claiming to believe things without taking the time to really know why or if I even did. Now, I’d rather tell someone I don’t honestly know before taking a stance on something. Now, I’d rather hear someone else out and what they think before projecting my own thoughts and opinions on them.

For the last year I’ve longed to be absolutely stripped of what isn’t true. To be shed of the things within me that I’ve ignorantly believed because it’s what I was told to believe. Some of those things are true…and I cling to them. Some of them are not…and I want nothing to do with them any longer. I don’t want to exist in a place where I am solely defined by American Christianity…because sometimes I think we’ve just completely missed the mark. Because sometimes (ironically so), this Christianity seems void of Christ….which makes me realize how, as I sought to be a ‘solid Christian girl’, that there are parts of me void of Him too. My strife was more about achieving a great Christian status over being more in love with Jesus.

We care too much what people think.
I care too much what you think.
I care about disappointing you.

But, I know I will. I hope you know that, too.
I hope that no matter what I post and no matter what I think, that you would be willing to hear me out. That you would be willing to consider a view that might be different than yours. That you wouldn’t hesitate to challenge me or tell me your own thoughts/opinions on any subject.

I hope, in the end, that you trust that my desire is to unveil truth and to stop living according to the lies…whether that’s found in the religion or in the profane. It’s a journey that I’m constantly inviting you to join me in…as I hope to be constantly different, better, more in love with Jesus and who He really is.

I want to be stripped.
May everything else fall away other than what is true, and good, and pure. In the process, I pray that I learn the fullness of what it means to love and what it means to truly follow Jesus. Because, in my heart, I fear I have yet to know the magnitude of how much this changes everything.

I want to be more raw and real with you than ever before. I want the same from you.
I’m a little scared.
Maybe you are, too.
So… what do you say? Can I be honest with you?