Moments Worth Mentioning

2009 has been a year that I will remember as the year that I fell in love.  Maybe not in the romantic, your my soul mate kind of love… but definitely in the, I love my life kind of way.

As the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2008 I was with a group of people out in Atlanta.  Some were old friends, most were people I had met only moments before….  All of them would open up countless doors for an amazing year of love!  That group brought me to Atlanta.  That group brought me hundreds of new friends.  That group brought me to Buckhead Church.  It’s not coincidental to me that I started the new year with these people.

As January turned into February and February into March I met more people.  In April I signed a lease on an apartment in the city and fell in love with my new address.  With that new address, I was able to go out on a moments notice.  I had friends meeting on week nights for television shows, dinners on patios and entire weekends booked for this outing or that event.  I fell in love with always having something to do.

The spring and summer of 2009 was nothing short of a never-ending vacation.  I was discovering the city of Atlanta in a circle of friends that kept growing.  We had gatherings on boats and beaches.  We played volleyball.  We rode bikes.  We went to baseball games. We laid in hammocks.  We had cookouts.  I absolutely fell in love with the city and the people in it.

This past Fall I found an amazing group of girls and we now have weekly bible studies.  I also ventured into the world of church leadership and various ministry opportunities. I transferred my church membership.  I volunteered countless hours.  I found a peace in an area of my life that I have spent so much time trying to forget.  I fell in love with my church.

As winter crept up, I was taking a new position at work.  I was transferring offices.  I was being challenged and being recognized for the dedication and hard work.  I fell in love with the idea of having a career.

It’s so hard to not ramble on and on about the hundreds of things that I have been apart of in the last 12 months.  I’m not saying that the last year hasn’t had its moments of heart break and frustration…. but in the grand scheme of things, it has been a year filled to capacity with blessings and adventures.  Never have I had so many amazing people in my life.  Never have I felt to content.  Never have I ever been so in love!

Thank you to those of you who read this and smile because you know that you were apart of this…..  I love all of you!!

Do you have those days that you wake up, and before your feet even touch the ground, you are already frustrated?  Days that make you question yourself.  Make you doubt everything.

Today, I am not confident, not perfect, not all put together.  I woke up still angry, still on the verge of tears.  I am resentful and bitter….  all before I can even open a box of cereal.  And even more insulting is the fact that I don’t want to be any of these things.  I don’t want someone to have this much control over me.  Unlike every other relationship that has turned sour, I physically can’t run away from this one.  Instead, in less than six hours, I have to share a room with him and put on a happy face for the crowd.  Something I am sadly really, really good at.  I will then leave the party and continue on.  Nothing will be said.  He will never know how much he hurt my feelings this weekend.  Life will carry on.

If you were to strip away every layer of my personality, you would find, at the center of it all, the ultimate need to please people… to fix the hurt, to make everything right in the world.  As much as everything in my being is telling me to fix this, I just can’t.  I don’t know how.  My heart breaks in knowing the most important man in my life is also the most painful relationship that I have.

I want to have faith, I really want to have faith.  But today, right now, in this moment, I don’t know how to do that either.

Over three months ago I walked into a living room filled to capacity with complete strangers.  My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty.  I didn’t make eye contact with anyone.  I had walls built up so tall and they were so strong….Not to be torn down by anyone within 15 miles of that room.  I was a complete mess that night.

For the next 13 weeks I continued to go back to that living room and eventually the strangers began to look familiar.  The numbers dwindled to about 7 or 8 consistent faces and all of our walls slowly crumbled.  Our conversations included words like Forgiveness, Healing, Loneliness, Anger, Depression, Reconciliation and overall Survival…..  We shared our stories and boxes of Kleenex. Emotionally challenging doesn’t even begin to explain my last few months of Thursday nights.

Last night, we sat in that now very familiar room one last time.  There was cookie cake, genuine laughter and tears (that now meant something completely different).  It amazed me how far each and every one of us had come.  From the lady that couldn’t even hear the word “divorce” without tearing up to now being about to have a very in depth conversaton about moving forward with a smile.  And the guy who wept as he told us his unthinkable story who eventually became the class clown and one of the groups favorites.  We all grew, we all found some healing, we all found some forever friends.

The evening came to a close as all of us toasted to surviving the 13 weeks, and more importantly, to the endless possibilities of the future.

Saw this movie last night….  Its now one of my favorites!!  Great TRUE story.  Go see it!  =)

Oh December…. We meet again.  I don’t talk a lot about the thoughts that go through my head during this time of the year.  It’s a month that I truly have a love-hate relationship with and just find a way to get through.

As a kid, I loved the Christmas season.  It was always a big deal in our house.  Lots of family, lots of decorations, lots of excitement.  I have vivid memories of waking up to Barbie Cars, roller blades, and trampolines.  My parents had a way of making the season magical…. maybe in hindsight a little too magical.  But regardless, that all changed when I was in 9th grade when my parents got divorced.  Christmas became a high stress, high emotional event in which I was forced to choose sides.  It became a contest in which my mom and dad had to give the biggest and the best.  Somewhere in between splitting up Christmas ornaments and being shuffled around on Christmas day, the joy of Christmas left me.

Fast forward about ten years and I found myself trying to start my own Christmas traditions.  I vowed to put the hurt behind me and focus on the future….. I had my own family and wanted to find the joy again.  I chose a wedding date in December with the intention of being able to celebrate an anniversary during a month that had once been so painful.  We decorated, we celebrated, we decorated some more.  We had our own traditions.  For a few years Christmas became a fun time of year again.

In a few weeks it would have been my 5th wedding anniversary.  (Key word: Would)

Being that we got married a week before Christmas, the amount of “Our First Christmas” decorations were numerous.  We treasured those gifts and proudly displayed them each year.  During the aftermath of the divorce the majority of those decorations ended up in a box that became mine.  That box has followed me to my parents house, to Michigan and back, and to several other stops along the way.  Every year, as I put up my Christmas tree that box shows itself.  It is an ugly reminder of what was…. always appearing during a month that should have been another anniversary.  It makes December difficult.  I hate that box.

I can’t explain why I haven’t thrown it away, so I’m not going to even try.

It amazes me how much we are able to “box up” parts of our past.  We all have history that is painful and easier to stuff into a closet instead of dealing with it.  Over the last 10+ weeks I have been involved in a small group in which I have had to bring out that “box”.  I have had to dissect and analyze so many of the things that I had buried away.  There have been weeks where I walk away realizing how far I have come, and there are other weeks that have brought me to tears knowing that so much pain can be brought on by only opening up a box of Christmas decorations.

This past weekend, as I got out my tree and ornaments I found those First Christmas ornaments.  I sat and went though them one more time.  Remembering.  And then, with one swift toss, they were in a dumpster.  Never to be seen again.  Maybe I have found the strength to get rid of them though this class.  Maybe I have just had enough.  Maybe I’m just ready to move on.

It’s a blessing and a curse that I love tradition so much.  I want things to be perfect and get angry when anything gets in the way of my vision.  I hate that so many painful memories are associated with the Christmas season.  I hate that I grew up only knowing Santa and that Jesus was an afterthought.  I hate that I tried to fix the hurt by replacing it with something new.  I hate that December 18th will forever be a sad day.

But at least next year, when I go to put up my tree, I won’t have that box waiting for me.

I don’t even know where to start.  Its been a four day weekend that has contained numerous “blog worthy” events…

Should I talk about the two seperate Thanksgiving meals I had?  How I enjoyed more calories in these meals then I have consumed over the last month.  How I sat amongst so many from different sides of my family and got to enjoy a holiday that didn’t involve anything other then just coming together.  No gifts, no pompous, no circumstance.  Just us, being thankful for another year spent together.

Should I talk about the evening that I spent with old friends and new friends alike?  About how the circles mixed without difficulty and how the evening left me appreciating my relationship status?  Something that I get impatient with and often want to change.  That night the grass was plenty green right where I was and I loved the ability to cut loose.  This may seem selfish in a way… but I think we all owe it to ourselves to have a night like that every once in a while.  It also makes me appreciate the people in my life that put up with this rare side of me.

Should I talk about how I ran into an old friend in a parking lot and spent the next hour laughing and talking and hugging and catching up?

Should I talk about the GA/GA Tech football game that I went to?  How the lack of plans leading up to the game turned out to work out just fine and made for a hilarious few hours with great friends?  The tailgating, the grill fiasco, the ability to ignore the different colors that we each had on, and I don’t even need to mention the final score…. it all made for an amazing night in the city!

Or should I talk about Andy Stanley’s message that I heard tonight?  It never ceases to amaze me how he can take 2000+ year old bible verses and turn them into modern day truth.  He might as well start off the service by calling me out by name, because he talks directly to me each and every time.  Tonight he managed to take a Christmas message and turn into an extremely powerful reminder about the ability to forgive yourself.  At the conclusion of the message I sat in my chair as the rest of the crowd started to make there way to the exits and just shook my head.  I was both humbled and excited to hear such strong words.  It was a perfect way to end a basically perfect weekend.

So, so much to be thankful for.  So, so grateful for the countless amazing people in my life.  So, so happy to be right here, right now.

I would have killed to have had a time lapse video camera today as my family and I assembled and decorated a 12ft Christmas tree.  I tried to take a picture every few minutes to show our progress…  4 hours later we have a beautiful tree!!

And, Yes!  There were three of us working on this tree.  My dad just seemed to end up in all of the pictures!  Christmas Season, here we come!

Tonight I come to you from my parents couch.  I got up here early this morning and have enjoyed a marvalous Thanksgiving with my family.  We have gathered, eaten, decorated a Christmas tree and enjoyed each others company. 

As we were driving to meet up with more family today my mind wondered to memories of this time last year.  At that time, I was unexpectedly in town for Thanksgiving after receiving a layoff notice a few days prior.  My family and I were trying to figure out how to get my stuff back to Georgia and speculating what the next few weeks and months would look like.  This year, exactly 12 months later, the conversation was drastically different.  This year, the small talk centered around successful jobs and busy social calendars. What a difference a year makes!

It continues to amaze me what has transpired over the last year.  I have been blessed beyond measure with jobs, friends, opportunities and adventures.  I now call Atlanta home and can’t imagine living anywhere else.  I have come a long way over the last 12 months and I am so grateful for the past that lead me here.

The last few Thanksgivings have found me eating at friends tables, sitting in Michigan by myself and fretting over an uncertain future.  Today, I am so thankful that all of that is behind me, but also acknowledge that I wouldn’t change any of those previous Turkey Days.  They, like so many other things from my past, have helped to bring me to where I am today.  That in itself is enough to make me truly thankful!

Today I started at the new office.  My commute was surprisingly not as bad as I had envisioned, the work load was not nearly as bad as I had thought, and the doctors were all much nicer then I had been told.  All in all, it was a successful day.

I knew that I would be “unplugged” going into today.  My normal routines of checking in on Twitter, Facebook and gchat would no longer be an option in my new position.  (What can I say… Im addicted to the social media scene!)  I was surprisingly okay with the idea and managed to get through the day without many withdrawal pains.  But as I sat down tonight and plugged in the laptop I realize how much had transpired today.

Through that same social media scene that I thought I could live without, I learn that a friend has lost his mom today.  I immediately pick up the phone and call him.  As I listen to him recount the last few hours of his life I can’t help but think about how much we take for granted.

I have been stressing and worrying so much over the last few weeks about this new position.  I became so consumed in the details of the transition and worried about how the lack of control would effect me.   I took for granted that the opportunity was there at all and that I had a choice in the matter.  I obviously had no way of knowing what the future would look like but that didn’t stop me from spending countless hours worrying about it.

Tonight I have Josh in my prayers as I realize how insignificant my new office is…… when you think about the big picture.   I also pray that all of us will understand that God has all of this planned.  We worry ourselves sick over details, when at the end of the day it was never in our control to begin with.  Which, honestly, it much more comforting then any plan I could come up with.

 Yesterday I spent close to over 10 hours doing “church stuff”.  To put the appropriate spin on this jam packed day, keep in mind that I did it all on a mere 3 hours of sleep…. 

• I was up early for a breakfast meeting to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly from the last two months of a Single’s group I have helped with.  And by helped I mean practically ran.
• My next stop was Buckhead church for an 11 o’clock appointment where I was to meet with a staff member for an interview.  I spent the next 45 minutes telling a complete stranger every piece of my life story.  Every piece.  It was humbling and rejuvenating all at the same time.  The next few months should be interesting as I venture into a leadership role in a ministry that both excites and terrifies me.
• After that, I walked upstairs to be apart of a Q&A lucheon for another leadership position.  The last few months of volunteering in a singles group has allowed me to consider leading a group next Spring.  We ate, we Q&Aed.  We left.
• The next two hours found me walking every corner of a church that I can now call my own!  As of last month, I am an official member of Buckhead Church.  I was amazingly curious about the “behind the scenes stuff” of such a large operation.  By pure coincidence I met a man over the weekend that holds the key to every door in that place…. and he was willing to show me around.  I saw production rooms, secret doors, control panels, a sneak preview of the amazing Christmas decorations, walked through back hallways, walked across every stage… I basically had access to every corner of a building rumored to have hidden tunnels and secret rooms (which may or may not be true!).   This building is approximately 200,000 square feet of amazingness! Why does that excite me?  Because I love that church.
• Finally, at 6pm, I actually “went to church”.  Sat a few rows from the front and got to hear Jeff Henderson do his thing.  The same Jeff Henderson that I had shaken hands with a few hours before.  I love how the “celebrity persona” disappeared a little bit for me.  It makes the whole church feel that much smaller.
• I was supposed to rush from there to help a group go shopping for needy families/Thanksgiving project.  Instead, I threw up a white flag and went home where I immediately fell into my bed and stayed for 10 hours.

My level of involvement in the church makes me want to jump up and down!  I remember being in college and being active in so many groups on campus.  I ran around like a crazy person trying to get to every meeting and complete projects for the numerous organizations.  I remember being stressed out, but amazingly at peace all at the same time.  I enjoyed every minute of it.  My commitments to Buckhead remind me of that fast paced life again.  I love it because I believe in what I’m doing…. which is just kinda fun!!