it's been a long time

so i haven't blogged since october of last year. before that it was july. i used to blog more often. wax poetic. go into the "deep end of the pool" as my sister would say (not always sure that was meant as a good either). and then i got busy.

dating. engaged. you'd think i'd have so much to say. just traversing the dating terrain again would hold countless stories. leeting someone in again. hoping again. laughing more and louder and bigger again. returning to the person i really am or at least making that person more visible to more than just a few select people. letting the guard down.

and then there was an engagement. not even a mention of it until october. one month before the wedding day? i even blogged about an upcoming trip to brazil. but not a word about the engagement.

there's TONS of fuel here for the fire of writing. but i had nothing. maybe i hit something too personal for even me to write about or at least let a few wondering eyes see.

then again perhaps it was just life. so much happened in such a short time. life and how and what God dealt with me on since april has been vast. i've gone from a full time "pastor", single woman having/needing to make it on her own b/c barring God that's all she had. and it's no offense to family. i have an amazing family. but the reality is that no mother, father, sister, brother, niece, nephew or any number of other family members can fill that void. they can't change the fact that tomorrow when you wake up no one is "really" counting on you the way a spouse or child is. and it's just not the same and unless you've been there....yeah you can't understand. it take brutal blunt force to actually pull your sorry butt out of bed and put two feet on the floor and hope you have enough energy to actually walk downstairs to make yourself breakfast.

9 months ago i found so much of who i was and fulfillment in a job, a task. who i was could be summed up in messy jessy leading worship on the weekend and playing with lucy and melaney, maleah and madison. that job was all i had. or so i thought.

and now? now i am HAPPILY married. relaxed and secured in ways i have never been. truth is i've always been lacking that "thing" even when married the first time which is like salt in a wound. i've caught a glimpse of the Mystery that marriage is intended to reveal to us that i grasped at like a child chasing a lost balloon in the wind the first time i said "i do". and i'm excited about uncovering or rather, being given more details about the Mystery over the next 40 plus years.

i no longer work full time. i work part time. i'm no longer the "pastor". just the preschool coordinator. and i find it a relief and a burden to be "just that". a relief that "it" is not all my problem anymore or my responsibility. a relief for others to deal with "it" and to see that it is bigger than the person or even the ministry even if all are not aware or agree with me that part of the problem and solution to "it" involves some changes to the system - the current way of doing things. relief that my identity can be more than a job. a task. more than something that is capable of failing, of not quite reaching expectations - mine or others. such living is constantly in threat.

it's a burden. b/c the title may not be there anymore (and for some it was a title they gave with the responsibilities but not of the respect) but the heart of a pastor is still there. my actions and relationships with the kids and their families will not change. if anything this new role allows me to focus in on "pastoring" these kids and their families more and better. and so a burden to know that i am pastor to these kids but never bearing the credit for that.

and then relief b/c at least now there is not bite or sting or falsehood to credit not given me when i act in the role of "pastor" b/c i no longer wear the title. the credit is not mine to have. and then the burden gets heavy b/c the credit is never mine to begin with or at least it should not be. it's God and one has to ask why i do what i do. is it really for God or for me? and really what is a title? God calls as He sees and places where He wants, title or not. and He asks that we obey, title or not. and then confusion comes in b/c it is prideful to want credit? doesn't the bible even say that the "laborer is worthy of his reward"? is it wrong to want praise?

and so it goes. i find myself figuring out what this new role means. and what about the new role as wife? again. and how does that look like in this marriage. with this person. and i feel lost. not sure who i am suppossed to be. what i am suppossed to do.

and i'm still not sure what to really say...even with all that. do i write about the loss i feel when my sister and i fight? the loss that is best described as the sunken feeling i felt when i realized daddy was never coming back. the fear i live in that one day one of us will say or do something so irreversible that we'll lose the closest or almost closest connection we have to our father. and the thing that scares me most is the other probably won't know it or know exactly what it was that this time severed the relationship. and yet i can't keep my mouth shut!

of do i write about family. family that as far as i'm concerned abandoned. family that severed the only life line i had to my father. the hurt, loss, anger, and plain apathy that i feel on any given day. and the realization that it's not worth being upset about anymore. people did what they did. truth is most people do the best they can with what they've got and sometimes you just don't have it. lord knows, i've been there.

and yet why then am i the one ignored so often when contact is made? they are so unaware that when my sister is contacted and i am not - when they reach out to her and not me - that i am sitting on the couch, feet curled up under me, hoping and praying and pleading and wishing that they'd say they love me, they want me. that i'm one of them. i'm a 6 year old little girl all over again.

and anger that had died or so i thought rises. forgiveness that i thought i'd given i find i start taking back. i imagine they hurt that i added another man's name to daddy's. i imagine they hurt that another man adopted me. yet don't they realize that each and every time they have rejected me, told me to be silent about daddy, or left me out they have taught me that i am not a Lott. it's like handing a thirsty man only wine when you have water and then being upset b/c he turns into a drunk.

and i'm avoided b/c i'm the one that'll tell you how it is. i call your bs ... bs. i'm hot tempered. i might hang up on ya. i might demand an answer. which makes the situation all that more ironic. i'm avoided for the very characteristics that make me a Lott. for the very things that i was told as a little girl by family made me so much like my daddy.

i want to write these things because somewhere under there are stories of redemption. stories that teach me about a Love that knows no end and about Grace that gives from a place of wounding and about family that longs to be what they were created to be, and keeps trying which says something,

something i can't quite define just yet,

but want to write about until i can

and maybe that's what led the writers of the Bible to write so many years ago

to write until they understood

till they could define what it was they had witnessed and experienced and seen

maybe that's why God moved their pens

they wanted to understand the Mystery

worked out in their people,

in their time,

in their place.