I listen to Christmas music year around. Not constantly or anything. Just a little here and there, all year long. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I am a melancholy, and the message of Christmas is so incredibly poignant, so tragically beautiful, so achingly humble and hopeful. I can’t just save that for a few weeks at the end of the year.

This morning, after I dropped off L&L at preschool, the following played from the Christmas mix CD Jamie made for me last year:

O come O come Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appears

O come thou Dayspring, come and cheer

Our spirits by thine advent here

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night

And death’s dark shadows put to flight

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel

Rejoice!

Since my last post, we lost Steve’s beloved grandfather, a gentle giant of a man who treated his family like we were all some kind of royalty. What a guy. We will miss you, Grandpa. I hope you’re having a Manhattan in heaven right now!

When it came time to decide who would be traveling back to Arizona for the memorial service, it became clear that it really didn’t make sense for the kids and me (22 weeks pregnant! more on that development soon) to pack up and go—such long travel and such a short stay. Also, the family would be preparing Grandpa’s house for sale during the few days they were all together, and two 2-year-olds wouldn’t have been helpful in that process.

I got it. But I didn’t like it. And here’s why:

First, I was sad to miss the opportunity to grieve with the family and to celebrate Grandpa, who had been an incredible patriarch. When we moved to Bahrain in 2003, within practically weeks of arriving, I lost both my remaining Grandparents and was not able to go back for their services, and this brought back those sad memories as well.

But then I felt myself getting angrier and angrier, and even a feeling of desperation started rattling around inside me. I tried to pay attention to what all that was about, though it was mostly—in the moment—about resenting Steve for having freedoms I didn’t feel I had.

Ultimately, I realized how isolated I was feeling. And while we are settling here and we are making this house our home and this place our place, I’m still fragile and vulnerable in all the worst ways. And not getting to be with family, while Steve was getting to, just made the burn worse.

I felt stuck here. If you’ve ever felt stuck, you know what a terrible feeling it is to believe you are trapped and powerless. I panicked a little and mostly took it all out on Steve, which he appreciated I’m sure.

On top of it, I was here with the kids by myself for five days. And, of course, the morning Steve left, the battery in my car died, making me feel that much more vulnerable, that much more trapped, that much more angry. You’d think getting a battery replaced in your car would be a simple matter. As it turns out, nothing is a simple matter in the Middle East.

I’ve learned one thing in my life and that is when feelings as strong as these surface, you’d better pay attention because stuffing them back down will create something intensely toxic.

So I just tried my very best to feel what I was feeling and not try to explain it away or “yeah, but we’re so blessed” it to death or try to manufacture resolution with the “God brought us here” pleasantries or slap a “God has something to teach me right now” on it . . . because doing any of these things prematurely will just backfire.

And I got through it. In the very ugly way that you get through sometimes. Lacking hygiene and cussing under your breath a lot. Eating fast food and sleeping with the lights on.

Still a bit tender and not totally on easy street yet, this morning I heard this song, a song sung to someone mourning in lonely exile, to someone who needs her spirits cheered, a person under gloomy clouds and death’s dark shadow. Someone who need an injection of hope, no matter how humbly it arrives.

And I thought, especially after the tears started streaming down my cheeks, hey maybe that’s me. Maybe that’s all of us.

Emmanuel shall come to thee. The dayspring is here. The darkness disperser. The love. The presence. The company keeper. He is here.

Rejoice!

And I cried all the way home. Because something finally entered into that space of pain and relieved it an inch with a balm of love and presence.

So I’m not going to move too quickly, for fear of needing to resolve it all. I’m just going to let myself be kept company because that’s what Christ does for us most of all if we let him.

And if you’re feeling widespread gloom today or there’s just a tiny place inside you that is pricked, I will keep my fingers crossed that you might be able to hear these words:

Emmanuel shall come to thee.

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Thinking about home making today. Seven of our thirteen crates of belongings have arrived from the States to date. And the most random assortment therein, might I add. The bottom part of the leather rocking chair but not the back. The books but not the bookcase. The footboard but not the headboard. The wine cabinet but not the wine glasses. The cushions but not the couch. The sheets but not the mattress. You get the idea.

So we’ve unpacked and arranged as much as we reasonably can at this point. While we’re waiting for the balance to arrive, I’m daydreaming about where everything will ultimately go, how it will all look when it’s finished, the new touches I want to add as time and budget permit. I’m thinking about how this place will be a haven of familiar and comfort in the middle of a foreign land. And I’m thinking about how much I love making a home mine—even if it’s a rental, even if we’ll be packing up before we know it, even if it isn’t actually mine at all, but instead belongs to some rich Arab guy who is making a killing off me living here. Even if.

Right now my favorite spot in the house is at our dining room table that’s positioned near a sliding glass door that looks out to “the garden” as they call it here. “The garden” is essentially a tiled patio with a pool and some potted plants. There is no grass or yard here. Just a tall wall around the perimeter of our property and lots of tile, so this bit of beautiful blue that looks in at me from the pool creates some softness and movement in an otherwise still landscape.

The light comes in through this sliding glass door as well, and I like that sense of being indoors and yet being so near the outdoors. The pool reflects off the awning that extends from the side of the house and out over a bit of the patio. I like it all.

I set my laptop up at the end of the table and watch the birds splash at the edge of the pool whenever I’m between thoughts or emails or sentences. Nice to feel and see the signs of life.

Perhaps that’s what making a home is all about. Nurturing, celebrating the signs of life. Letting the light and the movement in. Celebrating what’s there and not bemoaning what isn’t. Allowing beauty to emerge from the unfamiliar and unlikely.

I love that I’m sitting next to an old deacon’s bench that was in the home I grew up in just about my whole life and belonged to my grandparents before that. I love that my mom let me paint it Swiss Coffee and have it distressed so that it’s old and new.

I love that this very bench is sitting on top of the rug Steve and I bought from Yousef eight years ago when we were here previously, the rug that has been a centerpiece wherever we’ve lived. And I love that all of this is in immediate proximity to an old wooden drink crate from Shreveport, LA, my mom’s hometown, from the neighborhood “Piggly Wiggly,” which I now use to house some of my favorite “accoutrements,” as Steve might refer to these items. You know . . . favorite pens, a few art supplies, a handful of small wood finials, some scrabble tiles. Just things I like having near me.

These are what make me feel home. Odds and ends from the far corners of my story, all presiding together. Thankful today. And smiling.

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I must secretly long for life to be less dimensional than it really is because I’m almost always caught off guard by the paradoxes of life, the complexity, the way it doubles back on itself and gives you mourning and dancing in the very same moment. How beauty and struggle coexist, loss and gain, strength and vulnerability.

And, how quickly I forget that these seeming paradoxes are not, in fact, opposing forces, but instead companions that create richness and depth in life.

In reality, I long for the dimensionality of real living—the texture and vibrancy of raw life—but then when I get it in heaping doses, sometimes I get a tiny bit overwhelmed, maybe even a bit desperate, wishing for a dozen or so Diet Cokes, some Real Housewives, and any other kind of soul-anesthetic I can get my hands on.

Anyone else out there relate?

Some of you are rocking a new baby as you read this. Some of you are sitting in the middle of someplace you never thought you’d be. Some of you are aching and longing. Some of you are celebrating. Some of you are just trying to survive the mundane reality of your days in a way that is honoring to yourself and to God, as hard as that is.

I thought I’d share some of the paradoxes that I’ve experienced lately, some things I’ve learned or relearned about myself during this life transition.

#1 I am more resourceful than I realized AND I need more help than I realized

Another way of saying this might be, I am strong and I have limits. Along the way from San Diego to the Middle East, I have seen that I am  more competent than I sometimes give myself credit for being. I’m not as helpless as I sometimes feel. When it was time to get my family from one side of the world to the other, I did it. And I’m actually kind of proud of it all. At the same time, it took an extraordinary amount of people helping in order to make this move happen. Very, very practical help as well as that intangible support you feel when you know there’s a tribe of people believing in you. The learning here is that competence/strength/resourcefulness are not the opposite of needing help. In fact, as I’m realizing, some of my more resourceful moments were acknowledging my limits and allowing the help in when it was offered.

#2 I love adventure AND I love home

This is such a tension for me. The adventure is full of risk, dis-ease, vulnerability, inefficiencies, and indirect routes. All of which are difficult on the nerves. And yet, what happens during the seasons of adventure–defined widely and broadly–are the kinds of things that can’t be duplicated smack in the middle of comfort. I’m crazy for comfort. That’s why I love home. I love the feeling of place. I love homemaking. Candles. Coffee. My turquoise desk. And yet, adventure often asks us to abandon place for a time. So the task, I’m beginning to believe, is to find that bit of home in every adventure and to find that bit of adventure in every home. And, mostly, to validate both placement and displacement in our becoming.

#3 I am a struggling mother AND I am a soulful mother

There have been some ugly mothering moments since arriving here. Both my children covered in ice cream sprawled out on the floor of the base food court, undone, 50 yards apart from each other. Me, towing purse, backpacks, empty stroller, beverage  – trying to figure out which way to run first. Everyone passing by offering comments like, “Wow, it looks like you’ve really got your hands full.” Shut up. These are the moments when I believe anyone else, everyone else, would be doing this so much better than I’m able. The shame is practically pooling around me. And then I do what I’ve learned to do in these moments, which is (1) secure the escapees, (2) breathe deeply,  and then (3) reach out. So I email someone who treats me with the kind of care I often wish I could summon toward myself, and I tell them how desperate it’s all looking. And then, like balm, I get a note back that reminds me of the important truth about myself. And I’m able to access a place deeper than the shame — a true place — and I’m able to connect with the part of myself that knows, that truly believes, I am a soulful mother. I am not a lost cause. And, then the most important part illuminates: just because I’m struggling doesn’t mean I’m a failure. In fact, the struggle might somehow create the greatest beauty of all. Dang, I hate that.

I hope something in this intersects with you today as we all try to remember that life is nuanced, a labyrinth much more than a direct line. Grace and peace to you as you wander through it all.

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Feeling a bit raw and teary these last couple of days. I’m wanting to make peace with all my emotions surrounding this huge transition and allow myself the space to just let it unfold as it will. But it’s hard to do that sometimes, isn’t it.

It’s hard to feel vulnerable, like I’m just learning how to ride a bike for the first time . . . again.

I hate it when life lacks ease. I just hate it. I’d like to be sweeping around this desert island in my effortless caftan and loose curls. Today is not that day, by any stretch.

I shared in my last post that I have just finished Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. In addition to the need for moments of centering solitude in each day, I finished the book with one other profound concept that keeps coming back to me:

She says, “Every stage of a relationship is valid.”

She’s speaking of marriage in this particular context – how we often long to recapture the honeymoon bliss of early marriage but how we might be better served to embrace each stage of a maturing and developing relationship as a way that it deepens and endures. Even the fighting. Even the struggle. Even the less-than-blissful seasons. Perhaps, especially these times.

I have been thinking about this concept in the context of my move and of my new life here in Bahrain. Every stage of this relationship – my new, refound relationship with Bahrain – is valid. The agitation of starting over. The feeling of displacement. The in-between of being here but still not having any of our stuff — living on borrowed furniture, eating off borrowed plates, not feeling “at home” yet. The inspiring discoveries of myself and this place. The new, slower pace. The loss and the gain. It’s all valid.

What if I allowed myself to validate the inevitable mess of change instead of denying it or hurrying it or wishing it away? When I try to move things along in a disingenuous way, because that would help me feel more in control, I find the toxic voices start howling. And the next thing I know, my soul is absolutely skewered with shame that I’m not more or different or better.

So I’m trying to be true to the process, as awkward and unattractive as that is some days.

A couple of weeks ago, our landlord called and said someone was going to come look at our house – a temporary place we are staying until our stuff arrives and we move into our permanent house – because they were interested in moving into the villa when we move out.

Could I show them around? Sure.

So I showed this woman the house. We realize, after some conversation, that our husbands work at the exact same command and that one of her children is very close in age to L&L.

She liked the house and wanted to bring her husband back to show him. She came back with him and their three kids. And, after some negotiating and decision making, she lets me know that they’re going to move into our place.

During all the back and forth, she and I talk more and I take a chance, risk appearing needy and glommy, and ask her if she’d like to get our kids together for a play date sometime. They’re new here and we’re new here, and I figured we could all use some friends.

So we’ve had a play date and it was great and in the course of the afternoon together we realized some other things we have in common, and I felt this little glimmer of thankfulness in my spirit.

Last night, while I was making dinner, I said a quick “thank you” to God. “Thanks for bringing a friend right to my doorstep.”

I felt like God was sending me a wink and letting me know, “I see you.”

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Most of the homes (referred to as “villas”) here in Bahrain are surrounded by a tall cement wall with a scrolling iron gate. So each property feels like its own compound. One of the beautiful features of these walls is the lighting perched on top of them. Particularly pretty at dusk when they begin to glow.

This lantern caught my eye. On this property, there are at least a dozen of these gorgeous lanterns adorning the top of the wall around the perimeter of the inner courtyard. At the risk of being intrusive, I pulled my car over and captured this one because I loved it so much — a bit Bahraini and a bit Moroccan, too. Though it’s beige cement against a beige cement wall against beige sand against a beige sky, something about the form of this piece inspires me. Foreign. Ancient. Other-wordly. Beautiful.

I’m reminded today that beauty is waiting for us in the world — waiting for us to awaken and discover.

I’m reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea currently. It’s a short little book of essays that is really speaking to me. I highly recommend. My friend Annette gave it to me years ago, but I never finished it. The other day I was rooting through the “take one, leave one” book stack at the base library and refound this little gem. Funny how you can pick up the same book at a different season and it resonates so deeply.

Lindbergh’s essays are inspired by shells she finds on the beach while taking a vacation alone — away from her husband and five children — to recharge and reflect. Again, letting the beauty of the world she finds herself in speak to her and inspire her. Letting Truth in through the shapes and sounds and smells of the world around us.

One of the most profound things in her book is her insistence that every woman needs some time alone in each day (she’s not necessarily saying men don’t, she’s just writing to women specifically). She writes, “When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. . . . Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.”

So difficult to give ourselves permission to attend to the core, to stop the noise and center. May we all be brave today and quiet down enough — even just for a moment — to let something or someone speak to us . . . and to really hear what is being said.

Love to you all.

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