The Cowardly Lion

If you have followed my blogs at any point over the last several years, you’ll be the first to realize there has been nothing to follow for the last nine months.

I haven’t posted a blog in nine months.

I don’t know I’ve ever had a gap that long...

I have excuses.  Meaningful ones...

I was working 60 plus hours a week...

I was trying to figure out why my meds were off...

I had just started grad school...

I was developing camp curriculum in some way, shape, or form for three camps...

I was preparing several messages...

I was doing my best to invest in a team of summer counseling staff...

I was job searching...

I was apartment hunting...

And did I mention I was in grad school? (With all of the reading and papers there-of)...

Time was in short supply. 

I have been running a marathon that I am even just now beginning to recover from and redefine. 

The days were always too long...

The nights were always too short...

There were never spare moments...

And when there were?  No part of me wanted to stare at a computer screen any longer. 

But there was more...

Time had been so short for so long with my life demanded by so much with the return being so little...

I didn’t have anything left to give. 

Not in word form. 

It used to be in this same physical drain...

The mental emptiness...

That the words would just flow. 

But not this time...

I was out of words.

I was out of me.

If you’ve followed my blog at all you know my blog has always been uniquely me...

Some odd combination of the way the life looked through my eyes...

The way God showed up in the midst of my moments...

But I was missing. 

There wasn’t anything of “me” I could put in word form...

Because I didn’t know who I was and where I fit in the midst of the life I was living...

So at least now we are being honest.

Somewhere at the core of the “problem” that is my abandoned “Abandoned Scawls” is the fact that I lost a sense of my identity. 

Who is Anika now? What is she like? What are her passions? Her hopes?  Her dreams? Her goals?  All of them exist (even now) as fill in the blanks.  Your answer is as good as mine.  Maybe better.

Truly.

But as longs as we are being honest...

Those questions are only half of the dilemma...

Half of the reality.

In all honesty,

I have written.

Written some...

There was the one about soul keeping...

And the blurb about my soul mirror...

And the reflections on the dusting of my grandparents antiques...

The one with the analogy from my short lived free cell addiction...

And the journey through my boxes of memories...

Not a ton, obviously.

I didn’t post any of them – clearly.

But I’ve written some.*

Honestly, I couldn’t.

I was too afraid. 

I couldn’t post because I lacked the courage.

The courage to reveal part of me...

The realization that the part I revealed may or may not be someone I recognized.

I can’t and won’t dive into detail but I spent the year traversing from (what seemed to be) one disappointment to the next.  Some things are just things, just life (car problems and school delays and doctor changes and medical questions) and some were very personal.  Some were direct stabs.  I was betrayed by people I trusted, hurt by people I had called friend.  I was lied to and lied about.  I worked endlessly to serve people who didn’t care, would never understand the extent of my investment, who left at the end of the week because camp was over or, worse, who never left but also never showed up. 

I slowly but surely withdrew. 

I limited the people I could trust. 

I only spent time with those people.

I was embittered by reality and calloused by my own objective.

To put my most basic thoughts in a public space was like putting a sign around my neck that said “I’m bruised and broken and I’ve just stopped the bleeding, so hey! Why not take another stab??”  It seems melodramatic but in many ways it was the way I felt.  If I could be attacked without any of my cards showing, what could possibly propel me to leave myself exposed?

I couldn’t do it.

I was too afraid. 

I’ve felt like the Cowardly Lion...

Remember how Dorothy approached him with trepidation?

...Only to find out HE was the one who truly feared?

He talked a big talk...

But walked a shallow walk...

I had all of these thoughts...

Muddled and uncertain...

Stuck but pushing...

And none of them would I let put through.

None of them would reach a public sphere...

I was raw.

I was confused.

I wasn’t driven – at least not that internal-can’t-get-these-words-out-fast-enough kind of driven...

I sat down and I ran out of words to say. 

And when the words came...

I wondered...

I wondered if they were me.

And I wondered if they were me if that would give permission,

Permission for the world to tear off a piece I couldn’t afford to lose.

Because life had me living the life of an oxymoron...

A Wordless Writer

A Bottled Explosion

A Cowardly Lion

The thing about the Cowardly Lion, though, for those who know the story’s end... [For those of you who don’t...a) spoiler! and b) for real?? Where have you been? We are talking a cinema masterpiece!]...is that all of the characters, Lion included, are awarded the things they most covet at the end.  Why?  Because he was deserving?  Because he had traveled so far and wanted it so badly? No...because his journey proved the courage he had so desired had been inside of him all along.  The Lion was limited only by the cowardice he assigned himself...not the breadth of ability or the lack of intention.  He feared because he didn’t know (perhaps what he really needed was Scarecrow’s brain!), he didn’t know the stuff he was made of, he didn’t know the companions for his journey...

I am reminded of scripture. 

Joshua specifically

(Although my brain goes to so many places the examples could be near endless...)

Here we are at the beginning of Joshua 1

Moses has died and the reigns of leadership are being given to Joshua...

Whose task it will be to take the Israelites into the Promised Land.  

Joshua is being given instructions in the form of a blessing...

Over and over his instructions include “be strong and courageous”. 

Biblical accounts point to the fact that Joshua was faithful...

But also relatively strong and courageous. 

(From brave spy to brilliant warrior to faithful servant who accompanied Moses in receiving the 10 commandments from Mt. Sinai...) 

I have to wonder if he was ready to take over the leadership Moses had previously,

If he always believed in himself,

But his character spoke for itself.

Much like the Cowardly Lion, Joshua’s instructions weren’t to give him the power...

They were given to remind him of the actions he had already displayed...

The actions required of him when the moment demanded.

“Be strong and very courageous”. 

Instructions as a blessing came with a promise, however.

Joshua was told “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.  Be strong and courageous” (1:5-6) and the well known words of 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Where do all these thoughts connect?  That’s a good question.  Because in my head – they don’t.  But in my heart they do.

See...it’s in writing quite often that God shows up.  It’s not that He hasn’t been there but who He is and insights into His character and where He has been active in my life...somehow it all starts to become clear when I write.  When I allow words to flow with or without my permission... it’s in looking back that occasionally it all makes sense. 

See it’s not about blogging or even posting – it’s about the moment of realizing that fear is petty in comparison to the One who meets me in the words such produce.  Petty in thinking a cowardly response to the life which hurt was better than intentionally embracing the gift of space I was given to simply meet God amidst the words. 

I’ve been the Cowardly Lion. It’s not that I couldn’t. I was limited only by the cowardice I assigned myself.  Not the breadth of my ability or even the lack of attention.  I feared because I didn’t know.  Feared because I didn’t know the stuff I was made of (the problem of definition and who I would find in the pages) and I knew – but acted as if I didn’t – the One who was along for the journey.

The thing about promises in scripture is that though given by God to an original audience (fresh out of a Bib-terp class this important to note), as a people grafted in – the promises can be and are true for us too...thousands of years later.  “As I was with Moses so I will be with you...be strong and courageous.” 

A strange inaugural blog after a nine month hiatus, I’ll be the first to admit.  Application for you? Only if you want it.  See my blog was always supposed to be this public space in which the thoughts I had pondered and the words I had scrawled in this massive collision between where life happened and God showed up.  Abandoned for the world to find if it wished to be found... But existing as a pillar of testimony to the collision itself. 

May this stand as a pillar showing God isn’t finished with me yet...

Soli Deo Gloria.

May I be found faithful.

*Some of these may some day be posted.  Some will sit in the files.  I’ll try not to let all words go unsaid... : )