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Posted by on Dec 7, 2017 in Devotions, Everyday Life, Reflections | 0 comments

the blessing of dust.

I have a confession.

Another one.

I do love Jesus. I do.

But I also let a few words slip through customs that had no business boarding the plane.

I’m the first to admit it and the last to deny.

But one day in particular just seemed to pile up baggage faster than I could put it away. I was so frustrated. I finally arrived into my house and stubbed my toe hard on an end table.

Brilliant.

Not the word used, but a variation on the dark side.

And wouldn’t you know the minute the word left my lips, a picture frame I had on my built in book case came crashing down.

The weird thing was, I had it steadied by something else to its side so for it to fall was strange.

The remnant sat in my brain all afternoon until memories of my great grandmother just seemed to flood through me and I couldn’t brush them away.

And then it hit me.

My great grandmother.

My great grandmother was getting after me for using dark side words.

I laughed out loud and apologized to her, and I could almost feel someone’s sharp but forgiving smile.

I called my grandmother and told her what happened. She laughed and reminded me that she never cussed a single day in her life and never approved of it. That showed me.

I think back to the days of Jesus and miracles and prophets. And I wonder about the Loud Speaker version of God that was in your face and burned non burning bushes and sent Jesus on a rampage in a temple. There was no lack of subtlety in those days. Nobody can argue that.

But in the way that God has transitioned Himself into a refined gentleman that He always was but always will be as well, I do believe He speaks, and listens with such subtlety and detail so that not a word falls short of His ears.

Think of it this way: Jesus’s disciples followed Him so close it is said that they walked in His dust. That visual is what validates my grandparents’ continual presence in my life for me. That visual gives illustration to the careful consideration my grandparents take to choose the moments when they know my heart is so hurt it bows in and of itself, or those moments in such happiness that it bursts in confetti.

As long as I live, I’ll follow as close as I need so as not to miss a moment of love from my grandparents. Or from past loved ones. Or from God. I want to be covered in their dust.

I want to recognize these moments as much as I can. When Jesus appeared to the disciples three times, they failed to recognize Him. At all. The author brought up the thought of Jesus appearing in three different people to the disciples, so the disciples missed the part where Jesus is all people.

We should never miss a moment. Never miss a step. Never stop to wash the dust off but move carefully, considerately, and kindly so that we might recognize when Jesus is tending to our hearts and to us. And though we fail daily, there is always tomorrow to get up and try again.

It is worth the risk.

 

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Posted by on Nov 25, 2017 in Devotions, Everyday Life | 1 comment

the big fat truth.

Sometimes, it’s a bit embarrassing to be me.

And it has nothing to do with the fact that sometimes, in my own esteemed brilliance, I can do some spectacularly stupid scenarios. In my sleep. With a hand behind my back. Eyes closed. Not even trying.

It might be genetic. Let’s do that.

What it does have to do with is the fact that I, Allison-er-Allison Rose-have had to deal with it. What is it? Well. It is a spectrum of nuances and phrases and experiences wrapped in one big ball of twine. And once it began to unravel, there really wasn’t much to do but get out if its way and see what it wanted.

I, Allison, have had to deal with being fat. Being bullied. Being set aside for a collectible on a shelf. Letting others wear my voice around their necks and take my power as collateral.

And I can’t even really explain how it happened because it happened so slowly yet it happened so fast all at once. It happened the minute someone else believed that they knew better than I did and what did I know? It happened over the years of ridicule from supposed friends, even a couple of teachers. It grew healthy and strong and sucked the life out of me as it sat proud and happy on my shoulders, weighing me down.

It caused me to make sure I wore a tshirt over my bathing suit. It caused me to completely not join in on a pool party. It led me to some really sorry relationships that were detonated before I even got my hands on the trigger.

I did try to fight. I tried to make my body into something it wasn’t. People told me it’d be better that way. That I’d be happier and that I’d be healthier. Poof. It would be alright. So. I tried to conform. Diet after diet after diet took its turn, each and every time the little success I’d have would only backfire in the long run and I’d be worse than where I was to begin with. My closet held sizes all over the spectrum and my body was becoming a very uncomfortable container to conform.

And I wish I could tell you that POOF! A diet changed my life. It became Better and Better ran away into the sunset into tomorrow.

Nope.

It got worse. No, it got ugly.

It was overpoweringly cynical and It was winning.

Until a therapist told me something.

She told me my version of Better had verdigo. That I had made it so nauseated from the merry go round I had created for shelter.

She told me the way to Better was to get my power back and to force it back. Speak up. Speak the words that would hurt ears but that needed to crack the surface of It in order for Better to be. Quit compartmentalizing my thoughts based on if it would hurt someone’s feelings or not. Speak. Say the words that required saying. The ones so hard to say but weighed more than I could carry anymore.

And boom. Poof if you prefer. I began to speak. Perhaps too loud at times but I spoke. I spoke my mind, I spoke It out loud to take the voice away from It.

Once you realize that the shrapnels you’re so ashamed of are actually keeping you together, Better seems to give you a hand off of the merry go round and for the first time, you are able to sit without dizziness.

I will be the first and the last to admit that I will deal with It and confess It and discover It and become acquainted with It. Instead of fighting against It, I guess you learn to soften Its edges and instead of becoming who everyone else thinks you should be or ought to be, for the first time, you realize that your voice is your own and that you will never, ever, EVER, deal in that currency again.

I don’t know who I would be without It.

I certainly wonder if I would be me.

So I say all of this to explain to you a simple truth: I know what it is like to look into the mirror and not recognize the reflection. I know what it is like to be so uncomfortable in skin you never wanted in the first place and you’d do anything-put yourself through utter hell-to just squash your round peg into a square hole.

These are my rolls, theses are my fat feet, these are the fat fingers that constantly cause me to make texting mistakes and yes, I am proud. Everyone around the Thanksgiving dinner table was trying to decide who my brother looked and acted most like, and I just sat there thinking. I know exactly who I am. I don’t need someone to decide for me. I like to think I take a few trinkets from both of my grandmothers. And I like to think I am still figuring out the rest.

So yeah. I will always comment back to haters who keep smashing body positivity movements with their BS “Fat isn’t Healthy” crap. I will always stick up for the person who fought to be who they are and to take their pronouns and use them proudly. Loving yourself is healthy. Refusing to conform to what others say you should be when you know you’re not is self love. It’s justice. It’s freedom. Who cares if someone understands or not? Our job isn’t to understand everyone or point our crooked fingers at others simply because we refuse to understand we refuse to recognize that yes, EVERYONE deserves compassion.

And I will continue to speak It, whatever that It has been, is being, or will become in the future.

 

I fail. I falter. I have empty hands to offer.

And with my broken pieces I will find that I’m already whole.

Now how amazing is that.

 

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Posted by on Oct 23, 2017 in Everyday Life, Reflections | 0 comments

The Journey of Empathy

People say I’m loud but my voice was taken and I took it back.

I might be clumsy but that’s probably because of all of the hard steps forward I found the gumption to take.

I have a habit of being so anxious I forget to breathe, but I’ve had to learn to question motives and adjust my turtle shell.

My views definitely take the road less traveled as a result of what I’ve endured through my own version of body positivity discovery. Now it’s take me or leave me because I’m done punishing myself.

I’m told daily I’m stubborn since I’ve learned to take up for myself.

So. I might be different, loud, stubborn, and say too much of what should be kept on a hook on my tongue. But I am who I am because of what I’ve made of my brokenness and that makes me smile.

The world lives in a shallow tupperware container with the lid so tight it can’t expand, grow, or even see the light of day. Those who choose to be in that box, well, I do pray for them everyday to emerge from that box and see a whole new light of day. The world is too small and life is too short strawed to live life unimagined and in a container made for storing leftovers, not your entire existence.

The journey of wearing myself inside out, as if a costume for someone to inspect and to fabricate, is very raw and full of loss-loss of friendships, loss of those that turn their backs, loss of your former ideas of how things should fit and how things should be. The journey however is the only way to come out on the other side realizing that you weren’t all the way outside of the box yet. Outside the box is where the journey begins. Hope reveals itself. Life blooms.

My father and I had a conversation the other day about gay people. He mentioned he felt that they were the best people he knows and that they understand empathy. I would say he’s right. But I’d also say he’s wrong. Respectfully. Anybody who has suffered to be who they are and was judged, ridiculed, and dealt with shame has learned what it is to know empathy. Empathy blooms where struggle is born. Empathy grows best where the scars run deep and open and wide and free. Empathy is learned because of those who have had to suffer to learn it. Once you begin a journey of being ashamed of who you are and wanting to be anybody but, you get it. Once you come out on the other side, the very Bible says that once you know better, you do better. You can’t be who you once were. You move forward.

And I realize not everyone would necessarily agree with me, or understand what I’m trying to say. But chew on this: find your truth, be your truth, and be brave enough to live your truth. My truth has just begun to be, and even though it took me a long time to reconcile with it and live inside of it, at the very least, it’s much more comfortable to be inside out than it is hidden inside of a tupperware container.

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