Never-ending Process

Gray Compromise

2009-09-08T13:24:00.003-04:00

Going from the known to the unknown
Leaving the familiar to embrace inevitable change
Anxieties and insecurities of the past resurface.

Longing for a map in this foreign world
Or at least someone who speaks the language,
Hoping for grace in understanding.

Fumbling through the unknown
Retreat is taken in what I know
Although that currency is not available for fair exchange in this culture.

Once again my feet straddle two worlds
Eternally destined to live in the in between
Will peace ever be found?

Wishing for an advocate
Who will disprove my seemingly schizophrenic nature
Who will find some semblance of coherence considering the circumstances.

Motivated by a final destination that will never change
Where my identity will no longer need an explanation
And where our citizenship will be of the same nature.

Yet that destination is not yet attained
Reality determines that this reconciliation will not be found here
And I am left holding the pieces.

Square peg, round hole
Neither black nor white
Gray compromise.

Rebekah Gregory
September 8, 2009

Friendship & Memories

2009-07-23T15:38:00.003-04:00

It's an amazing thing when you can sit down for lunch with an old friend that you haven't seen in 3 years and pick up where you left off... What a blessing it is to have friends like that. It is great and heart-wrenching at the same time. This is because it revives a friendship that I so appreciate and love, but reminds me of the fact that so many miles separate us. And this is the story of my life.

One of the hardest moments of my entire life was graduating High School. Most kids look forward to this day with great anticipation: finally being able to be on their own, the excitement of stepping into adulthood out from under their parent's jurisdiction, the ability to pursue the degree of their choice among so many other things. For me graduating from High School was very different. I went to boarding school in Germany for missionary kids, military kids, and some nationals. I moved away from home when I was 15, so the sense of independence was already there, but the thing I dreaded the most was leaving Black Forest Academy.

There was actually a point during my Senior year that I contemplated flunking one of my main classes so that I could stay an extra year. Crazy, I know. This place had become my home. A place where I was understood, where my heart came alive, where I could know and be known. It was unlike any other place I had lived at this point in my life. Kids litteraly from all over the world came together to live, study and grow while their parents worked either in missions, the military or other international careers.

I came my Freshman year of High School and spent all four years, living, learning and growing alongside these other kids, teachers, dorm parents, and residence assistants. It was the longest I had lived in one place and I was not eager to leave. I had made once in a lifetime kind of friends since coming there, and I knew that once we received our diplomas we would be scattered to the winds. That thought was unbearable.

I remember starting to grieve early. I was very aware of every "last" thing that we did together. The final weeks leading up to graduation was extremely difficult. I cried everyday. Then the dreaded day came. We put on our caps and gowns hoped against hopes that maybe we would see each again some day. Most of us knew that the promises to write and keep in touch would soon fade into good intentions and eventual memories. Our last night together was full of attempts to reconcile so many conflicting emotions. I don't think I've ever cried to hard in my entire life. We did everything we could to stay together as long as we could. We knew that once we said good bye, our lives would never be the same.

Somehow I survived that night and the following year. A great sadness came over me and I was riddled with grief and sorrow. I managed to save enough money to go back the follow year to watch the class of 1998 graduate. It was a healing experience to realize that life was different and had moved on without me, but it was still very hard to leave at the end of my time there.

To this day I hate the word good bye. If there is grief in the air, I'll be able to sense it. My heart is very sensitive to it and to those who have to walk through it. It is very difficult to explain to someone who has not experience significant loss. This pain will more than likely accompany me through the rest of my life.

Well I wasn't intending on this post to be so depressing but there it is. My heart was transported back to that place. It is a difficult reality to be faced with in a world that is highly mobile. The ones we are closest to and love dearly often don't live down the street. I cannot wait for heaven when we will all be together in one place, FOREVER!

Flourishing

2009-07-22T12:59:00.004-04:00

In keeping with this quest of stepping out into my fears in hopes of regaining my heart and attempting to live authentically comes the question: who am I? I'm in my 31st year of life, and one would think at this point, a person this age would have a general sense of who he or she is, what some of their passions are and some idea of what they can uniquely contribute to society. A sense of purpose, identity and meaning.

An interesting thing happens when you grow up as a missionary kid: your identity becomes confused. You are born into your passport country and yet because of God's calling on their lives, your parents raise you in a different culture than the one you were born into. Sometimes to add further confusion, your parents don't stay in just that new host culture, they work in other countries or like in my case you go to boarding school in a different culture. TCKs, that's what they call us.

Dave Pollock, the original founder of Interaction International describes a Third Culture Kid (TCK) as: "... an individual who, after having spent a significant part of the developmental years in a culture other than that of their parents,develops a sense of relationship to all of the cultures while not having full ownership in any. Elements from each culture are incorporated into the life experience, but the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience." So that is who I am: a confusion of cultures. The absence of absolutes. A confusion of loyalties. No culture to call my own, to identify with. I life of grayness, no black or white.

That alone is cause for confusion, but you add to that life experience, relational styles, family dynamics, and rootlessness, you have a recepie for the ultimate identity crisis. Each MK's experience is different, and it's not all bad, but there are definitely specific challenges that we face as a result of life that our parents were called to.

One of my struggles was that I never had ownership of anything that I was particularly skilled at. Growing up I explored several different hobbies and things that I enjoyed but never gained a mastery over one in particular. I ended up getting my Masters in Counseling, but that's a different story. My heart most definitely came alive when I was in the program, but unfortunately at this point in life I am not really doing anything with my degree and gifting. Interestingly enough, while I worked at the Washington Crossing UMC, I discovered a hidden talent, design. I really enjoyed learning and creating different projects for the various ministries I was working for. I also discovered a love for photography.

I never realized that I had this artistic side to me. I always loved music. I was involved in band, choir and my parents always had me sing in front of the churches that supported us when we were on home assignment. But I never really learned how to read music and everything I did was by ear. There was another part of the artist in me and that was writing. I liked to write in school, and I started writing poems in the 8th grade. It's been a couple years since I've written anything, but I know if I were to start thinking along those lines, I might get some inspiration...

I think part of the reason I didn't pursue some of these things is because I lacked the confidence in my accomplishments. My fear of failure kept me trapped in the beginning stages of these different areas of interest. I always knew that there was someone better than me in these different artistic venues, so I didn't venture out the way that I would have liked.

My struggle with perfectionism haunts me as I attempt to step out into areas where I think I might have something unique to offer. But I have decided to step out and try pursuing my love of photography and see what I can do. I got a new camera for my birthday and I am learning how to use it. I love taking pictures of flowers. I thought I might try to make a book (snapfish, nothing too special) of flowers. I have taken pictures of flowers all over the world, and thought it would be fun project to work on.

Here's to stepping out of the cave of fear of failure and pursuing the desires of my heart. Wish me luck! Below is a picture that I will probably include in my book.

Starting Over

2009-07-21T12:01:00.007-04:00

A year has past since my last blog post, and I think it's about time to return to the blogging world. The need for expression and the desire to reflect bring me back to this place which use to be a very big part of my day to day life. Not that I have anything meaningful to say, but rather for the cathartic release of my ponderings and such.

Life has handed me its usual twists and turns and I'm left confused with a bad headache. Reflection use to be my middle name, and now I struggle to get past the day to day happenings in my mind. Time has opened it's window and granted me more than before but now all I want to do is run from my heart. I used to envy those who were able to put aside the outward expression of their emotion in the midst of crisis or struggle because I have always struggled to maintain my composure in the midst of difficulty. But now I am one of them, masquerading as someone who is getting by whilst I wither inside.

My heart has not seen the sun for some time now. Hidden in the cave of fear, it is tentative to venture out. Desire and longing lure it out of its dark places, in which it has been finding apparent refuge, only to discover that this in fact was not safe hiding place. Neglected and hurt I attempt to love again, to feel again. The darkness is calling me all the while, telling me that there is less risk in the cave and that I can protect myself there and outside of it I am exposed and vulnerable. Torn between these mixed messages of longing for the depth of intimacy and the fear of pain and loss, I hesitate. It is worth the risk? Can I truly be loved? Will I find what I am longing for? Will I be hurt again, and if I am, am I capable of recovering?

Do I even know how to love anymore? Living in a place of fear and self-protection was a must to survive the situations I found myself in. But now that firing squad has stepped down, do I know how to love without self-protection? The shield that I thought was providing me with the protection I needed was being used for more than what it was intended for. Fear whispered lies of safety. Safety came from living behind the shield. But living behind the shield, life was very limited. You could only experience so much, see so much, live so much.

How can I trust The Hand that has hurt me to heal me? So many vows were taken at the last occurance of significant pain that I fear that I will always struggle to trust Him. I know that He knows what's best, for me, for those I love, but yet the pain of I have experienced seems to override those truths. I realize that my perspective is squewed and I cannot take it as absolute truth, but sometimes it is difficult to reconcile the paradoxes of life and you have to come to some conclusions about life and what you believe about it.

Attempting to make sense of brokeness is long and difficult road. This is my journey. I want to believe, and I know that He understands where I am and why I doubt and fear. I am trusting that He won't let me go as I wrestle through these truths so that I can embrace them. In the meantime, I pray for patience and love from Him and those around me as I try to make sense of it all.

Isaiah 42:3
"A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice..."

Blank Slate

2008-06-24T15:31:00.002-04:00

Before we left on our trip to Ireland, Gordon and would tell people, "we'll be able to do ___ when we get back from Ireland"... So here I am, staring at our blank slate of months to come, waiting for life to write on it... Sure we have some plans, a couple of weddings, our 1 year anniversary and trying to get together with family and friends to catch up on all of the time we didn't have before our trip and other events preceeding our trip...

Ireland was wonderful. We truly had a great time. There are so many things to write about that I won't go into detail now, but at some point I will. I am still trying to regain my heart. I seemed to have lost it. I found it a little bit while we were in Ireland, but I still struggled to keep it alive even in those moments. I'm not sure what is going on and why I'm still feeling so numb, but I am.

So I look at the upcoming months and I wonder what they will be filled with? Will my heart live again? Will I be able to find passion in life again? Will I be able to sort through what is blocking my heart from coming alive? Will I be able to find the rest and relationships I am longing for? Will I be able to find some of my purpose in life? Will I be able to stop existing and start living?

The questions continue to torment my mind and different hopes surface. Yet those hopes are met with cynicism as their fulfillment as so much of life has had to be put on hold in order to accomplish certain achievements in life (ie: graduation, marriage, etc). Often hope is met with fear which snuffs out the life and longing expectation for something good that hope provides. I hate that fear creeps in like that but unfortunately it is where my heart tends to go in order to protect itself from being let down if that hope is not fulfilled. I don't know how to hope without the guarantee that it is actually going to happen.

So now what do I do with the hopes of the future? Try and keep it alive the best I can but it will be a battle...

Life in the fastlane

2008-05-07T12:48:00.003-04:00

It feels as though these last 3 years have been on fast forward... Just I think I am able to catch up, something comes up, a new big decision needs to be made. But we are hopefully in view of a more calm horizon in the very near future.

We made it through the most difficult semester of them all, the last semester of a music composition major's life! His recital was a great success and despite handing in some papers late and thanks to the graciousness of many professor's hearts, Gordon graduated Cum Laude (Cummulative GPA of 3.5) :) I am beyond proud of my amazing husband, at how hard he pushed to finish while juggling a new marriage and all of the crazy 1-2 punches life has been handing us. He reached the finish line with his head held high and with many wonderful memories of his 5 years in college. What a cause to celebrate! :)

In March we were informed that we are needing to move. We live on the 3rd floor to a house and the landlords want to have our apartment for their 18 yr. old daughter. So we are hopefully moving out at the end of the month. At first I took the news really hard because we weren't planning on moving and this year has been tough and full of changes already, but as I was able to calm down, and talked it through with Gordon, I was able to realize that this in fact is a good thing. We've found a place that we like close to church which will allow us to become more involved with the church itself along with our young married's group.

The Lord has been so good to us especially during all of these changes. Gordon was able to secure a job the day before graduation and we are actually going tonight to put in our application on the apartment we are looking at. There is a possibilty of getting piano at a steal of a price (which would be a tremendous blessing for Gordon) and we are also getting a kitten! :) I've been wanting to get a cat for some time and we weren't able to have one in our current apartment. We were also asked to be part of a mission's trip to Ireland, which will help to encourage the missionaries that our church supports in the UK through worship and teaching. This is right up our alley and we are very excited about it. We will be gone from June 11-23rd and once we get back, we'll have landed for awhile. All of this happening one month short of our one year anniversary. Whew, what a first year of marriage!

People told us that our first year of marriage would be great, but also challenging, but we had no idea how challenging it would be. We certainly have had wonderful moments of reveling in the newness of our relationship, but there have been so many outside factors that have kept us busy and away from our hearts. We are hoping that once we return from Ireland and will have moved into our new apartment, life will settle down enough for us to catch our breath and survey all that has taken place this year. We're also hoping to be able to "re-discover" our relationship as we have been running like mad for the last couple of years even before getting married. It is hard to believe that next week we are coming up on 10 months of marriage. It seems like we've always been married, but also like we have just begun... It's a strange mixture of emotions. All of this being said, I am SO thankful that we have been married during all of these dramatic life changes, because I know it would have been extremely difficult having to handle this alone! What a blessing it has been to have been given the gift of marriage!

I think the thing that we have missed the most in these last couple of years is relationships. We formed several great friendships several years ago, and as life has happened, people have moved away or moved on with life. I am praying that as we stop in these next couple of weeks, that we are able to take advantage of the time that we have now that Gordon is done with school to cultivate these relationships and watch them flourish. Life in community can be such a blessing and in such an individualistic culture, it can be very hard to come by.

Well, enough rambling for me. We have a picture of our kitty, but it's blurry. So I'll wait to post it until I get a better picture. We'll be picking it up after our trip at the end of June! Horray! :) I will hopefully be updating more before we leave...:)

My Love

2008-04-23T16:22:00.002-04:00

I am so thankful for the amazing husband that God has blessed me with. He is loving, kind, gentle, understanding, patient, gracious, thoughtful, sensitive among so many other things. I just wanted to thank you for being there during these tough times and for not giving up on me when things get hard. You are an amazing example of God's love for me. My best friend, my love, I love you with all my heart!

Trust

2008-04-11T12:39:00.000-04:00

There a couple of definitions:

1.reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
2.confident expectation of something; hope.
(www.dictionary.com)

The main word running through these definitions is confidence. The latter definition reminds me of the verse in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. " Faith and trust seem to go hand in hand.

When you've been hurt, deeply hurt, it is difficult to extend that trust again to those who have hurt you. But what do you do when you feel that that hurt was caused by or allowed by God? Do you "forgive" Him, do you try to work through the difficulties and learn how to trust Him again? What do you do with the fear that creeps in when trust is the only thing that you can do is trust? What do you do with those who have endured abuse, childhood abuse, has been part of your life and God did not intervene in those moments of sheer atrocity?

These are all questions that I have been wrestling with for most of my life, but that have recently resurfaced on a more poignant level. There are many areas in my life now in which God is calling me to trust Him (areas of provision and during times of the unknown) and I struggle to trust that He honestly has the best in mind for my life and that He has good plans for me. Of course He has given me many blessings, but those wounds are still there, still oozing, some more than others.

I never realized how much fear controls my life. I worry, I try to do all that I can in every situation to protect myself and those I love in situations of the unknown because I am afraid of loosing them. I struggle the most to relinquish my husband back to the hands of God because I have known a relationship that is "permanent" or one that does not have the potential of leaving or being left behind. Of course anything can happen and He can choose to take Gordon away from me, but I struggle to understand how I can trust God with the one that I love the most in this life and how to allow myself to invest without fear of loosing him. The more I fall in love with my husband, the more I fear loosing him because of the cost that that would involve. I know that it's morbid and depressing to think about these things, but it's hard not to because of the nature of my life.

So how do I trust in the midst of all of this change? How do I let go and trust that God will truly take care of me and the ones that I love? It is really scary to let this go and I know that this question will continue to surface as long as I live. I am doing what I can to address this but it is a long and difficult journey....

Rest

2008-04-07T15:03:00.000-04:00

So much is happening around me, that all that I long for right now is rest. A moment to steal away from the craziness of life, and to stop and just be. But lately I don't know how to do that very well. As soon as I get home, I'm going to see how messy the house is, and feel the need to clean so that I can "rest" better (without the clutter) and while I clean, I'll see more things that need to get done, and then I won't have been able to rest at all. Ugh!

The other thing that has been hauting me lately is the guilt factor in regards to resting. Because life has been so crazy busy, and we haven't really stopped for very long over these last couple of years, when I do stop, I feel guilty because there is always some else I could be doing (cleaning, organizing, sorting, packing...) and so to appease the guilt I often give in and try to make myself feel better by doing those things. But I don't end up resting. This is a new phenomenon for me. I've only ever really struggled with the guilt factor in resting before while I was in school, because often I rested too much and didn't do enough homework, but now that I am done with school, I can't seem to shut the guilt off. So I'm not too sure how to make it go away. We'll see what happens tonight. I'd like to find a happy medium in cleaning a little but also finding the time to rest... we'll see if I can do it...

Stop the Merry Go Round- I want to get off!

2008-04-03T13:53:00.000-04:00

How do I stop this Merry go Round? It keeps spinning against my will... Just when you think the ride is going to end, it just picks up right where it left off, not leaving me any time to get off and catch my breath! *sigh* This has been the story of my life in the last couple of years but most intensely felt since the beginning of the year.

We hit the ground running, with a new job for Gordon which has him working one night a week, Saturdays and two day shifts at Applebees. This was a tough decision, knowing that he had class 2 other nights during the week, which meant I would be home alone for 3 nights out of the week. At first I was really upset, but later I realized that I was being given "the gift of time" to be able to do the things that I had been wanting to do for awhile and that I had been putting off while I was in school. But my aspirations quickly deflated as I realized that I was incredibly lonely. Being heavily involved in ministry had taken its toll, and left me with few friends I could truly call friends. I was faced with the emptyness inside of me and it terrified me. And I've been running since.

I've been running from God for a couple of years now because of the lack of time to spend with Him but also because I have faced many disappointments and difficulties which caused me to feel as though He couldn't be trusted with my heart. I knew it wasn't the solution to my problems but in some way, by pushing God away from my heart I felt as though I was taking more control over my life and "showing Him" that if He couldn't take care of me, then I most certainly could do a better job. As I am writing this, I am realizing what an arrogant and foolish statement that is, but it was and still is how I have been attempted to protect my heart from present and future pain.

After awhile, a numbness set in and I was able to "avoid" my feelings and emotion which often get the best of me. But there was an ache (and there still is) in my heart telling me that there is more and a better way to live. I long for relationship. Intimate, deep and caring relationship, and I realized that almost all of my friends are far away, and it brought even more pain to my heart. New relationships in our new church have surfaced and "look promising" but it takes time to build those bridges and to allow people back into my heart again. I feel as though I lack the strength to try to build these relationships but I know that I long for them, so I am trying.

But I'm afraid. Afraid of loosing it all again. I can't live in isolation because it is too painful. And I can't risk relationship because the potential for loss is too painful. No matter what there will be pain, so I need to decide which one is "better". Loss is the new topic on my lips as of late. I'm being faced with it yet again and I'm sure will continually facing it as life continues. But I don't know how much more I can take. It hurts too deeply. Those wounds have never had the time to heal. Just as soon as a scab forms over the wound to protect the area while it heals, someone violently rips the scab off, and I'm bleeding again. Sometimes more severely than before. I know that's a grusome description, but it's how I feel.

Well I didn't mean for this post to be depressing but, it's where I am right now. It feels good to write. I haven't done it in a LONG time. Just another way that I have been attempting to avoid my heart. Hopefully writing in this new blog, will help me to find my heart again....