Naked and unashamed

On a journey and totally okay with it

Time moves at a faster pace the older you get, I am convinced of that more and more each day. I walked the boys to school this morning and one is creeping precariously close to being as tall as me, the other isn't far behind. The annual group photo had more kids in it this year and each one looks so much older to me today for some reason. They greet me with a maturity that was missing when I said goodbye to them in the spring, or at least that is how it feels. Walking home, alone, with one kid in grade 5 and the other in grade 6 and I have to admit I feel like all of a sudden I am running in a race and everyone is getting ahead of me and I'm waving my arms saying 'wait!! Slow down!'.  They don't of course, they are all laughing and enjoying the feeling of being young and carefree, and if they are anything like me they are taking it all for granted, wishing it away every time they wish they were older.

The last time I wrote I wrote about how I devastated my lilac tree with a severe (and needed pruning) and how I God was about to prune my own life just as harshly. It has not been a fun few years, sorting through painful memories and forcing myself to feel things that I had managed to avoid was a process that sometimes felt worse than the initial trauma itself. I committed to myself that I would see it through, and sometimes that is the only reason that I stayed the course.

Healing sucks! It's up and down and tears and laughter and resentment and pain and every other messy human emotion, and it doesn't happen quickly. God cut that first branch and it was a deep guttural pain, where I had been expecting a short-lived sting. Every branch felt that way, and when the pruning ended (if it has fully ended) I felt raw and bare and exposed; but a funny thing happened in that exposure, in that nakedness and rawness. I met other raw and naked people, I saw their pain and they saw mine and it was beautiful and real and intimate. I was not alone. They were not alone. Tears were no longer something I was afraid, or ashamed of, they were cleansing water that soothed and purified that washed the path ways that allowed to pain to be released, the fears, the anxiety. I became aware of the joy in the nakedness and I started to take steps to put myself out there, to be seen, all of me, not a mask. Me. Laurie. The wife, the Mum, the woman. I started to look in the mirror and seek out who I was for real, behind the pain, behind the smile, behind the masks and she's still there, I see her, I hear her, she gets louder every day and as the seasons change the branches are now growing up and out, fuller and more beautiful every day. That girl that I used to be; before I let the weight of life drag me under, before I told her to shut up and hide, she's there, showly and steadily she's forgiving, she's healing and we are becoming one again. Learning to love ourself again.

I have not written here for many reasons. The main reason is that this past few years I have spent most of my time writing a book (gasp!! This was BIG).... and this summer that book was placed as the first short-listed (essentially making it second place overall). It came with a publishing agreement and sometime this spring you will be able to buy it and (this is the really scary part)... you will see me, the whole of me, the naked me who went on a journey through parenting a very sick kid and found myself sitting in the shadow of the cross.  So, that's it, that is where I was and what I was doing and now that I am finished (sort of) I am back and in much need of some good old blogging!

Please do feel free to come back... I commit to being more on top of things now that the book is finished. Also, check back here for more details as they emerge about the book and the publishing date and launch party details (must have a party!).

Thank you for your faithfulness, Im always surprised to see my stats and know that people are still reading and interested despite my silence.