Lesson 189. Start with something small.

October 15, where did you come from? 

Sorry for several months of silence. There isn't an excuse of the tangible sort so conjure something intriguing up and tell it to yourself in your favourite accent.

I started by staring at my screen and realising that I have no idea how I used to unpack my life in a matter of sentences. I then remembered that I used to begin by looking at a detail of a day, kind of like a shoelace or a bus stop.

But today’s restart of silver linings is about the small things we see in one another. Why? Because I notice them all too often and leave them unsaid when I know that they are too special to let slip by. We breathe by baby steps, we move in moments, we need to notice them and know them for what they are. Here's to the bits and pieces that make up you and I. Here’s to my right eye that scrunches up more than my left when I smile, to the silent laugh that you do when something is too hilarious to handle. Know that perfection is fiction and the pieces that make you are precious truths.

Find something beautiful in someone and say it out loud. Start with something small.

Lesson 188. Live a life of gratitude.

Oh hello you, you sweet thing, you.

Tremendously kind of you to stop by, I acknowledge that our progress content wise has been notably slower this year but if you bear with me I think you'll find the learning process has overwhelmed me with a wealth of tales to tell.

It's July, how did we get here? I'm not really sure how I find myself on the seventh day of the seventh month already. I remember crawling into bed at 2am just after the new year ticked over having decided that this would be a year of good things. I was so very right and so very wrong in one moment, one thought.

We live and we learn and that's how it seems to go. The last seven months of my life feel as though they have taught me more than the last 18 years. I've made remarkable discoveries such as pina colada tea, learning that it's always necessary to open the door fully clothed, and that leaving the oven on 200 for the whole night will mean that your flatmates aren't altogether chuffed with you when they wake in the morning. I've stumbled across the importance of yelling out I love you before I flip the light switch, and making the effort to get out of your pajamas (because for heaven sakes its 5.30 on a Friday evening) and spend time with people even though all you really feel like doing is ordering in and settling down for a Full House Marathon alone. I've come to know that we have to just accept that many of life's questions will remain unanswered. But those are all stacked up for a rainy day when I can sit down and write you about their intricate details and my encounters learning such things. For now, I want to discuss something I realised today that I'll probably spend my whole life learning.

Today I went to my School's 25th year anniversary Thanksgiving service. I know I wrote on this last year, around thanksgiving actually, but I think the topic of being thankful deserves more than just one touch. I see it in a light like I've never seen it before. Thanksgiving can change the way we see a situation in an instant, thanksgiving could probably take on the world's problems if we let it.

I had a hissy before I left the house for the service. I stomped about the house yelling about how nobody had told me that I'd need to bring nice clothes to wear, nobody had prepared me for the service or even told me we were going to go. However, the mask of the clothing catastrophe came off when the tears started and the only words I could make out to my sister were "She should be here."

Nobody could've prepared me for how I'd feel about returning to the place where the most of my memories with my late best friend had been made, I was quite ready to bury myself under the covers and cry until my eyes were at that ugly puffy stage that forces sleep. However, I found myself sitting in the service just the same, fiddling with the side seams of my jacket and trying to think about anything other than what I was there to do.

And then came a minute of silence for those who couldn't be with us. Then came the moment that reduced my bleary eyes to tears and made me realise that I should be doing nothing but being thankful.

We hurt because we had. I feel deep loss because I knew deep love, and if that isn't something to be thankful for then I don't know what is. We grieve life ultimately because we share it, and in sharing it we stir a sense of happiness and create connections. I'm thankful that I had the time that I did with Caitlin. I'm thankful that the time I spent at school was spent making friends with people that have stood by me through the hardest time I've ever seen. I'm thankful that today I was reminded that being thankful can flip a perspective in an instant. I don't believe in happy-face fronts, but I do believe in a joy that resides in the same soul as a broken heart. I believe in gratitude.

So be thankful for the hurts and the heartache. Be thankful for the awkward blunders and the falls from grace because they make you better.  Be thankful for the ones you love, whether they are still with you or whether they've taken a step heavenwards. Be thankful for the painful processes of growing up and figuring out where things fit for you.

Right now I'm not even asking for you to be thankful for the roof over your head (although that's a definite plus) I'm asking for you to be thankful for growing pains. Seek the beauty in the wreckage and if you don't find it, make it.

Live a life of gratitude.

Lesson 187. I do not understand why some things happen, but I do understand that God is here.

As usual, I've been riding the waves of grief. I've been in and out of my head, and predominantly stuck in bed trying to figure out how to write you without breaking your heart but at the same time being honest.

The last few months have presented me with many truths. Some disheartening, some comforting, and some just simply as they are- blunt, confronting, raw. However, one that rings true everyday is one of a fathers love for his children. 

I understand that not everyone who reads my blog knows Jesus, and I acknowledge but make no apologies for the fact that this might cause you to raise your eyebrows. I accept that you and I can be different, but here's what I know:

Life will break your heart and make it in the same breath. You are going to get hurt and you're going to cry your heart out about it. At some points you're going to be mad and at others just desperately lonely. It is unbelievably beautiful and completely devastating at the same time. 

You might not understand where you are right now, I know I don't and I know I probably won't in my lifetime. Loss and grief are lifelong journeys and we can't question why they happen all the time; all it does is leave us drained and hopeless, with a bitter and bleak outlook. I've sat and stared at my white walls trying to work out why we lose people, or why things take the sudden turns that they do and I have no answers. 

However, I understand that regardless of why things happen, God is present within them. I do not know why we lose the ones we love, but I know that he holds us. I know that he gives me the grace to keep going when grief seems crippling. I know that he allows me moments of relief and happiness; a moment of laughter that echoes to my soul, a smile from a stranger on the street, or sometimes simply silence, stillness, a break from all the sadness.

I'm not asking you to believe in sunshine and lollipops when all you feel is heartache and anger. I'm asking you to believe in a steady hand in the storm, a heart that holds yours when all else falls. A God whose love does not depend on circumstance, he loves because he is.

Have hope in that. Maybe somebody left or you lost something or someone and you feel let down, you're confused and that's okay. But take heart in the fact that God is present in every situation, and we don't have to understand it to have hope that he always stronger and steadier than our hurts. 

I do not understand why some things happen, but I do understand that God is here. 

Lesson 186. Don't give up just yet.

Oh sweet thing, I write to you in a very sorry state.

I'm snuggled up on my floor in my sister's high-school musical blanket after having consumed too many cookies (sorry-not-sorry, they were worth every millimeter of bloated-beach-whale belly) and the ground is no longer visible due to a losing combination of sociology notes and discarded clothing from the yesterday's mid-morning can't decide what to wear tanty. Because I missed the first two weeks of Uni, I missed out on a sizable chunk of content to aid me in preparation for my sociology test tomorrow morning, and I'm struggling with it. I'm under prepared and over anxious, and at this point there isn't a lot I can do about it.

So, whilst sitting very much on Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens and their smug smiles (it didn't work out kids, not so smug now are we?) I've made a decision. Tomorrow morning, I go in with great gumption. I walk in with purpose, I take my seat and I write what I do know. Just as I always do with you.

Right now I know this much, I know that giving up is not an option until you've given all. I know that it's not enough to have a pity party and say I've done all I can tonight, I know that I have to read over my notes 'til my eyes are heavy and my head shuts up shop.

I know this much, I know that when life gives you lemons, you have to do more than make yourself a bowl of chocolate icing and sit on the floor in tears (I know this because I tried it earlier today and it didn't go so well.) When things get hard, and you don't know why they've played out the way they have, you have to stand up again. I'm all for taking time to process, I know this to be crucial, but I'm not for letting heartbreak paralyse you further. Winnie the Pooh once told me "You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think" and I believe him to be quite right.

I don't know if I'll pass tomorrow morning. But I know that the odds go up the minute I walk through the doors and into the lecture theatre. I know that they get a little greater during every crazy conversation I have with myself about cultural studies in sociology.

Maybe you've got a test in the near future. Maybe each day is a test, maybe just getting through is your mountain, but please know that each morning when your feet hit the floor you're getting your head one step closer to sunshine.

Oh sweet thing, don't give up just yet.

Lesson 185. Just wait.

Welcome to the world in which we live,

We rush. We demand answers. We want our wants to be supplied at the same rate as our needs. Prayers are fired up as 'gimme's' as opposed to trusting in his ability to know when and what is right for us. We tell God that we'd like this job at this time, the storm to calm within the next 5 minutes, and everything we don't understand to be clarified by the click of our fingers.

Then when things don't go the way we'd like them to, we're quick to grow weary and disheartened. We become disillusioned about God and his whereabouts, confused about why he's not doing as we've told him to. I know this because I've done this, and I've battled with him many sleepless, tearful nights over why things are the way they are. I've screamed into pillows and stuttered through sobs "Why do we lose the ones we love?" "Why does it hurt like this?" and "Why won't you just make this go away?"

I don't have answers to those questions and I probably never will. I haven't gained an understanding of why, but I have come to realise that in waiting for the sun to rise, the darkness pulls us closer together. In the midst of the pillow-screams and stutter-sobs, I've drawn close to the ones I love. I've leant on God and God alone because there is nothing else to hold onto. I have found hope in hopeless situations because I have had to, I have seen the strength of my heavenly father in getting me out of bed each morning. I have felt his arms as I have been shaken by deep sadness, and I have found a real, raw sense of joy as I rest in the only one able to truly restore.

So maybe it's not about getting what we want exactly when we want it. Maybe it's about being here, right now, messy, impatient, tired, sad, frustrated. Maybe it's about being here right now, growing closer to the author of the universe, knowing and loving him more, falling deeper into his arms and hearing his steady heartbeat sing out his rhythms of grace. Maybe waiting is not a hindrance but an opportunity.

Just wait.

Lesson 184. Let them take your appendix.

Ready for some grotesque medical particulars? Bet you never thought you'd see that on my blog. Don't worry, I'll speak plain and simple because I don't know how to speak any other way when it comes to anything slightly scientific.

My mother is a nurse, so naturally when I had my appendix out, she pulled my file and got information about the state of it. She came home extremely excited to explain to me the condition of my seemingly useless organ, only to discover she'd forgotten the notes. However, this didn't stop her from doing her very best to put me off my dinner whilst describing what had happened. She told me that my appendix had already started to burst, one end was perforated, and had they waited even a few hours longer I would've been in serious trouble. Talk about timing. Had any of the events I'm about to tell you of occurred any later, things could've been a lot worse. There was someone looking out for me, that's for sure.

I got ill on the first day back at Uni and I thought it was just a 24 hour bug, so I went home and tried to sleep it off. I woke up the next day, still wasn't better so called Nurse Sheena. After a series of questions, she told me I needed to get to the hospital. So off I went with my fabulous flatmate to the emergency department. Several medical professionals prodded at my abdomen with great strength and disregard for my pain levels, and they all told me the same thing. In fact, one man even wanted to bring in a bunch of medical students because it was "such a classic case." Appendicitis, my friends, appendicitis.

No one told me why it happened, so I guess I can't tell you the answer to that. All I know is that my appendix wanted out, so it told the rest of my body in the most violent way it could. It gave me an ultimatum, it said"Let me out, or I explode. And then I riddle your body with potentially life threatening infection." I decided it was probably best to give in to it's demands.

So that night, they took me in and took it out. I spent four days in hospital, three of them in a shared room with an 80-something woman called Margret (Margret had three budgies called Twinkle, Little, and Star. Her favourite pastimes include: Sitting on my bed, waking me up when I'm sleeping, and telling me about her budgies) I had a few less than delightful post-op complications, I had strangers feeling my swollen belly on an hourly basis, and I had much time to think.

I pondered the metaphorical appendix. The things we keep inside that we need to let out before they explode and become seriously dangerous. The things that we need to entrust others to help us get out, that we don't want to face or talk about. The things that continue to make us ache and hurt for as long as we let them live inside of us.

We have to stop. We have to stop with this idea that suffering in silence is okay, because it's not. And the longer you keep it to yourself, the more troubling it becomes. Let someone who knows what they're doing help you get it out. Whether it's a trusted friend, or a professional, make sure you don't hold on too long. Make sure you don't make too many excuses about it being nothing, about you being fine, because it's something, and you're not. The best thing you can do, is take it to someone who knows what they're doing, explain your symptoms, trust their diagnosis, and trust the course of action they suggest.

It might set you back a little for a while, it might hurt, you might have scars, but you'll get there. Let them take your appendix.

Dear Friend, you are my silver lining.

Happy Monday,
I would offer you a cupcake to ease the pain of the afore mentioned turn of the week, but I've already made plans to eat the whole plate myself and I don't cope awfully well with a change in direction.

Speaking of which, everything about my life is different now. We should talk.

Surprise surprise, I've changed. I lost a part of my heart this summer, and the whole ordeal, the whole learning to breathe again thing has changed me. Now now dear- don't fret, I'm still charming, full of wit and perfectly capable of writing absolute codswallop for several sentences. But I've learnt and I've grown and I've experienced the most extreme emotions one can encounter. I have hit the lowest place and I have seen the greatest light. I have hurt more than I thought humanly possible, and I have hoped more than I ever imagined. I have realised that nothing is permanent. That I love you should always be said out loud, that arms and hands are for holding. I've realised that you shouldn't always do what you're told, that sitting in silence can sometimes be the sweetest shoulder anyone can give.

I have realised that now is the time. Now is the time to make a difference. Now is the time to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Now is the time to make friends with the awkward-kind-of-quiet-slightly-creepy kid that you only talk to when you need to borrow stationery. Now is the time to shake off inhibitions and to simply love with reckless abandon. You don't get a guaranteed tomorrow, so quit holding back with what really matters.

I quit my music degree. I knew it wasn't where my heart really was, because my heart lies here, in writing about what means something to me. So I quit, and normal University is as challenging as it is lonely. But I'm back, and I'm brave. More importantly, I'm determined.

This is the beginning of a new season, for you and I. Fresh start, blank page, big scary challenges up ahead. I'm confident we'll face them with as much good grace as we can muster (You might have to muster up majority of it, I'm a little clumsy when it comes to physical grace) and I'm confident we'll get there.

So take my hand, and let's embark on this journey all over again.

Dear Friend, you are my silver lining.