Story Sessions Anthology #x3E;#x3E; December
Editor's Note :: every other week, Story Sessions compiles a list of posts written so we have a place to reference all of the words spilled by our sisters. This mid-month edition was particularly powerful, and so we wanted to share it with you. Sit back, enjoy, and if interested in joining us, know there's always room.
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Here we are, in the middle of December, that time of year when we are both trying to slow down and yet, can never seem to catch up. Can I invite you to stop for a moment and take a deep breath?
Exhale.
He is here. Emmanuel, God with us. He is here.
There were so many vulnerable, beautiful, truth-full words spilled this month. I never cease to be amazed at the brave we have in our midst. Eshet Chayil, all of you.
Take some time, grab a coffee, put on some Christmas music, and savour these words.
Just as December was creeping in, some shared their hopes for the month ahead...a month always filled with so much expectation...
December, I hate to sound like a demanding lover, but you have much to rise up to. I hope you have plans to pull me close, to love me into places I have never gone before. Yes, November loved me that well and my body still trembles with remembrance; its scent still fresh against my skin. "Dear December" by Jennifer Upton
I long for someone to show up; to make sense of all this madness. I long for someone to step in and set all the broken things right...I long for someone to show up and shine light in the dark places. I long for someone to spit in the dry earth and rub mud in my eyes so that I can see. I long for someone to bandage wounds and raise the dead. I long for someone to take me home. “whispers. the first night of advent.” by Alison Luna.
Are you surprised I'm still opening the door? Me too. Hope does funny things to a heart once she makes herself comfortable. “a letter to december” by Elora Nicole.
The season of waiting, of anticipation, and hope beginning on the first day of the month seems like some sort of sign. Yet I feel none of those things this year. I don’t want to wait, I don’t want to anticipate, and I have very little hope. I want God in a big way and I want it now. “Letter to December” by Kimberlie Meyer.
You are the queen of the unhappy. You are the gathering place for the throng of discontented. You open your arms to a tremendous lot of pain, loneliness, denial and all the ways we run away from it. You are the home of the runaways. The light in the window for the broken-hearted. The year crawls by in despair and you are the last-ditch effort to make it all make sense before the world freezes us out altogether. At the end of November, you look like hope from myriad angles. “To December, with Love” by Jamie Wright Bagley
This year, you’ll be mostly the same as you’ve always been. Full of opportunities to crash and burn. Full of chances to stopandbreathe the mischief and the magic AND the mayhem. You’re just a month, December. Just a period of time marked out by people because we need the markers. A period during which we wait and we watch and we decorate. You’re a lot of fun, really, if I’ll let you be. And I’ll let you be because while you are just the same, I’ve become radically same-different. “Dear December” by Maritza Amanda
I have found the word to name the thing that whispers in the dark to me you are not enough. It’s name is scarcity, and it is not welcome here “Dear December, Your Scarcity Isn't Welcome Here” by Abby Norman
What can I say? I have always embraced you, arms and heart wide open, ready to push aside the dreariness and drink in your sparkle. No matter how weary my heart may be, you come near, and I begin to find renewed faith in miracles. Hope raises her head once more, in spite of anything else trying to smother her fire. “Dear December” by Adela Just
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with you, I must admit. The candlelit service on Christmas Eve gets me every time. But the lugging of bins, the setting up the stuff, the overkill with gifts — yeah, that has gone above and beyond what is needful... “A Letter to December” by Diana Trautwein
Shimmering and shining in the distance;
A new beginning sparks from the embers of the old. “Ode to December” by Susan Schiller
Come, December, carry me like a leaf on your ever-changing wind. I’m light enough to float for days this time, everything that weighed me down already stripped away. “Dear December” by Shelby Lin
You are a reminder to me that there is true beauty waiting to bloom in the ugly little. “"ugly little (a note to December)" by Ronne Rock.
It seems like I've wasted so many Decembers. I've been waiting, waiting for the new year. Waiting for my January. I've saved my resolutions and my new beginnings. I've saved up all my moments in one year hoping I could cash them in the next. I can't count how many times I've waited. Because you weren't perfect, because the stars hadn't aligned, because I was scared. “A Letter to December” by Victoria Haag
and there are so many things I do not know.
so much wild ridiculous hope
so I’m embracing the mystery
holding this crazy wild thing with open hands “Dear, December” by Kati Rose
Bethany Paget is hosting some raw and vulnerable words with her series “It is Written.” Bethany began the series with her words of hope coming out of brokenness in Part One:
“As I took the Sharpie to my skin, in places that had been hurt and wrote words of love I was able to feel the shame drop. The blame I have carried wash away and the ache of my soul for year’s old pain dim”
In Part Two, Beth Morey bravely shared some of her story:
“No kicks, none of the rolling in my belly that filled my blood and skin and synapses with joy. A midnight drive to the hospital, calmly checking in at the labor and delivery desk when all I want to do was scream something’s wrong, help us, help her instead of smiling thinly and filling out the form the receptionist slid toward me, scribbling my signature with fingers weighted with fear.”
We all swooned over Jennifer Upton's courage and vulnerability with her post “Naked Truth” at Nicole Romero's blog. Pictures of hope after heartbreak, of a marriage made stronger by fighting through the darkness.
Nicole has been hosting other Story Sessions Sisters as well, like Tara Owens, who shared a thought-provoking and brave piece “The Crowd in the Bedroom.”
“But I’d much rather come to my marriage naked, broken, hopeful and reaching than covered, certain, entitled and isolated. I’d much rather reach and wrestle together than grow silent and still”
Beth Morey is hosting a series “Hurting for the Holidays,” and there have been a number of our Story Sisters who have shared their words there (the link above is to the page with the collection of the posts)
“Lately, the nostalgia and loneliness have settled into a constant ache. And it's not the ache of lost promises or forgotten desires.
It's the heaviness of hope.” Don't Ever Regret the Hope by Elora Nicole
“there's that word :: Advent. coming into place. coming into being. it feels so wrong to be grieving during this time. this is that time of opening. this year it feels like cracking, a wild splitting that is rending me into pieces.” When Advent is Grieving by Rachel Lee Haas
“This will pass, my love. The pain, the fear, the anger -- it will pass and you will survive. Reach out dear one, even if all you can mutter is a weak help, know that I hear your cries. And I am standing with you and love you.”Permission Granted by Brittany Gooding
“During the holidays, though, being in a blended family feels a bit more like being in a blender. And talking about it? Processing the longings for children while chasing around my two-year-old grandson or joyfully (truly, joyfully) hosting my beautiful pregnant step-daughter? Not going to happen. It’s enough that I deal with my own issues of performance and perfection, the ways that I strive to make the Christmas-that-isn’t-on-Christmas-Day gathering just as special as the actual day.” Living In-Between by Tara Owens
Here are some more of the beautiful words that were birthed in this community, words that brought hope and healing, that named shame and called out the darkness. Words that resonated and sent shivers and were a reminder that, yes, indeed, God is with us.For these words, oh, these words are holy.
“In all those trips around the sun — never feeling the Earth move beneath my feet — I was grounded by the practice of stutters and blurts. By "not caring" more about what someone thought than how I knew I had to be. It was messy; there were outbursts that still make me cringe to think about. But I did what I had to do ...” Beginning in Darkness by Teresa Robinson
“I shared that much had been taken from me. I told several stories, in necessary detail, of the things I had endured at the hands of her son. For the first time this woman showed empathy towards me. Her heart began to soften. I showed her a faded scar. And then I began to describe who I am today. I am no longer a victim. I am not weak. I don’t even call myself a survivor. But I am a woman of strength.” Reconciling Love by Kara Bechtle
“Everything I need to feel the magic of the season I already have. Cool to the touch, burning within, eyes to see and ears to hear and a great, great yearning for the miracle birthed again into the dark.” A Pox on Your Scarcity by Esther Emery
“My waiting is for a set of larger boots to keep mine company by the front door. It’s for lazy Saturday mornings where we pretend that we’re out of town but we really just sleep in and make waffles way too close to noon to call it brunch. It’s for a forever plus one. It’s for a hand held, a back had, and names that sound like poetry when spoken by the other who was meant to speak them the most.” Esperar by Suzanne Terry
Caris Adel's husband shared some of his thoughts on why he doesn't call himself a feminist in “I'm a Feminist but my Husband Isn't (and might never be).”
“A few months ago, I wrote my obituary. And its words breathed real, pure air into the dreams I had been holding in hope-filled hands like a warm cup of coffee on a wintery day. Asking myself how I wanted to be remembered revealed how I wanted to live and what I wanted to do – unapologetically do – and where my simple, still-water joy is found. It painted a picture of me that I had not ever seen before. A brave and beautiful picture.” doodles. obituaries. self-portraits. By Ronne Rock
“When 2012 began to shut the curtains and lock her doors, I was already out in the cold waiting for the new year.”on magic, disappointment and declarations by Elora Nicole
“Isn't this the story? The broken and the beautiful woven together, and somehow God in both.” Broken & Beautiful by Lindsay Tweedle
“It's so appropriate to this season of advent, in that I can't say as though I look forward to "waiting" in and of itself. But I do look forward to "waiting" in the sense that I know something good comes at the end. I may not expect what that "good" is, but I know I'll figure it out eventually.” Treatment for Spiritual Asthma by Laura Jacobs.
“this season is a cracking. it's foreshadowing of the next season of Holiness, for the breaking and bleeding and the tearing from top to bottom. there will be an earthquake then, too, as angel feet brush against stone. it's an opening in the darkest of places. it's a springing forth in complete darkness.” anticipating scarcity by Rachel Lee Haas
Morgan Paddock writes about embarking The House of Dreams, a ministry in the inner-city of Savannah, GA in “When a House Becomes a Home”
“i'm the blogger that hasn't written a book...it's hard to feel like a lioness when you're mewing and scratching at the door in your own head.” When You Haven't Written a Book by Rachel Lee Haas
“it's the time of imperfection. if we were perfect, there would be no need for this season, for this waiting for the cry of One who came to gather us into Himself. for the One born of blood who came to bleed. He was born to stain, to leave a mark on all He touched.” The Holiness Midwife by Rachel Lee Haas
And while we're sharing some of Rachel's beautiful and holy words, she was featured on Preston Yancey's blog for his series “ What Women Want .”
“He asked me what I wanted. What did I, a woman, want from the Church? And my mind filled up with options. I had my nose pressed against the glass, gazing at all those tasty bits waiting for me just out of reach. I could see them all, laid out in perfect little rows. My mouth was watering. I had tiny bites of each, barely crumbs really, but it was enough to know exactly which one I wanted the most.
I wanted the one marked “voice.”
“I see you. I hear you crying out for justice and being thrown to the wolves. Tell your story, sweet one. Start a chain reaction of spontaneous prayer and amplify your voice as this cry rings through the heavens and reaches even down into the bowels of the earth. Tell your story – that's how you walk out into the Light.” I See You by Susan Schiller
“Jesus never promised rest from the craziness of life. He promised rest for your soul.” Hope by Shelby Lin
“This sacred pause is a catapult into uncharted territory, where the Divine collides with your story and redirects your path” Why Shouldn't I Begin Again? By Adela Just
“We can love our way to a new normal. And we can do it, not out of anger or fear or disgust, but with love and humor and massive amounts of creativity.” Door Number Three by Brandy Patterson Walker (this is part of a series Brandy is writing on her blog, 31(ish) Days of Meaningful).
Have you been reading Jane Argiero's Advent series? There have been some lovely reflections, including this one from Advent Day 6, written just after the passing of Nelson Mandela:
“I get strength and courage from the courage shown by others, around me and with me. But I also gain inspiration from those who have gone before me. We have so many great examples to follow. I have my parents, and others I know personally who have influenced me to try to make a difference in the world.”
“I'm thinking of holding squishy arms and baby legs and whispering so close I can taste the baby-breath he helped bring you here. This one? Did you meet him? Do you know him? He helped bring you to my arms.” Legacy by Elora Nicole
“Did you know the Big Deal about the bite from that fruit was that we would forget that God loved us?” The Lie that You're Not Loved by Lindsay Tweedle
Susan Schiller is hosting a blogging Progressive Dinner on Sundays, an opportunity for bloggers to link their favourite post of the past week or so, and then to read and comment on other posts. Such a wonderful idea!
Look how we have shared our hearts here. Look how we are building a community. Look how we are being writers. This is beautiful and holy and sacred. Enjoy these words...may they be an inspiration, a comfort, a whisper to your soul from the One who loves you.
(Anthology compiled by Lindsay Tweedle)
