Today:.

One year ago today I packed the Montero, loaded up the dogs, picked up Laura, filled up the gas tank and headed west. In a few ways, it seems like it was just yesterday, but in most ways it seems like it was a lifetime ago.

I read something the other day that resonated with me as I thought back about my time here over this past year. It read like this “Reality is like fine wine, it will not appeal to children.” (D. Miller).

I realize I have been a child in many ways, for a long time. I have lived in a world of what life “should be.” How I “should” be. I have lived in a white washed, self-constructed, how I wish life would be, deluded, chasing after but never quite finding, dream world. I dreamt of what life will be like when all the if’s and when’s become and placed my hope there. I dreamt so hard and long that I got lost far from the truth of my daily existence.

But a dreamer can only dream until they wake up.

And I had been asleep for a long time.

This spring, I woke up hard, choking, sputtering, gasping for air. Like someone had poured ice-cold water on my face in the middle of my sweet, sweet dream with so much force it seemed like a damn was breaking. My past and present came violently colliding with the reality of who I thought I was. And all those things I didn’t like about reality were there, all the ugly, messed up, broken down, insecurity laden, broken hearted, used and abused pieces of me were there waiting to be faced. Waiting to be stared down, waiting to be reckoned with, waiting to be validated, waiting to be forgiven, waiting to be loved, waiting to make peace.

I woke up hard. I woke up beyond “a tough time transitioning.” I woke up beyond romantic dreams dashed. I woke up on the edge, and I woke up broken.

I woke up to the reality that I was not okay, I woke up to the reality that I have abused my heart and my body, with food and alcohol and my words when I speak cruely to myself. I woke up to the wounds of chasing relationships, of being in the wrong place and the wrong time, and the abuse of others. I woke up to the reality of past filled with things long pushed under the rug, ignored and not dealt with. I woke up to the reality that I put more pressure on myself than God ever has or will; to be someone he never intended me to be. I woke up to the reality that I care more about what people think than what God says. I woke up to the reality that in the quest to keep myself sleeping and protected I have hurt people I love, that I am selfish, that I am greedy.

I woke up to reality that I had long been avoiding.

I woke up…to me

But I woke up……

I feel a certain kinship with Rip Van Winkle. I think this must be what he felt like when he rose from slumber after 20 years, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes to find himself in a new world, a stranger, even to himself. But I quickly learned this: that Jesus met the bleeding woman in the reality of her bloodiness, he met dead Lazarus in the smelly reality of a tomb, he met fishermen in the reality of their uneducated ignorance, he met the paralyzed man in the reality of his disbelief he could be healed, he met the blind man in the reality of his blindness… Jesus called them to be honest about their bloody, blind, ignorant, paralyzed, dead reality, He met them in their reality and it was in their reality that he loved them... it is only in reality that Jesus dwells.

This year Jesus woke me from my dream of me, and called me to account for my reality

This year, Jesus met me in my ugly reality.

He met me in my reality in ways I have never allowed him to meet me before

It is in my reality that I need him and it is in my reality that I found him

Jesus loves me completely in my reality

And it is in my reality that he changes me

A year ago today I loaded up the dogs, picked up Laura and excitedly headed west. I didn’t know what the road held, nor was I prepared for how hard it was going to be. I was very much a sleeping pacified child.

But reality is like fine wine, it will not appeal to children.

I don’t want to be a child anymore.