Looking in the mirror this morning… I was angry.

I heard a voice ask me, “what are you so angry about?”

I’m not sure. I just hate it all.

“Why? What do you see?”

I really hate my stomach. I don’t really know why. I’m 36 and still in a size 5. The same size I was in at 20. Just a little squishier. But it’s not flat and perfect. It never has been, but I hate it today. Now. For a long time really.

“I made you perfect.”

I really hate my skin and hair. My hair isn’t naturally blond anymore. It’s darker. More brown. My skin is still struggling with breakouts, dryness, and scars. And now I have dark circles and crow’s feet beginning. It’s just ugly.

“Says who?”

I hate that even though I feel strong you can’t see definition in my muscles. I really hate that I don’t look strong. I’m not lean enough. Maybe if I was leaner I’d look stronger than I feel. Maybe I should cut more calories. I hate what I look like when I eat anyway. It’s gross.

“I made you healthy.”

Maybe if I looked different… better… prettier… maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely.

“You belong to me.”

Sigh. It’s hard to give myself any grace. I’m my own worst critic, ya know?

“My grace is enough.”

Alright. I guess I should get back to work. Step out from in front of this mirror. Get out of my head. Get out of my own way. This is silly really. I am strong. I am healthy. My fluff, scars, crow’s feet…is evidence of a life of fun and adventure. And even though I’m struggling with 36, there’s nothing I want to do my body is not capable of. I suppose it’s not that bad.

*walks away from the mirror*

“You are my beloved.”

I had a dream last night. I haven’t dreamt like that in a long time.

I was walking on ice in what could only be described as this amazing landscape of ice and snow, brilliant colors of light cascading everywhere like through painted glass, with pools of water that were warm and steaming, but not hot and so clear you could see all the way to the bottom of the pools as if there wasn’t any water at all. The landscape was covered in ice and snow, and yet I was not uncomfortably cold. In fact I didn’t feel cold or hot, just clean and refreshed, unhindered and without pain.

The beauty of this place was indescribable. The colors were colors I have never seen before. Colors my subconscious could not have made up. They were… heavenly.

My dogs were there and walking with me. Shorty was going from playing in the water to bouncing at my heels and biting my feet. It puts an ache in me just writing it because in the dream there was no sense of her loss. No mourning of her death. It was not as if there’d been a happy reunion. It was as if that pain never existed. Perhaps… as if death had been wiped clean.

Nip was “supermanning” into the waters after nothing else but a tennis ball and being utterly ridiculous as usual. And I remember laughing. Laughing at the joy my children bring with every silly thing they do. I also remember I was not laughing alone. I was walking with someone. I never saw a figure, or a face. But I was absolutely not alone.

As we walked and my dogs played, we were laughing at their antics together. And I was babbling on with stories of things they’d done. Showing off their tricks. Going on and on about all sorts of things. My horses, adventures, ideas I have, my heart. Exactly like a little girl would when showing off to her dad, twirling in her finest princess dress saying ‘look at me’. And I remember feeling seen and adored. He never felt bored with me, never let on that He already knew all the things. And His laugh was the most amazing sound I have ever heard.

Why I have dreams like these I don’t know. Often waking up from them is painful. But I also know they are on purpose. I believe I was walking in Heaven last night, and laughing with the Lord.

• 

I had a really good conversation with a friend of mine recently.  We were discussing certain lifestyle choices and things.  And he pointed a very good question to me.  He said, “how do you justify (insert any number of bad habits I have) as a religious or Christian person?”  It was a very good question, and I had a simple answer.

“I don’t.” First, let me make it very clear I am not religious.  I despise religion.  It is nothing but a long list of behavior modification to do nothing but control a populous.    I do not buy into that.  And neither did Jesus, in case you were wondering.  However, I am, make no mistake a believer.  I am saved by His grace alone and I do not deny Him for one second.  With that also being said, you can be a believer and be angry with God.  You can be angry, kick and scream, flat out ignore or rebel and still believe in Him and know how real He is.  For anyone struggling I want to say to you, it’s ok.  It doesn’t make you a “bad” Christian.  On the contrary I think in the long run it will make many even stronger in their faith.

Let me let you in on a little secret.  He can take it.  He can take you being mad and angry.  He will not turn away, He will not retaliate, He will not hold a grudge.  He will never see you as anything other than precious and beloved.  I’ve held a lot of hurt and anger and fear in my heart this last year.  A lot.  I have fought with God and I have flat ignored Him for most of the year.  But in another debate, on an entirely different subject, I was quick to counter and sing His praises as TRUTH because even though I wanted nothing to do with Him, and was hanging onto my own hurt, I know better.  I know Him better and I was not about to allow Him to be misrepresented.  Not that He needs my defense.  But you can see the point I’m trying to make.  I cringe when I hear false theology being preached because when you know… you just know. 

When you are saved, life doesn’t just become wonderful and full of sunshine and roses.  It’s still life.  You still struggle, you still hurt, bull shit happens to you.  Jesus never said life would be easy.  But he did promise Grace.  Grace for when life sucks and you might not handle it as well as perhaps a daughter of a King should.  Grace for old habits and sins that are always there to swoop in at weak moments.  Cling to Him yes, but don’t kill yourself over your mistakes.  You are human, and that is the exact point of Grace. You cannot win against sin alone.  You just can’t.

I don’t speak of my faith too much because I do abhor hypocrites and I do not want to be viewed as such by so many of my friends and family.  But there is a huge difference between struggling with heartbreak, loss, sin and failure and knowing when you’re in the wrong, and being angry with God while you work things out, rather than saying yes… that is wrong, but it does not apply to me.  I truly feel there is a big difference.   But if you don’t know Jesus, and you don’t understand Grace, it is very hard to distinguish the difference.  I understand that.  So I just keep my mouth shut a lot.

I still find myself throwing my inward spiritual tantrum.  Screaming and sobbing, throwing punches at Jesus’ chest, shouting between sobs “how dare you!”.  Knowing full well this all will be for the greater good of me, and His plan will no doubt show love and grace in the end but needing to be mad at someone anyhow.  Blame someone.  And He will stand there and take it, waiting for me to exhaust myself, and then He will wrap His arms around me and still call me His.  His beloved.  A daughter of a King.   Because if He can calm a storm on the sea, surely when the time is right, He will calm the storm in my heart. 

“What kind of man is this?  Even the winds and waves obey him.” -Matthew 8:27

“What is something you are afraid of?”  I ask.

“Death.” He says.  No further explanation.  Very matter of fact.  And very final, and not dramatic at all.  I leave it alone, but it starts a chain reaction in my brain that I cannot help.  Truly, what is it we are most afraid of?  If we are honest with ourselves?  As I’ve said before, what drives people to do the things they do, live the way they do, act the way they do, is what they fear.  In some form or another I truly believe every action, if traced back to its true root, is fear based.  We are fearful, fight or flight animals after all. 

But I don’t think death is really the fear.  The act of dying?  No, I don’t think that is the fear.  We know pain, if there is any, will be short lived for the most part and there are chemical releases at the time of death that soothe the conscious brain into not existing.  That is fact.  So, the actual act of dying I don’t think many people are afraid of that.  I also believe it goes a little deeper than just the “is there life after death” question.  I think for the most part, the large majority of humanity believes very strongly in some sort of life after death.  So, if we believe, as we say we do, then there is nothing to fear.  So then why, is death the number one thing people say they are afraid of when I ask the simple question, “what is one fear you have?”.    

I don’t think we fear death.  I think we fear being forgotten. 

From the first hand print on a cave wall, we as human beings want someone to know we were here, and that some how that mattered.  We are “pack” animals, and to be alone was, from a survival standpoint, very deadly.  Our need for other people is based in survival, not love.  And we seek a partner, not for love, but security and someone to know our story.  It’s why we write, create art…. We want our story to matter.  We want someone, somewhere to remember us.  So that our time here was not in vain.  It’s almost a desperate need to have a witness to our life. 

So much so, that we will stay in bad relationships for far too long, sometimes forever… to still fill that need of someone in our life.  Someone to know, every day, our stories.  So that we don’t feel like a ghost walking the earth.  If a tree falls and no one can hear it, did it make a sound?  If I cried today, and no one knew, did my pain matter?… 

The idea that ghosts haunt the living because they have something left undone is intriguing to me.  How do you save a soul, trapped between worlds?  In short… someone, a medium… conveys their message.  They need to know they are forgiven, or they need to tell someone they loved them, or they need someone to know what really happened to them.  They need to be seen.  Remembered.  Everything we crave here.  A ghost can be trapped for eternity between worlds if no one hears them.  Lost souls… forgotten.  Even in the after life it is not death we can’t get past, it is being forgotten. 

“We need a witness to our lives.  There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean?…You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.  Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.” -Beverly Clark, Shall We Dance

That is what we crave.  That is what we need.  Love is secondary in this human condition.  What we fear is not death.  We fear crossing over… with a million things left to say, to explain and to share, for our true selves and what we went through to be seen.  Our greatest fear as humans, is being forgotten.  And through being forgotten, we will eventually cease to have existed at all.  I know that to me, that is a far greater fear than simply dying.

Stay Wild

-Jana Leniger

Jana Out West

10/18/2019