layers

i'm feeling a little scattered these days. a little small and a little unsure. so often i find myself caught between laughter and tears. and when i don't know what to do, i just end up mingling the two into some sort of ... moment.

i don't like this feeling.

i don't like walking around with a blistering, tender-to-the-touch heart. i don't like feeling everything on a 10. i don't like being so aware of so much still so deep inside of me.

but i am committed to this journey. i am committed to His heart for my life. so, go ahead, Jesus. pull back another layer. and i'll do my best not to run this time.

what if

what if i stop running?
what if i actually stand in the rain?
better yet, what if i stand in the rain, the lightening, the hail and the thunder?
what if i don't run for shelter this time?
what if i stretch my arms wide open and lift my face toward heaven?
what then?

what if i stop trying to make jai shortertallerlighterdarkersmarterstupider?
what if it were truly ok to be who i am?
better yet, what if i take the time to search out who i am?
and what if i like what i find?
what if?

what if i come out from hiding
and scale my heart's wall
just enough to peer over the top?
just enough to see the caring hand reaching out for mine?
what if i take it?
what if i let you behind my self-made, super-protective fortress?
and what if you sit, stay and don't flinch at my mess after all?
what then?

what if i don't nod and agree when i really want to frown and disagree?
and so what if i don't like the movie, the meal, the dress, the song or the opnion?
and what if i worried more about giving voice to my own heart than pleasing someone else's?
what then?

and what if i live to be 102

and realize

every fear was completely unfounded?

and what if it takes me that long

to realize

there are no do-overs?

and what if life's what ifs,

good or bad,

are meant to be answered?

what then? what if?

Sometimes I wish my real life were a little more like my Facebook life.

My Facebook life is smiley, sunny, always happy, always beautiful. In my Facebook life, it never rains, the sky is never overcast, and the clouds never hover. I never lose my patience, never cry, never wish things were different. In my Facebook life, I don't serve peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and dinner. I don't have piles of laundry on my floor. I don't have fights with my husband.

In my picture perfect Facebook world, I read my Bible every day. I make all the right decisions, and I am never late. I rarely miss a shower, and if I do, it becomes a cute status update. As far as Facebook is concerned, I am a well-dressed, minivan-driving, park-going, stroller-pushing mom who is completely satisfied with her life and herself.

But here's the truth: Some days I want to hit the "dislike" button. Some days are rainy, cloudy, overcast. Messy house days. Frazzled mom days. Lousy dinner days. These are the moments I don't mobile upload.

The moments that just don't fit into my smiley, sunny, happy, beautiful Facebook life.

an inconvenient matter

so ....

shortly after i posted that oh-so-impassioned blog entry on love, i was presented with two excellent opportunities to put it into practice. one was convenient. the other was not. guess how i fared? exactly.

it was only after the inconvenient situation had come and gone that i realized i had completely missed it. i won't get into the details, but let's just say my behavior was a little less than loving. mind you, this was just moments after i finished high-fiving myself for being so very loving in the convenient situation.

ugh.

i am starting to wonder whether convenient love is really love at all. is it? what do you think? i'm not so sure. david said he would not offer the Lord that which cost him nothing. what have i gained if i only love when i feel like it?

i am so completely human, and i wish i were "better" at this thing called life.

i want to love.

like, for real.

i want to love beyond myself. the kind of love that challenges my pride and my comfort. i want to love outside and within my four walls all at the same time. i want love to fill my heart and spill out through my hands.

i want to love when it feels gratifyingly good and when it feels horrifyingly bad. i want to extend myself in love. surrender myself to love. find myself through love.

i want to give love for love. i want to give love for hate. love in my words, love in my deeds, love in my joy, love in my grief.

i want to love when no one is watching, recording, rewarding. love when no one is praising, applauding, displaying. and when i falter in love, let me resolutely return to love. over and over and over again.

because in the end, what else matters?

playing God

for as long as i can remember, i've tried to play God. as in "today the role of God will be played by jai wallace tracy." my efforts have been remarkable. remarkable and exhausting. i have worked to save, heal and deliver everyone i love. i have tried to stop cancer from killing, couples from divorcing and children from dying. i have tried to create a world where only bad guys get shot and good guys always, always win. i, jai, have tried to erase sadness from the face of the earth.

i am lousy at this job.

no matter how hard i've tried, he still died of a heart attack, and she still buried her father. and i have laid awake in bed at night wondering why i couldn't stop it all. somewhere in life i decided if i couldn't make sadness go away for everyone else, i would at least make it go away for myself. so i simply shut my eyes and covered my ears. i stopped watching the news, going to funerals and reading the paper. i poured my energy into things i could control, like how much i weighed.

that "worked." until i had tru. and suddenly everything was out of control again -- most of all, my emotions. i remember staring at his newborn face and feeling this crazy raw ache inside my heart. how am i going to keep him safe? how am i going to protect him? i was terrified. so i started to play God. again. and i became reacquainted with that familiar exhausted feeling. again. my anxiety and fear swelled. i cried a lot, worried a lot and prayed a lot of teary, worrisome prayers. then came titus. sweet titus. and with him, the return of all of my gnawing questions: how am i going to keep him safe? how am i going to protect him?

i would like to say i've found answers, that i've moved beyond this need to play God with my kids, my friends, my family, my little world. but i can't. this is what i can say:

1. i am better at understanding less.
2. i am not better at trusting more.

i have to learn to trust the God of my unanswered questions. i just have to. i know this. yet when i think of raising my hands in total surrender, that achy feeling returns, and i sense myself reaching for the wheel one more time. as if my driving were better than His. do i believe God is good? yes. do i believe He has my best interest at heart? absolutely. can i trust His hand over my life? oh man, you had to ask that ... i'm getting there. i will wrestle until i get there.

help me, God, to let You do Your job. and i'll do mine:

i'll just lean into sovereignty
i'll embrace a mystery
and i'll just rest in You
as i bathe in truth
(misty edwards, "simple devotion")

amen.

a little lost and found

i got a little lost.

if i could title the book of my 35 years, i would choose those five words. they would be written loudly in red ink with exclamation points and three underlines beneath the word "lost." and there would probably be a line through the word "little."

yeah.

if i'm honest, i've gotten more than a little lost. there have been times when my sense of direction has been, well, downright backwards. i've traveled miles out of the way. sometimes unknowingly. but more often with eyes wide open. there have been boyfriends, jobs, friends and way too many decisions in the shouldn't-have-done-that/what-was-i-thinking/well-that-was-nice category of my life. in my effort to make it from the point As to the point Bs, i always seem to end up at the E, F and Gs. sometimes i surprise myself by landing at C (or H. ahem.), but usually i'm predictably just a bit off course.

as a good little journalism school graduate, i should now cite some specific examples for you, the reader. but i'm not going to. the details are more than you really want to know. i have a tendency to big-screen the lost part of my life. my failures. i'm going to spare you that adventure because the lost is really not the good part. it's what comes next that makes my story worth reading.

found.

jai is a little lost and found.

it's just one word, but in my book, it's the word written over and over again, with huge amounts of gratitude, across page after tear-stained page. it's the story of a girl rescued from herself. of her journey to the edge and back. it reads of her husband, her boys, her family, her friends and every person who ever helped her find her way back home.
and, of course, it's the story of her Jesus. my Jesus.

after all, He's the real reason i'm found. it's His extravagant, unrelenting love that has led me down every right path i've ever taken. it's the same love that has sustained me through the gentle, gracious consequences of every wrong path i've taken. amen.

so welcome to my words. they are a little piece of me. the good and the appalling. the beautiful and the shocking. the whispers and the screams. the yes and the no. my words are my story. my story is my life.

and my life -- yep, you guessed it -- is a little lost and found.