NAKED

Crazy Grandma Ruth loves telling stories. It's like her crack.

One of her favorite stories to tell on us (I say us because honest, I don't have any idea which one of us it's even about anymore) is about the day that (let's just say me, shall we?) I took off all my clothes and took off through the house and yard and street naked, naked, naked, shouting to the clouds, "I'M NAKED AND I LOOOOOOOVE IT!"

Ruthie giggles till she cries when she tells that story.

I am also a storyteller.

At this point, I have written two non-published books. One in creative nonfiction and one in fiction, though the fiction novella is much unedited.

The creative nonfiction book would make sense as to why it would be extraordinarily vulnerable to share. It's my life, for goodness' sake! And I know what you're thinking, "Aren't you a little young to be writing an autobiography?" It's not an autobiography. It's creative nonfiction. Very different. It's a compilation of stories, stylized, and chosen due to similarity in theme.

Fiction, though, you'd think would be just fiiiiiiiine to share.

You are wrong.

Whether or not they mean to, writers embed themselves within the characters of their stories. Struggles and conflicts and desires that they may not even be willing to admit to themselves come out quite clearly in the struggles, conflicts, and hidden desires of their characters.

It's when the story reaches its resolution that the author often has a gasping, "oh no! This is me!" moment.

That's one reason narrative therapy is getting so popular these days. Projecting your thoughts and feelings onto someone else and working through them is a lot easier and more objective than continuing to stare at the back of your mindscape forever.

That's where the fear for me is and, I'm sure, where it is for other writers.

When we share our work, we are letting you see a most raw part of ourselves. We get naked with you.

That's terrifying.

Manna Munchies and Jericho Crunchies

I'm a big Jill Briscoe fan.

She's a Christian evangelist who happened to visit my alma mater while I attended. 

She's jam-packed with sass and a love for Jesus without being obnoxious. She's what I would call an advocate for practical Christianity. 

By that, I mean to say that the things she speaks of have direct application in everyday life.

While she was at JBU, she spoke of daily walking around Jericho. 

The Israelites were instructed by God to walk around the Walls of Jericho once each morning. Once. 

Now, Jericho was a big 'ole city, and Israel was a pretty shabby looking bunch by the time they'd reached the outer boundaries of this formidable, infuriating obstacle. 

I can just imagine the Israelites finally crawling out of their endlessness in the desert, high-fiving each other, seeing Jericho, stopping, and saying, "You're shitting me, right?" 

Do we not do the same thing? 

I finally crawl out of what seems like an endless struggle or semester or conflict, give myself a pat on the back, then look forward and see what? WHAT?! Another. Right there stretched out in the middle of my life road, just smirking at me like my brother when he's denying he stole my cell phone. 

In those instances, we have a tendency to curse, cry, and crack. That's right: give up. 

Instead, God told the Israelites (and us) to proceed onward with courage and faith! He who brought you to this place will be faithful to take care of you! 

The Israelites could have a. not listened, b. attacked at will, or c. walked around that dang wall once each day. 

Jill calls us to do the same thing. Rather than giving up or letting our anxiety mentally pace around our minds all day, we must walk around our wall once each morning, present our worry to God, then live and leave the stress of our problem there until the next morning. 

Yesterday, I read her book Here I am Lord...Send Somebody Else! and she discussed the idea of--we're staying with the Israelites for this post--picking up our daily manna, our daily provision from the Lord. 

Practical application: spend time with the Lord first thing each morning, collecting enough soul food to sustain you for the day. Not the week. The day. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own. 

He is faithful. He will provide for you new nourishment every single day. We just have to leave our tent and pick it up. We could even walk around our Wall of Jericho while we're at it. 

The point is, we are not just laying something down, we're also picking something up. Like how in yoga you breathe out the bad energy and breathe in the good energy, we stamp down our anxiety and pick up our manna. Every day.

And Jericho? Didn't you hear? It fell. Not one stone was left atop another.