Sticky business

I started a class at church last night called "Stuck".  There is a workbook that goes with it and it's considered a care group- not a bible study.  We are there to care for one another through the process.  There are ten or so of us women in the group and last night was the first meeting, where our nervous giggles, and squirming in our seats belied the surface calm that was in the air.

The goal is to begin to either identify or start to unpack those places where we are broken, angry, discontent, overwhelmed, or scared that are holding us back from full living. From moving forward. From not just dreaming, but moving into goals and engagement with the world as our true selves. That is hard work.  Doing that work will inevitably lead down a bumpy road of struggle and pain to sift through. While I want to do that, and work towards unsticking myself, it feels daunting.
Each of us shared for a moment our names, and a tiny snippet of why we were in the group.  The broken hearts around each table were placed gently into the open with the hope that the rest of us would scoop them up with love and grace and understanding.

I think that the class will be good. I think our group is going to connect in ways not often afforded to groups of women.  The atmosphere in the group is thick with expectation and I believe we will find ourselves knee deep in one another's grief, anger, and struggle.  But I also think that we will find ourselves standing in the warm light of grace and as we begin to shed some of the shame and struggle that sits so heavily on our hearts and souls.

The more I've been allowed into the lives of people, the more clear it is to me that each of us is broken, shattered, cracked, and wounded in some way.  Life has a peculiar way of jamming reality and struggle into each of us at some point.  I don't say this out of jaded cynicism, but rather with the knowledge that we cannot move through this life well without accumulating emotional injury along the way.  The beauty in that is that it levels the playing field.  We are all alike. Connected.  Bound by the awareness that life just happens. To all of us.   If you had placed the same group of these ten women in a room for a baby shower, we would still be the same ten broken, hurting, scared women... but because we're being given the gift of safety which will cultivate vulnerability- we get the amazing opportunity to allow someone to lean on us in those places we are strong, while we lean on someone else in our brokenness.  It's a lyrical dance of healthy community when we begin to peel back the places of shame and pain that dulls our shine and allow that light to pour out into the world.  The darkness of hurt can dampen the brightest light, but the space for truth to rest... the truth of where we sit... that space brings freedom, and light, and love and grace.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had a place like that? A group to go to where you knew that your heart and your fear and your precious lifeblood would be honored and loved and given room to rest? All of us need it. We all need those places to be vulnerable and allow the opening of our wings without the fear of another person tearing a hole in the gauzy fabric.  I have friends who do this for me, and I know I'm blessed.
I'm looking forward to getting to know my group and learning from the strengths they have that I am lacking and excited to offer encouragement in places where I am strong. It's good stuff- this systematic autopsy of my struggle.  I'm thankful to get to have a group to hold me up as I shrug off some of the falsely protective layers of pain and let them hold me up as I unfold my wings and get my legs under me.