Stillness to Dancing

Just a few months ago, I wrote about my experience with depression.Crippling, life-stealing depression.I wrote how I was choosing to serve God whether or not I ever found healing or relief from depression. How I was choosing to be faithful—or at least trying to be.I shared my experience of the low, the tough, the vulnerable. And then I was silent, on the blog at least.So today I want to share a follow up. I want to share a story of healing and joy and gratitude.I’ve been reluctant to write this post. I don’t want my healing to sound cliché. I don’t want to prescribe a how-to formula for overcoming depression because I know it doesn’t work like that. I don’t want to jinx it.But somehow I’ve come out on the other side and I can’t help but rejoice. I can’t help but share.

I think of my favorite T.S. Eliot quote, “So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

Today I am dancing and I don’t quite know why. Like Allie of Hyperbole and a Half bursting into hysteric belly laughs at a lone kernel of corn, it doesn’t make any sense.For me it started not with a piece of corn, but at the Sea of Galilee, overlooking the waves that Peter once braved.God spoke to me that day. He declared inner peace over my soul. He declared me healed and free.I can’t explain how I heard Him or why I believed that I would be free. I just knew He broke something FREE in me that day. Free from bitterness and wallowing and the chains of depression.I felt the healing work deep in my soul, deep in my bones. So much so that I couldn’t help but dance.Dance?! On the shore of the Sea of Galilee? Alone. Ear buds in. Eyes closed. Hips swaying and hands raised.Like a lunatic. Like someone crazy for Jesus and the healing power he brings.I didn’t feel the healing yet. I hadn’t experienced it yet. But I knew it was time to start dancing over my graves of depression and burnout and disappointment.Dancing became a sign of faithfulness. A way to declare victory before the war was even over.I danced in worship. I danced my praise. I danced for the grace and redemption and renewal I hadn't yet experienced.Nothing else mattered but setting my heart and my body to praising the God who promised to heal me. To love me. To bind my wounds.As I danced, I prayed the chains would be broken. I prayed that my freedom would bring freedom to others.And when the songs were over, my body stilled, I opened my eyes and turned to see a Korean tour group sitting just a few feet behind me, staring at the girl swaying to the music in her earphones, in her head, in her heart.And I didn’t care. I was being healed. I am being healed.Since then joy has found a way to creep in. Little bit by little bit. I began to experience joy in my new grad school classes. Joy at caring for the daily needs of a 94-year-old woman with advanced dementia and one heck of witch cackle laugh. Joy in meeting with my favorite girlfriends on earth to chat and pray and cry and laugh together. Joy in just being.Today I have a lot to delight in-- a new boyfriend and a new kitten for starters (!!). It's taken work, though, don't get me wrong. I've worked hard in counseling, finding the right medication, admitting that I need help. I've prayed and prayed. I've recommitted to taking care of myself.But the healing started that day at the Sea of Galilee. When God whispered something to me, calling me to deep inner peace, silencing my striving like Jesus once silenced the very waves that crashed before me. He declared freedom in me that day.And I danced it. I hope I am dancing it still.

Send me on a Global Immersion

Hello! I’ve missed you. Missed this.Today I am posting for the first time since coming back to the States to tell you that I’m leaving again. No, I’m not moving again. My heart and my feet are planted firmly back here in San Diego.But I am excited to tell you that I’ll be traveling to the Holy Land for two weeks at the end of February. I don’t know much the about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the politics or the history--besides the colorful maps that accompanied the pink Precious Moments Bible I had as a kid. I do know it is a region of great hope and expectation as well as a place of injustice and pain for Jews, Christians, and Muslims worldwide. I don’t know much, but I want to learn more.Israel is a far cry from salsa dancing and mangos, but my desire to go stems from the same goals that led me to Central America. I’m excited to search for the bright spots. To learn from men and women who are seeking third ways and actively working toward peace. To open my heart to yet another region of the world in order to more thoughtfully and intentionally care for those in my immediate world.When I was in Guatemala last year I was very lucky to live with a family that taught me so much about how to engage thoughtfully in really complex and overwhelming problems—poverty, civil war, genocide. They introduced me to the idea of choosing a third way in a conflict, not taking sides, but being pro-peace. Throughout my year in Guatemala, I met some courageous and creative men and women who are working to bring hope and peace to their communities.I'll be joining with a unique learning community made up of men and women who span the spectrum of society to learn and travel together to the Holy Land. The experience is being guided by The Global Immersion Project (TGIP), a humanitarian organization that seeks to cultivate peacemakers through immersion in global conflict. TGIP has carefully developed a network of Israeli & Palestinian leaders and friends who will help train us for the work of local and global peacemaking.

Our cultivation will take place in three phases: (1) Understanding; (2) Exposure; and (3) Integration. The Understanding phase has already begun as our learning community is exploring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as developing a practical grid for everyday peacemaking. The Exposure phase will occur from February 28-March 9 on the ground in the Holy Land and will involve shared tables & friendship-making with the everyday peacemakers embedded within the conflict. The Integration phase will help us to process and learn from our journey as a whole while gaining the necessary resources to live as everyday peacemakers within the familiar soil of our North American contexts.

I’ve had the opportunity to do some grant writing for TGIP this past year, and I have been struck again and again by their thoughtfulness, integrity, optimism, and commitment to peace. There’s no one else I’d rather learn from or journey with to the Holy Land. Plus, one of my bestest friends and favorite processing pal—the daughter of the couple I lived with in Guatemala—is going too. Icing on the cake.As you know, I am someone who longs to participate, locally and globally, with God in His work of restoration & reconciliation. I view this experience as an environment where God's cultivation of me will further focus and fuel His just and compassionate reach to others through me. Would you prayerfully consider financially investing in my growth in this way?The entire cost of the experience is $3000 + flight. All donations are tax- deductible and will be processed through TGIP’s organizational sponsor: a registered nonprofit called Thresholds.To contribute financially to TGIP via Thresholds’ secure website:1. Please go to: www.thresholdscommunity.org/, click “Contribute”, then choose the “Give Online” option. From there, select my name (the first one--woohoo!) from the pull down list of people and projects. (To reach this page directly, click here.) You will receive an email confirmation of your gift that can also be used for tax purposes.2. To give by check, please go to the “Contribute” page on Threshold’s web site. From this page, under the “Give by Mail” section, you will be able to print out a pledge card and return it with a check made payable to “Thresholds” at the address given. You will receive a printed receipt from Thresholds for tax purposes.I also welcome your prayers and encouragement, questions and feedback. I’ll be posting updates and musings here and would love you to journey with me here on my blog or over coffee or chai tea lattes or Skype dates.Thanks for your love and support,Aly