Last night I sat amongst a room full of weary souls, parched for words of Life to lap up to their dusty toes, desperate for a drink, reminding them of the infinite grace and hope the Gospel offers in this Advent season. There were many moments I wanted to pause and rewind. To play over and over again in my mind. To encapsulate and engrave into my memory so I could revisit them, deep in the recesses of my heart on a day in the midst of a dark, lonely season.
Women who spoke from the heart, who let the Lord’s words flow from the scriptures and from their lessons learned, put into the form of poetry, words and music. Tears fell. Worship happened. Love built. And I treasured away these things in my heart, much like Mary did that night in a cold, drafty barn, exhausted and bleeding from a physical and emotional end of a pregnancy that was leading to the answer of cries of centuries of the Faithful.
Maybe it’s because I’m a word girl, a geek. I play with prose, adjectives, conjunctions and punctuation until I create an art form with irony and literary devices that both thrills and petrifies me as my heart is laid bare before countless pairs of eyes. But hearing similar words from women who feel and express these complicated and twisted emotions using similar ways in which I also attempt comforts me in a deep place, whispers to me that I am not alone and never will be.
So after I left that place of hearing my heart sing and grasp onto the beautiful Hope of Christ this Advent, I listened and heard a recording of one of the three women who shared last night, her words hitting me square in the chest once again. Reminders to be me. To be vulnerable. I’ll let her words do the talking:
…Truth is, I’m scared. And no matter how much I duct tape the mouth of that awkward teenage girl I was, she gets to doing that muffled talking of hers and I understand. See; she’s nervous. And so am I because one day, you’re going to see the real me – I’m talking about the me you’re going to see on a goofy Saturday when I’m wearing my uncute glasses and too big sweatpants. See- I’ve never given you a chance to meet her, which really means I’ve never really given you a chance to meet me. So I’m going to throw on these old coke bottles and I’m going to wear these faded-grey-used-to-be-black sweatpants and sit next to you and I’m going to lean in, just for the joy of your conversation and maybe I’ll discover that I’m not that stupid girl after all.
-“Stupid Girl”, Amena Brown
Of loveliness and laughter 