Deborah Spooner
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Blog
  • My Work
  • Contact


I keep my phone on do not disturb.

The first time I remember hearing about this life-changing feature was when my blonde-stranded, blue sweatshirt encased 5’5 sister made a side comment.

Deborah, make sure to text me before 9 PM. Cause then, especially before I have a clinical, I put my phone on do not disturb.

She showed me the little crescent that would ascend into my existence and keep my existence a little separated from that of others. It started more or less innocently. Between the emails, texts, GroupMe notifications, and FB messages, my phone would obnoxiously buzz against the linoleum-topped desk, seemingly incessantly. My advanced grammar professor, amazing as she was, wasn’t amazed when the buzz was the background music to her teaching method. So, I clicked the crescent.

But, clicking the crescent soon wasn’t the noteworthy event. It was unclicking the crescent that became more abnormal.

Fast forward a year, and I sent the calendar invite to a co-worker: “Make sure Deb clears her inbox.” The emails had a way of climbing during the week, so I wanted to ensure that I set aside the time needed to make sure that they didn’t climb into a terrible habit of never being answered. She looked at my phone, and I jokingly told her how having my message count under 30 on any given day was a win. A few days before, I’d accidentally admitted to a new friend that it takes me about 3-5 business days to respond to my texts. I would laugh, but it wasn’t a joke. Sadly, it’s chronically true.

I keep my phone on do not disturb.

I’d pulled out the brown leather folds that held paper that held my hopes, pains, and words. I wrote a new sentence in my journal, but one that’d been hinted at for months. Lord, I want to love, actually.

Love, actually.

Is love a feeling? I’d always been told that love was a choice, love was something that you did regardless of how you felt. And in this sense, I did. I did do this thing called love. Roommate crisis arriving, I stayed up much past when I needed to and just ate the cost. House really needing to be cleaned? I did the action. Encouragement needing to be given? I was very there for it. I loved, in what I did.

But what if love actually is also shown by what you didn’t do? The facetime calls not returned. The hugs barely reciprocated. The dependence, not there.

Love, actually.
We’d watched a movie: Beautiful Boy. And, for the second time in my life, I’d cried as a film’s scenes rolled. If we hadn’t just camped in 8 degree weather and now were lounging on a friend’s mentor’s couch with some people I had just met about two days ago, I would have been gone, hard. The boy hooked on crystal meth. The dad trying to step in to know how to help. The kids caught in the in between. The muddied waters of saying no and also saying go when love was fuel but pain seemed to be the car, the car heading towards crash.

I’d driven the five hours back from Virginia with her. We talked medical. About injections and endorphins, about depression and depressants. But we talked about not just flesh but also soul. We talked about costs and people. What it means to live a life that sacrifices. What it means to love. To love, actually.

I sat on the counter top, light grey post-boxing leggings stretching down to my March-adorned Christmas socks. I think I want to be a bartender someday. I stared at her, and she stared back. I’ve lived in this Christian bubble. I was a pastor’s kid. Yeah, it was an unusual church. Yeah, I don’t have the middle-class white privileged complex, but then I went to a Christian school. Now, I work at a Christian company. I’m drowning in this version of reality, really needing to know what reality is.

I say I love the gospel, but do I live the gospel? I say we have the key to the dark, but I am drowning in the light. I say I love till it hurts, but I don’t feel a pang when others have difficulty. I say people value the most, but I don’t put them first. I say I want to be selfless, but my thoughts are so often introspectively selfish, consumed with how they could be happier and how they should be and how this is of chief importance. I say I want to live a life on mission. I say I want to love, actually.

But, I keep my phone on do not disturb.

I keep the messages of “hey, how are you?” unanswered and unsent.
I keep the words of challenging and encouraging and care unspoken.
I keep the people just close enough to be friends but just far enough away to not be risky.

I keep my life on do not disturb, separating me from anything that gives me pain or gives others pain, even though I claim to walk palm in palm with the Healer.

And I begin to wonder if it should be my prayer.
Lord, disturb me.

Disturb the places inside of me where I think I am selfish but am not. Disturb the places I think I am selfless but I am really asleep. Disturb the twisted distance I put between myself and people. Disturb this Christianese reality enough so that the gospel is my heartbeat. Disturb me enough so that I know what it means to love. To love, actually.


The yellow-lit table just behind the dark wooded restaurant’s host stand now held our phones and keys. I’d come through the door – only with the help of the valet man who kindly showed me the way even with his curious look at my propensity to just ask where the door was instead of finding it myself – and now I was sitting beside two people I’d recently met, one who I’d approached with the same gumption I showed to the valet man. I liked her, and when I make up my mind that I’m going to be friends with someone, well, buckle up.

Fight.

I’d asked about her recent road-trip, and she’d been honest. There was a breakup that was shadowing over her, but she spoke the truth of the light she was seeing even as she was, in many ways, still in darkness. “I realize I need someone who will fight for me.”

Cliché? Maybe a little. What does it even mean? It’s up for interpretation. But, her honest words in the amber-lit taco haven struck me.

Fight.

A few days later, I’d walked away from small group down the street. Big TVs and too-full tables, we were still standing in the entry. The light from the phone screen still illuminating her eyes, her words tumbled out: “Amanda’s pregnant.” Instead of flashing happy-joy-goodness, anger flared. Immediately. A person who was supposed to be as close to me as a sister, who’d lived in my house through much of my growing up years (and hers), who shared blood with me, hadn’t even included me in the cousins’ group text where this announcement hit in. Coward. She served the news to my sister who could softly catch it and distribute versus me who’d give fire right back to her. Coward. Not living the life we dreamed of as girls, she was single and unreconciled, and I was mad at her, mad at me for being mad, mad at the dad, mad at brokenness in the world, mad that I couldn’t call her and celebrate.

I just wanted to punch something. To fight.

The space bar blinked up at me, an untyped email draft still drating. I blinked back. Emails and details. Then her chat popped in. She was mad. She’d overheard a conversation by a friend turned not-so-nice about something they both had worked to put together, with me. This friend had thrown my friend under the bus, in front of her. And it involved a handsome face masking an arrogant attitude to make her flip. I was livid. For my friend, for the situation that still was to happen, for my role in it all. This added to my emails and details and politics and frustrations and impatience sent my feet, to the stairs. I’d climbed 15 flights of them before to cool down; this time it was only 8.

I just wanted to punch something. To fight.

So, I did. The navy-blue car climbed the five levels of the parking ramp to the top. We slid into a spot, slipped down the stairs, and came into the boxing class. One trainer wrapping one of my hands in the black strands and another trainer on the other side, I was rushed through punches and landed next to a punching bag. Burpees, sit ups, planks, push-ups, I was jab cross jab right hooking my way to happiness. Sweat on my face, heart racing.

 I just wanted to punch something. To fight.

And this wasn’t anything new. I’d put my lunch box back in the blue tiny lockers and speed walk outside. I’d volunteer, to be the one racing to the rectangular bin that caged the soccer, basketball, and volleyballs from the rushing elementary schoolers. First come first serve. I lived for this. I’d hit the sidewalk, and my shoes would hit their rhythm of sprint. No one wanted to end up with the flat spheres, so I’d make sure I secured my friends’ a first pick, and I’d make it down the coned-off street and back to the end of the sidewalk before my friends even arrived. Because school meant classes where sometimes I just got bored, where the teachers played favorites, where the cute boys would pick me first for the sports teams and then taunt me with one-finger high-fives, where I’d sit back quiet, quiet hating how I seemed to not fit in.

I just wanted to punch something. To fight.

Because, deep down, I have always been restless. In this season of transition, I finally slowed down enough to feel and hear and watch the somersaulting of my own mind. And I’ve been scared at what’s actually there when I take the time to look.

I had written in my journal, about five months ago now. I was searching, wondering for where the Deborah I really knew had gone. I felt frustrated at the injustice, at the reality that she’d been forced to go even when no one had asked her to leave, even when she’d been under so much stress and pain and how now was supposed to be the time to thrive. I’d journaled, I want Deborah back.

I just wanted to punch something. To fight.

To fight to have her back. But in the meantime, I was balking. I saw the texts from friends pile up on my phone, feeling zapped of energy or desire to communicate with the world. Fighting this nagging inside that people care and isolation is self-incarceration. I heard the voices of laughter across the hall, and my feet flip-switched to head back the other direction. Fighting this nagging that I needed to actually risk talking to these too-cool-for-me strangers who really were actually just humans following Jesus that I was to prideful to risk being known and unwanted. I saw her sitting, alone, and I also saw a different friend who could intersect me before I got to her path. And I took the easy conversation, fighting this nagging inside that I was taking the cop-out, the place where I wouldn’t have to risk looking weak, looking answerless to ease her pain, having to feel helpless to make a difference.

I was fighting.

But I wasn’t fighting for people. I was fighting against them. I was fighting the people who wanted to pull me close even when I was the closest to the end of my rope as I’d ever been. I was fighting the people who wanted to lift some of the burden I buried myself under instead of seeking their understanding. I was missing opportunities to live beyond myself by risking discomfort to bring comfort to others. And I was fighting myself, fighting against fully embracing the pain and the sadness and the fear that were making my living feel like shadowing, making my full breaking morph into shallow breathlessness.

I just wanted to punch something, to fight.

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).

I am a fighter.

I want to fight for people. I want to fight with them. I want to live a bold, daring, risky life that puts itself on the line for other people. But, I only have enough time and energy to fight one. I can fight the work that God is doing internally, or I can let Him give me the fight to war against my selfishness and anger through the Holy Spirit’s transformative power. I can fight the moments and conversations and days and places that the Lord is using, or I can re-channel that fight to push straight to thankfulness for anything in my life that brings me to a place where I fight to know more of Christ, to be more like Christ, to fight to know Him and make Him known.

I just want to punch something, to fight.

And I pray we learn to fight what does not matter so that we are freed to fully throw ourselves into the thrill of the chase of that which does. That we fight our small view of life and pursue the big dreams of God. That we fight our cradling of our own safety and pursue creating character for His kingdom.

That we fight, for each other.


My thumb pressed open the cover of my granite gray computer. The screen lit up: $425 Chicago à London. The ticket, expectant.

My work cubicle now seemed like a transportation portal, and my co-worker pedaled her rolling black chair up the imaginary diagonal line connecting my cube to hers. She was going to Europe, too.

Stay.

Seeing my email count reach over sixty, I’d suddenly find myself gazing at airports and ticket prices. I’d even bookmarked WOW Air flights with almost too low low prices, an escape at my fingertips.

Stay.

As my mind and heart pulsed to go, my conscience wouldn’t let me. Deborah, you still have student loans. Deborah, quit dreaming. Deborah, it’s probably not your greatest idea to hop on a plan in seven days and spread your wings, traveling across an ocean completely alone and without a plan.

Stay.

You see, staying has never been my thing. The brown-bobbed, almond-eyed boss dichotomized friend paused. “Deborah, why wasn’t it so hard to transition when you moved before—when you changed states for college?” My gut response hadn’t taken long. “I had an end date.” Yes, I knew college was a mini-uprooting and re-planting, but I hadn’t let myself plant that hard. Nah, I knew I’d be at college for about four years, and then the future was wide open. Myself? Remained uncommitted.

Stay.

Then, here. A new city, but a city without a foreseeable end date. Possibilities nagged at me that I hadn’t pursued them.

Because staying scared me.

I sat down on one of the hardest days in November and manufactured it: an end date. No offense to my company, co-workers, or this city—I actually couldn’t think of them as I was planning because it made it harder—but I knew I needed to imagine I had one. I let my strategizing run crazy as I planned till October 2020. It was twenty-two months away. Once it came, I’d go, go to Europe. Something like 19 countries in 9 months. Then, I’d spend the next year in NYC, the next in Chicago, and the next three months in 9 Latin American countries before I’d come back and have my wedding then seven kids. In the meantime, I’d begin a rigorous course of mastering Spanish while starting Greek again, teaching myself French, and starting self-defense so that I’d be prepared on all fronts. Then, I added to my “hit 22 doc” a slew of more things I wanted to research, learn, and develop which only complemented my other new year resolutions docs and my writing and videography editorial calendars. Sound crazy? Yeah, it is.

Stay.

For years, I’ve noticed that I often get the strongest impulse to run in the very moments when I most need to stay.

I sat on my bedroom floor, back against the white paneled door with a magenta pillow. I described it like a building process. Right now, I’m in the stage of getting to create something, like a house. And it’s as if I’m being handed pieces. But, I don’t know what these pieces are for or what they’re ultimately building. I just get a piece and get told where to place it, but that’s it. I don’t have the blueprint. Just a piece.

And? I know what rooms I’d like to be in this house, this house I call my life. Rooms I really, really want. But, I have no idea if they’re in the blueprint or even if they’re in the plan for this decade. All I have is the next (and only the very next) construction piece and my lack of ability to ensure that the house is built just as I want.

Stay.

Staying scares me. Staying sounds like commitment. Staying sounds like saying a yes to something and actually meaning a yes without a way out. That’s what scared me as a fifteen-year-old learning to drive. There’s no margin. Mess up, hit a car, someone could die. I couldn’t deal with that. I wanted insurance that I could somehow still pull an upswing, somehow still make it work, somehow find a way out.

But life doesn’t work like that.

When life brings me things I don’t want to deal with, I want to run. I want to flee to somewhere new, to experience something different. I don’t want to stay in the growth of what the Lord’s doing, I don’t want to stay in all that is called now, called here.

Stay.

But that’s the thing. When you leave something, you leave the good and the bad. When I left my college, I left the insane stress of overcommittment. But I left the people that made overcommittment worth it. When I left my parents’ home, I left the stigma of a pastor’s kid. But, I left the easy availability of their wisdom. When I leave my heart boxed up and guarded from developing relationships in the here and now, I leave my heart out of experiencing what it means to have others carry my burdens and the joys of carrying theirs. When I leave my frustrations with the process and with the waiting central in my mind, I leave the joy of all that makes life so good and so sweet—right here, right now as I stay.

“Love anything and your hearth will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one… Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable” (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves).

Stay.

I’m scared to stay because I’m scared to love. I’m afraid to love and have torn away again.
I’m scared to stay because I’m scared to risk. I’m afraid to risk attaching and maybe losing it all.
I’m scared to stay because I’m scared to let go. I’m afraid that letting go means I’ll let go of my ability to make my life into the happiness that it could be.

I’m scared to stay because to me, staying means surrendering. It means staying in one place: in the place where I can’t guarantee what’s in my blueprint, where I don’t have the power to change the blueprint, where I must stay, day after day learning the hard lesson of how to open my heart and not be afraid to love, deeply, even when that means I risk having it torn away again.

Stay.

Because there’s one place I must stay more than all: in where it means to live fueled by the love of God that compels us. I must stay faithful, faithful to that. Because? Well, I know that my October 2020 and beyond plan is just that: a manufacturing of Deborah trying to bring herself to a place where she can stay because she’s tricked herself into thinking she’s leaving. It’s a plan that could happen, but it’s more a temporary coping mechanism to hide the fear that I might actually want to stay or might come to a place where God calls me to leave and I won’t want to and will have to deal with the ripping away again.

All I have is there here, and all I have is obedience. For now, I’m called, called to be as present as possible, to live with my heart and not just my head, to stay fully, deeply, risking pain and all—no matter for how long. I’m called:

to stay.
Newer Posts Older Posts

ABOUT ME

I could look back at my life and get a good story out of it. It's a picture of somebody trying to figure things out.

SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW

POPULAR POSTS

  • easier
  • To See Stars
  • Desiring the Corner
  • Loving, Walking, and Holding Fast: Part 3
  • A Desperate Cry
  • Pandora's Box: Take Two
  • Hypocritical High-Chair
  • Beautiful Tears
  • Waiting for Life to Start
  • What Life Really Is || The Power of Making

Categories

  • (over) think 10
  • A Challenge 22
  • Babysitting 1
  • backup 1
  • Books 2
  • Broken 21
  • Busyness 13
  • change 2
  • Choices 24
  • college 10
  • come 4
  • complete 4
  • confessions 15
  • Contentment 17
  • Culture 20
  • delight 3
  • depression 2
  • desire 4
  • Devotions 5
  • do it 8
  • doubt 9
  • Dreams 13
  • Encouragement 8
  • Enough 13
  • faithful 5
  • Fame 2
  • Fear 5
  • Finding Strength 24
  • focus 9
  • Friendship 6
  • Future 18
  • Grace 4
  • Grief 3
  • Growing Up 22
  • growth 10
  • His Love 5
  • ideas 1
  • Identity 8
  • Insecurity 5
  • interview 3
  • It's Me 17
  • Jealousy 2
  • Jesus 20
  • just deb 1
  • Learning to Learn 17
  • life 9
  • Loneliness 6
  • Look Back 9
  • love 4
  • meaning 5
  • mentor 1
  • mind 5
  • My Generation 10
  • obedience 7
  • Original Videos 1
  • people 1
  • Poetry 9
  • Presence 4
  • purpose 2
  • questions 8
  • reality 12
  • repentance 4
  • satisfied 7
  • simple 5
  • start 4
  • Stories 14
  • TFIOS 1
  • The Good Life 11
  • The Struggle 13
  • time 5
  • Tips 8
  • Trust 10
  • truth 5
  • video telling 2
  • Waiting 9
  • Want to Smile? 3
  • When It's Hard 11
  • Worship 2
  • Writing Life 6

Advertisement

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Design by Britt Lauren Designs. Powered by Blogger.
facebook google twitter tumblr instagram linkedin

Follow Us

  • facebookFollow
  • twitterFollow
  • googleFollow
  • youtubeFollow
  • pinterestFollow
  • InstagramFollow

Workspace

Instagram
  • Home
  • Features
  • _post format
  • _error page
  • Beauty
  • Fashion
  • Lifestyle
  • Contact
  • Buy now
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact

Blog Archive

  • ►  2022 (5)
    • ►  April (1)
    • ►  March (1)
    • ►  February (2)
    • ►  January (1)
  • ►  2021 (4)
    • ►  October (1)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  April (1)
    • ►  March (1)
  • ►  2020 (2)
    • ►  January (2)
  • ▼  2019 (18)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  July (5)
    • ►  May (1)
    • ▼  April (3)
      • disturb
      • fight
      • stay
    • ►  March (2)
    • ►  February (3)
    • ►  January (2)
  • ►  2018 (7)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  August (3)
    • ►  June (1)
    • ►  January (1)
  • ►  2017 (9)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  August (1)
    • ►  July (5)
    • ►  June (1)
  • ►  2016 (16)
    • ►  December (2)
    • ►  November (3)
    • ►  October (1)
    • ►  July (3)
    • ►  June (1)
    • ►  March (2)
    • ►  January (4)
  • ►  2015 (27)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  October (1)
    • ►  September (2)
    • ►  August (2)
    • ►  July (4)
    • ►  June (2)
    • ►  May (1)
    • ►  April (1)
    • ►  March (4)
    • ►  February (2)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2014 (33)
    • ►  December (2)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  October (5)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  August (2)
    • ►  July (8)
    • ►  June (6)
    • ►  May (3)
    • ►  March (2)
    • ►  February (2)
    • ►  January (1)
  • ►  2013 (15)
    • ►  December (5)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  October (2)
    • ►  August (2)
    • ►  June (1)
    • ►  April (1)
    • ►  March (2)
    • ►  January (1)
  • ►  2012 (11)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  August (1)
    • ►  May (2)
    • ►  April (1)
    • ►  March (2)
    • ►  February (2)
    • ►  January (1)

Home Ads

Instagram

FOLLOW ME @INSTAGRAM

Tags

  • (over) think
  • A Challenge
  • Babysitting
  • backup
  • Books
  • Broken
  • Busyness
  • change
  • Choices
  • college
  • come
  • complete
  • confessions
  • Contentment
  • Culture
  • delight
  • depression
  • desire
  • Devotions
  • do it
  • doubt
  • Dreams
  • Encouragement
  • Enough
  • faithful
  • Fame
  • Fear
  • Finding Strength
  • focus
  • Friendship
  • Future
  • Grace
  • Grief
  • Growing Up
  • growth
  • His Love
  • ideas
  • Identity
  • Insecurity
  • interview
  • It's Me
  • Jealousy
  • Jesus
  • just deb
  • Learning to Learn
  • life
  • Loneliness
  • Look Back
  • love
  • meaning
  • mentor
  • mind
  • My Generation
  • obedience
  • Original Videos
  • people
  • Poetry
  • Presence
  • purpose
  • questions
  • reality
  • repentance
  • satisfied
  • simple
  • start
  • Stories
  • TFIOS
  • The Good Life
  • The Struggle
  • time
  • Tips
  • Trust
  • truth
  • video telling
  • Waiting
  • Want to Smile?
  • When It's Hard
  • Worship
  • Writing Life

Advertisement

Facebook

Get in Touch

Freebies

Popular Posts

  • mine
    I'm afraid to turn twenty-six. This isn't new , but it's been freshly rolling around inside, deflating other hopes and hollowing...
  • A Desperate Cry
    Slavery.  It is brutal.  It wretches families apart and creates broken hearts.  It has caused mass destruction around and insid...
  • breaking basic
    "People may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are" ( j o h n   c   m a x w e l l ) We all have a role in each o...

Labels Cloud

(over) think A Challenge Babysitting backup Books Broken Busyness change Choices college come complete confessions Contentment Culture delight depression desire Devotions do it doubt Dreams Encouragement Enough faithful Fame Fear Finding Strength focus Friendship Future Grace Grief Growing Up growth His Love ideas Identity Insecurity interview It's Me Jealousy Jesus just deb Learning to Learn life Loneliness Look Back love meaning mentor mind My Generation obedience Original Videos people Poetry Presence purpose questions reality repentance satisfied simple start Stories TFIOS The Good Life The Struggle time Tips Trust truth video telling Waiting Want to Smile? When It's Hard Worship Writing Life

Also Seen On

See More >>




Snapshots from Instagram




About Me

Deborah Spooner is an analytical creative enamored by ideas and addicted to dripping words in candor. Serving as a Marketing Strategist for LifeWay’s Adults Ministry, she loves all things big-dreaming, difference-making, and Jesus-pointing. A pastor’s daughter with a background in communications and theology, you can find her at her local church with her students (and probably way too excited about the color yellow) as she seeks to know Christ more and make Him known.

Popular Posts

  • easier
  • To See Stars
  • Desiring the Corner

Just Don't (But Do)

The content of this website (including pictures) is solely property of Deborah. Using and/or duplicating this material without clear and full credit is prohibited.

Please, just don't do it.

But please, do share the site and anything within! (Just give credit where credit is due).

© 2012-2021 Deborah Spooner

Designed by OddThemes | Distributed by Gooyaabi Templates