Chasing Perfect

Sometimes the best gifts come in the worst packaging

May 23, 2017 By Heather

Sometimes the best gifts come in the worst packages.
At least, that was the message a woman who I had never met whispered into my ear as I snot-nosed cried into her jean jacket.
She had to turn off her mic so the crowd couldn’t hear me bawl.

And I was embarassed.

My outfit, manicured nails, and poise—all of it gone, drenched in tears and snot.

What woman doesn’t want to completely lose it in front of her church crowd?

I came to the retreat purely because Kim (the Pastor’s wife) asked if I would help greet.

And really who says, “No,” to the Pastor’s wife, right?
But this woman invited to speak–her message was mine; only I didn’t know it until she began to unpack every detail and weave her past into my present.

She had delivered a message about the night her world changed, when her husband became paralyzed; but with a twist, her worst nightmare became the gift she never expected.

My circumstaces were much less dramatic, but left me feeling suckerpunched as I gasped for air standing in the aftermath.

In less than a month my world had been tossed, shaken, and sifted much like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz. By the time the dust settled every inch of my life had changed.
I would be putting my house on the market—the home I brought my newborn babies to.
I would be saying good-bye to a career I adored.
I would be finding a new school for my son.
I would be finding additional help for my daughter.
I would be learning how to make my marriage work with a globe trotter.
But this is what happens when you say “Anything,” to God. This is what happens when you look at your life and ask if this is all there really is—build a good career, buy the dream home, have the kids, and marry the guy.

Several months ago, I woke up one morning, burned out, feeling as though this life wasn’t all it was supposed to be.

I was feeling empty and hollow. I started making careless mistakes and missing appointments. The dream was a dreadful empty machine.

I was using all of my gifts, all of my abilties, dreaming, living, creating, doing. I breathed my career and I lived for my kids, going to bed at 2 a.m. and waking at 6 a.m. just to do it all over again.
Burn Out.
There had to be more.
That’s when I prayed, “Lord, something needs to change, I want to change, use me.”

Here’s the thing, we grow up dreaming of the white picket fence, prince charming and cute kids all the while saying “Jesus, yes of course I love you more than anything but please don’t touch this area of my life. In fact bless it this way…”

But then he smiles while thinking, “Many are the plans in the mind of man, but my purpose will prevail.”

And then He says, “Are you sure? Because I have something much better for you.”

And he whispers:
“Do you love me enough to go where I send you? Do you love me enough to give me your dreams while I give you a new purpose?”

And that’s how I found myself sobbing in front more than one hundred women when the speaker cupped my face, wiped my tears and said,
“There’s no shame in what you’re doing. There’s no shame in going where you’re called.”

It turns out BURN OUT is one of such gifts. And it’s like that for most gifts wrapped in ugly packaging.

Loneliness—a chance to seek Him.
Labor—a child.
Mistakes—a chance to grow.
Burn Out—a chance to start fresh.
The Manger, The Cross and The Tomb—Jesus and Salvation.
Yes…sometimes even the ugliest of circumstances, the ugliest of packages has something beautiful within.

I don’t know what path you’re walking but I want to take you in my arms, cup your face and tell you “Face it with fresh eyes, His eyes. Chances are—you just might find the gift within.”

Red Sea Road

April 30, 2017 By Heather

She sat with tears in her eyes, holding my attention and apologizing for something that happened eight years ago.
Gratitude poured forth from my soul, soothing a wound I didn’t know was there as we talked about the hard roads she and I had traversed alone—something I often call Red Sea Roads.
These are the paths that are tough, rocky and lonely. These are the roads we walk with saturating grace of each step and it carries the good and the hard and the mess and the chaos.
Often when my kids are faced with a struggle, I tell them they have some walking to do but their God is with them.
They can visualize their Creator dividing the red sea in half and the Israelites putting one faithful step in front of the other. I’ve walked many of my own red sea roads, this friendship was one of them.
Eight years ago, my friend and I exchanged awkward smiles. Newly married, she moved to Kearney and our paths crossed on hot summer days at the playgrounds, church and MOPS.
We both learned we had the exact same due date for her third child and my fourth.
But then she got the word I had lost my baby as her pregnancy continued to flourish. I reached out for tentative play dates but the calls went unanswered. Recently, we met for a news story and then bonded on common grounds of a healthier lifestyles and marriage.
“I wish we had become better friends sooner,” I said around a mouthful of chicken and avocado salad. She winced, “Me too. I think I owe you an apology. When I heard you had lost Alex, I didn’t know what to say. But now that I’ve experienced the same kind of loss, I wished I hadn’t let the awkwardness of what I felt get in the way. It was safer to stay on middle ground.”
And there it was, tears in her eyes, her hardest truth spilling over a bread bowl of tomato bisque.
It can be hard to share what’s real but feeling alone is even harder on either road.
The middle ground is where we like to be. It’s safe, the path is wide open, steady and stable—because the alternative is un-chartered territory, walking where we never expected.
But that’s the power of friendship. That’s the power of women, if we can’t find common ground, we make our own path to each other. And in this middle place of working through something, of traversing along this road—in the space between moving courageously and waiting to reach the destination, you’ll get there, even if it’s eight years later.

I’m not a runner, I’m a finisher

April 10, 2017 By Heather

I love to run.

In fact, my latest pair of pink Brooks running shoes have a hole in them from all the months of training for the Lincoln Half Marathon that took place in May. I haven’t thrown them away because that race taught me something.

It taught me to run to the things that scare me to death instead of running away because when you run, you put even more distance between yourself and the solution to your problem. I’m in my 30s and only realizing this now. I had been running my entire life from the things I need most in my life. Maybe you have, too?

In high school, I hated running but it was my m.o. When school got hard, I skipped class and ran off with friends. When relationships grew rocky, I ran away from them. When my parents divorced, I ran away from home.

This worked well in theory until one morning I knew I couldn’t run from my problems anymore.

Staring at a positive pregnancy test at 17, I knew I couldn’t run. Nauseated, I realized something in that moment — there was another life depending on me. I had to face my biggest fear — myself. It didn’t matter whether I thought I was good enough as a person or as a mom, I had to try.

Knees quaking, I put one step in front of the other and walked into my future. It led my high school sweetheart and me to Kearney. Here, surrounded by row upon row of cornfields with a pink-and-purple sunset backdrop, I learned to run toward the answers, no matter how rough the terrain.

In this little town, God set the course that became the road where I discovered myself as I put one foot in front of the other.

I became a mother, a wife, a college student, employee and a home owner and eventually, the first person in five generations to graduate from high school and college.

Here, I became more than a runner, and it didn’t become clear to me until I ran my first half marathon.

Just minutes before the race, I pin on my number and smile for the camera. My oldest thinks I’ll die around mile 9 and my husband is impressed that I’m functioning without coffee. Who can drink coffee on a big day like this??? And I LOVE coffee…just saying.

I only entered the race to support my best friend and to get in shape. After all, I despised running. But the more I trained, the more I lived for the high of hitting each goal.

It also helped to pound my pink Brooks into the pavement. My dear, sweet husband thinks I look adorable in pink and bought me the shoes. But here’s the thing — I despise pink. I loathe it. If you see me in something pink, it’s because my husband bought it.

The day of the race, I found myself alone. My friend was injured and would be cheering for me from the stadium. I was surrounded by 10,000 strangers in runners’ gear and costumes, but I felt deserted as I thought about the 13.1 miles ahead of me. Running 13.1 miles just to do it sounds insane, crazy!

But then the crowd of runners started to move and thin out as they rounded the corner from the University of Nebraska — Lincoln. Miles of road stretched as far as I could see. The sides were lined with people cheering and holding up signs of encouragement, such as “Run like you stole something” or “You trained too hard to walk, MOVE IT.”

It’s fun for awhile, and the excitement, the music, the people help to shake off the jittery fear of not finishing. It takes your mind off how many miles are left. But by mile nine, I wondered if I could really do it.

Feet throbbing, hip hurting, I thought, “I could just stop running now,” but I couldn’t because I realized I wasn’t just a runner, I was a finisher.

Every struggle I had faced rolladecked through my mind as I remembered the mile after mile of training, routes created, early mornings and time away from family that led me to this moment.

Besides, I wanted to make sure I beat my pink shoes to a pulp.

As I rounded the corner at mile 11, Memorial Stadium came into view — pushing past the pain, I picked up the pace and began sprinting towards the finish line. The crowd’s cheers become a deafening roar as my shoes connected with the Astroturf and I sailed across the fifty yard line after running 2 hours and 32 minutes.

That moment made me realize, I wasn’t just a runner, I was a finisher. I was a marathoner.

Anyone can run. That part is supereasy, but facing the problems, working through mile and after mile — that’s what makes you strong.

The moments after were a blur of hugs with my husband, oldest daughter and friends. We celebrated with margaritas and tacos before limping home.

Will I do it again? Yes. But my new running shoes won’t be pink. Would I encourage someone else to do it? Absolutely. Do it!

Running a marathon isn’t about the miles, it’s about digging down to the core of who you are and drawing on the strength God gives you to put one foot in front of the other, no matter struggle nor the terrain.

The Tribe that Built Me

March 20, 2017 By Heather

We gather once a week. We circle up, each sharing the latest news, anecdotes about work, life, and kids. At one point, Cindy nicknamed our group The Tribe and it’s sort of stuck. If you’re part of a church you may know them by a different name, like life groups, small groups, or community groups. At first we were strangers but as we gather weekly, our stories become threads that weave into each other’s lives. These strangers are now my people. My truth tellers, my warriors, my problem solvers and middle of the night callers. This is my built in family.
This is the tribe that built me.
When I first met this group of women, I was a cynic. Past relationships with women were filled with land mines and battle scars but my life had become dry and barren. As a working mom I would have days that would go on for a life time.
I never made it out the door with matched socks and the kids were always late. It didn’t help my case when my kids would tell their teachers they were late because of my “drinking problem.” My problem is that I don’t function before at least three cups of coffee in the mornings. Try explaining that to your children’s teachers while wearing visibly mis-matched socks. I tell them, it’s still a thing.
And there’s only so much talking I could do with my kids and husband. The guy loves me but not when I try to use up all 40,000 words of things I need to say. Some of he doesn’t get. And really who can blame the guy when I want to talk about the magnitude of choosing the right paint color to create a warm home. And the kids? They didn’t understand the pressure to pick the right shade of green but rather they told me to pick the color of grass green and move on.
So when I was invited to join this group of women, I imagined tortuous moments of stale tiny sandwiches and dissecting the book of Judges which would likely put me to sleep.
But what I found was a group of women all new to each other and the conversations became battering ram revelations that began to take down the fortress around my life. We talked about love and hope, parenting and marriage, redemption and miracles.
The expectations I had about friendships began to change as I came face to face with the real kind. It turns about behind the idea of real community are real life women willing to link arms and do life together if you let them. But that’s the thing, the secret to having a friend is being a friend. The secret to being accepted is acceptance and the secret to getting past someone’s defenses is taking down your own.
This, for me, has been the challenge: to boldly welcome others into the mess that is me. The chance to find real community is to be the real me.
Why don’t we believe that? We insist to our kids they can be loved by being their beautiful selves; but then why do we tell our grown up selves in order to be liked and loved, we have to be the most interesting, the most successful, or the most beautiful? Maybe the surest way to build friendships is to take a deep breath and plunge into the mess.
These days, my tribe and I do life together, we pick each other up when life throws curve balls like the sex talk in fourth grade, when a spouse announces divorce, or when we lament at $500 bill because we hit the trash can backing out of the drive way or we’ve been so busy doing and being and living that we have no clue what it’s like to be our real selves, so we rally for a girls night out.
But that’s a risk right? It’s to risk sharing life, being real. It’s vulnerability. It’s brave.

Heather Riggleman is a child of the Mid-West and a coffee addict without a recovery plan. She is a full-time mother of three, author, and journalist. She is learning to accept the mess after chasing perfect for too many years.
heather.riggleman@kearneyhub.com
@HeatherRig

Build Bridges–Not Barriers

March 15, 2017 By Heather

I think I suffered friendship PTSD this past weekend.

At least that’s what a friend Lisa Jo Baker calls it. She recently wrote a book “Never Unfriended,” and has spent thousands of hours being held hostage to the worry of friendships.

If you’ve never experienced gut punches from careless comments and words, then you didn’t experience the terror of middle school as an awkward preteen or the attacks, rants and riots before and after the election.

Words have the power to build up and tear down. Words have the ability to initiate change, affect a community or speak truths. It’s one of the reasons why I love my word-weaving job.

Words have the ability to create hope, and they have the ability to wound someone so deeply, they may never make it back.

For this very reason, I teach my three children the wielding the tongue is not for the faint of heart. And it’s something I’m mindful of at all times, especially on social media.

Little did I realize gnashing of teeth would ensue when I posted my delight about the introduction of vouchers for private education. We have kids in both Kearney Public Schools and at Faith Christian School.

Imagine my surprise when teachers, parents, grandparents and employees sent private emails and posted snarky, rude comments. But it wasn’t just this issue, some attacked us for asking about reviews of the new box office movie “The Shack” or dismay because Disney has a gay moment in the new movie “Beauty and the Beast.” Others lashed out about being narrow-minded as a Bible-believing mother.

So here’s the thing, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts with outrage and genuine concern about the simplest things turning into a debate — whether it’s gay Disney, arguments of whether “The Shack” is biblical or new age, pro-vaccination versus anti-vax, private education vouchers, or what dishwasher you want to buy. It makes me question the motive. Is it because we want to control the outcome that we forget only God can move into the spaces and hearts our opponents?

Are we so blinded by the frustration and anger in our own lives that we forget there is a real human person on the other side of that screen?

Have we forgotten that there are real people with real lives who have experiences different than our own?

Would the words dripping with venom leave our tongues if we were sitting down to have dinner together? Are you listening to the tone of your words or how your actions are perceived? Would you approach it differently?

A friend wrote to his friends and family: “I want to challenge everyone to be careful of what we say and how we say it. We should ask, ‘Are the things I say building bridges between me and people? And therefore between people and Jesus?’”

Many times, the way that these issues are talked about on Facebook don’t build bridges, but instead build barriers.

Facebook is a wide audience for what you say and how you say it. Are you communicating your love for them? Are they experiencing grace through your words? It’s OK to hold to different opinions; in fact, it’s encouraged, but the words you speak about it matter. They can bring people life and they can further people’s pain or create tension.”

Can we be bridge builders or will we use the power of the tongue to tear another person down?