My Friend, Hygge (Part 2)

I love winter. The Hygge. I love the candles, the pumpkin spice, the peppermint mochas. I love the wind. The rain. The rain gear.

 

I love snow. How it covers dirty places, so that all is pure white. How light reflects off icicles, shimmering like a million diamonds.

 

I love how falling snowflakes muffle noise, transforming a street into a cathedral of quiet.

 

However, all good things are best in moderation. I discovered many hidden gifts in my winter of the soul. Infertility, dark and cold became my hushed cathedral. And I’m forever grateful for that season. I wouldn’t trade it for a tropical climate of perfect sunny days. I’m thankful Hygge and I restored harmony, but eventually my soul needed spring.  Of course, God was faithful.

In June 2003, Mark and I adopted a one year old girl. Rachel, was the answer to our prayers, the joy of our life! It was a summer of basking in light and enjoying fruit that tastes sweetest after a long wait.  

However, on both ends of this delightful season, we had several crises including both Mark’s parents simultaneously battling cancer. Mark’s dad died a year before Rachel joined our family, and his mom passed almost two years later, seven months after we welcomed our baby. Along with the grueling process of death and the grief of our loss,  we had extra self inflicted stressors.

Following Audrey’s death, two year old in tow, we moved closer to our work and started a major home renovation. Our kitchen lay in a heap of rubble in the backyard within hours of taking possession of our newly purchased home.

I took a literature course, and Mark recorded an album. Our day jobs continued. Mark was working at a busy church while I tutored English. If that wasn’t enough, we also launched a vacation rental business, complete with purchasing everything from beds and sofas, to lamps and linens.  

One dark, winter night at the peak of the shopping frenzy, with our first tenant taking possession in a few days, my body screamed, “STOP!”

“That’s it! You just aren’t listening to me! If you won’t choose rest, I’m forcing it on you.”  Burnout and depression moved in. But with it came stillness, naps and classical music. Fortunately, Hygge came too. Lots of rest. Lots of playing with my little girl. She brought her toy cars and little ponies to my bed. The white duvet supplied snowy mountains and valleys, the perfect setting for all manner of drama.

About two years later, I suffered my first hyper thyroid illness. Hyperthyroidism is a condition where your thyroid propels your hormones and organs into overdrive. It’s like your body is running a perpetual marathon. Eventually the body reaches exhaustion and suffers burnout, complicated by chaos in various body systems.

As a result of these two illnesses, I learned to practice self care. I learned to take a Sabbath. To pace myself. Hygge became my indispensable companion. However, I didn’t realize my body wasn’t just resisting the pace and the big life stressors. My mind was a very noisy place, even hostile. But I wouldn’t realize that until a few years later.

I gradually took on more activity and responsibility as my strength returned. Spring returned to my soul. In 2009, Mark and I both felt I had fully recovered and we chose to pursue a lifelong dream. To live and work in Africa.  

Living in Rwanda, I had to learn a new way of doing everything from bathing to cooking, to teaching English, to communicating. Through this process, it seemed like someone turned up the volume of my soul so that thoughts and beliefs buried deep in my subconscious suddenly rang loud and clear.

I quickly realized I was terribly anxious that I was slower than every person who had ever adjusted to a new culture. I compared my progress in acquiring language and African life skills with other expats I met. And the comparisons didn’t end in the adjustment period. Soon I was comparing my contributions to those of my peers.  

One Sunday afternoon, as I lay on my bed trying to nap, I realized that even when my body was still, there was no escaping the treadmill of my racing mind.

At the warmth of the equator, God kindly intervened by bringing me into another winter of the soul, my second hyperthyroid attack. This episode was accompanied by debilitating anxiety, depression and even insomnia. It doesn’t sound like a nice gift, and I didn’t appreciate it until much later.

This debilitating weakness served as a snowstorm, muffling all the external noise so I was finally able to decipher the voices in my head.

The voices told me, “You’re not doing enough. You’re too slow, you’re inefficient Just get up and do something and you’ll forget you’re tired.”

“You rest more than other people, a nap everyday! Seriously? You’re so lazy.”

“Other people think you’re lazy.”

“Other people think you’re not contributing, so you’re pathetic.”

“You are worth less than all these other people.”  

“You are worthless.“

Then one morning in the shade of my porch, as I read my Bible, God’s voice rose above the din of the debilitating self criticism.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”

Derives its name. Name is all about identity. Every family derives its name from the Father. If every family derives its name from the Father, then every person also derives her name from the Father.  

I heard God’s gentle voice saying, “You, my dear, derive your name, your identity from many voices in your head. The voices of criticism far back in childhood. The imaginary voices of people here and now. Critical voices who don’t even know you or care about you, your purpose, your design. You have given all these voices authority to name you, but the only person who truly has authority to name you, is me.”  

The next phrase to jump out at me, was “being rooted and established in love.” I realized I was floundering because I was a flower that had been transplanted in a new location. Without my friends and family who understood me, without my history and reputation to stand on, I had wilted.  

God said, “You are rooted and established in love.”

I heard him telling me, “You don’t need accomplishments or approval to have value. Your value, your identity is established by the name I’ve given you. And my name for you comes from love that is wider, longer, higher, and deeper than you can imagine.”

This truth has been revolutionary.  

It’s not like those nasty voices just went away. I’ve had to silence them again and again by speaking God’s words. “My identity comes from the Father.” Other people have no authority to name me. My Father knows me. He loves me.

The way he perceives me is more true than the way I see myself or the way others see me.

Jesus painted a word picture, portraying himself as a shepherd. He said, “The sheep listen to [the shepherd’s] voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Yet I had been giving more weight to the voices of strangers than to the voice of my shepherd. I had given more weight to the lies that swirled in my head than to the voice of my Shepherd.  

I had a hard time distinguishing between the critical voices and my Shepherd’s gentle voice. I needed to take time to hear my Shepherd’s voice, my Shepherd’s words.

Hygge was making space for me to listen to the voices. With Hygge, the stillness taught me to distinguish the harsh self talk from my heavenly Father’s voice. The Father’s voice was gentle, even with correction. Declaring my true identity – his daughter.

Beloved.

Chosen.

Forgiven.

Winter stillness had hushed the external noise. And, like a good friend, Hygge entered winter’s quiet cathedral, nudging me to give God’s words more weight than the other words in my head.

 

BIBLE READING

Ephesians 3:15-18; John 10:1-15; Ephesians 1; Romans 8

PONDERING

How is your life pace? Is your body sending you warning signals? Do you have space in your week to be still and listen? If not, ask yourself why.

What does your self talk sound like? Do the voices in your head align with Jesus’ words and voice? Or are they harsh and critical?

What has shaped your identity? Is it primarily your work, family relationships, friendships? Your past? Have any of these usurped God’s authority to name you, to determine your identity?

Pay attention to the voices in your head. Make space this week to be still, to listen, and ask God for his perspective on your identity. Romans 8 and the book of Ephesians are great places to listen for the identity God has given you.

As the weather changes, enjoy some hygge.

Light candles, play your favourite music. Listen.

Read a book, journal. Listen.

Share coffee with a friend. Listen.