Today’s post takes us to another place special to me, Mo Ranch. The views there are breathtaking. The ranch is literally in the heart of Texas, and so much about it’s architecture and scenery, especially when the wild flowers are in bloom, captures the heart of this great state that I’ve been proud to call home for all my life (except for a brief glorious stint in New Jersey, of course). Last week, I shared the magic that happened for me on a visit back to Princeton. Magic happens closer to home, too.

I don’t have nostalgia for Mo Ranch the way I do for Princeton. I’ve been to the ranch many times. Heard so many great speakers. Learned so many new things. Laughed so hard. Felt my heart just about burst watching light bulbs go off for young people in their life of faith. But perhaps because Mo Ranch is closer to home, I have a more complicated relationship with it. It’s a camp and conference center operated by the denomination in which I’m ordained. A denomination I’ve been a member of all my life, but with whom I also have a complicated relationship. Hard conversations about the future of the church have taken place in these meeting rooms. For all the things that inspired me from these podiums, I’ve heard some that bewilder me. For all the laughs shared in these rooms, I’ve also left discouraged. It’s a beautiful but not always easy place to be, like so much of life close to home.

Last summer I was drawn to Mo Ranch for the Women’s Conference. I traveled and roomed with one of my best friends and fellow writers. We went to hear one of my favorite authors and speakers from the Frederick Buechner Writer’s Workshop the summer before, but it only took four hours to get to her this time. The theme of the conference was “My Story is Worth Telling; Your Story is Worth Hearing.” So many great stories from the Bible, from famous leaders, from fellow attendees were told in those few days. But the magic happened in a workshop led by pastor and blogger Marci Auld Glass. I didn’t know Marci, still don’t really. But the Spirit blew through the workshop she led about writing our stories. I dreamt about this blog again. I had left a job I loved for eleven years just two weeks prior. I was practicing introducing myself as a stay at home mom for the first time and trying not to put the word “just” in front of that honorable title. In that workshop, I felt like there were new adventures on my horizon, old dreams that could be picked up and pursued again, and I felt inspired.  So much so, I wrote a surprisingly personal piece AND felt led to read it aloud to a room full of strangers.

The prompt is “if you could relive a day in your past, what would it be?”  We had seven minutes to respond which means I really had to go with the first thing that popped into my head. What showed up on the page surprised me. This is a memory mostly of joy and love; one I do not look on with regret. But the big picture of my reflection on this day hits close to home. My idea of how this day could have gone differently is really about the person I want to be.  Strong. Present. Fully engaged. In charge of who I am and where I am going. I am that person sometimes. I’m also too often standing by, a passive participant in my own story.

So here are my first unedited thoughts about what day in my past I would relive, jotted down in seven minutes in spiral notebook.

“If I could relive a day in my past, it would be the day my daughter was born. I was in a fog, overwhelmed by the magnitude of it and by drugs. I’d gone in early in the morning and she arrived barely on that same day, late in the night, and under duress, with the help of forceps. If I had it to do over again, I would have let myself feel the intensity of those contractions longer before requesting the epidural. I would have demanded my husband let me hold her sooner despite the violent trembling that overtook me after she was finally born. I would fight my way through that fog to be fully present to her in those first beautiful moments. I would weep for joy. 

I have allowed myself to live too much of my life in a fog, detached, not fully present, avoiding pain and continuing to choose whatever soothing I can find. But I have also been robbed of joy. In trying not to let the pain leak out, I have held back too many happy tears.”

See what I mean? As Rob Bell says, “this is really about that.” Birth-days are all about family, about creating a home in our houses and our hearts, about labor and pain giving birth to joy and new life. In other words, births are complicated. This memory is beautiful, but it’s not easy. Like life.

I believe in the theme of the Mo Ranch Women’s Conference. My story is worth telling.  Your story is worth hearing.  Will you please accept my challenge to sit down for just seven minutes with a pen and paper and answer, “if you could relive a day in your past, what would it be?”  Like last week, if your answer is brief enough, post it in the comments.  If it’s longer or you’d like to be selected for a guest post, please email it to shannon@lifeprompted.com