The trees are swayin’ a bit in the breeze this morning, encouraging their leaves to just let go already.

I’m guessing that we’re in for more seasonable fall-like temperatures around these parts, instead of the beach weather that we’ve had the past few days which has not only been wreaking havoc with my hair but also encouraging some of my people to be just a little more irritable than usual.

I’m including myself in this latter group.

I had hoped to be recording vocals for my newest set of songs this Fall and so far, I’m on schedule. I spent a good two hours yesterday afternoon “in the studio” as they say, but my studio is a home studio without any fancy climate-controls, and turning on a fan to cool the room down when you’re trying to record is most decidedly not a good idea.

So yeah. Eighty degrees? Closer to ninety, actually.

But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Because the only way to make your way is to show up, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

This is how records get made and how the dishes get washed. This is how friendship is sealed and how relationships get healed. This is how refugees find refuge and dreamers find hope.

When we show up and do what we have to do, no matter how uncomfortable it is, no matter how hard it is or how hurt we know we’re going to feel or how crazy-difficult it will be, we change the world a bit.

And life can get incredibly difficult. Way more difficult than suffering through a couple of hours’ heat in a recording session.

Life throws pain and suffering at us and we mostly treat it as if we were still in elementary school and this is some sort of horrific dodge ball game.

We dodge. Avoid. Run. Hide.

Anything to avoid being hit. Anything to dodge the pain.

Over-work, over-eat, over-exercise, over-commit, over-anything. Run and don’t forget to duck by ignoring whatever’s not under your nose.

By all means keep running because if you stop – if you show up – you’ll get hit.

But we’re not in some crazy dodge ball game with suffering, and avoiding life’s painful moments doesn’t save us at all.

Because it’s only when we decide to show up and catch the ball, when we’re willing to see the suffering and say that yes, this hurts, this is uncomfortable and this is painful – but I choose to stay and be uncomfortable in order to do what I have to do.

I choose the dis-comfort so that I can bring His comfort.

I choose to show up to say I’m sorry. Choose to ask how I can help. Choose to sit with someone in their pain, because this is what we need to do for each other, what we need to be willing to do for each other, if we want to make our way.

And when we’re finally willing to be uncomfortable with each other and for each other, when we’re willing to show up and sit with the other in their pain and in their struggle, when we’re willing to do what we have to do to help, we change the world.

One uncomfortable situation at a time.

The light is quite pretty this morning. The breeze is, frankly, delicious. The forecast, I have found out thanks to the internet, is for much milder temperatures today.

As I sit watching the leaves and the light and the trees, I give thanks for this moment of peace, this moment of comfort.

This moment of grace.

I know it will pass, just as yesterday’s ninety degrees passed. Know that sooner or later I will need to show up not somewhere comfortable, but somewhere painful. But the only way to make your way is to show up, this I know.

No matter how uncomfortable it may be.

~xo,
LuAnne