Tag: Life

Life

Grieving and Sermons on Friendship

Taia Jo

Do you have those days where you wake up excited just knowing in your heart it’s going to be a good day and then something happens that catches you off guard and crushes your excited spirit.  That was me today.  Despite waking up late I got ready in record speed and was in just a wonderful mood and so excited to start the day by serving at church this morning.  Even as I was walking into the volunteer meeting I was greeted by a very friendly (and stylish) woman who was also racing in and was so warm and welcoming to me despite not even knowing me.  The morning volunteer meeting had concluded and I’m going over my role as the online host for the live stream for Mercy Road Anderson.  I was still feeling so good and decided to check my phone and turn it on do not disturb as the countdown for service was happening.  That’s when I saw it, one of my friends of almost 15 years had passed away.  My heart sank, I felt like I was going to pass out and thought there was no way this could be real life, I had to be dreaming.  

As I was holding back tears I remembered I had a job to do and had to continue going over things for the role I was serving today.  The worship portion of service ends and that’s when I realize that Pastor Mark’s sermon is on friendship.  My heart sank once again and I had to work even harder to not burst into a ball of tears in the production room in front of all of these (very kind and welcoming) men who do not know me at all.  I started to get upset because of all the days to serve, I have to serve after hearing this news AND sit through a sermon on friendship.  I knew that was not the right attitude to have while serving others at church so I used all my skills of disassociating I’ve gained the last 33 years and pushed through to focus on the task at hand.  (Side note: I’m not saying that was the healthiest approach either but I was in survival mode and had to do what I had to do at that very moment.)

Once the first service ended I felt like I could breathe a little and then remembered I had to also be the online host for the second service and my heart once again sank.  I couldn’t imagine sitting through this sermon again and this time without a co host sitting with me going over everything.  Again, I wrestled with why today? Why this topic? Today was supposed to be a good day.  Since I did not have a co host for the second service I REALLY had to pay attention to properly interact with those watching the live stream.  I again wrestled with not wanting to have to sit through and listen to this message a second time and how I just wanted to go home and cry on my golden retriever.

As I’m sitting through the second service though I actually had a huge change of heart.  I wasn’t disassociating but leaning in to my feelings (but not so much that I start bawling my eyes out.)  I realized that God still worked out all of this perfectly because he knew what the day was going to hold for me.  I started to think how I wouldn’t have been able to push through today if my day started off terrible and I started thinking about the impact that could have negatively had on the service today.  I knew if I wasn’t serving today I would have walked out of service the moment I knew it was on friendship because I would have told myself I couldn’t handle that sermon today.  I wouldn’t have experienced the revelation that this is just another way God meets us where we are, and we are capable of so much when we put our trust and our heartaches into his hands.

The first verse that was mentioned was one of my favorites and that was Proverbs 17:17 which reads “A friend loves at all times.”  This is a verse that even my non church going friends try to live by when it comes to friendships because it holds so much truth with so much simplicity.  I began to reflect on my sweet friend and how she truly lived this verse to the fullest with every single one of her friends.  Pastor Mark began to talk about how true friends love you through the good and the bad, they don’t let things like difference in opinion, race or political affiliations get in the way.  That made me smile because that was Heather’s whole outlook on friendship.  If you were a good person, and truly loved others she didn’t care about differences in opinion or political beliefs or religious/spiritual beliefs because she knew if you lead with love you were a good person at your core and someone she wanted to be surrounded by.  This moment brought so much peace and comfort to my hurting heart knowing I had a friend who was the core example of this.

Pastor Mark also said something that really stood out to me and that was that a friend doesn’t run away when trouble comes, they LEAN in.  Although I knew what this meant, God really spoke to me in a different way today.  When I was upset I was serving and couldn’t run out of service when it was on friendship I realized that I was not being a good friend and not properly processing and honoring my friendship with Heather.  God was calling me to lean into the pain and the grief today, so I could allow a space to feel peace and comfort knowing how blessed I was to call her a friend these last 15ish years. 

I’m still not sure where my head is at in processing the news of Heather’s passing.  What I do know is that God used the sermon today to bring me comfort and remind me what type of friend I want to strive to be.  A friend more like Heather who no matter what obstacles she faced, led with love, and set the example of what a friend is supposed to be.  I also am so incredibly thankful to go to a church where the pastor leans in to sermons God is laying on his heart and uses God’s voice as a guide to speak to his congregation.

Tonight I am left processing, grieving and cherishing the memories and conversations I’ve had with Heather over the years.  I am also remembering to let my friends know how much I cherish them and am challenging myself to become the best friend I can be in 2025.  I have some areas I need to improve and probably should try to take Pastor Mark’s advice on learning to just sit with my friends as Job’s friends did in his time of need and not always give my opinion and ”tough love first” approach.  My friends who I am close with realllllly know what I am saying in that last sentence.

If you get nothing else from reading this blog please remember this next part. Grief is a weird thing and we all handle/process grief differently. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to grieve. There isn’t a timetable of grief despite us trying to give ourselves one. There are things I will find comfort in my grieving process that others would never even look to, and vice versa. Grief impacts us all differently and that is okay. Today I needed to be at church serving a bigger purpose in the infancy of my grief, I needed to hear a sermon that was on friendship and very hard at times for me to listen to, and I needed to have lunch with my family afterwards to be surrounded by love. I needed to take that 3.5 mile hike at mounds to connect with nature and a peace only nature can bring, while feeling the comfort from my pup. I needed to come home and organize and deep clean my kitchen to give myself a sense of order and control and I needed to write about the whole process of events today so I can continue to process my grief tomorrow in a healthy way.

To my dear friend Heather,

Please know you have greatly impacted my life and left a permanent mark on my heart.  I will always strive to love as genuinely and as boldly as you did.  I will strive to always live in fierce strength and resilience just as you did, no matter how hard or how many times life knocks me down.  I hope you are at peace and I pray you know how loved you were on this side of earth and that you know just how many people you positively impacted.  The world is truly hurting without your presence and if anything positive can come from such tragedy I hope it is that we all strive to be compassionate, resilient, loving humans just like you.

Lifestyle

Living in the Bottom of the Canyon

Taia Jo

Tonight I was sitting in the closing service of Family Camp.  For those of you who don’t know, family camp is basically a week long church camp for families in simple terms.  My family has gone to this event generation after generation so it has just become a tradition for us to go every year.  It’s truly so much more than just a church camp for the whole family but you have to actually go to Fairmount Wesleyan Campground to truly understand the significance.  If you are ever in the central Indiana area during the end of July I highly encourage you to experience family camp even if it’s just for one night.

Tonight during the closing service the speaker/pastor Nathan Metz was telling a story about how he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and explained the phenomenon of how if you spend enough time at the bottom of a canyon you begin to feel like the bottom is ground level.  I knew exactly what he was talking about because I experienced that myself when I hiked Bryce Canyon.  I remember the hike down was fairly quick, I didn’t even realize how far down I was going into the canyon.  

When we had started our hike at ground level it was quite chilly but once we got down to the canyon we were shedding layers because it was so warm.  I started to become comfortable in the bottom of the canyon and started to tell myself I didn’t want to come back out because I didn’t want to face the colder weather or the grueling hike out.

The bottom of Bryce Canyon became comfortable, a place I didn’t want to leave.  When it was time to make our hike back up I truly did not think I was going to make it.  That is still the hardest hikes I have experienced to date.  My asthma with the elevation changes I was convinced was going to kill me and the temperature change also added a unique challenge.  I remember I kept (semi) jokingly saying out loud “God take me now, I am not going to make it back out of this Canyon”.  Everything in me wanted to just stop and set up camp in the bottom of that canyon, I did not feel I had the strength to come back up.  

I started shifting my plea to ask God to just take me now and ended up praying for Him to give me strength to make it back to the surface.  There were older couples, couples with kids etc that lapped me on my hike in and out of the canyon and I truly could not believe how fast they got down and back out.

Nathan’s story resulted in me reflecting on my own experience of that same phenomenon.  His statement of “being in the bottom of the canyon begins to feel like ground level” really made me reflect on a few things.  I stopped to think how we as humans allow rock bottom in life to become our ground level.  How often do we let our anxiety, depression, addiction, feelings of being inadequate keep us in the bottom of the canyon?  I stopped and asked myself if it is so hard for us to get out of that rock bottom, that bottom of that canyon because we stop seeing it as the bottom and see it solely as our ground level?  

We accept those things as our baseline and as a result become content with those things controlling our lives.  We develop such a skewed idea of ground level that we do not realize God is calling us to think outside the walls of the canyon.  We are not meant to see the canyon walls as mountains but we allow ourselves to remain in our pity party in the bottom because we have altered our reality and think those walls are mountains that are there to protect us on ground level.  The thing about canyon walls is that they are so large we become isolated, from friends, God and life in general.

So then I further sat there contemplating the idea of being in the bottom of a canyon and that being my new ground level.  I wondered if accepting this new ground level is what results in us feeling empty?  Has it caused us to have a broken relationship with God?  Has living in the bottom of that canyon allowed our spirits to die?  Have we become totally blind to even being in a place that we need to hike out of?

I then circled back to thinking about those who climbed down and out of that canyon at such a faster pace than myself.  As I was trying to figure out why I kept thinking about that I felt God speak to me again.  He reminded me that just like everyone hikes at different paces and difficulties we cannot compare our life journey to others.  Some people come out of the bottom of their canyon faster than others, but it doesn’t make the slower process less of an accomplishment.

What matters is that we stop living in the comfort zone of pain, suffering and sin and choose to climb back out of the canyon.  We choose to no longer accept the bottom as our new ground level.  No matter how long that hike out takes us, the important thing is that we have taken our life back (with God’s help) and the victory is in coming back to the true ground level.  Allowing us to come out of those canyon walls that have isolated us from everyone we love, the walls that isolate us from God and further separate us from what he desires for our lives, the same canyon walls that lie to us that all of these things that make up so many hardships in life are ground level.

We do not have to live a life full of constant pain and suffering.  The bottom of the canyon we are living in does not need to be our new ground level.  We can come back to the surface and start living a life on our true ground level.  It’s not to say hardships won’t still happen in our life or that we won’t experience pain or suffering.  What it means is that we are no longer accepting that as a permanent baseline, and that ground level is so much more beautiful than the delusion of the canyon we’ve learned to become comfortable in.

Life

All Too Well

Taia Jo

Earlier this week I was doing a 60 minute cardio set to a Taylor Swift playlist.  For this set you are supposed to build up your pace for the first 40ish minutes and then once “All Too Well (10 minute version)” you go to a running pace.  At first I thought this was a weird running song because it’s sad and slow, however I went with it because that was part of the set and I like to follow the rules.

If you’ve heard this song I am sure it affects you like it does for most people.  It sends memories flooding back of a former romance that just left you permanently scarred.  As I was at that 40 minute point in this cardio set (attempting) to run I started to have various visuals popping up.  I started to think of “that romance” that truly took several (and I mean SEVERAL) years to be completely healed from, I also started thinking of old friendships that are no longer.  As I was running it was like I could literally see several screens playing various moments in my life that left those deep scars that took so long to heal.

While more of these screen visuals were presenting themselves I found myself getting frustrated and trying to run faster by increasing my treadmill speed to break those images from my view.  I truly felt like I was the subject in a music video for the song because those visuals of my life on the screens were so vivid.  I became incredibly out of breath, decided to slow down and just lean into this sensation because maybe God was trying to show me something.  Which, when you stop long enough to say that, the thought barely finishes before God makes his message known.  

Although I truly (and finally) feel at peace with those various scenarios being replayed, I realized just how exhausting it was holding on to those hurts all those years.  No matter how fast I would try to run from them in my life, just like running on the treadmill I would be stuck exhausted and running in place, getting nowhere fast.  Once I learned to let go and heal from those things, my growth took off.  I did not feel stuck in a rut or in that never ending cycle of bad things happening that I felt like I could never truly break.  When I let go I was actually able to see what those situations were able to teach me.  Most importantly, when I learned to let go of hurts I felt a weight lifted off of me.

Now, I only get that “exhausted” feeling when I have been focusing on myself and the areas of my life and/or relationships I can improve in.  However, it is a different type of exhausted, it’s rewarding, not draining or discouraging.  I really hope we can all learn to remember those hurts “All Too Well” without getting stuck living in said hurts.

When we fixate on those hurts and choose to live in them, it allows those hurts to dictate our lives.  By dictating our lives, it determines how we grow or if we will stay in that rut of hurt.  It’s okay and important to feel the hurts and lean into those hurts so we can one day reflect on them.  After all, there is no growth without pain, but there is also no growth when we let ourselves live in the constant playback of said pain.  Don’t allow your life to become a constant playback of hurt, running in the same place worn down and exhausted.

Travel

Hocking Hills Hiking Trip

Taia Jo

I feel like the numbers 2020 have forever scarred us all.  However, thanks to the lock down I had more time on my hands to take up new hobbies.  One of those hobbies was hiking.  I have truly fallen in love with hiking any chance I get.  I prefer to hike mountains but I’ll accept flat state parks with a gorgeous view.  It not only provides me physical activity but it provides a mental break for me.  I have come to the point where if I go too long without hiking my body and soul crave it immensely.  I feel I get that similar sensation when I reach the top of a mountain and I am just sitting there reflecting on how far I had to go to get to the top and all of God’s marvelous creation below me, usually with a snack or two in hand.

In 2022 I went on 3 hiking trips and this year I hope to increase that number.  The last trip I was able to take for the year was a quick weekend trip to Hocking Hills, Ohio.  I wasn’t sure what type of hiking we would encounter but living in Indiana I had heard so much about Hocking Hills I knew I needed to check it out.  The nice thing about Hocking Hills is that there is truly a trail for everyone, no matter your age or experience.  

My gal pal and I decided to go the first weekend of November knowing it wouldn’t be too cold but in theory thinking there would be a small crowd.  We could not have been more wrong, despite Hocking Hills being incredibly popular it was a random 75+ sunny day.  The crowds were a lot larger than we anticipated but we still made the most of it.  To help avoid some of those crowds (and children) I highly suggest getting there first thing in the morning to check out the popular trails and then as the day goes on head to the less popular trails for a more tranquil hiking experience.  

It is helpful to stop in at the visitor center in the park.  The employees are very helpful and actually give good recommendations for trails based on your experience level and the type of scenery you want to see most.  I was hoping to give a great recommendation on all of the trails we hiked but (whether good or bad) there is very little cell phone service in Hocking Hills, meaning my All Trails app only logged 0.08 of our hike and resulting in me not able to save the trails we were on (side note that may have been a good indication it is time to upgrade to the paid app).  I did not realize it was not still tracking at the time or I would have written down the trails.  I can say that I know we did old man’s cave and Ash cave as 2 of the trails we went on that day.

Old man’s cave is a really cool trail because it has a nice variety of scenery and multiple points you can hop off and on for different trails.  We hopped off one of the less traveled trails and it had quite a bit of a variety of terrain.  The elevation wasn’t super crazy so if you aren’t used to hiking in high elevation it is a great park to start your hiking endeavors.  We also explored the Cantwell Cliffs trail.  This trail had a lot of tight spaces with steep inclines but the water falls and cliff formations were absolutely stunning.  I wish the leaves would have still been on the trees when we went but I am excited to go back when it is green.  I also cannot wait to explore more trails the next time I go and see if we can increase our mileage.  

To save money my friend and I decided to use my equinox as a tent and embark on some car camping.  Since neither of us had a tent and there was a chance of rain this seemed to be the best option.  I ordered an air mattress made for an SUV (will link at the end of this post) and we packed sleeping bags and pillows, along with a holder for our ipad with a suction cup to stick to the back window.  It did rain off and on so this was such a nice alternative as opposed to a tent with a rain tarp and hoping we assembled it all correctly.  It was also nice because we felt a lot safer as we could lock ourselves in the car.  I found a little private property in Altenbrauch farm that rents out campsites about 15 minutes from hocking hills, through the website hipcamp.  

This campsite had fire pits set up at each camp ground and you can request wood ahead of time.  They also provide a tent if you request it ahead of time.  The downfall is that you probably would not want to spend more than a night or two here as there is only a cold solar powered shower and a portapotty.  So if you are not into using one of those, taking a cold shower/going without or peeing in the woods probably is not the campsite for you.  However, I do highly encourage you to use the hipcamp website or app as it is basically an air bnb for camping.  We spent about $20 each for our campsite and the extra wood we purchased ahead of time from the host.  I would probably bring my own wood next time to save money but I hadn’t even had my car for a month and I wasn’t willing to put wood in it.

If you have been debating if a trip to Hocking Hills is worth it I am here you tell you yes.  You will not be disappointed.  If you have to drive through or near Columbus to get to Hocking Hills you absolutely need to stop at Tase Cafe.  They had the most phenomenal banana bread french toast.  The mimosas were the perfect ratio of champagne and orange juice.  Not to mention you can get your coffee spiked with bourbon.  There isn’t a whole lot of seating but if it would have been a smidge warmer we would have taken advantage of the seating on the patio.  It is tucked away on a side street in downtown Columbus.  The staff are incredibly friendly and there is a wide variety of food on the menu.  You will NOT be disappointed. 

To shop my air mattress as well as some of my favorite hiking essentials follow my link here

Life

30=Lonely

Taia Jo

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and I haven’t blogged in a while.  I’ve been doing some journaling but haven’t publicly written anything so I thought maybe I need to share and whoever needs to read this will see it.  I turned 30 in August and I was very nervous about it leading up to it.  Everyone told me 30 is a blast and I will love my 30’s.  If we are being honest I have not enjoyed 30 at all, it’s been a very hard year emotionally and it’s not even over yet.  I’m hopeful the rest of my 30’s will be better and maybe this first year in my 30’s is preparing me for a wonderful decade but right now I hate it.  

30 has by far been the LONELIEST year I’ve lived so far.  Adult friendships are hard to navigate because we are all on different schedules but if we are being honest, I don’t even feel like that’s the main issue.  My friends and I are all in very different places in our lives and it shows.  I genuinely feel like my time and place in all of my friendships is no longer warranted or needed.  I feel incredibly alone in my life and I don’t know how to break past that.  My friends are always too busy to make plans with me yet can always make plans with their couple friends, work friends etc.  I feel like every friend in my life I have to pull their teeth to spend time with me and something still comes up that they bail last minute.  I have always been very blessed with amazing friends but 30 has completely flipped that upside down.  Between having a need to feel like I have to take care of everyone, and always tending to isolate myself when I’m not in a good place mentally I have had a very hard time accepting this reality.  I’m not married nor do I have a boyfriend, I don’t have kids, I don’t have roommates so I am very much alone with my dogs.  Don’t get me wrong I like living alone but this is the first time in my life I feel truly lonely.  

I know for a fact if I didn’t text my friends to even attempt to hang out with them, they wouldn’t even notice that I hadn’t been around.  Let me tell y’all that is a VERY hard pill to swallow.  I’ve always struggled with not letting people know when I need them or need help and I will say this has just made that worse.  How do you not fall into those unhealthy habits when you truly feel you only have yourself and you aren’t needed in anyone’s life?  Obviously I’m counting my family out of this, I am very blessed to have a family that loves me and never misses an opportunity to tell each other we love them.

I don’t know how to move past this, or accept this stage in life, I truly don’t.  I have cried more at the age of 30 than I can ever recall.  I’m just praying that I have a change of heart and can be okay with this and find a way to enjoy my 30’s.  I keep telling myself this won’t last forever and maybe God will place friends in my life that need my friendship as much as I need theirs.  I miss feeling like I belong and I don’t know how to get that back, but maybe I’m not supposed to.  Adult friendships are a million times harder but effort has to be put in on both sides to make it work.

I hope that my friends know I love them and they will always have a place in my life, even if I don’t have one in theirs.  I am just really struggling with this season of life and I pray God brings some friends in my life soon because I cannot handle the loneliness much longer and I fear I will just shut everyone out to protect myself.  I truly hope nobody else is feeling this way in life.  However if you are, please know you aren’t alone and my heart truly hurts for yours.  If you are very confident in your friend group and know where you belong do not take that for granted.  Show your friends your appreciation for them and never make them feel like they aren’t important in your life.

Who knew 30 would equal loneliness?  I can tell you I did not.         

Uncategorized

Snowy Monday

Taia Jo

Today Denny and I went on a very brisk lunch break walk.  The snow was falling and it honestly was the last thing I wanted to do, but we haven’t been on one in a while and I felt guilty not doing it.  So we walked while the snow was falling and the cold was hitting my face.  About 3 minutes into our walk I felt a sense of relief, because for the first time in weeks I felt something besides sadness and numbness.  It wasn’t a pleasant feeling but in a twisted way it made me feel happy to at least be feeling something.  I think that’s something people get wrong with depression. Self harm isn’t always about wanting to die or feeling like you deserve to be in pain, sometimes it’s simply just so you know you’re capable of feeling more than numbness and sadness.  Now I don’t need anyone running over here to check on me because I am very fortunate to have never felt the need to do that, I’m just saying…I get it.

All my life I’ve been told that I’m the strong one, the one everyone goes to for their problems, the always optimistic one. I won’t lie, I love those things about myself but those great qualities have also been the source of my toxic traits.  That idea that I am those things to other people has somehow wired me to think that I can’t have bad days or feel sad or have moments where I feel hopeless.  Like it’s okay for everyone else to feel that way, but if I feel that way I’m weak and I’m not really who I say I am.  If I try to communicate those things to friends those same “traits” about me get thrown back in my face and I’m left learning to deal with things alone, to suffer in silence so to speak. I know people don’t say those things to be harmful and I know it comes from a good place but it has helped shape the negative way with how I deal with things.

I’ve cried more in the last 3 weeks than probably all of 2020 combined. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t sleep well, my anxiety dreams are out the roof and I can only take like 3 bites of everything I try to eat. The more I try to control ANYTHING in my life the more it feels like life spirals out of control. Which results in more anxiety and more depression because you feel like you don’t have a grip on anything, and you can’t possibly explain to anyone what’s going on.

The hardest part is when you finally get the courage to be vulnerable and ask for help just for someone to downplay what you are feeling or to be “too busy” to be there for you. So it further proves this terrible mindset that the only person you need and can depend on…is yourself. So you keep suffering in silence year after year pretending your mental health isn’t an issue, and shouldn’t be an issue because after all you are the strong optimistic one who everyone goes to for advice and their problems.

They say good things fall apart so better things can fall together and that God has to let things get messy to prepare you into the next chapter of who he has called you to be. I sure hope those things are true because I think my eyes are going to just be giant scabs from all the tears I’ve shed if things don’t lighten up soon. I know he hasn’t forgotten about me but, it sure feels like he has more important things going on.

I’ve done a lot of learning and a lot of growing in the last two years and just when I think maybe I’m going to get a break it seems something else happens and I’m back in this hard, dark, learning process.  When I’m struggling I always joke with my friends and say “In the words of John Mayer, bad things never have good timing”.  That way I can move on and not talk about whatever it is I’m dealing with.  However, those lyrics are honestly so true, like one bad thing can’t happen on its own it’s a trickle effect that continues to go until you finally find the energy and the strength to change it.  Maybe change it isn’t the right phrase, maybe it should be more of the energy to approach those bad things differently.  

I’m slowly learning that sometimes it’s okay to not be okay, it’s okay to let others see that you are human and struggle just like everyone else.  It’s okay that things that normally wouldn’t bother you currently do or hurt more than you expected because you’ve already been hurting in silence.  Let people in and don’t face things alone especially when it comes to your mental health.  If someone is coming to you about something going on, be more receptive to those warning signs and their behaviors towards you.  They may be screaming for help but have no idea how to ask for it.