I Fall

Bought by the blood, kept by the power, art an adoration and yet- I worship self and I make a terrible god.  Why is it so hard to be obedient, remain in the state in which called?  Wise in my own eyes, I fall, and then by precious grace, the fight is won; adorned again in words not my own, pruned to bloom, I count it joy to lose that I may serve the work.

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

The Light

I want to write about it but I don't.  And I wonder if a lot of people are feeling that way.  There are words - but not enough and maybe, not the right ones.  I want to hope but I struggle.

Maybe, it's just pen to paper, heart to heart that heals.  Maybe, it's voice.  It's listening.  Sharing.  Cleaving.

I could be wrong but it seems I've seen much more faith based commentary, postings, stories, this time around - how sad to have to say, 'this time around' - and I think it's because they were children- babies, really.  Tiny.

My kids were with their dad this weekend and when the two little ones came home, I hugged them both, hard and looked at them.  I looked long at my five year old.  My kindergartner.  At how small she is. I think of how she wouldn't have been able to grasp, really, the evil.  Honestly, I can see that she would fear, but confusion, too, would have clouded.  Looking at her, I pray that it was quick and that they didn't have time to process.  The cruelty or the pain.  And I have to believe that God somehow miraculously overrode the darkness in those moments.  And that's what I'm seeing out there in the conversation we do and don't want to end - a new hope-filled discussion on God's presence and the afterlife.  Because when it's babies, we need a heaven.  I have to believe this because otherwise, it's too much.  It is too much right now for those families.

When Verity touched my face this morning with her little hand, just that size for a short time longer, the tears came for those who won't feel or hold the little hand of their child, won't experience that child's remarkable child-like forgiveness and glee.  How will they celebrate Christmas?  How? How do they tell the kids left, anymore, that the good guys always win?  The siblings.  The twin.  How do the nightmares go away?  And the missing?  I have no idea.

We are best when we are loving children.  I think our parent sides are the best sides of us.  And when we can't protect our children  ....when the President spoke these words, and told us we all needed to help, my cynicism wanted to sneer,  no, I'm not trusting the village anymore because one person gets it wrong and this what you have.  But then the stories are there of those beautiful teachers who are martyrs and I know that children can bring out in us what is of God.  God is a father.  And a mother.  And I have to trust somehow that in the majority of us is that God given light.  And that it has more power than the darkness in one.

Could we be a multitude of light?  Are we sick yet of the dark?

This Christmas, let's bring back the light of the world.

I haven't been here in far too long.  It feels weird.  This place, once so needed, now avoided.  Because I can't come to terms with what to say or how to say it, here, the same way, anymore.

And yes, it's true.  Writing is as fluid as life.  But what once was, here, in this place is so far gone, so lost from me that I can't quite discern anymore what I ought to shed here.

It's been poetry, lately, for me. Before that, a whole lot of nothing.  Because when the pain comes, though the words should as well, often they just don't.  And truly, I haven't been in pain this last couple of months. More a state of numbness, retreat.

It's been a year. A year since it all turned upside down.  And I'm sick of not knowing what to say.  Sick of trying to analyze the grieving process.  Sick of a lot of things.  I am powerless and my life has become unmanageable   Or so it feels.  I'm in this place where I want to run away, elude, shut down.  Because I've ended up somewhere I didn't plan on being.  I didn't plan on being divorced.  Or sending my kids to school.  Or being so busy I can't catch my breath.  I didn't plan on finding my mind reverting to a state of immaturity formed from fear of the future.  The phone rings and I cringe.  Emails come across and I groan.  I want people to go away and leave me alone.  I want my old life back.  That's just where I'm at right now.

So, I'm having to take a hard look at exactly where I am and how I got here.  Ask myself how long I can sit in this without doing something about it.  How long my relationship with God can remain stale.  Because I'm dry and I'm feeling the thirst.  I'm starting to wilt.

Today, I'm extra irritable.  I want space.  And then I get it and don't know quite what to do with it.  Do I write here?  Do I work, write a paper for school, cross off any number of pressing items on the never ending to do list. I want to throw the list away and start from scratch.  I want my kids back.  I want my honesty back.  I want to voice my confusion like I  used to.  I want to purge all I've been repressing.  I want all of this more than I want to know what the future holds.  Because I've been hating where I'm at and unsure of how to get to where I'm supposed to be.  I've just known that I can't live like this anymore.  I'm weighted down with far too much, that' I've brought upon myself  I need boundaries and plans.  I need to remove certain people and activities from my life.  I need boldness of spirit and confidence to say what I mean and mean what I say.  I need to get control of my life back.  I've given my power away somewhere recently and as a result, I'm drowning in the consequences of that decision.

Will I keep coming here?  I don't know.  Will I keep the kids in school?  I don't know. Will I continue to crowd my mind with useless thoughts of tomorrow or will I find it in me to do the next right thing each day that comes my way.  That I can say I will work on.  I'm admitting that my life is unmanageable.  And that something's got to give.

Where I've Been

Where I've been:  An in-part explanation.

Source: google.com via Nicole on Pinterest

Joy in Abundance

I'm all over the place today -in a good way.

I have been battling lately with what is.  And with the future (my ideas of it).  And the past (in an inability to reconcile it with the now).    So, essentially, I've just been rather discontent.  Pouty, really.

You know, the truth is, that it is hard to be single. Especially when you've been married. I get the whole "It is not good to be alone" thing.  And so I've wanted to rush to the next phase of my life where I'm not alone, the one where I'm not single.

Except that I have absolutely no idea what the future really looks like for me. Insert man is about as far as I get. But I do know that God says that He knows the plans He has for me and that He will give me a hope and a future.  I haven't been trusting this. Rather, I've been in a woe is me, I might always be lonely state of mind.  I've been catching myself saying "Fine, God", in a juvenile, snotty voice a lot, these day.   Fine, what?  I don't know what misery I think He has planned for me but obviously my trust has not been in the true and living God.

So, last night, getting ready for bed,  I told God  "Fine.  I'll be alone, but can you just give me a vision of the future so I know it won't suck?"  It finally occurred to me that maybe, I wouldn't be on such a pity pot if God could assure me that man or no man, my life could be good.

And then this morning, drinking my coffee, I realized that a weight had been lifted.  Things that had bothered me yesterday, were somehow less vexing today.  And then as I dressed to take the kids to school, I had the vision. The one I asked for. Not a full pictorial vision of where I would be in five years, but this very clear and comforting knowledge that because God has known me since before birth, He also knows my heart, my strengths, what brings me joy.... and He will not withhold joy from me.  In fact, He has plans for me that would seem absurd to anyone else.  Plans that no one but He and I can fully comprehend.  There is a shaping and shifting even now, in this time and place, that has been in the works since I was young and I would never before have imagined how it might all play out.

So on this high, I drove the kids to school and I felt His overwhelming presence.  I am not alone.  And He is so much closer than I can usually feel.  And He is the best husband.  He delights in me, He protects me, He thinks I'm funny and smart and beautiful.  I felt like laughing and crying at the same time.  Because I asked and He answered.  I prayed and then there He was, just waiting to show me what I needed to see.

All day, I have just felt Him reminding me of how much He loves and cares about me, personally.  He is showing me through the words of others, through friendships, through little surges of God-infused joy.

"See the Father, see Me, and it sufficeth you.  This is Love in abundance.  Joy in abundance. All you need."
-God Calling

"How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings." -Psalm 36:7

 God is in control of each next moment and this present moment is a gift.  I have both a hope for the future and comfort and protection in the now.

Photo Friday

Submitting to a Knowledge of a Certain Nothingness

She believed that she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was becoming necessary for her. – Jane Austen

For  Wordless Wednesdays

Faith Which Banks on Him

Listening hard, seeking the sometimes seemingly elusive voice and will of the Lord- these practices, perhaps have been an ongoing discipline for me this last year.  And so when I read Oswald Chambers this morning on Spiritual Confusion, I am struck.

He speaks of "The shrouding of His friendship" referencing Luke 11:5-8.  Then asks, "When God looks completely shrouded, will you hang on in confidence in Him?...Will He find the faith which banks on Him in spite of the confusion?"

These questions beg reply.  Will, I, when answered only with His silence, continue to trust, refuse to lean on my own understanding? Refuse to be moved, waiting instead on His timing no matter how slow, how shrouded His face, His replies seem to me?

Faith, I am learning, requires persistence. So, may I not cease to ask, believing, rather, that an answer will come as I continue to knock.

Source: google.com via Nicole on Pinterest