Friday

Seems as if the whole of everything that I know is taking a break.  And that's a good thing.  I woke up to a very beautiful, cold day.  The pool has ceased in it's leaking as it waits for finishing touches, everything I needed for the day ahead was ready and waiting for me in the kitchen.  Two children slept in their beds and the youngest 4 legged child set contently in his place, the one he has come back to.  The place that always signaled safety and that all was well.  Everyone, everything, in their proper place.  This day, in years past, has signaled finality for me.  An ending and then a moving into something new.  13 years ago, this day signaled a completion of writing that took me a year.  It was the first time He had asked me to put my words down and then share them.  It was the first time I wrote by computer instead of pen and paper.  It came on the heels of a calling.  I printed it all out and deposited each copy to it's proper place.  Each heart I would share mine with.

Now as I look back over this past year, a year of hard, I also see a year of simply amazing.  He called me back to blogging after a year of hard.  Write it down.  Share.  And indeed I have and this has been something I never dreamed it would be.  I feel like He is putting the finishing touches on this chapter, this continuation.  And one seems to build upon the last, picking up where it left off, the way children often do when they walk away and then come back to something....

As I read yesterday, God spoke to me in such a way.  I asked for answers.  He gave them.  And tears that I have long since given up fighting came.  I questioned Him....seriously, do I have a dysfunctional tear valve in there somewhere?!....He reminded me of something...as His joy as made full in me He doesn't fill me to only half way or just enough, He fills to overflowing.  Those tears are my overflowing.  And at times when my tears come in torrents of despondency and confusion and sorrow, it's the breaking of what was and the spilling out of things I should not hold, so He can remake and refill.  Time after time after time.....it's just the way He made me.

So the verse yesterday, the reminder....Psalm 37....

25 Through my whole life (young and old),

    I have never witnessed God forsaking those who do right,

    nor have I seen their children begging for crumbs,

26 Because they are always giving and sharing;

    truly, their children are a joyful blessing.

My children.  These two that have been my miracles and saving grace.  These two that have been with me every minute of every day for the past 17+ years.  I have never, ever, ever seen my children want.  In the hardest of times, when loss seemed to overtake us, still even then, He has provided.  Always.  And so as this time of year circles back around, this year is so very different.  We are gathered, we are set in a family, we are steeped in the truth that has always been, but we rarely took time to truly embrace.  And for all of this, all of what has been, all of what is to come, I am reminded again to be, truly, thankful.

Blessing

Ephesians 1:18 (VOICE)

18 Open the eyes of their hearts, and let the light of Your truth flood in. Shine Your light on the hope You are calling them to embrace. Reveal to them the glorious riches You are preparing as their inheritance.

It has just been a long few weeks.  Lots of twists and turns.  Lots of Him asking me to do the hard work....still.  And I am tired.  And as I could feel the frustration building in me as wave after wave crashed over, He called me more and more into quiet as He revealed things to me.  As He asked, He showed me the flip side....remember?  How well I do.  He showed me that the hard work now feels, well, hard.  But the result of that is a very different one than if I went full steam ahead into something that I know better than to. I've been there before.

As the days came this week, so did the unending pressure of all that is on my shoulders and the weight of it became too much.  I use to tell the children when they were small and had a tantrum...you are showing yourself... I showed myself big yesterday and it ended in a meltdown complete with snot bubbles.  The raw of my emotions spilled over into one giant sob fest.  I spent more time in the bathroom trying to compose myself than I did anything else I suppose.  Those tears needed to come, however inconvenient the time and place.

As the last chunk of the wall fell down, I had a choice between vomiting my frustrations again or just simply giving a smile and keeping my mouth shut (praise God I chose the latter), some very real truths hit me face on.  I was humbled, as He has done so many times before, but this time, with such an amazing revelation of the truth in spite of my feelings.  I AM blessed.  I AM favored.  I AM loved.  He has not left me to myself to figure this all out.  And as much as He has asked me to do things that I once considered an impossibility, He has given me the tools to do it. I watched Him love me in the middle of my ungrateful meltdown as He reminded me it's not about my ability to perfectly maneuver the hurdles I am faced with.  It's just about saying yes and falling forward sometimes.  It's about making the choices that say Who my heart belongs to, even when sometimes it's the last thing I really want to do.  It's the right way.

So He spoke to me last night in one of my love languages.  He reminded me that every prayer sent, every little thought and word, He does hear.  He does see.  He has a reason.  He is God and I am not.  Thankful.

Colossians 3:15-17 (VOICE)

15 Let your hearts fall under the rule of the Anointed’s peace (the peace you were called to as one body), and be thankful.

16 Let the word of the Anointed One richly inhabit your lives. With all wisdom teach, counsel, and instruct one another. Sing the psalms, compose hymns and songs inspired by the Spirit, and keep on singing—sing to God from hearts full and spilling over with thankfulness. 17 Surely, no matter what you are doing (speaking, writing, or working), do it all in the name of Jesus our Master, sending thanks through Him to God our Father.

Sunday Scripture

Romans 15:13 (AMP)

13 May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

Experience.  I have been faced with that as of late.  Has it taught me anything?  Last year I walked through a new door after God shut one.  And I learned a few things from my experience.  Sometimes we don't realize that until we are faced with it yet again.  But what will you do with it?  I have learned that you do the hard work now, or you do it later, but rest assured, you will do it.  And so this verse today, this one, reminded me, our belief in what we choose comes from our experience.  This can be from the good and the not so awesome.  But I am finding that when I do make a step in the right direction, sometimes it comes through walking in something hard.  I can become stuck or detained by something that comes my way, or I can go ahead and do the hard work and move past it.  And through this, because of experience, I am filled with His joy and His peace.  Now feeling His joy doesn't mean that I am feeling all warm and fuzzy because of the choice I had to make...no...it's actually the opposite.  But when I woke this morning, I knew I had made a step in the right direction.  I knew the hard choice was indeed the right choice.  Because despite my feelings, I am filled with His joy and His peace.  That not so evident, deep underground knowledge of His truth.  The Water that carves out new paths as it grows.  Thankful.

5 Minute Friday - Fly

Joining Lisa Jo and the girls for 5 Minute Friday...No edits, no re-writes and love those that came before you.

Prompt: FLY
GO......

She was snatched from flight so quickly that she lost all bearing and what was her world, the air she breathed, the sights she saw, were changed in an instant.  Cold, solid, unyielding ground and Hands that looked so very different from the ones she was used to.  She was wounded, unable to reach her heights, yet she didn't see this.  Flying so low, hitting branches, false starts and stops, all trying to get to where she most needed to be.  Higher.  And so she settled, finally, out of sheer exhaustion, because she could not fight anymore and whatever her fate might be, it was now up to the One Who held her.  And he set her gently in a quiet place.  And He looked over her brokenness and to each place set out to heal it.  There was pain in the plucking and pulling and weeding out all the things that hid her wounds, but freedom when it was done. There was pain when He washed away the dirt and the filth that encrusted the spaces that had lay hidden.  But they were healing.  And then she set.  Waiting and longing for the day she would not be bound.  And then it came. One by one He removed her coverings and let her test her wings.  And in the safety of His grip she set one day, ready to go, yet to afraid to try and He threw her up so high she thought she might never stop, but she realized as she looked around, this was where she was meant to be, this was where she could fly.  Thankful.

Falling

Joining Bonnie over at Faith Barista today....

I have passed by the sign all week.  Fall down 7 times get back up 8.  I am finding that this journey is more about the getting up.  Perhaps in Him asking me to give grace in the hardest of places, He has taught me to receive it in the most difficult way...for myself.  Perhaps we learn about forgiveness and not holding on because eventually the time comes where we have to be able to forgive ourselves.  And if we haven't learned to extend it to others, then I am quite sure, that stick we have sitting in the corner to measure our own faults and failures looms large.

In hiding our own shame, we put on masks and try to pretend like we are just fine, so no one will see and everyone will believe that we are good enough, when in truth, the One who already sees our shame is the only One Who can give us the freedom we so desperately look for.  When we learn to run to Him first, refusing to hide our sin and our failures, the shame that so easily sticks to us becomes nothing more than a catalyst. Right into the arms of the One Who will use it to heal us in places long broken.

Falling is inevitable.  It's not if, but when.  The grace is in the getting up.  The healing is in letting Him attend our wounds and show us the stumbling blocks that caused our crash.  When you look at it, acknowledge it and face it, shame, fear and unforgiveness have lost their power.  It doesn't mean we won't have the emotions that come along with them, it means that there is something deeper in spite of them, telling us who we are, Whose we are.  We belong to the One waiting to help us get back on our feet.  Thankful.

Leaks

Philippians 4:4-8

The Voice (VOICE)

4 Most of all, friends, always rejoice in the Lord! I never tire of saying it: Rejoice! 5 Keep your gentle nature so that all people will know what it looks like to walk in His footsteps. The Lord is ever present with us. 6 Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come. 7 And know that the peace of God (a peace that is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, fill your minds with beauty and truth. Meditate on whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good, whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy.

I kept saying..Lord, tell me what to do!!...He kept saying....I did....yeah.....So I find myself in this place, so much changing and I am so grateful.  And as with all change, there is trying to find stability in it.  And so as He wants me to seek Him, to come to Him, to talk to Him....my world gets very quiet.  But in this quiet so many beautiful things I notice.  The most dramatic of which is my home, my children....the dog.  No kidding. The space he avoided, heck, we all avoided for months, now everyone gathers.  We huddle, we whisper, we laugh, we share.  His peaces fills this space and the quiet is not scary anymore.  It's not a quiet that comes from void.  It's a quiet that comes from contentment.  I am still learning.  I am the perfectionist, scheduling, get it all done girl.  And that is ok, when it is submitted to Him.  My little world has been interrupted as of late. A leak somewhere in the pool.  There was a time when this would have sent me into a meltdown of epic proportion.  I finally said to Him...Lord, the only thing I can do is keep putting the water back in until this gets fixed......and my decision to be thankful comes from this...adding water to it for the better part of the last week is requiring me to stay home a bit longer in the mornings...and that has given me more time to get the kids set and out the door, more time to truly take in what I am reading and also, some extra time to write, as my evenings have been a hustle and bustle of children and activities that I want to soak in.  He gives us grace in unexpected places.  We can see them as opportunities or intrusions into our very busy lives.  I'm learning.  Thankful.

Behind the Scenes - Treasure

Linking Up With Crystal Stine and the girls for Behind the Scenes...

It was a quiet morning.....and one by one they invaded.  The one with four legs busted the door open and stared me down.....He jumped up on the bed to let me know...this was HIS room still, make no mistake.The girl shuffled past and made her way in, which signaled the boy to come see what all the ruckus was about. And they laughed, and high-five'd (Sago's best trick) and sat on top of my clothes and completely interrupted my "quiet time". The fullness of my treasures sitting right in front of me turned to praise and worship.  Thank you for all these blessings, right here, Lord.  These are the treasures that made it through the fire. This morning, this scene, seemed like an impossibility a year ago, but here we are.  Here we are. Thankful.