In The Returning

I had no desire to come back.  I had purposed that I was done with this season, this chapter, this way of words.  But He had other plans.  The last few months for me have been a leveling of sorts, creating a hollow space again.  As I faced challenges that I really never dreamed I would, I saw He was drawing me back and perhaps this time, for different reason.  Everything I was hearing, reading, listening to, talked about our responsibility to share our words....our stories.  Especially with our children, so not only would we remember, but so that they would know.  Who we are, how we were shaped and how God is in every detail.  It was as my youngest faced the biggest challenge of his young life to date, I began searching my own words for encouragement, for any way to show him that hard is inevitable, survivable and that God uses these things to create in us Who we are becoming.  As I searched my own journey, I found that my child wasn't alone in requiring reassurance.  Give away what you need was the very first lesson He taught me all those years ago.  And as I began to give to my child what he was desperate for, I found that my own needs were being met too. Putting words out again instead of keeping them close and safe seems very risky to me now.  What He's called me to seems out of reach and very unrealistic.  But then again, so has this entire journey.  I began it with three of us and we are still three, just not the same.  When I think I am lacking, He reminds me this is how it all began.  More than enough and very well able.  Gideon won the battle with 300.  When the odds seemed stacked against, that's when God plan was put into action.  Not what seemed like the mostly likely way to win, but in the most unlikely.  Small beginnings.  Thankful.

When The End Is The Beginning

I haven't been here in quite some time.  I was reminded of this when I got the email that said hey, you haven't been here in a really long while.  Are you still there?  And while the answer is yes, life for me isn't what it was all those years ago when I started.  It's been a while since there have been things I wanted to write. So much has transpired. So much has come full circle. It's hard to put those things into words sometimes. For so long this was a place to get all the words out. My world was very silent. God was working deep within who I was. Changing everything on the inside. That has changed. Six and a half years ago my life changed drastically. Three and a half years ago, it changed again. And while I should be writing a paper that is due later this week, I can't quite concentrate. I'm reminding myself that where this journey began was just that, a first step on a journey that would take years....and is still in the process of unfolding.  I have no idea how He will use all the words that fill my soul, but He will.  And as new presses hard on the very core of who I am, I'm also in the process of letting the old pass away.  So today is an end that is moving me into a new space.  It's one I'm not quite sure of, but it will come none the less.  I am the girl who was made lovely by her sorrows.  Those things that hollowed and wrecked me gave ground to the girl I am still becoming.  I am ever so grateful for the days that made me who I am and who I will continue to become....one who is thankful.

On the Fourth Day

My eyes typically open these days before the sun.  Today was no exception.  I remembered I didn't have to get up just yet.  It's Thursday.  Not any old Thursday, one that carries special weight.  I hated Thursday's for a really long time.  Five years to be exact.  They brought me the worst news a girl could shoulder that year.  I held my breath on the fourth day of the week.  My word found me a year or so after that. It was what God was trying to write on my heart.  In the hardest of days, it's what He wanted me to grow up to be.  And when I look around this year, and so much time has passed, Thursday's have redeemed themselves.  I got asked to spend the rest of my life with the one who has the most precious heart on the fifth day....a Thursday.  The very same day and date that brought destruction, five years later brought completion.  Healing.   And when I opened my eyes today, there was not hollow and empty.  There was fullness and life.  Any preconceived belief I have ever had in perfection is long since gone.  Life is a battle.  There will always be things not quite okay.  But what is the state of your heart?  What do your eyes see?  Mine see a beautiful do over.  This new chance I've been given.  Love and acceptance and grace, on the good days and not so good days.  A place where I belong.  So on this day, maybe a little more than usual, I woke up and found myself thankful.

When It Rains

To say that I have been a hot mess as of late is nothing short of an understatement.  There is a list I have seen in circulation that has the biggest stressors a person can face.  We have pretty much managed to nail most of them in about the last eight weeks.  There are times when things just become more than one can process.  And last week was surely that for me.  I found myself in tears yet again and asking God why??  What in the world is the purpose of this thing and that thing and all the other things that seem to slam into me with a force that has taken my breath away.  As I sort through the why's, He is there to remind me of the Who.  Why, when You answered so many prayers am I wading through these waters of uncertainty yet again?  Why, when I have every thing to be grateful for am I focusing on the littlest things I truly cannot control? Life is not neat and tidy.  Nothing in my world is right now and that brings the fear.  Fear of loosing my voice and myself again.  Fear that makes me shut down because some days there just isn't any fight left.  But I remember.  I remember all the days and all the quiet and all the hard and all the things I have walked through.  I'm still here.  All of that brought me to this place.  And just as that had purpose then, this has purpose now.  Only I'm not blind to the process.  And maybe that's the biggest fear of all.  I know how hard it is to walk this road.  But I also know the beauty along the path.  I know the places where I just need to sit and rest.  I know this forces me back to Him, where I don't takes steps blindly, but guided on the dark days when nothing seems to make sense.  There is good in this.  There is a plan He has.  It's ok to not  have every little answer.  Seek and you will find.  Knock and it will open.  Ask and you will receive.  Thankful.

It Hit Me Like A Hurricane

I opened my eyes and made my way to the kitchen.....we made it through and slept peaceful.  I am thankful for power this morning to make my coffee....and then it hit me.  And it brought tears to my eyes.  Thirteen years ago a September hurricane ushered in the most difficult time in my adult life.  For the last six years I have walked through a season that has changed me forever.  I had no idea how long or even what would come of it all.  But this morning I realized that this very rare late October hurricane brought in the new.  We planned our vacation, went to our favorite place....and he asked me.  Will you be my forever?  Forever.  The words this girls heart has always longed for.  The words that this girl finally believes.  He asked me....and I said I will.  And I meant it with my whole heart.  Two days later we packed it in and headed home early. A very unseasonable hurricane was headed straight for where we were staying.  We made it home, got things settled and then waited it out.  We never lost power....and slept sound through out the night.  This is the first hurricane I have experienced since that one thirteen years ago.  I lost a tremendous amount in that storm.  It was a foreshadowing I chose to ignore.  But here I am all these years later and a storm brought me my greatest gift.  God showed me that even in the most devastating of times, He still has a plan.  He is still in control.  And those storms in life sometimes bring about great destruction.  But sometimes they bring about things you could never imagine in your wildest dreams.  Thankful.

In the Quiet

I tend to mull things over and over for great lengths of time.  I'm not, by nature, an instant kind of girl.  I like plans.  I like solid.  I don't do spontaneous easily.  When I get an idea it scatters into a million what if's and how is the best way.....and I have to digest it.  I have to let it translate and process into the best laid plan.  For whatever the reason, I had decided that long weekend was the right time. And quite honestly, how hard is adding paint to only three walls? Yeah.  I am blessed with one who see beyond my vision and comes to my rescue. The one who taped off all the places so I could keep it neat and tidy, the one who ran to Lowes to complete my vison.  We worked hard all the day.  It was the evening as I was cleaning and arranging the room into what I was envisioning, that he called.  And our world changed forever.  What strikes me as amazing still is that God prepared a place for me.  He knew exactly what was coming, exactly what I would be needing in the storm that was about to hit.  He created a quiet place, a place of rest, a place of beautiful...a place just for me.  I sit in that room, in the quiet everyday now.  I was literally finished, just making things tidy when the storm arrived.  How in awe I am still, was that the next day, we were already off from work....Labor Day.  And it was.  We quietly tried to decide what was the next right thing....yet God had set it in motion.  Come over, we are all here...and so they were.  A beautiful sea of family gathered round' the one who felt so alone...yet he wasn't.  Through whispered fears and tears and words and hugs and food, they held each other.  By showing up they said we are with you.  Not one of us had any answers going in, but we came out with direction.  And simply stated...where you go, we go. What you face, we face. What we have, you have. And it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.  It was family pure and simple.  It was what God commands us to do....love others as Christ loves us.  The hands and feet of Jesus.  Hands and feet....go to and serve with.  It's not about words...talk is so very cheap.  It's showing up and perhaps not saying anything at all.  But the mere presence alone speaks volumes.  You are not alone.  Thankful.

Rest

Strange how trauma makes you speak louder.  As if somehow the volume can force back what you are hearing. Like it can change the inevitable reality from hitting you square in the face.  He called, which alarmed me.  Was there an accident? And then his words...WHAT? I yelled, and he said them again and I couldn't decide which way to go.  I'm coming...that's all I could manage, I'll be right there.  The strangest thoughts cross your mind, they do....I have on orange flip flops and my hair is a wreck.....I look homeless....and it was the longest drive.  I wanted to get there fast and not at all.  I needed to see but then I felt nauseous.  Maybe he's wrong.... The lady in the church van in front of me all.the.way.....she drove 20 miles and hour in the loaded passenger vehicle and all I could think was lady you have got to quit singing to Jesus and get out of my way...I was praying to Him too...help.  When I pulled up there was only my dry mouth and fear.  I saw him....all 6'4 of the brick wall he is.  My protector, my stability, my rock....and the tears.  How does 5'1 gather all of that into herself and comfort her one that needs her to be strong? It was true, his words that he spoke over that phone.  All my loudness didn't change what was.  And at that moment I felt as if I knew nothing.  At that moment I experienced a grief that I have never known before.  How do you comfort when you have no idea......

The days, the decisions, the unanswered questions....we just kept showing up, the only things we knew to do and God made a way.  When it seemed impossible, God provided.  These days I need to be reminded of that.  There is great transition in my life.  And I need the reminder daily that small is the answer for me. I do not have to have the answer, I just need to be present. He took me in to the quiet almost six years ago.  Everything stripped away and that is where I found myself....and Him in the most truest sense that there ever has been.  He showed me who I am...and Who He is.  And He calls me back there.  In these last weeks I have become utterly overwhelmed, to the point where exhaustion finally took a toll and I had to stop for a day.  There was no other choice.  As I sat in my quiet space with much needed tears streaming down my face, He whispered what is it that you know? And as I let the question settle deep inside my heart His answer was there.  I read the words that I had been so needing to hear.....Rest now. Then rise up....Yes. He brings me low to remind me and then lifts me up to be who He made me to be.  I tend to forget the rest.  I tend to loose myself and forget that I am not made for constant movement. Rest now....Then rise up.  Thankful.