May

My boy had his last ROTC award banquet a couple weeks ago.  We have been through four. And they have all been bitter sweet. His entire high school career has felt like we were wading through so much. Trying to just survive at first. Unsure of it all. That program was a salvation of sorts. It gave him direction and guidance and structure in school. I had worried so when he went to high school. My sweetest boy with the biggest heart. So very quiet. He of course had my girl right there with him for the first couple years. And she is fierce. You didn't mess with his without going through her she was his defender. She was his protection. Turns out he would do just fine. God placed him right square in the place he needed to be. Funny how that happens....He puts us where we need to be when we may have other ideas altogether. I wanted a front table. I wanted to be able to see him and get pictures. This was his senior year. And he has done so much. And the awards came, and he got his share, but it was the little disheveled new freshman that made his way up early, stood by our table, introduced himself and then proceeded to sit right down beside us. He was there alone it seemed. And he needed a table to sit at as well. And I had to choke back to tears....the first will be last......I had sought to be first and God reminded me in His economy there are much more important things than the most awards and recognition. As I had chosen that table for other reasons, He reminded me of what I seem to have forgotten lately. His plans may be completely different than ours. Will we see our purpose, our true reason for being there or be too consentrated on what we feel like should be? Will we let Him gently correct our way of seeing things? Will we let go of pride and let Him reveal the things that need work in our own hearts? I'm finding myself facing these questions more and more in a month that has held more ups and downs, more stops and starts than any other one in a year. Two years ago this day held the brand new start that would just be the beginning for me while it held and end to something God had placed in my heart. I just didn't know it then. And the walk through that has been long. His ways are not ours. And I am learning yet again to live with open hands. To let go of the fear that threatens to overtake and be still and know. He is God. Thankful. 

Steps

It was a long rainy week. Lots of things going on that made my world stop in a way. Tending to need of the ones put here for me to care for and love. And that is my heart. That is who I am. And in this part of my life I am allowed to be that, to give that. And I own it. This morning as I sit in the coolness with the sun shining brightly He reminds me....be still.....yes. These battles raging against and around.....He will fight, be still. And I remember days and verses of so long ago. Years where I felt unended and out of place and just not quite right. Years where I wondered....wandered....waiting. I can take a breathe now and just be myself. I spent half my life fighting for.....and now it seems with the rest I can simply be the girl that walked out of the fire. Thankful. 

When Sunday Comes

It's Easter Sunday. I've typically avoided traditional routines for the last few years. It was too much. And I had not been able to escape that hollow, empty feeling.  It's a strange thing being in the middle of a crowd yet feeling like you are all but invisible.  The crowds of people and yet still, I went home alone.  And somehow I couldn't escape it. Last year was the first year that something was changing in me.  I bought my girl and I new dresses and the boy, he dressed up too.  It was a Saturday night service we attended. And for the first time it felt solid. I felt ok. Something was changing.  The next day on Easter Sunday was the day God began pulling me through a new door.  I had no idea what that  next year would bring to me.  Let go....He was saying and oh how I tried.  This has been a year of huge change for me. Again, nothing left untouched in my world.  It's hard to find yourself again in a place of uncertain. Yet here I am. It's hard to find yourself in a place of new and uncharted, yet again, here I stand.  He's whispering again.....Let go... Shut it off, turn it down, lift your head and go.  Stop looking back. Yes....the hardness, the bitter root that comes when you look at it all face to face and question why.  I've done that a lot in the last few years. On the days where nothing made sense I asked again and again, for the love, why?? And there will always be the questions without answers. There will always be the things that will never make sense this side of heaven. And I see the silver strand of goodness laced through this journey. And I am amazed most days that He has turned all that into all this.  I think looking back so often bring the exhaustion.  Looking back at what was the past causes me to stumble going forward.  And this rain....days and days of this....holding me in a place I do not quite like. No not at all. Because the stillness sets in and I have to face things I perhaps would just rather run out instead of look at. If He removes it, then it was not needed. And open hands do not mean lack. The letting go provides the means to take hold of new.  Thankful.

Wash

It's Good Friday. I'm scrubbing floors. That's a good thing. I've been looking forward to the quiet and for the opportunity to make things clean again. The chance to slow down. To settle. It's overcast and rainy and everything feels hushed. It lets me think. Truly pause and open up my heart and let it all out. Tears mixed with warm soapy water. No one will notice. And I can just have a moment without trying to hold it all together like I sometimes do. I am overwhelmed with the mix of utter gratefulness this week has brought and the sting of regret mixed with sadness on some levels too....vinegar and water....all twined together. Four long years it has been. The death of things brought the birth of others. That is not lost on me. And the beauty that has come from all those ashes....things salvaged from the fire of what consumed my entire life.....it is never what I planned in my wildest dreams yet some of it was my dream. There is no joy without pain. Heartache means that we did love and makes loving all the more sweater. It softens our hearts and makes our responses kinder. It reminds us we are human and so is everyone else. It's is grace given when grace was heaped on our own heads more times than we can count, yes....today. And so I want to clean more that my floors. I want to let my heart have some time of its own to let it all out. The sadness, the regret, the bitter roots that have no place. And let Him wash it clean with the Living Water He brought to us this very day. It is a Good Friday. Thankful.

5 Minute Friday- Forget

5 Minute Friday....no edits, just write

Forget.... Forget the former things He has been saying. All the new things they have indeed been springing up. But what I find is that as I walk into the new those old things flood back. And I remember. And the fear grips me hard. And for just one moment it sinks in and I think I can't possibly walk even one step that way again. And then He whispers....forget. New things springing up. Ray burst forth. And it's the bursting I think that takes me by surprise, yes. Fearful of new because quite honestly, new wasn't always good. Yet He worked it for my good. And I find myself in this place of forgetting while still trying to remember all His goodness. New things are born from pain. Thankful.
Stop.

What Do You Hear

It's been the longest of weeks. The quiet has escaped me. And even on the days I could rest, my mind wakes going with all the things I should be doing. I read a verse that stopped me. Reminded me of all that I have to do really....Worry about yourself.... Not what everyone else is or isn't doing. But what is it that you are called to? What is it that I am tasked with? It's all shifted for me. All of it. And finding my bearings in the harvest is so much harder than I dreamed. But He knew that. He knows me. And the overflow came quickly. It settled deep into my heart....

 “..What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The GOD of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, GOD will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭58:9-12‬ ‭MSG‬‬

He told me those word long ago. In the first year. In the hardest of times. Restore...rebuild.....renovate.  Perhaps He was speaking as much about my heart as He was my life, yes. It is my answer on the hardest of days. You will....thankful.

In the 4th Year

It is the fourth year. That somehow has its own significance. This was the fourth year of my very first long run. My first race. I remembered that morning well. And I smiled as I hit the snooze button on my alarm. This year, the new ones were joining me. I was the one who had been there before. I would take them with me. This year brought challenges to my run I had never encountered. And they filled my mind. It affected my entire journey. This run was not pleasant. I didn't leave it all on the road. I carried it with me. And it was heavy. It made things difficult at best. But at the end, because good or bad I did finish, for the first time ever in this crazy journey, I wasn't there alone. For the first time ever, one was there to greet me with a kiss and say good job. I have always been the single girl. Always been the tag along since I began this journey and running became a part of my life. But not this time. Not in the 4th year. And I realized that sometimes we get something other than what we believed was the right answer. How will we love in that circumstance. Will we take what we are given, see it as God's best, and love with all our hearts??  Will we accept what He takes and realize that perhaps it is His best. For each of us. He promised to fill this space again. He promised me. I had visions. So did He. And I was surround yesterday with brand new. As hard as my run was, something beautiful met me at the end. What I had always wanted. My own person waiting for me. So it was in fact, the best run ever. Thankful.