Five Minute Friday: Truth

*I can already tell you that this will not take a mere five minutes. *

The truth of it...of it all...in everything...I desire the truth.  I speak about it. Write about it.  Write about its opposite, the lies; the ones that whisper, howl, and hide in the dark corners of my mind.

But when it comes down to it, how much truth do I really want, because when you know the truth you have to make a decision.  A decision to accept it or a decision to reject it.

I am sitting here in this moment with truth looking me square in the face, calling out to me and now I have to choose what I am to do with it.

These lies that blow about me and churn inside of me that tell me who I am and who I am not, they have been held up to the light of truth.  The light that spreads like fire and burns out the infection and causes me to make a choice.  The choice to believe the truth or reject it.  If I believe it then I must act on it.  If I reject it I do so at my own peril.  Or do I believe the truth and choose yet the other option of still holding onto the lie.  Do I hold truth in one hand and the lies in the other?

I think of the dwarves in the final Narnia book.  The ones who were so afraid of being deceived by anyone that they sat in their own darkness, one of their own making.  We have had enough of apes and of lions, the dwarfs are for the dwarfs they would say.  They were so afraid that because they had believed the lying ape that the truth of the lion would prove to be just as much of a letdown.  They made a blackened prison of their own because they chose not to choose either and thus chose themselves.  And in doing so created a new lie of their own making.

I don't want to be like that.  I don't want to sit in my own fear built prison just because I had been so duped by the lies that I am scared to believe the light of the truth for the fear of being 'duped' again.  I don't want to be left scrounging around my manure covered hovel of darkness because I am saying "Karmen is for Karmen" like the dwarfs were for the dwarfs. 

I am standing with the truth in my right hand and the lies in the left.....the choice is mine to make. 

I look at them both squarely.  I know where the lies have led me and I know where indecision will leave me, so I let go of the left and I move forward in the right, because it is the only choice where TRUTH is leading.

I am from.......

I am from the land......

where the skies are the bluest blues when the mountain is "out".

where gray skies and raindrops feels like stepping into home.

where sharp white mountain peaks lay backdrop to green forests and abundant waters.

 

I am from the childhood home......

where Mom drives and Dad directs.

where it took 9 years for me to come and make my Sister, sister.

where LOUD is common, but laughter is too.

 

I am from the now home......

where my offspring are plentiful.

where marriage is being painted out on a canvas of forgiveness set on an easel of hard.

where messes are made and loud is heard but love is here as well.









I am from God.....

who promises beauty from ashes.

who loves me because I am, not because I do or do not.

who runs to embrace the one who ran away.

I am from......

deep hurts that bring deeper graces.

crumbling walls and rusting armor.

everything and nothing and all that lies between.

 

* I started this as a link up with another blog but after I wrote it I realized that I did not follow their format, so I am not linking up to it, but thought I would share it anyways since I already wrote it. And since I wrote it I will share it instead with Emily and her Imperfect Prose Community.

 



The Mommasauras Rex Strikes Again

It is 9:18 a.m.   I have been up for 3 hours already.  It started off fairly well and typical. 

6:15 Crawl out of bed, stagger downstairs, begin cleaning the kitchen I was too tired to deal with last night.  Turn on Pandora to Veggie Tale praise songs.

6:30 Wake up Jr. High students.  The boy has a migraine.  Give him meds, water, send back to bed for a few minutes to see if it helps.  Girl needs a shower.  Continue cleaning. 

6:45 Wake up Elementary kids, because they didn't finish their homework last night. Continue cleaning.

7:15 Try and get Jr. High boy up and moving.  No Go still migraining.  Give Jr. High girl 15 minute warning.  Still cleaning. 

7:30 Jr. High girl, "What are you doing!?!  GO! GO! GO!  You should be ready by now!" dishwasher is going now.  Move onto the old time popcorn machine that has been on the counter for a week and a half.  When was the last time this thing was cleaned anyways?

7:45 Help elementary girl with homework, scrub popcorn maker, remind boys to get ready. 

8:00 Elementary girl needs shower.  Screams down the stairs that someone did something gross in the toilet and it is NASTY.  Tell her to use my bathroom then.  Not looking forward to kids bathroom duty.

8:10 Gag at gross mess left in kids bathroom.  Scream about how they will have to start cleaning the toilet with toothbrushes if this continues.  (The Mommasauras Rex is beginning to rear its ugly head.)

8:15 Kids yell from downstairs that their baby brother smells like he pooped his pants.  Mommasauras growls.  Run tub, get said smelly boy in tub.

8:20 Tell older elementary son to put on socks and shoes as I come down the stairs.  He says he doesn't know where they are.  Mommasauras Rex ROARS that they are in the same place he has found socks for the last three days, why can't he just look?  Why does he have to fight about everything?!  Mommasauras Rex growls as she changes kindergarten boy who wants to wear the same clothes he wore yesterday.

8:25 Go upstairs and get the now smelly good boy out of tub.  Growl as he complains about what he is wearing.  "JUST PUT THEM ON!!!!!"

8:30 Roar about how the house looks, the grossness of the toilet, growl about toothbrushes and cleaning said toilet again.  ROAR ROAR ROAR

8:35 Leave for school with neighbor kids whose Mom also looks like she has had a Mommasauras Rex morning.  Roar at neighbor kids when they don't listen to their Mommasauras. 

8:55 Come home.

9:00 Get on facebook.  Vent.  Calm. 

9:15 Blog about the Roars.  Hope the day gets better. 

9:40  Get off the computer and start over a little less dinosaurish.

Saturday and Sunday Synopsis

Saturday:
I woke up not feeling great.  A sinus infection was taking root and I was trying to ignore it.  I was planning on going to a garage sale that a friend from church was having, but I ended up not making it there.  I also wanted to go buy some tweezers to tame that growing uni-brow back into conformity, but that didn't happen either.  Instead I stayed home and dyed my full on gray roots back into a more youthful shade.  Hubby ended up being called back into work, so it was me and the kiddos.  As I was almost done drying the fresh dyed hair with a towel and shaving instead of plucking the beastly brow I heard it.  A crash.  Followed by yells of "MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!" coming from the other side of the bathroom door.  My 3 year old had spilled orange juice that he wasn't supposed to be drinking all over the floor and on my laptop as well. 

My sick head left little room for patience and I shooed them all out of the room with some overly loud words and harsh tones.  I cleaned the mess, made the bed, dried off the laptop and hoped all was well. 

When I tried to use my laptop a few minutes later nothing happened.  It would not turn on. I tried plugging in the charger, nothing still.  I tried again and again.  Nothing and nothing.  I set it down, told myself to let it sit longer, it would work.  I laid down.  15 minutes later I tried again.  Nothing, no glimmer of hope. 

I lamented on facebook, asked for prayers for my laptop.  (I know of all the heartache and hardships in this spinning crazy world I put my laptop on the priority of prayer. Shameful, really.)  Then, I sobbed, not a dainty tear or two, but gut wrenching sobs for a dead laptop, words of my own only saved to it, loss.  I sobbed and prayed and apologized to God for caring so much about a piece of technology.  Then I decided I needed more sleep, sleep should help buffer the loss a little.

I dozed in and out as children kept meandering in and disrupting the slumber.  My kind oldest daughter came and asked if she could make lunch for all so I could sleep.  Bless her.  I dozed over the cacophony of lunch being made, served, and eaten down the stairs.  I dozed some more after the full bellies quieted a little. 

Then I had a strange dream.  It was short and it woke me with a start.  I dreamt I was leaning down, picking a beautiful flower from a garden that sat beside a white house and below an open window.  As I picked the flower a strong and frightful wind blew past my ear.  The wind was cold and its breath was evil.  It made me jump in my sleep.  As I awoke I heard a silent voice ask if the frightening wind that blew around the flower had made the flower any less beautiful.

I am still processing that image, wind, and question, along with its possible meaning.

Not long after that hubby called to say he would be coming home soon.  I told him about the laptop.  As I was talking my Kody boy who is ten grabbed it and handed it to me.  "Look Mom, it is working."  He had gotten it to turn on.  I told him people must have been praying, because I had tried five times with no luck at all.  He beamed, because in his mind he had 'fixed' it.

Hubby came home and we went shopping so I could buy a dress.  We were going to a wedding that night and I only had fancy ball dresses and summer dress in my closet.  Nothing evening wedding appropriate.  Still feeling sick, but powering through I worried about if I would find a dress in time.  I rarely have shopping success and shopping failures can break me.  I knew I was already raw with sinus, so I prayed for something to fit and not make me look like a circus clown.  I found something in the second store I tried and it was half off.  Thumbs up God, you rocked it!

Home and then to the wedding.  So beautiful.  The reception was a blast.  Visiting, free ice cream bar with an ice cream truck pulled beside the building.  Friends.  Wedding cake.  Great time. 

Came home spent an hour with the kids then went back out because we were all dressed up and wanted to spend it out together.  I could not make up my mind what I wanted to do or where to go.  My poor husband.  As we drove my behavior and indecision became more erratic.  I told him I felt drunk. He told me I was being weird.  It continued to escalate.  We came home after choosing burger king for a soda and sandwich since I never ate dinner before the wedding.  The food was gross.  I regretted the decision, but I ate it anyways, because maybe I needed solid food in my stomach.

At home I staggered in and up the stairs, oldest daughter asked how dinner was.  I flailed my arms wildly and told her in an unusual tone how disgusting it was.  At the top of the stairs she told me I was being weird.  Wide eyed and feeling trapped behind my odd behavior I agreed with her.  She asked if I was riding the "white pony".  I laughed so hard I slid against the wall and to the floor.  I told them to get their Dad, because I was feeling weird.  I felt drunk, but hadn't touched a drop of alcohol, not only that day but not in over a year.  Drugs, never. 

He came up stairs and I crawled into our room.  He took the dress off for me, brought me some pajamas and I crawled in bed, staring at the ceiling.  I told him my head felt swooshy.  After about fifteen to twenty minutes I came out of whatever that was.  Maybe the gross chicken kicked in.  I then of course had to post the weirdness on facebook before falling asleep.  I am that annoying person on facebook.  Sorry if you are one to deal with me.

Sunday:
In the middle of the night Steve woke me up with his dreams.  He was talking in his sleep.  Calling on the name of Jesus, then speaking tongues, distressed.  I awoke him.  He fell back asleep into the same dream, this time calling out Satan, screaming, more tongues.  I woke him again.  He was fighting a battle in his dreams. 

We both slept a little longer after that.

I woke up feeling more myself than I had gone to bed feeling, but the sinuses were much worse.  I was determined to go to church, because I just love it so much I don't want to miss what God is doing.  He seriously does something awesome every week at church.  Seriously, you should come check it out.  Always welcome, always.  Even sick like me in body, spirit, heart, or mind.  Jesus came for the sick, so I am gonna start showing up at His hospital as much as I can.

Church this morning was worth the stuffy nose and trips to the bathroom to blow it.  God's spirit showed up big time.  It was so present and there.  It was palpable.  Whenever that happens it reminds me of field of dreams; "if you build it they will come".  God's people 'built it' and He came.  I am not going to cheapen the experience with words to explain it, but if you weren't there today, you missed out. 

After church it was date day with the oldest and me.  She has been asking for one for a long time, too long, and today was the day.  We went to lunch where her burger got massacred.  The waitress noticed as she took the plate and the manager comped us her meal.  From there we went to the library (her choice), I slept in the car, because the sick was taking over.  From the library we went to the mall and then home. 

I crawled into bed and stayed there the rest of the day.  I slept and slept then got up to take some medicine my hubby bought me and a bath.  Now I am wide awake and so I type.  How was your weekend?

Five Minute Friday: She

It was a normal Sunday afternoon. 

My husband and I on our way to BJ's. 

That is when I saw her. 

She was running on the side of the road, just inches away from my passenger window. 

She was all sinew and bone with skin around it. 

Her running shorts and tank top revealing how little food she must consume. 

It was her face though, it was her face as she ran that still haunts me, more so than the food deprived frame. 

With each step forward her face contorted with pain. 

It was almost an agony. 

Yet she kept on running. 

She ran and I wonder what it is she was running from or hoping to run to. 

 

 

 

Tell His Story: My Sea Sickened Heart

I wrote this post last Saturday night and I posted it briefly Sunday night until Monday morning.  I feel that I have been called to be transparent, but I struggle with just how transparent that is meant to be. This piece is greatly transparent.  I took it down because I felt that maybe it was too much so, maybe sharing my struggles after sharing my victories would be too contradictory.  But I have changed my mind.  Our Christian walk is a walk.  When you are walking and moving you aren't always going to be standing on mountain tops and you aren't always going to stay in the valleys.  You are going to be doing both.  One doesn't negate the other.  Also, if we are unable to be transparent we give the false illusion that somehow we have it all together and that we don't struggle.  That illusion only helps to grow the lie that we are alone and no one else understands, or falls as low, or hears the howling winds and feels the salty waves hitting against them.  When we hide the hurts and the hardships we give foothold for darkness to grow and gather.  By being transparent I am going to choose to live in light and hopefully my transparency helps you to let light in too. 
*A warning that if you suffered at the hands of an abuser this writing may trigger some old hurts of your own.*



9/14/13

It is one of those evenings where the sadness sits ready behind the eyes.  The memories and the thoughts just float there behind the surface, like waves lapping at the shore.  One by one and all at once they come and bubble and I can feel their wetness spreading against the shore of my cheeks. 

Pastor’s words unknowingly bring fresh the childhood memory wished forgotten as I confess to him of recent actions.

And the feelings of being curse not blessing blow the waters into waves.

 “Look at what you do to me.” The memory echoes.

It all comes down to me.  Me doing this to him, that something in me is causing this that is so wrong and standing in front of me.  The man inside the memory is standing in front of me hardened and blaming me for the hardening.  I am sickened by the sight of it and so I do what I did the day it happened and I turn away with a pit in my stomach.  The nauseated feeling of being wronged but also somehow being in the wrong, because I know his words lie, but a part of me claims them as real. 

And the waves lap harder.

Blowing winds whisper loud that I am the cause of wrong, that I am curse, it is what I have been and always will be.

 “Know your place, this is what you are, who you are.” And these words on the wind whip at my heart. 

The waves and the memories are coming faster.

I am standing in the bathroom, walked into of free will.  All giggles on the outside as I watch him satisfy and relieve his aching manhood, the one I had refused to gratify, into the toilet.  Inwardly not knowing what to do, wanting to run but not knowing how, feeling guilty for not even trying. 

“You could have left and you didn’t, you could have run, but you stayed.” The wind blows harder still.

I close my eyes as the waves come crashing down one after another as these memories so freshly remembered are brought up by words of one and the actions of another and they wash over me.

Actions in which I stayed when I should have ran.  And the words of yet another asking if I did something to cause this, this new action, the one that brought up the same feelings as this memory.  I stumble to answer, because I don’t feel I did, but then again I cause this, this hardening of a man’s desire, so I don’t know where exactly the truth in the answer lies.

My mind and the waves wash up the time I was sixteen.  The time when the boy I wanted to love me most of all sat and touched all the places that his girlfriend wouldn’t let him, later to be cornered in a hallway, telling me that I am nothing.  I was just a ploy of Satan’s to cause him to sin and I had better keep it all quiet lest others know him as a sinner.

And those winds they blow even harder.

“Sin causer, your purpose, no running from that truth of who you are.”

The waves and the winds they keep on crashing, filling my little boat of hope and faith with doubt.

My Jesus though, He is known to walk on water, so I call Him in to walk on top of mine.  He scoops me up into His arms as I lean into Him and the winds quiet and the waves go calm.    I rest my sea sickened heart in His grace pierced hands.


*These winds are not the truth of me. I am a work in progress and there is progress being worked in me.  More on that to come later.*

(Way more than) Five Minute Friday: Mercy

*Not a true story, but a story of truths.  This is what came out for Mercy*

She sat in the bay window, her knees pulled tight to her chest.  She was clothed in all gray: light gray stretch pants, long and loose cable net sweater, and socks that scrunched up around her ankles.  Her attire matched the color of the sky outside.  She hugged her knees closer and rested her chin upon them.  She watched as raindrops zig-zagged their way down the window. 

A man's voice spoke from behind her, drawing her back into the present and out of the watery world before her.  She didn't want reality, she wanted to wash away like those raindrops.

He called to her again.  "Mercy.  Mercy.  Can you hear me?"

Her name was Mercy and the irony of her own name and his question did not escape her. 

As she slowly turned to face the voice her own mind asked the same question, "Mercy, can you hear me?  Mercy.  Mercy?" , but she wasn't speaking to herself.

She raised her eyes only long enough to glimpse today's intruder. 

He sat in the only chair in the room; legs crossed, a notebook and pen poised and at the ready.  He was younger than most.  Her eyes caught his for only a second, but that was a second too long.  It was too much exposure and she turned again to face the window.    The rain was still dripping but the spell was broken, reality glaring hard about her.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"I want you to tell me why you are here."

"You know why I am here."  She wasn't going to make this easy on him.  She never made it easy for anyone.

"I want to hear it in your own words." 

"I am here because life sucks, the world is scary, the fear and the anger tear at me all day long and I can't take it.  I have no where to release it all and so I tear at myself, because I am the one I am most angry at." 

But none of that came out.  She just sat in silence and instead pulled a sleeve up over her arm showing him it, because that arm spoke louder and bolder than any words ever could have.

He was fairly new at this job.  He had seen other arms, other patients, but none like this.  He worked hard to cover his shock at the depth of pain revealed in this showing of skin.  He didn't know how she was able to touch it.  The skin was a dark purple, all of it and swollen.  Deep scratches and scabs broke through the purple in telling lines. 

"Why?" It was all he could muster and he wasn't sure if he said it with the professional flatness he had been taught to use.

He hadn't.  The concern seeped through the question.  Her ears perked, because she heard it, the concern.  "He really is new," she thought, "or is it that he really might care?"  Either way, the slip of his heart dropped her guard enough that she allowed words to slip out.  "It is who I am.  That is me inside and I wear it out.  I wear my insides out and no one likes that, so that is why I am here.  I am here because I show my honesty and it is too honest."  Her hand pulled her sleeve back down over her hurts and anger.  That was the most anyone had gotten out of her in a long time.  This speaking honesty instead of acting it out was tiring and frightening.  She slipped from the window and moved to her bed.  Climbing inside she turned away from him and pulled the covers up close around her.  "Can we be done now?"

"Okay, but I will be back soon.  Thank you for showing me."

Today is 9/11

Today is 9/11. 

I know this not only from the date on the bottom right of my screen, but also because of my facebook feed.  The steady flow of memes and pictures declaring the truth of it fills page scroll after page scroll.  The “Never Forget” ‘s and the “We Remember” ‘s along with the stories and also the ones that cry out in vengeance; these memes, pictures, sentiments, and battle cries have been filling my stream for a few days now.  This 9/11 it all feels a little too raw to me.  As we draw lines in the sand with Syria and I see hatred brewing on every side and angle, combined with the Million Muslim March and the bikers traveling to D.C.

The monsters that loom in the shadows feel like they are closing in all around us and our world.  I see them hiding in the messages that say because of 9/11 we will never care about the Muslim people. 

As if the actions of some negate the worth of all.  And I bristle.

I bristle because my own heart wants to raise its fist with them and join the battle cry of the wronged yet also wrong.  I want to lump a whole people into an action and I bristle because the monsters are breathing down my neck.  The monsters that tell me Hate deserves Hate in return; the one that says love and forgiveness have no place here; the one that tells me my soul, land, and people are more important than theirs. 

So I breathe out the lies and I shoo away the monsters as I push that fist back down until its hand opens wide, because I have not been made the judge and jury over this fight and that vengeance is not mine to give.

I know that the actions were unspeakable, the stories horrible, I am not diminishing the crime.  I am deliberately choosing not to fan the flames of hatred and to throw the next punch in a war that only divides our souls. 

There is too much at stake here for me to raise my fist and join a war that can only be won on knees. 

So I am choosing to see the many as individuals, souls clothed in flesh the same as me, and not as worth stealing actions. 

I have friends of all religions on my newsfeed and of all walks of life.  I don’t want to give them the message that they have no worth because of what someone else has done, or because I disagree with their position.

When I was  in high school a boy turned to me and told me that I should put everyone else out of their misery and kill myself.  I can only assume it is because I didn’t fit into his notion of what society should be like, look like, and act like. 

Those words stung.  They still sting.  It is the sting of them though that helps me to push that fist back down and to cause my knees to bend low, because I don’t want to be the voice of the  monster that whispers the lies to another, the lie that actions negate worth. 

 

I am not perfect.  I have raised my hearts fist on many an occasion, but today, today I chose to love.


 

One small step for some, One giant leap for me

Luke 2:19

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

 

Tonight was Sunday Night Live at our church.  It is our once a month Sunday night service where there is a more relaxed setting and the night is pliable, allowing the Spirit to flow and to sway freely throughout it.  It was my first such service.  I was able to go on my own and leave everyone else at home. 

God has been moving here; here in my heart, here in this church, and here in this move.  He is showing me things, and un-chaining things, and having things spoken to me as in literally and directly spoken to me.  Oh friends, there is so much of this happening that it is too much to contain in one blog post.  Just know that tonight was a culmination of all of those moments and steps that have come before. 

We started the evening with praise and worship, it was a small group of people who showed up, so the worship leader called us up to the alter area in front of the chairs to be closer together and to sing and to dance and to worship.  The sense of closer community was being created.  The songs were about freedom and love and deep intimacy with Jesus.  I sang them freely, but also with a tinge of hypocrisy in my heart, because I did not feel free from my chains and I don’t do intimacy well.  I ignored the tinge and sang and swayed and felt close to the other hearts around me as much as I could and I told myself that was enough.

I heard sniffles behind me during a pause in the music and I turned to see a new friends emotions spilling out.  I barely know her, but I saw her hurt and if felt familiar.  Despite my uncertainty I went behind her and I placed my hands on her shoulders and leaned my head slightly towards the back of hers.  I don’t know any of her story, but I prayed and sensed that she needed to feel loved.  So I prayed hard that she could sense God’s arms wrapped tight around her and that His love would encase her.  I wanted to bear hug her from behind, but I also didn’t want to freak her out, so I just stayed safely on her shoulders as I prayed. 

I went back to singing and thought, “okay God, you are giving me a break tonight.  That is cool.  I am down with that.  I could use a little observation time. *two tongue clicks and finger gun point towards heaven* Yeah, good stuff.”  Sing, sing, sing.  Message Time.

MESSAGE TIME!

Yeah, no observing for me tonight.  It was a full on God in my face, holding my chin, speaking directly in my ear kind of a message.  “Are you getting it Karmen?  Are you fully hearing me yet?  I am talking to YOU!”  It was a message chock full of all those words that catch in my soul: fear, doubt, trust, freedom.  It hit every one of them.  And then Pastor uttered the words that God was wanting and going to set people free….tonight and I swear He looked directly into my eyes so many times that I was like, “okay I get it, this is for me (others too, but still for me).  And I wanted it, I wanted it so bad, but I didn’t know how to get it.  And the pastor said that no one cared if we lay in an isle bawling like a baby, that we could be messy, that it was okay.  At that point I was like, “Seriously God, I totally hear you, okay?” 

But I also was shutting down, because that is what I do.  I close off and in when the emotions rise, and I don’t do messy in front of eyes, and I don’t move I sit.

So I sat there wanting freedom while adding more locks to my chains.  I looked down at my bare feet and my dirty sandals and the light reflecting off of the guitar on stage kept flashing in my peripheral.  “I don’t know how to do this God.  I don’t know what to do.” I kept telling Him over and over.  “This opening of me, I am incapable of this.  I can’t do it.”  And I kept looking at my feet as I hunched over my knees feeling as though I was adding another failure to my long list of failures. 

I could hear the others praying, some crying, some speaking in tongues and I felt left out, because of the cages I have created.

Then Pastor stood beside me, laying his hand on the middle of my back.  Tears slid down my face.  I feared he was wasting his time with me.  He stood there waiting as others prayed aloud.  He stood there waiting and there was such a heat underneath his hand.  He began to pray and speak words to and over me when someone broke out in tongues on the other side of the church.  They got louder and louder.  The only word I understood that kept being said between the tongues was “Run”, “RuN”, “RUN”.  The pastor asked God for a translator.  It took a few minutes as God was using the voice of someone who wasn’t sure maybe if she was supposed to be the one to translate.  She began timidly. 

I can’t quote what she said exactly, but it was along the lines that someone was doubting themselves, their place, their worth and that God loved them, as they are, He saw them, the everything inside of them and He loved them so much and He wanted them to run to Him. 

I heaved beneath the hand on my back.  God was calling out to me; He was running to me and using other people to make sure I was hearing Him clearly.  The tears spilled out hot and my hair was sticking to my face.  More words, more hands, more love, more chains being broken for me because I didn’t know how to break them.  God came to me. 

The words stopped and the hands let go and let me sit and cry as I assimilated all that happened.  And even after all that, I sat and argued with God. 

“God I am not these things they are saying.  I am not blessing, I am curse.  You see me.  All of me, surely you know that I am not blessing.”

As the truth of the words He spoke over me through others voices continued to sink in there was a calming.  An emptying.  A freeing that was taking place. 

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, was being sung.  A song from long ago that resonates in my being.  I sang out and shocked myself at the steadiness and volume that came out of my voice.  I just sang, freely.  There was a refreshing that occurred.

Another song began and once again there were feet at my side.  “Round Two”, Pastor said and he spoke to me of my future and where God was leading me and about my family.  Things that would only be able to come from a deep knowledge of us as a family, which he as a person does not have.

The sanctuary was chock full of the freed as the service came to a close.  The mic was opened up for testimonies.  Several came up.  Pastor called for if there were any more and I did what is normal for me I sat and thought/argued about it with God.  No one came so he prayed a closing prayer; afterwards I raised my hand though, because I felt I had to share.

If you know me at all, you know I don’t do this.  Public speaking, not my thing.  Private speaking, not my thing.  I am really just not all that into speaking when it comes to emotional anything.  So this walking up there, grabbing a mic, and actually talking….WOAH.

I pretty much sucked at the talking part.  I tripped on my words, didn’t clearly get at what I wanted to get at and probably left a few people scratching their heads, but you know what, I don’t really care.  I did it and that was Huge.  That might have been one tiny step for someone else but it was a huge leap for me.  Even if the only coherent part of it was the little "Yay God" at the end.

I know I am not doing this night and this moment and this forward momentum justice, but I just had to share with you.  I just had to get it down and out.

*If you were there and you caught anything I was trying to say, here are a couple of links to fill you in and maybe make what I said a bit more coherent.

 

Running with eyes wide shut
Standing Still

#Tell His Story: There is a work here being written

I have a story to tell, a story that isn’t too far shy of being 40 years in the making.  I tell it in pieces and in parts; narrating bits of the past, working through the details of the present, and glimpsing hopes for the future.  All the words are part of my story, each paragraph and chapter working together to someday make it complete.

At church tonight tidbits of my story kept coming to me, quiet like, in fragmented phrases.  At one point I even saw myself on the stage, somewhere in the future, sharing all the parts to make a whole.  I saw myself telling my story, that which will be my testimony, and in the end I could see myself spin .  I pondered this vision, because the book is not yet written, chapters are missing and storylines have yet to be completed.  Nevertheless there it was in my mind’s eye, the first book of my own series, bound and completed standing on that stage.

The service was coming to an end as half of me stayed attentive and the other half processed the picture I had been given.  It was time to pray and to sing.  The musicians stood on stage playing.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him coming and I knew he was coming for me. 

Have you ever met someone whose ear is so close to the lips of God that you can almost hear the echoes of His whispers as you look into their eyes?  Have you been in the presence of someone like that?  This man has that gift, the one that was coming, coming straight at me.  He placed his hand on the back of my neck and the other on my forehead, his lips close to my ear as he prayed over me words that only God could have whispered.  Then he spoke in tongues and although I had no idea what he was saying, my spirit must have because I felt it shift inside of me, loosing something from deep within.

There is a work here being written.  Its words are being etched out within, a story taking form and shape through days and moments.  One day when all the loose ends are all tied up and the missing chapters completed. that book, the first of many more to come, will stand on a stage and share the words within.

 

What I learned: August 2013

I started following a new blog and that blogged linked up with another blog that does a monthly link up with the prompt "what I learned this month"  So without further ado, this is what I learned over the last month in no particular order.

1. I learned that if you are willing to put yourself out there that there are people who are willing to let you in.  I have never made friends easily.  I have always been too afraid to put myself out there because I couldn't take being rejected, again.  When we moved here in August I was determined to break that mindset and put myself out there more.  This month I have done just that and I have found that there are people who are willing to let me in and maybe even want me to be there.

2.I have learned that when looking at school websites after moving that you make sure that you are looking at the RIGHT school website.  I have two kids starting Jr. High this year and the week before school started I was looking at what I thought was their school website and saw that they needed uniforms.  Panic and stress ensued.  Facebook posts bemoaning the thought of buying two whole new wardrobes were posted.  Come to find out, I was looking at the website of a school over an hour away from us. 

3.I have learned that when stupid stuff comes out of my mouth that I just need to laugh at myself and not berate myself for it. This one is pretty self explanatory.  If people think I am the dumb chick who trips over her words the world will be okay and the universe won't stop existing.  Most of the time I am that chick, so I might as well make peace with it.

4.God's love never ceases to amaze me.  Okay so I didn't exactly learn this just this month, but it just gets more and more apparent.

5.Finding a church that tells it like it is with love, mercy, and grace without watering down the truth is possible, even in a new state. We love our new church and are so blessed by it every Wednesday and Sunday and all the days in between.  If you are in the Groton/New London area I invite you to join us .

6.Telling my story is important.  It doesn't matter how many people hear it, something happens inside of me when I share it, and if it reaches people at the same time then that is just an extra bonus.

7. I love having 6/7 kids in school full time!

8.I am not powerless against my thoughts.  I am learning to take control.  Just like when my kids do something I don't want them to and I tell them "NO" when my brain starts going in directions I don't want it to I can tell it "NO" just as firmly as I do with my kids.  Even if I have to do it a thousand times over, it is possible and it is worth it. 

9.Friends make life better.  Playdates, bbq's, coffee, and hugs.  Friends are good. 

10.I know too many hurting people.   When I posted a link on my facebook page for those dealing with emotional abuse I had about 3 specific people in mind.....what I found out is that there are a lot more people dealing with this issue than I knew.  This makes me sad.  No one should have to deal with abuse.  Please get help or reach out to a friend.  You are not alone and you are not crazy.  Seek truth and wise counsel and I am always here to listen if you need it, although I am afraid I am not very wise, but I am an ear if you need one. 

So there they are, my ten things I learned in August.  If you are interested in joining in just click HERE