A Borrowed Wisdom

A wise woman once talked of her grief. She lived in it for quite some time, but now time has passed and she is now done grieving. She is done grieving, but she is not done growing.

In fact I don't think any of us are ever done growing.

I know that I am not.

But I am done grieving.

I am done looking at my past and wishing it was with me again.

I am not done healing however.

And that is perfectly alright with me.

The last few months have been messy and difficult, but they have also been enlightening and revitalizing.

At the beginning of this summer I spent hours lying awake at night reliving and over-thinking everything I could possibly scrutinize and examine, wishing to do it all over again, wondering where I went wrong.

Now, it often still takes me a long time to fall asleep, but I am lying in my bed too excited to sleep, to over-joyed with all God has done and will do in me.

And can I just tell you, that is a really fun feeling.

And as I was reading the words of this wise woman, her last comment stuck out to me:

"Perhaps Grief is the greedy guest.  She sprawls across the furniture with her cold, heavy blankets, and she hides in the dark corners.  Now that she has gone, I have only the memory that she was ever here at all.

Love has stayed all along."

I have not forgotten the pain, nor will I. But the truth is I would do it all over again for this outcome.

All because the love I've found is the epitome of how love should be. It is exciting, refreshing, and so Divine.

Floating in a Bigger Tide

That writing feeling has been itching in me for quite some time.

Practically the second I finished my last post.

But I have had so many things I've wanted to talk about. And they all are too disjointed to link. So tonight might be a night of more than one post, because the two are connected, but only by a semi-colon.

In my last few entries I have felt like a sunrise was slowly ascending in the morning sky.

Well now I am happy to say it is finally dawn.

The sun has risen completely and while there are still some clouds in the sky, I do not fear any rain that might come my way.

I am a boat with only one dock now, and on that dock lies the perfect Captain. He can steer me through any storm, in fact He can halt the waves with a mere wave of His punctured hands.

The other rope that bonded me has been cut and it has floated away.

And I have no control of which direction I am headed, yet I am completely content to just wander.

Because while I might not know my direction, my Captain has sailed all seas and will take me to the crystalline waters.

I am just happy that He wants to take me along for the ride.

Delightfully Un-Apathetic

Jealousy has been a theme that has popped up in my life the last few days.

I am unsure as to why, but because it is a pattern I've noticed I might as well comment about it.

The first occurrence had to do with jealousy in a relationship, a concept I have become very familiar with.

The second occurrence however was much more powerful; it had to do with the jealousy of God.

In church today we were in Exodus, talking about the golden calf and God's jealousy for the far inferior deity made of the earth He created.

I feel like we have all have experienced the burning feeling, like we are in the midst of an inferno and it is slowly roasting us from the inside out.

It is not a pleasant feeling.

And it often causes a lot of problems (particularly with any romantic aspect).

So why is our God jealous?

Especially of something so trifle and negligible in comparison?

It is because God is intimately interested in us.

It is because He has such a passionate love for us that the idea of us worshipping something else drives Him crazy.

It is because He desires and deserves more than just our Sunday mornings.

He craves for us to love Him back and so completely that we become consumed in Him and that nothing else matters.

Because after all, "you can't wrap your arms around God when they are already wrapped in something else. If our arms are occupied the He can't give us all that He wants to" (Ryan Paulson)

I have made Him jealous recently myself and I have had nothing good come from it.

I have not seen the wrath that God swore on the Israelites, but that is because someone lobbied for my freedom.

Someone took that wrath upon Himself and carried it to a cross.

All because He cares enough to get jealous.

He cares enough to get angry and upset.

Which is far better than a god who could care less what we do.

Than a god who is completely apathetic towards his creations.

Than a god who would've let us fall to sin and the consequences thereafter.

Don't you think?

Shedding the Soot

Fatigue has found me.

My feet have little strength to continue lifting my weight
My eyes have been burdened to the point of retreating forevermore into the safety of their lids
My heart has groaned too many times to search for anymore hope.

But it is not over yet.

I will find rest.
I will find peace.
I will find comfort.

And I know this because it is not over yet.

My time to fall in flames has passed.
My time to rise from the ashes has come.
My time to soar is now.

Because I am a phoenix.
Because I am letting go,
Because I am no longer going to dwell on the inferno.

Confronting Conflict

I've never been very good at conflict. I despise it in fact.

So in order to deal with this (often irrational) fear, I am someone who will script out my conversations in my mind to organize and prepare what I need to say in order to insure the confrontation is as productive as possible.

The only problem is you can't script life. The author in me wishes that I could but the problem with creating such a script is that it never works out the way you want it to and so when the conversation is over and you've both walked away there are more regrets than there is closure. The other person didn't respond the way you planned for them to and so your script becomes jumbled and you end up skipping a few lines. So all of your preparation is wasted simply because we were not made to be authors of other people's lives.

Now however I have stopped myself from doing this (okay I typically carry out the script for the first few lines but I do make myself stop when I realize what I am doing, it's a process)  I have adopted some new techniques for handling the conflict.

Since I know I naturally am going to fall victim to my bad habit of planning word for word what I will say I try to not give myself time to think and obsess about what will happen. And I've found that the obsession is really just proof that I do not trust God in my conflict and confrontation and when we decide to trust in ourselves rather than Him things never go as planned.

That brings me to the second new habit I have formed: praying. Prayer has been known to do pretty cool things and if you pray all of that worry about not knowing exactly what to say goes away. Especially if you pray that God will give you the right words. It will calm the fears and provide you with a strength you were unaware of. Which in difficult situations like conflict is often ideal.

Now there is one final thing I have been doing that may seem silly, but I think really does help, at least it does help me. In order to remind myself of the strength God will supply I have been taking a pen and writing verses on my wrist. Joshua 1:9, Psalm 27:1, 1 Cor. 10:13, Phil 4:13. All of these verses talk of strength and in the midst of a confrontation that is what I feel I need most.

So last night, when I faced one of the hardest conversations I have ever had to, this was my prayer:

"Daddy,
As much as I want to write out what I will say, I know that if I do I will only disappoint myself. My words are only divine when you flow through them, otherwise they are a limp kite in the still air. So instead here is prayer: Give me courage to face my fears tonight, even if it means the bravery to be vulnerable. Place my heart in purity so that my words are not stemmed from anger and bitterness. Allow me to be brutally honest but unexaggerated. Allow me to say what I must and nothing more, nothing unnecessary. Shower me with your Peace and Grace and constantly remind me of Unconditional Love. I pray that when I speak my words are heard and I pray that you will use those words to meet [the person of my conflict] where [he/she] is. Bless [him/her] Lord, and be with me. I will need you, especially since such a large part of me feels like I need [them]. Remind me that I don't, that I have You to lean upon now, You as a best friend that will never leave or forsake me. One who will stand by me in all of my faults and failures. Cover me with Your Presence. Consume me in Your Light. Send me another rainbow please Daddy. Remind me that I am not in this storm alone and that it will in fact be ending soon.
Bring me strength. Bring me You. "

He did provide me with the strength I needed to face my fears. And I feel like nothing was left unsaid. But as far as Him using my words, that I will probably never know. And that is alright, because in the words of my favorite author,

"[Aslan] tell[s] no one any story but [their] own."

~C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy