Thursday, November 15, 2012

Seeing perspective....

I have been struggling with posting the things that I have been writing lately.  

They are dark and they are hard and I make little attempt at being encouraging and I don't know of any good that can come from them.  


And yet I know there isn't anything that God can't work through.   I know this is but a season and God will faithfully bring me through it.


My rope has been fully extended to its end and the only way I am able to face each day is with the reminder that Jesus walks this way with me.  I find my self in the deep of it and He whispers wisdom always bearing my escape.  


I know it will sound crazy but I need to feel this.  I need to see, really see, what I say I believe.  I need to see all the ways that He has kept me.  All the ways He has delivered me.  How He has come to my rescue and how He has never left nor forsaken me.


I need to see once again that I can trust Him in all things, that no matter what happens to me, no matter the lies or the schemes or the things that beat me down, tear at me, despised and have deceived me, worked to manipulate and control me, and set to destroy me, these things may have their sting but that's all they have.  


The blood of Jesus.  The love of God.  The gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit.  These. things.  They have redeemed me. 


And I want this perspective.  I want to see and know how He has and is still working in me.  


That place He is carving out so that I might contain His glory.  He empties me out so that He can refill me.  Death to new life and an unending supply of His love and mercy.


I am not the one that knows best....

The things we bury deep, you and me.  Forgotten but never that far from the surface.

 Flashes, times past, old wounds, ugly scars, rotten flesh that I'd just as soon cut out than administer any form of processed healing.  These are the things I feel and I see in the dark.

Why must I walk this road?  Why must I revisit and relive these stories of a dead and blood soaked past?

I sound harsh and a part of me wants to rescue time and interject,  "Certainly, it wasn't that bad."  But how can having your beating heart ripped from your chest be looked upon with a rosy shade of optimism?  Our sufferings are all relevant and could not feel more real when the affect the core of who we are.

Then I hear it.  It's there.  Beating wildly in my ears.  And I hear You.  "I didn't leave you then and I'm here now holding on to you."

I need to find comfort in those words but I can't.  If I keep holding your hand, you'll heal this in me but not without facing fleshly demands of justice for me and that of the anger bound by a choke chain, kept under submission, that would just love gnawing on flesh if released from its current choke position.

What is to stop this anger from consuming me as we walk through this healing? Whether it be holy, righteous anger from injustice served, there is a flesh battle I have no desire to fight for this healing.  I don't want to fight against these demons that proclaim the injustice served me would do these offenders,  all justly.

I know the enemy and who's responsible for things done to me, are two different things.  I cast no lots for suffering but I'm no fool to the ways sin blankets flesh like a caring companion.    How can you be sure bitterness won't become me, that I won't get stuck and buried in the process because this already feels so weighty.

And I hear You again, "You will have to trust Me."

But God, how could any good come from this?  This revisiting and reliving of the past.

And words like unpacking and process connect with redeeming and freeing and it is all beyond my understanding, my thinking.  I can't live with feeling nothing but how do I feel it all without collapsing from the weight and all that is straining.

Remind me that you are a God of love, a God of grace and a God of mercy once again.

(I finished the above sentence and the song below was the next random selection from my playlist.  Some folks would call that a coincidence.  I'm not one of them.)




Let’s survive this together
We’ve survived so much together already
But I want to live through this with you

This is why I’m alive
Its moments like this I want together with you
Let’s just take tonight and breathe again

You feel pain tonight
You won't always feel this way
You feel plain tonight
And it's going to be okay
It’s going to be okay

Let’s survive this together
We’ve survived so much together already
But I want to live through this with you



Why yes, I do fall....

tur·moil

noun \ˈtər-ˌmȯi(-ə)l\

Definition of TURMOIL

: a state or condition of extreme confusion, agitation, or commotion


There are tell tale signs but I'm to busy being moved by them, controlled by them, reacting to them to see them for what they really are.  The ache that runs the back of my head, the tension entangling the muscles of my neck and stretching the length of my spine, the fluctuation of my voice, the nerves rubbed raw, the mind that refuses to focus and see through the lingering fog, all  characteristics of something deep seeded.  

Instead I stupidly question, What's wrong with me?   Why am I falling apart?

There are things that weigh heavy and overwhelm my soul.  I try hard to block them out.  I try to keep to a routine but these things they just keep pressing me.  And I, I am always reacting.  My mouth, my mind, my body.  Reacting.  

And where does reacting get me?  It takes me back to that cliff that I once stood on, leaning a little to far, peering over.  That cliff that God clearly told me I was playing to close to the edge.  That cliff that leads to a point of no return and ends with an ugly, if not fatal, crashing.

In this world that we live in, everyone is susceptible to turmoil because no one is immune to sin and the condition that sin ushered in. 

We walk so blindly, not just tripping into it.  We question positive more than we do negative because the negative meets our expectations and yet we're still disappointed with it all.

Only God can break this fall.



Originally written  Monday,  October 29.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Stumbling across words....


in the dark. in the despair. you will find Me there. you will surrender your heart. let go of all of your hopes and your dreams. push past memories. lay aside grievances. shuck the weight of your self inflicted hate. take steps toward your predestined fate. do you feel the lightness of the load?  do you sense the direction leading you home? I remember that look in your eyes. that wide eyed wonder for all things created. you tasted of my goodness. now taste of it again.

I just stumbled across these words above.  An entry sitting at the top of my un-posted drafts.  And quite honestly, I don't remember drafting them. Nevertheless, they are stunning and I don't mean beautiful.  But the more I think about them the more they are, beautiful.  I may have typed them out but it is not me speaking.  These are His words.  To me, quite possible, but then maybe they are for you, too.  

It sounds as if this is a season for redeeming, like the prodigal making his way home.  It was love that he was met with.  It is only love that can redeem. 

And someone really needs to slap me up side the head.  

Am I so blind that I can't see this is what He has been doing to me.  The process that He has had me in.  That it is Him.  That it is only His love that can redeem what is broken in me.    

In the story of the prodigal, we see a father receiving a son back but it was the love of God that called the son back home and it was the love of God that allowed the father to accept him.  They were both broken but allowed the love of God to explode within their souls and fix all that needed fixing.

What needs fixing in you?  Whatever it is, there may appear to be multiple solutions and they probably sound convincing but only the love of God can fix the deepest parts of you, anything else is just temporary or conditional.
 


Saturday, November 3, 2012

Life, the author is a Poet....



Life truly is poetry in motion.  

Life doesn't stop until it is over and rarely does it slow down.  

But the beauty of it all "is" there to be found.  

This walk with Christ is pure poetry.  

The mystery.  The seeking.  The shaking of our heads in thought.  The delight in imagery that He speaks.  

His words, spoken in His Word and through man, captivate my heart and draw me closer in.  

The rhythm.  The emotion of it all.  The more I listen to these words, the more I dig deeper to the heart of it all.  

It is all Beauty and it is all Love and everything, yes everything, is a Gift from above.

I've been quiet this last week and I have questioned this quietness and little desire to write but as I felt the need to open this page, God began to awaken inside.  Not that I haven't seen or heard from Him this week, He just began to but two and two together for me regarding this lack.

My attention has been turned to the many lost, broken, hurting, striving, struggling, desperate, standing, believing, searching but waiting on the Lord.

Yes, you read that correctly.

WAITING ON THE LORD.

When life wants to rush us along, when answers don't come easy, when the fog is slow to lifting, when fear is ever crippling, when joy has exited the rear of the building, when well intended people really screw up, when darkness is over shadowing and our knees have been frequently bending, we can be present to all that we are feeling and find stillness in Him.


Isaiah 40:31

King James Version (KJV)
31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; 
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; 
they shall run, and not be weary; 
and they shall walk, and not faint.




Dear friends, a lot is weighing heavy on my heart and I know it is God that has led me to this as I know it is God that led you here.  If you could please remember these, listed below, in your prayers.  I know it will be much appreciated.  I also know that you will be strengthened by their thoughts and their words as they write from the waiting place with eyes expecting His Glory.




And if you have a need, please know that I am here to take it to the Lord in prayer.  I may not know you but I love you and He loves you so much more!