Back to Writing?

It is has really been a long time since I have stopped to write anything of any substance but the words have been taunting me lately, mostly in spurts in the car or when I am tied up with something and later I am too tired to capture them.

It has been a such a season of change (it seems it always is.)  My baby boy is experiencing his last year of high school with college in the cross hairs for next year.  I have almost melted down over this more than once; not because I don't want him to grow and go and experience all he was meant to but because I am selfish and fear life truly "alone."  I think about what it will be like to live without anyone coming home...just me and the dogs.  Yes, I know there are people who do it all the time and for years and years...but, honestly, I can't say I am looking forward to it.

Also, my current living situation is in flux as decisions about selling the house are in the air and although I try not to worry...worry comes.  If it were just me, it wouldn't be a bit deal; but it isn't just me...it is my son and our two fur-babies. Oh, and I am one of those people who doesn't like not knowing the plan.  I like plans.

On top of that, there are a couple of other area that I am  uncertain about and so my anxiety has been  having a fun time lately.  That is frustrating as I have been without the anxiety for quite a while until just lately and it has returned.  Maybe it is just part of who I am and I need to relax about not being able to relax?

Ultimately, over the last week or so I have realized that the last 6 years of stress and change have finally caught up with me and I am tired.  I am tired of things being hard. I just think it has been too long holding up all the loose ends.  I am also tired of people saying, "Wow, you have it so together!" when they never stop to get to know that I don't and that sometimes I need help too.  It is like you get criticized if you don't have it together so you smile and make sure it looks all together while inside you are criticizing yourself.  Crazy, huh?

I long for normal (what ever that is???) I long for loneliness to go away. I long for my family.  I long for something more and something less....peace and security mostly.

Looking for Peace at the Seashore

Yesterday, my mind swirled with all kind of thoughts and emotions...you know the kind that make you question everything.  Even though I don't make the mark often, I am still trying to be the change and not add negativety into our world, but some days seem to push you further than you expect; maybe it is a day when you had plans with someone and they decided to do something else with someone else (and you aren't included) or maybe it is an unexpected bit of news from work or family.  Those days really don't make you want to play nice or cooperate with anything or anyone.  They are draining and disappointing. 

So, to relieve the stress and not just sit at home alone, I got in my car and started driving.  Where?  I didn't know, I just went.  It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I let the roads lead me.  It isn't hard to figure out, though, like a magnet it took me through some areas I had never seen before and I ended up at the seashore.  Fortunately, it was a reasonably quiet spot of sand and I was able to just sit and watch the water come in, pray and think.  I have a lot to pray about....my family relations, my future, a job, etc. and I have a lot to be thankful for as well. 

This is a season of change for my family and now our little household is down to only 2 plus the 2 furbabies.  With that comes adjustment...not necessarily bad adjustment, just adjustment.  My greatest love has been to be a Mom and I am sad to see that season ending. Although, I will always be their Mom....it isn't the same.  I have 36 months before my baby flies and when you put it in those terms it almost overwhelms me.  My other children now live hours away and it is going to take some time to wrap my mind around what used to be and what is. I struggle because I don't know how to hold us together in this season.  I thought I had it all clear in my head and now I get to start over.  Oh, joy!

Living in a Season of Saturday, repost

NOTE: I wrote this on Saturday. April 19, 2014 during a very painful season of my life.  I have not included some of those details here but if you desire to read the post in it's entirety the link is here: Living in a Season of Saturday.

The reason I am reposting this is it was still so fitting for this day and the devotional that inspired it still is important. Today is important...it is important to what yesterday was and what tomorrow will be.

Saturday,  April 19, 2014:

..... So today, when I read the following devotional I knew.  I knew I was standing, smack in the Saturday of my life. "Saturday is the day your dream died. You wake up and you’re still alive. You have to go on, but you don’t know how. Worse, you don’t know why.*"

I am standing right in the middle of a third day story and the hardest part about  third day stories? "The problem with third-day stories is, you don’t know it’s a third-day story until the third day.*" And, somehow at this moment....on a rainy Saturday....the third day seems like it won't ever come. There is probably a big part of my heart that just doesn't even want it to come because it puts me that much further away from what I have lost.   Logic says it will come, good intentioned, wise friends and family assure you it will come but the heart can't hear those words.

I couldn't have written about this Saturday season on my own. so I am sharing the writing of someone else and  hope you will find meaning in this devotional by John Ortberg from his book Who is This Man? (from which the above quotes came):

"In Between Despair and Joy

(link to the original devotional location on Faithgateway)

 So far as we know, there has only been one day in the last two thousand years when literally not one person in the world believed Jesus was alive. On Saturday morning after Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples wake after not having slept for two days. The city that was screaming for blood the day before is quiet. Crowds have disbanded. Jesus is dead.

What do they do on Saturday?

It’s strange that the two days on either side of Saturday are so heavily discussed. Some of the brightest minds in the world have devoted themselves primarily to those two days; they have been across the centuries maybe the two most studied days in history. The Bible is full of what happened the day before, the day Jesus was killed. And the next day, Sunday, is the day believers say gave birth to the most death-defying, grave-defeating, fear-destroying, hope-inspiring, transcendent joy in the history of the world. Pentecostals still shout about it. Charismatics still dance because of it. Baptists still say Amen! over it. Presbyterians still study it. Episcopalians still toast it with sherry. Some people think of Sunday in mellower terms, as a metaphor for hope. And others think of it as a dangerous enemy of logic, reason, and mortality.

Let’s just leave Sunday alone for now.

This isn’t Sunday. This isn’t Friday. This is Saturday. The day after this but the day before that. The day after a prayer gets prayed but there is no answer on the way. The day after a soul gets crushed way down but there’s no promise of ever getting up off the mat.

It’s a strange day, this in-between day. In between despair and joy. In between confusion and clarity. In between bad news and good news. In between darkness and light. Even in the Bible – outside of one detail about guards being posted to watch the tomb – we’re told nothing about Saturday. Saturday is the day with no name, the day when nothing happened.

Now only a handful of followers remain. Friday was a nightmare day; Friday was the kind of day that is pure terror, the kind when you run on adrenaline. On Saturday when Jesus’ followers wake up, the terror is past, at least for the moment; the adrenaline is gone.Those who believe in Jesus gather, quietly maybe. They remember. It’s what people do. Things He said. What He taught. Things He did. People He touched or healed. They remember what it felt like when this Jesus wanted them. They remember their hopes and dreams. They were going to change the world.

Now it’s Saturday.

Maybe they talk about what went wrong. What in God’s name happened? None of them wants to say this, but in their hearts, they’re trying to come to grips with this unfathomable thought: Jesus failed. Jesus ended up a failure. Noble attempt, but He couldn’t get enough followers. He couldn’t convince the chief priests. He couldn’t win over Rome to make peace. He couldn’t get enough ordinary people to understand His message. He couldn’t even train His disciples to be courageous at the moment of great crisis.

Everybody knows Saturday.

"Saturday is the day your dream died. You wake up and you’re still alive. You have to go on, but you don’t know how. Worse, you don’t know why."

 This odd day raises a question: Why is there a Saturday? It doesn’t seem to further the story line at all. We might expect that if Jesus was going to be crucified then resurrected, God would just get on with it. It seems strange for God to spread two events over three days.In its own way, perhaps Saturday should mark the world as much as Friday and Sunday.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday lie at the heart of the ancient calendar. They attributed great significance to the notion that this event was a three-day story. The apostle Paul wrote, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day [Paul adds again] according to the Scriptures.” The Old Testament Scriptures are filled with what might be called “third-day stories.” When Abraham is afraid he’s going to have to sacrifice Isaac, he sees the sacrifice that will save his son’s life on the third day. Joseph’s brothers get put in prison, and they’re released on the third day. Israelite spies are told by Rahab to hide from their enemies, and then they’ll be safe on the third day. When Esther hears that her people are going to be slaughtered, she goes away to fast and pray. On the third day, the king receives her favorably. It’s such a recurring pattern that the prophet Hosea says, “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces… After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will restore us, that we may live in His presence.” All three-day stories share a structure. On the first day there is trouble, and on the third day there is deliverance. On the second day, there is nothing – just the continuation of trouble.

"The problem with third-day stories is,

you don’t know it’s a third-day story until the third day."

When it’s Friday, when it’s Saturday, as far as you know, deliverance is never going to come. It may just be a one-day story, and that one day of trouble may last the rest of your life.* * *

I said before that Saturday is the day when nothing happens. That’s not quite right. Silence happens on Saturday. After trouble hits you, after the agony of Friday, you call out to God. “Hear me! Listen to me! Respond to me! Do something! Say something! Rescue!”
Nothing.

"On Saturday, in addition to the pain of Friday,

 there is the pain of silence and absence of God."

When C. S. Lewis wrote his memoirs about coming to faith in Jesus, he called it Surprised by Joy. The book is about how his love of joy led him to faith in Jesus, and he actually took as the title a phrase in a poem by William Wordsworth. When Lewis wrote the book, he was a fifty-seven-year-old bachelor. He had met a woman named Joy whom, after the book was published, he ended up marrying. His friends enjoyed teasing him that he really had been surprised by Joy. After a lifetime of waiting, Lewis knew love only briefly. Joy died soon after they were married of cancer, a lingering, very painful death. So Lewis wrote another book: A Grief Observed. A Saturday book.

When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing God, so happy you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become… What can this mean?

"Why is He so present a Commander in our time of prosperity and 

so very absent a help in time of trouble?" 

A husband, a father, wants more than anything in the world to save his marriage. His wife will not listen and will not help. He is not perfect (not by a long shot), but he wants to do a really good thing. He can’t find out why his wife won’t respond to him, and he can’t stand what it’s doing to his children. Heaven is silent.  A mom and a dad find out the child they love has a terminal illness. They pray like crazy but hear only silence. She’s getting worse. You lose a job. You lose a friend. You lose your health. You have a dream for your child. And on Friday, it dies. What do you do on Saturday?

You can choose despair. Paul writes about this: “How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” In other words, apparently some people said, “There is never going to be a Sunday. It’s Friday. Get used to it. Do disappointment management, because that’s as good as it’s going to get.” Some people – silently, secretly – live here. You can choose denial – simplistic explanations, impatience, easy answers, artificial pleasantness. Hydroplane over authentic humanity, forced optimism, clichéd formulas, false triumphalism.

Paul wrote to Timothy that some “say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.” In other words, apparently some said, “It’s already Sunday. The resurrection has already happened for all of us, so if you’re having any problems, if you’re still sick, if your prayers aren’t being answered, you just don’t have enough faith. Get with the program.” Or there is this third option:

"You can wait. Work with God even when He feels far away.

Rest. Ask. Whine. Complain. Trust."

Oddly, the most common psalm is the psalm of complaint. The Saturday psalm. God, why aren’t you listening?
• • •
An ancient homily spoke of this strange day: What happened today on earth? There is a great silence – a great silence and stillness. A great silence because the king sleeps. God has died in the flesh, and hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent as for a lost sheep.
The Apostles’ Creed says Jesus descended into hell.

"Somehow no suffering you go through is suffering Jesus will not endure in order to save you."

From a human standpoint, we think of the miraculous day as Sunday, the day the man Jesus is risen from the dead. I wonder if, from Heaven’s standpoint, the great miracle isn’t on Saturday. When Jesus is born, the skies are filled with the heavenly hosts praising God because that baby is Emmanuel, God with us. Somehow God in a manger, somehow God in a stable, somehow God on earth. Now on Saturday the angels look down and see what? God in a tomb.

"The miracle of Sunday is that a dead man lives. 

The miracle of Saturday is that the eternal Son of God lies dead."

So Jesus Christ defeats our great enemy death not by proclaiming His invincibility over it but by submitting Himself to it. If you can find this Jesus in a grave, if you can find Him in death, if you can find Him in hell, where can you not find Him? Where will He not turn up?"

I guess the hard part for me is that I read the devotional and wrote these words years ago but I am human and I have grown weary of still living in a Season of Saturday.  I pray, I listen, I work...and I wait.

How 5 years can change the world...

Today is a day when I need to write, need to spill words out somewhere. Emotions are thick and my mind swirls with thoughts, memories, dreams and questions.  Today is a day that brings me haunting memories and also great blessings. 

5 years ago, I almost lost one of my children.  I don't mean there was a close call, I mean I saw the life leaving his body as he lay on the ground among wet, cold, muddy leaves.  I still can remember what his blue face looked like and  the awful gurgling that came from his lungs as his life slipped away.  They say time heals all things...no, it doesn't. These are the haunting memories.

I know that God reached down and breathed life into my dying child that cold, rainy day.  There is no other explanation. Today, that same child, went alone for hours exploring with our dog.  Tonight he went to the movies with his big brother.  Just a moment ago he towered almost 9 full inches over me as he reach down to hug me and tell me he loved me and good night. He is now upstairs reading something way over my head.  Those are the great blessings. 

I stood at the sea shore today, something I promise myself I will do more of each year and I don't. I needed to go today to seek the magical healing of the waves and the salt air.  I am not sure if I found that healing but I did find my heart feeling more than I would have liked and my reserves pushed. I was looking for something...it wasn't there.  I wanted to cry, but I didn't. I head into 2017 in many ways the same as last year, though my thoughts and feelings are clearer.  The last few days of 2016 will be spent recalibrating myself and my heart and fortifying my foundation.

Today reminded me to hold onto what is true and solid, focusing on God's great gifts. I have learned that life is not kind but still there is so much to be thankful for and I am living thankfully...in all circumstances. If you find yourself walking the seashore you may very well find me there again staring out and seeking before the year truly ends. Hold on....

Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.

Psalm 25:5 (NIV)

Sparkle has not left the house!

 

Yes, I disappeared!  It has been a crazy couple of months filled with football, fun with friends & work. We have had so much dreary weather I have been in kind of a funk so I have focused a lot of work.Work is good in that way.  I can dive in and hide behind it while my mind doesn't have time to dwell. . 

  

Oh, and if you are wondering...it is STILL raining in South Carolina....STILL.  That has not helped my funk one single bit.  There are areas where people have still not be able to return to their homes from the flooding weeks ago.  I think it is the general consensus in SC that WE ARE SICK OF RAIN!

 

But, I am not loosing my sparkle again....just spending some time polishing it up.

He will find me...

I saw the below piece on Facebook (where all good things come, right?) but it did get me to thinking about relationships and where I am right now.  I am not looking for someone.  Often people tell me, "Oh, you won't be single long." But, I am not sure.  Maybe I will be, maybe I won't.

Yes, I do get lonely but I  wonder how lonely my Grandmother must have been after her husband died at only 50 (she never dated or remarried.) Did she cry at night silently into her pillow when the loneliness got so heavy? Did she ever tear up just sitting and watching TV alone at night? I lived next door to her my whole life and I never wondered...how insensitive.  I wonder how lonely my Aunt Peggy must be at times when she misses my Uncle Kenneth, who died a few years ago after spending her entire life with him (they were Middle School sweet hearts.) The loneliness is the hardest because you do have to hide it from so many people and it strikes when you least expect it.

But, as I was walking the dog last night...alone; I started thinking about the piece from Facebook.  I knew then that if there was a "he" for me out there somewhere he will find me.  God will lead him to me.  He will find me.  It is actually a very scary proposition to sit back and let go and say he will find me.  See, I work a female dominated industry. Most men I come in to contact with are with their wives or there for something for their wives or girlfriends.  It is hard to resist the urge to go out looking for him but from what I have seen that doesn't pan out. It goes against human nature to not try to control the outcome but I am trying.

Below is that piece from Facebook and if anyone knows the author please share:

Subject: SELF WORTH (Very Deep!!!) In a brief conversation, a man asked a woman he was pursuing the question: 'What kind of man are you looking for?' She sat quietly for a moment before looking him in the eye & asking, 'Do you really want to know?' Reluctantly, he said, 'Yes.
 
She began to expound, 'As a woman in this day & age, I am in a position to ask a man what can you do for me that I can't do for myself? I pay my own bills. I take care of my household without the help of any man... or woman for that matter. I am in the position to ask, 'What can you bring to the table?' The man looked at her. Clearly he thought that she was referring to money.
 
She quickly corrected his thought & stated, 'I am not referring to money. I need something more. I need a man who is striving for excellence in every aspect of life. He sat back in his chair, folded his arms, & asked her to explain. She said, 'I need someone who is striving for excellence mentally because I need conversation & mental stimulation. I don't need a simple-minded man. I need someone who is striving for excellence spiritually because I don't need to be unequally yoked...believers mixed with unbelievers is a recipe for disaster. I need a man who is striving for excellence financially because I don't need a financial burden. I need someone who is sensitive enough to understand what I go through as a woman, but strong enough to keep me grounded. I need someone who has integrity in dealing with relationships. Lies and game-playing are not my idea of a strong man. I need a man who is family-oriented. One who can be the leader, priest and provider to the lives entrusted to him by God. I need someone whom I can respect. In order to be submissive, I must respect him. I cannot be submissive to a man who isn't taking care of his business. I have no problem being submissive...he just has to be worthy.
 
And by the way, I am not looking for him...He will find me. He will recognize himself in me. He may not be able to explain the connection, but he will always be drawn to me. God made woman to be a help-mate for man. I can't help a man if he can't help himself. When she finished her spill, she looked at him. He sat there with a puzzled look on his face. He said, 'You are asking a lot. She replied, "I'm worth a lot".

Loneliness

I have known being lonely.  I have known being "left out" but I guess I have never known this loneliness.  It is a full bodied experience that reaches into your most inner soul and scrapes away every last thing it can possibly take.  It isn't the quiet "I feel sad and alone" feeling but rather it is an active tearing and wearing away.  It makes you feel alone even in a crowd of people.  It isolates you by surprise and sneaks up on you when you least expect it.  It gives you peeks into your future...alone as the people you love leave.  I can do alone, it doesn't bother me...but this loneliness, this being cut away from those you love most is a torture that I know comes straight from hell.

I read this quote this morning, "James says, “One of the greatest tactics from Satan is that he wants you to doubt God, and he’ll try to make you think that loneliness means God is not there for you. If he can make you doubt God’s ability to take care of you, and you start reacting to the situation in your own strength, then Satan has won the battle. God is the only answer through the whole thing. If you seek to glorify God and not glorify yourself, then you’ll win.” (*Steve Grissom, Kathy Leonard)

Understanding my battle is not with flesh and blood, but rather the darkness that has invaded my life doesn't  make it easier as I am battling logic versus heart.   "For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." ~Ephesians 6:12.  The enemy has stolen so much and he wants much  more. It isn't over....