Longing is the gift -- that we might be filled.
We feel it acutely when we are alone or lost or when grief sideswipes into our lives. Longing: The ache for something more comes haunting into our hearts and we crave to fill this space. On a sweet morning walk, a friend confides that she is lonely much of the time. Her heart longs for friendship -- connection with other moms -- but she is in that season when kids are sick more often than they are healthy, when naptime trumps all connecting possibilities, when other moms are committed to education with the children in hours she has free. It is a lonely season. She is longing.
Another friend is in the straddle of a home sale. Hers is in escrow and the home she wanted is off the market now. The dreams she had of moving and building a nest with all her personal touches that say, "home," are temporarily stalled. A fog replaces the clear vision she thought she had. She is longing.
A friend and I meet for supper at a diner and amidst the seniors and the special which includes liver and onions we share stories and tears about a broken relationship. Heart broken and unsure of what can heal a gaping pain when the other person is unwilling to make a bridge, we pray and we console and we seek. She is longing.
Showing posts with label Grief and Loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grief and Loss. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
What to Count on When You Can't Count on Your Husband
There are some stories that are yours alone. Others are shared and those remain only partly told because the other part of the story belongs to someone else and it just isn't for you to tell it. That's how marriage is. I have friends who have heard those stories -- because my husband knows I need to share them with trusted people and he has opened to that for my sake. I will share here that my marriage, like most marriages, has had its hills and valleys. We have endured trials together and we have regrettably imposed trials upon one another in various seasons.
You see, years ago, people took the idea of a vow seriously. The committed spoken words of, "I do" meant forever until death and it meant riding out serious highs and lows. It meant the lows. It meant sickness, poverty, brokenness, distance, growing pains, bad days, bad moods, PMS, stress, grief, house repairs, car repairs, crises with the children, long work hours and all other sorts of ills which beset marriages everywhere. God knows what fickle hearts we have and He knows we need a covenant to make us bound together. We marry and it is one of two covenant relationships in the whole known universe. The first is the covenant God makes with us. The second is marriage. I'm not sure if that knocks the wind out of you as it does me, but it gives me pause to be sure. In the marriage relationship a spiritually mysterious reality occurs: the two become one. Have you thought about that lately? Your husband is one with you. He's not that guy who is on your nerves or not doing what you want or failing your expectations (though he may be any and all of those too). He is one with you.
You see, years ago, people took the idea of a vow seriously. The committed spoken words of, "I do" meant forever until death and it meant riding out serious highs and lows. It meant the lows. It meant sickness, poverty, brokenness, distance, growing pains, bad days, bad moods, PMS, stress, grief, house repairs, car repairs, crises with the children, long work hours and all other sorts of ills which beset marriages everywhere. God knows what fickle hearts we have and He knows we need a covenant to make us bound together. We marry and it is one of two covenant relationships in the whole known universe. The first is the covenant God makes with us. The second is marriage. I'm not sure if that knocks the wind out of you as it does me, but it gives me pause to be sure. In the marriage relationship a spiritually mysterious reality occurs: the two become one. Have you thought about that lately? Your husband is one with you. He's not that guy who is on your nerves or not doing what you want or failing your expectations (though he may be any and all of those too). He is one with you.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Be Yourself
This post is part of the Faith Barista - Faith Jam Thursdays
where Bonnie encourages us to write on a prompt and join in sharing our hearts in community. This experience is different from the spontaneous, unrehearsed writing for Five-Minute-Friday. Bonnie gives us a week to write on her prompt and no time limit for our writing. It's all about being real and healing togehter. You can join by clicking the link above.
Today we are writing on "Be Yourself" so buckle up, this one has some hairpin turns:
I sit here pondering all the different people I have met in my life: Different. Unique. Not one like another. So many variations flutter in my memory like snowflakes past a windowsill. God has made each of us to be unlike any other. There will never be another me -- another you. I have been pondering this special "self-ness" of each of us. Created, Crafted, Chosen. You could spend a silent day going around looking at each person and thinking, "God made you just as you are because you can reflect Him as only you can and you can experience Him as only you can." Granted, not one of us is either reflecting Him nor experiencing Him to our full capacity and some are falling woefully short, but consider how each of us are like points in a diamond, created to reflect the light in the way that only we can. That is self. Uniquely made and loved in that uniqueness.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Together
You should see them. The two of them, bundled under a blanket reading a book. Big brother arm around little wide-eyed brother as they soak in a story together in the warmth of their friendship. You should see them -- the two of them -- as they wrestle around and play made up games with rules only they know in the secrets of their brotherhood.
We used to be two. Me and my sweet husband. We had to wait to have our first. When I heard I was pregnant there weren't words or songs to describe my joy. And several months later we found out about her. Our niece in great need whom we had never met because of the lost and broken life of my husband's brother. And we took her in to be our own only three months after our first was born. Together we committed to her. And we were on the roller coaster together. All four of us a brand-new family of strangers who meant the world to one another.
She left when her mom got it together and we were left just three. And it never was the same and it wasn't quite complete.
Grief leaves its marks and together we had to overcome that loss and make life enough again.
And six years later after the loss of our niece God gave us our second son. My oldest said, "Sometimes God answers prayers slowly because, Mom, I've been praying for a baby brother or sister for two years." And in his then-six-year-old life that WAS slowly. But God did answer.
And together those boys just might conquer the world as they have surely conquered my heart. They say "phileo" is brotherly love. We have it in spades over here -- and God is what holds us together.
Stop.
We used to be two. Me and my sweet husband. We had to wait to have our first. When I heard I was pregnant there weren't words or songs to describe my joy. And several months later we found out about her. Our niece in great need whom we had never met because of the lost and broken life of my husband's brother. And we took her in to be our own only three months after our first was born. Together we committed to her. And we were on the roller coaster together. All four of us a brand-new family of strangers who meant the world to one another.
She left when her mom got it together and we were left just three. And it never was the same and it wasn't quite complete.
Grief leaves its marks and together we had to overcome that loss and make life enough again.
And six years later after the loss of our niece God gave us our second son. My oldest said, "Sometimes God answers prayers slowly because, Mom, I've been praying for a baby brother or sister for two years." And in his then-six-year-old life that WAS slowly. But God did answer.
And together those boys just might conquer the world as they have surely conquered my heart. They say "phileo" is brotherly love. We have it in spades over here -- and God is what holds us together.
Stop.
Our Little Daily Crosses
Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." I've been thinking lately about those daily crosses. Into daily life come little inconveniences which require me to set aside what I planned to do and remind me to look to the needs of others. Some seasons have larger crosses -- when health fails or finances dwindle and resources are tight; when children suffer or friends have burdens that weigh heavy on the mind. The crosses of relational harm and misunderstanding leave scars and wounds too painful to ignore. And yet, to be His disciple (student, follower, imitator) I am to take these up and follow Him.
Jesus echoed this idea six times in scripture and may have said it other unrecorded times. It obviously was and is a vital message to his followers. One of these incidents gives me pause: We call him the "rich young ruler" and when he came to Jesus calling Him good and asking what he must do to be saved, this is what happened: Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." As I read through this passage in Mark 10:21 today I was struck by something I hadn't made note of before. Jesus, beholding him, loved him. Jesus loved him. Jesus loves you in this same way. And, everything he says to this young ruler was said from that eternal, incomprehensible, self-denying love. He says, "you lack something," in other words, something stands in the way of your heart coming freely to me. He says that to you and He says it to me. We have little idol factories in our hearts and without thought we manufacture things to worship and those things block the way to Jesus. We must be rid of them. For this man it was wealth. We can idolize our children, our marriages, our friendships, our fitness (or the striving for fitness), finances, addictive behaviors or substances. And those things must be named and they must be given away so we can follow Him. They must take their rightful place in order that He can take His.
Jesus then admonishes this man to "take up his cross" and follow Jesus. He says this same command and instruction again in Matt 10: 37-8, Matt 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23 and Luke 14:27. Sometimes he adds that we need to take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Him. Other times He says we won't be worthy (equal, congruent with Him) if we do not do this. When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves He means for us to to "forget our self, lose sight of our self and our own interests" (in the Greek). How do we lose sight of ourselves? It's like me telling you not to think about elephants. There you go. Thinking about an elephant. We don't forget something by thinking about it. But, God knows this and He gives us alternatives. He tells us to fix our hearts on the things above, not of this earth (Col 3). He tells us to have the same mind as Christ had, thinking of others as more important than ourselves (Php 2) and He tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12). Self-forgetting means God-remembering. When we are fixed on Him, we are not distracted by self.
What does this self-denial look like in the day-to-day of our lives? It means when my four-year-old comes and wants to play Candyland (which to me is akin to Chinese-water-torture), I fix my eyes not on my own comfort or desires, but on his desire to connect and play something he enjoys with me. I set aside my wishes for his. It means when my husband wants to talk about details of his day and I really want to check my Facebook notifications, I set the computer down and give him my undivided attention because he matters and I love him. By letting his need be more important than my little habit of social media, I am dying to self and showing him (and Jesus) love. Little crosses. Little deaths to self. Insignificant as these seem, they are the way of the cross. The cross-centered life means giving up of my way, my wants, my desires, my comfort so that I can love you and thereby love Him simultaneously. And we all have daily little crosses.
Sometimes the crosses are heavier. They are more burdensome. There are offenses and rejections from friends and loved ones that sting like a barbed arrow into our heart. There are afflictions like cancer, MS, or other illnesses which beset us or our loved ones. And still Jesus encourages us to take them up. In Greek the word for take up means to "raise up" or "bear." As it is used in the verses in Matthew it means "to take what is one's own, or to take to one's self and make one's own." I need to make these burdens my own as Jesus made the cross His own. He bore it for me -- for you. I can bear these afflictions for Him. I have a few friends whose children are seriously ill. One friend has a son with diabetes. She gets up many times each night and checks his blood sugar, administers medications or protein, prays, serves and sacrifices. Her life is one of constant vigilance for his sake. She is taking up her cross. I have another friend whose daughter suffers from severe eczema. Her daughter wakes scratching herself and crying from the pain of itching. She wakes and gives her daughter a bath to soothe her. My friend is tired and weary of the constant giving and her own sleep deprivation, but she is taking up her cross. She is making the suffering of her daughter her own. She is bearing it
Matthew Henry said, "We must accustom ourselves to all instances of self-denial and patience. This is the best preparative for martyrdom. We must live a life of self-denial, mortification [putting ourselves to death], and contempt of the world; we must not indulge our ease and appetite, for then it will be hard to bear toil, and weariness, and want, for Christ. We are daily subject to affliction, and we must accommodate ourselves to it, and acquiesce in the will of God in it, and must learn to endure hardship. We frequently meet with crosses in the way of duty; and, though we must not pull them upon our own heads, yet, when they are laid for us, we must take them up, carry them after Christ, and make the best of them." This type of self-denial and death to self is no longer popular in our world -- even our Christian circles. But, Jesus isn't about popular. His message is the same today as it was when He walked among men and said these life-shaking comments years ago.
Strong's defines the cross as "a well known instrument of most cruel and ignominious punishment, borrowed by the Greeks and Romans from the Phoenicians; to it were affixed among the Romans, down to the time of Constantine the Great, the guiltiest criminals, particularly the basest slaves, robbers, the authors and abetters of insurrections, and occasionally in the provinces, at the arbitrary pleasure of the governors, upright and peaceable men also, and even Roman citizens themselves." The cross isn't cozy. It is a tool of death. It hurts. It is uncomfortable. It is sometimes shameful and lonely. Why should our cross be any different than His?
We must take up this instrument and to it we must affix our own self. And we take it up as Jesus did. In Hebrews 12: 2 we are told Jesus took up the cross and thereby "finished our faith" and He did it "for the joy that was set before him." He "endured the cross, despising [disregarding, thinking nothing of] the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." This is the promise of the cross. We can take it up, as painful as it may be, and we can do it with joy set before us. The cross is the precursor to resurrection. There must be a death before there can be new life. We must die to self and in that dying we will be reborn in newness and more Christ-likeness. The cross is never the final word for Christians. It is a pathway to freedom and joy and wholeness.
Mike Donehey of the band, Tenth Avenue North, said,
Paul reminds us in Gal 6:14 that through the cross we are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to us. We can boast only in this cross -- the cross of Jesus. It is the gate that leads us to relationship with God and it is the act which showed His love like nothing else before or since. Ultimately the cross is a tool of reconciliation (Eph 2:16). Through the cross Jesus reconciled us to God; He reconciled all people to one another; and He offered forgiveness to all. Through my crosses I can do the same. I can offer forgiveness because it was offered to me and at a great price. I can show love -- and I can show it at a cost to myself. But, unlike Jesus, who was forsaken for our sakes, when we take up our crosses we are not forsaken, but we are united to Him even more than before. So, whether it be inconveniences or burdens we can bear these crosses with an eye to what they hold: the joy set before us as we grow in Him and His love.
Jesus echoed this idea six times in scripture and may have said it other unrecorded times. It obviously was and is a vital message to his followers. One of these incidents gives me pause: We call him the "rich young ruler" and when he came to Jesus calling Him good and asking what he must do to be saved, this is what happened: Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." As I read through this passage in Mark 10:21 today I was struck by something I hadn't made note of before. Jesus, beholding him, loved him. Jesus loved him. Jesus loves you in this same way. And, everything he says to this young ruler was said from that eternal, incomprehensible, self-denying love. He says, "you lack something," in other words, something stands in the way of your heart coming freely to me. He says that to you and He says it to me. We have little idol factories in our hearts and without thought we manufacture things to worship and those things block the way to Jesus. We must be rid of them. For this man it was wealth. We can idolize our children, our marriages, our friendships, our fitness (or the striving for fitness), finances, addictive behaviors or substances. And those things must be named and they must be given away so we can follow Him. They must take their rightful place in order that He can take His.
Jesus then admonishes this man to "take up his cross" and follow Jesus. He says this same command and instruction again in Matt 10: 37-8, Matt 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23 and Luke 14:27. Sometimes he adds that we need to take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Him. Other times He says we won't be worthy (equal, congruent with Him) if we do not do this. When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves He means for us to to "forget our self, lose sight of our self and our own interests" (in the Greek). How do we lose sight of ourselves? It's like me telling you not to think about elephants. There you go. Thinking about an elephant. We don't forget something by thinking about it. But, God knows this and He gives us alternatives. He tells us to fix our hearts on the things above, not of this earth (Col 3). He tells us to have the same mind as Christ had, thinking of others as more important than ourselves (Php 2) and He tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12). Self-forgetting means God-remembering. When we are fixed on Him, we are not distracted by self.
What does this self-denial look like in the day-to-day of our lives? It means when my four-year-old comes and wants to play Candyland (which to me is akin to Chinese-water-torture), I fix my eyes not on my own comfort or desires, but on his desire to connect and play something he enjoys with me. I set aside my wishes for his. It means when my husband wants to talk about details of his day and I really want to check my Facebook notifications, I set the computer down and give him my undivided attention because he matters and I love him. By letting his need be more important than my little habit of social media, I am dying to self and showing him (and Jesus) love. Little crosses. Little deaths to self. Insignificant as these seem, they are the way of the cross. The cross-centered life means giving up of my way, my wants, my desires, my comfort so that I can love you and thereby love Him simultaneously. And we all have daily little crosses.
Sometimes the crosses are heavier. They are more burdensome. There are offenses and rejections from friends and loved ones that sting like a barbed arrow into our heart. There are afflictions like cancer, MS, or other illnesses which beset us or our loved ones. And still Jesus encourages us to take them up. In Greek the word for take up means to "raise up" or "bear." As it is used in the verses in Matthew it means "to take what is one's own, or to take to one's self and make one's own." I need to make these burdens my own as Jesus made the cross His own. He bore it for me -- for you. I can bear these afflictions for Him. I have a few friends whose children are seriously ill. One friend has a son with diabetes. She gets up many times each night and checks his blood sugar, administers medications or protein, prays, serves and sacrifices. Her life is one of constant vigilance for his sake. She is taking up her cross. I have another friend whose daughter suffers from severe eczema. Her daughter wakes scratching herself and crying from the pain of itching. She wakes and gives her daughter a bath to soothe her. My friend is tired and weary of the constant giving and her own sleep deprivation, but she is taking up her cross. She is making the suffering of her daughter her own. She is bearing it
Matthew Henry said, "We must accustom ourselves to all instances of self-denial and patience. This is the best preparative for martyrdom. We must live a life of self-denial, mortification [putting ourselves to death], and contempt of the world; we must not indulge our ease and appetite, for then it will be hard to bear toil, and weariness, and want, for Christ. We are daily subject to affliction, and we must accommodate ourselves to it, and acquiesce in the will of God in it, and must learn to endure hardship. We frequently meet with crosses in the way of duty; and, though we must not pull them upon our own heads, yet, when they are laid for us, we must take them up, carry them after Christ, and make the best of them." This type of self-denial and death to self is no longer popular in our world -- even our Christian circles. But, Jesus isn't about popular. His message is the same today as it was when He walked among men and said these life-shaking comments years ago.
Strong's defines the cross as "a well known instrument of most cruel and ignominious punishment, borrowed by the Greeks and Romans from the Phoenicians; to it were affixed among the Romans, down to the time of Constantine the Great, the guiltiest criminals, particularly the basest slaves, robbers, the authors and abetters of insurrections, and occasionally in the provinces, at the arbitrary pleasure of the governors, upright and peaceable men also, and even Roman citizens themselves." The cross isn't cozy. It is a tool of death. It hurts. It is uncomfortable. It is sometimes shameful and lonely. Why should our cross be any different than His?
We must take up this instrument and to it we must affix our own self. And we take it up as Jesus did. In Hebrews 12: 2 we are told Jesus took up the cross and thereby "finished our faith" and He did it "for the joy that was set before him." He "endured the cross, despising [disregarding, thinking nothing of] the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." This is the promise of the cross. We can take it up, as painful as it may be, and we can do it with joy set before us. The cross is the precursor to resurrection. There must be a death before there can be new life. We must die to self and in that dying we will be reborn in newness and more Christ-likeness. The cross is never the final word for Christians. It is a pathway to freedom and joy and wholeness.
Mike Donehey of the band, Tenth Avenue North, said,
The cross is evidence to our minds, and balm for our souls that our God is a God who brings beauty out of pain. Art out of chaos. Beauty out of ugliness. Or as some of the poets have said, He conquers death by death itself. Our Redeemer beat Death at his own game.Each cross has its purposes and every cross promises blessings as fruit of our suffering. In 1 Cor 1:18 Paul reminds us that the cross seems foolish to those who are perishing (the ones who are rejecting Jesus), but to us who are saved it is the power of God. The cross is the way of power. As in most things in God's kingdom there is this upside-down way. We go to death and we find power. We let go of our way and we find strength. We suffer and we are freed. It seems foolish in the world's eye to let go of our way, to yield to the troubles life brings and allow them to have their way in our heart and character. But, in God's economy, this is the way of peace and life. It is the crushing of the wheat that produces flour which has so many uses. It is the crushing of our will that produces great usefulness as well.
Hope rises.
When we trust Christ, and the mysterious work on Calvary, we trust that He’s always up to something good even in the darkest days. In fact, that’s probably when He’s up to the most good, because that’s when the most good grows in me.
Paul reminds us in Gal 6:14 that through the cross we are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to us. We can boast only in this cross -- the cross of Jesus. It is the gate that leads us to relationship with God and it is the act which showed His love like nothing else before or since. Ultimately the cross is a tool of reconciliation (Eph 2:16). Through the cross Jesus reconciled us to God; He reconciled all people to one another; and He offered forgiveness to all. Through my crosses I can do the same. I can offer forgiveness because it was offered to me and at a great price. I can show love -- and I can show it at a cost to myself. But, unlike Jesus, who was forsaken for our sakes, when we take up our crosses we are not forsaken, but we are united to Him even more than before. So, whether it be inconveniences or burdens we can bear these crosses with an eye to what they hold: the joy set before us as we grow in Him and His love.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
When Growing Pains Get the Best of Me
I've got those growing pains again. The ones that wrap around my heart while you lay sleeping sweetly in your bed all half-boy, half-man and unaware. If only you knew the ache of a mother's heart for you -- the joy-giving, cliff-hanging moments of motherhood that catch me up and dare me to care this much. I think back to the birthing of you with the growing pains of welcoming you into this world. I had waited and you were not coming and they had to rush us into the emergency room to help you along. And when you came, I felt Niagra Falls in my heart and couldn't hold back the outburst of "I love you." All the nights of rocking back and forth one leg to the other -- no aerobics class ever prepared me to rock like that. And you soothed in my arms after the hard work of helping you settle. Those frazzled dear early months of your life were long and short simultaneously.
Tonight I sit alone on the couch, writing my rememberences after having written you your last "tooth fairy" note. It will be the last time this tooth fairy ever sneaks in your room, lifts your pillow in that quiet way and puts a bit of cash and a silly note there for you to read excitedly in the morning. And I have some serious growing pains tonight. I think back to the first time the tooth fairy came to you and you were so exuberant, running down the hall the next morning, note in hand and money and treat in the other. You read the note to me with such sincerity and then somberly turned to me and asked me to give you back your teeth. How did you know! You were on to me and I had to confess without confessing so that you could keep your trust and we could keep our game. And ever since you have obliged us both with the reading of the note in the morning. It is our sweet secret -- the identity of your own tooth fairy.
Who knows how many "lasts" I have missed while my eyes were blurry and my heart was elsewhere or we just assumed more were coming. I can look back and say, remember when, and it is no more. I don't lament your growing into a more dynamic and mature and amazing boy. I love the privilege of having a front-row-seat in your life. But I miss you each time you outgrow a shoe or a habit or a quirk and I have to pause and say, "goodbye" to just a little piece of you. It is preparation. I'm in the letting-go bootcamp and I'm getting worked over in the process. A wise friend said, "It is the letting go that helps them want to come back." I'll get there. Thankfully I have years ahead to hone those skills. Tonight we say farewell to the tooth fairy. And they don't call them growing pains for nothing.
Tonight I sit alone on the couch, writing my rememberences after having written you your last "tooth fairy" note. It will be the last time this tooth fairy ever sneaks in your room, lifts your pillow in that quiet way and puts a bit of cash and a silly note there for you to read excitedly in the morning. And I have some serious growing pains tonight. I think back to the first time the tooth fairy came to you and you were so exuberant, running down the hall the next morning, note in hand and money and treat in the other. You read the note to me with such sincerity and then somberly turned to me and asked me to give you back your teeth. How did you know! You were on to me and I had to confess without confessing so that you could keep your trust and we could keep our game. And ever since you have obliged us both with the reading of the note in the morning. It is our sweet secret -- the identity of your own tooth fairy.
Who knows how many "lasts" I have missed while my eyes were blurry and my heart was elsewhere or we just assumed more were coming. I can look back and say, remember when, and it is no more. I don't lament your growing into a more dynamic and mature and amazing boy. I love the privilege of having a front-row-seat in your life. But I miss you each time you outgrow a shoe or a habit or a quirk and I have to pause and say, "goodbye" to just a little piece of you. It is preparation. I'm in the letting-go bootcamp and I'm getting worked over in the process. A wise friend said, "It is the letting go that helps them want to come back." I'll get there. Thankfully I have years ahead to hone those skills. Tonight we say farewell to the tooth fairy. And they don't call them growing pains for nothing.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Write
Okay. Here it goes.
Write. Whew. Just the thought of that word knocks my breath out and fills me with dreams simultaneously.
I have wanted to be a writer since I was four years old. I couldn't even physically write then and I knew in my bones I wanted to write. To express. To let myself be heard and known. And, back then, in four-year-old land, I was able to be and do anything without any fear or harm. Those days were not completely carefree. I was in the middle of a life filled with perfectionism and expectations. My father had an iron fist and I was sometimes on the other end of that tragic, awful, painful experiencing of manly anger gone awry. But, still, there were periods of peace and childhood undisturbed and I had hopes and dreams. I was going to write and I was going to matter and be heard.
Years went by and my father got ill. He had a polycystic kidney disease and had to travel out of town for hospitalizations, treatments, surgeries, dialysis. My sister and I lived in various homes of friends and even with people we only knew a little. My dad was emotional and distant and yet at times he was still there, loving me despite his own issues with rage. My mother was frazzled and harried. I wrote. I loved my writing. It was a place of solitude and comfort and refuge. I could pour out and sort through thoughts as I wrote. Writing wasn't to matter. Writing mattered.
My father got more and more ill. I grew to be a teenager and the disease won one night when I was twelve years old. He was wheeled out past us on a guerney with his eyes as big as quarters and the life all gone out of him. Writing became my pouring. I needed to bleed out the pain and anguish of grief, of love lost and lost too soon. I was a heart-stricken adolescent and writing became my therapy.
Years passed and I grew older. I kept sporadic journals and wrote on Facebook and sent letters of encouragement to friends. People always said, "I wish I could write like you." or "You always have such a way of saying things." But in that time since the four-year-old magical world slipped by and the real world of rejection and loss crowded in, I lost my dream of writing for a while.
This past year or so I have heard God's whisper: It is time. You can write. I am starting now. I am writing. I am blogging. I am crafting. I am expressing. I am stepping out and allowing God to move and restore dreams. I write now to encourage, to share and to bless. Writing has come full circle.
Stop.
Write. Whew. Just the thought of that word knocks my breath out and fills me with dreams simultaneously.
I have wanted to be a writer since I was four years old. I couldn't even physically write then and I knew in my bones I wanted to write. To express. To let myself be heard and known. And, back then, in four-year-old land, I was able to be and do anything without any fear or harm. Those days were not completely carefree. I was in the middle of a life filled with perfectionism and expectations. My father had an iron fist and I was sometimes on the other end of that tragic, awful, painful experiencing of manly anger gone awry. But, still, there were periods of peace and childhood undisturbed and I had hopes and dreams. I was going to write and I was going to matter and be heard.
Years went by and my father got ill. He had a polycystic kidney disease and had to travel out of town for hospitalizations, treatments, surgeries, dialysis. My sister and I lived in various homes of friends and even with people we only knew a little. My dad was emotional and distant and yet at times he was still there, loving me despite his own issues with rage. My mother was frazzled and harried. I wrote. I loved my writing. It was a place of solitude and comfort and refuge. I could pour out and sort through thoughts as I wrote. Writing wasn't to matter. Writing mattered.
My father got more and more ill. I grew to be a teenager and the disease won one night when I was twelve years old. He was wheeled out past us on a guerney with his eyes as big as quarters and the life all gone out of him. Writing became my pouring. I needed to bleed out the pain and anguish of grief, of love lost and lost too soon. I was a heart-stricken adolescent and writing became my therapy.
Years passed and I grew older. I kept sporadic journals and wrote on Facebook and sent letters of encouragement to friends. People always said, "I wish I could write like you." or "You always have such a way of saying things." But in that time since the four-year-old magical world slipped by and the real world of rejection and loss crowded in, I lost my dream of writing for a while.
This past year or so I have heard God's whisper: It is time. You can write. I am starting now. I am writing. I am blogging. I am crafting. I am expressing. I am stepping out and allowing God to move and restore dreams. I write now to encourage, to share and to bless. Writing has come full circle.
Stop.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)