Stand

"Your playing small does not serve the world." 

Ouch

When did I decide to live in fear of being big?

When did I decide that being humble means cowering?

No.

Not anymore.

I will face fear.

Have victory over it.

Watch it stumble with fatigue before it can reach out its crooked hand and grab me. 

Feel it fall behind.

Know it tires as I run faster to believe in myself. 

Hear it gasping, starving for something to keep it alive.

Today I decide to face something even more powerful than fear.

Strength.

To look for it deep within me. 

Ask when I can't grasp it. 

I am strong. 

I choose to believe in myself.

I choose to succeed.

I choose to stand.

I choose to believe the truth.

Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson

 “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Reverence

I long for reverence toward God in my life.

For the awe that would make it all more clear.

Not religion or rules

But

The humbling that it is impossible without Him.

The freedom.

The clarity.

To lay the sacrifice on the alter morning and night.

To see it before my eyes and know it is real.

To say the words written long ago.

To walk a clear path.

To fall in the presence of God

In awe

Because

Who are we that God cares for us?

Shouldn't there be more reverence in the simple magnitude of the truth?

But fear jumps out from the dark shadows

And mocks me.

Do I really want deep truth?

Am I willing to set my sacrifice before him?

To move from

Known to unknown?

Control to surrender?

Anger to forgiveness?

But without faith, I am nothing.

I take the first step...again.

And if I am pushed back to start once more

I will continue to prevail

With His strength.

He will lead me.

Never leave me.

He has promised.

My heart races. It feels. There is life. I kneel with my face to the floor in awe of your goodness, in awe of what you have done.
You have saved me from hatred and unforgiveness that consumed me.
I am forgiven, set free because of you, Oh God.
There is no place for me to go but into your presence.

Psalm 8

Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.

You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Forgiveness...Again

Counselling...

Gotta love it.

It leaves me exhausted.

It leaves me hopeful.

It leaves me facing this jagged canyon again.

The fear of forgiveness.

The fear of letting go.

The fear of being wounded again.

The fear that I might forget to take care of myself.

It leaves me facing the battle of lies that says forgiveness is giving in to them, letting them win.

But it isn't,

and

I don't want to be bitter.

There is no healing there.

I have walked on the stones of bitterness far too many times.

I know them intimately,

but

I want to be free.

So today...

I realized, at least in part, forgiveness starts with acceptance.

I can't change anything about my journey up to this point.

I need to accept that some bad things have happened.

I need to accept that it doesn't define me...

Or "them" even.

Wow...

I can't even begin to say how that split second of realization

changed me

lightened my load

gave me hope.

I could literally see stuff falling off of me.

Clarity

Another sigh escapes me.

Another letting go.

More peace.

A fertile place to thrive.

Asthma

Life is all about learning. Sometimes I feel like it takes me a little bit longer to get "it" than it should. Today I realized that we can have bitterness and anger toward a thing, not just toward a person who is associated with pain.

Kind of a crazy concept actually.

Today I realized I have allowed asthma to consume me to the point of having bitterness and severe anger in my heart regarding this horrible disease.

I rarely feel heard on the toll it has taken on my life. I have watched my daughter, the person I gave birth to, the person I would lay down my life for, suffer at the hands of this chronic illness.

It is a chronic illness. Very few seem to get that. If she had cancer, diabetes, or some other juvenile disease people would stand up and take notice. But asthma...it's no big deal.

I have carried this burden alone. Others have helped shoulder it at times, but the bulk of it, it has been carried by me. I am the one who has been there every time she has had difficulty breathing. I have spent nights in hospital rooms watching her pulsometer drop to dangerous levels and her heart-rate monitor skyrocket to where I thought her heart would not be able to take it. I have been left wondering if this might be the time I could lose her. 

We have played hours of Sequence, packet Libby her "hospital" dog, and her blanket made by a community of women called the Linus project. All of this to say, we actually have objects in our home that are meant to go to the hospital with us. This is real. It is not something we have made up.

I have argued with emergency room nurses and doctors who take me for a fool because I don't have a degree when in reality, I know more than they do about asthma. I am not blowing smoke when I say that. It is true. I have argued with teachers that she hasn't missed school because she wants to but because she has been struggling moment by moment to get air into her lungs. I have argued that her grades shouldn't suffer because she wasn't there to participate!

I want to be heard  at least if people can't understand. Listen to me! Asthma can't be fixed by not eating salt and keeping your limbs warm. Can you imagine walking up to someone with cancer and saying, "Well, Laura, if you just didn't eat salt, you wouldn't have this chronic illness. Just stop!" If there is ever a time for the word bullshit, this is the perfect time to use it. Bullshit! She can't fix herself, and I can't fix her. Asthma can't be fixed. It is what it is.

Do we make excellent choices to keep her healthy? Yes, we do. I hate when people ask if we have an inhaler at home. An inhaler? Really? That just shows how little people have listened to me about what we face. Yes, we have an inhaler...and a daily medication of a very high dose, and a nebulizer with two different kinds of medication, and steroids that make my baby cry when she has to take them because they take such a toll on her body. We are literally doing everything we can. Please don't doubt that.

I want to scream. I want to curse. But most of all I just want to sit here and cry. I just want to be seen in this whole thing, to be heard. I don't want pity. I want understanding for my child and for myself. 

And I want to heal from this bitterness I have allowed to get into my soul. 

Lies

Why lie and cut deeper than you already have?

Why not finally be courageous enough to speak the truth?

Why cause tears to fall when there are no tears left?

A selfish heart is no heart at all.

STOP

Accept your choices as that.

Your choices.

Stop blaming others.

No one separated you from your life except you.

It is time to take responsibility.

It is time to heal

First yourself

And then

Maybe someday

The broken hearts you've left behind..

Or you can choose to stay.

Continue to lie.

Continue to blame.

But why?

Has this path of deception lead you to where you want to be?

Maybe so.

No one can decide that but you.

Tears

Why do we hide our tears

wiping them away before they have a chance to make their cleansing journey?
Why do we turn away or try to fix the pain
when we see the tears in others' eyes?

Maybe it hurts, causes harm
to not let them flow.
Maybe the tears heal
allow the pain to escape.

Can we allow others into our hearts,

into our healing through tears?
Can we cry,
escape the damage done by holding them in?

Tonight I cried

let my tears fall down my face.
They gave me the strength to face the things that break my heart.
Because I felt, I am stronger.

*Today I spoke with a woman who is in more physical pain than most of us could imagine. It reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago. She said she hated it when she broke down. I asked her why?

Today

Today

I feel hope

for today

for tomorrow

for my life.

It has been a long time since hope has visited me.


Today

I said the words

pray

Jesus.

It has been a long time since those words came without struggle.


Today

I saw light

like being born

passing through the darkness.


Today

I know I'm going to be ok.

I will have a healed heart.

My pain will be used to help lonely souls who no one gets.


Today

is the day Hope

found

me.