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.

Journey

I believed

I fiercely depended on

I knew

I had confidence in

I carried severe hope in

I intimately conversed with

HIM.

My faith was strong.

It really is that simple.

I believed nothing could rock my faith, let alone shatter it.

I was wrong.

Crushing words, rejection, devastation

Things that smother life

Wither and decay hope

They came at me...hard.

I became tired and discouraged. I was rocked to my core.

I lost my north, was left spinning and confused in my heart.

How does faith become cracked?

I am blindsided by these feelings.

This is not a choice. I found myself here. I didn't walk here. I didn't do this to myself any more than a person with disease brings illness upon themselves.

I truly don't know what happened to my heart.

I feel angry, misunderstood, judged that I did something wrong. But just as we might find ourselves sitting next to the hospice bed of a person who inhabits a place in our heart, someone who believed, depended, hoped, prayed they would be healed, we don't always choose our journey. Are they weaker than the one who was healed? Did they stray "too far" this time? Do we pity them because they just couldn't find their strength to heal? I cringe at that belief.

The truth about me is, I just can't find my strength. I can't find my God, my hope.

But there is a faint light. I can feel it at times. This is not in vain. I'm not lost. My God is right here, and He will bring me through

Stronger because of my weakness

Understanding more because I was misunderstood.

I will have hope again.

I will feel faith like I once did.

And who knows, maybe this journey, this time of my life, I've been charging toward His throne all along, not lost but found.

More pieces of my heart glued together to make a more beautiful me...