Monday contemplations

The windows are open in my bedroom. The evening light is filtering in, everything looks a little softer. More saturated. I know why they call it "Spring Green". Everything looks fresh. Jade is sitting on my windowsill. Sunlight catches on the highlights of his fur. His eyes glow. The needles of the pine tree outside my window are green and gold. It is beautiful.

I am home alone. I could've made plans, I could've gone to the gym. But I came home. I could've turned on some music. But I did not. I read several chapters of the book I'm trying to finish. I heard the distant music of an ice cream truck. The sound of cars as they pass along the road. Bird singing.

There are blue kitty sized paw prints on my carpet. I'm sure there are a million other things I should attend to now. But I'm not. I'm choosing to take this precious time to read and think and write. To be.

Perhaps it's time I started slowing down. Perhaps it's time to relax a little, to feel at peace. Perhaps it's time to say 'no' every once in a while. No to plans and no to music and no to the rush of life. The frantic flight from solitude. The business that keeps my guard up, keeps my heart hard.

It's a nice idea.

I did not go to church today

although I did turn down a concert in order to go to church. Black Keys. Flaming Lips. But I really wanted to go to church. Until I got a call at 4:05 that said 'Hey I'm at the park and I'm spray painting canvases you should come it took me forever to get them all laid out and I rearranged them and it's so nice outside just look for my car I know you want to... unless you have plans.'

Oh Lord.

Becky, don't you say a single word...

I went to the park and helped spray paint canvases for two hours. It was glorious. A couple days ago, I spent two hours at Michael's arranging said canvases on the floor (yes, in the middle of the store... people were accidentally walking all over them the entire time). I love art. I forgot how much I missed being artistic. I got some canvas myself the other day from Michaels... I should paint them tonight.

In other words, I'm dong better. Moved in with Aimee. Doing art. Being productive. Working out. Listening to empowering music. Hanging with my bs ladies (haha). Stress is down. Spring is in the air. I'm watching and waiting for what God has in store for me... I'm making some good decisions and still learning. It's all I can do and I'm doing my best...

Oh, and I'd love to move to Oceanside, CA. Who's with me???

Struck down but not destroyed

That was my week... ending today. There is a high likelihood that will be my week beginning tomorrow. I cannot describe the terrible weight on my chest these past 10 days. I will not try. 

My life has this way of throwing everything at me it possibly can in a very short amount of time, I told Aimee today. She simply could not believe the amount of things on my checklist of to-dos. I ranted a bit at her, pulled out a long list of all the things that had been crushing me not the least of which was my overdrawn bank account that took a third of this past paycheck, my taxes (still not paid), or the stack of boxes I needed to somehow move into a storage unit before the weather turned nasty again (read: tomorrow). Sometimes you eat the bear...

And bless her if she did not meet me at the apartment after my lunch, help me load boxes and take them to my new storage place and then followed me to the house where we spent a good couple hours deep cleaning. As I am fond of saying: Check and check. 

After moving 10 hours yesterday, I went to the work out center at our new apartment. It was glorious. I swam in our indoor/outdoor pool. I had triscuts and cheese for dinner (and a protein shake) and slept very hard for 8 hours. I am constantly moved by this church every Sunday and today was no different. It sure didn't fix my life... or even lift the stress of my shoulders... but it did remind me to pray. 

Also, today I had lunch with a good friend of mine. We got coffee. She reminds me not to take myself so seriously. She reminds me that there is beauty in this world and that I can take time out of my craziness to rest and laugh over espinacha (sp?) and talk about her upcoming prom and simply get out of myself. She reminds me of what my passion really is and what I know I'm made for. The rest is shadows and dust... 

That was enough. Aimee's help today was enough. Alex's help yesterday for 10 hours... the dedication and passion of my friends and family... it's enough to wake me up at 6:30 tomorrow morning and keep on going. Tomorrow is my mom's 50th birthday and I am looking forward to blessing her when I see her at dinner with my family. I am looking forward to being settled in this new place and where my job is taking me and I'm looking forward to getting my bike and going to the park. 

Well. All I can say now is 'We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.' 2cor 4:8-9

Amen to that.

my Revelation in song

Those walls are surely and slowly coming down. It's one of the most painful things I've allowed to happen to me in a long, long time. Even last night, listening to Chris Tomlin, my heart seized and I was moved enough to want to cry and I stopped myself and then I wondered why. A friend of mine told me he'd pray for me and I immediately dismissed him in my mind and then immediately felt sad that I had. I want to lift my hands in praise last Sunday but still I hesitated. 

But then God sits me down at the park for an hour and moves my spirit with a song. He sits me down in a parked car at 1am and stirs my hope through conversation with a friend. 

And then after the revelation of yesterday and the crushing stress I've had on my chest lately, I heard this song this morning on the radio:

I'm tired, I'm worn

My heart is heavy

from the work it takes

to keep on breathing

I've made mistakes

I've let my hope fail

my soul feels crushed

by the weight of this world. 

And I know that you can give me rest

so I cry out with all that I have left.

...I wanna know a song can rise

from the ashes of a broken life

and all that's dead inside can be reborn

cause I'm worn.

Chris Tomlin, Tenth Avenue North, David Crowder, Kristian Stanfill... you are the voice of my rebuilding... oh man, my future is slowly being revealed with each brick that's taken down...

You know that Breakdown you're always expecting...

Something inside me died today. It was a hope that I'd fostered. I went to the lawyer and got my packet. Went to Dad's. Talked through some things. My throat tightened. I struggled to hold back the tears. I said good bye quite quickly, got in the car, turned it on, pulled out of the driveway and... cried. For the next 2 1/2 hours, I cried. My eyes have never been so swollen. I almost called in to work. I didn't think I'd make it. I sent out some txts, some emails, some facebook messages. Needed some prayer. Put a cold washcloth over my eyes and laid down a while. Got up and journaled my thoughts. Cried some more. Got a call from a friend and I could barely speak at first. He was patient and I pulled myself together enough to talk and get dressed and drive to work.

The Lord provides and tonight He provided me with an "offstage day". Completely unplanned. My boss gave me the night to pull my thoughts together about some things at work and to get a ton of paperwork done. She had no idea how incredibly, crazily perfect that was for me tonight. Randomly, I went in the back of the office and cried a couple more times. Got a couple emails from friends that I read on my lunch. They were my old college roommates, currently spread out all over the country but still loving me and praying for me and saying all the right things. I love them and miss them. I talked to my friend at work. She made me laugh and she asked funny questions and helped me process even more. After work, I called my oldest friend. She was quiet and let me talk. She invited me out to Emporia. Said I could crawl under her blanket and cry any time I wanted. I wish she wasn't so far away.

I say all this to say that there is finality in that sheet of paper and there was a hope in all of this that is dead. I'm not done mourning it, I know that. I will have many more nights I'll be sleeping alone to get through. I need to be okay with that. I need to be okay with being newly "for real" single. For the first time in 10 years. No longer half of a whole. I need to be whole myself. For the record, I'm sure that's why God hates divorce. When the two become one, it's hard to become two again.

And I also say all this to say that God is constantly showing me that when he takes something away, He replaces it with something better. That I can't fear the losses that loom before me. That I can't fear the changes I don't quite trust yet. On the first conversation of the day, during my drive to work, my friend referenced his and my conversation from last Wednesday. Our conversation about God. About trust. About my future. He asked me if I really trusted God in all this. "And not in a cliche Christian way, but in a real way," he said.

I told him I thought so. Enough to start thinking and praying about my future. Enough to pray for Jered and his future. Enough to pray about my losses. About forgiveness. About letting go. About taking this pain from me. About providing what to fill that hole with.

I don't want to start over again, I kept telling him. It takes too much energy. It takes too much time.

But it's not about starting over again, one of my roommates had emailed. It's about starting a new chapter. It's something exciting that's before you.

The world is wide open to you, my dad said this morning. And you are a phoenix rising from the ashes.

And I really do have the best friends. Over and over again: I am loved and cared for. I am thought of. Loved. Prayed for. Loved dearly. Dearly, deeply, and always loved.

How silly I was to think God would really make me do this alone.

Going it alone

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't quite fall back asleep. My soul was restless. Remember when I posted some time before that everything changes? That I was going to hold onto this time while I had it? Well, that change is swift approaching and my heart is not ready for it. I don't think I'd ever be ready for it. One week. Two. One month. Two. My life will be completely different than it is now. I'm not ready. Can I let go? Can I give up those things and those people that God has given me to sustain me through these dark few months? Can I truly go it alone?

Guess I'm going to have to. So now I need to begin making the choices that will pave my path for the next year and on. They are decisions I realized yesterday that I will have to begin making on my own. And I will give recognition where it is due and I do know that the path I find myself on is a result of God's provision these past six months. That those things and people are being slowly stripped from me show that obviously, God thinks I'm ready.

Oh man. I do not.

Desperately

I'm listening to David Crowder. I never really got into his music previously, but at church they've been singing one of his songs (How He Loves) and when I'd heard it Wednesday night, it was one of the songs that prompted my previous blog. I heard it at tonight's service and it touched me again. Differently, perhaps. I think I'm starting to realize how very changed my thoughts have become over the past 10 years. More jaded.  A little bitter about some things.

And I want so desperately to believe again.

The glory in this time

Who is God to me? I was asked that question the other day. We were driving back from a Wednesday night worship service and I had struggled the entire time during the singing. I'd been moved. But something inside me still came against the wall. I thought to myself as I stood there, surrounded by people with their hands lifted up, my heart hard but trembling, If I do this, there is no going back. If I Go There, the walls around my heart will have to come down. The fortress I've lived behind these past 6 months, past year, past several years will have to be torn down. 

Can I go back there? Back to that place of faith? Can I fall in love with Him again? Can I trust?

I mentioned this in the car when we'd left. That I had a choice to make. Not a choice between going to church or not. Not really a choice of how to live my life. But a choice of faith. It was the first time I was honest and open about this... about this doubt. It's one thing to post these questions on a blog, it's another to speak them out loud to another person. 

It comes down to who you think God is. 

That's what he said. 

What proceeded for the next several hours was one of the most honest and heartbreaking and revealing conversations I've had in a long time. 

Who was God to me? Somebody who loved me? Somebody who wasn't to be trusted? Somebody who was only interested in being glorified... even if that meant leading His children into pain and misery? Did I trust Him with my future? Should I attempt to find His plan for my life or should I just go it on my own and follow my own ideas and desires? 

These were the dark questions on my heart these long days and nights and weeks and months and... let's face it... years. That was the dark thought that rested on my mind: God was not to be trusted with my happiness. If I trusted God, I would only wind up heartbroken and broke and defeated. I was tired of beating my head against something that seemed to only hurt me. I was tired of trying for something that constantly left me wanting. I was done following something that made me feel miserable and chained. I was done being the dutiful daughter. I was done trying to do what was right all the time while it wrecked my own happiness and sense of self.

Was it me? Or was it this god I was following? Unconsciously, I'd decided it was God. 

I asked my friend who he thought God was. We were cooking dinner. It was 10:00 at night. He stood in his kitchen, crossed his arms and laughed. I need some time to process this, he said. How can I say this without sounding incredibly cliche? 

Most Christians still live their life with a gap between them and God. He is up there. We are down here. We constantly beat ourselves up trying to get up to God, to reach Him, to find Him. We break ourselves. Repent. Do good things. 

But. 

God created us in His own image. He is the force that connects all things. He is the energy. He is our friend. He is our father. There is no gap. That's why Jesus was so important. He closed that gap. We have God's power. We have God's thoughts, God's desires. We can do bigger things than even Jesus. 

My question of trusting God? It's a moot point. He is in me. If I listen, his voice is mine. His thoughts are mine. His desires are mine. It really is that simple. 

Then my friend quoted a verse I know by heart but my heart had forgotten...

Trust in the Lord with all your hearts and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your path straight... 

My friend doesn't spend time worrying that his life plans are right or not or God's "plan" or not. He believes that God has put these passions in him and that the direction of his life is divinely set out. Divinely straightened. He just puts one foot in front of the other and all around him, divine appointments are set and doors opened. He told me that my problem is that I want to know the ending now... instead of simply following the path. 

Yeah, he knows me too well sometimes...

I'm jealous, I said. Because you have that focus. You know where you're heading at least. 

Yeah, he admitted. And you don't yet. 

No, I don't. There are too many things I want to do. I want ten lives to live, not just one. How do I know what I should focus on? 

You know I used to be like that, he said. And then one day it all clicked... and I just knew. It was so right. And then everything fell into place... 

I know, I was there that day. I saw his excitement as it all came together. I saw his passion and his renewed energy to continue on... I look forward to the day it happens for me...

Someday I will look on this time in my life and see the beauty I can't see now. Learning to trust again. Learning to fall in love again. Seeing His provision and guidance and tender, gentle patience. What a glory to be so loved...