My life a combination of brutal and beautiful....brutiful!

I am turning fifty this year.  To be honest, it is filling my mind with something short of obsession. How could I be this old?  I don't feel that old?

It sounds so old?  I thought I could handle it with grace, uum apparently that was wrong.

I want to kick and scream out, I am not old!  Even the doctor is condescending and treats me like I am old.

So I was wondering why does it bother me so much?

Expectation, I think.  That always gets me.....

I expected things to be different.  I thought by the time I hit fifty, I would have it all figured out.

Turns out, I have nothing figured out.  There is a chance I may never have it all figured out.

Not for a lack of trying....it's just that the game keeps changing.  It is like you are playing Monopoly one minute and the next you are playing Sorry.  None of the pieces work and your little shoe from Monopoly has no place in the Sorry game.  I want to scream at everyone....THIS WASN'T THE GAME!

It took me awhile to figure out how to be a good Mom, by the time I was feeling pretty decent about my ability they grew up.  Then it all changed...seriously, it all changed.  

I thought I could be a good wife, that playing field is changing all the time too.  Finding time for one another, working together, building a life together, it changes as our life morphs into new stages. Still working at it, after all these years.

I couldn't have dreamed up this life that I have.  In some ways it is much more than I ever imagined. There is a beauty, a love that has gradually worn down my cynical heart.  I believe in love, now more than ever.  

There are friends, relationships that have shaped me and filled my life with joy and hope. Friends that have been Jesus with skin on...you know who you are.  Old friends and new friends that have loved me and taught me what love looks like.

In other ways it is tragic and I never saw that coming.  A combination of beautiful and brutal...I heard someone say brutiful...That is it.  Perfect description.  Brutiful.  I didn't see it coming.  The ugly stuff that weaves itself through your life and it changes you.  How can it not? It makes you stronger and more compassionate, and if you are very fortunate it reminds you of how amazing the people are around you.  Because, in the darkness the light shines the brightest.

I love the light bearers.  The brave ones, that say the unspeakable, that pray in the midnight hour, those that can look past the ugly and believe for healing when you just can't believe for anything. When it feels like the grace is wearing off and they come and they bring the grace with them.

Sometimes however tragedy....well, it walls you in.  It isolates you.  It sucks the hope right out of your heart, and you are ashamed to tell anyone.  Sometimes I find myself struggling through the pain alone, surrounded by people.  It's a weird place, to feel alone while in a crowded room.  People have compassion fatigue, you grow weary and they grow weary.  Isolation feels easier.

Yet, we all feel that way sometimes.  Like we are alone, like no one can understand what we are going through.  For at least ten years, I have told people we all will feel alone, angry, sad, depressed, anxious, at some point in our lives....we just can't set up camp there.  Don't set up camp in the dark, lonely places.  

We all are searching for the Promise land....that place where everything works out, where everyone likes you, where no one gets hurt and no one dies.

The problem is...that place is not this place.  

So now as I get closer to fifty....I see the fault in my thinking.  We can't set up camp in the dark place, in the isolated place, or keep going from place to place.... we can't stay wandering looking for the promise land of all things perfect. All things perfect is a myth.  A lie, the enemy wants us to buy into so we will be subtly unsatisfied, discontent.  So we won't develop holy relationships, deep relationships, rooting relationships.

We have to set up camp, in the holy place.  In the presence.  In the presence of friends and family.  In the safety of loving relationships, honoring relationships that is where we pitch our tents.  We take the PRESENCE with us into our world and into our relationships and we build the best we can.

It won't be perfect, but if we carry the presence and walk in honor it will be a promise fulfilled.  It will be full of love.

But in order to be open to that place, W have to be open to the risk.  There is a cost to love, it cost Jesus everything and it will cost us, but it will not break us.

Turns out we are unbreakable...Oh sure we may fall to pieces, but they can always be put back together....woven with love, taped back together with hope.  

Trust me, I thought "all this" would break me, but it didn't.  It can't.  It is somehow, impossibly, making me better...stronger.

People are imperfect, we hurt, we disappoint...basically we have all been the one to do wrong and the one done wrong.  Fact of life. Forgive, move on, love anyway.  TRUST God and LOVE people.

Set up camp in the Holy place...under the shadow of the Almighty.  In relationship with God and relationship with others.  We need each other.  No doubt.

So yeah, I am turning fifty.  I am evaluating everything. It is such a milestone, isn't it?

It comes with great perks...I get to be an old lady and love on young people lik a Momma.  What an honor.  I don't care as much about what people think and I feel more freedom to be me than ever before...yep it is getting better and better.

My life isn't perfect, but who's is? It's not what I expected, that much is true, but it is my life.  It's the only one I have.

It is my promise land, my holy place, my family...chosen and blood....I choose to set up camp right in the middle of the messiness of life and trust God and love these people, my tribe.

My promise land is full of brokeness and authenticity and love and hope and joy and sometimes I get hurt or disappointed and that makes me scared.....

Turns out we are all a little scared of being hurt again...so I will try my best to honor and love others and you do your best to honor and love others and together we will bring a piece of the promise land to earth.  If and when it get's messy, I promise not to run and hide.

One day we will get there...the real promise land, but until then it is up to us to pitch our tents under the shadow of the Almighty, to allow the fire of His presence to fill our camp and risk being hurt so that we can love more!

 Let's create our own promise land, bring a little heaven to earth.  Create a culture of love and honor and let's watch with anticipation to see what happens....can't wait for the next fifty.

Thanks for being my tribe, near and far.

Debbie

Living in Freedom

This morning I was thinking about Freedom.  Freedom comes in an instant, yet we are practising it all our lives.

I don't know about you but I can find myself quickly in the shackles of the disease to please or the virus of perfectionism!

I can end up so busy that I am caged by my activities, captured by all the things I must do.

Jesus died to give me freedom from everything, but finding that balance and walking in that freedom is a different story.

Even Jesus pulled away from the crowd and rested, sought out the beauty of the sea, left people when necessary...shockingly He didn't minister to everyone.

Freedom is ours but like so many things in the Kingdom, it must be learned and practised.

You must believe it, live it, breathe it....

Like so many things in the Kingdom, what we are is already a finished work....I AM FREE.            

You are free....

How we live, that is up to us.

Today, I choose to live free.  Tomottow I will try to remember to live free too, as long as I don't forget....because sometimes that happens.

I am a Peace Flunky!

I search continually for peace.  I am a peace flunky.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  I need Him in a world that is full of busyness and crabbiness.  In the midst of all the anxiety and pressure to get things done.  
Aren't we all suffering to some degree from a lack of peace?

Peace:  freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.


I can't control the outside of my life.  It is a circus to put it mildly.  Three dogs, two sons, ministry, job, husband, friends, and let's not forget the messy grief that encompasses it all.  Events, work, ministry, reports, teaching, preaching, loving, serving, writing ....not complaining just explaining....


I want peace, but I don't want quiet because in the quiet I get crazy.  Anyone know what I mean? 

So what is this peace?  

Why is it so difficult to find it, to find Him?  I have Jesus, so come on....bring on the peace.  

Just like in war, peace is hard gained.  It comes at a great price.  Many lives have been lost to attain peace by war.  

Many arguments faught in vain, all in the name of peace.  Guilty as charged....

Many trials come and go trying to teach me to hold unto peace.    It slips through my fingers like water.  Fear creeps into my mind and just like that peace is gone. 

It's not that I lose Jesus, it's just that I lose His attribute, my mind slips into a rythm that beats out the peace.  

It's just that for me peace is hard to hold unto, the way I am wired seems to work against His gift of peace.  

I go into battle mode instead of throwing up a white flag and surrendering or I run...it's that fight or flight thing.  

Instead of walking in peace I am warring in my flesh. Overthinking, a hundred different things all at one time.   Sweet peace alludes me. 

But then...I worship, that is always where I find peace.  Where all of me is involved in seeking all of Him.  

That is where I encounter the person of peace, the music crowds out the noise in my head, His presence fills the space in my heart, the clamoring of responsiblity quiets down and there in that moment I surrender to the one who is peace.  

Hope is restored, balance attained, peace invades my heart, if only for a little while..... till the circus monkeys start again.

Purpose in Pain

I wouldn't have choose it.  Never in a million years.
Who would raise their hand and say yes to such pain?
Only Jesus, that's who.
I don't know how to find the good in this mess.
I try to be thankful, try to be positive,
but who could go through this much pain and still sing a sunny song?
Only Jesus, that's who.
I chase after memories, push down regrets.
Who could find the message in this?
Only Jesus, that's who.
I feel unqualified to preach or teach,
a wreck, a mess, I can't even get dressed.
Who could find healing in this?
Only Jesus, that's who.
I can't bleed here for all to read, share the deepest of pain and still sing a song of favor and love.
Who can make sense of it all?
Only Jesus, that's who
And He lives in me.

That makes me happy, I can't do it on my own.

I write because

This quote, so perfect.  This journey so wild, my thoughts are a jumbled mess racing around in my head.  I want them to escape and find a place to land.  The backdrop of it all is this broken, paradise.  It is full of people who need Jesus.  We need salvation to make sense of it all.  Honestly, I don't even think I have made sense of it all.  Maybe, what I should say is we need deliverance to live in it all. It is a journey of revelation and for me writing is just a form of "working it out".

I was talking to some friends this weekend.  Wonderful, Godly women that fill my life with hope and laughter.  Talking about disappointments, children that are struggling, rebellion and depression and all I could say was, yes.  Yes, we think we have done a good job, done what we thought we should do, loved them to the best of our ability and yes, sometimes they still struggle.  They are depressed, some are rebellious, some are headed for trouble, yes.

These children so precious, grow up and they have to find their own way.  We help, we pray, but in the end....they decide their story.

God was the perfect parent, He gave His children paradise and set in place a few rules that would decide their destiny.  They rebelled.  He grieved that loss, He felt that pain of children that choose their own path instead of His.  He knows my pain, He knows your pain, He has felt it all. Yes, He knows that disappointment.

I felt these friends hearts as they grieve the loss of what they thought this thing called parenting was going to be.  Their dreams of perfection, dashed to the ground.  I think perfection is overrated and it is in the working it out that we grow.  We all think we are doing it right, we are doing are best.....and we are all getting different results.

Some of you, well your children seem perfect.....but maybe that is a problem too?  Maybe the pressure from that is too much....maybe the pressure that puts on kids is too much. Whatever it looks like, I think it is difficult for all of us.  The feelings of letting go, losing control, trusting God, letting them fail.....uuuuuggghhh it is just difficult and messy.

What I do know is that as mothers we are given this amazing gift to create life....to grow a person inside of us.  How amazing is that?  Then we get to love them to adulthood and to trust God's plan for their life.  Parenting never ends, there is no deadline....it just goes on and on.  sigh.  Of course I am glad, and hope for a relationship with my children like I have with my parents.  Then I think about how long it took me....I am almost 50, but for the last ten years my Mom has been my best friend. That is what I hope for.

I've never been quite sure if parenting is really about the children anyway....  My parenting journey has been filled with experiences that make me look at myself.  I have watched myself go from sweet church lady to extreme hysterical mother in a matter of minutes.  I have been forced to examine my reactions and failures.  It ain't a pretty picture sometimes....shhhheez....

Nothing makes you doubt your salvation like a argument with your child where you lose it.  Nothing shows you your messed up, broken heart like a provocation from a teenager.  Nothing shows you your lack of self control like a run in with a child who is blatantly making the wrong choices...because let's face it, from our perspective it is just so clear that they are wrong!  Been there, done that....

I am sure that is how God feels.  From His perspective it is easy to see all the right choices and yet I often take a hundred wrong turns.  I lose it with my kids, don't we all at one time or another?  I take the long way to get to the right way.  I have to experience the consequences of that wrong decision in order to make the right choice the next time.  Life is complicated and children are beautiful messy individuals that when they grow up will make their own decisions.  That's hard for me.  I think it is hard for all of us who have adult children.  I have spent the majority of my life trying to help my children make right choices but all of the sudden, it is up to them.

So Mom's don't judge one another, trust me you don't want to have to eat your words.  Love Mom's that are struggling with their kids.  Encourage them, share your story with them so they don't feel all alone.  Be honest about the difficulties.  Love one another well, that means no judgy attitude, no advise about what works for you and your perfect family, it means just listening and loving.

 Parenting is hard and unpredictable and sometimes it is as much about us as it is about them.  My children have helped me grow, they have been my focus but also my mirror to see what has to change to make me more like Jesus.  They have been the sandpaper, rubbing hard edges off and getting rid of splinters.  They have made me better, made me gentler, made me a prayer warrior, made me compassionate, made me hopeful, made me wiser.....yep, it's been hard and it's been good.

Except when it's not because sometimes it is bad, sometimes your heart breaks and you feel so confused about how these beings could have come out of your stomach and spent their entire lifetime with you and then somehow turn on you?  wth?  Sometimes they make choices that you can't agree with, sometimes you are forced to keep your mouth shut because putting in your two cents is just going to push them away.  Sometimes, you watch them wreck things and all you can do is sit back and wait for them to come to you to help put the pieces back together.

The good news is they turn back, get smart, realize their mistakes, love you regardless of how they are acting.    Like all of us they are just learning.  Looking back, I was not so great at twenty and I turned out semi-okay.  So I guess what I am saying is I love them, want the best for them, but it is hard letting go.....so there it is the truth about how hard it is....I know if you have young children you think it will be different for you.  I thought that too.....maybe it will.

In the meantime I am thankful for each of my boys and what they have taught me along this journey. It is me that was changed for the better.  It is me that has grown up.  Finally, I think. Well, I am not finished yet.

That's all my thoughts, thanks for letting me work it out in writing....I feel better already.  Love you my friends.  Let's grow old together.

Debbie

I had a breakthrough.....a few ramblings on the subject

So I wrote my name on the chalkboard(prayer wall) for a breakthrough.  It was an act of faith. I knew I needed a breakthrough.  I just felt like I was circling the bowl over and over again.  Sure, I would be okay for awhile, but then boom round and round I would go.  Sinking deeper and deeper until I would be lost in the dark again.  I kept saying I wasn't depressed I was just sad, but in reality depressed was probably an accurate description.  And to top it off, some weird nagging voice in my head kept whispering you are not a very good example if you are depressed, you must not be very strong. Then the condemnation would come and just flush me down the toilet into the great abyss of darkness. ssshhhezzz stinkin devil.....

I read a fellow blogger ramblings today and in it he said, Grief is a bag of sh*t.  

I laughed because only someone walking through it can put words like that to it.  Then I read Kay Warrens blog and she spoke about for the first time in 21 months and 12 days she went and sat in her spot in the front row. Only a parent who has lost a child keeps that kind of count.  I am just short of 16 months.  I have learned there is no right or wrong way on this journey.  

To anyone who has gone through any type of trauma, let me just say.....be free, there is no right or wrong way to handle your broken heart.  Most of us are just flailing along, trying to beat the dark away as if somehow we could stop it, trying to stop from sinking into the pit of despair, and hoping for each breakthrough to be the last one needed.  Keep at it friends....don't give up!

One person puts a puzzle back together by putting all the edges together and another makes piles of same colors and images and yet another starts in a corner and works out.  

Our broken pieces are like a puzzle....The only given, is just to keep at it.  

More than once I have found myself spiritually bankrupt, nothing left to draw on.  The voice of God a distant memory as the darkness crowded in on me.  The frustration that I couldn't make the puzzle work pushing me deeper into despair.  I think I may never be able to make the puzzle complete, there will always be a piece missing.  I am starting to think that the best I can do is create a glorious picture with a missing piece.  

So anyway, let's get back on track.   That is why I put my name on the board.  That is why I was praying for a breakthrough.  Because the gratitude journal just wasn't working and the dark kept creeping back and it was scary and the thought of living that way forever just seemed to push me into a frantic, manic place.  The maze place where no matter how hard I try I can't get out. 

So I wrote my name on the prayer board. So I prayed for breakthrough, and I believe other people prayed for me to have breakthrough.  Hey, thanks if that was you.....

And then, something happened. 

Sometimes things just line up perfectly kinda like the lock on the fridge at church.  I can't ever seem to remember the combo and when I do it seems impossibly hard to get those tiny little numbers to line up just right and from the correct direction, but when they do I get pretty excited!  If you were to walk in on my little moment of success at the refrigerator you would think I had won an Olympic medal or had just rode a bull for the exact amount of time necessary to win.  I throw my arms up in the air and hoot and holler.  That is what this was like.....everything just lined up perfectly. 

I started reading a Bible Study by Havilah Cunnington(look her up), we had our Week of Worship and God spoke to me.  Not in some big, grand way but in a small voice that just kept chipping away until finally breakthrough came.  

First, I recognized the enemy....I saw the lie that was being whispered in my ear for what it was, a lie!  He had gotten me to be offended with God.  I know God to be a good God yet I found myself believing that He wasn't good to me.  I gave the enemy an open door to torment me, somewhere I was believing God was punishing me.  I KNOW BETTER, but still in all honesty it was there, a subtle lie giving birth to...CONDEMNATION.  A lingering question rang through my mind, why me?  The answer came back in the form of a demonic whisper....you deserve it.  That condemnation was what always ushered in the darkness.  It is the oldest trick in the book, to get us to doubt God's goodness.  

Listen people, God is not a punisher. He is a lover.  

                                                                                                          Let that sink in for a minute.

Then I started painting a picture with the intention of drawing a woman with light slipping through her fingertips and darkness pressing in.  As I was working on it at church I felt the Lord say, what do you see?  I looked and saw the darkness wasn't pressing in, it was being pushed back.  The light might have been slipping through her fingers but it was also radiating out of her soul.  

Perspective.  He changed my perspective, yet again. 

My son is gone, that much is true and somehow it is good.  God has told me in many ways and through many people that Justin is where he is supposed to be.  That his struggle is over.  Honestly, that does make me happy.  Thinking of him, absent from the body and  present with the Lord. What Mom can't rejoice over that?  It was personal, God rescued my Justin and I just have to hold unto the right perspective and not give an ear to the enemy of my faith that wants me to take offense at God's decision.  My Heavenly Father knows best.  I can trust Him.  

Perspective.  I can see clearly now.

I suppose I will need at least a hundred more breakthrough's and I will still get frustrated that I can't put the puzzle back together.  Today however, I can see clearly.  Everything has lined up and I have my breakthrough.  My perspective back to the proper place, my God goggles firmly in place....Today I will not feel guilty if I am sad, I will choose to be authentic and vulnerable but I will not entertain the enemies whispers because my God is a good God and I trust Him, even in the sh*t.

I think I can, I think I can...maybe

I am a perfectionist(a lousy one).  It is a disease.  Don't judge me.  It isn't even that I do everything perfect, trust me I don't.  It's that I like everything to fit in my neat and tidy boxes, I want my expectations to be met, I want to orchestrate my life to avoid the unexpected and painful.  I want to finish what I start, want to be successful at what I do and let's not forget the other disease I have...the disease to please.  So 2013 was the worst, but it was only the beginning....there were still pieces to be picked up and life to be lived and 2014 continued to be a whole lot of unmanageable, messy, broken stuff.

I am not addicted to drugs or alcohol.  Not judging if you are, but I am addicted to trying to control and manage my life so that pain is minimal(not a new pastime but clearly a futile one).  I know you are thinking what is so bad about that? Nothing as long as it doesn't box the world out.  As long as it doesn't keep you from living.  The problem is when life becomes unmanageable, I don't know how to live in that.  I panic and become manic...I laugh too loud and cry too much.  I wall myself off and try to protect myself.  I hear myself say things I wouldn't normally say, think things I wouldn't normally think.

This is a crazy new world and every day I am faced with choices and quite often I fail.  It's the failing that is so hard.  It is the unexpected daily failures, the inability to overcome my flesh, the broken pieces that won't fit back together that just makes me so uncomfortable I want to crawl out of my skin.  It is the inability to be perfect that spirals me into a dark place.

In that messy brutal world I cry unexpectedly, curse on occassion, overeat, chase thoughts down in my mind that you my friends would be appalled at and hate my inability to control myself.  The self-loathing feels familiar as it cloaks itself around me.  Why can't I just be happy?  I want joy, I really do.  The perfectionist in me bereats me for being unable to overcome.  I want to beat my head against the wall until I feel "sunny and bright".  I feel somehow disloyal to my sons memory if I am happy, so I go back to the pain because it feels like it is all I have left of him.  I know this isn't correct but still it is the truth according to my emotions.

Who would want to feel sad like this, day in and day out.  That's not to say that it's all bad.  It isn't.  It is just to say that sometimes the darkness seems really, really dark.  I don't think I am a freak, I think others feel this way too.  You know where it just feels like someone flipped a switch and all the light that you were holding onto just slips right through your fingertips.  Catapulted back into the dark....dark thoughts, dark memories, dark wounds, dark everything.

So I am going to start a "Thankful journal" again, because clearly I am having a hard time holding unto perspective.  I know that I know, that there are things to be thankful for.....you people for instance.  I love you people, you authentic, messy people that let me be me.  Which works out well because I have tried to be other people and it just ends in failure.  

So, I will think more about the good memories and the bad will grow dim and love will win.  I will put on gratitude in place of loss.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....I believe my stinking thinking can be remade....my brain rewired to think new thoughts.  God has given me everything I need to be an overcomer.  Lot's of positioning for overcoming (hehehe got lots to overcome).  So I am a voracious reader....I have read ton's of books on grief and heaven trying to make my mind submit to the Spirit.  I read books all about love trying to push back the fear.  Reading helps me feel productive like I am doing something...I suppose it is me trying to find a perfect way out of this very unpredictable, uncontrollable circumstance.  Where my emotions can be triggered over the smallest of things and memories float around with no place to land without causing a landslide of emotions.  So I read to keep my mind focused on healing, on getting better, on having control over this storm.


It works for about five out of seven days, but then something happens and I am right back to the dark place where fear treads around in my brain leaving deep footsteps.  Where my heart races and love grows distant and I can't seem to remember who I was or even who I am.  So, I counsel myself....what would I tell someone like me in a counseling session?  Retrain your brain, I would say.

So here is my list of put off and put on(Ephesians 4) thoughts.  Remember I am a perfectionist so I need to create a list and a way to work towards my goals.I am hoping that if I have a failure I will just resort back to #3!  Please don't  point out my failures now that you know my intimate heart thoughts. I share with you because I think there is something to be learned here.  That I am suprisingly not the only one with stinking thinking and when we acknowledge it and reveal that we are all flawed it brings freedom and hope for healing and change.


#1
Put Off:  I lost dear friends, they abandoned and rejected me.  At least that is what it felt like.
Put On:  They made room for new friends, wonderful people who flip the light on for me.  I will love them all, even if I think they may hurt me.  My job is just to love. I forgive those who hurt me because I have been forgiven so much.

#2
Put Off:  I lost my son, I will feel this pain forever.
Put On:  My son is not lost, He is waiting for me in heaven and that will last forever, not this. This pain is morphing and God will continue to bring comfort in the midst of it, until one day it just isn't.

#3
Put Off:  Self-loathing for not being "all better". Self-loathing for not being stronger, for being depressed at times.
Put On:  Grace and forgiveness for myself.  There is grace for this pace.  There is no right or wrong. It's okay to be manic or panic, just breathe and work your way out of it with the Word.  Grace covers this place with His dying breath He paid the price for my flaws.

#4
Put Off:  Anger at the uncontrollable, messy, broken world that I can't manage.
Put On:  Trust in a God who is Sovereign, who know's best for me, who rescued my son from his addiction, who turns the hearts of people and brings favor into my life.  He is the same God that I have praised for twenty five years and I will continue to praise Him now.  He is still good, even if sometimes, every once in awhile I have to be convinced of that all over again.

I think this is a good starting place.  It's not a New Years resolution it's just a starting place for creating a different year.  A year where all things are made new, where hope is planted like seeds and a crop of joy will spring up.  I am going to love well because that is what Jesus taught us, He taught us to love one another.  Loving relationships are the context for changing us and healing us.  You have taught me that.

10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
1 Peter 4:10-11 (NLT)

And let me just say this.....THANK YOU.  If we are all one body, then we are supplied through that body with the nourishment we need through others.  You are the OTHERS.  When Paul was sad and discouraged God comforted him by sending him a friend (2 Cor 7:6).  You were those friends.  You, with the shared pain and you who could not understand the depth and just let me cry with you. Romans 12:15 says to mourn with those who mourn and you did.  You encouraged me with the word and with your presence.  I love you people.

I read in one of my books that God gives us the body of Christ to parent us, to model His love to us.  You have done that well.

I am not going to get my hopes up too high, my perfectionism causes me to self-protect so that I am not disappointed.  Does that make sense?  Whatever, still a work in progress but I am determined that this year will be filled with more forgiveness, love, hope and joy than last year and that is a good place to start.  I am letting go of the past hurts and moving forward with hope.  I am opening my heart wide to say yes Lord, yes.

So even though I was really angry at "New Years", I have forgiven it.  Now I see that it doesn't have to be a reminder of what was lost but can be a defining moment to let go of the past hurt and grab ahold of the future.  Reminds me of the monkey bars.  Ratz, I was always terrible at the monkey bars.  I couldn't bear to let go and take the risk, but this year I am braver than ever.  So come on 2015 let's do this!

How about you brave friends, what do you need to let go of?

P.S. I feel better already!

                                                                           

Two is Less than Three

I write in my head all day long.  Things I wish I'd said, things I wish I'd done.  Amazing, wonderful sentences that describe beautifully what I am feeling.  They never make it to my computer.  I am in this crazy, frantic, manic mode and there is no time for writing.

I told Gary this week I feel like I am in a maze and every time I think I am almost to an end I turn a corner and there I am again.  That's right, everywhere I go...there I am.

I wish I could describe the feeling; the anxiety, the fear, the loss,  that coexist within my heart.  The space that is empty and hollow.  This gaping hole that I try desperately to fill with everything else, because two is less than three.

I imagine Jesus there in the stable of my heart holding Justin.  I just can't seem to find the comforter in my mind.  He lives no doubt in my heart, in my soul....but there is still two instead of three.

I remember one of my kids saying after they asked Jesus into their heart, they were worried about eating too much and crowding him out.  So literal this asking him into our hearts.  But really He is everywhere and He is in my very being, my soul.  If I could just get Him to fill my mind instead of all these random crazy thoughts, instead of fear and anxiety, instead of the ginormous monster of grief.

Because the maze in my mind always leads back to one place.  The frantic cries of a Mother for her child screaming through my brain.

We all know that feeling when you have lost your child in the store.  The panic, the frantic searching, the stories that quickly rise to the surface in our minds of children abducted and all the unspoken things done to them.  That moment.  That is what I feel sometimes.  That frantic, pulse racing moment of loss is repeated over and over.  Up and down and round and round

I know this feeling.  I have lived with this feeling for ten years.  Ten years off and on of my boy struggling with addiction.  Ten years of driving around looking for him when he didn't come home. Scared to death that he has been in an accident and is stranded in a ditch somewhere.  Picking him up from the Emergency Room or a strangers house to intoxicated to drive.  Waking up in the middle of the night and looking for his car, hoping he was home.  Ten years off and on of praying for the turn around, a roller coaster of rejoicing and devastation.

He loved God and when he was up, this boy was up.  So fun, so loving, sharing his faith with everyone.  Serving and loving others and loving me well.  He, the most affectionate of my boys.  He, the boy turned man that even at twenty something would still call me Mommy.  But addiction is horrifying, grabbing someone you love and pulling them back down the rabbit hole while you watch from the sidelines unable to do anything but pray.

And so Christmas is hard.  It is tragic and hopeful.  It is glaringly empty and yet full of promise. Because a baby king was born I will see my Justin again.  I will hear him laugh and call me Mommy, but in the meantime Christmas reminds me that two is less than three and the roller coaster keeps rolling on.

I go to buy chap stick for stockings and it comes in packs of three.  I don't have three anymore.  I go to buy pajama pants and pull three pair....The loss overwhelms me.  I thought I would be better.  I am disappointed in myself.  I want to be stronger and instead I am weaker.  I cry out to the healer but the doses only seem to come in small increments and then the disease of grief rises up all over again. Like a fever it takes me over, my whole body feels the effects.  My body hurts almost as much as my heart.  Until it doesn't. Until just like that I am able.  I am stronger, even if just for a moment.

Wonderful people.  I love you people.  You hug me, you love me, you listen patiently.  You hug tighter than normal and when I choke up and pull away you say it's okay.  Yes, you probably are one of these people.  You write encouraging notes, send sweet texts, light candles, you speak love with words and actions and you make it bearable.  I try to be alone but I can't bear it and so you fill my life with your presence.  You shop with me, sit with me and when I am crazy, frantic busy....you get it.  You know my routine, my addiction.  You listen, you are not judgy, you are my people, my tribe.

You make me laugh, you remind me I am not tripping I am trudging.  You are the sign that says "this way" and you move me towards the light.  You send me songs and teachings and you think I don't notice....but I do.  Sometimes I just can't talk about it, how much it helped.  There is a file on my computer for your love letters.  I love you people! 

Lost in the maze I hear your voices shouting directions as I limp along.  I hear the Holy Spirit whispering, I know this sadness.  I too was separated from someone I love.  So, I limp along. Roaming the barren land of this world looking for the entrance to the promise land.  I suppose I will end up back in this place from time to time for the rest of my life.  Someone will look like Justin and take my breath away.  I will see two instead of three, the hole will swallow me for a moment.  I will forget he is gone and feel that sudden panic of loss....that Mother's fear and then I will realize I don't need to search for him, he is already found.

Two is less than three its true, but this world always holds less....Heaven is full of all the rest...there is so much more to come.  So today I choose to celebrate the two and all the other special, wonderful people in my life.  My tribe, my close and my far, my near and dears, and my sisters from another misters, my fellow strugglers and my supporters and most of all the lover of my soul who somehow will piece all this brokeness back together one day.

P.S.   Sorry if I didn't get you a gift, shopping was just to hard.

Love Came Down

Humility is not humanities strongest suit.  I can't speak for everyone but ummmm....I struggle. It is a sneaky thing...pride.  It can wrap itself up in false humility or it can look like righteous indignation, almost always it involves some kind of offence.  Just like Eve, I can think I know better.   Just the other day I caught myself correcting my husbands grammar....ratz.  Humility covers others mistakes, it doesn't put them on blast.   I don't think I am the only one out there that struggles with this.    

Isn't that what Jesus did when He came down.  He covered us and all our "jacked up, messed up ways".  He didn't put us on blast, He actually covered our failures with His perfection.  Yay for that!  

Jesus  knows humble.  He came down in the most humble of ways.  A baby, completely helpless. To relate to us, helpless humanity.  To do for us what we could never do for ourselves. 

Mary humbled herself to His will.  Such a beautiful example of humility....she didn't argue with the angel.  Didn't try to change the plan.  She submitted.  She was humble.  Unlike Mary, I sometimes argue with God about His plan.  Plain and simple, I just argue and even if I submit I catch myself complaining.  

Just when I think I have made progress, I slip up.  I snap at someone for not doing it my way, I complain about something I shouldn't, I get fixated on what I think should happen. Pride stinks.  It is at the root of every argument, every judgement, every sin.....Jesus hates it and Satan loves it.  Pride says I deserve to be heard, I am right and others must know it, my way is the only way, I see their sin and I want to point it out, pride refuses to forgive, etc.  You can just fill in the blank here on what it looks like in your own life.  

Humility looks like love, it comes down.  It kneels with the broken, lifts up the hurting, lays itself down for others.  It looks eye to eye and doesn't say a thing, except love. Humility covers sin, it doesn't expose it.  Humility wants the best for others, not itself.  Jesus was thinking of us, when He came down.  He was thinking of our pain and suffering and was willing to endure His own pain and suffering for us.  That is humility.  That is humble.  

He was born in a stable.  A stable of all places.  No grand hotel, no fancy linens, the King came in a stable.  I could take a lesson from this.  I gotta admit, I like the nice places.  However, Jesus always shows up in the low places.  That's not to say He is never at the Hyatt, but let's just be honest any of us that have gone on a missions trip know that we really see Him there.  He loves the unexpected places, the damp and musty places, the dry and barren places.  He is not about the comfort of earth, but the need of humanity.  

The first Kingly announcement came to the shepherds.  The blue collar workers of Bible times.  The least of these, the dirty, the campers, the hard workers....He choose Shepherds to teach us something....humility.    

Do you know this stable door was low, a low cave burrowed out among the stone…..the only way to go in is to stoop low….to witness the Savior, you have to get down on your knees….

Ordinary shepherds who were willing to bow down…kneel and become those extraordinary enough to see the baby King in a manger. They became the first evangelist, to tell the good news. 

So while the smarty pants religious were sleeping, and the elite were dreaming, and the successful were tucked away in their warm beds, the shepherds….the meek and lowly ones were kneeling at a manger, staring into the face of the King.

That is the gift of Christmas, His presence, His love came down….

Emmanuel God with us….Humility exampled, lived out for all to see.

Stepping from the throne, He removed His robe and wrapped himself in skin…entered a young peasant  girls womb, birthed into a cold night and slept on cold hay….

I imagine Mary didn’t know whether to give him milk or give him praise….she gave him both.

Jesus came down to a stable and in so doing he said,

I love you this much….I will speak your language, sleep on your earth, feel your pain, walk your streets, experience your friendship and your betrayal….then I will once again say, I love you this much and spread my arms out on a cross and die for you.

We wonder how long He will love us?  Look to the cross, that’s our death He died…look to the empty tomb that’s our resurrection He’s  living.  He will love us for all eternity.

That’s how much He loves us. 

We are precious to Him.  So precious that he became like us, that we would come to him. 

In the Message Isaiah 9:6,  says it this way….

A child has been born---for us!

The gift of a son—For us!

His names will be:  Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness

Love came down to be our counselor, our strength, our family and our wholeness….He loved us soooo much that He had to come.  He got low, in order to take us high.  Love came down so that Heaven could open it's gates wide.  Love came down, humbled Himself in order to save us. Humility personified for all of humanity.  

Dear Jesus,

May we actively crush pride under our feet this Christmas Season, just as you did when you came to this earth as a baby.   May love reign supreme over everything else.  May we be like Mary and humbly submit to your plans.  May we like the shepherds be those who are kneeling in front of the King.  May we stoop low to enter into your presence.  May we remember that no matter our accomplishments nothing compares to you, the King.  May we learn from you and the Shepherds, that blessed are the meek. 

In Jesus Name we pray, make it so Lord.

Hello old friend, it's time for you to go....

Sometimes sadness creeps up on me like an old friend,
wraps me up in a blanket and holds my hand.
Hello old friend, it seems to say.
Hello again, I whisper back.

You can't stay long I have things to do, I tell my friend.
I know, it whispers back.
We sit and hold hands and tears creep down my face.
I'm trying to think of happy things now, you know?
I know, it whispers back.
We sit a while longer like that...entwined together.
Sadness and I, my old friend, my companion through the darkest of times.

You must go, I whisper.
I know, it whispers back.
I have new friends now, places to go, people to love.
I know, it whispers back.
I'm sorry, I am really sorry but you can't stay.
I know, it whispers back.

I feel bad sometimes to not feel sad.
To tell you to leave.
It doesn't mean my love is any less.
It just means that here, on this earth there is still more love to give.
People for me to wrap in a blanket and hold hands with.
I know, it whispers back.

Goodbye, I choke out.
The blanket of sorrow lifts.
I can almost visibly see the clouds parting.
I'm sure we will meet again, I say.
Yes, it says.

Hello there, I say to my new friend.
A smile creeps unto my face,
the heaviness lifts, as I hold hands with my new friend.
Hello there, says my new friend.
I lay my head on His shoulder,
and he laughs gently.
I laugh too.
Hello joy, it's good to see you again.