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Logic & Imagination

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a huge battle. — Phylo of Alexandria

I am still processing time I spent today, alongside my mother and a lot of mostly grey haired women, at the Holy Wisdom monastery. And my ten-year old turns eleven tomorrow, so life will be a little full over the next twenty-four hours with ice-cream cake and video games,  rides here and there, and the flow of life as a mother of four.

While I mull on what I have learned, I thought you might enjoy seeing the list of the top ten articles on my blog this month.  A few are recent work, but I was surprised to see that several are oldies but goodies like What’s a Woman of Leisure?, On Parenting Deeply and Well, and the ebb and flow.

Title Views
Home page 400
If you Read Nothing Else from me. Read this. ((On healing)) 72
What’s a Woman of Leisure? (Not that you asked) 69
Can I “forget” that I’m a Woman while at Church? Forgetting and Forgiving 55
On Parenting Deeply and Well 46
Perfect Practice (A poem about Lent) 45
My Sobriety and My Sin 44
To Lent or not to Lent, that is the Question 42
the ebb and flow 39
Faith Transforms Me, Sometimes. 37
Uncluttered, Exposed and Present: Touching the Unknown (a poem) 36

It is an incredible honor to know that you all are reading and walking with me.

My Spiritual Eyes are Stinging

From listening to a QIdeas talk with Eugene Peterson on the Sabbath.

I must stop trying to be God.  

Which means also stop trying to prove myself.  Stop with the interminable, frantic burden of finding my place in the world.  Yes, there is a dignity to work – any kind of work—even house work.  But when we inflate our worth by acting like what we do is everything  — it’s something, then we put ourselves above God.

When our “moral sweat” brings our sense of value, it blinds us to God at work and our spiritual eyes are left stinging.

“We want to be like God.” said Eugene Peterson.

Sabbath living is … to show up.  Then, shut up.

Knowing  that God is doing something, we are to live in response it.  Otherwise, it’s only an oppressive ritual.  Religious devotion deprived of meaning.  Eugene Peterson even asserts that programs sometimes can keep us from finding community in churches.

I’ve reflected for a long time on what it means to be Christian community to one another.  Unabashedly knowing that I’ve lived most of my life feeling as if there’s a giant, lonely even gaping hole inside me that I cannot seem to fill up.  Family didn’t do it.  Work didn’t do it.  Creating doesn’t do it.  Motherhood didn’t do it.  Being married didn’t do it.  Drinking really didn’t do it.  Being a part of things doesn’t do it.  Serving doesn’t do it.  There will never be enough friends — the right sort of friends.  Work.  Hobbies.

Nothing fills it that gaping, God sized hole.

Shutting up and showing up is how God fills that gaping hole inside us.  It is the most repeated commandment in the Bible.  And ironically Jesus was accused, of all the radical things he did which were many, of not keeping Sabbath well.

“God is working when we are sleeping.” said Eugene Peterson. “We live in a toxic culture that doesn’t understand the need for Sabbath – our world is full of compulsively and insecurity.”

Rarely do we sit, play, see, breathe  in slowly, and just be. 

Creating active space for nothing,

knowing that when you pray you are not accomplishing.

Learning an awareness that God is doing something and you don’t have a clue what it is—

it is a constant surrendering.

I keep being struck reading the Torah (the first five books of the OT) by when Moses and Aaron are confronted by the failings of the people of Israel – the abject poverty of soul, their errors, constant rebellion and the sinful nature of the people, they fall face down.  Moses and Aaron, that is — over and over again.  (I wonder how many times it is repeated?)

They fell, face down.

How do we fall face down—letting go—surrendering ourselves?  Literally.  Figuratively.  Moses and Aaron did it over and over again.

I’m starting to think,  just possibly,  that I’m meant to live with that hole in my heart.  Perhaps even, I am supposed to acknowledge it and

let God do the filling up.

Just maybe, he made me that way for a reason, so that I would never okay without him— never totally content — never fully joyful— never imagine that I’m in control—living always humbled by my need for the Holy encounters with him.

It’s living in constant surrender.  Face down, a kairos surrender to the Holy One.

“Take my tired body, my confused mind, and my restless soul into your arms, and give me rest, simple quiet rest.” — Henri Nouwen

MHH

On Writing, On Being


I’ve been thinking a lot about my traumas and God’s grace, about sin and  God’s grace, about my separation from God, actually pushing God away, and the act of drawing near to him again. About the things in our lives that keep us from total dependence. My life, to be clear, my dependence.

I find it interesting the pathways we travel in life.  For me, being at home, working solidly on my writing now for months, even years, perfecting my craft, reading and writing, studying scripture, and rethinking how I read the Bible, learning the Story of the Bible.  Rethinking what it means to be a woman in the evangelical church.  Being healed, yes coming utterly unstuck with regards to bitterness over women in the EFCA denomination and specifically feeling ignored, unheard, and unimportant and then chastised for being so outspoken, but simply wanting to talk with others about their experiences as women in ministry, and not finding people like that except online.  Years of feeling very alone in all respects about all these things.

And then there is the writing; being challenged by two friends (one being my husband) to write, and remembering the others over the last year or two.  I should take up with Nike because writing, really comes down to just doing it.  Right?

Sure, you need a plan.  Perhaps there is a proposal for a book.  You need connections, eventually an agent or a publisher.  But first, you must simply be willing to write; to occupy your story and to portion out your life experiences for others; be exposed and yet trustworthy with yourself and others.  That’s the objective, but even as one engraves their story on the “page”, lives, shares, replies to others.  There is the parallel deepening comprehension that you must remain vulnerable and open to the Holy Spirit, to growing in the faith journey, to see God work – in his most miraculous, deeply challenging, sometimes abysmal challenges, promptings, and difficult though it may be – to grow!  As the scriptures are open before me, to thank God for the challenges, the scares, the mistakes, and the sin.  He won’t turn away from me.

Writing is about remembering, acknowledging the power of God in my life.  It’s about believing and knowing.  Not being perfect.  And as the two paths run parallel I suppose the challenge is to not allow the writing overtake the growing, the life story outshout the holy spirit and the narrative of scripture and all that should and is doing inside me.

And so, this place will be less a place of perfection but a place of perfecting.

Perhaps you will enjoy the process. I thank you for your grace as you journey along.

My Sobriety and My Sin

“… And lately I wonder if Christians aren’t the most miserable of addicts–and if the fact of our faith itself isn’t part of the reason.  After all, aren’t we supposed to be new creations in Christ, freed from the power of sin? Because we tend to think of addiction this way—strictly as a moral failing—we try to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps. We pray harder, repent more fervently, and fight temptation until we’re blue in the face.”  – Sober Boots, a blog by Heather Kopp

After reading Heather’s thoughts last night I read several of the comments from those who had extremely judgmental view of a person’s addiction recovery.

I was left with a hollow feeling inside.  I found myself saying that addiction is not a sin.  But then, thinking long and hard about it this morning, I realized that although I have never dealt with it there was an element of sin involved in my alcoholism.

I am always helped by talking to my husband Tom.  I sought his comfort in the question, “It wasn’t sin, right, that I became an alcoholic? It wasn’t sin, was it?  Is it?”  He’s one of the least judgmental people I know, so when Tom said “Yes, it is in part it was sin, you had a choice .  You cannot discount free will.” I had to listen.

(And then we launched into a wonderful conversation about James 3, our hierarchies of sin and the power of our tongue.  “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers these things ought not to be so.”  James 3, ESV)

How is it that I fell into addiction?

How is it that I am sober today?  My sobriety has taken inner strength of will and conviction. Was it God that has given me the strength to remain sober for three and a half years? 

How much of my sobriety was tangled up in my conversion path, my faith walk, the gentle work of the Holy Spirit?

In some ways living free of addiction is a form of conversion, as Alyce M. McKenzie says, a turnaround from bondage to a self-destructive behavior to freedom that comes when we commit ourselves to the power of God.

But honestly I don’t recall some grand transaction, or moment, whereby I asked God to help me become sober and whamo I was healed.  No, it was much, much slower.  It was through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and a final ultimatum-of-sorts made by my husband converging within twenty-four hours, that I made a choice to finally quit.

But the conviction had been building for some time – though choosing sobriety took years.

I was pretty sure I was addicted to alcohol when my sisters and I attended the family program at Hazeldon at the request of my mom.  It was there that I learned for the first time about  the illness of addiction, more importantly about the brain pathways of an addict, about codependency, about the hell we create for others by our words and sarcasm, about the strength sometimes to be found in Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous.  (**I say more about AA below)  After meeting with a doctor there, acknowledging my depression and how much and how often I was drinking, she said they could justifiably commit me to the residential program.  But I couldn’t do it — couldn’t accept the need to quit totally.  Didn’t believe it was that bad.  I went home and spent the next five years or so on a slow decline.  Not every day at that point.  Not drinking to black out, yet.  Not even really in that bad of shape, but an alcoholic for sure.

How many nights over the next few years did I go to sleep almost blacked out drunk.  Only just able to stumble to bed – falling into the protective  down covers, pounding head on the soft accepting pillows, heart aching with the pain of it all. Thinking – praying – crying out to God.

Making promises.  Promising that tomorrow would be different.  Promising myself that tomorrow I would not buy  any wine.  Tomorrow I would not drink myself to a disoriented, forgotten, insensible place.  Hopeful that tomorrow would be different, only to fall into the same habit, experiencing the same amnesia as I was purchasing more alcohol.

The psychologist and spiritual counselor Gerald May in his book called Addiction and Grace defines addiction as “any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire.”

I found myself, day after day, month after month, year after year, for more than five years being fairly certain that I was an addict and yet choosing the same path.  I thought I could be a social drinker.  I didn’t want to stop, not really, for a long time.   Wine and other alcohol was like a lover.  I look back now knowing it clearly, seeing it objectively that it was an idol, yes, more important than anything else.  Alcohol was my reason for living.  I gave it the space and place in my life much more important than my health, or the welfare of my family, or my commitment to God. So, yes, there is an element of choice.  And in that free choice it was a sin.

But sadly as Christians we have a hierarchy of sin – infidelity and addiction being at the top.  Why?  I suppose it doesn’t even matter ultimately.  They were my choices, though compelled by the illness in my brain and the broken state of my heart.   I made them.   I chose.

And where was God?  Well, I stopped seeking him.  I closed off from him the part of me that was an addict.  I cannot fully describe how I lived with myself spiritually in those years except to say that I was numb even while being wracked with guilt.  I was self-medicating.  I was depressed.  I felt hopeless.  I turned away from God. This is a poem I wrote at one point in my recovery, titled Days Without God.

she walked away from hope,
traveled the road of unkept promises.
and god was far away.

days without number

she ran down that road,
of fleeting pleasures
and god turned away
unable to see
unable to be with her.

though she can never deny going,
after a time, she turned
and walked back.
she was broken and bleeding.

the moment she turned back
she felt the presence
and then, god forgave.

For these choices I had to ask my husband’s forgiveness.  Someday I will do the same with my children when they are old enough to understand.  From the friends who lived beside me and saw the destruction of alcohol in my life, I covet their forgiveness.  Family members who saw and lived and wondered and were wounded by me, they too I need forgiveness and grace.

I live with the knowledge of my walking away from God.  I live with the knowledge that I did that every day, I chose it.  I cling to God now.  I relish his forgiveness and I acknowledge my sin.  His grace is enough.

To those accusers, the ones that throw out the accusation of “sin!” like Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, I say this. No matter who we are or what we have done, in Christ we are given a new life of repentance and dignity where there is no place for legalism and guilt.   This is a life of grace.   Only God knows our hearts.   He is there with us, if we cry out to him.  But recovery, that is a long difficult walk and by no means something that just happens by surrendering to God.  I know this.

But I also know that He walks it with us if we ask him.  Look at John 8, Jesus asking where are your accusers?  “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Do I know how that transaction works, ultimately?  Not really, but it is for me now found  in the daily choice to be sober.  Did Jesus think she’d be free of sin them then on?  Nope, not likely and there was parts of her life she had to choose to walk away from.  Alcoholics must do this in order to recover.

I cannot cast stones at others, no matter their “sin.” Grace and peace is found in the knowledge that I am not judged either.

“… and I’m still learning how to hack and slash through this beautiful jungle of grace.”  Stephen

MH

** I do not work my sobriety with AA (Alcoholics Anonymous).  I don’t personally find AA all that helpful, though for a time I was greatly encouraged by attending a weekly meeting with women.  I walked into that room and experienced like I never have in my life a level of understanding, empathy and acceptance.  No condemnation.  We were all alcoholics and other forms of addicts.  No pointing of fingers.  In a way that the Church doesn’t seem to be able to live out — the idea that we’re all sinners together in this mess of a world.  All sinners.  All saints.  All walking the path together.  Why is it that (some) Christians are the most judgmental of all?

I longed for (and still sometimes do) church to be a safe place for me to go and find help with my recovery, but my church at least doesn’t offer anything for addicts.  Not sure why when they have divorce-care, and grief-care, and cancer-care among many other kids of “care.”  It does feel like they are strangely silent on this.  I was helped by an addiction specific counselor, fortunate enough to have it covered by insurance, and spent more than six months in weekly therapy working through many aspects of my addiction as well as learning about the disease’s power.

Lent: My Agenda or God’s?

I am looking to Lent as a way to make space. In our cluttered congested lives we have no space for God. Then we act almost indignant that he won’t speak (I’m talking to myself here.)  So often I have an agenda with God and even in the practicing of Lent.  I can’t hear what he wants to say.

What if Lent was a way of creating more space for God?  While knowing he is preparing us for his death and for his resurrection.

Instead of being ruled by social media.  I could read all the day long the blogs and whatnot of people I like and respect.  But what if I could make space for God?

Because at the end of the day, if I don’t make space for the Holy One, I will be empty. Bereft.  Spiritually limp and disbelieving. I will not have done the simple profound work of inquiring of God what he wants to say. Can it be that simple?  That so often I don’t pray.  I don’t ask.  I stay too busy.

And it feels then, like he’s silent.

But I have a feeling it is simply that I was too distracted to be still enough to listen.  To recognize him.

So the giving up of things is good if we allow the Holy One to fill our spaces of fear, regret, pain, selfishness, anger, pride, shame.  He wants to take them.  He is leading us, to the cross.

There is no room for his Voice. The way I create space is likely giving things up.

Stop looking to others to fill me, inspire me, motivate me.

I want to hear from my maker, so I should let go of all the other voices. If I can bravely crack open that space in my day.

“Let the things of this world fall away so the soul can fall in love with God. God only comes to fill the empty places and kenosis is necessary – to empty the soul to know the filling of God.”   ––  Ann Voskamp

It isn’t really anything I do, or don’t do, that matters.  Not really.

It’s making space for the Holy One.   Waiting for his filling up.  Asking for his agenda with me.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”  — Ephesians 2:8,9

Uncluttered, Exposed and Present: Touching the Unknown (a poem)

I carried so much hurt
a world of injury, so much so that
often I couldn’t breathe.
my chest ached of it. I couldn’t
hear the spirit, blowing windy about me.
wouldn’t heal, my open sores were evident to all.
I      had      no      space left inside
for the mystical, Holy
One to speak.

Making space for God sounds so suspect
(as if)
even though,
often
I was thinking
if God is there, why won’t he just talk
to me?

Then     I    let   go.   I let my fear fly free.
Then the glorious, lavish days
came, spent
listening.
days I look forward to sitting, there.  waiting
a while
setting aside the albatross.
Let it go, though
the grip
I had was strong,
and wrong
The scars ran deep
the pain furrowed my brow and at my core
there was only sorrow.
Now, I touch the Unknown
I am uncluttered, exposed
and present,
open for God to speak.

Perfect Practice (A poem about Lent)

Practicing lent

sounds slick. My gift,

heart-full-of-pride. My rituals,

my restriction, my sacrifice.

Then I throw out my arms, open-handed.

Looking up,
giving up.
Let go, let up.

Incarnate,

the One who comes
have me. I let go,

practicing lent.

The End of the Story is the Beginning

The end of the Story is the Beginning, when things start. Life in abundance received.

Without the Sacrifice I am nothing.  Left to myself I am wholly a mess. Trust broken, hearts wrought.  Fists clenched.  Empty all. Naked, ashamed.  Afraid to be known.

The beginning of the story was precision, perfect peace. Equal before God and one another.

Then humanity violated  itself.  Craving to rule, clutching power. We became a destruction, heart violation, betrayal. Damage done.  Then world-weary. Worn out, simply used to being broken hearted. We forgot.

The end of the Story is the Beginning.

We know the end of the story,

But we live in our alienation, self-interest and suspicion.  We live broken.

And God’s saying to us, trust me.  I alone make promises.  I alone will provide. The end of the story is your launch.

Into new life.

Yahweh Yireh.

The LORD will provide.

On Motherhood: Searching for Meaningful Metanarrative

I keep crying out that I want a bigger purpose for my life.  

The universe cries back, your purpose is right in front of you.

I cry back– it’s not enough.  It’s not enough.  This is not enough!

I cannot pretend. I’ve been up and down, sometimes miserable lately. And I’m ashamed of myself. Why is it that I just cannot figure out how to be happy? I had an interaction with E yesterday that spun me into these gloomy thoughts.   We were talking about cheerful people – you know the kind.  The people whose voices go up when they talk to you and they always smile and they are mostly cheerful and helpful!!  They seem to have an inner glow.

It’s just not me, I am mellow, solidly so, but she really likes those sorts of people! (Even though, or perhaps because, she isn’t one.)

I don’t like them, necessarily.  I doubt people’s sincerity, strangers, when they behave like that. I find them hard to trust.  People that I know in my real life, who are like that, I take with a grain of salt. But it is hard for me to accept that they are always UP even as I try to believe people like that are sincere, not putting me on.  But I have to admit they can grate on me.

But I realized yesterday that I long to be that sort of Mother. Oh, I encourage, I hug, I kiss, I affirm like crazy – but I don’t slather on love or exude joy.  I’m not all over my kids, thrilled that they simply exist and I’m just lucky to be their mom!  (Though I am, very fortunate to have them.)  And I don’t serve pink Valentine’s Day meals or even give valentines to my kids.

But my daughter wouldn’t let me even try yesterday – pushing me away when I smothered her with kisses and smiles.  “It’s just not real, Mom.”  Saying that I was making fun of her, which I definitely wasn’t.   That got me really in the dumps yesterday.

I woke today with gloomy, anxious thoughts.  My body physically hurts from my heart racing so much.  I even thought I was getting sick, so I laid down yesterday.  Just as I dropped off to sleep – probably ten times – a jolt of adrenaline woke me.  I know this, it is anxiety.  (And I start to wonder if I should return to my shrink.  Damn it, I haven’t seen him in a good long while and somehow returning solidifies my failure.  Failure to stay calm and maintain my mood. )

Even as God did a beautiful thing just last week or was it the week before?  And he brought me out of the depression that clung to me from November to January.  It seems that I cannot maintain any peace in my heart. 

Reading through the Bible with my church.  We’re in the book of Numbers.  And I am struck by the Israelites inability to trust God.  Even as they had miracles – Clouds leading them, and manna provided for them and plagues cursing them … and I think to myself, if God spoke to me like that, I’d have more faith that he’s got a plan for my life.  (Um, maybe.)

Perhaps it really is simply that I don’t trust God with my days – with my future.

I think, I just need to be struck with some horrible punishment like Miriam when she challenged things (Nu 12) and then I’d believe.  Then I’d stop complaining. Or would I?

And every time the people do something stupid, Moses and Aaron’s response was to fall face down on the ground.  Hm…..

Is that what I’m doing?  Am I just complaining when I say I just want to be happy.  I find the days I am living — the sweeping up endless dirt, cooking and washing up, washing and folding, the damn whiny dog, the endless homework, and children who really don’t want to achieve, trying to be helpful and failing,

endless, same, same, same…

Being at home is about giving up my rights, serving. But perhaps I am not principled enough to get meaning out of any of it.  Not much anyway.  

Phooey, I can’t stand myself right now.

A friend keeps telling me to read the Bible for the metanarrative.  I think to myself.  I cannot even live life in the big narrative. 

I’m sweeping up dust bunnies and resenting every minute. 

I’ll regret this grumpy post.  I always do. Definitely not living in the light!   But I need to be truthful, even if it’s not cheerful!  Some days that is all I’m holding on to — being a person that is straight and honest.   Some days.

To Lent or not to Lent, that is the Question

Twitter
Image via Wikipedia

After spending the evening watching the Grammys and tweeting my snarky thoughts, last night my dreams were in Tweet format.  Needless to say it was a long night. And when I woke this morning I was more than a little disturbed by it.

I got to thinking about technology’s power in my life.

Earlier this week, I read an article by Albert Borgmann on the subject of Taming Technology. For Borgmann, philosophy is a way of taking up the questions that live at the center of everyday life — questions that are urgent but often inarticulate. The philosophy of technology, which has been the principal focus of his work since the mid-1970s, is about bringing to light and calling into question the technological shape and character of everyday life.  How do we gather technological devices together into the good life?  How does technology shape a way of life?  It is an interesting article.  You should read it.

Lent is coming.

For Christians, the 40 days (plus Sundays) of Lent — the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday — is a time for reflection, renewal, and rededication.

But Lent has been a part of the Church life from the 2d Century on, and it’s a discipline and a season worthy of the entire Church. What is Lent? Essentially it is a time of preparation. As during Advent we prepare to celebrate the Advent of our Lord, so during Lent we prepare to enter in and participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, it is a time for us to recollect our minds and hearts toward the saving events of our faith. The Church Calendar is designed to keep our lives connected week by week to the life of Jesus. — Scot McKnight

I’ve written about Lent before and have some links below. Many Christians don’t participate in Lent or take it lightly; perhaps giving up chocolate or caffeine as way of depriving ourselves.  But  Julie Clawson author of Everyday Justice and blogger at One Hand Clapping says about this most misunderstood event: “Lent isn’t about denial, it is about transformation. It is the season in which we prepare to encounter Christ’s sacrifice by endeavoring to become more Christ like ourselves. ”  (Emphasis mine.)  I could not agree more.

In preparing for Lent, I sometimes ask myself:

  • Is there a habit (or even a sin) in my life that repeatedly gets in the way of my loving God or loving others?  Ask God to get a hold of that habit over the next 40 days and help you have the discipline to give it to him, forever. 
  • Is there any one in my life with whom I need to pursue forgiveness or reconciliation?  This may take longer than Lent.  Here is a poem that I wrote during a time of profound grieving, knowing that I had done and said something that I thought was unforgivable. It’s titled  Longing for Mercy.  Ask God to begin to work in you and in the other person to ready you both for reconciliation in God’s perfect timing. 
  • What am I willing to give up to carve out extra time for daily contemplation and listening for the season of Lent?  
  • Lent begins  next week, on Ash Wednesday, leaving time to ask God to show you what you need to stop doing to have more time with him.  

I’m seriously considering letting go of Facebook for Lent.  It often makes me anxious and confused and I wonder about its power over my mind and heart.  Could I just let it fly away into the abyss  of cyberspace for forty days and see what other more meaningful things I can fill it up with?  I don’t know yet.

A Pastoral Word from Dr. Mark D. Roberts:

Let me note, at this point, that if you think of Lent as a season to earn God’s favor by your good intentions or good works, then you’ve got a theological problem. God’s grace has been fully given to us in Christ. We can’t earn more of it by doing extra things or by giving up certain other things in fasting. If you see Lent as a time to make yourself more worthy for celebrating Good Friday and Easter, then perhaps you shouldn’t keep the season until you’ve grown in your understanding of grace. If, on the contrary, you see Lent as a time to grow more deeply in God’s grace, then you’re approaching Lent from a proper perspective.

 This is a good reminder.  What about you?  Do you take part in Lent and if so how has this been a powerful event in your life? Or not?

MH

A clear and powerful description of Lent  by Dr. Mark D. Roberts , Senior Adviser and Theologian in Residence of Foundations for Laity Renewal, in the Hill Country of Texas outside of San Antonio.

———————-

Other things I’ve written on Lent:

Though Mayest in Me Behold

A prayer for Lent

Lenton Series: Winter Slowly Receeds

Lenton Series: If you Were Homeless


Let your Fear Fly Free

So often, if I find myself returning in frustration and anger, again and again, to a subject.

When this happens I know that it has become an area of idolatry for me. Or it’s an area that God wants to heal in my life.   Or both!

I’m a slow learner but I’m learning this about myself.  About God.  His Truth is a beautiful thing.  Opening my heart to God’s voice in my life not easy, even unnatural.

How to you do that?  How do you listen well?  And when you know that you need healing by Him, how does this usually occur?  That’s something else I’m learning to allow space for in my life.

For the longest time I drank to try to make that Ugly Thing (you name it) go away. I ignored God’s regular, persistent call.  His knocking was gentle, consistent, reliable true.  But I chose to numb myself with alcohol or shopping or other idols.  But by self-medicating, aren’t we simply postponing the inevitable?  Running from reality.  Ignoring truth. Letting the Ugly Thing win.

Areas where I have seen this in my life recently, where I am letting go of my vice grip of control.

I’m letting fly free the issue of women in my denomination.

I’m letting fly free my need for a “paying job.”

I am letting fly free my need for significance and accolades.

I am letting fly free my self-loathing.

I am letting fly free my wish for my children to know Jesus as their Savior.

These are all things that I have tried to ignore how much they hurt, yes my big gut wrenching fears that control my mind and heart.  And in the end the weight of them crushes my spirit.  I cannot bear the weight of them any longer.

So I open my hands and I see them fly away knowing that the universe is God’s and he is in control of it all.   He loves me, he loves them, more than I ever could.  His desire for justice and truth to prevail  in the Church is stronger than mine.  And in fact he gave me this heart, that breaks and so easily comes undone.

And finally, his desire for me to be useful to him is less than his wish for me to know, fear, and love who he is, the Holy One.

He made me and he’ll carry me and all my fears.

May we be people open to God and able to let go of our need for control whatever it is — it’s so different for everyone. Let them go free into God’s hands, because is it not true that the Holy One is so much more capable than you or me?

What do you need to let fly free?

You Changed? For Now.

So I’m not sure about the new theme; I’m trying something new as I embrace abundance and being healed and living in now.  I’m sure it doesn’t matter all that much and won’t likely last, as you can’t easily find old material.  (No Sidebars. No Search.  No email sign-up.)

But for now it is simple and clean.

MH

P.S. One of my babies turned thirteen.  Here’s a few images of his new teen self.