Forgiveness

why is it so hard to come to this place?

no matter that i've seen it and all the glory thereafter, the fully immersed body and soul... i still hesitate and procrastinate. even this writing is a possible avoidance tactic in this hour. 

He's asked me to come again. To drag myself busted and limping to His feet where I can only lay and live through the haunting sweet memory of what He did there, at the cross for me; the unforgiving, angry, stubborn prideful child, lip dripping "i will not". 

I've taken a stand again. I've set up the idol of self that sticks crooked and ridged. I've strong armed my own soul and God in trying to uphold myself. I've lied to myself at the shaking core and I'm just a breath away from toppling over. But I still stand, hard and sure. 

I believe the lie that there is good in the strength it takes me to hold this position. 

But really I am holding Him off, 

holding at bay my soul's longing to let go of me and forgive in Him. 

I'm exercising a muscle that assures I will not walk away from this free in His forgiveness and promises.

Why?

When I yelled and she grabbed and shook   and tore in   I was at my end with her, seven years ago. When I walked away and lay begging Him for help He presented the option... 

He promised that it would be worth it, going against everything I ever heard, saw, learned or practiced. He promised He would take over and take care, if only I could do it: let go of my service to self and take on all the blame, like He did. 

It only made sense because He put it there. I could only follow through with it because He works in our great weaknesses surrendered. 

And I walked in wearing years of casted claw marks and heart wounds, spiting words and twisting daggers. I named them each my own fault and asked for forgiveness. 

And I bled out. 
And in His name there came an end to the ongoing raging war. 

It was done. 

And I've never been capable of loving someone the way I've loved her since. 

It happened once more. The beckoning me to the cross, assuring relief after my own death. It presented and I accepted again. 

Same pain, same blood, same love resulting.

And another child of His -sister of mine- can do no wrong. 

Still I dance around this miracle again. As if stepping in and killing off my flesh disease might not be worth healing and freedom. I dance like a crazy chicken lady.        chicken. 

I feel the overflow of my heart banging up against the back of my tongue...

it's not fair! it's gone on for years! it's never going to change! it's toxic and doesn't deserve freedom to continue to streak wildly rearing it's head at me! why do i have to make the sacrifice? why me?!

But I meet Him here, every morning, knowing He will quiet the skin and forgive the sin. Knowing He will faithfully lead me to this forgiveness place, kicking and screaming as I do. 

I'm here under his wing, waiting for His lift off call. 

God help me.

Only You. 

Mary

I imagine her full with Jesus. Step after step making her way to the census. Joseph by her side.

Did she follow the prophesy of her own Child's coming? 

Did she wonder how he would ever be born in Bethlehem? And did she fill with anticipation learning that caesar's order would take them to the very place...   

I wonder if she truly understood who she was bringing forth, or if the Mother of the Messiah was blessed with a vague understanding of the sacrifice during the swaddling of her first born.

Could she have even held herself up at first sight of her infant, her Savior, if she truly understood that very night? 

When Jesus later asked her, "did you not know I would be in my Father's house?" Did she?

I think about her with no straight iron or washing machine. Traveling with no laptop or cell phone with preferred obstetrician on speed dial. 

No car. 

Not even cart.

God inside of her.

And I want to put everything down and walk away. The blogs and technology, make-up and media, even camera and lights. I want to set out a candle so that all I can see is flame. So that all I can remember is His fire inside me until it is etched habit, like breathing.

But if it weren't for this ".com", would I be here praying for alignment with the Spirit as I write? Would I have found such a path that even my skin can submit to, with my cheeks soaked loving Mary, a woman I've never before considered? 

Without the spurring on of His love for you and my desire to attend the feeding and fanning of flames, wouldn't I still just be writing me on my own pages?

A lot of questions I don't have sure answers for this morning. 

But in my anticipation, in my own waiting on this eve for the coming Christ child, there is one thing I am sure of... I am waiting for what He already knows will be. And in that there is great peace.  

Spirit to spirit to spirit

Knocking, I hear the barking of his dogs inside. Through the pain of glass in the door I see his familiar shape standing in the kitchen. Face down the hallway in my direction he smiles, permitting me to open and enter at my own risk. 

I wait in the entrance for him to quiet and corral the Pulis like I know only he can. 

I look him over... inside-out striped thermal top over t-shirt, sweat pants, socks and rubber shoes.

This is the first time I've seen him without a skull cap since his accident. 

I scan for scars of a head trauma that took his life last year, twice.  

But the only visible marks left are on the inside shining out. The kind of mark only our Creator and Healer can make. 

I remember being in his home for the first time. Taking care of the dogs while he was away, running. I remember God telling me to lay and pray. I cried joy as His love for this friend of mine washed over me... and the layers of intercession filled with whispers of a coming change through healing and refinement.

He turns to the table and returns with a gift in hand. A necklace he bought me from the top of a mountain someplace in Arizona. 

Not safe in a box. We are not either one of us tucked safely in boxes. 

Just fingers holding delicate strands of love and offerings from spirit to spirit to Spirit. 

Father God shines, lighting up the room.

And I look him over again... a man refining, healing. Changed.

My path has not been crossed so many times in so many ways by another. Not any ordinary coincidental happening. This is most definitely an ordained divinely sewn tapestry. 

We talk. Stirring the waters of God within, wading in the mainstream of His will for His children.

And I pray that his real scar, like mine -a religion that tells us we cannot come- will draw him to the scar of the One; a nail shaped covenant that bids us all, come.

We stand together in his living room. 
On the outside we are surrounded by gift boxes. On the inside there lay boxes we've crawled out of, wounded, to face the Maker - and we wait for the celebration of a God who cradled Himself a Son in flesh and manger - A God Who promises to cradle us and clear our path to wholeness and forever. 

The Christmas Gift in Christ is again extended, and I savor deep the Truth that God holds us in his fingers right now. 
Right where we are. 
Just as we are. 
Broken and healed, fallen and rising, hated and still finding love in what's left.

And to Him, through Him, because of Him we are... just right.

here and there...

Please pray for God's continued guidance in the unfolding of these web-journals. I believe things are coming along, but I am stepping cautiously and carefully with a heart to remain in His Will only. 

A Stand Still

I'm not sure what to do in this blog space.

I love this digital scrapbooking. 

I never want to stop making a document of my little boy's life from the heart of his mom. 

I don't feel led to and end.

But something has changed. 

I'd been slightly cocking my bad ear blocking out just enough of God's whisper to pay mind but not to hear close words. I promised, i'm here Father - forgive me some time to fit into these clothes You are holding out to me - me, SO small and dry -   

not   quite   ready for so much water.

Fears and concerns faded as God so steady stayed and kept in faithfully. I too leaned in, knowing that I wanted nothing more than I want Him, ready or not. 

Then the old sights and sounds began to roll away becoming foreign and cold. And His quiet whisper became the prevalent, more powerful encompassing - familiar and warm, like the sun reflecting off the new moon.

I thought i would feel less power to have my own light fallen. I thought there would be a dark residual feeling of solitude first. Abandoning rock star for rock.

But it turned out The Light touching surface leads to alignment with His master plan. And at that the Truth connection truly began.

All four of us being One; God, Greg, Zeek and I. 

Walking slowly and awestruck I know very little of this newness. But I can follow the seams back with my fingers all the way to the roots of my beginning.

From beginning to Beginning. 

I am listening to my Teacher. my Guide and Counselor. 

I'm waiting on direction, and I won't dare push. 

When I later get down this new list of priorities to "blog" I know that He'll guide me what and when and where...  

Forgive the time. 

I just can't move in here without His Word. 

love and blessings

A Holy Experience

Ann, a complete stranger has literally pastored me for months. 

God's Words and God's Hands... her diligent work in faith.

Her writing fills the spaces in me with Him. 

She has shown me things in a way they have never been offered to me. 

She has read and understood my heart.

She has written to and upon it.

She has taught me how to make a habit of finding Him in my real life.

She led my family to 1,128 (and counting) accounts of Gratefulness, 

and "Walking with Him Wednesdays" on any day.

She led my marriage through transformation,

with her series, "the making of a marriage bed", 

and taught me how to appreciation the quiet of a lifetime love. 

She showed me how to love everything He's made of me

and then how to let it all go.  

She has taught my family to never leave the table without chewing the real bread, satisfying our true hunger.

She brought us back to compassion and showed me the heart of her Guatemala. Brought us to Alexandro. 

to sarah and juan. 

She confirmed His asking to store the Word in our hearts. Committing to memory what quick paced and easy resources have deemed obsolete.

And now, God is moving me here,

as a blogger.

I know, like everything else He's change and healed in me,

this too will soon see change.

Thank You, God, for using Ann and her obedience to speak into this life.

Thank you,  Ann, for letting God use you so.

The Water

I sit up in bed to the dread of it again. the nagging relentless sound of what went from bountiful blessing to steady sentence in what seemed like a blink. 

Somewhere, I stopped stopping to notice and put my head down like a ram, just to get through.

I squeeze tears off the edge of my face and blast that I feel the same exact way I felt when my head hit pillow the night before, knowing I couldn't take one more step without physical rest before loosing my mind.

and I want to blame my son for being in my bed the last five hours, the last five nights, rolling over my hair, waking me. keeping the space I hardly sleep in just under the size of a human sliver, hanging on to the edge for dear life.

my muscles are sore. my head and my heart ache.

But I know that God can make rest out of nothing. So I know that I'm allowed here for a reason. a reason which I'm not to put on my son's shoulders.

I swing a leg over the side and force my weighted foot to the floor.

my kid is "starving", always. and demanding at that. and the morning hour is still in darkness.

Again. 

I can already feel myself breaking away from all restraint. 

I try to remind myself over and over again:

what comes out of the mouth flows from the heart... 

what comes out of the mouth flows from the heart... 

mine's in a sad sad state these days.

I murmur under my breath, "give me a break. really."

more words from a hardened heart swarm around in my head.

And there they will stay, taunting me, deepening my sores. because 30 years of unleashing that dragon too many times to count has at least taught me to fit my fiery tongue with a heavy bit and bridle.

i'm no better off inside.

As I hit the table to do our Bible reading over breakfast I plead silently, God how long will I hold out before I have to make change... change requires an energy of which I have no supply. 

and where will I even begin?

Sure enough, shortly after Matthew 15, two sharp disrespectful little demands and an ungrateful statement resound, and I have the answer to my initial concern.

i. am. done. 

A first-time-ever full day grounding to the bedroom feels best. safest. As for whose grounded and to whose room, I consider for a brief moment...

aren't i raising him? isn't he five? didn't he learn how to talk and walk and spit and spat and roll over the top of me somewhere?

wasn't it me?

but the same as I try to convince him, I am the adult who's responsible to guide him. 

Even if though I do fail 90% of the time.

So it's his mouth and his stomping feet that head off to his bedroom for the day.

And happy as can be he plays and reads and does his best school work to date.

And guilty and shamed, angry and hurt, blaming and lost as can be I loath and creep away to cry deep and call my best women with convulsions of confessions. 

A day of pouring out failures and fears over steaming iron, mop and dish towel... 

we are parents of single, multiple, biological and adopted children, all in a similar boat, learning how to row at the same time dipping buckets of water leaked and heaving them over and out.

I wanted a new boat.

I wanted it badly enough that I took the pills. 

and it felt good for awhile. I felt "normal". For awhile.

I stepped up my homemaker role a notch...

and that was about it.

but I heard Him in that bathroom 200 miles from home. I heard His call and I trembled at the echo in my heart. my unwilling, unready heart.

I've since dipped a finger or four into that water. the water He led me to the bank of one year ago. the water where at first response I slid a rickety excuse for a craft into, with me safely atop gripping broken oars. the water He's asking me to scale this hull I've clung to and drop straight into today. 

His water. 

I've been returning my inner workings/hormones/body to it's prior state, in ruins as it was. No more crutches. Shifting weight from man-made solutions back through me, back over to Him.

I'm warm and washed into the tall thick of the bluff. I would call it shipwrecked if my ship were worthy, but it's proven otherwise, again. 

I can feel the water rolling over the tops of my feet. I can hear the whisper and the same song segment that has broadcast interruption and run through my spirit a thousand times these past weeks...

"if only i could get lost in His ocean. 

surviving on the thought of loving You.

He's just like the water..."

This is not a test. This is the real thing. 

i have to let go and get in.

God, please.

Just Like the Water- Lauryn Hill