Thirteen Days In

Thirteen days ago I came to this space and declared to the world that my one little word for 2011 was Heal.  I'd almost picked "grow", but as I'd been journaling and praying that day, I felt the Lord clearly saying that Heal needed to come before the word I'd nearly picked.  That before the aim became growth, there needed to be foundational repairs.  That what had begun needed to be seen through to completion.

In the days just before the new year began, I'd made a series of decisions.  Decisions that didn't come easily, but that I was excited about.  Decisions to care for myself, to respect and honor who I am.  Decisions that were part of a process that began last year when my world started falling apart.  A process of healing.

And after all of that, after a whole year of the deconstruction of my life, and then slowly beginning to pick up the pieces, I was pretty confident that I had a handle on what "heal" would look like for my life.  I'd made some good choices, and I was riding a wave of confidence based on those successes, based on the ways I'd seen healing happening tangibly in my life.  Things were, after all, looking up.

Thirteen days in, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't look anything like the happy and victorious walk that I'd imagined it would be.

Some days it's sad.

Some days it looks like slogging.

And some days it hurts like hell.

I forgot, you see, a few fundamental things.

First, I forgot what I know about the process of healing.  What I'd learned as I studied anatomy, and what I know from friends who work in the medical profession, and what I know from years and years of being obsessed with every medical drama on television.  I forgot the part where sometimes the process of healing is slower and more meticulous and more painful than the thing that actually inflicted the wound in the first place.  The the dead and dying bits - the diseased bits, and the parts that are poisonous must be removed for healing to happen.  And that that process of removal is rarely without pain.

And I forgot something even more basic.

I forgot that what I envision and see is so very often not what God sees.

I forgot this ongoing lesson of trust.  Of trusting that what he envisions for me is so much better than what I had been counting on.

I forgot that while He had been calling me to long for things, to really desire things, instead of constantly walling my heart in, guarding it against disappointment, that in being obedient, there would quite possibly again be disappointments when my timing and longings didn't match His.  And that those disappointments would come, and then I would still need to be willing to risk my heart, and continue to long for the dreams He'd placed within me, and trust His timing for them instead of mine.

It doesn't look anything like I thought it would, only thirteen days ago.

But I still trust that word, and this process.

I trust that 2011 will be a year where heal will come to mean deep things to me.

Where I will see healing at work in my life.

Even, and perhaps especially on the days when it feels sad, or like lonely slogging, or it hurts like hell.

Reverb 10: Day 24 - Everything's Ok

Today's Reverb 10 Prompt:

December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK

What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?

(Author: Kate Inglis)

This has been such a year of nothing being "ok" that I don't think I can pick a moment, really, that proves the opposite.

But there have been moments of peace - walking into a hug at an airport in California.  The relief that came after following through for the first time on a decision I'd made.  The deep internal knowing that the path of choosing nursing has been confirmed in odd little ways that really only mean something to me.

Everything may not be okay, but I'm going to be.  Somehow I know that, even without a moment that can be pinpointed.  This has been a year of learning to trust that thing deep inside me, to trust Jesus with that.  And it's that trust that I want to carry forward into 2011.

How You Doin'?

I watched a re-run of Friends yesterday, an old episode where Joey is coaching Rachel on how to ask a member of the opposite sex for a date.  His advice was something along the lines of "I just look a girl up and down and go 'How you doin'?'"

I laughed at it yesterday and thought of it today when a friend sent an email asking how I was.

I replied honestly that it has been a "mostly okay" day.

A few minutes after I replied I got a phone call that heightened an uncertainty, a "don't borrow trouble" moment that I'd been working hard to set aside.

And it reminded that this is my reality too.

That right now, even the good, or "mostly okay" days, have the potential to become unbalanced in moments.

I preface any conversation that has even the potential to be emotional (positively or not so much) these days with "Everything makes me cry right now, just ignore the tears."

I've discovered that when that downward swing hits, sometimes it lasts and sometimes I can corral it back into submission.

I've learned that exercising just as that swing hits can sometimes lead to successful corralling of it.  It just means I have to push through the onslaught of the downward swinging mood, and the fact that I hate to exercise.  Even yoga.  I rarely regret the exercise once I've done it, but I wouldn't ever say I enjoyed it (unless we're talking about say, a day walking all over a zoo, or a theme park, or the city with friends).

And I'm learning to trust that this weird emotional place I'm existing in won't last forever.  That as I heal and piece my life together again, it will pass.  And in the meantime, don't mind me - everything makes me cry these days!

The Only Problem I Have With These Mysteries

Yesterday I came across a song by Caedmon's Call that has long been a favorite, and feels appropriate for the journey I find myself walking out in the present season.

Sometimes I believe all the lies
So I can do the things I should despise
And every day I am swayed
By whatever is on my mind

I hear it all depends on my faith
So I'm feeling precarious
The only problem I have with these mysteries
Is they're so mysterious

And like a consumer I've been thinking
If I could just get a bit more
More than my 15 minutes of faith,
Then I'd be secure

My faith is like shifting sand
Changed by every wave
My faith is like shifting sand
So I stand on grace

I've begged you for some proof
For my Thomas eyes to see
A slithering staff, a leperous hand
And lions resting lazily

A glimpse of your back-side glory
And this soaked altar going ablaze
But you know I've seen so much
I explained it away

Waters rose as my doubts reigned
My sand-castle faith, it slipped away
Found myself standing on your grace
It'd been there all the time

Stand on grace

The only problem I have with these mysteries is they're so mysterious.  And I have explained so much away.  I heard this song and played it several times over, realizing anew what I've known and seen, and reminding myself again of grace, and the need to trust, even in the moments when it really does seem as if the very ground I'm standing upon is soft, and shifting.

Eating My Words

The experience of writing blog posts on the weekend and scheduling them to appear through the week is turning out to be an illuminating one.

Mostly because I have this tendency to forget what I've scheduled for the day, and, when I go back and check, I'm tending to find myself rather deeply convicted by own words.  That, or needing to just eat them because the conviction is huge.

Today is one of those days.

When I wrote earlier in the week about wrestling with pigs (and scheduled the post to go live this morning), it was a revelation for my heart.  Turns out it was one that's going to take a bit more work.

I spent most of the day wrestling with my own internal pigs.  And getting dirty.

I don't recommend it.

I'm probably still doing it.  And I'm working on that.

Anger and fear and exhaustion among other things easy pigs to engage.

I'm struck over and over again by choices.

By the reality that I get to choose.

And I struggle with that reality of choice.

Choosing to forgive.  Choosing to love.  Choosing to be joyful.

Because I can make those choices, but they seem intangible.  And sometimes I make the choice and it doesn't seem to matter.  Or I make the choice and have to make it again 2 minutes later, and again a minute after that.

And that reality makes me crazy.  Because deep down, even though I'm totally an "embrace the mystery" kind of gal, I really just like some things to black and white.  And these kind of choices and their affects are so grey it makes me crazy.

I don't love, either, the way that making a choice drops the responsibility in my lap. 

Because I know better than anyone how little I should really be responsible for.   How much I'd rather shirk responsibility.

This whole discussion brings to mind a favorite line from Gray's Anatomy.  "I'm an adult, when did that happen, and how do I make it stop?"

And while I pause to laugh at a line from a show that has spoken to deep parts of me over and over, I hear the echo of scripture, too, "...put aside childish things..."

And I wonder how to adapt to this new place of life.  To making choices instead of having someone make them for me.  And I find myself again clinging with that white-knuckled trust that seems to be defining the last few weeks to the reality that God is somehow in this, too.  And that He will be faithful to hold me.

Carrying Safety

I loved the apartment I lived in before I moved in with my Grandma.

I loved all the funny quirks like the tiny, nearly counterless kitchen, the smoke detector that was too close to the kitchen and overly sensitive.  I loved the location of it, and the roommate I was living with (a dear friend).  But what I really loved was the sense of peace there.  It was peaceful, and it felt safe, and that, to, was a treasure.

I didn't realize it until I moved into Grandma's basement.

I didn't realize just how special that peace, that sense of safety, was, until it was suddenly gone, and I found myself facing some crazy family situations, personality conflict with my grandma, the quirks of living with someone who is nearly 81, and, oh, did I mention the incredibly dark spiritual atmosphere that I suddenly encountered in this house?

Within a week I was desperate and longing for that safety I'd loss.

Sleep had become non-existent thanks to nightmares and oddly demonic encounters.

I didn't have the refuge of a good friend to come home to and share what was going on inside me at the end of the day.

And I was letting the world (or at least those close to me in my world) know that I was less than pleased with this particular turn of events, especially since I believed (and believe) that God had led me to this place, to move into this home.

A dear friend of mine responded with a challenge I didn't really hear at the time.  It took a few months of misery for the truth of her words to really sink in.  She told me that safety isn't found in location, that it's found in a deep understanding of the presence of Christ with us, wherever we are.  That it is something we can carry with us.  And then, in a way that made her point sink in, she joking quoted a line from a pastor that we've both appreciated.  A line that sort of annoys me in both it's truth and my own lack of sleep.  The line goes like this, "You have authority over any storm you can sleep through," and is of course referring to Jesus sleeping in the boat in the midst of the storm, and then rising, bewildered at the disciples' panic, to speak calm to the storm.

I was caught in the midst of a storm, and I knew it.  I definitely wasn't sleeping through it!

It's been a journey.  For months now, as I've lived in this crazy set of life circumstances, I've felt God teaching me about finding safety in him alone.    About the fact that because He never leaves me, I am safe wherever I go.  About the fact that I can exercise authority over some of the storms in my life, simply by choosing to trust his words.

It's been a journey of learning to trust.  I talked recently about the many changes in direction my life has taken in the last six months.  I don't know that I would have been in a place to step with trust into the uncertainty of pursuing nursing without the lessons of riding out the storms.

And these days?  These days, after a whole lot of praying, and anointing my bedroom with oil, and a whole lot of just ruthlessly ignoring and trusting, I'm sleeping through some of the storms.  The nightmares have mostly receded.  I'm thankful for that more than I can say.  But mostly I'm thankful that I've learned and am learning that I can trust the risky, crazy, safety of Jesus, and that it goes with me, through all kinds of dark places and lovely places too.

Healing: New Birth

I'm feeling distracted again, and internally focused.

Some stuff has come up in my internal life over the last week or two that is demanding some time and attention.

It's stuff I'd rather not deal with if I'm being honest.  The kind of thing I wish would "just go away."

Healing, it seems, doesn't work like that all that often.

Yes, I had a miraculous experience of healing from depression, and it went, seemingly overnight (quite literally, in fact.)

But a lot of the time, it seems to be a process.

It's a process I've been thinking about a lot this week.

Because of the things going on inside of me.

Because I'm spending hours a day buried in a textbook, studying the intricacies of the body.

Because I'm remembering again various conversations about healing and a powerful dream about healing that I had.

Because I'm spending hours a day studying due to the desire birthed within me to take up nursing as a career.  To spend my life aiding in healing - physically or spiritually, practically or miraculously.

Healing is a process. 

And usually a messy one, if you think about it.

We use the metaphor, sometimes, of birth.  "Something new is being birthed within" as you're being healed.

True.

But have you stopped to think about birth lately?  It's not exactly a tidy and pain free process.

I've been hanging out with friends in nursing, and a friend who is a midwife, and friends who just simply have babies.  Birth is a painful, scary, bloody process that results in new life.

I'm desiring new birth within some areas of my life and heart right now, and I'm terrified of the process and sometimes even making excuses to avoid facing the reality that this is a necessary process to walk through if I truly desire the freedom I say I do.  I'm admitting some ugly realities out loud, and then watching as they echo around me and seem to take on size and life and strength of their own.  And mostly, I want to cower in a corner, or stuff them back where they came from.

I don't particularly feel like facing the fight.

And yet, the distracted days I've been having this week are forcing me to come to terms with the fact that the messy, fighting, painful birthing within of healing might be the only way for something new to emerge.

And yep, I'm scared.

But I'm also forcibly choosing trust.  To believe that if Jesus has led me to this place, he's going to stay and walk through it with me.  That he'll hold my hand and somehow we're going to do this thing together.  And I'll emerge freer, and more whole.  And though the process scares me, I long for it's end results.

A Quote on Trust

A couple of nights ago in my daily 5, I linked to a few posts on trust.

A dear friend gave me a perpetual calendar a little over a year ago, with a different quote each day from a female saint.  I love the calendar, and it has often been timely in the words of wisdom it has offered.

Today's quote deals with trust, and struck me as I journey right now, with only a very few plans, but very uncertain outcomes.  It reads:

"Dear Lord, I do not ask to see the path.  In darkness, in anguish, and in fear, I will hang on tightly to your hand, and I will close my eyes, so that you know how much trust I place in you, Spouse of my soul." (Blessed Maria Elizabetta Hesselblad)

I Liked This...

From today's "Americancatholic.org" Minute Meditation:

Embrace the Mystery

Learn the mystery of surrender and trust, and then it will be done unto you, through you, with you, in you and very often, in spite of you.

— from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

Shouldn't I feel better?

I slept last night.  Sort of, anyway.  None of the crazy dreams, or weird horrifically dark "encounters" of the previous couple of nights.  The things that had made me terrified to turn out the lights in my bedroom last night (I contemplated a nightlight for the first time in 15 years, and did end up leaving my laptop screen on, instead of turned off the way I normally have it.)

So shouldn't I feel better this morning?

Because I don't.  I'm still exhausted and edgy.

It seems funny, because each time I woke in the night all I felt was relief.  There was nothing stirring in my bedroom.  Sort of that deep sigh that comes from the relief of waking on edge, and then realizing you can actually breathe a little.

Though, I suppose, given the fact that I woke on edge each time, there was likely adrenaline coursing through my body even as I slept, and coursing adrenaline probably doesn't do a whole lot for actual rest.

The relief, remains this morning.  Last night I simply did not feel up to fighting the battle of the previous few nights, and I was relieved to find in those moments I woke that it didn't seem to need to be fought.

But here's the thing that's niggling - it comes down to trust for me.

I felt God's peace descend a bit as I was getting ready to turn out the lights last night.  As I sat propped in bed and quietly read Psalm 91 aloud.  And the overarching promise of my life, the one that I want to have tattooed in visual form on my back, is a verse from Genesis 15, where God speaks to Abram and says this, "Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward."  I'm one of those people who believes that God speaks, and I believe he spoke those words over my life in the midst of a very challenging season a number of years back, "I am your shield."  I believe that, but I have a hard time trusting it.  And I failed at trusting last night.  I knew that peace, and yet couldn't accept it, rest into it, trust it.  And this morning, because I couldn't trust and rest in that, I'm paying the price for a night that held more sleep than usual for me - a night that could have been restful and restorative, but was instead filled with the surge and crash of adrenaline as I'd wake on edge and then realize I was still safe, and could rest.

I should feel better this morning, but I don't particularly.

I'm left pondering lessons in trust still to be learned.  It's been a theme for these last two and a half very hard years, and apparently it will continue to be a theme for a while.

And as I wonder what to pray, as I confess my lack of trust, I'm reminded again of the father of the demon possessed boy, and the plea he cried out to Jesus, and today I pray that with him, "Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief."

Two More From Henri

I'm still in the process of weeding through the many things I've flagged in my various email inboxes to share here, or comment on, so you can expect more mish-mash posts in the days to come, but in the meantime, here are two more thoughts that arrived in my inbox recently from Henri Nouwen...

Stepping over Our Wounds

Sometimes we have to "step over" our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one," "the forgotten one," or the "discarded one." Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on.

Trusting the Catcher


Trust is the basis of life. Without trust, no human being can live. Trapeze artists offer a beautiful image of this. Flyers have to trust their catchers. They can do the most spectacular doubles, triples, or quadruples, but what finally makes their performance spectacular are the catchers who are there for them at the right time in the right place.

Much of our lives is flying. It is wonderful to fly in the air free as a bird, but when God isn't there to catch us, all our flying comes to nothing. Let's trust in the Great Catcher.

Unstable Ground

It's been a quiet evening.

Finally.

I've needed one all week.

I've been exhausted and I was starting to see the strain show up physically again.

So I declared tonight to be a night about resting. And restoration.

I took a bath, and watched a dvd in the tub. I pampered myself with a blue corn face mask, and coconut body scrub (both from The Body Shop).

I putzed around on the computer for awhile, playing a game, doing the facebook thing, avoiding what I really needed to do.

What I really needed to do was spend some time with my journal. It's been a full week, and there's lots to process, but there was one specific thing on my mind that I needed to write out.

I finally quit avoiding and wrote it out, and as usual, when I've been avoiding something, the direction it ended up taking me was surprising.

I ended up back at unstable ground.

It's kind of been a theme for the last year and a bit.

It stems from a deeply personal moment in a field on another continent. A story that doesn't fit here just yet. A share over tea or in an email or phone call with a friend kind of story. A dreams coming alive sort of moment.

And it's repeated ever since, in the oddest of moments.

There is something about standing on unstable ground.

Literally and figuratively.

And learning to trust amidst the instability.

Being able to open my hands, or willing to kneel - to let myself fall to my knees.

To say, "even this on which I depend, I offer back to You and choose to trust You with."

I'm not very good at it. But I'm learning. Through repetition. And lots of falling and failing.

But maybe, sometimes, that's the best way to learn. And falling seems to come with the territory when you're dealing with unstable ground.

And so, even in this, I choose to trust.

Learning to Fly

I liked this post on Just Sally this morning. It was a challenging thought about trust for someone who's been struggling to learn to trust this year.

Panic (Self-Reminders)

I've been dealing with panic all day today.

That tightness in your chest, slightly short of breath, adrenaline pumping, I'm two seconds from totally freaking out and losing it sort of panic.

I have not been impressed to feel that rising up within me again.

It used to happen a lot. It's hardly happened in the last three years. Not since I was healed.

I had one particularly bad attack about a month ago. Two friends talked and prayed with me and calmed me down.

I've spent most of the day talking to myself. Reminding myself that certain situations, which seem to be partially inducing the panic, are things in which I just need to wait and pray.

Out loud and in my head all day.

And now by blogging (because the panic kicked up again a few minutes ago).

Reminding myself that if God has given or set something aside for me or to me, then it cannot be taken from me.

Reminding myself that even in the things I can't control, I walk with a God who offers peace. A God who stills storms. Even the mental, adrenaline rushing sort of storms.


Reminding myself that no matter the outcome of these situations, I will be okay. That I walk with Jesus, and He's not going anywhere (not always easy for me to believe, but a reminder worth giving myself anyway.)

Reminding myself of Paul's words - to live is Christ, to die is gain. So I win either way. Even when it sucks, and seems more like suffering. If I'm alive, it's Christ. If not, then I get to be with him, and tears and suffering will end.

Winter (Be not afraid...)

It snowed.

About 2 inches.

Again.

I can't remember the last time there was this much snow in Calgary.

We've been having wild winter weather since December 7th.

I can't tell you how much that absolutely delights me as someone who never did like winter in the first place.

There are wind-chill warnings again today. For those of you who are uninitiated into the pleasures of a Canadian winter, that means that when it is already -22 degrees celcius, to human skin, thanks to the wind, it actually feels like -35 degrees celcius.

I had quite a few long conversations with God about this winter. I told him firmly, in no uncertain terms, that I was unlikely to survive a cold and harsh winter. That last winter nearly did me in, and if we could skip past the bad weather this year, I'd be grateful. It was looking good. He kept telling me in little ways "be not afraid of winter." The weather was unseasonably warm. And then, on December 7th, the skies opened up, and I realized that "be not afraid of winter" might not mean what I thought it meant.

So, it's been two weeks of terrible road conditions and two hour commutes home from work. Two weeks of numb fingers, and checking toes for frostbite at the end of the day. Two weeks of brushing snow off my car every time I need to drive it, and never leaving the house without at least two layers of clothing covering every part of my body.

To be fair, this is mostly tongue in cheek. I didn't at all expect God to send a "nice" winter just because I don't like the cold. (But it sure would have been nice if he had!)

But, in the interest of honesty, I have lived here my whole life, and I don't think I'll ever get used to this kind of weather. Winter is just not my style. And, since my internal life seems to so closely mirror the seasons, I'm never a fan of a long period of cold and darkness.

So, I guess I go back to that reminder the Lord spoke. "Be not afraid of winter." I needed to hear that this year. Last winter was long, in so many, many ways. Long and dark and painful, and I wondered whether or not I'd really survive another season like that.

"Be not afraid of winter." I'm working to trust in those words.

False Comfort

This has been an odd sort of week.

Things went haywire at work, and on a personal level I've occupied some intense spaces once again.

I'm thinking a lot about idols - what are they for me, and for those I love, and how can they be torn down.

I'm back in a space of fasting and praying. I don't understand why I'm fasting, but I know that I've been asked to fast.

I've been listening to Jason Upton's "Dying Star" album again lately, and as I drove this morning it was speaking deeply to my heart again, summing up themes of the week.

I was particularly caught by this line from the song "Burning in the Sky":

Sometimes to trust in your false comfort
Is easier than trusting me...

Over and over and over again I'm encountering this theme of tearing things down, of laying everything down before the Lord.

Trust is not something I'm particularly good at. And this has definitely been a week where the Lord has been calling me to trust him in new and far deeper ways. It's so much easier to cling to what I know, than to trust him with what I don't.

And yet, I keep coming back to the many verses of scripture I've encountered lately that speak of obedience - obedience as far better than sacrifice.

And so, I'm working to trust him, and not my false comfort.

Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Covered (trust in that)

I have had an awful lot of moments lately where I just want it all fixed. I want to wave some sort of magic wand and solve problems.

I see hurting friends and long for them to be filled with joy and peace.

I see illness, and long for healing.

I see those I love struggling, and long for the battle to cease, at least for a time.

I see broken relationships and long for restoration.

I see so many things, and long for them to be fixed.

And through it all, as I pray, I hear over and over again "my body broken, my blood shed"

And I pray again with Jesus in the garden, "if possible, let this cup pass, but not my will but yours be done."

And I work to remember that shed blood that covers all these longings of my heart. And to trust in the timing and promise of that.

thoughts circling (can't avoid)

It’s finally Friday.

This has been a long, and weird sort of week, and I’m glad it’s ending.

There are dozens of things circling my brain.

I’m the queen of avoidance techniques, and even those are no longer working.

I’m hoping to go to my favorite park early tomorrow morning. There is a strong pull to be there. I need to walk, and pray. I need to throw stones, and leave some things behind. I need to stand by the water, and maybe dip my feet in it. I need to spend some time surrendering.

I’m thinking about poverty and provision, and my lack of ability to trust (though I’ve seen it over and over through the years) that God will provide.

I’m thinking about how easy it is to say that everything I own is God’s, even my money, and my things, and how hard it is to actually live that out.

A favorite bookstore begins their final close-out sale tomorrow. And I want to go and shop. And yet, this week I’ve realized that spending money is just another avoidance technique. That sometimes I shop with purpose and direction, but sometimes (often lately) I shop because I want to forget, or to avoid. And, as I think of visiting the bookstore, I realize that the pull is the sale prices, rather than the need for books. There are probably close to fifty books on my shelves that I have not yet read, and the list would likely balloon to close to one hundred if we counted the books that I’ve started and never finished. So I’ll probably skip the bookstore, and curl up with one of the many books I already own.

I’m thinking about Christ as the suffering servant. How that is both a completely comforting and totally discouraging image right now. How, as I tried to pray on the train this morning, I was essentially complaining about the rejection, the hurt, the things in my life, and I kept being reminded that Jesus suffered too. And that’s comforting, but not. Because He suffered, he understands. But He also said that because he suffered and was rejected, how can we as his followers expect any less? It doesn’t paint a particularly rosy picture for the future.

I’m thinking about trust, and how that’s still absolutely one of the hardest things for me to do.

And about how conquering fear is maybe the only thing that is equal in difficulty to trusting.

I’m thinking about the advice of a friend last weekend, not to pray for others until I myself had been filled and satisfied. About how hard it is for me to enter into the presence of Jesus and be satisfied. About how much easier it is for me to come to God on behalf of the needs and cares of those I love, than it is to come to him with my own needs and cares. About how much easier it is for me to believe that he loves other people than it is to believe that he loves me. About how I tend to feel that they’re more deserving of his love and his presence than I am. And about how I then have to battle jealousy that he is meeting and healing those I love, while I find myself broken and alone. And then I need to remind myself that as often as not I seek to avoid his presence, and I refuse to meet his gaze, or answer his call, because I don’t trust him to be gentle, I expect to be hurt and rejected.

And I wonder if the fact that I’m aware of all of these things is the first real step to the freedom and healing I long for?

I’m hoping to go to my favorite park tomorrow morning.

To walk and pray and meet with Him.

He’s calling me there.

And the word I keep hearing is “surrender”.

Faking Trust?

I’m thinking this morning about the idea of a “fake it ‘til you make it” faith. I’m wondering if it works, and if maybe that’s the way to approach trust?

What if, everytime the Lord asks something of me, something that requires me to exhibit the trust that I don’t really have, I stopped, and instead of immediately refusing, asked myself how I would respond to that same request if it was posed to me by someone I implicitly trusted? What if I then chose to take a step into nothingness, and responded in the fashion that I would to one I trust?

My head says the Lord is implicitly trustworthy. My heart is having a bit more trouble with that proposition. My heart says that steps of trust and obedience have led me into a lot of really dark and painful places over the years, and asks why I should trust one that causes me pain? My head is quick to remind me that pain is not always a bad thing, but my heart has trouble with the idea that something that feels so bad could actually be good.

Trust and obedience are closely linked for me. I will not obey with any consistency one whom I don’t trust. My deep heart desire is to be continually obedient to the voice of the Lord, and for that, I need to trust.

What if, just for one weekend, I give this trust thing a shot?

I'm Trying... (turn your eyes)

This is one of those days where I'm getting bombarded by the waves of emotion.

Where I feel as if I'm drowning.

I'm working on making it until the work day ends without crying. It's my major goal for the day.

When I get home tonight, to my empty house, I fully expect the tears to come.

I'm still haunted by this. It's stronger again today.

The sky is absolutely dumping snow.

I'm losing hope that winter will ever end. (in nature, or, more metaphorically, in me.)

I'm reminded of this hymn again. I'm weary and troubled, and light is nowhere to be seen.

(Turn Your Eyes and See His)

I'm trying to get there. Trying to trust that it's true.


O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!