Monday, October 28, 2013

Longing



I remember as a little girl, probably 4 or 5, my parents would find me asleep in the hallway, facing our wall heater.  I could lay on the floor and stare at the blue flame inside the heater. 

Growing up in the Mojave Desert we were no strangers to wind.  And sometimes, when it would hit my face, or blow through my hair, there was a strange feeling of familiarity mixed with longing. 

I grew up with great parents, nothing traumatic, pretty much Leave it to Beaver in the flesh.  But for some reason, I always felt "outside" the family.  No reason why, my parents loved me and I knew it.  I mean we had our dysfunctions like every normal family, but nothing weird or overly sad.  And I think about it, I have most of my life, and just wondered what the "otherness" and blue flame was all about. 

I believe the Lord gave me my answer the other day and it blows me away, I am as certain of it as I am anything.  The longing of that little girl's heart, that was comforted by the flame, the feeling of the wind and a million other things through the years, is my heart's longing for home.  I am sure that I missed being with the Lord.  I mean as Christians we know we belong to Him, but i'm talking about something else.  I truly believe that somewhere in my soul is a place that misses being with Him literally.  The Word says He knew us before we were born.  "I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb..."  Jeremiah 1:5, and the part of me that knew Him before "here" still longs for His presence.

Even being here, belonging to Him, the joys that we experience here, nothing compares to His presence.  The closest I have come while here is during worship at church.  Those rare times when I am able to calm my mind and truly focus on Him, the gratitude I feel overwhelms me and His presence is so real and so precious I never want to leave.  But the songs end, the service proceeds and I am brought back.  Those times are when I feel complete.  Complete in His love, His acceptance, His peace.

I can look back over my life, childhood, marriage, children, divorce, loneliness, remarriage, and those things that were a result of sin or the enemy's hand, I can see that He carried me through.  Some of it is horrendous and I know without a doubt that were it not for Him taking over I would never have survived.  But I did, and I didn't come out of it with bitterness, rage or life-long sorrow.  He does that.  And in His truly infinite mercy and grace, I have experienced such joy and love that I can barely contain it. 

What love, a love that whispers to a child's heart that He misses her too.  That tells the single mom that she's not alone, that He sees every tear and He's got her.  The words from His Word coming alive in her heart and almost magically giving her the strength and wisdom she so desperately needed.  Years of loneliness, waiting and waiting.  But oh, how it was worth it.  In His timing, and in His beautiful way, miracle of miracles, given a Godly man that I couldn't even have dreamt of.  That is a story for another time, it is truly so like Him.

So, now, when a breeze brushes my face and it takes me away with it somehow, I will smile and look forward to an eternity spent with the One who loves me best and Who I adore.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Autumn Review 2013

With Autumn's arrival, so comes introspection.  Taking a look at what I know about myself that I didn't at the beginning of the year, how has my spiritual walk changed or grown...or not grown.  Thinking of family and friends and if our relationships are richer, less so, etc.  And I have to wonder if I have any objectivity at all.  If I am honest, I can be so self-focused that, unlike the One I love and serve, I forget to think of others as I should.  However, when that happens, He gently taps me on the shoulder and reminds me.  I am so thankful for these reminders and that He is faithful when I am not.

What comes to mind today is that as of late there is expression within me that has to find its way out through simple drawings and colorings, childlike really, but it gives me peace.  And writing, always writing.  Even though it's not the best, words powerfully paint the canvas of the page with my thoughts and it's what I have to do.  Like a new friend of mine, Rebekah, though she is a much better writer than I, it's just this need that you can't deny, they gotta get out or you suffer.  Once spilled out onto the page, the peace comes.

What the Lord has shown me this past year, more than any other time in my life, is that He doesn't really need me to do anything.  He instructs me how to behave, has told me to pray unceasing, so I try to do those things.  But there has been 2 huge things that have been answers to prayer that He really did it all without me.  I think I was faithful to pray for these things, and did what came to me, but it was really...and always has been...all Him.  I call them miracles, for me, they are.  When minds and hearts and circumstances radically change, do a 180, there's no explanation but God.  And though I strive to give Him glory for every precious blessing I have, these are things that would never have happened if His hand was not in it.

What a God to have.  So much love, so much patience, long-suffering, kind, loving, gentle, there just aren't enough adjectives that do justice.  The unbeliever will read this and not understand it at all, my son being one.  Those who are believers will understand perfectly, and smile with sweet knowing.

Years spent in worry.  It's what I do, though that is changing to "did."  Not there yet, but i'm learning.  If your life is in His hands, nothing you can do or not do, will affect His will.  And though it's been years spent not particularly happy with His will, I always knew He holds us in His hands.  There have been ugly segments of time with a war of wills between us.  As foolish as I knew it was even at the time, I would wrestle with Him for control and resent Him for not handing it over.  Like a small child who wants to play in the street, my own thinking seemed right to me.  And don't get me wrong, some of it is still a mystery, what I wanted wasn't wrong, in fact it was Biblical, but it wasn't His time yet.  I have come to rely on my Heavenly Father to patiently hold me close as I writhe and struggle against Him, only to wear myself out and collapse in a heap, His arms forever catching me.  

So as I reflect this Autumn of 2013, I do see growth.  I see over all, love.  Love that will watch over my prodigal and whether I am breathing or gone home, will continue to woo him, who has all my loved ones in view and works all things to bring them to Him.  I have learned that there is such rest and peace in knowing that He is working, regardless of what I see at the time.  What peace.  What love.  

Friday, October 4, 2013

Mother's Hearts

I have been thinking lately about the mother-child relationship and how as a mom, that drive to protect, nurture, shelter, feed, etc. just never leaves.  But if not exercised in a healthy way can throw the lives involved into a never-ending conglomerate of dysfunction.  

A few years ago, I believe that was the case for me and my son, Josh.  Having watched him become destructive to his own life and others, I tried desperately to control and protect him.  I couldn't stand to see him land where his hap-hazard behavior was propelling him.

After years of him equally circumventing my numerous attempts at "straightening him out," the Lord showed me I was not helping him, and was wearing myself out needlessly.  I needed to truly give him to the Lord and by doing so, force him to face the consequences of his actions.  What I thought would rench my heart irrevocably, as the Lord obviously knew, actually accomplished what I could not.  My son did indeed find himself at his end.  But not the bottom.  I have still yet to see that, though I thought I had.

My quandary is this:  the Lord put into a mother's heart the desire for the welfare of her child above all else.  When they are little, they need this.  Once grown, I had to accept that he was an adult making very foolish choices and though he couldn't see the tragedy that lie ahead, and I could, I had to let him go.  I could not save him from himself.  He now lives in prison and my heart is broken for that.  Only God.

But the thing that can torment me is all those maternal feelings that are good and necessary for the baby and child are still there, though the man has carried himself into the heart of darkness.  So long as I live, my heart will be for him and with him.  I will forever, as he walks toward me, also see the little guy that made my heart sing.  And as I look at this broken, wounded man, I know that no amount of human love, acceptance and understanding can bring the healing he so desperately needs.  Only Christ can offer the absolution his soul and mind and heart need.  The washing and renewing that can only come from repentance and acceptance of the only love that loves him totally purely and completely.  Only God is capable of looking at the regenerate soul and not remember all the wrongs.

But for now, my mother's heart just hurts.  I long to see him swagger in the door, smiling that great smile, making me laugh at something silly.  I want to share with him as we always have, and he actually had some good advice at times.  I listened.  Too bad he didn't listen to me more. ♥