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The Christmas season is upon is… with it’s visit comes pressure. I feel the weight of so much right now…
Did Mary feel the heaviness too? The culmination of so many expecations and unknowns… just pressing in on her? I imagine her in the night when I wake up between little catnaps resulting from my unrest… I wonder if she awoke a lot during the night, reminded of the weight upon her with the Savior in her womb. She had a tangible weight… while mine is nearly invisable to the untrained eye.
It’s still there, regardless… and I can feel it.
My eyes are searching for joy…
busy searching and searching…
and finding bits of it hidden away here or there…
and yet many things threaten to rise up and gobble me whole.
WHOLE I tell you…
totally in one gulp, without chewing.
In beginning my garden this year, we had much prep work to do… this house when we bought it last year had a yard full of weeds. I kid you not, up to my thigh. Bindweed, Morning Glory, and Dandylions, to name only a few. On a .41 acre lot… that’s indeed a lot of weeds.
Anyway, after all the yard work last year, planting trees, shrubs, installing the new sprinkler system, and no lawn, the warming temps of spring have brought to life the weeds that have long been dead and burried. The seeds left over from last year are finding their way out of hiding and emerging into bloom… EVERYWHERE.
I assumed our soil was quite awful, as the previous owners of this house had done nothing to maintain it’s health… I mean, nothing pretty was alive, just weeds, and weeds don’t need a thing to grow as it seems.
It has me reflecting on where the weed seeds are planted in the soil of my own heart or life, that only take a moment or two of sunlight or a drop or two of rain (aka: opportunity) to sprout? Some brief seedlings I suspect stay hidden until the opportunity are: doubts in God, doubts in myself and God’s unique purposes in me, bitterness towards others/unforgiveness, complacency… etc. etc. etc. How often do we know the seed is there? I’d imagine that it’s not until we see it emerge and sprout that we will acknowledge it’s existance. Afterall, out of sight is so easily translated into out of mind. haha.
The soil is fertile enough for weeds to grow… only thing needed are favorable conditions and opportunity, right?
Thankfully for the weeds in my yard I’m armed with a spray that promises to kill all the way to the roots.
Time for some inner reflection of where I am harboring seeds within the soil of my heart… or worse where the seeds have sprouted and sent roots down to the abyss for longevity.
++God… search me again and again and know my ways, watch the soil of my heart for where you and I can tend it together and maintain it’s health. Plant crops and crops within me of your very love and mercy so that I may grow the fruit of the Spirit. Search my heart, show me, grow me, and lead me in Your ways, Your truth, and in Your love. Thank you Father… in Jesus’ name… amen.++
Being in the present is something I’ve been working on as of late. I find I’m regularly asking myself “Am I in the here and now?” and depending on the answer, I usually have to shift some priorities and retrain my thoughts so that I am. I have missed some things over the last few years, because I am off somewhere else in my mind. When I’m with my children, I sometimes am a world away in my mind… I’m off on a journey inside my heart digging with a spade to see what’s under this layer, or I’m trying to wade through the fog that has settled on this other expanse of my heart, WHILE I’m trying to be a mom… doing the mom things, making lunch, listening to their stories, and WHILE I’m answering their questions about life. How can I be somewhere else, WHILE I’m being asked to be present? Why the distance between the here and now, to the place that I can get lost in (my thoughts). Being present is a truely awe inspiring thing… as I learn to do it more and more, I find myself awaken to my senses being more stimulated than I realized was possible. The birds chirp louder, the kids laugh is more infectious, and the sting of saddness for what I’ve lost to the times I’ve failed to be in the here and now, more painful.
Interesting it is…
the here and now…
in today…
if I journey away from it and into somewhere else and into the caverns of my mind and heart… I sense I’m missing so much of what God is revealing to me.
I wonder if I don’t have to really dig to figure stuff out, but that the more I am present in the here and now, in the present reality, then, THEN, the figuring out of stuff with just unfold in it’s own sweet time.
Here and now…
here and now…
I’m in the here and now…
I’m not sure how I lost it, or how I gave it away… or even if I just left it somewhere and misplaced it… but I’m quite sure I lost my voice. My expression or language just left me somehow, or I left it… and now I’m curious as to what I can do to regain it. Can I reconnect with the hidden parts of me where my voice still whispers? I’m not sure…. I mean I’m sure it’s possible, but I’m not sure if those voices want to be heard. I think with my last blog I realized outwardly that others were listening and then I suddenly became more aware of how strange my voice sounded, or worse I tried to supplant myself in the ear of a spectator to see how it sounded, and all I could hear was the sound of what your voice sounds like on tape recording, where you think to yourself, “I SOUND LIKE THAT?!?” and you follow that with “THAT’S NOT MY VOICE!”, and the realization of “eeew. Turn it off. Just quit that annoying sound!”
So, I’m at a point where I’m contemplative over can I express again? Can I do it without caring what my voice sounds like to others ears, and instead just center on what it feels like to hear my thoughts while resting in my own skin? I like being free to say and feel and think out loud… but I remember the regret to of commiting to something, even if it is as little as writing it down somewhere, where it becomes visually permanent. Logging a thought into permanence, even though two minutes from now I move on and change and shift… how can I live comfortably knowing that at one point and time I thought out words and expression of something that I afterwards and in another season, I will feel differently from, and moved on from. How can journaling the thought and the progression away from it, or deeper beyond it, coexist? I know they can, and they do inside me all day every day… but somehow the journaling of it, makes it more concrete, where as at least with my mind, I find that they fade away into the vast chasm of me. Somehow that’s more humane than leaving them sitting out there in a cyber journal to collect with other older thoughts that were moved on from.
hmmm… do I have a lot to say? Do I even like Blogger? Is this where I want to say whatever it is I say? Does it matter? I’m not sure… maybe I just need to first focus on what the whispers are saying and if I can hear them.
I hope that once I listen to them a bit more, they’ll rise in their decibel so I don’t have to strain and focus so hard to hear them.
This world is not all about me… I am so thankful for that.
Deeper ties to the body of Christ have become a reoccuring thought for me lately. So far, I think I’ve just been putting my feet in the water, instead of really getting wet and trying to swim. A while ago, God introduced me to a thought to consider, and it has resurfaced in more thoughts and discussions, which I’ve had with others in the last week. It’s one thing to be involved in activities at church, after all, I’m a Cubbie leader for Awanas, I head the prayer chain, I do some office things at church, and I also go to a Sunday school class… but those aren’t really revealing the deeper parts of me, on a day in day out basis.
What about deeper relationships? What about accountability? Accountability is a word that when I hear, I find myself raising my eyebrows and widening my eyes with shock, in a way that expresses the thought “ARE YOU CRAZY?!? TOTALLY INSANE???” When I hear it and look at it, it has vulnerability written all over it, and that really clashes with my sense of self-sufficiency.
But… God, good ol’ God, says “…so in Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” Rom. 12:5. What kind of insane idea is this? I am not supposed to stand independant of the others???? Are you sure? *this can’t be right* Why is it that I’ve grown up feeling the opposite? The feelings that I have stuffed into the recesses of my heart for self protection should not have been stuffed there??? We are supposed to share our joys and griefs, and let everyone either rejoice in the joy, or suffer with us in our grief. Interdependancy.
I need to get it in my head that accountability is not confrontation and judging. I need to see it as a tool that God has designed for me to have someone who will support, counsel, understand, encourage, and edify me, as well as warn or challenge me along the way. Someone to come clean to besides God….
I know I withhold more than a lot from my blog, and myself through rationalizing. But you can’t do that with a real person in front of you, who has favor and a purpose to speak into your life. God is way bringing me deeper into a place to approach this… and over time, my fear is lessening, but I’m still confused as to how to approach someone to begin a relationship like this. Prereqs? Requirements? Confidentiality agreements? LOL! A friend shared some suggestions with me, to: be patient, be deliberate, be vulnerable, be real and go beneath the surface, be willing, and be teachable. I know the real reason to focus on a relationship like this is for my growth, directed by the Holy Spirit. It’s just scary.
Some things today have come to mind that I want to consider when I have more time… the first is willful sin. The second has nothing to do with that, but it’s something that I find peculiar, toddlers on leashes.
