My Boys are People Too

I would like to take a moment to express a couple of things before I continue in this post.

1) I want to apologize for some of my blog posts coming across as complaining. That is not my intent at all. These are my journal entries of my prayers, the way I talk to God as my friend and Father. They are raw, they are emotional. But God beckons me to "Pour out my heart" to Him. (Psalm 62). That's what I do. He already knows what is there, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to put on a front for God when he can find me even on the highest mountain or in the depths of the sea and knows the words before they are even on my tongue (Psalm 139.) If I were to edit the rawness, I would be a hypocrite. I am not here to flaunt failures, but to be authentic and real and honest.

2) These posts are about a month behind the current dates. This is for two reasons: a) this is how I also share my heart with my husband and we make sure we are on the same page in a lot of ways. With that being said, he is deserving of my heart before I share it with others, so as we sit down and share journals with one another, then I am freed to share them online. b) keeping some distance between what I was dealing with and what I am currently dealing with frees me to continue to allow Christ to work on my heart as he sees fit and not feel pressured to "learn something today just so I can share it on my blog."

I would love for you to continue to join me on this journey of discovery and delight. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to let me know.

Blessings on you!

June 7, 2013

 

To think of my sons as people, man, I have failed in that way. I’ve thought of them as my sons, as boys, as children, as subordinates, as minors who need taught, trained, honed, and loved. Yet, I have not given much thought (at least in a true, conscious way) to their being made in the image of our amazing God as a dynamic person – they have a body, yes, but they also have a mind, a will, emotions, a spirit, etc. Lord, Forgive me!

I think at times I have been aware of their spiritual needs to an extent, but I continue to fail to pray for them like they so desperately need me to – and right now, more than ever, I am starting to realize the spiritual battle that is waging for my little boy’s hearts. Father, give me the strength, the armor, and the passion and focus to pray for my sons and battle for them on my knees.

In addition, they have motives, desires, and deep hearts – and as such have a need to be understood. Lord, help me learn to ask the right questions and to really listen. I want to become students of my children. I don’t know them, but you do. Help me learn to know them.

I know life cannot be always fun and games, but so much recently, I have been so busy. Too busy! I haven’t been the mother these boys need. Sometimes, I feel like I am needed deeply in the nursing/baby stage then as they grow and get more independent, I am no longer needed and I loose some of my passion to care for them. The mundane aspects of life (feeding, diapers, naps, etc.) wears on me and I feel like it is just something else to get through to make it through the day rather than a true need they have and a way to meet them.

Father, I feel like I have failed so much as a mother, and I don’t really know where to go from here. I don’t want to become careless and let other things slip that would affect my family in other ways, but I also want to be here, and to let you live through me here and now. I need you, God. I cannot mother on my own. I don’t know my kids and I don’t know how to get to know them, but you do. Give me wisdom. You tell me that I can ask that of you and you will give it. I trust your promise. Help me to look and listen for that wisdom today and to walk in step with you. May my eyes be fixed on you today and my heart locked into your will and not my own. I love you, papa!

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Giving Thanks and "Giving" Thanks

May 31, 2013

I don’t even know where to start this morning. I feel anger. I feel sadness. I feel alone. I feel overwhelmed. I feel exhausted. And in the same moment, I don’t feel like I’m allowed to feel any of those things – yet neither can I be strong. Mixed messages confusing the heart and causing the tears to fall (maybe I should just schedule crying time into every day right now) Finding the heart is deep, overwhelming, rushing mad emotion that I don’t know what to do with…

Eucharisteo is giving thanks – “giving thanks” – being the blessing in addition to being grateful for the blessing. He took up the towel and the basin and gave thanks and washed the disciples feet encouraging them to go and do likewise. It was a dirty job, one only fit for the lowest of slaves – yet, our Savior, perfect and holy and deserving of honor, humbled himself and knelt at the feet of his followers to show them how to “give thanks” to others. It is only in being emptied that we can be truly filled.

 

Father, you must know and understand, better than anyone else, how living this eucharisteo life is beyond hard – it is impossible without your spirit’s guidance and daily step with you. Humility, Service, Gratitude – just a few aspects that characterize this life. Seeing you in the faces, and maybe if I could, the “Giving thanks” would come easier as I were kneeling to be a blessing to you.

Show me the basin and the towel today, Papa. I humble myself before you and I long to see my work as service to you and those around me. Help me learn what it means to “give thanks” today. May I follow your perfect example in washing the feet of those around me and being the blessing in their lives.

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Jericho's Wall

May 25, 2013

Living out of the deepest parts of my heart in today’s world is really difficult. One of the reasons I believe it is so hard to live fully alive is due to the evil that is so prevalent and the fear that surrounds my heart and soul. Be guarded. Watch out for bad guys. Always be alert. Protect yourself. Fists up and ready to fight. Soul words of life in this jaded world. And that’s not at all original design. God destined us for something so much deeper – intimacy with Him!

 

Someone once said that if you break that word down “in-to-me-see” it makes a lot more sense. But when my heart and soul is surrounded by Jericho’s wall, how can anyone see in? I guess it takes a scout – can I be my own, or do I need someone else? A scout must come in, scale the wall, climb over, and start searching for what is really there – behind the fearful faces, underneath the armor, in the inner locked chambers. Then take report back to the captain. When he hears the report, decisions must be made about how to start tearing down the walls…Do you fight them possibly creating more fear in the heart? Do you march silently? Do you blow trumpets? Do you kneel to pray? When the walls start to tumble, chaos may ensue, and when they finally reach the ground, the heart must be cradled. As reassurance of safety returns, the boulders and rubble can begin to be cleaned and put away – hopefully never to be rebuilt.

 

It’s a fortress for sure – not just a stick and mud kind of wall. It’s been learned from wounds and fears of wounds. My safety is in my hardness. Yet once again, I feel unwhole. Broken. Though encompassed around, I feel vulnerable. Build it higher, be on guard, watch out, be afraid, you may get hurt. But no matter what, it never seems to be enough. I feel empty and full to exploding at the same time. I feel longing and fear in the same moment. I was made for so much more – for life, not death. To breathe, not suffocate. For relationship, not isolation.

 

Lord, I’m ready to be free from Jericho’s fear – take me back to Eden where I can be naked and unashamed (I wonder if that word also means without fear?) Thank you that you created me with a heart that’s meant to be known. Help me to know it well and to trust your protection of both my heart and my life.

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Rainbow Colors

After Mother's Day and my processing (or start of processing) of where I was, I began to seek more desperately to know what it really meant to live fully alive even amidst the chaos. Here is a piece of my heart...

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.The caption beneath my sketch: "Too many Rainbow colors for my fingers to touch all at once - and they meld into a meaningless muddle of mixed brown as one vibrant hue weeps into another. The monotone mirrors monotony. Each color no longer appreciated for what it is - hurry fades the glory of the moment, the richness of the here and now. Oh, how I long to see the bold beauty of red and take crisp delight in the cheerfulness of yellow. Father, train my toddler hands in careful enjoyment."

Life to Life and Heart to Heart

It has been quite a while since I've written on this blog. And for some time now, I have been wanting to share what God has been doing in my heart and life this spring. I've been on a journey of what it really means to live in the Spirit - to walk, moment by moment in His presence: To live fully.

Saint Irenaeus made a famous statement: "The glory of God is man fully alive." And that's the journey I've been on - discovering what it is to live fully in His presence, each moment, each day. I'm still on this journey, and I would like to take you with me.

I had been debating writing blog posts about my experiences and what I'm learning, but I don't think I can embellish it any more than my heart has already expressed it. The best way to speak to a life is with a life; the best way to speak to a heart is a heart. So, if you will allow me, I would like to share my journal/prayers with you so you can see what God has been doing in my heart - my struggles, my triumphs, my deep emotion. Warning: some of this is raw, but I know that transparency and openness opens the doors for greater growth.

Over the next several days, these posts may be a little longer as I am trying to catch you up on the last few months of journal entries. I pray that your heart is challenged as my heart has been. Blessings on you!

Journal (starting Mother's day 2013)

 

May 12, 2013

 MOTHERS DAY! And I really wanted to even avoid getting this time alone for my heart in the first place. It’s just too overwhelming. Nothing even makes sense how I could ever reconcile who I am and who I feel I should be….Thinker, future planner, organizer, doer…. Or present, in tune, involved, fully alive. They seem opposite and scream for each their own way. The pull between the two nearly ripping my heart in two right now. Demands, demands from my own needs, demands from my kids, demands from life – both controllable and uncontrollable. Some things I can make fit, barely. But what about all the others that threaten my very existence?
 

No longer bound to the law – but to love. How many times do I choose not to act in love each day… Love God, first and foremost. Love others. But I almost err on loving myself – and that’s not love to either God or others. But then I ask the question – Doing budget, and paying bills – who is that loving? Is it merely a necessary evil? A demand on my time that has no morality or reward? What about if I didn’t complete those things because I wanted to use that time to “love” those around me …. When the electricity, gas, and hot water go because we cannot afford them, and we have no food on the table because we cannot afford it….who is that loving then? So it does have its place, but what about when Eli and Gabe are vying for my attention and I just need to get it done so that I can play with them, read to them, or get them something else to eat. How do I communicate the importance of what I’m doing to such little minds. And when I’m interrupted 12 times in an hour, it takes so much longer to even get done.
 

 So then back to the main question. Who am I? Who did God create me to be? Surely they can be reconciled!!! God would not create something impossible. He has a special plan, a special purpose, and I want so badly to live up to that full potential. But how?
 

 I feel I repetitively ask this question. So what am I missing?
 

 I try to fit in big rocks first – but what if You have too many?  The handles of the pack just keep breaking. If I cannot figure out how to carry simply my big rocks, how can I keep carrying everyone else's? Even if they are little ones, I cannot carry them if my pack is dysfunctional.
 

 What’s the secret? I know it’s not merely planning, organizing, and thinking…some of it has to be deeper – trust, listening, waiting, walking, stepping, thanking, being. How do you learn each of these things if you’ve never been taught.

 

 

 I really never had a good example of that kind of lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I had great parents, but they didn’t know how to BE well. They did a great job planning, thinking and doing. But being, what is just being? I know that cannot be one’s mentality at all times, but how do you adapt that mentality if you’ve never been shown?

 

5/13/13

Father, I’m torn. I read Rachel’s blog about all of the weight that she has lost and kept off, and I too, want to go on some radical, body cleansing, diet to lose weight fast. But I know in my heart, my purpose for that rapid weight loss would be for my own benefit – the way I feel about my body and the way that others look at me. In my heart, I also know that my body is your temple, yet I haven’t been treating it as such recently. Though I’ve been doing some workouts and eating somewhat healthy, I’ve continued to go to eating first when I am emotional or tired. I’ve filled my house with sweets and felt like a victim that must consume them so that they will be gone and I can start over again. I’ve become a slave to that which I worship. Food. Body image. Exercise. There’s this ambiguous thought of the perfect weight and body that I should be, and really, my focus has been on that rather than my heart before you and my submission to your will when it comes to my body and mind.
 

 Lord, I am not my own. I am bought with a price, created in your image to be like Christ Jesus. I have been given his Mind. I have direct communion with the Head, and I want to grow as you have created me to grow – in my heart, my emotions, my mind, and my body. I confess that I haven’t been living in the freedom of the Spirit – I’ve been living according to some sort of rules and regulations (what my body should look like, be capable of, and human ideas of nutrition – or rather weight loss strategies.)
 

 The weight is not my problem – my focus is. I long to understand the way you created my body. For you created both it and food. You created nutritional systems to be utilized to their fullest potential, and I long to grasp that. You’ve also created my mind. Give me wisdom as I search for your best. Help me to understand that my focus should be on your glorification in my Body and not my glorification. Forgive me for my selfish, idolatrous focus. Help me to fix my eyes on you!



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