I woke up early this morning with this thought on my mind ... choices ... I have them and its my choice to make the choice - to change, grow, become - or stay the same. It was a moment of clarity and a blessing from God who is drawing me back to his embrace. It was a breath of fresh air following a tough week.
I just love it when that happens. When God pushes hard enough to break through the walls I've set up - the defenses I've created to keep the pain away - to keep others away but which also serve to keep Him away. And its so crazy to build the defenses when I am fully aware that He is the one thing I can count on, but that is all part of this process of becoming ... of life! I thank God that the times between my awareness of His presence and love - His drawing - are hours now instead of the weeks and months they were back when I first left home.
Choice is a privilege and I am grateful for it. The choices I have made to protect myself become clarifying instruments when I make the choice to open up ... to let love in and to embrace His presence - I love that! I suddenly see in stark relief and clarity of heart and am able to turn away from the old choices and embrace the new!
Today is a new day full of new choices, and I'm cleaning out my closets! Time to make room for the new ... open up space to breathe and space to become. God is doing a new thing and life is FULL!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
loss of love
Loss of love is painful ... and the process of getting through it is hard ... so hard! Is it more painful if the love was deep and rich and reciprocated? I don't think so. I actually think it is harder for the one who loved if the love was not returned --- because of hope.
When hope is lost, it takes the pain of love so much deeper. When love has been returned, you have known the amazing experience of hope fulfilled ... of knowing you were chosen by another ... YOU ... WERE ... CHOSEN. It's exhilarating, cataclysmic ... that feeling of love and hope fulfilled, and the presence of love in your life. It is one of life's greatest blessings.
But if you loved someone and were living in hope for the fulfillment of that love ... and it never happened ... you question everything. And I'm not talking about a crush ... I'm talking about truly seeing another for who they are - on the inside - seeing their truth, what they live with every day, and loving them in spite of it ... and because of it ... When this love is not fulfilled, you stop trusting yourself and you stop trusting others ... including God. You die a little inside each day that you live with the disappointment and the pain of love that was not returned. Not only have you not been validated, but you've been invalidated ... and this causes you to question all you believe, feel, know and live.
Last night I watched Criminal Minds and during one particularly poignant scene when one of the main characters was playing a hostage negotiator and empathizing with a serial killer, I was thrust back into the pain of a love lost and hope destroyed. It was completely unexpected and just sidelined me to a place of deep awareness of love for a pretty amazing person. I keep thinking its over ... I'm over it ... I've moved on ... and then I get blindsided at the most unexpected times.
I've decided I don't like this place. I don't like loving someone who hurt me - who encouraged me to hope and then ripped me apart without apparent regard for any of my feelings. Their selfishness left me bleeding ... I hit my bottom, circled the wagons and worked every day just to survive ... one foot in front of the other. It was a horrible place to live and one I do not like to be reminded of.
So last night, having it slap me upside the head again was not fun! But then I realized that the hope in me has been reborn ... and its a good thing! I shouldn't have hope today - and for a long time I didn't - but God is restoring my hope. He is restoring the years that have been stolen. He is bringing joy in place of mourning; happiness in the place of deep pain ... it is the biggest miracle of all and certainly much more cataclysmic than the experience of love returned. The deepest wells of sorrow have begun to fill with hope and the desire to love is welling up again. But now it is a desire for so much more than the love of a man ... it is a desire to love myself well ... to embrace life and this process ... to experience the deep healing and lay myself open for the possibility of love. And yes, the possibility for pain ... My spiritual director has challenged me repeatedly that I cannot truly love another unless I have learned to love myself well first - and she is SO right on! I catch glimpses of it and I can't WAIT to be living in that place every moment of every day.
It's a process and one I am really beginning to enjoy. I'm getting involved in community at a new, smaller church (and what a surprise blessing that is!) and experiencing deeper relationships with girlfriends --- it is a good thing and I am in a good place.
Yes, loss of love is painful - and continues to be painful - but you can never experience the restoration of love and hope without it, and I would not be the woman I am today without having gone through this place of deep pain. It is the refining fire of loss of love that is bringing deep healing to those places I have so carefully guarded for so many years. There's a fresh wind blowing through my soul!
When hope is lost, it takes the pain of love so much deeper. When love has been returned, you have known the amazing experience of hope fulfilled ... of knowing you were chosen by another ... YOU ... WERE ... CHOSEN. It's exhilarating, cataclysmic ... that feeling of love and hope fulfilled, and the presence of love in your life. It is one of life's greatest blessings.
But if you loved someone and were living in hope for the fulfillment of that love ... and it never happened ... you question everything. And I'm not talking about a crush ... I'm talking about truly seeing another for who they are - on the inside - seeing their truth, what they live with every day, and loving them in spite of it ... and because of it ... When this love is not fulfilled, you stop trusting yourself and you stop trusting others ... including God. You die a little inside each day that you live with the disappointment and the pain of love that was not returned. Not only have you not been validated, but you've been invalidated ... and this causes you to question all you believe, feel, know and live.
Last night I watched Criminal Minds and during one particularly poignant scene when one of the main characters was playing a hostage negotiator and empathizing with a serial killer, I was thrust back into the pain of a love lost and hope destroyed. It was completely unexpected and just sidelined me to a place of deep awareness of love for a pretty amazing person. I keep thinking its over ... I'm over it ... I've moved on ... and then I get blindsided at the most unexpected times.
I've decided I don't like this place. I don't like loving someone who hurt me - who encouraged me to hope and then ripped me apart without apparent regard for any of my feelings. Their selfishness left me bleeding ... I hit my bottom, circled the wagons and worked every day just to survive ... one foot in front of the other. It was a horrible place to live and one I do not like to be reminded of.
So last night, having it slap me upside the head again was not fun! But then I realized that the hope in me has been reborn ... and its a good thing! I shouldn't have hope today - and for a long time I didn't - but God is restoring my hope. He is restoring the years that have been stolen. He is bringing joy in place of mourning; happiness in the place of deep pain ... it is the biggest miracle of all and certainly much more cataclysmic than the experience of love returned. The deepest wells of sorrow have begun to fill with hope and the desire to love is welling up again. But now it is a desire for so much more than the love of a man ... it is a desire to love myself well ... to embrace life and this process ... to experience the deep healing and lay myself open for the possibility of love. And yes, the possibility for pain ... My spiritual director has challenged me repeatedly that I cannot truly love another unless I have learned to love myself well first - and she is SO right on! I catch glimpses of it and I can't WAIT to be living in that place every moment of every day.
It's a process and one I am really beginning to enjoy. I'm getting involved in community at a new, smaller church (and what a surprise blessing that is!) and experiencing deeper relationships with girlfriends --- it is a good thing and I am in a good place.
Yes, loss of love is painful - and continues to be painful - but you can never experience the restoration of love and hope without it, and I would not be the woman I am today without having gone through this place of deep pain. It is the refining fire of loss of love that is bringing deep healing to those places I have so carefully guarded for so many years. There's a fresh wind blowing through my soul!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
i'm not broken ...
Guess what? I'm not broken! Seriously ... NOT BROKEN! Can you hear me? Am I SHOUTING LOUD ENOUGH????!!!! What a revelation!
This past week I had my monthly appointment with Tara, my spiritual director, and went into it knowing I wanted to talk to her about where I am and what I want to do in the days ahead ... but I had NO idea that I would experience another revelatory breakthrough. It seems that every time I get together with her there is something new the Lord wants to show me ... a new piece to this puzzle of life.
It must be because of the spiritual tenderness of her office and the way she bathes our time in prayer -- so thank you, Tara, for being open to the Lord and His leading as you facilitate our time together -- it is truly a blessing!
So this week I thought we'd go one direction and in the middle of my rambling and questions and fears, Tara just looks at me and says, "You're not broken. I look at you and I can just see you thinking in your head, 'I am so [screwed]'. You are not broken. You are not broken." I was overwhelmed -- flooded with new emotion and probably looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but she was dead on! And I didn't even realize that I believed that about myself.
I have functioned for years, in all areas of my life as though I am broken. And I have made deep agreements with that mantra. To actually think of myself as NOT broken was ... ... ... WOW! I couldn't imagine not feeling as though I was broken -- as though every bad decision, bad relationship, mistake, addiction, etc. is WHO I am ... I have functioned out of that place for so many years, that thinking of myself as NOT BROKEN is almost incomprehensible ... and certainly life changing.
The Lord has been doing an amazing work in me, and this new piece, about not being broken, has opened me to a new step in the process of wanting to live in community -- to be a part of process WITH others. And this is new. I am looking at inviting a friend to move in with me and truly share life together and no longer live a life that is about what is convenient for me, but one that is open to actually being vulnerable in relationship with others ... no more self-protection. And no need to protect because I AM NOT BROKEN!!! YAY!!! I am GOOD! And today I can move forward and trust that goodness in me ... trust that I am whole ... and break the agreements I have made over and over, that I was broken. Sweet freedom!
This morning I went to Discovery Church here in the Springs and guess what? The message was about community and the big question was, "who are you doing life with?" I laughed -- God has such a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. I believe I've found my place ... my church family ... and it feels good. His timing is amazing and He has given me an overwhelming peace that these steps that I am taking today are His best steps for me ... today. I am overwhelmed and completely humbled by this process of life.
Today I understand the reasons for this process over the past five years. It is ABOUT the process. It is about BECOMING ...
I have a watercolor that I started about three years ago that I thought was called "Surrender" ... but now I know that surrender is just part of the process and it is all about "Becoming" and now maybe I'll be able to finish the painting ... or maybe it will never be finished, since as in life, this relationship with my Creator, is ALL about the process and the "Becoming" never ends... there will be pain and there will be heartache, but there will always be Jesus and His unending, inescapable, all-powerful love. And that is what makes the becoming so worthwhile ... what draws me forward each minute of each day ... and I'm just tickled to finally see that I am NOT broken!
shattered places
tears and pain
pieces scattered round
love unending
salves my soul
healing embrace
life revealed
today
i am becoming
This past week I had my monthly appointment with Tara, my spiritual director, and went into it knowing I wanted to talk to her about where I am and what I want to do in the days ahead ... but I had NO idea that I would experience another revelatory breakthrough. It seems that every time I get together with her there is something new the Lord wants to show me ... a new piece to this puzzle of life.
It must be because of the spiritual tenderness of her office and the way she bathes our time in prayer -- so thank you, Tara, for being open to the Lord and His leading as you facilitate our time together -- it is truly a blessing!
So this week I thought we'd go one direction and in the middle of my rambling and questions and fears, Tara just looks at me and says, "You're not broken. I look at you and I can just see you thinking in your head, 'I am so [screwed]'. You are not broken. You are not broken." I was overwhelmed -- flooded with new emotion and probably looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but she was dead on! And I didn't even realize that I believed that about myself.
I have functioned for years, in all areas of my life as though I am broken. And I have made deep agreements with that mantra. To actually think of myself as NOT broken was ... ... ... WOW! I couldn't imagine not feeling as though I was broken -- as though every bad decision, bad relationship, mistake, addiction, etc. is WHO I am ... I have functioned out of that place for so many years, that thinking of myself as NOT BROKEN is almost incomprehensible ... and certainly life changing.
The Lord has been doing an amazing work in me, and this new piece, about not being broken, has opened me to a new step in the process of wanting to live in community -- to be a part of process WITH others. And this is new. I am looking at inviting a friend to move in with me and truly share life together and no longer live a life that is about what is convenient for me, but one that is open to actually being vulnerable in relationship with others ... no more self-protection. And no need to protect because I AM NOT BROKEN!!! YAY!!! I am GOOD! And today I can move forward and trust that goodness in me ... trust that I am whole ... and break the agreements I have made over and over, that I was broken. Sweet freedom!
This morning I went to Discovery Church here in the Springs and guess what? The message was about community and the big question was, "who are you doing life with?" I laughed -- God has such a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. I believe I've found my place ... my church family ... and it feels good. His timing is amazing and He has given me an overwhelming peace that these steps that I am taking today are His best steps for me ... today. I am overwhelmed and completely humbled by this process of life.
Today I understand the reasons for this process over the past five years. It is ABOUT the process. It is about BECOMING ...
I have a watercolor that I started about three years ago that I thought was called "Surrender" ... but now I know that surrender is just part of the process and it is all about "Becoming" and now maybe I'll be able to finish the painting ... or maybe it will never be finished, since as in life, this relationship with my Creator, is ALL about the process and the "Becoming" never ends... there will be pain and there will be heartache, but there will always be Jesus and His unending, inescapable, all-powerful love. And that is what makes the becoming so worthwhile ... what draws me forward each minute of each day ... and I'm just tickled to finally see that I am NOT broken!
shattered places
tears and pain
pieces scattered round
love unending
salves my soul
healing embrace
life revealed
today
i am becoming
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