The cycle of LIFE...

A friend of mine recently asked why I have not been blogging. And while I grappled for a good answer to give her, and came up with some pretty valid excuses that included things like busyness, and graduations, and work and such....the truth is, there is more to it than a neat little answer could explain.  I'm not sure I am ready to go into it all...actually, I'm not sure I even understand it myself.  Because, while all of the answers above are true and valid...it is deeper than all of that, and I'm not sure that anyone on the other side of this screen would really care to "go there"! 

Some days I sit here to write, and realize that what I have to say doesn't sound poetic or funny or entertaining at all.  Its sounds more like questioning and wrestling and a bunch of other words that sound more like struggle than anything else.  So I don't write...mostly because I don't want the questions and wrestling to come out sounding like things are in upheaval or out of control.  And I don't write because so much of it is deeply personal and just needs to be worked out between me and God.

But the thing is this, there's a lot of LIFE happening around here.  Because LIFE doesn't stop for you to ask questions and wait for answers.  You just have to keep going, because if you don't, you will have missed something of significance and never have the chance again.  

THIS is some of what LIFE has been doing around here lately:

This one has moved out 

{here he is, enjoying his last morning at HOME}

and his new bachelor pad home

and again, on his first grocery trip

She continues to grow

and chew...

and eat...

They goof off

He has graduated

{mmmhmmm...}

She has finished her first year of high school...

scored her first job, opened a checking account...

...and reminds me often that she will soon be old enough to drive.

There are deep questions being asked inside me...questions I rarely voice audibly, but have been there for many years.  Not questions of Faith or of Trust...just questions with unseen answers.  The questions lie dormant for clusters of days.  Inevitably, they return without warning, as was the case this morning.

Who knew that reading about Adam and Eve would put to orbit
 those nagging questions that cycle around me?
But, it started with reading a few words,
and ended with my journaling a few more words that looked something like this:


"Somewhere along the line, perfection just wasn't enough...because there was this tree that was off limits...and Eve didn't like that there was something she was not allowed to have.  How like us.  She had it all...and "all" was just not enough when she realized that there was actually more to have.  And so she gave in to her ingratitude and her longing for more...she took what was not hers and sin entered the lives of all of us.  Forever.


...SO we labor and we sweat, we have conflict, we battle with discontentment.  We wish for what we don't have, and are ungrateful for what we do.
  And life is hard...not at all the way it was created to be.  But we did it to ourselves.  And if not Adam and Eve, then it would have been someone else.  It would have been me.  Because I am just like Eve in so many ways. Having been blessed with much, I still want more.  Not in tangible things...in stuff...but in life.  I don't want ONLY what I have...I want what I have, plus more.  Not LESS than what I have...just added-to.  


And the cycle of Eve continues through me.  Unless I learn from her failures and live with gratitude in the here and now.  Because if I look at tomorrow...it's not enough.  If I look even farther...my heart panics."


There you have it...just a little bit of the ugly truth that battles inside of me.  The nagging questions of -how life got to be this way...why do I find myself still walking through life single...how is all of this wonderful life that is mine STILL not enough?  

Funny thing is, just thinking and wondering about these same questions hasn't changed or resolved ANYthing.  The questions still remain, just like they did the last time I asked them.  So I'll do the same thing I did when I discovered the same thing the last time I asked the same thing {smile}....I will resolve to stop asking today.  And I will resolve to just keep walking forward.  And I'll read and reread what I have already penned in permanent ink:

"And today...the only words that whisper Hope my way are these: 

"Be Still...know that I AM GOD."

No definitive answer.

No resolution.

Just a whisper of knowing...that He gets it....and He is still God.  

And apparently that is all I need to know."

{* Note to my friend who dared to ask why I am not blogging....sorry, YOU asked me!}

Fighting Joy

I preach it

I try to choose it

but there are days I just fight to feel it.

JOY

On one hand I KNOW that I have no right not to choose it

just one look around me...

one really long, good look

and I KNOW I have no other choice 

but to sing thanks deeply 

and find JOY.

But since this is my space

 I'm deeming it a safe place
to just

be honest...

Today I'm just throwing it out there

that it is hard

I'm sitting on my back porch 

alone

I love it back here,

it's quiet

except for the song of the birds

and the flow of the creek.

It's my favorite place to sit 

and be still

But some days...like today...

I'm tired of sitting here alone.

All three of my kids are otherwise occupied with jobs or friends tonight

{don't get me wrong I encourage it,
it's what they should to be doing}

But every once in a while the alone time is TOO much alone

And in those times the enemy finds a way to remind me that the time is coming soon...

they will all be gone

and I'll be alone every day.

It is what we raise our children to do...

to find their wings

and use them to start new things.

It is GOOD

It's the way it's supposed to be.

But we weren't meant to raise children alone

and then be alone again when their voices no longer echo in the halls.

We parent forever...

we're never really done, 

but I can see the years that they need me daily, drawing to a close,

in weak moments I look to what that means for me..

and I don't like what I find.

I fight the thought that while my friends will be enjoying their empty nests with their husbands,

mine will be spent in an empty house...

I try not to even let the thoughts be completed in my head,

but they are there

and they are real.

And I dig deep to remember

that this is not the way to choose JOY

all the wishing

and hoping

and wanting

and the forgetting what is right in front of me still.

Some days it's hard to turn off the direction of my thoughts

to rally

and

pull up the boot straps-

 because that's what I've learned to do.

Some days I just want to wonder...

to feel the pain

and just wonder.

It doesn't accomplish anything

but it reminds me I'm human.

And that I'm in need of words from the Only One who really understands

"For God is greater than our worried hearts 

and knows more about us than we do ourselves."

I John 3:20

I know well that there is a difference between being alone and being lonely.

I know that it, too, is a choice I must make...

Amidst all of these things that are a constant, 

pushed way back in the back of my head

I know that somehow even this is good.

God deems it so

"We are assured and know that all things work together and are

 [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God

and are called according to [His] design and purpose."

Romans 8:28

and so I rally

and regroup

and train my thoughts on things that are of better use.

I am not asked to borrow worry from my tomorrows,

but to live out thankfulness in my todays

I find rest in knowing

HE knows

HE cares

HE understands

and 

He can handle my 

"why's" and "what if's"

 for today

that is enough

"I call to God; God will help me. 

At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh deep sighs—

He hears, He rescues. 

My life is well and whole...God hears it all."

Psalm 55:16