I stare at the floor. The room around me buzzing with the sound of scurrying feet and screaming voices. The boys are chasing one another again as I sit here in the rocking chair, rocking Lena. I have three kids. Well, three living kids.
My heart aches as I think there should be another little skittering set of feet in that game of chase. But then, my heart constantly aches these days. I find myself in this same blur of inactivity... just staring. I am empty. I feel there is no stirring in this heart of mine other than pangs of remembrance and pangs of recognition. Remembrance of Owen. Recognition of this void in my faithfulness. Where has my joy gone? Yes, I find joy in my family at times, but it is incomplete. It feels lacking. It is not the full joy intended by the One who gave me this family, this life. Yet... I know why this joy is lackluster. I know how to wipe away the blurry film that is clouding my vision. I just don't.
Why is it when I need God most (which by the way is always) I try to fend for myself before going to my Father for help? (Which by the way is ALWAYS) I have relied upon myself for far too long now and have in essence dug a hole that goes deep. It is dark in this hole. It is dark, damp and lonely. In a house full of kids who want nothing more than my undivided attention, I feel alone and unnecessary. I feel undesirable. I feel empty. I feel... but nothing I want to feel.
My head (AKA sinful flesh) plays tricks on me. "Lindsey, you don't need God. Just put on some upbeat music, have a cup of coffee, and spend a little time chatting online... THEN, you will feel better." Yes, head, you're right. I feel better... thanks. And then I stop doing those things and go back to that dark hole. I keep digging, with a dull spoon, through the hard stone and firmly packed clay. It is hard work, tiring work, unnecessary work. What is my goal? Where am I digging to? Wait. Don't I want to be going the other direction? My mind tells me no. My heart tells me yes... my mind usually wins.
I am a very logical person by nature. If you have ever come to me with a problem, I am very practical in the suggestions for resolving the matter. I like tangible things. I like to see results. I am not patient... Taylor can attest to this. I am the polar opposite of patient. There is something very gratifying in fixing things or finding a clever solution. It plays a beautiful melody to my prideful heart, and I am pretty sure this is the very reason I love creating things. Whether it is sewing, crocheting, cooking... you name it, if it is creating a useful product... I love it. Too much. It also make me feel as though I have power or control over the situation when I can fix it.
Here enlies my "hole." My mind is telling me to just keep trying solutions, bandaids if you will, for the way I am feeling. My heart tells me to cry out to God, but my mind continues to remind that prideful heart how good it feels to be the author of the solution. My pride has gone before my fall... and boy did I fall hard and deep. I can only see the Sonlight ever so often. The walls of my hole are pretty high above my head and block out most of the Light. These prideful walls that were created by my own hands. I don't feel very accomplished in this creation. I certainly didn't want to take a picture of these walls and post them on Facebook to brag about. Not like my other outward creations. But then, a picture wouldn't come close to showing the deep pains. The aching, longing, and yet reckless disregard. I know Who can fill this hole. I know Who can remove this prideful heart and nonsensical mind. I know. I just don't act. so... I sit. I this damp, dark, lonely hole. I have forgotten how to ask for help. I have forgotten to call out to those in the Light up there on solid ground. I have hit the shifting sands under the top layers of this earth and am along for the ride... I want out. I NEED out. I need help. Please pray for me. That the Light would reach me, warm me... and that I would remember how to truly seek out that help I so desperately need now.
I want to bury my sorrows and downtrodden feelings in that hole... not reside with them in it.
Lord, I know you hear me from this dark place I have created. I am alone... and longing for your warmth. I ask, Lord, that you would renew my joy. I am at a loss of words. You know my heart. You know my deepest darkest hours, thoughts, fears... You and You alone know how to minister to this heart of mine. So please, Lord, forgive me of my sins. Forgive me of my disregard and ignorance. Forgive me, O God the Father, and replace my sorrows with Joy. Replace my longing with Fulfillment. Replace my my wrongful thinking with Your thoughts, Your loving embrace is all I desire. Please, Lord, please create the change I can not. I can do nothing apart from you, Lord. I thank you for that, and ask all these things in Jesus' holy name. Amen.
LL
Friday, June 27, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
Long Time, No See
This weekend I was blessed with a visit from a very near and dear friend. We often get mistaken for sisters as we are built similarly, have the same curly hair, and we even mother our kids very similarly. It is a unique friendship. A friendship that now spans three generations. Our moms are great friends, we are great friends, our kids are great friends... well okay, Hank may not have won over any hearts this weekend with his rough and tumble ways, but give it a year or two. :)
I have known this sweet "sister" since high school. She actually was my "big sis" on drill team, and IS my sister in Christ, so the term is both entertaining and truthful. We joke about our 6 year olds one day being married to further solidify the bond between our families, but it wouldn't be necessary. She is in my heart always. I'll refer to her as K.
While spending time with my "sister," we had a very deeply needed conversation. I have been struggling with many unearthed emotions lately and yet, they have a way of uncontrollably leaving my lips when this cherished sister is near. I have no guard up with her. K has such a tender heart. She so patiently listened while I spewed out all my complaints, worries and frustrations.
I have been in a dry spell since moving back from Korea. I feel as though the rug was pulled out from under me when we got home. The church I thought we'd attend... we don't attend. The people I thought I'd spend the most time with... I hardly ever see. The place I thought we'd be living... we abandoned after only a few months. It was hard. I had a very difficult time being content with my lack of familiarity and simply adjusting to change. Change. Something that is constant... yet I CONSTANTLY have such opposition towards change. It makes for a very unhappy person when you cannot roll with the punches. I am a very unhappy person lately.
In talking with K, I described my difficulties in building relationships. How when I reach out to someone, that door seems to be slammed in my face. Either the other person is not motivated to pursue the friendship, they move away, or life is just too busy. In any case, my feelings have been hurt many a time these past couple of years as I try to build up a base of believing friends. It didn't dawn on me until the words came out of my mouth while talking to K, that perhaps God was pushing these "friendships" away from me so I would learn to rely on Him first and foremost for contentment, acceptance, and companionship. Two years. Two long, lonely years. I have struggled to feel accepted, to feel like I belong. All this time, God was trying to tell me I DON"T belong. This world is not what I should be chasing. These relationships are not what I should prioritize ahead of my most important relationship. The only relationship that will last through eternity and will not fade or pass with the passing of this world. The one relationship I was NOT pursuing.
There, I said it. I have been chasing selfish desires, but hose desires were not for the Lord. I had so quickly forgotten Who gives and Who takes. Who builds up and Who tears down. I had forgotten Who had made me to desire fellowship. I had forgotten. And so I pursued temporary joys again. And rooted my happiness in my present situation rather than in my eternal blessing and salvation. I was slowly sinking in my own selfish sorrows.
While K and I were talking, something she said stuck out to me. She said 'Here I was thinking I had mastered my emotions and that I was at peace, but the very next day, someone would talk about my struggle... or share their joy... and I would think "God, I really didn't learn my lesson, did I."' That was a scary thought for me.
Have I learned my lesson, God? I don;t think God always punishes us to teach us. In fact, many times answered prayers have brought me to tears as I reflect on just how intricately God had to orchestrate life for that to come about. I also think "punish" is not really a word we should ever use when talking about how God treats his children. He disciplines us, restores us, rebuilds us and reveals to us that our ways are so different from His. I KNOW the loss of Owen was not a punishment. But it is by far one of the biggest events in my life in which He has changed me.
Owen passed away at about 7 weeks old. Lena is almost 7 weeks old. It just hit home when K asked "Did I learn my lesson?"
Did I listen? Truly listen to what God is or was trying to teach me? Am I really changed?
I don't usually fear that God will take Lena to be with Him as He did for Owen, but I DO think about whether his death was in vain or not.
Was Owen's death in vain? No. Just the other day, a friend told me she was forever transformed by Owen's life and death. So maybe I was asking the wrong question... I was. But I was on the right track... it wasn't Owen's death that I was treating half-hazardly. It was Christ's. I was forgetting what Christ had done for me. How that impacted every moment of my life. Every relationship, every everything. I change nothing. I master nothing.
Here I was thinking that it was within my power to master my emotions and yet I was a hot mess. I thought I could create friendships, and yet I had essentially harvested only a very few.
Jeremiah 17:5 says "Cursed is one man who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord."
I DO feel cursed, but it was self-inflicted. I place the blame nowhere else. I place the healing that needs to happen only in one place... the feet of Jesus.
I have known this sweet "sister" since high school. She actually was my "big sis" on drill team, and IS my sister in Christ, so the term is both entertaining and truthful. We joke about our 6 year olds one day being married to further solidify the bond between our families, but it wouldn't be necessary. She is in my heart always. I'll refer to her as K.
While spending time with my "sister," we had a very deeply needed conversation. I have been struggling with many unearthed emotions lately and yet, they have a way of uncontrollably leaving my lips when this cherished sister is near. I have no guard up with her. K has such a tender heart. She so patiently listened while I spewed out all my complaints, worries and frustrations.
I have been in a dry spell since moving back from Korea. I feel as though the rug was pulled out from under me when we got home. The church I thought we'd attend... we don't attend. The people I thought I'd spend the most time with... I hardly ever see. The place I thought we'd be living... we abandoned after only a few months. It was hard. I had a very difficult time being content with my lack of familiarity and simply adjusting to change. Change. Something that is constant... yet I CONSTANTLY have such opposition towards change. It makes for a very unhappy person when you cannot roll with the punches. I am a very unhappy person lately.
In talking with K, I described my difficulties in building relationships. How when I reach out to someone, that door seems to be slammed in my face. Either the other person is not motivated to pursue the friendship, they move away, or life is just too busy. In any case, my feelings have been hurt many a time these past couple of years as I try to build up a base of believing friends. It didn't dawn on me until the words came out of my mouth while talking to K, that perhaps God was pushing these "friendships" away from me so I would learn to rely on Him first and foremost for contentment, acceptance, and companionship. Two years. Two long, lonely years. I have struggled to feel accepted, to feel like I belong. All this time, God was trying to tell me I DON"T belong. This world is not what I should be chasing. These relationships are not what I should prioritize ahead of my most important relationship. The only relationship that will last through eternity and will not fade or pass with the passing of this world. The one relationship I was NOT pursuing.
There, I said it. I have been chasing selfish desires, but hose desires were not for the Lord. I had so quickly forgotten Who gives and Who takes. Who builds up and Who tears down. I had forgotten Who had made me to desire fellowship. I had forgotten. And so I pursued temporary joys again. And rooted my happiness in my present situation rather than in my eternal blessing and salvation. I was slowly sinking in my own selfish sorrows.
While K and I were talking, something she said stuck out to me. She said 'Here I was thinking I had mastered my emotions and that I was at peace, but the very next day, someone would talk about my struggle... or share their joy... and I would think "God, I really didn't learn my lesson, did I."' That was a scary thought for me.
Have I learned my lesson, God? I don;t think God always punishes us to teach us. In fact, many times answered prayers have brought me to tears as I reflect on just how intricately God had to orchestrate life for that to come about. I also think "punish" is not really a word we should ever use when talking about how God treats his children. He disciplines us, restores us, rebuilds us and reveals to us that our ways are so different from His. I KNOW the loss of Owen was not a punishment. But it is by far one of the biggest events in my life in which He has changed me.
Owen passed away at about 7 weeks old. Lena is almost 7 weeks old. It just hit home when K asked "Did I learn my lesson?"
Did I listen? Truly listen to what God is or was trying to teach me? Am I really changed?
I don't usually fear that God will take Lena to be with Him as He did for Owen, but I DO think about whether his death was in vain or not.
Was Owen's death in vain? No. Just the other day, a friend told me she was forever transformed by Owen's life and death. So maybe I was asking the wrong question... I was. But I was on the right track... it wasn't Owen's death that I was treating half-hazardly. It was Christ's. I was forgetting what Christ had done for me. How that impacted every moment of my life. Every relationship, every everything. I change nothing. I master nothing.
Here I was thinking that it was within my power to master my emotions and yet I was a hot mess. I thought I could create friendships, and yet I had essentially harvested only a very few.
Jeremiah 17:5 says "Cursed is one man who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord."
I DO feel cursed, but it was self-inflicted. I place the blame nowhere else. I place the healing that needs to happen only in one place... the feet of Jesus.
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