looking for my hopeful heart

I'll apologize now. This post is going to be a little disjointed. I don't really know why I'm apologizing though, I don't think very many people read this in the first place.
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I sat tonight on the phone with my mama. And as I sat there, and I listened, and I talked, and I cried, and my heart began to ache. My heart does that....it aches over things.

I think that's part of God bestowing upon me the gift of mercy. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I really hate that my heart aches so much that it feels like it's just going to come apart at the seams like a tattered flag. That has been through so many storms, and been beaten on by the sun, and the wind and the waves so much that it can no longer continue to be....its just going to disintegrate. Yeah, sometimes it feels like my heart is coming apart at the seams.

Abba, what?! What is it that you want? What do you want for my life? What do you want in the life of those that I know that are broken, hurting, and desperate for understanding?

Tonight I sat on the phone and I felt two very distinct, but very separate and different things - a sense of hope and a sense of despair.

Let me further explain:

I desperately ache of certain people in my life that are facing hardships that I can neither explain or understand why they are going through what they are going through. I. Don't. Get. It. My feeble heart can't wrap itself around what God is doing, what He wants, or even what to say to them. So.I pray. I pray, Even when I'm crying and screaming and aching for them - I am praying. Praying for understanding. Praying for an understanding of what God's will is. Praying that God, in the midst of the very dark storm and this very dark season of life, is protecting them from allowing satan to plant the seed of bitterness and despair in their hearts. I pray that God would be gracious, and will give them a taste of hope, that He will soften their hearts and in turn reveal what His will is for them - because none of us understand.

And then the line from this song
: "Break down our pride and all the walls we’ve built up inside
Our earthly crowns and all our desires, we lay at Your feet". And then this is the chorus that follows:
Let hope rise and darkness tremble
In Your holy light, that every eye will see
Jesus our God, great and mighty to be praised

It's so humbling to me as I listen to this song the idea: to truly lay down what I desire and ask God to give me the strength to pick up His desires and that in the midst of my anguish, of even their anguish, to sing "let hope arise and darkness tremble...that Jesus our God, great and might to be praised".

That is such a tough pill to swallow. It's the pill. It's the blue pill.

I say that because I feel as though God has brought me to a place of wholeness. And in that wholeness He has brought a sense of peace. A peace and contentment that I cannot describe in pretty and perfect words wrapped up in bows, only to merely say that I feel that I can on my worst day look up into heaven and say "Abba, I do not like what You are allowing to happen, in fact, I don't really like You, and in reality I am so angry because I can't fathom what You're doing, but I choose You. I choose You. Even if my life shall be met with disappointment and heartache (which it will, let's be honest), I will choose You.

Let's think about this: Not only has God chosen us, but we must in turn....choose Him. And to choose Him is the blue pill.

To sing his praises with a tear stained face, and a heart full of doubt and misunderstanding

For those that know me really well, they know that this statement is not an easy one for me- the idea of choosing God, even on my hardest day, because 6 months ago....I didn't choose Him. It's not that I couldn't, it's that I wouldn't.

So as sat there on the phone I stared at this picture on my wall:



It's as if the dawn so desperately wants to break through and seep through the cracks of our broken hearts. Embarking on the horizon of a better day still to come. Embarking on a dawn of hope.

So even in the midst of my tears, my despair, I hold fast to the hope that God is bigger. That God not only weeps over me and over them, but with them. I hold fast to the idea that God is weeping with us like He did with Mary when Lazarus died. He wept not because He was unaware that He would raise Lazurus from the dead, but because those he loved were hurting, because His heart ached with theirs. God knows what He's doing and so tonight I pray:

Abba, make it evident to us that you are weeping with us. May the dawn of a new day bring hope. And give us the strength, the mercy, the grace, and the courage to choose You. Give us beauty for ashes, garments of praise for our heaviness. May the tears we've sown in pain, reap our joy again. amen.



(I hold fast to hope of a God who is big enough to create this):




You're beautiful Alice. God knit you together perfectly, all 8 lbs 12 oz of you. Welcome to the world. I love you and I've been waiting a long time to meet you, and it was worth every minute. Love, Your K-Auntie (Kgroup auntie) Rachel

Learnin' from and keepin' the old and in with the new

It's nearly 1 a.m. I have to be awake again in 5 1/2 short hours, and yet I don't want to lay my head on my pillow yet.

I have been rather overwhelmed and overcome at the loss and the gain of relationships in my life recently.

I sit back and ponder the beauty of the ugly that speckles our existence through our relationships.

If I could take an actual look at my soul I'd see so many beautiful scars from wounds that have healed over the years. I'd see the finger prints of those I have boldly, and not so boldly let into my heart to come and make their mark of their existence in my life. I can see the track marks of those I have loved and whom I've allowed to love me......God, it's so beautiful.

I think so often we push out the old relationships to bring in the new, when it's so unnecessary. don't get me wrong, I think there are only so many people that should truly know the depth of your heart and soul...that's something that isn't meant to be given away easily. But we seem to think that there is only so much room to love so many people. <------------false.

All I want is for my heart to grow bigger, so it can love bigger, and know more love.

I've lost a key friendship in my life recently, and I won't lie. That sucks. It sucks bad. But I have hope and faith that with a dose of space, a dab of healing, a dash of forgiveness, a bit of grace and baked for some time......a beautiful friendship may come around again.

I feel like my heart has opened again. I had closed it off for so long. But there is SO much more in life meant to be lived.

I had a good talk with a friend last night about how "there's got to be something more". We get to feeling so suffocated by where we are in life. We begin to feel like "this is it...." But is it?! It this really it?!

No way!....no....way. I mean who says we have to give up on the passions God has instilled in our souls? What is it about time, age, and life situations that chain us to "reality". Where and when did God say....stop dreaming, this is all you get?! I mean don't get me wrong, life gets in the way, but what if in the midst of our reality we made our really big dreams come true? We never know the possibilities if we don't test our limits and our current situations.

What if we just chose to live big? What if we chose to wake up truly alive, get ready and boldly face the day, to live the "everyday" with greatness and reaching for the dreams and beautifully horrifying things that everyone says "that time has passed", to spend my time with those I love with passion and fervor, to live my everyday as though it was the last great day?

Wouldn't it be great?!?! Man it would be. It would be ideal. And I'll probably walk away after posting this and be bothered because I don't live my life this way....but what if?

What if I tried to? What if everyday I read this:

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."

And in turn, as I grab my keys, pet my pup molly on the head, and walk out my front door and greet the day with an open heart......

I want to drink it up!

This past week I get glimpses of "it", I smell it, I feel it all around me, I taste in the air, its warmth envelopes me, it's breeze surrounds me, I see it with my feeble brown eyes, and hear it with my sensitive little ears. Its like music. Music you can touch, taste, see, feel, smell, hear. It's beautiful, and it is spring, and its coming!

My life has not only felt cluttered, but actually been cluttered. Cluttered by work, going back to school, the mundane tasks that fill life, by overly committing myself, by the emotional and spiritual battles that rage within my soul. I look around and I see my life whirling around me like someone has thrown a ream of paper into a tornado. and it's....all....so....cluttered.

And then in the midst of winter grey and cold comes this little bird of hope called spring. She just appeared this past week and like I said....it's like music to me. The sun feels warmer, the air smells like life is trying to spring up from earth, it tastes so sweet I want to pour myself a glass and drink it up! I want to envelope myself in its very essence and breath so deep that my lungs burst because they cannot contain the sheer magnitude of the delight of spring.

Maybe it feel so powerful to me because its feel so symbolic. Symbolic of where my head and my heart are at. A heart that has felt such sorrow that tastes bitter and chalky like soot on my tongue. A heart that has tasted that and the seeds sown in my wounds are springing for through the earth like tulips in the spring.

I felt overwhelmed by it today, and the day before that....and the day before that. This past week I took my dog molly to Palmer Park here in the springs, and we ran. We ran until our lungs felt like they'd burst through our chests. We bounded through the trails like gazelles (and nearly took a couple of spills too!). We stop and breathed deep and took in the majesty of the mountain sky line as the sun was setting. And there along the trail as I slowed my pace to a standstill at one point to take it all in.....hopped a little robin. The first one I've seen this spring. I won't lie....I nearly cried....and I....have no....idea....why.


I want to take this life and gather it. Gather it into nice pools of crisp fresh water and then pour myself a glass. I want to offer up a toast "to spring". The "spring" of the soul. May life abound and push through the ashen dirt of souls and sprout something beautiful.

amen.

....love the least