rachaelizabeth

i sent this to a friend today, and it just came up, but it’s something i’ve been sort of thinking about lately anyway:

i recently got a workbook called where were you when i needed you, dad? and it really takes you thru the healing process – really looking at what happened, trying to really see how you feel, grieving, trying to see it all differently, forgiving, letting go, and moving on…it’s way good but hard work…i realize that as much as i cherish my past with my dad (before he left when i was his little girl), i have to do all those steps and let him go. which sounds scary and crazy in a way, but it’s the only way to move on with my life. and i think eventually i’ll hopefully be able to actually appreciate what i did have with him rather than just feeling all that i do because i lost him, you know? it sucks, but the only alternative is living in the past with this mass of pain that you can’t really name and feeling bitter at him and your life…we have to move on and live. at whatever cost. i remember someone praying over me when i was young, the new hampshire license plate slogo of “live free or die” and i think that really is who i have to be, who we all have to be. we have to free ourselves from the past or we’re only more and more perpetually hurt…it’s not easy or quick but it’s the only thing we can do in all areas of our lives where we’re holding onto something that can’t change. only we can change. and i know that’s hard when we’re in survival mode, but you do what you can and you pray and god takes your few loaves and few fishes that you offer and he makes a miracle out of it…

i know i can type that paragraph easier than it’s done but that doesn’t negate it’s truth… even if you just close your eyes for a second and breathe in his grace, it’s something and he notices it…

please?

mark and i finally started this book last night and it was so good to talk about it and i’m so excited for what’s to come…

when i think about the different areas of my life and how i want to “get my act together” in different ways, like eating right and being even a little bit physically active, and not napping and being lathargic, and being overwhelmed by stupid little things, i’m not very motivated. it’s important and i could probably be happier if i mastered these things, but it’s not life or death crucial stuff. i mean, yeh, years of not eating right and not exercising will add up, but i’m not morbidly obese or skinny and my body is able to do what i need it to, so i’ll keep trying to make little steps here and there but i’m not going to stress over it…perhaps i’ll get there someday…

but, when i think about my emotional makeup and spirituality, something clicks and i’m able to do what i need to do because this part of me feels like the core of me and the core of life and it’s not debatable. not that i’m perfect and do everything i could or should be doing, but something about it makes me not put it off until later….sometimes i do, but generally i don’t…this part of life isn’t a part that i can take or leave, like it’s a decision up to me. i must take it. i must undertake bringing this core part of myself to god, to be made continually into a new creation, looking more and more different, looking more and more like a butterfly everyday and someday i’ll come out of my cocoon and really fly! it’s not like a new years resolution that i’ll hopefully stick to like going to the gym… this is a now, whatever day of the year it is, thing do to…

today is the day of salvation. not tomorrow, not next new years’. today. and although i’m already “saved”…i am not done being saved. every part of my heart needs to be saved. redeemed. healed. made to look like new. and today is when that happens. i become more in tune with where he prods me, what he wants me to look at and focus on. i don’t put it off until tomorrow. i do it now. tomorrow will have its own thing. and “tomorrow” doesn’t have to be necessarily a “day” but you know, just little seasons of a week or month of whatever he’s having me focus on…sometimes it’s time to move on to another thing, even if that thing isn’t perfected. he’ll come back to it and perfect his work that he’s already started :) 

god leads us like he did the israelites thru the desert, like “go over here now…now go over there” and that’s him leading us thru what he wants us to focus on and we dont conquer everything all at once, it’s one battle at a time, led by him :)

what are we doing in life if we aren’t following the one who created our lives? i’m not just living anymore to get married and have babies and a family. i’m living for something more because my life is not my own. if he chooses to give me those blessings, then that’s what they are…i can’t demand them. i won’t force my own way to my own dreams. i follow him. and thankfully he loves me and i can trust him, even if he denies me my desires. i don’t really think he will, but he could. but even if he doesn’t, he’ll probably lead me to them in a very round-a-bout way that i’m uncomfortable with because he’s after so much more than just giving me my dreams. but how much better will it all be when these things come as blessings! with his fingerprints all over them! they will be much better than the makeshift dreams i can put together that i’ll cling to and plead to god to not take away from me.

i get to trust him, it’s not just that i have to trust him :)

“If U look at the end of my long comment on my morale boost post Ull see Y this is so cool: mark was just offered a3week job”

i sent that in a text to my blog yesterday…here’s the rest of the info: it’s in MA and it’s only for three weeks but they are super excited about him and what he does and they asked him if he’s looking for permanent work and he said yes and they were like, “good! we have stuff coming thru here all the time, so we’ll keep you in mind!”

so, YEA! it’s something and better than the nothing he’s had for almost the past year.

i’m going to keep praying and hopefully it’ll turn into something permanent and then we can move forward together and i can stop trying to contain myself :P

today, i get out of work early and then mark and i are meeting up in portsmouth to read at starbucks and then we are going out to eat with his brother matthew…i call him matt-hew (the ‘hew’ rhymes with ‘chew’) and mark calls him maboo :)

we didn’t start our new books yet like i said we would last time so tonight is the the night!!! unless we feel tired, or like we just don’t wanna read…it’s usually an inward fight with both of us cause we don’t feel like hunkering down and actually reading but we never regret it once we do…we usually get a good amound of conversation from whatever we read…and that’s the point :) and we each get a venti latte of some sort to comfort our studiousness. mark frequently makes gay references in some form or another about men buying lattes, because real men should just drink regular coffee, don’t you know…but he doesn’t really care enough to not get them. he loves them. and rightly he should. they are the best. like a hot ice cream sundae or something. his gay jokes are really what other men would say about him were they there with him but…i almost said “screw them!” but i don’t think that’s what i actually want to say…

whatev.

i’m not seeing mark this weekend because i’ve decided to take one weekend off a month to just be. and that’ll probably entail cleaning, napping, reading, thinking, and praying. and eating. and probably doing at least one thing with my roommate, sabrina. and teasing my cat…

oh and i’m taking my grandmother out to eat on saturday for her 83rd birthday :) i like that i’ve always had a good relationship with her…she’s a good grandmother…and i’m thankful that she’s pretty healthy and with it…mark and i always joke about how our grandmothers can’t hear and always say “HEH!?” i hope my grandmother will be able to see at least my first born kid, that’d be cool :) hopefully i get to have kids, hopefully they are perfectly healthy and hopefully i have at least one boy and one girl. that’s my prayers.

i’ve had a number of cat scans in my life because of my stomach issues and i’ve heard those can effect my eggs. well, i’ve heard that it can from one doctor and heard that it can’t from another doctor and i read on msn that i’m pretty much screwed myself because of all the radiation i’ve been exposed to and i’m at a way higher risk for cancer, like any day now? … yeh, i’m not letting myself believe that. the night i read that article i pretty much freaked out and had to pray and read psalm 91 and it was perfect. it completely addressed my fear and then peace swept over me. so i’m not as afraid about it now. i’ll pray. people will pray. i’m planning on saving my babies’ cord blood…hopefully, if we can afford it..and god is in control. and if he wants to create eternal lives thru me, then he will. i really hope he will. and he’ll oversee them being knit together in my womb. not that me or my babies will be exempt from hardships…there’s a possibility for things to go wrong. i’m coming to terms with that. but the fear won’t stop me. maybe i’ll have the healthiest kids this world has ever known :P

this post was very random.

“little decisions over and over again that eventually would add up to something bigger.”

his post is written about tragedy and picking up the peices of life, but the part i quoted above is something that is true of the regular spiritual and emotional life and very much needed…

suppose a girl reads and underlines and enjoys the book captivating…the part that speaks to her the most is where a woman’s greatest fear is that god is holding out on her. it rings true in her heart. she fears she has to make a life for herself or else no one else will do it. no one cares. no one knows her deepest desires and how she burns for them. she must make it happen for herself or it simply won’t happen. now lets say that her biggest desire is to find her “one”, her true love…her counterpart…her husband. but he is no where to be found. she prays but god doesn’t seem to hear. or he does and doesn’t care. she prays that god would help her with this feeling of not trusting him and to know he’s not holding out on her…but one evening she just has the urge to go out, to look pretty, to try to attract eyes so she gets all dolled up and goes to the bar and puts on her flirty face…it feels better than just staying home being unseen and feeling desolate. in her desperation at the bar, she quickly starts making life mistakes that burn her and send her in a downward spiral of more darkness, she even forgets what she read in captivating, of what she knew about herself…all she does is feel and act. and she makes a mess. a royal mess.

now the thing for her to learn is the art of knowing herself and god. she needs to learn that when the next cold lonely evening comes and she wants to go out, that what’s really happening, deep down, is that lie is at play in her. the lie that she is alone and god is holding out on her. she needs to learn to identify her feelings and see with spiritual eyes what’s happening. and this is a good start but it’s not the end. then she must make herself stay home. whatever it takes, stay home. and dig into prayer about why she really feels this way about herself and god and her future. and she needs to sow more prayers about this not being true of her, believing that god is holding out on her. she needs to make it hers and that happens on these on long winter nights.

so not only does she not go out and make a bigger mess of herself, but she digs into her own heart and learns it and sows seeds of truth in this field of lies that feel very much true. and eventually overtime, doing this over and over again, everytime she is tempted, she changes. she sees more clearly. she finds god finding her on those nights. she knows him better and trusts his goodness in her life. she finds depth. she is no longer shallow and controlled by her impulses not knowing where they come from or what they mean.

___

i could go on and on about this situation but there’s many more situations like this where we have to learn what’s going on in us, learn what we’re feeling, learn what the truth is, and learn to hold onto it with all our might when we don’t want to and just giving in is so much easier…

it gets easier…it becomes so worth it…it’s where our life is at. those bars or any other place we run to become ridiculous to us. it’s so not what real life is.

there’s more at play in these situations too, but i just wanted to point out the fact that we learn good things about ourselves and god in various ways but if we don’t do the hard work of actually appropriating them into a moment when it’s needed, when that part of our heart is activated and we need to respond accordingly with truth, then we are the people who look into a mirror and then immediately forgets what we look like. we are the people who sit in church our whole lives hearing sermons but are still drinking milk and not eating solid foods. we are the catepillar refusing to go into the coccoon.

this is what life/the christian life is all about. if we aren’t doing this then we are walking around blindly, never waking up and life never seems to make sense or happen for us. this is what my life is about. it’s still hard work to decide to not what part of me is screaming to do and i don’t always succeed, but that failure reinforces for next time that that is indeed what i want to do because the other is empty.

there’s a lot of spiritual truths that come into play but this is a beginning…

this journey is a beautiful one and so worth it. it makes my heart come alive because it’s untangled. i can breathe easier.. trusting in god is the most peaceful place to be once we win the fight to trust in him rather than go our own way. i love my life. i love what he’s done and what he’s making me. i feel more alive and more myself. and i’m excited for how easier things feel inside of me and will continue to feel as he puts his fingers on other places. there’s so much to learn. it’s a real art. it’s the art of the human heart whether we are christians or not. being a christian just makes our hearts and this life make sense.

i love how he set everything up :)

the prayer of a person living right with god is something powerful to be reckoned with – james 5:16

we do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. – daniel 9:18

as soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which i have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. – daniel 9:23

i’m trying to find books on prayer…so much needs to be done, to be helped by god…i feel overwhelmed to the point of being paralyzed and not praying. which is messed up. i have this book and this book at home and might download this book and/or this book to my kindle…my thinking about prayer and situations and god’s power needs to be revamped. there’s no reason to feel hopeless about people’s situations when god is the god of all hope. i need that written in my heart more.

i need to remember that god delights in and hears even 20 second prayers. i can at least do that, right? well, hopefully. if i want to help people but can’t and all i can really offer them is my prayers which really are the best thing anyway that could actually effect their situations, then why don’t i freaking pray? i mean i do, but they are such shallow and broken prayers while my thoughts are half on something else. i know they are still something, but i’m not satisfied with them. i’m not satisfied with my inner theology. i must be believing false things about god and prayer if something in me hinders me from really praying. maybe i just need to settle down inwardly. i know i feel that in other areas of my life. and i feel like i just do not want to settle down. i balk at it. it’d be easy to just say i’m selfish and don’t want to focus on other people, but i dont think that’s entirely true when those people have my compassion, because they weigh on my heart. i just need to channel that compassion into action via prayer.

at the very least i need to give prayer more of a try and see if things don’t change. but i don’t have much faith in prayer, i don’t think. it doesn’t feel like it. and prayer without faith seems futile, like an oxymoron?

i think my all or nothing attitude comes to play here because i feel pressure to pray on my knees several hours a day and weep and fast for people…which is probably good, but i am not there yet and might never be?…so i think i just avoid it all together almost? avoid the pressure by not praying…

i think i tend to look at how big the wind and the waves are and get scared and i don’t look at how big jesus is and his power. does he know me and hear my prayers? does he love my loved ones too? what does he want for them? when there’s so many steps for them to take, will he walk them thru them all? will these people ever wake up? how is it that i’ve woken up in the small areas that i have? where am i still blind? it’s all a shadowy, tangled mess.

i asked my future father in law this weekend how he deals with and feels about hearing about family and friends struggling and needing so much, does he get overwhelmed, etc? and he said a lot of things but the thing that strengthened and humbled me was that he said i am an esther, here to pray for my people on their behalf. and i almost cried. it makes sense…that my loved ones are my people and i’m to pray on their behalf. and that god sees me as his princess coming before him and he sees me and hears me and listens to me. i influence his heart. and he cares about what i care about. and he cares about them anyway which is why he put them on my heart. i want to be someone who cries out for my loved ones. who doesn’t just feel hopeless like the rest of the world. cause things really can be better this side of life. inwardly at least. that’s half why jesus came. god came in a body like ours and lived a life. he broke into our physical realm. he was one of us. god: one of us. what???? there’s something to that that i’m not getting. lord, wake me up to see you with my spiritual eyes in this physical reality. to see your spiritual movements in situations, in people. you really do influence. you are the one who leads us into all truths and reminds us of what we know. wake us up and let us come to our senses like the prodigal son and come back home to you in all the areas of our hearts that have left you and sought our own way…bring us out of our muck and mire and blindness to the truth. then hug us and clean us up :)

_______

what am i doin here…if you’re not with me…
what’ve i got to live for if it’s just my own dream…

faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. – tagore

love never dies a natural death. it dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. it dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. it dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. – anias nin (thanks, sabrina)

sometimes i feel initially threatened whenever someone who does the same thing as me is better at it…like i feel like they won the right to do it and i must stop. something in me wants to shut down. not offer myself in that way anymore. kind of reject myself before anyone notices the difference between us and rejects me…it’s sick.

everyone starts out life in a particular place with certain benefits and drawbacks. i picture everyone individually on their own little mound of a hill and some people’s hills are really short and some people’s are really tall and some are average and there’s every height in between. and if we stand on our hill and only despair that we didn’t start out with as high of a hill as all these other people’s then we can become paralyzed and just bury our head in our hill and refuse to build upward because our mandate in life is to build, to use whatever amount of “talents” the master of the estate left us with and do something with them…our hill can get higher if we try.

i read a book on envy recently and it talked about how some people are given a lot in life of one “talent”, some two, and some five. the one “talent” people are tempted to just throw away theirs because it seems like nothing compared to the five “talent” person. there are other lessons in this but this one is my point for now for me. i feel like a one “talent” person. and i feel that temptation to abandon what i do have. but that suffocates my life and isn’t right. and no matter what amount of “talent(s)” we have, it says nothing of the value of the core of who we are. none of the outward stuff or possessions or natural abilities matters. all we do is stand before god with our heart. that’s what we offer him. will i offer him a heart that’s shut down out of fear of rejection or will i offer him one that’s pulsating with his life that says i am allowed to be bold, to be who i am, to thrive and not wither.

there’s a fight. there’s knowledge to be known. about who we are. to be who god says we are. born into his family where things are done his way. where we are who he says we are, not who even our parents say we are, unless they agree with god. and they might mostly agree with god, but still messages will come thru them, probably accidentally, that communicate to us that we are less than we are…maybe in a moment of frustration..and we have to know to fight that. not fight them, the flesh and blood, but fight that arrow of poison that shrinks our heart.

it hurts and humbles me that someday i’m going to hurt my kids but that’s where god will meet them, in their hurt, in their need to fight for the truth. i will teach them the truth and teach them forgiveness. life isn’t about avoiding the hard and having an easy life. i want to teach my kids how to navigate the hard and keep their hearts open and vulnerable thru it to learn and be changed in whatever way god is calling them. the journey is a rough one, but the question to the whole ending to it might be, did our hearts stay soft to our father who called us thru these places…did we learn to trust him even if it wasn’t perfectly, no matter how bumpy the road was, no matter how low on the totem pole we started?

we gotta lift our eyes up a little and see everything differently…