Spiritside

I Actually Do Listen At Church

I do listen.  Yesterday especially.  We are, by of course no coinsidence, studying the life of Abram in both my Bible study as well as in church.  I am loving the way the teaching is going.  Instead of focusing on the negative, all Abram's flaws, the trouble his lack of faith caused, and of course his "partial obedience" where Lot was concerned, our Pastor is holding fast to the miracle of his life.  The faithful times, the obedient times.  Not that we're overlooking the whole picture of his life, just not forgetting that there was a moment when his faith was counted to him as rightousness, and he had his salvation! 

I write furiously during church, and always feel so sorry for whoever is next to me, because not only am I taking notes on the serman but journaling.  So I'm always trying to keep my moleskin out of view of the people around me.  I contort into all these shapes and make way too much noise between my Bible, moleskin, highlighter and pen.  Plus, being the addict that I am, the diet coke I usually have placed under the seat in front of me.  Every Sunday it gets knocked over, but lucky for our crappy burbur you can't tell!

As I went back over my notes I discovered some things I really don't remember writing.  The thing that jumped out at me the most was that God actaully took time to encourage Abram.  He used three metaphors to do this.  The dust of the earth, the sand on the shore and the stars in the heaven were all used to paint a picture for Abram of his future decendents.  I don't know, I just love knowing that Abram's feelings mattered enough  for God to take the time to do this.  Also, He affirmed to Abram that He was his shield and great reward.  Ok, so this is where my own personal notes took a turn.  God has provided for my family since the death of my husband.  We aren't rich by any means, but we have our needs met and lots of wants too.  So this got me thinking.  I believe two very specific things about God.  First, that He is full of grace, and that this gets overlooked so many times because we as humans are not full of grace.  So we do this humanizing of God thing, that paints Him in a light that probably has nothing to do with who He really is, but allows us to fit Him into our little worlds.  Second, while I believe in His grace and desire for our well being, I also know that we have responsibility.  Yes, He can supernaturally alter circumstances and probably is doing so on all our behalfs right now even though we don't see it.  But there will be a day when we have to face the consequences of our choices.  Free will, to me, is both a blessing and a curse!!!  Because at times I make really horrific choices.  Does He intervene?  I believe He has and does and always will, even if I don't always know the logistics.  He has taken care of our financial needs, but what have I done to honor His work?  That was when I mentally uttered the most pathetic prayer of my life.  "Oh God, please change the space and time continuem so I can redo the things I've so messed up".  However, knowing that's unlikely, I added that only He can change my heart, and only He can forgive my sin, and if it's not to late I'd like a chance to prove that I long to be the steward of this life He's given me.  And being God, I know he heard.

Being Blessed By Another

I have managed to find an amazing array of blogs to read.  Through this medium I have found friends, brothers and sisters in the Lord, and some amazing insight.  The most amazng part of all this is that when I look back and see how I found these people, it's clear to me that it's been divine intervention on all fronts.  There is no other way I would have found you guys any other way. 

I am so relational it isn't even funny, yet in order to be strong spiritually I find I need to balance that with time alone.  Here I have found those who totally get that.  I love the Lord with all my heart, and believe that even though there have been some "valley of the shadow of death" moments He loves me and my family with all His heart, which considering who He is is pretty amazing.  His love has saved me, litterally and spiritually.  When the posts on suffering were written over at Wild Flower Meadows  I knew God was showing me I'm not alone.  Here is an amazing soul, unafraid of being herself, clearly going through her own stuff, yet even in that reaching out to others, so that her pain is not wasted.  The days in which I read that series of posts I needed to hear everything that was written.  I'm amazed and awed every time I discover one more soul out there who understands who I am.

There is also, at times, an inappropriate side to me, and at certain sites I find good, God loving people who enjoy life and bring joy to their readers with crazy antics and funny stories.  Those who aren't afraid of saying the wrong thing, but honor God by being who they are.  Yet again, clearly from their writing always, always, seeking Him first, living in the knowledge of His grace, and blessing their readers with strong, biblical truths.  Challenging me to stop and decide what I'm going believe, and how I will live out of those convictions. 

There was a woman in my life until last December.  We had been close friends for awhile, and I thought we'd be friends forever.  Truly I thought she was someone I would always know.   After we had a falling out of sorts (she saw my inability to spend the week her mom was in town doing things she needed me to do as my not being availalble to her, and she continued to speak verbally abusive words regarding my daughters and Chris since my obligations to them are why i couldn't drop everything for her) she has been so mean and hurtful.  It made me think back on our friendship and what I discovered frightened me.  I tolerated a lot of verbal abuse and judgemnt myself for the sake of our friendship.  I truly thought I was being a blessing to her and her child, so I let a lot of things go that actually left some deep wounds.  And though letting this friendship run it's natural course into the world of ended relationships, I found that people I let in my life, and those who I've discovered here, in the bloggers world, bless me beyond words, and the newer and older friends I've made here eased much of the pain from the loss of who I thought this person was to me as well the physical loss of having a friend to hang out with.    So while I have lonely moments, I also revel in the blessings God has given here. 

Conversations through a Door

Last night I had a dream.  In this dream, Lenny was in a room with a closed door.  We had a conversation, and I could hear his voice so loud and clear, just the way I remembered it.  Deep and strong, yet soft.  Always soft.  He was a soft spoken man. 

As we were talking, I knew I wasn't going to be allowed to open the door and see him, which is what my heart really wanted.  None the less we talked about the kids, my sadness at having to live without him.  He even told me that I needed to get the work done on the side of the house this spring.  He talked about current things, but not anything about him.  I wanted to ask a lot of questions, but again the knowledge that I wouldn't be able to prevented me from even going there.  I missed him, as we talked this overwhelming feeling of missing him was always running through me.  But, there was also peace.  He had peace in his voice, and so I felt it too.  When I awoke, I ran to the bedroom door, but of course there was just a closed door with no one and nothing on the other side.  I know it was just a dream. 

There have been a few times when I've dreamed about him, felt him, could swear I've touched him.  These times always come when I am at my worst emotionally.  Though I have complete peace about his salvation, there are times when I miss him with such power that I feel broken.  The last time I had an experience like this (and I know this is going to sound weird and unbelievable) I felt his peace flow through me, something different than I had ever felt before.  It changed the tears I was crying from pain to joy.  After, as I was sitting on my bed, the air was filled with the smell of his cologne.  However freaky, whatever tricks my mind was playing, I don't care.  I needed peace, and it was provided.

Dreaming about a lost loved one is so bitter-sweet.  I mean really bitter-sweet.  Those first few moments when you wake up are just like those early days, when you have to remind yourself that your reality is forever changed before you get out of bed.  I spent many mornings waiting for the truth to establish itself in my brain before going into my kids or hitting the shower.  That feeling happens when I dream of Lenny.  But it's a small price to pay.

Unity and the Church

I've been thinking a lot about our Pastor's last two sermons.  The theme has been unity, what it is and why it is so important.  I'm not planning on repeating everything he said in the last two weeks, but I have been pondering how the modern church is going to find it's way to what is clearly so important to Jesus.  One thing I never thought about was that it was the last thing He prayed for, "I in them".  Unity is us as a body with Christ as our head.  It's not just about us, even though we in our flesh tend to think it's all about us.  It's not agreeing on worship styles or how services are to be run, but about us winning souls to the Kingdom, and very rarely does this have our own comfort at it's center. 

Ephesians 4 says "There is one body and one  Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all."  It is the same God in me as is in my brother or sister.  The things that cause divisions have nothing to do with this God, but with our issues.  I believe God foresaw this problem, and that is why it is written for us:  "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe tht You sent Me."  John 17.  The thing heaviest on Christ's heart before His crucifixion was that not only His believers of His time would find unity but that those of us who would later come to believe would also be one with Him. 

I'm not saying there is one thing wrong with the way any one church chooses to do things.  And the last thing I want to do is accuse anyone of anything, for I myself am so far from letting the pettiness of this life go and focusing on what this true unity would look like in my own life.  I'm just pondering what difference we'd make in this world if we truly did understand it, and if as a Church, not a building but a body, we sought God's desire first and our own comfort second.

No Apologies, Please

I've been struggling with something.  When I posted about my other blog, I mentioned that I was being rather negative, and a few had thought maybe I was not allowing the joy of God to fully restore me.  I felt a bit judged, and for a few posts felt that if I let my hair down, let it all hang out, it would somehow be taken in the wrong vein, judged, or saddest of all somehow paint God in the wrong light. 

I just came back from a site where the topic was suffering.  And there were no apologies made.  Yet God was very much at the heart of the posts I read.  I didn't feel as though I was reading the words of someone who felt sorry for herself, or didn't appreciate the blessings in her life.  And so tonight I post with no apologies.  I'm hurting.  I am missing a vital part of my life, my husband.  I am watching my daughters grow up without the man who loved them so dearly.  This hurts.  I've lost contact with his family, and they haven't responded to my desire to open the doors of communication.  Ouch.  I just went through another holiday season with the mixed emotions of a person who loves the Lord but hates my circumstances.  It was suggested that I was stuck, either in my grief or depression, it doesn't really matter.  The truth is I am stuck.  I've cried more in the last month for my loss than at any other point except the early days.  If I cry for the rest of my life, which I feel I very well could do, so what?  Seriously.  It's not my faith that's wounded at this moment in time it's my heart.  I read and re-read my husband's death certificate.  How does one get past words like "blunt force trauma", "homicide", and in a cruel twist seeing the divorced box checked while we were indeed still happily married.  I waited months for those death certificates to arrive so I could begin to process benefits and insurance, only to have it all void because the wrong box was checked.  And here is something else I know that kills me.  They know that on my husband's flight the passengers were all moved to the back of the plane and told that they were never going to see their loved ones again.  I can't even imagine how my husband absorbed these words.  He loved us so much.  Our kids were the light of his life.  He was, indeed, terrorized.  Why? 

I have moments when I feel like this all just happened yesterday.  Like a hampster in a wheel I run faster and faster and go nowhere.  I want to escape from this.  Pain like this changes the focus of a person's life.  I knew from the minute I saw his flight number in the crawl on the news that day that the focus of our lives would switch to just trying to recover.  Living in recovery is very different from living.

Since his death I've made two major decisions that have been harmful.  These circumstances have added to the burden of life post 9/11 and in my opinion made healing much more complicated that it would have been otherwise, for me and my kids.  Yet I feel trapped in both situations, so there is a hopelessness that also plauges me.  I do trust God in my life, I believe He loves us, but that does not take away the pain I feel.  And I'm exhausted at having to say this.  Pain and faith can inhabit the heart at the same time.  I just don't have the energy any more to apologize for hurting in the middle of all this.