Changing Lanes... Part 1

I’m packing up this office…cubicle…this corporate hermitage…and I’m actually kind of sad. There are memories here and two years spent well and constant. This was a place of incubation where God showed me about hope, faith, trust, Sonship, discipline…and really many more things. I'm going to do this in parts. So part 1...

I’m passing through a year and a half of memories and find that many are woven to a man. It all really started with a pear. It sat on my desk for three days making me feel special. I doubt he realized how that small gift had made me feel but it had melted my heart. He excited me and terrified me at the same time. He was the sweetest, most tender heart and yet there were sides to him I didn’t know how to respond to. Looking back, I know now that it was the control that controlled me. I could not predict this one…make sure he was safe…put him in a box. He is to this moment, one of the most unpredictable and brave men I have ever known.

I spent many of those 18 months afraid to show this man my heart…afraid to reflect his own back to him. I was not ready. And that’s just all there is to it.

I can’t think of this man without thinking of how Jesus knit me closer to his own heart through that relationship. It was a hard little union but it was good. God started it and he worked in it and through it and used it for my good. For our good. That I do know. God opened that door and only he can shut it. And until he does, I’m just standing in the doorway, waiting. And I’m completely okay with that. I’ve never been more content and full of joy in my life.

No matter what, I am convinced that there is only good in store. My God is a good, loving, and kind Father. He works all things together for my good.

It's going to be great. No matter which way others may choose in life...I choose my Jesus, my Savior, my Abba, my Jehovah Jireh.

It doesn't matter to me which happy road my Elohim leads me down...the result of my choices and the choices of others around me... no matter which way... Each path leads to goodness. It is ALL good. :-)

Thank you, Papa!

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

I miss Corot.

I fell in love with Jean when I was in college. Somewhere between 18 and 23 I met him on a cold rainy day. He was mysterious and brooding with a touch of whimsical and I was delighted by him. It amazed me how he could touch the darkest depths and brightest heights of my imagination with just one glance. He made me laugh, cry, sigh, wonder, dream, dally, determine, focus... He made me feel alive! And the creativity endlessly bloomed from my chest out the tips of my fingers...

When I was around Jean Corot, I could stay up all night looking through his eyes. I didn't like everything he said. In fact, there's a good chunk of his thoughts and impressions that I cared nothing about. Sometimes he talked about his life in the country or people he knew and I was transfixed, but othertimes he droned on in drab tones and blockish renderings that I could scarcely let him continue. Next subject please!

He usually could win me when he talked of trees. No one has ever talked about trees quite like Jean did, except perhaps J.R.R. Tolkien, but that's another verbal obeisance altogether.

I loved the way Jean would talk about trees.

He described the leaves with the utmost respect...the way the sun would shine through them in midday making them bright with color and glowing...in solemn shade...in the wispy ethereal dew of morning. He made the willow sound mostly optimistic as she attempted to stretch her hands into the sky and depicted the poplars as whispering socialites at a ball. I could almost hear their hushed voices.

The first time I really, REALLY saw Jean Corot, in person that is, was in Chicago. It was somewhere around my 4th year (the 2nd Junior year, that is). I remember not expecting to see him there. I was surrounded by all these well-known visionaries and he is so often overlooked. I turned a corner and saw him at the end of the room. I knew instantly it was him. The darkness, the light. All intermingled in a myriad of emotions, thoughts, and expressions on his face. For a moment, I could not breathe. I truly could not.

You know that feeling, I suppose. When you see someone you did not expect to see. Your true feelings come out, you know. If you expect to see them, you have time to think...time to prepare and line up all your thoughts and emotions. But when you're not expecting it...it can hit you like a gale and leave you breathless. You know in that moment not what your soul feels about that person, but how your heart truly feels.

I approached slowly. My eyes wide with surprise and delight, tears forming in the corners. I stood in front of him. It surprised me to feel warm tears, lilting slowly and sweetly over my cheeks. I just couldn't believe it was really HIM. The man who had so captured and spoke my heart over those short years. He had captured it to utter perfection...an exact likeness. And I was forever greatful.

I thought of all the times when he had known me, shown me myself. Gently and without even a hint of invasiveness...like tiny mirrors, reflecting a tiny piece here and there.

I wanted to reach out and touch him but there were guards positioned by the doorway and I know that it could also be his ruin. I rocked back on my heels and drank him in. Tears brimming, heart thankful. A tiny mirror.

Roller - written in 2008

I remember being so small that when I was strapped into rollercoasters as a child, I was never quite sure they would hold me in. I remember one particular time I rode one of those rides that is one giant circle. You climb into this metal bench, and a bar is clamped down over your lap. That's it. Nothing else. Then you climb into the air, looping upside down and doing a perpetual hamster wheel run. Sometimes, they pause you right at the top, so you are pretty much dangling...by that metal bar. That one time I was 6...a scrawny, lanky kid with limp, white blond hair that lay flat and soft on my bean shaped head. I was all limb and bone with no cares in the world. Until this day. The bar didn't even come down to my waist because I was riding with my cousin who was bigger than me.

It's amazing how I can remember being so small.

When we got to the top and every unhaltered loop, my hips would slam against that bar leaving a gaping current of air between my butt and the seat. I would feel my body sliding out of the seat, losing connection with the ride I was on and reaching to fall into air. And then we would careen down with gravity and I would slam back down onto the seat.

I thought I was going to die. But I didn't.

I didn't die.

Read me, Read into me, Read My Lips

So...I have a chronic disease. SELF-SABOTAGE. I don't know how one recovers from this disease. I only know that there is something in me that refuses to allow myself to be happy.

With that said...there are a few things I can't stand:

-When someone has decided who they think I am when they have not really seen who I am
-When someone does not appreciate me for who I am.

You know- I am a good catch. I know I am.

Unresolved Issues with God

I'm re-reading "Hinds Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard.

This allegory is more like my own personal journal. Honestly, IT'S MY LIFE.

There are two things that have been "hitting" me lately.

1. There is a point where Much Afraid (that's her name, and again, fitting) gets where she has followed the Shepherd toward the promises he has made her and it just doesn't seem to be working out. Every time she thinks they are going towards the promises, they have to take another detour or go a different way that takes them longer. At one point she thinks about going back. She feels deceived by the Shepherd and wants to go back to the way that things used to be. Go back to her old life. Maybe it was hard, maybe she was trapped...but at least she knew what to expect. She entertains that thought for a while and when she begins to REALLY think of leaving the Shepherd, she feels like she is looking into a deep abyss of hopelessness. It is at THAT moment when she cries out to the Shepherd to come to her. She clings to him saying, "If you could deceive me, my Lord, about the promise and the hinds' feet and the new name or anything else, you may, indeed you may; only don't let me leave you. Don't let anything turn me back..."

Good for you, Much Afraid. Good for you.

Right now, I would LOVE to be able to say that. The truth is, I do NOT trust God like Much Afraid is learning in this section. I do not. The point is not that God could deceive her, because he can't. The point is that she is saying, "Even if you could, you may....because I trust you and YOU are the most important thing...not the promises you've given me." Wow. Hurrah, Much Afraid. I applaud you because I am NOT there yet.

I WANT to be like Much Afraid. Right now, I feel like God could deceive me, and I am not okay with that. So I've got some control issues and some trust issues. Big surprise.

2. Throughout her journey, there have been several places where the Shepherd has asked Much Afraid to make an altar and sacrifice parts of her old self (the process of dying to self). Towards the end of the journey to the High Places, she has to make one final sacrifice. On this altar she must put two things: all the promises the Shepherd has made her and her desire for human love.

I feel like God is asking me to put those same things down on the altar, and I find I am not able. I WANT TO, but I don't know how.

So...this post is not really a post to inspire. And it's not well written, but who cares. No one reads my stupid blog anyway. I just need to vent. I'm basically really exhausted right now...and hurt...and frustrated.

Trust. Patience. Waiting. Giving up Control. Resting in God. Relaxing. Give Grace. Give it time. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. Seek My Face...Look to ME...Undivided Focus, Undivided Heart.

Why does it seem like all of the things God is telling me right now, I am unable to do?

Jesus, Give me mercy. Shower me with your grace. Grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. I am at the end of this rope, and I don't know what to do. I want to run. I want to hide. I want to quit everything and everyone and start over. I'm not afraid anymore and I thank you for that. But now I am just angry. And there is this boiling rage in me...this hatred that I don't know what to do with. Help me to forgive. Help me to love and to see others with your eyes and your heart. Create a new heart in me, Lord. Help me to seek your face. I'm empty God. I am gutted out and empty. And I am angry. HELP ME, PLEASE.

JOB 36:16

"He is wooing you from the jaws of distress
to a spacious place free from restriction,
to the comfort of your table laden with choice food. "

I am in Christ, He is in me.

In looking for identity in men, I lose sight of my identity in Christ. My gaze is not firmly set on Him. The word of the Lord says I am IN Christ and that he is within me. I am within Christ and therefore, I am secure. My heart is encased in his. He in me and around me. He perpetually flows till he surrounds... surrounding from the inside-out; covering every surface of my being.

With that in mind, I have been given new garments and new armor. I am a new creation IN Christ. I am clothed in strength and dignity, with robes of righteousness, with purity. I am clothed IN Christ. I have taken off the old and put on the new. I am ready for my wedding. I am a bride of Christ! And over these beautiful garments is an armor that is strong and sure.

This new armor of God is also MADE of God. The breastplate of righteousness- HIS righteousness. The helmet of Salvation- HIS salvation. (The knowledge of his sovereignty, the confidence of his hand around me, the validation of his part in every aspect of this armor.) The sword of truth- the very tongue and mouth of God. The list goes on. If this armor is MADE of God then I am clothed in Christ...I am armed with Christ. I put on Christ. Therefore,since I am in Christ, I don’t need to “put on” that armor every day…it is ON! All I need to do is look down and remember it is on, remind myself I wear Christ! He is my skin, he is the body in which I reside.

So I recount every unique part in praise and thanksgiving to my King. This praise and thanksgiving flows through this armor, drawing me closer to it. This allows a freedom. I can sit STILL in this armor… waiting and still…and in this quiet, secret place, I am INVISIBLE to the enemy. He can not touch me if he can not find me! And out of this stillness comes rest.

I am His, and he is mine. He is in me and I am in him. Out of rest, I can truly abide; BE with the Lord. In all circumstances, he is my all. He is my all, because he longs to and IS permeating every millimeter of my existence. Inside-out. Surrounding me on ALL sides—including the inside. And SO, I can boldly BE. I can BE, because he has wrapped himself in and around me, and my identity is securely protected by Him. We must be identified together now. For no one will or should be able to look at me and not see Him. He is my face. He is my armor.

The anticipation of my life is that the covering of his heart over mine will one day be grafted to my own heart. That I will have his heart. That HIS armor, will one day be grafted to my body, so that I will be like him and carry his likeness boldly on this earth.