And the world flows on.

The world flows on and I am stuck in an eddy.  I'm close enough to the edge of it to feel the flow, to be turned by the flow, and then I am caught up in the swirling backwater again.  Ah, grief.

THREE YEARS and I'm still stuck.  I can't seem to get over the thoughts of what should be, why isn't he here?  why am I alone?

It's my birthday again tomorrow.  He will be forever forty and I am 45 tomorrow.  I have white hair and wrinkles he doesn't know about.  Can he see me?  Wherever he is, does he miss me?  Will I see him again?  My half was ripped away, his own violent action and I'm so angry and feel so guilty for being angry.

I want to move on, but the men I am interested in aren't available, so I take that I'm not really, really ready to move on or I would pick men who could have me in their lives.... well, I only want one, not a whole harem of men (wouldn't that be interesting?)

I wonder if I'll ever be whole.

And I'm so tired of holding my head up.  I'm tired of taking on the world.  I'm tired of getting up every morning and not being able to wake him, or rest against him at the end of a long day.  I'm tired of holding the world up.  Yes, I know.  God.  I know.  I do.

This isn't every day.  This is just a bubble.  I can ride the bubble.  I've ridden this bubble.  Yet, today I feel like I'm drowning.  And the world moves on, flowing on and on and I am stuck in this eddy.

It's the 4th of July this weekend.  I won't do anything.  I'll stand at my bedroom window and watch the fireworks till I am tired, or I'll dork around online until my eyes hurt enough to make me shut them to sleep.  Even if I go someplace, I'll be the add-on.  Thought of as an obligation to include.  I don't fit.

He made me match.  We were the oddballs and we matched and because we matched we fit places.  Or, I thought we did.  Maybe he still felt the oddball.  I'm tired.  I'm tired of swimming alone.

I'm afraid if I say I am tired like this, someone will decide I need intervention, and I don't really.  I'm not going anywhere and my debts make it unlikely that I'll stop living because I can't give up.

It's a pity party day.  Trust me, not only does no one else want to hear this, I don't want to hear myself.  THREE YEARS.  I am dog paddling in the eddy and the world flows on, floats on.

I promised a friend that after a year it gets easier, that her grief will get easier, and it does - it will..  These happen with much less frequency.  Family visits are a trigger for me.  And I had two last month.  Too many.  I love them but I don't want to remember.  I can't feel this sad all the time any more.

I've got next to nothing to give today... and I have to bake because it's the fourth of July this weekend and it'll be profitable.  People think you are brave when you are just responding to survival instinct.  I do not feel brave.  What man in his right mind would want to take this mess on?   I am not always here, but today I am stuck in this eddy.

I had better get myself into the kitchen.  I do not want to go.  But I will keep treading water because that's what I do.  I survive and sometimes I thrive, but I am still stuck in this eddy.  Oh, how I want to flow on.

Letting it go

I've been holding onto the promise of a specific thing.  I've been holding onto this hope for so long.  My fingers have been clenched around it so tight for so long that I am not sure how to let go of it.

But I think I have to let it go.

Not let it go in the hopes that if I do that God will make that thing come around to the way that I want them to be but to really, really let go.  And I don't know if I can do it.

What happens if I don't have the hope of this thing?  Am I going to free fall into nothingness?  Is there a point of life beyond this hope?  I am not sure.  I don't know.

What I do know is that I am loved.  I am loved so much more than this place of holding onto my own desire will allow me to acknowledge.  I've been holding onto this hope so hard that I'm not letting myself trust in the fact that I am loved so much and that there is a plan for what's next.... that I am loved.

So, I need to let go.  I need to close the door.  I need to say goodbye.  God is more than capable of reopening a door if I've closed it wrongly.

Happy New Year (and welcome January, the month of discipline and accountability)

Happy New Year!!

Hooray and be gone 2014, you year of lots of things that I didn't like and lots of things that I did.

Welcome 2015 and all of your adventures, big and small, hard and easy.  What will you bring?  Only God knows.  Literally, only God knows.

But here is January and the call on my heart is Discipline and Accountability.

For the last few months, perhaps the last 6 months I've felt like God was asking for everything.  I mean, he asks that of us always as Christians, to lay down our burdens and to take up his cross and follow - but somehow the call feels deeper again.  Back to Eustace and the removing of the dragon skin.  Another deep wrenching from me the things I put on to hold onto the things I want to hold onto and not be totally his.

So enters January, the month of discipline and accountability.  I should have been doing this before now.  I should have started in September.  It's been brewing since September, but I'm not always ready to be as obedient as I should.  I have control issues.  Oh, boy, do I have control issues.

I'm seeing where my lack of discipline is making me be so distracted by things that shouldn't be an issue at this stage of my life.

I sat down with a note book and made a list.  I made a list of the stupid excess in my life, where I am missing it, what needs to be done so I can be focused on other things.  I tried to be realistic, I know me.  I am undisciplined.

Today was day 1.  Day one.  Ug.  30 days to make a habit.  I need them.  I need good habits and accountability.  Sorry that you who read here get to be subjected to this.

Back here again...

It's five days since Thanksgiving.  My third Thanksgiving without David and I am acutely aware of being alone, again, for the holidays.

I know I am experiencing depression again.  The ending of a market season, the gray days, the prospect of alone holidays, the lack of prospect for the type of deep friendship that I wish for in my life... all of these aspects are weighing on me.  I understand why people become hopeless and despondent at the holidays.

I wish I could say that being a Christian removes all of the difficult things - hurts, loneliness, broken-heartedness, but it doesn't.  Yes, Yes, there IS hope, but belief in Jesus Christ doesn't magic one into automatic peace.

As Westly says in The Princess Bride, "Life IS pain.  Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

So, I choose to breathe.  I choose to get up in the morning and make something of my day.  I choose to believe that there is purpose in my life.  People who used to be friends of mine would call this 'bootstrapping', and I guess I am.

Things get better when I push myself to be thankful for the good things I ca see in my life, the blessings that exist.

But for now, I'm honest.  I'm depressed.  Life is not the way I would like ti to be.  I have a little tiny sliver of hope, but just that.  It'll be ok.  I keep telling myself it'll be ok.  I hope it'll be ok.

Breaking Free of Entanglement

I've not written here for the last few months.  Most of my writing has been for me and God alone.  My heart, oh this silly small heart of mine, has not been available and like with most things it takes me time to chew things out.

I've been back out in the dating scene again, such as it is, and have been spending lots of time in prayer trying to understand both what I want from God in this matter, and more importantly, what God wants from me.

I'm sure I won't surprise you when I tell you that sex is still the most controversial thing when it comes to dating, even as an adult, even as a Christian.  The Biblical idea/ideal/charge/expectation of abstinence is laughed at in the secular world, and that I understand.  What I'm surprised at is how much it's poo-pooed in the Christian dating world as well.  Because, after all, we've all HAD sex and there is no re-virginizing.  We know how to protect ourselves from pregnancy, and disease.  After all, isn't sex just an expression of our care and affection in a physical realm?  We INTEND to marry, so it's ok if we don't wait for marriage, right?

I'm in my mid-40s.  I've been married.  I had a sexual relationship.  All of those things are true.  Somehow, I'm an oddity to say that I want to hold to the self-same ideal of no-sex prior to marriage, and sex only with my husband.  Have I always felt this way since my widowhood?  No.  But it's something that God has really been working on me about... and the level of accountability has been a sacrifice.

There have been men who have walked away from continuing to developing relationships with me because of it.  That's hurt... and I get it because well, frankly, the physical aspect of a marital relationship is something that I miss quite a bit (to put it mildly and appropriately for this setting).

In the end though, I believe there is a man who is both enough in the mental/physical world as well as a spiritual match for me.  I believe I am precious enough to wait to be in an appropriate relationship (marriage) to consummate our love... and I believe he is too.  Is it going to be difficult?  Yes, terribly.  But it still needs to be something that I am willing to do, something that the man I will be involved with is willing to do with me.

I said in my last post that I told God he could have anything, he could do anything.  My sexuality is the sacrifice of anything for me.  It's not an easy sacrifice, but I promised obedience... to which I will still say, "yes, and Anything".

Anything

The last few months I've started blog post after blog post after blog post without finishing any of them.  I've been wrestling with something for the last year that I couldn't really put into words, and I am not sure that I have them now.  Please bear with because I am determined to publish this today.

I don't want a comfortable Christian life.

I've done that, a comfortable Christian life.  I believe in Jesus.  I have accepted salvation.  I have served my church in ministry capacity.  I am fairly well versed in the Bible, I can have conversations about my beliefs.  I have the appearance of someone who has it together.  I had a comfortable Christian life, and I walked away from it because it wasn't enough.

When life got hard, as it does, it was easy to walk away from the church, easy to figure out my own way of doing it, of living life.  I had this. I made choices, went by my feelings, I could use my intuition to make a fairly comfortable life.  It was a good life.  I was a good person.

Then my world fell apart, and all of this self-constructed life imploded.  It was just over a year from that point that I returned to my faith.  Something changed in me.

I'd lived this safe comfortable, happy Christian life.  I knew it was not enough.  I grew up in the church, I knew how to behave, how to appear.  I knew the rules of that life and I knew it wasn't enough because as much as it had changed my heart and had granted me salvation, my life really had not changed.

I determined last Fall that I didn't ever want to get comfortable in my Christianity, that I always wanted to ache and be aware of the depth of salvation.  I would express this desire and very few people understood what I was trying to say, I don't even know if *I* understood what was in my heart.  I'm not sure if I understand it now.  But it's been burning in me for a year, and like an infected pimple I cannot stop scratching at it and picking it.

Today was reading in this in a book called, "Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God And My Soul", and here is a short excerpt that really impacted me:

"I remember the first time it occurred to me that my life looked more like the lives of the people Jesus rebuked than the people Jesus drew near to.  I was reading his words to the religious in Matthew, "So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (23:28).
  
Ugh.  I felt that way.  I knew deep down I was screwed up.  I also knew nobody really knew it, and I liked it that way.  I did not want to be facedown in the sand like all the sinners Jesus healed.  I wanted to stay bright and shiny and good, and comfortably on my feet.  Yet when I read the words of Christ, I felt this call.  A call to fall on my face.

It physically hurts to see our pride, to see our sin, to quit playing good, to feel broken and to need God. And it hurts even more to let others see it.  So we run from falling; we choose large fig leaves to cover up with and not God.  We run from that vulnerable feeling that we may not measure up, all while aching to measure up.

Throughout the history of humanity, this has been how we engage God.  First we ask, is he real?  And second, do we really need him?

What if the thing we are trying to impress him with was the very thing keeping us from him?"

I'm rocked to my heels.  I need this.  I want God to get ahold of me and shake me to my core.  I want to be His girl, the one He uses... in whatever small or large way He has.  I don't want to need this, but I do.  I'm scared.  If I really trust God with my life, if I really let Him have control of it?  What will He ask of me?  What will I lose out on?  What is in store?  Because I DO want to have a comfortable life. I DO want to be cherished and have a happy and simple existence, I do.  I do, I do, I do.

But what I have with God right now is not enough, and I feel drawn to let go and to trust God and say, "Yes" to His call.  I want a reckless faith that says yes.

I have no idea what is in store, perhaps it is a 'normal' and comfortable life.  I have no idea.  But the thing in the depth of my heart wants more of God and less of me (and I absolutely understand how holier-than-thou and churchy this all must sound).  I'm asking for prayer for this journey.  I welcome any companions on this journey, but I can't tell you how it's going to turn out.  I guess I just have this faith that God is going to meet me, and I pray He does.  I know He promises to do that over and over.

So, here I am and the prayer in my heart is, "Oh God of second chances and new beginnings, Here I Am, again today.  I will do anything.  Anything."  

I find myself

I find myself aching again.

In light of Robin Williams' suicide yesterday, I find myself aching for a man I didn't know aside from a very public persona and for the man I knew so very intimately and couldn't save.

(As as aside, I know it wasn't my job to save him, but the thought remains none the less.)

I find myself aching for those of us who have lost loved ones to the heartache of suicide.

I see people talking about suicide as the ultimate selfish act and I just want to throttle them.  Actually, throttle is a kind word for what I'd like to do, but I digress.  I see these people who speak as Christians, use their faith as a weapon of shame and cutting, elevating their opinion, airing their self-righteousness and I ache for the people who they hurt - intentionally or not.  I'd really like to think that they are just so entirely self-focused that they can't imagine how their words might land on someone who struggles.

Then I see other writers, who speak as seekers of Jesus.  Writers who's voices I identify with - not knowing but seeking, who encourage people to get help - and suggest that help beyond prayer might be needed, and I am thankful.  Writers who offer understanding and honesty, salve to the wounds of the disheartened and I too, am encouraged.

I don't have the answers.  If you are hurting and aching, please reach out.  Know that there IS help, seek it.  Take the help and find peace.