Lately I've been in a big hurry to get life moving. I'm sick of waiting for love. I'm sick of waiting for my career to take off. I'm sick of all this juggling. It's extremely frustrating to be at this place in life where I'm completely ready to move forward, but God is saying "Wait." Thankfully in all of this frustration and antsy-ness God has been affirming me that He is present in what I consider a delay. His timing is perfect & while I don't see what He's up to at this moment, I take comfort in the fact that hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20. So often in life I've been able to look back after a season of stagnancy or a season of pain & I've been able to see God's hand in it all. It's not always easy to make it through those seasons, but by God's grace it happens.
baby, baby, ohhh." crap. Give me Ray LaMontagne singing "You Are The Best Thing" ANY DAY OF THE WEEK! This week my tuneage of choice is Audrey Assad. I fell in love with her first album "The House You're Building" in the Fall of 2010 & she just recently released a new one entitled "Heart". All of the songs are phenomenal, but the one I've been belting out as of late is "Blessed Are The Ones." Her lyrics are simply awesome. My favorite line in this particular song is: "Let's build a house with turned out doors, so we can share what love affords. Pour ourselves out like a wine that we've been saving." This picture of service, of sharing, is so stunning, so true. If you haven't checked her out, PLEASE do so! You can find her albums on iTunes & Amazon. Here's a video of her singing "Blessed Are The Ones" live... so great!  I have a chair in my room that is my sanctuary, my command center. I sit there, hidden away for hours reading, writing, praying... emptying myself. Lately I've been spending more & more time in that chair. Secluded but not isolated, still but not quiet. So much comfort comes from that chair and I don't really know why. Maybe it's this new rhythm life has taken... one that is much more intuitive than ever before. I'm hyper aware of everything around me. My gift of discernment has headed into overdrive and to be honest I kind of like it. The words that flow forth here on the blog and in my own private journals are never-ending. I'm constantly feeling the need to write things down so they don't disappear into thin air. I'm feeling the need to be heard, even if it's only by God. For too long I've been the shy one... the one who would let others interrupt & take over the conversation, the one who couldn't find the words to express anything tangible, the one whose fear kept her from speaking her mind. But today I am so far from who I once was. That girl who was once too shy to call & order pizza has vanished... finally! And here I stand in her place. Not quite confident, but much more so than ever before. Not quite loud, but crescendoing in the most beautiful way. Not quite ecstatic, but walking briskly toward it. I'm reluctantly beginning to find joy in the journey, because I'm realizing that I'll always be on one. Maybe not this same one, but one nonetheless. Right now that journey is in finding my voice... learning to speak my mind with abandon, being OK with the fact that my words might offend and that I cannot please everyone, and standing my ground when I say "No". These are things that I'm not comfortable with, but I'm getting there. I'm learning how to be heard and it's actually pretty great. I see your heart daughter. And it is pure. It is true. It is lovely. Let other people see it, as I can. Bare it for the whole world dear one... hold nothing back. Give them the love that they don't receive from others, that they so desperately seek. Show them that they are loved by Me, by you. I see your heart. Seared & raw, but faithfully mending in relationship with me. I know it is not easy for you, beloved. But you are open, receptive. You are soaking it in and for that I am so proud. You have grown so much and are still growing. Up through the muck, the mire, you have surrendered and let me pull you to the surface. You are growing toward the light and letting me shine through you. If you were to break open, people would surely see Me. Show them often. It is not easy. But you know that I never said it would be. Take comfort, my love, because I am here. Always. Always.   The screaming in my head never ceases... “You aren't good enough for him. You aren't. You aren't. You aren't.” I hate it. The emotions that come with it are never ending & incredibly raw. He doesn't know I feel this way and he probably doesn't care. But I do. I care more than I'd ever like to admit. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want these words to be in my vocabulary. I don't want to think that I'm anything less than what God made me... a daughter of a King. But on those days where I'm feeling fat or stupid or worthless, those accusations fly at warp-speed and I make the choice to believe them. And it's frustrating as all heck. Because deep down, I know the truth. I know that I am good enough for him. I know that a man worthy of my reciprocal love will look past the things that make me insecure and will see my heart. He will see my love for people, my love for Jesus & love me for those things. I know that God does have a plan for us and I trust in it. Even with the minor derailments or delays, I trust. This week those lies have been louder than ever before. And I'm sick and tired of them. I'm sick & tired of believing things about myself that are not even close to being the truth. No matter how loud those lies and accusations are today, I choose to settle in the belief that I am good enough. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has made me good enough & that alone is the most beautiful thing I can think of. Oh bravery, I am so scared of you. I really don't want to have anything to do with you. I'd really like it if I could go through life without having to be brave. And it's not because I'm a wimp... I'm actually pretty freaking strong. It's because being brave can be really painful. And I really don't like pain. But I'm learning that pain is necessary for growth. And in order to grow we must take risks. We must be brave. Our brains constantly try to protect us from painful things and in doing so we learn to avoid risk. This causes us to get bogged down with unnecessary and harmful addictions or coping behaviors. I'm learning that one of the first steps to healing is taking a risk. The biggest risk for me has been actually talking about my addictions and coping behaviors instead of keeping them locked up. It's hard and it really sucks! But the growth and the fruit I'm seeing is beyond amazing. This month has been once of incredible reflection and in reflecting I'm realizing how much braver I have been this past year. I'm realizing that I've taken a lot of risks and that the risks have actually paid off! God has completely blessed my obedience in stepping out in faith and in trusting Him. It's an awesome feeling. But I still think being brave sucks and I'm wondering if there will ever come a point in my life that it doesn't. I'm sitting here a total zombie because I haven't gotten a peaceful nights sleep in almost 2 weeks.
I am EXHAUSTED. Satan is a tricky little bugger and because he realized that he couldn't attack me with temptation and ultimate defeat, he decided to invade my sleep. This started a few weeks ago and I thought it was getting better. I got comfortable, I got complacent, then BLAMO... last night I had one of the worst, most disturbing dreams I've ever had in my life. Needless to say, after awaking from that dream, I was terrified to go back to sleep. And so here I sit, zombied out. Like whoa. incandescent & intense radiant & true she came from the water without a past without a present no story to tell, no experience to relate her lungs filled with air for the very first time completely human completely whole from the water she came, no plan, no purpose glimmering, she emerged with such beauty, such grace she took her first steps on land saw that it had nothing to offer her and dove right back into the sea she came from the water only to return and there she'd live for eternity gliding through the waves luminous & mystical the land could not tempt her to stay the water was her only home her only desire her only love the emptiness is daunting after days of unending words & thoughts flowing forth. the glaring of the pristine page staring back at me is agony. taunting me, tormenting me, saying I'm not good enough to fill it with my expressions, my creativity. where have all those resplendent words gone? where have all those ideas flitted off to? they certainly aren't in my head or in my heart anymore. but I long for them to return. all that's there is emptiness. vapor. i long for the therapy that comes with writing, the accomplishment that I feel when I hit publish, the joy that comes with knowing that God has blessed me with such a tangible gift. i loathe staring at this white blank page in anticipation of what will come next. where have you gone oh exquisite words? and when will you return? 
Sometimes I had a specific project in mind & the results would be pretty good. Other times I had no clue what I was trying to create & the results were less than stellar. But no matter the outcome I was proud of my paintings because they were an honest reflection of who I was. One of my favorite paintings was one of a broken heart. It was dark & brooding and the heart was broken in multiple places. Interestingly enough this broken heart took a while for me to complete. I wanted it to look perfect even though the heart in itself was so imperfect. I labored over this painting for days and once I was finished I wrote the dates of significant heart breaking moments in my life around the edges of the heart. Kinda depressing right?! Yeah. As I looked over the finished product the only emotion that came to the surface was disgust. Something about it just made me angry. It was then that I knew that I didn't want my heart to be broken! It was then that I knew God had healed my heart... completely. I proceeded to paint beautiful, simple band-aids over the cracks in the heart and on top of those band-aids I wrote Bible verses that combated the vision of brokenness reflected in the heart. I hung that painting in my room for quite some time as a reminder of what God had done in my life, in my heart. It's possible that He healed me long before that art experiment, but it was in my painting days that God showed me the reality of my wholeness in Him. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. - Psalm 147:3 | Subscribe
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