Comfort and Joy

I am being lovingly stretched beyond my comfort zones. As I drove yesterday, I thought of what a comfort zone actually entailed. It is fear, apathy, self-loathing, people pleasing, or whatever other painful wall we have built to protect ourselves? Or is it a border that we have been taught out of someone else's pain? If it is these stop-growth places, I want to smash them all. I want to be brave in my steps and pushing myself into newness. God is placing these opportunities in front of me and I do not want to waste them, ever.
This has been such a hard year but in the past few months the struggle has eased off and in everything there has been so much growth. I am learning boundaries but not in walls of pain- in healthy ones that heal. I am letting myself learn to be okay and not recoil or react. I am reminding myself to be truthful to the point and not catering to the pushers. It is both a wonderful and a hard place. It is a peculiar thing that happens when we try to protect others at all cost of our own selves. This distorted view of being loving, as we are abused into self-protection. Comfort zones.
I have recently found myself in a new season where some amazing women are lifting me up. It has been so long since I have been able to let go and not carry so much. It is undoing me, but I am loving the freedom in all these unsteady places. Stay tuned... there is a new year upon us....



A Haiku Poem

I have missed so much writing time as things stir in my heart but life flies by. There, however, is always time for a Haiku.

Winter's beauty falls
Reading by the Christmas lights
Tea and blankets warm

weaving choices

Lately I am seeing life as being like one of those pick-an-ending story books. The kind where there are multiple pieces and the story weaves depending on which page you pick to turn to. Each ending makes sense, coming to that end regardless of which weaving path you take.
I so want life to be simple and linear, but it is not. It has me hoping that I am not misunderstood, but picking alternate endings, or middles as it would be. I see the building events of the story and how each page is important to the next. I read into every detail. I really do. (Haha.) Honestly, I just want to make each choice count.
These last two years have been a sort of purposeful weaving and have been teaching me so much along the way. I have had the chance to pick the next chapter and it works in with the last. The linear does not exist, but this web of life has brought in other connections from other pages of my story. I love how that works. I love how God works. My good friend always says, "It is already written."
I like to think, "It will be blessed or redeemed." God is the author.

The Best Adventure

The best adventures happen when you take a leap. This reluctant Mamma has decided to travel for church. Today I was free to worship out-rightly in the dimmed sanctuary, prayer walls surrounding. Today the Pastor spoke such an amazingly spirit-filled message- it brought tears to my eyes. Today I felt filled up and reminded that I was tagged for heaven, by Jesus himself.
Then Garry met us and we headed up a mountain to Paul Lake. It was so beautiful; I could live there. Well, if not for the windy road that will soon be covered in winter snow. We had a wonderful family day and played at the water's edge. Autumn's colors were a perfect backdrop.
Today was the best adventure. We are set to go. I am set for change. Letting go. Or rather, running into the unknown. We are also headed the same way for our homeschooling activities. Check back in six months to see how it all pans out. I loved today.

 

A Sad Letting Go.

I once had this friend that I loved. I began to journey one way and her another. It pained me to be close as she would not let me fly. I wanted her to come with me so badly, but there was no strength in her to do so and I could not lift her up. She began to turn away from me more and more. I had to let her go. I hate letting go. I want things to stay the same. I am loyal to the grooves of comfort that are there in deep conversation and families joined in play. Letting go was hard and so sad. I still have a place in my heart for her. A hope for her. I am no longer letting myself be pulled and pained. This is a true story.
There is a place in my life that is just like this. A place that I love in part. A place that I wish to help so badly, that I would put my life on the line. This place isn't ready for change. It is too hard. There is no strength to do so, and I myself am emptied by the amount of pain it brings with it. And so, I have to let go. I am not sure if it even is the right thing to do, but then I remember my friend. You cannot make anyone decide for themselves, but you can choose to not to continue to be dragged down.
We have lived here six years now. It was not what I expected and God has done enormous amounts of healing in my life. I am also not connected to who I thought I would have been. But, six years and I need to be wise. We may love each other, but God takes us through seasons. I want to stay the same forever, but I do not want to stay in the same place.
Decisions are made and I will be walking in them. If they are not for us, they will swerve. If they are for us, we will finally have some relief. I am tired. Maybe I am walking the wrong way and the wind is blowing in my face, not allowing me to breathe. I am going to turn around now. The journey will be easier with the wind at my back, stirring me on.

Overcoming

We need new songs. David sang new songs. We need songs of worship. We need songs of declaration of God's glory, of His grace. We need songs of warfare. We need to cry. We need to shout and stomp. We need to stretch our arms. Songs are attached to our spirits, our hearts. They bring memories and are stories of our churches. We need the times of softening hearts. We need the times of joy after the overcoming ends. We really need to sing more freely. It breaks the darkness .We don't need constant sameness. We need realness. We need scripture declaration. We need "O, my soul" calls. We need to break the heaviness.
I love a new word. I love a new picture of God's love. I love a fresh encouragement. I love a new story of God's goodness. I love a creative melody of scripture poured out. Our God is creative. We are created. I love when I can't resist to stretch my arms wide in agreement from the inside of myself. Great are you LORD. I am not singing just words. I am worshipping. I feel the wind rushing in my spirit. An intimate encounter with the Holy Spirit. You know He is renewing you as you lean into Jesus himself. Seriously, we need to let each other be free. We need to let each other be real. We need new songs.

How the Pro-Choice Movement Has Made Me Less of a Mother.

Next Wednesday it marks ten years since little Mac's birth. Since his death. Since his stillbirth. I am one who likes to put a name to things and I am not even sure how to ever approach the way I talk about it all. Our culture has built up boundaries for the way we can, or do, view young life at this point.
I was twenty-four years old and sixteen weeks pregnant when I found out he was gone. I was sixteen weeks pregnant which is labelled as not counting, not a child, just a fetus.... So, at sixteen weeks pregnant, I was sent home with drugs to help bring forth this fetus. At home I laboured in my bathtub for four and a half hours, doped up on multiple Tylenol Fours, and with not even a follow-up doctor's appointment.
Two weeks later, without even being able to get dressed that morning, I found myself in another doctor's office crying for help. Post traumatic stress she said- is it devastating to lose a child, even a child not yet considered a child.
I will tell you, he was a child. When my body was done dispelling this lost life, I held him. I held a full baby, lost somewhere between eight and sixteen weeks. I saw his formed body, his eyes, his little arms and feet. A baby encased so perfectly in his embryonic sac. When it was all over I wrapped him in a towel, put him in a shoe box, and threw him away. I threw my child away. Since he was not considered a child, I had nowhere to mourn, nowhere to bury him. I knew he was already with God, and I let him go in the most painful and undignified way.
All the time I count my children up. I have four living breathing children now. I have two that have gone. I was a mother then, just as I am now. I felt that little soul inside myself. Each time I have carried a child, they have totalled my children for medical history, and each time I have to explain.... I have had two missed miscarriages (as is labelled the way I lost my children) and four children.
Why do my babies not count as babies? Just maybe, then we would have to ask some real and honest questions of our pro-choice culture. Having babies, wanted or unwanted, is hard. Losing conceived babies at any point in time is hard. They are all life, just as we began. I am a mother of six.