Worry……..

 “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life” Matthew 6:27

My mind worries and races all the time. I have struggled with worry most of my life. I conquer it temporarily only to slide back into the pattern of it again.  I think I am not even cognizant of it most the time. I live in it, not recognizing it because I am so used to its presence in my life.  But I know there is a better way- a new way that God is calling me to. Where the desire to control loses its grip on me. Where I slide off the suffocating yolk of fear- anxiety- what if’s- what about’s and take up yolk of Christ. This is a yolk of peace, truth, love, mercy and grace. What if I focused on the cross every time worry advanced? On the ransom paid for me- a broken, struggling, stinking mess of a person like me? If every time a fearful scenario started to play in my head I replaced it with a picture of outstretched arms- body broken – blood shed in agony that I could be free? What would it look like if at the very site of fear and worry - I dropped to my knees in praise and thanksgiving for that all was paid for me? What greater scenario can I face- more frightening than separation from my creator- the lover of my soul? Can anything separate me from Him- ever? The Apostle Paul was so sure of the truth that nothing could separate God from us.  He wrote “ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  But yet… But yet I doubt… I worry- I stew and fret. I let the worries dwell- fears grow- conflict sit in my mind until they take up all the room and nothing is left to praise Him for all that is good in my life.  I cling to things I cannot control- problems I was never meant to solve. The stories spin- conversations that have never happened. Outcomes decided in my mind alone because of my unbelief. Birthed in worry and fear rather than in truth. Things imagined that might never come to pass- that could never come to pass in the way I would imagine them because God alone knows the future. 

In my worries I become like a little girl standing before her Father.  Arms full of broken toys- refusing to put them down- trying to make them work but parts are missing- batteries are dead- pieces don’t fit or are long worn out. The Father holds a big shiny box. A gift- new things- things I need- things to bring joy- But I refuse to open the box- I would rather cling stubbornly to what is in my arms – to try and make things work that are useless now. All the while the Father gently pleads- lay it down- take this gift- trust me that what is in this box is better than what you cling to. The box holds grace, mercy, peace, wisdom and truth. It is everything I need but I am so afraid to let go of all I have- to truly empty my arms so the Father can fill them. My controlling nature- my flesh would rather be full of the wrong things than be empty, because emptiness would mean total abandonment of all control. So I cling to worry- fear- worldly comfort- the approval of other people- all these things give me a false sense of control. Better to cling stubbornly to the allusion of being full than face the nothingness of total surrender. Into the nothingness- the emptiness is where I am terrified to go. To really let go and see what is there. But that is the beginning of what I need.  The filling from God. That I might let go one by one of the broken pieces of my life so that I am total empty- arms limp- so that God can gather me into his. To fully glimpse His glory- His peace and love. To place in my arms what I truly need. The truth that God alone is all I need. And what I need is better than anything I could ever desire.

The heart of my current struggle with worry is rooted in my loss. I cling stubbornly to the idea that I will never be as happy as I was when my husband was alive.  That the giver of every good gift somehow loves me less or is less trustworthy with what He gives. That I will never be whole again. The place of contentment alone is unattainable now. I am clinging to the desire for my old life with all that I have. I hold the past so tightly and scream- “No God! You can’t have the past- I need to live in it to be whole.” If I truly give that over I will have nothing- be nothing. But what I think I hold onto is an illusion. The memories are there but Dave lives today with you. You chose Lord- to take him to be with you. To change his residence. He died and you said,  “This is my will”. My good and perfect, pleasing will to heal him in eternity. So much beauty when one of your children comes to you in paradise. No more tears- no more pain- no sin- no burden of shame- only your glory in all it’s perfection.  So much beauty wrapped in such a terrible, incredible gift. The tearing apart of a family- The two who had become one- who were adhered as it is defined in the Greek  “as if glued” are torn apart. Total destruction accomplishes your will. Only you can step in now God to fill that hole that's left. To complete in me what was torn away.  Just like when the veil was torn- when the perfect union between Father, Son and Spirit was broken. The greatest purpose in the history of the world was fulfilled. To reconcile a lost world back to you.  You know the pain of separation God. You know loss. You turned your face away the loss was so great on the cross. Even you, the creator of the universe could not look upon it.  You know.  Because you know, only you can truly give me what I need now.

So maybe what is in shiny new box for me- for all of us - can be trusted as better than all the wildest dreams and desires - than the past- than our attempts to control. The gift is greater than the most insurmountable fears.  I want to know it’s okay to let the broken toys slide to the floor- the pieces I am holding that no longer fit - those can be replaced as I stand with arms wide open before the God who is the giver of every good thing. Beauty and love wrapped in an awful, wonderful, painful, incomprehensible gift.  I am standing on the brink. I am praying I can let go and take the gift.

Why Blog??

This is a an ironic question for me.  We live in the overwhelming abundance of a virtual world. Texting, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. These are terms that are thrown around our house on a daily basis. They haven't meant a whole lot to me and I don't really have the patience or brain power to learn how to use them, although I do use email and have a Facebook account.  Technology is really not my thing so publishing a blog isn't something I have pictured myself doing. In all honesty, it has taken me way too long to just figure out how to get my words onto this page and now I am not sure if anyone else will ever actually find it to read it. I love the face to face time I get with family and friends. I love to look into their faces while we talk, hear their laughter and their stories. I treasure every word we share. I think this is even more precious now that I am widowed. I live with a seventeen year old who while wonderful is not always the most thrilling conversationalist and let's face it, seventeen is an age where things revolve around you and only you.  So my days are sometimes so quiet, the silence is suffocating so talking through a computer screen is very unappealing.  But yet something has been calling to me for a while now to find a better way to preserve the details of this unfolding life.  

A few months after my husband died a package arrived in the mail. In it was a little book. A sweet journal with shiny flowers and comforting words on the cover.  A friend had slipped in a note with it that said 'You probably can't pray- can't breathe- can't think,  but write- write to God- He will answer. It began in reluctance at first, mostly in anger and questions and anguish. But the answers have come. He has spoken over and over through seven additional journals since the first arrived in my mail box. In the midst of this journaling has come a precious gift. A refuge when the winds of pain howl and the dark clouds of grief over take me. This blog is a record of some of the most pivotal conversations between God and I from those journals. And hopefully more conversations to come. But these are not just thoughts and ideas and prayers. Those are in there. But it is first hand view of the unfolding of God's grace in my life. Of a new relationship with him. After walking with Jesus for 20 years it was obvious to me that I really didn't know him the way I thought I did. This is the story of  a broken, bleeding, aching woman learning to really humble herself for the first time in her life to really know her God and to be known by him in the deepest places and to experience love like never before.