The girl I always miss

I opened my eyes with a feeling I can't describe. If you're a middle aged woman, or man, you may understand me when I say, I felt like a river wanted to be set free...oh and pregnant women will totally understand this feeling too. I had no thought, other than to get to my bathroom, and get back in my comfy bed. So grateful the light wasn't coming in my window yet. I don't know how many of y'all sleep with your phone next to you, but I do. I do put it upside down so the light doesn't wake us up in case of a late text, or Facebook notification...which has happened to us on several occasions, but it's always there next to me.

 I always tell myself that it's so I can get an emergency call, or text and also because it makes the perfect "light" for my path to the bathroom now that I have to get up every couple hours. Yes, it is just the right amount of light, it is small and easy to use. However, it never seems to stay lit up long enough for me to make it to the bathroom?? This is so frustrating to me that I find myself speaking out loud to myself about what a "pain in the butt this thing is *%$#@!! Why can't it just stay on for another second so I can make it in the bathroom???" 

April 27, 2019 was no different. I rolled over to get up, grabbing my phone as I got my feet to the floor, only this time I flipped my phone over to light my way & it was lit up with my alarm going off on silent? I thought, "what the heck? Did I forget something? Uh oh, I knew my sleep was going to well." ...but then in my blurry, sleep filled eyes, I made out the name on the alarm..."Hannah's 8th birthday, ALL DAY"...

I can't lie, that one single sentence broke my tear ducts and they started to flow. My tears were not what I see on the memes about how "God catches each tear," no it was more like a flash flood in the desert. I didn't know if I would drowned in them, or maybe just take a white water river raft through them. I only knew that I had opened a flood gate I was not expecting in this moment.

I quickly swished off that alarm and flipped my phone over to the ground to try to escape the room without waking up Terry...I had no idea how I would explain my sudden onset of a total breakdown in the middle of the night. I was just about to the safety of my bathroom when that light went out...I started to cuss again, when suddenly I heard the cry of my old sweet golden retriever, Trinity. She was normally on her bed which is out of the path, purposely. But it is starting to get warmer here in Texas and it's cooler for her to lay on the wood floor. 

Of course tonight was the night she picked to begin her cooler spot routine. She yelped and jumped up and I heard Terry stir...I found myself pushing her into the bathroom in front of me, I usually don't enjoy her hounding me for affection when I am in the bathroom, but this time I just WANTED in the quiet place so I could get with God!! She was so glad to have the invite and she instantly turned to greet me, forgetting that I had just stepped on her tail hair and how it hurt. Nope she was just thrilled to be part of my retreat. Then in her eyes I saw the realization that her person was crying? She needed to fix me.

I apologized to her while I tried to get by her as quickly as I could. In the chaos and drama since that first feeling of needing to set the river free, I had forgotten why I was up. I made it past her and as I sat down I began to beg God to bring His peace...she rushed over to fix me with her soft head and sweet eyes...I ruffled her head and told her "mama's ok girl, go lay down."

As soon as she was settling, I cried out ..."please Poppa please take this now!! I forgot while I was sleeping that today was the day I met her!!! I don't want to feel this, please OOOOHHHH God please take this HURT..." As I sobbed these words in my mind and out loud, I heard the faintest whisper, "It's ok girl, it's ok girl, it's ok My girl...here, come here, sit with Me, let Me hold you...ok, give her to Me...she is Mine...I have her." 

In that moment my faith rested back in His whispers, but my fear came back louder, "why?!? WHY?!?! WHY are You punishing me?!?!? What did I do to lose her? Why can't they forgive me?!?" He gave me the space to speak what my heart was saying to Him. To say what He knew, and has known, I was hiding in my heart when my lips were saying, "I am good, He has her." He let me hide behind those lies until I asked Him recently, again, to break my heart for what breaks His. When I surrendered more and asked Him to show me what I was holding...He showed me. He allowed me to feel the break of the heart. To really feel how His heart breaks for His children that don't know Him, or maybe they don't want to know Him...the pain of the rejection by people He loves. In that one moment, that single moment of hurt, He brought HUGE understanding to this daughter.

In that same moment, this daughter surrendered her need to feel ungrateful. I honestly felt a feeling of sadness that I haven't felt, ever in my life...a feeling of loss. A loss that I have always seen as a feeling of "without." I was suddenly seeing this not as a bad loss, as "He is with" kind of loss.

I lifted my hands and my face Heavenward...I whispered, "here is my heart, I only have this broken heart to offer You today...but You LORD can have it NOW." 

I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep. I kept talking to God and finally when I let go of the idea of going back to bed this day, I said, "ok fine, I will get into my reading time with You, in Your word, but please give me something...please give me a whisper to hang my hope on today..." With that I opened my phone...this was the 'verse of the day' on my app that morning. I took this beautiful whisper and I created a reminder, to help etch it on my heart and in my mind...

He met me there...He always meets me with His whisper, if I ask and seek whole heartedly. He has never left me hanging. He never will. He tells us in His word He is ALWAYS the same. I had forgotten this truth in my moment of a shattered heart, I was too focused on my pain. Not that my pain wasn't important, because I truly believe that many times He will only be able to reach me by allowing this hurt to become so painful, my only instinct is to find relief. More often than not now days, my first response is to run to Him and ask Him to help me. He knows this. He knows me. He knows every thought, every word, He numbers my tears. I rarely let Him down, as far as running to Him for help that is, it's now so important to me...to seek Him before anyone or anything else. 

When I read this verse, He helped me find this picture. This was the picture that came to my mind as I read His whisper. This picture is one I dearly love. There's no denying the joy and love between the 3 of us. It brings me comfort to look at these 2 girls that mean so much to me, together...a daughter and her mama with her nona...she's so happy. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this sweet face with this happiness in 2.5 years now. Not because she doesn't want to, not because I don't want to, because God's plans are different than ours. For a long time I blamed her dad and his wife. God however has walked me out of that valley of lies. They may be the ones ignoring the calls and texts. They may be the ones who have chosen to take half her blood family out of her life...but believe me when I say, these are not the real reasons. They are NOT God's reasons.

God was very bold about taking me to the real reasons why. I asked Him to make sure I understood and He gladly gave me what I asked for. In my reading He spoke of bringing everyone to Him. Him wanting His children to know Him. He reminded me that He IS bigger than any reason for people choosing to forget Him, or just choosing not to believe in Him. He also reminded me that He is bigger than the pain I fell into and He WILL save every person willing. He spoke of working through the smallest and weakest to the greatest to reach everyone. My time in His word with Him, was filled with wisdom I had not known and some I had simply forgotten under the pressure of everyday struggles. He knew I had lost that wisdom, that I had lost that piece of me in my chaos of trying to hard to "accept" this loss. I may have been telling everyone "I am good with this. God has her." But He knew that I wasn't really believing that...not in this moment.

 He knew that I had set this alarm, He didn't forget...I did, but He didn't. He didn't want me to hurt, to drop the words I was using as I stumbled in the dark to get to safety...He wanted me to hand over that pain to Him, and really mean what I was saying, again. He isn't expecting me to be a perfect "Christian" woman, He knows who I am...but He loves me still. 

I realized as I read and stopped to talk to Him about the words I was inhaling, that He also loves them. His biggest desire is for them to seek Him and find the love He has for them. He knows that Hannah is part of that surrender...He created her to be a catalyst for Him. He knows this princess will be back holding the hands of those she loves...following Him and leading them to Him...guiding them like a "light" in the darkness of night. He reminds me who she is...to many more, than just me.

She is His, first. He created her for a purpose greater than being my grandprincess. That's where I get it turned around. That's where my impatience grows. He will give me the space to self correct, knowing that I will "pretend" I have learned...until I can't pretend anymore because the cost is much too great. Then He will remind me that this time of pain is a time of growing, IF I surrender my expectations. In my surrender I will find that peace I beg Him for. It is waiting for me to let go, then it rushes in. But it waits for the true surrender before flooding me.

This year is another year I was without the gift of hearing her laugh on her birthday...of seeing the joy in her eyes when she opened up the gifts I took the time to thoughtfully pick out for her creative, giggling, gentle little self. I sent them any ways. I text anyways. I refused to surrender to the lies of the enemy. 

Instead I sat with my family, I walked to the park with her mama and her little sister...I played with her and shared giggles and dancing in the sunshine. We stopped to take pictures of the beauty that surrounds us here in Texas...the amazing wildflowers that bring happiness to a couple of desert girls. Along the way we found the "wishes" that I have loved as long as I can remember. I shared with my girl, "each of the seeds represents a wish being wished, and a seed being sent into the wind." She asked me if I wanted to pick one and make a wish, I giggled and said yes. I stepped into the yard to pick just the right one. 

I found it and picked it, I turned to see her searching for one too and I felt grateful. Grateful my girl has hope, still. She asked if she could video me making my wish, I said "sure, it's real." I asked God to bless my grandprincess and to bless each of them too. To bring forgiveness to this family and heal hearts. I blew the "wishes" off into the wind and when I opened my eyes to see an empty stem, I was surprised by a single "wish" being left on there...I said, "this is for my Hannah, may she always know God and his love." As I finished I looked over at my girl and she was making wishes and blowing them into the wind, when she finished there were 2 "wishes" left on her stem, she said one of each of them.

Sometimes, I am learning, it takes a mountain of pain I can't move by myself to wake me up to the truth that He IS God. He IS in control. No amount of crying, or begging will rush Him in His plan. In fact, it may very well bring a rush of exactly what we are trying to escape. It might bring forth some shaping that He's been waiting to do. In this world they tell us that is a bad thing...but Jesus overcame this world...so we could be free of their definitions of good and bad. It's not a bad thing to surrender people and parts of us that are hindering us from becoming who He created us to be. Pieces of our own hurt that we have buried so deep we have forgotten about them, but He wants to dig those up...not to hurt us, but to give us freedom. With the freedom comes the truth that the enemy can no longer hide in that pain and create anger and hurt. It takes away a weakness satan can use against us...it gives God permission to heal and reinforce this place. It instantly gives us God's perfect strength.

I still miss my grandprincess, I will until the day I see her again, or until Jesus calls me home...but that emotion doesn't have to control me, or my willingness to forgive, even when they aren't sorry. I will hold this crown for my grandprincess, until I see her again...In the time between, I will trust God and His love for us, all.

Happy 8th Birthday my sweet, feisty, beautiful grandprincess, I pray your day was just a special as you are...I love you forever and always...Nona

   

Loving means what??

Well, I know yesterday I shared about not wanting to pray for someone. I was holding onto that list of wrongs for a good part of my day yesterday & clinging to some unforgiveness. I went to bed feeling justified for having been the dealer of a day of silence, which is NOT part of my personality, I am very talkative on most days. I know that going to bed with this frustration towards someone will make for a restless night, yet I made the choice to carry it to bed. Then this morning I was trying to remember as many of those hurts as I could, so I still didn't have to forgive. But God...His heart breaks when His children hurt each other. He covered so many of those hurts with His perfect love & brought me peace & a desire to dig deeper into why it breaks His heart. 

So many times I seem to want to justify why I am hurt, or angry. I forget that God already knows the why's & the who's & that in that knowledge He is working, not only in them...but in me as well. It's easy to point my finger at the one I blame for hurting me & find cover in their part of the pain. That cover seems to blind me to my own part in the situation. It makes it easy to hand them the blame & for me to sit back in my self righteousness & shake my head. Only a single, but very important, problem with this attitude...they aren't the ones suffering. I don't mean painful suffering, I mean carrying a heavy burden, kind of suffering. The kind of suffering that doesn't let me move on...doesn't allow me to learn what God is teaching me. It limits my ability to be molded into the woman He created me to be. My choice to hold onto what I am choosing to be offended by, greatly affects where my focus is.

I assume they're also holding onto this hurt too, pretty quickly my assumptions lead to my own expectations not being met. They have no idea of what my expectations are, so they can't possibly meet them. Soon that unmet expectation becomes frustration & my frustration becomes a deep, lingering bitterness. When the bitterness takes root, it will bury itself as far into my heart & mind as it can reach. That ugly root of bitterness can block people's view of who God is making me. It can block my view of who God is creating it others too. It's reach depends on me holding onto my own suffering & hurts. As long as I cling to those wounds, the roots will keep going deeper. If I am completely honest, many times in my life, I've had such deeply rooted bitterness I still haven't found them. 

Those deeper rooted hurts are what God is digging up in me. The old me wants to find someone to blame, mostly because I am afraid to face this part of who I am. It's been my defense mechanism for decades...to bury the hurts deep & hold onto what they make me feel. To carry the pain as a banner for what kind of person this person was to me. Making sure that everyone who sees my banner, sides with me. They see why I am holding onto the why's against the who's. But God...He never leaves me in my pit of hurts. Today He took me deeper into my own dirt, while He had me searching for the GOLD in him. He reminded me that this is a man I love & that more than that, he's a man that He Himself loves. Dirt & all, He loves us.  

As I sat talking to God during my workout, He reminded me how much He loves me. I heard His gentle reminder of Jesus's directions to me in John 13:34-35...

"So I give you now a new comandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you're my true followers." 

...Oh how I love The Passion Translation. I seem to read several translations, most of the time trying to gain a deeper understanding of what God is teaching me. Today I went straight to TPT. I wanted a gentle whisper. God never fails to meet me wherever I am willing to surrender to His calling & when He does, He brings the wisdom I am seeking. Always, without fail.

I read these words & my flesh began to rise up & answer, "I have loved him like you love me. My hearts greatest desire is for him & everyone who You place in my path to see You in me, to seek You because they see You in me. How can I love him anymore like You?" With this question came a mighty response! He didn't hesitate to take me directly to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 in TPT...I love these verses in any translation, but in TPT they can NOT be misunderstood. There is no confusion as to what He means by "love them like I do." 

Love is LARGE and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to ALL. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does NOT brag about one's achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does NOT traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek it's own honor. Love is NOT easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds NO delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it NEVER gives up.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Suddenly I understood. I really wasn't loving him. I was not respecting him. I was not being consistently kind. I was not only easily irritated, but I was delighting in believing I was right. I wasn't being a safe place for him, nor was I being gentle. Yet I was expecting him to see Jesus in me, to know me as a true believer of Jesus...hmmm seems like I was more interested in bragging to God about how I was "loving him"  than I was about hearing how to truly love him. I was chasing a confirming response from God. I wanted Him to sit with me & vent His frustration with me about him, just like me. Instead God wanted me to see my part, He wanted me to learn to love, really love. He wanted to sit with me & show me the answer to my question..."how can I love him anymore like You?" He wanted to dig up the root that I was trying to bury. He wanted to replace it with a root of His perfect love. God knows my hearts greatest desire. He knows I want to love like He does. So He refused to allow me to sit in the lie that "I was loving him like God loves me."

I finally sat down & let God speak His wisdom, when I heard Him whisper, "anyone can find his flaws, be the one to recognize his goodness. Love him like I love you." That's where I am now. Still working on releasing him from my expectations  & finding the love that God wants to share through me. Even if he has no idea of the battle that I have been fighting, if he never shows me love the way I have learned to feel loved, I will choose to remember that love is patient & kind, generous with joy & purposely hard...purposely a challenge...purposely buried in God. If love was easy what would it cost us? If loving came easy it would be so easy to toss away those with dirt that is still being washed away. It may be easier to love those who we want to love...but to love those who are difficult to love brings so much more joy to us...not only us but to God. Loving people who we are angry with or who hurt us allows God to love them through us & they will recognize true lovers of Christ.

Jesus reminds us in Luke 6:32 about loving those who love us back when He says, "Are you really showing true love by loving those who love you back? Even those who don't know God will do that. Are you really showing compassion when you do good deeds only to those who do deeds to you? Even those who don't know God will do that?" 

Even those who don't know God love & help those who love them, so what will show the same kind of love as Jesus has in those of us who do know God? The only thing that will is loving those who people who nonbelievers can't love. The ones who we consider frustrating, or have hurt our feelings. The ones who don't meet our expectations, or who have no idea how to love us back. Loving them with the kind of love Jesus loves us.

Are you carrying a offence? Do you feel the need to explain to God why? Well please get with God, ask Him to teach you what His definition of love is, to show you the differences between the way He loves & the way you love. The person who chooses to be offended is the one carrying the biggest burden...surrendering the need to be right or to make them see your way, will free up your mind, heart & soul to learn to love like Jesus. 

That's exactly what I did this morning. Today I found a joy in praying for him. Instead of searching for his dirt, I asked God to show me my own dirt & asked Him to wash it away...along with the hurt I was holding onto. 

No, I don't want to...

"I am leaving you with a gift~peace of mind & heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world can NOT give. So don't be troubled or afraid."

John 14:27 NLT

This morning after I finished reading the study plans I am currently learning in & my time with God in Isaiah, I was trying to talk God into letting me skip praying for someone. I was explaining my frustration & giving Him a list of reasons for why I didn't think today I should pray for this person...but God. He didn't let me get through my long list of hurts & bitterness. Instead He gently whispered, "I want you to sit down & pray for him. That is why." When God gets quieter, I know He is trying to get me to listen. So, I began to lift my aggravation at having to spend time purposely praying for someone who I know doesn't pray for me, who I feel isn't even interested in lifting my name to God's Ears & who most of the time I wouldn't even have a clue is interested in being near me. But God reminded me with these words, that the praying for him is much more about what God is doing in me, than for his benefit. In that moment, I felt God's joy, His peace & even my own heart & mind resting back into God's peace & joy.

In that simple moment of Holy Spirit rushing forth, I felt the sweet love of God. I can't say that I was immediately excited to pray for him, but what I can say is I was immediately excited by God sending forth His Personal Helper to me, in an instant. I don't know about you but I struggle with letting go of my frustrations sometimes. I can carry the bitterness of hurt like baggage for a long, long time. It's not that I don't understand the things that come along with carrying that baggage of bitterness, I do, it's more like I carry it to make sure that I don't forget that the person, or people have hurt me. To keep them "accountable" to their mistakes...yes, I did just open up that can of truth...Instantly God takes me to Jesus's words in John 8:7,

So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

Oh yes Lord I forgot about this piece of truth. I had put aside this truth to feel my pain & aggravation. I didn't want to remember because then I would have to lay down my own pain, I would have to face my own junk. I have learned that when I lay the baggage at God's feet, He will pick it up & free me from the feelings that go with all that junk. 

When I was growing up & for a good portion of my life after that, I learned how to blow up in my anger & how to use words to take people to their knees in moments when I was feeling hurt, let down or even made to feel less than. Those were the weapons I had been taught to use against people in my life. Those weapons most times would bring a moment of relief, then a lifetime of regrets. For a little over a decade now, God has been working on teaching me to use His weapons to fight with. Instead of cruel, hate filled words, He has been trying to get me to remember in the most heated moments, to reach for Him, to walk away from the old weapons & grab onto His newly planted weapons...but I didn't have the understanding to use them. I wasn't investing in my relationship with God, or learning to respond with His love, I was just repeating the same old things.

In the last few years God has been teaching me that He provides weapons for me. Weapons that unlike my old ones, would bring healing & peace to me & to the other person too. He taught me that when I first became a Christian, I was like a new born, I could only be fed His Word. I had to be taught what He meant by His Word. I couldn't figure out how these "old stories" had anything to do with the world today? As I have made God more & more the center of my life & my foundation, I am learning to understand His word & understand why He places His perfect weapon here & a different weapon there. In other words, I am learning why understanding His word is so important to my faith. I have learned that His Word is ALIVE & RELEVANT in every situation. That it isn't a book of old stories, but His book of life giving instruction. His word will never grow old & is always moving & breathing in my life. That if I will dig deep in His word & allow Him to speak through it, I will have every weapon I need.

In fact just the verse above that one it says...

"But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative that is, the HOLY SPIRIT, He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you."

John 14:26 NLT

All I have to do is pray & Holy Spirit will intercede for me!! So even in the moments when I don't know what to pray for, or who, Holy Spirit does. He will bring wisdom & a whisper from God in those exact moments. I simply have to believe & act on God's request. In moments when I am holding onto my own peace & love, I can fail at loving someone, or having perfect peace, but God can NOT fail. 

In the times my deepest desire is to give up on someone & walk away, Holy Spirit intervenes & brings exactly what I need in the perfect time. Even when I am stomping my feet & throwing a fit, God will continue to ask me...until I finally give in & be still so He can show me the parts I am holding onto. Pieces of who I was that keep me from God, or keep me from loving like God. He is patient & will wait for me to recognize His plans, even when I don't understand why.

I finally gave in & I got my journals out & began to write my requests down for him...well maybe more like what I wanted from him...but God still didn't leave me in that pit. Instead He asked me to put aside what I wanted to change about him & let Him show me the same sin in my heart. To let go of the offences I have been clinging to. Instead, He asked me to hand the broken pieces to Him, so He could fix them. Then give them back to me whole & complete. I won't say that I joyfully, or generously prayed for him, but I did eventually make it out of my frustration & back into God's perfect peace & love...in my heart & mind.

So, is there someone's offense you're holding onto today? Are you still holding a grudge or hurt feelings against someone? I know that you may feel justified in your feelings of frustration & bitterness, but please try taking those emotions to God. He will validate that you are hurt, or angry, but He will remind you that the ONLY one suffering from clinging to your feelings, is you...the person carrying around that baggage is you. Real freedom is found in forgiving & laying down the the junk you're carrying at God's feet...then picking up God's grace & peace while you move forward with His amazing love. That is my current prayer, that I can lay down my own emotions & make sure I am carrying God's weapons into battle, like His perfect love, instead of all my anger & brokenness. He is faithful & will quickly bring a word...I simply have to lay it down.