Warning: This post may be jumbled as I work out my thoughts and my heart of the last couple of weeks. I took unplanned time off from writing. This is me jumping back in and trying to make sense of the metamorphosis cycle I have been going through. Emerging from the circumstance not as I entered it. Painful, worth it and waiting for the parables to start coming.
Every once in a while I go through a dry writing spelling. My brain and my hands do not flow as they usually do. Yet, there is so much going on in my life good, bad and ugly. I felt as if I was walking around in a fog. Going, going and going some more. I have found it is in these times when my heart is in agony it is as if my heart hurts too much to even process everything going on around me. I switch off the fix it mode like I would a light switch. I try to be the gal with the plan, if I don’t have a plan certainly I can come up with one. Surely it can be fixed with some duct tape, zip ties and bailing twine. Except, those items do not work for everything and it is this concept I have been processing. Along with that thought process, what is mine to do today?
There are moments when my brain and hands go silent. In these moments it feels as if I have stopped fighting and sometimes fighting is the only way I know to keep going. If I stop how will anything get done? How do you rest and allow life to continue functioning at the same time?
In my case my body throws a hissy fit and gets seriously physically ill. When I was in high school I got mono and ever since then when life gets crazy and I do not slow down, I get sick. It’s as if it is saying you won’t slow yourself down, here, we’ll give you the flu, mono, step, pneumonia, whatever you need to get the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional rest you need. It is my red light there is more going on than physical viruses and bacteria in my body.
This was certainly the case this week as well. I have been forced to slow down, to calm down and thankfully it has given me the time to process life around me. It is for times such as this that I had my tattoo put on my body.
The cross is for the reminder of how much God loves me, so much that he gave his one and only son for me. Sent him to hell to grab the keys of death and saved my soul. The purple flowers are for the trinity. Reminding me the Father Created all things, the Son sets me free and the Holy Spirit is my help. The vine is for John 15:5; “m the vine you are the branches he who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit, apart from me you can do nothing”. It is a three part work of art that has continued to be a source of encouragement to me.
See in times like the last two weeks when the waves around me get higher and the storm grows fierce and it feels as if I will drown. In one of my journals I wrote “I saw the waves & my flesh said oh shit, hell no”. In these moments I live between the boat and Jesus, refusing to accept either rescue and drowning in the sea of all of the voices of those around me. I neither want to listen to the disciples in the boat, nor do I want to listen to Jesus. It seems I get equally mad at both. My flesh and my spirit wage an angry, hissy fit tantrum brought about by my fear and anger.
Today realizing I was looking for something to satisfy me, but not finding anything, I realized what I am looking for is Jesus. I will not find what Jesus can give me in chocolate, wine, sex, friend conversations, work or anything else. I will only find it when I sit down and talk to Jesus. One on one with him and leveling with him about all the crap flying around me.
In these moments I stop running from myself and the pain of everything around me. Confessing I cannot do life on my own. I cannot love those around me on my own, I cannot muster up my own joy and I cannot satisfy my soul with anything the world has to offer me. I came to the throne of Jesus and the beautiful part of this whole story is for the first time in a long time there was no shame when I approached him. I did not try to cover my bruises, scraps, the bones sticking out of my legs and my arms. I did not try to hide the battle I had just emerged from. I felt relief to sit on Abba’s lap. I felt relief to go home and to know he would be waiting for me as he has done every time. To give him thanks at knowing how to love me right where I am. I’m a hot ugly mess and my joy comes from knowing he loves me and calls me his own.