I’m a cracked pot!

Two things I know tonight: 1. I don’t fit in this world and 2. It’s okay! My favorite quote in the whole world is as follows:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”  – C.S. Lewis

I have been intensely aware of this “longing” in my soul from the time I was about in junior high or high school. Life is not about what we do in the day to day but in what we do that is eternal.

So when I begin to get bogged down in the many details of life I try to remind myself of two things 1. It’s not about me and 2. It’s all about Him. Him – God.

So what did I do today for the eternal? We were created to live in the Garden and Adam and Eve blew it. Now we live in broken vessels that are dying every day. I’m in this vessel and not, both at the same time. I am reminded tonight that the journey is not about the mundane: jobs, kids etc but about being Jesus to the world who doesn’t yet know Him. It’s about going out of your way to talk to that co-worker and be interested in them even though you want to just roll into a little ball and protect yourself.

Today I am both thankful that I have bipolar and also looking forward to the day when I won’t have to struggle against this body and my mind. To be cliche, I am looking forward to the end of the “race” of life. I will run, walk, crawl into the arms of Jesus someday when my broken vessel gives out for the last time.

Lord let my pot continue to be cracked to let Your love flow out from me to others who need you.

Forgiveness Set Me Free

Because I’ve been forgiven I forgive.

The work begun in my heart of forgiveness is like a gift that keeps setting me free. I’m forgiven by God. Fully, completely.

Tonight I got to share an amazing moment with my two girls. We all had a civil conversation. Yes there were both giggles and tears but there was an amazing work going on in our little family.

Daughter to daughter. Meaningful glimpses of the possibility of their future as sisters. Tears, taking and laughter as we talked about what was on our hearts about each other. About our desire for relationship with one another.

Tonight I shared my journey towards and through forgiveness to my daughters. I was able to tell them I had forgiven their dad (even though he never asked). I told them about how not forgiving almost ruined me but that forgiveness has made me free.

I told them that if God could work in my life like he has to forgive my ex spouse then He could work in their hearts to forgive each other. I told them about praying for other people, even people who had hurt my heart like my ex spouse had, is an amazing thing.

Learned the concept of learning to pray for your enemies I believe sitting in AA rooms over twenty years ago. I began by praying for the desire to want to forgive him and prayed that for about two or three years. god wouldn’t let it go; wouldn’t let me continue to be a prisoner of hurt and shame. Eventually I let it go. I forgave the person who had heart me so deeply I can still barely talk about it.

I’m free and it’s not because I’m no longer married. It’s because God set me free the day I forgave my ex spouse. Do I still struggle? Yep. Jesus said we are to forgive our enemies 70×7. To me that means process and re-forgiving. A lot of it.

Tonight I go to bed with a grateful heart. Happy that God forgave me for what I’ve done and will do. Happy to be the mother of such amazing hearts.

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Cosmic Swiffer Duster

Being present. I swear if I heard another therapist tell me that I was going to scream. I hate pop psychology buzz words like that. Be present. Be intentional. Although the concepts are good they lack depth of purpose. Just doing those things on your own, in your own strength will be unlikely to bring forth change.

“Don’t try so hard to look past the moment. Come on, open your window; let the light shine in. This is life, don’t miss it!”-Francesca Battistelli, Don’t Miss It.

My apartment basement holds my storage unit where my life from years ago is being stored. It’s gathering cobwebs much like my heart is. I was just down in the basement doing laundry and walked over to the area. Standing there I wished that it could all go away, that I could just throw it out and start fresh.

I realized that I could move but that would not change anything in my life. The cobwebs would come back unless I start cleaning. The cobwebs in my heart that hold me back from so many things can only be cleared by God.

I realized something yesterday as I was driving to church. Although I have forgiven my ex husband (no he never asked; it just needed to be done) I have not forgiven myself. Another pop psychology phrase. I realized that I could work through these issues but that wouldn’t really resolve anything.

I know God has forgiven me so if I cannot give myself some grace I cheapening His. The thing about forgiveness and grace is that it doesn’t erase. I live with the consequences of my choices every day and I cannot just forget those because my life is a reminder that something is just not the same.

But it’s not all been bad. God worked in my heart over years (4.5 exactly) to help me forgive my ex husband. It was, by far, the hardest emotional journey I’ve been on this far in my life.

But I’m stuck. I feel like I’m on a pilot’s holding pattern around an airport or base. Forever waiting, never feeling my wheels make contact on the runway. Paralyzing fear and anxiety threaten my peace and they are my enemy that stalks me daily. I’m not sure if they are situational, are part if having bipolar disorder (very common), or stealthy attacks by my Enemy.

Today I ask God, humbly, to clear out the cobwebs in my life so I won’t miss another moment.

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6 seconds that changed my life

“I wanted to tell you that I filed for divorce yesterday.” 6 seconds before I was cherished and loved. Just six seconds. My stability was torn in two by that statement. My marriage stability, that is! Of course it was over long before the six seconds but that is how long it took for my world to break into smitherings.

We are just one moment away from instability at any given time. One phone call away from 911. One heartbeat away from death. One heartbeat until we enter this world at our birth.

The world is spinning on its axis and the only thing in my world that doesn’t change is one person. Every single other aspect of my life has changed or will change.

Lately I’ve been thinking about change. I realized after some thinking that the very thing I desire the most here on earth is elusive. Stability. It’s natural, right?

Marriages break. Kids rebel. Children die. Parents age. Health fades. Friendships change and sometimes they end. Our world is broken and so are we.

Be careful of what you put your stability in because the only thing that cannot be taken away in an instant is your relationship with God. He is the only stable thing in my life. He is also the only unbreakable thing in my life.

Happiness is related primarily to things. Joy – now that’s what you want. Joy is this amazing gift that God can give you right in the middle of the most unstable of times. It is a knowledge that your hope does not lay in having a successful marriage, happy and well adjusted kids, a great job, new car, a home. Joy is in the relationship with our Father.

For this girl who loves something constant the past few years have been especially hard. Now I’m convinced the only constant on earth is that there are no constants! That is why my constant is my God.

I live in a broken world but I serve a perfect God. A God who planned each and every day of my life before I was even conceived. This could mean my lack of stability down here is for a purpose that I might not ever know while I’m living. I am so looking forward to the day when I can fall into my Savior’s arms and maybe then all these crazy puzzle pieces will make a beautiful picture.

I believe the picture that will be revealed when we get to Heaven will be Jesus. Perhaps all the pieces of my life yield a beautiful picture of Jesus for the world to see. Lord, use my broken pieces to point others back to You.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Time in Between

I’ve had 42 years so far in this life. I’m not sure if I will have tomorrow, we are not promised tomorrow. This is not morbid contemplation but an intense realization that it is the time in between my birth and death that I have this amazing opportunity to live out my life for Christ.

The chance for God to use my words, my actions and even my inactions to honor Him. Of course I do this imperfectly. I am painfully aware if that fact.

I have hopes and dreams for my own life but they pale in comparison to this intense desire God put in me to BE Him to the hurting and broken world. To reflect His goodness and compassion to others as the moon reflects the intense light of the Sun. I want to reflect the intense light of the Son of God.

God has set me free from my past and He is in the process of revealing His journey for my life. I think He takes pleasures in giving me just a glimpse of who He is that entices me to seek Him more deeply.

I want to know God more than I want to be a parent, a sister, a daughter, employee, a member of my community. Everything else pales in comparison to my desire to know Him more and to show and tell others about how amazing He really is and how complex.

On the outside my life feels like it’s imploding. My job is temporary, I will need to find another. My car is on it’s last leg and there is no money to replace it. My expenses exceed my income which is a daily struggle. On all accounts a person would sum up my parts and say that they don’t make a whole but they’d be wrong.

The human part of me hopes that I will not live the rest of my life alone, battling bipolar disorder which threatens my health in many ways. I married planning to stay that way until we died. It was not to be in this life. The pain of that bore a hole in my soul that is inconsolable even after all this time.

My humanity threatens worry but my faith remains fixed upon Him. In the middle if the chaos, in the middle of the journey, yea the battle even, is this unshakable joy that comes only from a passionate and radical God who grants me this sense if joy in the storm. He never promised that it would be clear sailing but He did promise to take the helm when we give our life to Him.

Tonight I ask God to make this time in between my birth and my death into a life that points others to Him. To enter into relationship with others; to use my heart to help others to do just that. You see, cars break, marriages sometimes crumble, health fades. The one and only constant in my entire life is my God and my relationship with Him. I want others to encounter God as I have; as He’s revealed Himself to me.

Grab on, give up your life and you will gain life.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Baseball and Jimmy Choo Shoes in the Workplace

I sit here, day after day, listening to the gentlemen nearby talking day after day after day about sports.  I’ll admit that I’m not a sports fan but that is not what motivated my post today. I would like to propose, not to be sexist, that the rest of us pick a mutually agreeable topic and we should petition to have it be socially acceptable.

If sports are socially acceptable chit chat at work, I personally do not see why shopping couldn’t be.  They are both not what we’re being paid to do.  They are both not relevant to the field in which we work.  If the latest pitcher for KSU or whatever university you choose is acceptable then I think we should talk Jimmy Choo shoes and those too should be just as socially acceptable.

Workers of the world, unite!  

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Bless her heart or she’s an idiot?

“Bless her heart!” This three word phrase used primarily by the generation above mine are classic indeed. Instead of saying “she’s an idiot!” They settle sometimes on the socially acceptable work phrase “bless her heart!”

The classy put down but a put down nonetheless. Very glad I wasn’t the brunt of that polite put down at work yesterday!

Words have power. The power to build up and also to destroy or tear down.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Pass the Xanax

This morning I had a full scale panic attack while at work. To make matters worse I had left my medication at home accidentally. It was not pretty. Heart felt like I was having a heart attack, unable to function, move or think. It was not pretty. This was part two. Part one was last night but only slightly bad. Today was the full blown thing.

My bipolar disorder comes with a hefty dosing of anxiety with it. Yes I’ve had counseling for years. Yes my faith is as strong as ever. When your body goes into almost a PTSD like response about my only option is to take something, breathe, pray and wait. I’ve had enough over the years to know they don’t last forever.

Yes it was worry related. I’ve got so many things going on in and happening to me and my life that frankly it is overwhelming. Once I got the physical symptoms under control I was able to focus on the “why”.

Anxiety over seeing my ex last night and also potentially having to see him and his family tomorrow out me over the edge. After a wise consult with my dad I decided to not attend the event of one of my daughters tomorrow. Not attending was in the girl’s best interest.

I honestly do not know what I would do in this life without my faith in and relationship with, God. The answer would be a life of depression and despair. Sure I struggle with depression even as a believer but if I weren’t I wouldn’t still be alive.

I’m looking forward to Heaven someday when I will no longer struggle against my body.

Until next time,