Touch The Sky

Happy New Year! Although I'm always sad to leave the Christmas season, I welcome the chance for a new beginning and to make a fresh start. This year is already looking better than the last few, which is promising. In previous posts, I talked about how I ended up with a concussion after hitting a deer a few years back and had been suffering from headaches, neck pain, and dizziness ever since. This whole time the most I had gone without one of those symptoms was around 3 days, but I am happy to say I've gone pretty much the whole month without any of those symptoms... yay! During these last two years, I really wondered at times if I was ever going to get better, so this is a real encouragement to know that, YES, things will get better, sometimes it just takes time. 

On the other hand, some other things in my life are still up in the air. It feels like my life is coming together and unraveling all at the same time. I mentioned in a previous post that I was going back to school. I am now in my second semester of a Masters program in Human Service Counseling and I'm loving it! Although I don't know for certain where this is going to lead me, I know it's taking me into a new life... or at least another phase of it. This is a gift because my girls are at the age where they are heading out on their own. My oldest already has, and my youngest only has 2 years to go so I feel God positioning me for a new purpose, which is hopeful. That being said, I am discouraged about other things, one being some of my relationships. I am trying to hold on to them for dear life, but it's not looking good. This is so far out of my control that recently I have had the insight that I just need to let go... not completely let go of the relationships yet, but give them up to God to take care of. This is really hard for me to do. I've always tried my best to make sure I give my relationships the attention they need to survive... so to just let them go goes against my natural tendency to keep them from going under. I have never done this in my entire life, but this is what I feel God is telling me to do and I trust Him. I don't know where this is going, but He has always taken care of me in the past so I know He will work this out too. The miracle of it all is that I can already tell that the more I let go, the more I see things more clearly and the more I can see a new life beginning to form. Again, I don't know where it's headed but little by little I see it turning into something that was made just for Me.

Today I had a conversation with someone that compelled me to let go even more. It gave me a new insight into the relationship, which left me feeling really sad and even more hopeless that the relationship will survive. The biggest problem is that the conversion with this person made me question my worth in their eyes. I didn't question what I knew my self-worth to be, but it was hurtful to acknowledge that they didn't see me the way I saw myself. Feeling very discouraged, I took Bella on a walk and looked for a new perspective. It didn't take me long to realize that if someone didn't see my worth, that person shouldn't be in my life. And if God's trying to show me this, I need to pay attention.

Years ago I read Restoration Year by John Eldredge and one of my favorite passages says this, "You see, friend, true surrender is not an easy out, calling it quits early in the game. This kind of surrender comes only after the night of wrestling. It comes only after you open your heart to care deeply. Then you choose to surrender, or give over your deepest desires to God. And with them you give over your heart, your deepest self. You will find that the freedom and beauty and rest that follow are among the greatest of surprises." Beautiful. I remember wondering what that would be like... to completely surrender it all to God and then to find freedom, beauty, and rest. Maybe in order for our lives to become what they are meant to be, maybe in order for us to become who we are meant to be, and maybe in order to completely trust God, what we need to do is completely surrender. Maybe this is where the miracles begin, and this is where our real life begins, and it is only then that we are truly able to Touch The Sky...

"I found my life when I laid it down..."




 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving Forward

Image
With all the chaos that's going on in my life right now I was kind of surprised at how well Christmas turned out. I knew this would be our last Christmas here, in this house, with all four of us together, so I wanted it to be a good one so we could end on a good note, however, given the situation we're in, I didn't get my hopes up. So when I was able to spend most of Christmas morning with just the girls (Nolan had a headache and stayed in bed for most of the morning), I was very grateful. It was not only fun, but it gave me a peek into what next year might be like with just the three of us... not only on Christmas morning, but all the time. I know they'll come a time when they meet someone and have families of their own, but until then I'm going to savor every bit of time we get to spend together just the three of us.  Actually having our last Christmas with just our family was also a gift. When my oldest daughter graduated almost 4 years ago, I secretly prayed tha
Read more

Connection

Image
Recently I listened to a Martha Beck podcast on fawning... it's part of the 5 trauma responses; fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop. These are things we do unconsciously to keep us safe when we're faced with a conflict. Fawning is, " where a person behaves in a people-pleasing way to avoid conflict and establish a sense of safety." After I listened to it, I thought, "I don't really do that, except maybe in my marriage to avoid conflict, but I think that's it." Of course the minute I said this I had an instance at work... I've been working as an RBT (Registered Behavioral Technician) and ran into some miscommunication problems between me, a supervisor, and a parent. I'm sure there's been times I've unintentionally caused some communication problems, however, this time it wasn't me and I found myself in a position where I either had to stand up for myself, or throw myself under the bus. Since reading Martha Beck's book, The Way
Read more

So Long

Image
This is it, another few weeks and it's done. I'm moving out and moving on. It's what needs to happen but the reality of it is hitting me hard. Although the marriage was over years ago, I now wonder if it had ever really begun... I'm guessing there was something there in the beginning or we wouldn't have gotten married, and I remember the good times, how close we seemed, and thinking we were meant to be together... of course we were, weren't we ?  Although, how can you be that close to someone one minute and then completely forget them the next when something better comes along? How can you just leave them behind without even a glance? And how can you not show one shred of emotion when what they're in need of is love and compassion? Now I'm left wondering what the hell happened and seeing that, for at least half of the time, if not more, I was completely left out of it... left out of my own marriage, how does that even happen? And then looking back at th
Read more