Archives

What I Love to Do That Feeds My Soul

Jan22

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What I love to do that feeds my soul.

I love to sit in the big chair next to my window.

There is much to do there; journal writing, Bible study, reading whatever read is striking my fancy. It is most always quiet.

If not total silence, then quiet piano playing in the background. I find the solitude very useful. 

Simply gazing out the window and noticing the great beauty that God has set before me quiets my insides.

No matter what I choose to do there, it makes my soul quiet, so I can hear His spirit speak.

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Beloved Brews Linkup

What’s your One Word for 2015?

Jan15

I’m joining in with the Beloved Brews writing challenge.

You can read about it at http://www.faithbarista.com/category/belovedbrews-linkup/

She gives the prompt, and writers write.

Easy enough right?

We’ll see.
What’s Your One Word for 2015?

EXPECTANT

Adjective. Excitedly anticipating something. Excitedly aware that something is about to happen. Expecting something, especially something that will bring success or wealth.
Eager, hopeful, in suspense, hoping.

What am I expectant for? Good question. Something. What? Not sure. When will this something take place? Don’t know. I do not know where or how. I only know that it will.
There are two things I know for sure. Who. That would be God. And why. Because He knows the plans He has for me. Plans for a future and a hope.
2014 was a year of great introspection for me. Every year is really. This year was very different though, and there was one book responsible for the trip back inward. A trip I thought I was finished with.
The book was “Finding Spiritual Whitespace”, by Bonnie Gray. I had been reading her Faith Barista blog sporadically for quite a while. I did not want another book. I did not need another book. But when I saw the little video about THIS book, it beckoned me.
Amazon one-click purchasing is so fast, and usually I can have my book selection in hand within moments on my Kindle. This time, I was compelled to purchase the real book. My intent was to read the book, oh so quickly, and put it on the shelf with all the others. That did not happen. Instead, pen in hand, purple ink began to show up in the margins and all along certain sentences. Way too many to just fly past. I found myself reading and rereading some passages and wondering if this woman and I had been perhaps separated at birth. Not so much by the EVENTS that took place in our lives, but by the shadows that they left behind. The shadows that followed me around even after I thought I had exposed them. The shadows that were holding me captive in ways I did not have language for. This book began to expose yet another level of pain/hurt/history that needed to be excavated.
The blockage, like writers block, has kept me from writing the words I want to write, to help the ones I want to help. I know what God has done, and continues to do in my story, and my heart is to share it. The block is that I do not know how.
So maybe EXPECTANT is the word that tells me that God will show me and allow me, to share my story in some meaningful way this year. Knowing what is in your heart, and getting it said, are two different issues.
I long to share it, but not if I cannot share it well.

Coming Up Higher

Nov17

When I considered beginning to blog again, I pictured myself crashing back on the scene with such intensity that I might even surprise myself.

Well, I surprised myself, but not in the way I had imagined.

Instead of dazzling everyone with my new found wisdom, I came back instead, full of knowledge that I am not the only one who knows stuff.

In fact, the more stuff I know, the more apparent it appears, that I don’t know half as much as I thought I did, and that much of what I knew was only good for a season.

The past several months have been spent on a variety of different issues. As I have stated, so long ago now, there is always an “Inside job” to be done.

Well when you think you’ve finished all that inside work – look out! Rest up.

You will need it for your next season, the one where Holy Spirit comes and says “Come, let’s dig a little deeper”, so that you can “Come up higher”.

My first response was a bit like kicking and screaming, I was really comfy there, however that response didn’t last long because I really want to know what God has for me, comfortable or not.

The simple act of saying yes to God brought on several months of digging deeper, it was an excavation deeper than I had ever known possible, and months of uncomfortable-ness on my insides.

It all began with a “random” conversation with a good friend that I had not seen in a long time. The conversation went from one topic to another, you know how they do.

I began telling her about a book I had recently finished, and the effect that a certain chapter had had on me. This brought her to tell me about a college course she had just finished. Since her major goes right along with what is on the insides of people, her class work fit right into the conversation, and my current comfort level.

                       Even though it was quite comfy, it was in fact getting a tad boring. “Move along, nothing to see here.”

Within a day or two, I was in possession of her school books, and beginning the long dig into my past.

Make no mistake, I had been back there before, and was pretty sure I had worked it all out, because remember, I know stuff.

All the questions I never knew to ask were there in those books. Plunging me deeper and deeper into why I was the way I was, and why, even after all the “inside” work I had done, there was still so much left to do.

Eight months. That is how long it took me. Digging and digging and then having to take breaks because the emotional toll it was taking on my heart was so exhausting.

So here I am. I will never say “Done with that” again, because I have seen what the effect can be when I think that.     I will just say that that part of my journey is over, and for now, I do not carry all the weight I carried before.

For now, I am comfortable with the past, and ready to see what is next.

I can’t say how this blog will go on, but I can say that it will, at least for now.

I’m traveling lighter now, and I’m not sure where to. God knows that.

A bit like Abraham before me, I will trust that He knows the way, and that it is good.

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If you are at all interested in doing some “Digging” and “Inside work” and seeing what God has next for you –        Here are some helpful tools;

Finding Spiritual Whitespace – written by Bonnie Gray – Especially Chapter 22

The Ultimate Journey – Phase 1
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