The kingdom of Jesus is coming, and with it the life I am longing for.

I am no longer lost, wondering about purpose.

I am secure, finally loved; understand who I am and where I belong.

But this is not home.

This melancholy feeling is homesickness for Jesus.

How does one get used to the endless waiting at the same time as anticipation of glory?

It is not in me to desire the paraded welcome home of a hero long gone returning in triumph to accolades and honor.

My deepest heart is to nest, to nurture, to provide home, to belong and have those who 

belong to me.

This life has not afforded me that luxury.

And I cannot foresee it happening.

So yes I long for a home with my Jesus – and oh I know He will not be mine alone – but to share time together.

And rest.

I long for rest.

Perhaps it’s the same thing.

funny how I get what I need just when I need it.

I spent the weekend hibernating; after a birthday party Sat. nite outside with some friends who were smoking, I was not feeling my best.  Lately several difficulties have occurred that I've had to work through and it's brought some stress.  So arthritic pain in my neck and joints from the cold weather, stress causing my neck to knot up further, and the threat of lung issues due to the exposure to smoke, all led to this extra day I spent in bed on Monday.  It was needed.  It helped.

Then I came to work today and catching up on my mail found a letter from RHM along with the daily devo that I love getting.  

Stress, the stress of life, disappointments, responsibilities....  it kind of creeps up on me.  and this from the letter: I want you to try this - gather up all your hopes, and set them fully on this thought: The kingdom of Jesus is coming, and with it the life I am longing for.  Stay with that for more than the usual nanosecond.  The kingdom of Jesus is coming, and with it the life I am longing for.  Notice what begins to happen.  Your heart is freed up a little - free to forgive, free to love, free to enjoy the partial now.  Just free.

A good reminder that we're not home yet, and that when priorities are properly aligned things look so differently.

But also the relationships that I've been struggling with - expectations that never pan out, desires for something that is just out of reach.  And in this struggle I find myself feeling further and further from God.  Less and less in touch.  And I wonder how it is that the deepest love I've ever known begins to cool and feel distant...

Connection....  must be nurtured and will never be static.  It must grow to stay alive.  So this from yesterday's devo:  But this side of Eden, even relationship with God brings us to a place where a deeper work in our heart is called for if we are to be able to continue our spiritual journey. It is in this desert experience of the heart, where we are stripped of the protective clothing of the roles we have played in our smaller stories, that the Message of the Arrows reasserts itself. Healing, repentance, and faith are called for in ways we have not known previously. At this place on our journey, we face a wide and deep chasm that refuses us passage through self-effort. And it is God's intention to use this place to eradicate the final heart walls and obstacles that separate us from him.

And today's devo - this was not the focus, but the introduction -  yet I cannot get past it:  Consider the natural human longing to be loved and admired, how deep it runs in you. It is practically an aching abyss. Remember how rare it is for love and admiration to come to any soul in this jealous world. 

The longing to be loved and admired, that aching abyss....   yes and the only filling comes from the connection with God my father, Jesus my husband groom, the Holy Spirit my ever present companion.  

It may not make sense to anyone else, may not speak to you as it does me. but I hear Jesus voice and feel the drawing when snippets come together like this for me.  His words, truth.  I am made to love Him and only He can fill that desire, and only when I fully surrender to the depth of all, fully open, yielded in spite of fear or stress or distraction.  He knows me from the inside out and wants to fill me with His love.  He wants my heart desire to focus on Him and keep my eyes there even when I feel nothing, through the emptiness - through the struggles - through the mundane - through desire and fear.  

At this place we face a chasm refusing us passage through self-effort. - Oh my Father, my tender precious loving Daddy, do it - take away those final heart walls and anything in the way that separates me from you.

and who are you?
what are you made of
are you real
are you false
will you give and take
or simply take
do you care
are you there

each heart asking
seeking
wanting
yearning
searching
for that answer
a myriad of questions
hidden in the caverns of our protection
bulging pushing shoving pulsing to be out
overflowing into action
in spite of walls built 
to keep out that pain
and fear of the answer
that fear 
what if
the answer
is that
we have no worth?
what if no one ever comes to answer

it is not safe
but
it is worth the risk

do you care
are you there

Deep, Light, Sigh!

I am deep
I call to deep
Swift waters running through caverns in the dark
swirling cool and clear
light flashing through the open sky seen from windows in high vaults hewn from solid rock
strength and flexibility soft and ever flowing ever changing
depth unplumbed unknown unfathomed
some mystery some clarity some tenderness some lonely call to the sea where home lies.
Shall I make it there?
Or will I wither into a foggy mist taken by the wind to mountains far away?

Who will drink
Who will come to taste the sweetness to be found?
Is the effort not worth the goodness?
Will thirst not prevail and bring you?
Deep calls to you.

I am light
I call to light
dancing shifting shining through space and time brilliant and full of colour
bouncing reflecting floating about, penetrating the dark effortlessly
joy strength and warmth I bring, illuminating and lifting faster than a blink
I do not end.
I do not weaken
only the eye forgets to perceive, as far I travel
No one can capture me
My reach is ever growing.
I'm like no other.

Who will come to play with me?
I am reflection of creator.

the many facets we are made of

and how if one only focuses on a single facet

they miss out on the others

perhaps better?

perhaps not

but so much of us goes unnoticed

and unappreciated

and does not all of our beauty yearn to be seen?

we are made to shine

to be noticed

to be reflections of God himself

how far we are from home

from who we were made to be...

Fathered wrong

An abandoned and forgotten child is—absent extraordinary healing—forever an abandoned and forgotten child.  It leaves one to be torn apart at the level of the soul by the abrupt severing, without explanation, of a father-child bond, and to be shredded by the haunting suspicion that one is unworthy and unlovable.  It sets the stage for a decades-long search for enough fame and adulation to fill the emotional black hole inside you that keeps threatening to make you disappear into it.

[paraphrased from Ed Tandy McGlasson's Huddle up of 10/24/12. and... Dr. Keith Ablow recently published an article on the subject ]  

..."hollowness inside that man, born of being a forgotten boy—that black hole and the threat of complete psychological disintegration" ...

…he allegedly spent decades injecting himself with male hormones, as if to be male enough to be a worthy son, rather than forgotten one.

You see, to truly Livestrong after being injured catastrophically as a boy by abandonment requires looking at your pain, sitting with it, really feeling it, not trying to outdistance it—which is impossible and a race to oblivion.  It requires realizing that you were always lovable  even if you were unloved, and that false fame and a Superman-lean frame will only separate you from that healing reality, which many people correctly call God.

He was talking about Lance Armstrong, but this is a picture of all children without a parent, particularly a father.  And in spite of anyone else stepping in to 'fill the role' it does not erase these bleak deficient feelings in a young heart.

From McGlasson:

Dr. Keith’s words are a powerful reminder of what happens when little boys and girls are born ‘forgotten’. To live-strong after you've been father-wronged requires a miracle within the human heart. Those types of wounds are only healed by the power of God’s love.

In His Smile,

Ransomed Heart ministries has a book "Fathered by God" that I highly recommend to everyone.  

spectacular

Trivial morality takes the severe beauty of holiness and makes it ridiculous.

(Beautiful Outlaw, 200)

heart wound

I'm hurting today. Arrows I've long since thought were removed from my heart are newly bleeding wounds. 

Trying to figure out how to love my mom.  Trying to figure out how to keep my heart safe in the process.  It's not working.  I miss my daddy so much.  He was a buffer between us.  He loved me.  She admitted not loving me like she loves my brothers.  She said it was because of the circumstances of my conception.  She touts her unwillingness to give me up as evidence of her love for me.  (someone had wanted to adopt my older brother and I when we were very young and she refused).  But i think of her as a 3 year old now days and realize that no 3 yr old would willingly give up her dollies.  We were hers and she would not let someone take us away.  I doubt love entered into that equation - more like selfishness if you ask me.

So she emailed me a couple of weeks ago telling me that she was going to relieve my stress by taking back the power of attorney that I have for her.  The ploy was that it would take the burden of caring for her off of my shoulders.  I was insulted.  I got angry.  She does not know me at all.  There is a reason that my dad had me appointed as power of attorney for them both.  It is because I'm the most trust worthy and responsible of my siblings both financially, medically, and relationally.  I have never used this 'power' to take anything from either her or my dad.  I have never used it at all.  It is there as a precaution and for her protection against anyone that might try to take advantage of her.  So yes I was hurt and insulted and it made me angry.  So when I spoke to her and the real reason for her actions, or threat, was because she felt like I did not like her and that it was blatantly clear.  I agreed.  I did not deny it.  I do not like her at all.  She is false and manipulative and childish and selfish and thinks of no one but herself.  And I told her so.  I also told her that if she did that then it would leave her vulnerable to whoever might think they had a right to come in and 'handle' her finances and her business affairs.  

It has been tense between us ever since.  I cannot pretend that I feel any differently and I won't put on a show.

I told my little brother about it.  I told him about how I was conceived, how she never loved me, how she is.

He is here now to visit.  I'm glad.  But my mom is putting on quite a show.  She is acting as if nothing was said at all between us.  They had me over for dinner two times this week, no three.  I can't even make myself talk to her or even look at her.  She is my mother that never was a mother.  She does not know how to love.  She knows how to make it look like it, at least to others.  So now maybe I just look crazy.  I don't know.

I am going to get away from her I think.  Sell my house and move closer to my daughter.  Is this wrong?  Will it help?  What about when she becomes incapable of self care?  I do not know.

Right now all I know is that my heart is bloodied once again with this deep pain of wanting to be loved by a mother who never wanted me. 

I'll be ok.  I always have been, sort of.  I feel more distant than ever from my heart as it tries to build yet another layer on the cocoon that's it's bandage and long time home.  

Oh Jesus comfort me, my heart; my soul reaches out to you for the only love I've ever known.

I need you now more than ever, more than yesterday, more than a lifetime of yesterdays.  

My only hope is in you.

lost child

I lost a child I never knew

carried in my womb for 5 months

The sudden bloody hemorrhage sent me into shock,

a comfort for the words to come, no movement, no heartbeat, no life.

 "We must remove him now".

And grief is such an inadequate word to describe the tsunami of emotional pain that followed.

Life hollow and meaningless for so many years afterwards.

Many many years later I am comforted by the truth of knowing that he is with God.

Being told that at the time was meaningless.  I had no sense of God at that time and no care to.

But now the grief long spent is replaced with anticipation and joy.

For I know without a doubt that when at last I leave this earth I’ll see him face to face and hold him in my 

arms for the first time to give him the love I've held in my heart for him all these years.