Stuck between fear and grace

I was blindsided a few weeks ago.  Ever since, I have been struggling - wrestling with an issue that is as layered as an onion and I am not yet sure when the center will be found. 

Each time I think I have resolution, I realize there is more to peel away.  In the wrestling I am finding opportunities to expose things in me that need Truth and Light shed upon them. I am also realizing that I have to deal with the issues of others and/or my perceptions of them. 

This is some heavy and hard stuff.

So here I am peeling back the stinky layers, just me and God.  Trying to figure out what is the next step.  The hard reality is that I have to take ownership of some of this pain.

Over the months, I have tucked away concerns, doubts, frustrations, hurts, dreams, hopes and wishes.  I neatly tucked them away.  I was fearful of giving voice to them and actually speaking them into a tangible existence.

Fear will work to keep things hidden. 

I have been afraid.  Afraid I will be misunderstood.  Afraid I will be disliked.  Afraid I will not be good enough.  Afraid I will have to do something.  Afraid I will fail.   And that is it…

I will be misunderstood. I will be disliked.  I will not be good enough.  I will have to do things.  I will fail – over and over again.

This is where Grace comes in and makes this broken vessel useable.  Grace seeks to restore what fear seeks to steal.  Grace lovingly uncovers while fear insists on hiding.  Grace brings truth.  Grace overflows with love.  Grace gestates hope.  Grace gives life and breath to dreams.

Begging to grasp the Grace in every layer exposed.

The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?Psalm 27:1

© A Sacred Longing 2009-

Raining Grace

Wet and welcome is the rain falling outside my window today. Our ground has been dried hard for a long time – thirsty and waiting for this shower of grace to tumble from the sky.

I know what it feels like to be thirsty and waiting. Desperate with the arid sense of emptiness that wearies the soul.

Yet much like the rain that is gently dripping down my window, refreshing and refilling come. They always do.

Maybe not on my timetable and maybe not before some things dry hard and appear dead but in His perfect time grace falls gently and steadily.

So this day Lord, I stand in the rain with arms wide open and rejoice in the abundant gifts that fall gently from Your hands.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2012

Smallness

It whispers loud within me.  This aching wonder that begs to know if this is it - my life - as it is.   

It doesn't seem right to ask such questions yet now, right now, it echoes like a haunting melody.   

I wonder if Paul would say to me, as he did the Corinthians..."I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.  We didn't fence you in.  The smallness you feel comes from within you.  Your lives aren't small but you are living them in a small way.”  

Lilliputian living 

Is it wrong to want more?  Is it wrong to feel less? 

No. 

But it is wrong to seek to fill the emptiness with something other than God and His purpose and provision. To do that is like eating cotton candy- yummy in the moment but forgotten fluff in the next. 

The hunger remains. 

It is wrong to hold onto those things long dead.  Things held as tightly as a favorite blanket to a toddler but that do nothing more than bring temporary comfort and hold you tight in its false security. 

The angst still grips. 

And it is no better to stand in the midst of the forest long dead because you are too afraid to venture into the new growth just beyond the dried up limbs. 

The fear holds tight. 

The gift I seek the most is one I have already been given.  It waits unwrapped and opened in its fullness of enough.  

He is everything. 

He is all. 

He is enough. 

And, in Him, so am I.

Enough.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2012
Joining in with:

Merry Christmas

"Let's get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us." They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying
in the manger. Seeing was believing.
Luke 2:15-17a The Message

This the morning I have begged to find these last four weeks.

This is the moment when the waiting graces of Advent give birth to the Breath of Heaven.

In the darkness of this waiting world, His star shines brightly.

Trusting to believe and follow this most precious Light.

Seeing is believing.

Seeking to see Him this Christmas Day!

What is within me is so much more than what I am.

I am broken, scared, lonely, angry, hurt and frustrated.

I throw the shards of my sin and hurt those who love me.

I dream big dreams and hide behind shadows.

Yet in the smallness of my soul, He looms large.

He exists within and seeks to be poured out.

A willing vessel is what He desires.

A shattered clay pot is what I am.

Fill me.

Always and forever

Seeking to grasp and then live this Truth.

He that is within me is so much more than what I am.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2011

The Gathered Graces

Monday morning - is it the beginning of a work week or the ending of a weekend?  In reality I guess,  it is a little of both and that is okay.

This past weekend I had the grace of nothing.  Pure unadulterated nothingness was savored.  Each empty moment was gathered into a bouquet of grace - a fragrant and beautiful reminder that even in the nothing His presence abounds. 

I need these bare moments. 

It is more than a need.  It is a craving – a desperate ache to be empty and wanting. 

In a world that wants to be inundated with things to have and with things to do, I want less.  I hunger for nothing.

I am learning that until I am naked and wanting.  I will not see.  I cannot hear.  I forget to touch.  I barely live.  I am too easily distracted by thoughts and things and people. 

This weekend was abundantly nothing.  That was good, so very good.

Still savoring the simple and stark. 

Today I join in with a thankful heart and gather the gratitude ...

- a long weekend away to empty
- a husband who loves to laugh
- dogs who are happy to see me come and sad to see me go
- garden fresh tomatoes still warm from the sun
- sweet corn on the grill
- thunder and rain on a hot summer evening
- a camera that can capture what I never really saw
- a heavy sigh and a warm embrace



Also joining in today with Laura and Playdates with God:





© A Sacred Longing 2009-2011

Unknown and yet...

I was seeing something I had seen before and yet, I had never been in this place. Unknown and at the same time familiar – a sensation that is hard to grasp and much harder to find words to adequately describe but it was and is what I am experiencing.

The sun is the same glowing orb that rises over my home every day.

And there, it too shines brightly.

The wind is fiercely blowing through the trees outside my window. As it passes by me on its never ending journey.

It is much like the breeze that caressed my cheeks on the top of that mountain.

Indescribable creation beyond my borders…

Indescribable yet familiar…

God’s handiwork

Begging to be seen

Hungering to be touched

Longing to be loved

Here

And

There

I am ever grateful for the opportunity I have had to travel to see God's creation.  I am amazed by the beauty and humbled by the abundance that He has given us - color; sounds; heights; depths; smells; animals and above all, His precious people.

My heart continues to be awakened from its slumbering state and amazed by His handiwork.

I continue to recount my meager thanks

- safe travel to and from Guatemala
- the breathless dance at 12,000 feet
- the indelibly marked vision of a little one chasing our bus through the fields
- experiencing it all with my husband by my side
- the opportunity to hold such beauty in my hands
- the grace to pray with these little ones

 

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2010

There is nothing but God’s grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and the axles of the universe.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Sweet breath inhaled on a early morning walk

Sounds of dripping dew

A visual and tangible reminder of  a morning's devotion..."What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." 

A community's stand for one who stood for us

Lots of shoes and the feet that are waiting for them

Warm cups of tea

Letters to a mother

Soft pillows, clean sheets and a warm home

Gentle and kind words


My very breath is a full measure of His grace.  For neither the remainder of today or the plans for tomorrow are guaranteed. 

Here and now my gratitude and His grace are meeting.  May it not be the only time these two shall dance within my heart and on my lips.

Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth.

Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo.

Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightening.

Karl Barth

 

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2010

A Moment of Quiet in the Roar of the Waves

This is what I usually see in my early morning

Not exactly the most relaxing, restful and beautiful sight, is it?!

BUT

This is what my morning has been looking like...



I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I may learn from it

the word of your peace

and the word of your mercy

and the word of your gentleness to the world:

and that through me perhaps your word of peace may make itself heard

where it has not been possible for anyone to heart it for a long time.

Thomas Merton

It is a sanctuary for my soul.  A place where I come longing to be emptied of all that has distracted and overwhelmed me.  A place to be awash in His grace and mercy.  A place to be nothing more than His.

I am not sure why I feel it most in these watery places but I do. 

I can't help but wonder if we each have that place that beckons us to come. 

Contemplation is the response to a call; a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being:  for we ourselves are words of His.  But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signifiy Him.  Contemplation is this echo.  It is a deep resonance in the inmost center of our spirit in which our very life loses its seperate voice and re-sounds with the majesty and the mercy of the Hidden and Living One. 

Thomas Merton

Losing my voice but finding His in the roar of the waves.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2010

Inhaling deeply

It was a deep breath morning.

I need mornings like this.

Lots of them.

Mornings when I can sit on my swing in the sanctuary of my surroundings and hear Him speak to me. When my emptiness is wanting and His abundance is waiting.

This morning was full of an evanescent quiet. Fleeting as it was, I found myself enveloped by a gentleness that danced into my awakening.

A childlike moment that is as simple as blowing dandelion seeds into the wind.  A deep breath casting the seeds of grace to carry me through the day.

Joining in today at Chatting At The Sky's Tuesday Unwrapped

 

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2010

Alive again!

What has passed is no more and the joy to come is the promise we seek.  Yet, it is the now, in all its fermenting anguish that still must be lived.

He did

all of it

for me

Each painful step He endured was because of me.  Each tortured moment of flesh torn, pierced and punctured was suffered for my sin - not His, for He had none.  Each second of seperation that broke His heart was borne that I would never be...

seperated

from God

Would I be a worthy recipient of such an offering?

never

no matter how hard I tried

it could never be

Until...

He gave His all.

As the trees bud and the flowers bloom the promise of new growth is overwhelming.  What lay dormant for months has come alive again.  I can feel it within. 

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2010

One Thousand Gifts...counting on

Like gathering flowers on a spring morning, I continue to enfold the graces given.  To look upon and remember that their amazing abundance should not be missed.

I nearly missed these moments, my friends.  I almost chose not to be there and ever grateful that I didn't.

21. Sunrise on the Chesapeake Bay

22. A precious and holy moment at the start of my day

23. A warm, cozy fire with precious friends

24. A vision of home

25. Catching up on some much needed rest

Ever grateful I am that the recollecting continues.  Grace in the simplest forms should never be missed.

© A Sacred Longing 2009

The counting continues...

It has been a difficult beginning to this year. One might find it even difficult to notice the graces beyond the grief.

Still, when the watching is clouded by life, the graces remain.
Constants in the midst of turmoil.

So as I begin to regroup and gather my life once again, I meet here in this moment to mark the blessings observed.

12. A mother who loved her family, not perfectly, but as completely as she could.

13. The opportunity to say goodbye one last time.

14. Memories caught on paper, recorded in photos and etched forever in our minds.

15. Friends who came, not because they knew her but because they loved us.

16. Tears that empty our souls of the hurt within.

17. A night's rest on a cozy bed under warm blankets on a cold winter night.

18. The prayers of those who venture to my little corner of cyberspace. We've never met and yet we journey a path together.

19. Employers and coworkers who understood and supported us.

20. The peace that comes from knowing our grief is as transient as our lives and one day - it will be no more. One day the joy will come and remain forever!


These moments are necessary, my friends. I pray that you too find time to gather your graces. When the sacred chaos of life overwhelms, purposefully observe. Draw them close. Remember them. In the grasping, you will feel the hand of God.





© A Sacred Longing 2009

One Thousand Gifts - Counting on

This has been a difficult week. Not the usual for such a festive time of the year but nonetheless, it was ours.

We spent the last few days traveling between to mothers - his and mine. One holding on tightly to this side of heaven and the other dreaming soon she will be there, face to face.

We are just plain tired.

We didn't shop. We didn't wrap. We didn't open. We didn't eat in abundance.

We did spend the holiday with two who have loved us most.

We did give what we could - ourselves - to those who wanted nothing more.

At first I confess, I found it hard to be grateful. It was too easy to moan and complain even if most of those words remained in my head. Sadly, that was selfishness within not the Truth all around.

Yet, here in this exercise I am an unwrapping the gift I needed the most.

A grateful heart focused on the Truth not the circumstance.

6. Doctors, nurses and aides who work seven days a week, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year with compassion and professionalism

7. The love of a mother's heart

8. A memory recalled when most are forgotten

9. A hot cup of coffee on a cold winter morning

10. The sweet and savory aromas of a favorite Italian deli triggering a multitude of memories

11. Safe travel to and from Ohio

Miss not on these opportunities, my friends, to recollect your graces. While your eyes may not always see your favors, in a simple act of remembrance grace abounding will be found.

© A Sacred Longing 2009