I am sorry this is so raw. I really am. But if I am going to heal I have to be real. It will get better. Promise!
So, I'm sitting here in my spot. On the hearth of our propane fireplace that I love. Pepper and I built the surround out of 2 big Juniper trunks and I bridged it with a massive hunk of a beam from a bridge that I found on our property. It is a big old hunk of Pine. The kind of beams they made from big trees back in the old days. Not one of the new, fancy, super strong glue lams like the ones we left exposed in the living area when we built this house. But, I digress. I do that. I start off in one direction, to tell a story or teach somebody about something and in adding in a detail, or context, my mind drops into a new groove and I end up explaining or telling the story of what was supposed to just be a tiny part of the whole. Like I am doing now. I am sitting in my spot on the hearth because the heat from our beautiful fireplace that I love heats my lower back, easing some of the ache from the old injury that brings new pain into each day of my life. That is not what I am writing about today. That is just context. I am sitting in my spot. Feeling the heat. While it is snowing outside.
It is (was) March 1st 2012 and I am (was) thinking about how it has been almost a year since I last posted on this blog. When I started it I had grand visions of writing out my heart. Working out some of my angst. Sharing some of my thoughts and hopefully, moving on to Next. Which might explain why I am sitting here in my spot, feeling the heat, while it is snowing outside feeling very stuck. Most of my thoughts are still in my head, I have not worked out my angst and I still have no idea what is Next. I didn't, or don't, want to go a whole year without writing anything at all so here I am.
I have been talked into leading our home group. It has been a long time since I have led a group. Most of my experience leading groups have been where the group was significantly younger that I was. This one is a mixed age group spanning at least 50 years. We have, over the last year, been sharing our faith stories. Where we come from, what made us who we are, how we came to faith in Christ and how we came to be sitting in this room together, gathered in His name. This time it was my turn. I launched into it in the usual way, a little AA, a little stand-up comedic timing, too much ridiculous detail about stuff that isn't relevant to anyone but me. Trying to paint a realistic picture of who I am in too short a time around people with whom I share very little history. Just. not. possible.
So here I sit. In my spot. A week later. Still feeling very, stuck. And frustrated that my story is so.....random.
My son Joe just walked through the room in his pajamas and asked me what I was going to do today. Joe, my son Joe, the one that is so much like me that he has spent years trying to prove how different we are, has finally gained some traction and is building momentum in his life. That might be a great thing to talk about today. Momentum. Momentum and my lack of it.
This last year has been just, Surreal. It comes at the end of a 25 year (+ or -) period in which my life had momentum. I felt propelled. We were headed in a direction and it seemed as if it took very little effort. God was leading. Leading, even through some heartaches and pain. Leading always to the next step. The house, the kids, the job, the ministry. It all lined up. There was very little intention to it. Momentum just carried us there. Now, this last year seems like a train wreck. A train running off the tracks with most of its momentum carried into destruction. Cartwheeling out of control wreaking havoc on everything around it or in its path. I am sitting in the wreckage. I am part of the wreckage. My body tangled in the jagged steel, my guts ripped open, my blood spattered on the still hot boiler. I wander the scene with no idea of what to do. There are people around me who have seen the wreck. Some have been involved in wrecks of their own and could really use some help. They are encouraging and hope filled. I want to be hope filled, I want to be optimistic, but some old memory or habit or chemical imbalance seems to hold me here. All I can think to do, all I know to do in the midst of this is to love. To open my heart to the flow of love. Like a transfusion to one who is desperately in need. We all have some. We all need some. Ebb and flow, give and get, life giving, life affirming LOVE.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:7-11 (NKJV)
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