Cracking up, cracking in.

We ( Scott and I)  are going to China in about a week. We are not traveling there by train but will be traveling in country by their famous bullet trains. I am so excited and so nervous and then of course full of anxiety because I am flying there.  As you may know by now, I do not travel well and went to the doctor yesterday to get me some strong anti anxiety pills. The first I have gone to such lengths to help me in the journey. 

It is a work/vacation where I hope to make contact with families of students, students and maybe even some schools.  I have never traveled to China...I hope it will help me understand that amazing giant of a country that has played a role in everyone's history. 

 

I read about a person who traveled a lot by plane and was probably about as afraid of flying as I am. What I loved about his post is not how afraid he is but how brave he felt every time he flew.  I don't often get to face my fears willingly as I do when I fly. If I want the benefit of travel then I pay the cost of fear. It is a comparable exchange of emotions. I earn the joy of a new place through  the pain of a familiar fear. It is always worth it, it is always emotionally exhausting.

The window above is from Alcatraz. It a window adjacent to a row of cells, not quite low enough to see outside but big enough to let in the light. A window frame of what was, what is and what may be but just out of reach. There was a beauty in the intricacies of the bars, bars that really were not necessary... it is an island. I see fear the same way. It is a window into what and who we trust.  The bars of fear are unnecessary because we put them there ourselves.  Fears isolates and imprisons, creating an island of what could be but isn't. I will wrestle these bars in a few days. I will long for freedom and negotiate with the Almighty for good weather and calm flights.  I will also take some medicine, that's the sunlight.

I am so cracked. Oh Father, let the light in !

Monday memories: graduation

One year ago...my last was graduating.  In  one of those time warp kind of things, a year has blown by and I am closing up another year of teaching and preparing for the summer. How is it that life goes so fast?  I was sure that this year would slow down as I did not have skin the in the game.
It did not.

3 years ago, this one was leaving the nest and just like that , she is 20 and finished with 2 years of college after 1 year at Capernwray.  I spoke at that graduation, I do believe it was just yesterday.

I don't want to live looking in the rear view mirror. If I did, I would miss what is coming. I am not nostalgic for those days, I love who these two are becoming. I'm just afraid that  before I know it, I will not be relevant, current or necessary.  As much as I think teaching is a vocation for the ages, there comes a time when my age alienates me from conversations.  Not yet, but maybe sooner then I realize.

The rhythm of the school years lends itself to reflection. We are at the crossroads of students making BIG steps forward; excited, scared and ready.  We take 3 months to get ready to cycle through the next batch. Hopeful that we will also be excited  to begin another year, scared that we will forget that this is such a fragile time and ready to walk them through.

Next Monday I'm on summer time... yes, yes and yes.

Memorial Monday on Tuesday: Losing our way

When God says He will lead the blind in a Way that they do not know and in paths that they have not known...is He talking metaphorically or literally?  Is. 42:16

Lately, I can't seem to find my way out of this sense that I am not where I am supposed to be. It is a unsettling. I am not restless, I am unsettled.

I am parked but lost a little. It may be the season of life, when everyone in my life is twirling in all different directions. Or, that the days ahead are less then the days behind and I feel like I haven't lived well, or at least fully.

Maybe, I just need the sea for I have done the sweat and the tears. 

It was Memorial Monday yesterday...having Scott in the National Guard and Nick as a Marine, I am praying that this day is never so personal.

Monday on Tuesday: But you said 'No".

So I ask, what will save me what will make me strong?

My limping Hip was pronounced in the last few days as I struggled with God. I was doing my Jacob again  with God on the river banks.

 Every day when possible I walk by our local river, lately running with our dogs Mocha and Chino.  I take this time to pray out loud. Lately as I have worked on my running form, I have been silent. Waiting
It is my where I do my Jacob, I wrestle with God.

The Holocaust is my pivot away from the goodness of God, for in those stories, that evil, that window into the heart of man and the Silence of God I waver in my faith. I cling to what I know of His goodness for the absence of God makes me so afraid. 

I stand in your Holy Throne room
   and tremble in fear and awe
I come anyway not because you are safe
I am still afraid
    mostly of your silence in the face of evil
I come anyway not because you will do what I ask
    for you do not
I come by your invitation, not my absurd idea that I have any righteousness
    or any right
I am not alone when I stand before you
Never alone

Is. 30
Returning and resting will save me
Calmness and Confidence will make me strong
But I said no....

Yet, the Lord is  waiting to show me favor..

Waiting

I will say yes

A moment on Monday: I willl again...

I have been sitting in the book of Isaiah for awhile and there are surprises and truths sprinkled in the strangest places. I know the rules of hermeneutics and sound interpretation, yet I think that wordings and phrases can pierce through as if that set of words were written just for me on this day. I don't use them as a holy tea reading, point and accept kind of methodology. Yet...I do believe that the Spirit of the living God infuses His word with moments for the day.

Isaiah 29: 14 ...Therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder...

I will again, what lovely words those are.  The Love affair that God has with his people is brutal.  His love affair with me is the same. He comes, I leave. He urges, I turn away. He calls, I ignore.
He will again do wonderful things, He will again...
If I treated my husband the same way I treat my God.. I don't want to think about it.  It isn't about shame, it is about longing. His longing for me that I always forget in the equation. 

It is the hard truth about faith...to believe that longing for me is true.  He is the groom waiting. I have no idea why He loved/loves those children of Israel, I guess if He can them, He can me. They seem a bit more difficult to love.
 Hee hee, that is funny I love that Again and Again and Again He will do wonderful things with this person; this hard to love, difficult , stubborn person.

A Monday in May

A colleague asked me if I had ever thought I would be a part of a military family.
No, I did not choose Scott with this in mind nor 13 years down the road did I think I would become a spouse of a deployed guardsmen.  My wonderful husband who I trust, lean on and rejoice in will be absent from me for a year starting January 2016. I will be that spouse waiting, while he is that spouse serving.  Of course, things can change...they can not go, Scott can get disqualified etc. but for now that is the road before us.

When we returned from Papua a few years back, he missed a deployment then and that is a good thing. I was not ready to trust God. I would have thought back then, if I made myself sick with anxiety and stress,  of course,  God would make it better and change the circumstances.  Because like any 2 year old, I could hold my breath long enough and flail around long enough to get my way...right? 

 I think when God tells us not to be afraid, He is really telling us
Stop thinking we can control everything by worry. 
When He says be anxious for nothing, He is saying
Stop holding your breath dear...I know better.  I've. Got. This. 

'This' being what I am afraid of; losing, death, loneliness, distance, change in him, change in me and on and on it goes. 

For YOUR steadfast love IS before my eyes,
AND I will WALK in YOUR faithfulness.

When do I stop holding my breath and start holding His Hand?

 Today is a good day.

Monday Musings: Starting again...again.

Yes, it has been awhile
I have lived in  vacant spaces for a few months
It has not been healthy
It has been unproductive

Writing is a creative outlet for me
Being creative is a sign of living
I need to thrive, again
I need to write


I am going to try and write every Monday. For sure at least once a week but if something happens or a random thought is caught in the passing wind, it will be more often. They may be random topics, but mostly, I think, it will be about being a woman of this uncertain age, coming to an understanding.
It is not inconsequential that at this time of our lives, we have the most to say but have the quietest voice on the stage of our culture.
 I am not a fan so I will be loud on my own little stage...be loud with me.