Drip drip drip

Very hard day again.  Tonight I lost it on the way to counseling.  I cried about half the way there!  Weird thing is that I am not quite sure why.  It was such a relief, like I'd been holding it inside for a long time.  I was chatty cathy at counseling, more than usual.  I feel like I'm undergoing major change STILL and AGAIN and it is never easy but I know that God is working in me.

Truth is, I'm trying to learn to open myself up to people, to friends.  It is unusual because every since I moved here I closed off my heart in self-protective mode.  Now I'm headed toward the final stretch of this process, not long from my actual divorce and God is calling me to open up my heart again.

So tonight I am just relaxing and it is so nice.  Lots of rain today; guess the world needed watering.

God is watering my soul.  And it feels good.

Work Life and Keeping Your Chin Up

Today was one of those days that was just really really long.  Work was hard, I wound up with the grumpiest military member of the year and will for sure have to talk with him tomorrow and I'm dreading it.  Sometimes my field isn't fun.  Today it wasn't fun...it wore at me.

I feel like I became the grump monster earlier today and hope that I didn't hurt a friend's feelings.  Sometimes having friends is hard when they require complete honesty.  I'm not saying that I'm a liar, I'm just saying that sometimes being honest with others is scary.  I have some people that I am completely honest with and I can count them on one hand.  Adding people to that mix is scary and does not come easily to me.

I feel like I am failing in every area of my life sometimes.  Just one of those days I guess.  Tomorrow will be better.  Once in a blue moon I get blue.  I am used to being the consumate encourager....but sometimes this encourager needs encouragement.  I am my children's biggest supporter, the loyalist of friends, the sounding board for some and sometimes I just run out of fuel.  I'm out of fuel.  I want to crawl in the corner so that I can deal with my own problems.  Actually tonight they feel like they have just floaded upon me.....and I just need to deal with them or get out of the way.

Unbelievable stress sometimes causes me to short circuit!  Even though I trust God with all of my heart I still struggle with worry.  I worry about being able to provide for my family.  I worry about having enough money to move.  I am WORRIED today.  This does not happen to me very often....but occasionally my humanity comes to the surface and I worry.  I'm human.

When is it going to be MY turn to be happy?  I have been so unhappy for so many years that when I feel a little happiness I freak out and go running in the other direction.  Feeling happy is foreign.  I mean, I want it but it requires a whole new level of honesty and that FREAKS ME OUT a little bit.  Sometimes I wonder why I write.  I make little sense but it is the one thing that I do for just me.  Writing here helps me heal.

Could it be that I am afraid to be happy?  That I got used to being unhappy and that the idea of being really truly openly  happy freaks me out?  Easier to shut self off than to be vulnerable.  Easier to close down feminine side of me to succeed in the work world.  Feel like I'm trapped inside this body and feel that body is keeping me from one thing that I want.  Frustrating.

Tonight I struggle but I know that God's mercies are new every morning.  Perhaps tomorrow I will be showered in God's mercy and goodness again.  And I will get out of my own way and let heart be open to new things.

God is Good

God is good.  That is my tid bit of wisdom for tonight.  All the time.

Ready and Willing but Not feeling Able!

So here I sit, two years later, still dealing with world's longest divorce I still have to realize that I am exactly where God wants me to be.  I'm just now ready to be divorced.  It took this long.  Now although it will hurt greatly and make me very sad, I am ready to not be married to this person any more.  In another month all my ties beyond that of having kids together, all ties will be gone, broken.  I will be FREE.  Free to follow Christ as He leads me toward a new life, new everything.  I'm moving too to top it off

Greatest opportunity for disaster is greatest opportunity for blessing in God's world.  I like that.  Just heard visiting pastor say this.   I have to ignore what I feel and trust what I see and step out in faith.  I feel like this is my time, I can either step toward God, despite my crippling fear and anxiety, and experience what God has planned for me, the blessings He has for me or I can let the fear paralyze me into immobility.

I want to be a woman after God's own heart.  I want to continue serving my church, my children and someday, another husband for the rest of my life.  God created people for relationships.  I have been alone for so many years, legally for two years, and now I am ready to although it freaks me out, ready to open my heart to another in faith.  You see, I know that God can heal and is healing what was broken when that divorce was filed but God is going to have the glory in my life through this.  God can take what is broken and make something beautiful from it.

Sticks and stones will break our bones but words will break our hearts.  That sums it up for me.  The words that were spoken into my life have hurt me so very deeply.   Will I ever forget the words that broke me?  I'm not really sure.  To this day they haunt me and in the quiet moments I believe Satan brings them to mind, trying to tear me down, trying to break me.  So today I just give them back to God. I give my hurt to God for Him to heal me.   Pastor just said "words are ambassadors of the soul."  How very true.

So Lord, not sure why you have me here today thinking, cleaning, working, but I know you want my attention.  You have my attention and my heart.  Please bless me and my children in a special way.  Please provide what I need financially in order to do what I need in the next couple of months.  I've seen you do amazing things in my life and I'm counting on your continued blessing in my life and in the lives of my children.

God I give myself to you again today.  Take me and use me, even in my brokenness to bless You and to bless others, especially my children.  Help others to see Christ in me in the midst of this heartache.  Thank you for the friends who have come alongside me to encourage.   Lord bless them as they have blessed me.

until another time,

God is Good

This morning I started out frustrated and angry, mainly at my printer.  I eventually got it working and then found a couple of places I wanted to call on or go see.

I went to the first place, decided it was suitable, in good area and in budget and then just signed the lease.  I'm so glad to have a plan.  Paid pet deposit and apartment deposit.  That felt good.

Then had lunch with a friend which was fun.  Nice to feel human again; have friends to hang out with, talk about life with.  I've realized that my life has been so empty, even for years.  When I was married I didn't really have many friends outside of my married life.  We didn't even have married friends to hang out with. We had the kids then rarely went out as a couple.  Although I loved my new role as a mom I mourned the loss of my love.

So  now I am beginning anew.  New life, new location to live in, new neighborhood, new opportunities for change and growth.  Starting anew is a good thing.  Sometimes beginning anew means taking chances, opening yourself up to others when you've been so closed down, shut down, for years.  I was hurt so deeply and over such a long period of time that I did shut down emotionally.  It's what you do when you feel you're under attack.  It is not, however, any way to live a life.

I sometimes think that I've waisted the last ten years but when I do that I have to sharply remember that that is simply  not true.  I was blessed with two amazing creatures that I call my children on here. They are my legacy of those years, not the hurt.  And it's because of them that I have the courage to step up, become strong and LIVE LIFE, boldly, strongly.  So although I am not going to have a husband anymore (or at least not that one!), I take comfort in the fact that God did indeed give me my heart's desire - my children.

So I press forward, trusting God that He will provide for me in very real ways.

God is preparing me for something, for someone even.  It is weird but it has to be God changing me, giving me courage to step out, to be open.  I can honestly say that I am ready to love again.  I am ready to love and be loved and that scares me but living, really radically living, can be scary.  I am ready to walk hand in hand with someone who I care for.  I am ready to let someone into my heart and into my life.  (okay did I just type that?????)  Yep, I think that I did.

What has happened to me?

Giving My Worry to the Lord

This morning I have to go find a new place to live.  I've had a somewhat frustrating morning, first my printer wouldn't connect so I had to re-install printer driver and then add ink which I just HAPPENED to have.  Finally an hour later it worked.

Then I'm sitting at my tiny kitchen table, looking for a place to live.   I feel lost; my plans have fallen apart and I'm just sitting here saying "Okay Lord show me what you want me to do."  Going to look at several places this morning.

Also need to see if I can extend my lease month to month for a couple of months if necessary.

Warm shower felt good, very relaxing.  Now I'm ready to face the day.  I need to find some boxes and start packing up our things.  EEECK.

Had fun talking to old friend yesterday.  Laughing made me feel almost human again and that felt wonderful.  Our lives are both complicated but we still just the Lord for the out come.

Lord, this morning I give you my worries, my anxiety and my fear.  I need your strength Lord to lead me in the direction that we should go.  Lead me Lord in the areas of my life I'm not posting in public.  Give me wisdom to know what to do and to see your hand working in my life in unexpected ways.

AMEN.

I'm Letting Go

Big week, lots of stress.  I have realized how very stressed out that I am.  I am ready for divorce to be over; to be moved and to be settled into my new life.  I am ready for my life to start.

Listening to Francesca Battistelli's "I'm letting go" and it so fits my situation.  I'm letting go of the life I planned for me and my dreams..."  For me, I am letting go of the dreams I had for my life and I'm clinging to the new dreams that God has given me.

It's all starting to tie together.  The book that got me through my rough times was Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb.  He essentially says that when we have shattered dreams often God replaces them with new dreams, beyond what we could imagine.  That is how I feel.  I'm excited about my future.  I do not know if I'm going to be an apartment dweller  my whole life or if I will marry someone again.  For the first time since I moved out I am looking toward my FUTURE.  I'm not going to look back.  The pain is still there; it doesn't go away, only lessens.  When it threatens to take over I just pray it back in place and God calms my heart and my spirit.

Today a guy at work and I got into it over something and it really pushed my buttons.  He's a total bully and when I feel bullied I immediately have the same reaction that I used to have: fight or flight - adrenaline pumps through veins when I feel threatened.  It was like that almost all day.

I still have a hectic couple of months.  I'm not looking forward to moving.  My family is starting to let me do my own thing finally but it's frankly a little scary to be out here on my own for the first time in 10 years.  On one hand I feel an amazing sense of peace and joy that can only come from God.  On the way to work this morning I was listening to some Christian music that made me tear up.  Then on the way home I again cried a little.  I do not miss the marriage.  I miss the person I married but he is gone and no longer "mine."  I miss my children and that is why I cry.  Not having them with me is a burden that no one should ask of a true mother.  I still have to trust that God has me where He wants me FOR THIS MOMENT.  Might not be like this forever.

The sadness is still there, still part of who I am.  Divorce is sad.  No matter the situation.  It rips families and people apart.  It is nothing but destructive.  I own my part of it all and God has forgiven me for that.  So when the guilt starts to well up I just remember that "as far as the east is from the west, so God has removed your transgressions from you."  Satan will not have the last laugh in my life.  He or we might have broken our marriage but I believe that God put this desire to be a homemaker and mom in my heart for a reason.  I just want a second chance at life.  I want to love and be loved again.

Sitting here as the tears are falling, I think that the stress from the last couple of weeks has hit me.  I have hives on my neck again.  Stinks.  Tomorrow will be a weird day.

I believe God is working out my future even now.  I believe that he is preparing someone for me and me for him.  Freaks me out a bit but I am also not a chicken.  :-)  I'm excited about opportunity and where it might take me.  Where God might lead me.  The life that He has for me in Phase II.

I am waiting for my forever love to move in my heart and push me where He wants me to go.  God has plans for me and for my family.  I just have to be brave enough to keep putting one foot in front of another until I arrive....whether on earth or in heaven someday.   I also want a forever love of my own, a human forever love.

I have to sleep now.  Exhaustion is an understatement.  My kitchen still has tonight's dinner in them....I choose to play with my kids for the little bit of time we have together instead of washing dishes.  They can wait until tomorrow or the weekend.

This weekend I have to try to find a place to live.  God must lead me because I do not know where to go.  I need to know where I'm supposed to go.

Until next time....