Ok so I am well aware that some of these posts I write more for myself than for anyone who reads them and this is one of them I feel quite sure. This is more a journal entry that someday I'll go back and read and understand that it meant something. That being said, I made a promise a while ago on this blog that I would attempt to give you the entire story of my journey here...realizing that I can't give you every single detail and that even in my telling of the stories you miss so much of the experience, but that I would not attempt to hide the up's and down's and paint an inaccurate picture of the journey. We do that sometimes to each other, we try to make it look and sound good, and perhaps in some ways in my own life I have done that, and I am nothing if not real with you and so I offer this weak entry as one you need to read to show who I really am in some moments on some days.
And so with a kick to my pride I need to tell you about what happened the other day. As a preface please allow me to throw a disclaimer out that this is in no way a pity party and I think if in searching my heart my motive is to create an awareness of how undeserving the tremendously kind comments are about how well I'm doing this most days. It is to show you that it doesn't take the super spiritual to do this, God took this broken ordinary girl and plopped her way outside her comfort zone and said ok I will show you how to grow here. Way ordinary.
I did something on Sunday that I have NOT ever allowed myself to do before while I've been here. I cried. I don't mean a few tears on my cheek, that happens once a day at least. I mean really cried. I cried from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed that night and at lots of times in between I sobbed. I got down on my knees and I cried out to God, not in some desperate moment when my life depended on it (because there have been moments earlier in life when I've done that) it wasn't that, it was this heart having some David moments with God and saying, I CHOOSE YOU, I still choose you in this, I will follow you and whatever you ask me to do with my life, but parts of this really hurt and I need you to hear my heart say that out loud. I need to just have permission to say it out loud.
See I think what happened was that (and perhaps you're familiar with this), we get this mindset in our heads that in order for us to be spiritual we must be stoic in some ways. I must never admit that some days walking this calling out takes every ounce of strength I have not to get on the next airplane and go home and throw my arms around my nephews and do life with them again, watch their baseball games and go to the school plays and just be there. I must never break down and cry when my sweet little neice gets on the phone and says to me "jen, mere, need you, lap," because I just plain miss her sweetness. It takes lots of talking with God sometimes to settle down in a worship setting that is so different from what we know and not run home to worship beside people who taught me how to passionately love Jesus. It takes a whole lot of heart muscle sometimes to not decide to move back to comfort and sitting around the dinner table with my family at important times like Christmas and birthdays and ordinary Sunday's when I'd just like to be near them. I have to talk myself out of being green every single Thursday night when I know some of my favorite people on the planet are getting together for a deep time of bible study and prayer and I cannot be there and I miss it sooooo much!! But in all of these moments I must appear to people to be spiritual, to convince them that I am doing this well (cause that's the most important thing you know), that yeah sometimes it's hard but Superwoman can handle it, and I think I just got tired of myself on Sunday.
I'll tell you what started the avalanche in my eyeballs. I watched these two sweet ladies get on a plane after they'd spent a week here loving on our kiddo's. Watched them bend down and tell the kiddo's goodbye after they'd been here being grandma's all week and I just got sad. Cause if these were my kiddo's and we were around home, I would be intentional about getting to be around them and letting them invest in my children's lives and I know that best case scenario it will only happen once a year at most and I hate that cause they invest way good. One of them you've seen me blog about before and affectionately refer to as Momma Grose (and to the kids "Grandma Kay") and the other lady has now become known as "Grandma Joyce" in this house.
It was a terrific week, the kids got spoiled rotten, but it was so hard to watch them leave. It represented all of those people that you desperately want to be a part of this. The ones you wish could be here with you to experience this instead of just relying on my tremendously inadequate stories. It just made my heart ache for people and for the first time I curled up in a ball and told God so.
You know what happened. I gave God permission to hold my heart. I'm learning that about real with God. Stoic doesn't impress Him. Pride makes Him sick. And I think sometimes our attempts at being spiritual serve only to blind us to what really is.
Perhaps I'm learning that spiritual means inviting God into right where your heart lives in the moment and letting Him meet you there whether on a day when you need to cry from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed, or on a day when all is well in the world and your face couldn't look more happy. In an hour when you are mourning what happens to children in some parts of this world or in an hour when you're cuddled up beside their pj'd selves and your heart feels so full of love you think it might burst. It's making your heart available to him in every one of those moments. I like that way better than trying to be something I'll never be and feeling pressure to make you think good of me.
With everything in me I am so desperately wanting to end this with a disclaimer telling you how I am absolutely certain that this is where I need to be and that I'm content here (because I am), and perhaps you might get the wrong idea and think I'm miserable and it would be horrible for you to think that because I am supposed to be spiritual and that wouldn't appear very spiritual and we can be so ridiculous sometimes. Forgive my pride Lord.
Instead I'm just gonna end with a prayer in my heart that I might live a life with a heart like David who allows himself to rejoice and mourn with His Father and considers it all spiritual with no thought to what everyone else thinks and a heart bent toward running toward Jesus!!
Yep I spent all day crying on Sunday and it was ok!!
2 comments:
LOVE you my Jenn-ay...
Simply amazing Jen!
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