I'm back :). I haven't written in a while, a while being months 😲 simply because, well a lack of inspiration and motivation i think. Not that i have not had things to write about, i just did not have the energy to do what i'm doing right this minute; carved out time (pivotal), laptop on my lap and typing fingers.
"There is no such thing as writers block, you simply just stopped writing" Steffany Gretzinger
So, here I am again, beginning again..
What did you get up to on New Year's Eve? As most people where out and about partying into the New Year or just hanging out, i spent the last day of 2016 cleaning, yes, cleaning, the whole entire day. Why do you ask? I had the sudden urge earlier that week to rearrange my living space, to move things around, to go through cupboards and to do away with items i had not used in the past year, so what better day to do that than the very last day of the year 🙈 (please withhold your judgmental responses 😃, i really had intentionally not planned to do anything that day, including cleaning :)). Please indulge me, there's a point to all this; besides my apparent lack of social life 😉.
To be honest, i never anticipated that it would take the WHOLE day and it would be as hard as it was; moving furniture is no small feat and clearing out cabinets as well. It dawned on me just how much stuff i had collected over the years, reluctant to let go of, because i somehow believed that i would probably find a use for it at some point. I of course went back and forth about whether to give stuff away or to keep it but there seemed to be a resolve in me, the same resolve in deciding to do the massive clean up, that i needed to do this.
It got me thinking about the condition of my heart for some reason, the thought would just not leave me alone. Know when that happens, how annoying at times. I've been in a funk for months, can't really explain how i got there, but it's been dark and ugly with very little communication with anyone, including God. Do you ever find yourself unable to put words to your thoughts or emotions? You open your mouth to speak but nothing comes out, but the pain stays with you and the thoughts continue their assault on your mind, heart and spirit? Yeah, its been that way.
I feel like God began to speak to me about how there were things i had held onto for too long (much like the clothes,books, etc) and needed to let go of. How i had allowed these things to take root in my heart and what they were producing was depression, resentment, and a deep disillusionment with life, which has resulted in a growing sense of hopelessness pertaining to my life and God; who He is and who i am in relation to Him.
These things are not necessarily bad things, but i got to a point where none of them had been fulfilled and i felt like God was holding out on me. Honestly, i have known for as long as I've been in a funk that i need to do some heart stuff with God, but i kept avoiding it because every time i would think about it, my eyes would fill to the brim with a fresh supply of tears (much like right now) and i just did not "have the energy to go there". There, that place we avoid, that place we do everything in our power to not connect with and numb ourselves to its reality. In actual reality, it's taken more energy to try keep myself together. I felt, as i have many times before, the invitation to come, to come and be broken before Him. I'd allowed the debris of unfulfilled hopes and dreams, of bitter disappointment, of carrying too much responsibility for the well-being of others, sometimes to the detriment of myself and them, of fear, of bitterness and anger to collect in my heart and i just let it sit there, like rocks, heavy and destructive.
Yet God in His mercy on this day, reached out to me again, extending His grace to come and begin to remove the rocks that weighed so heavy on my heart. As i cleaned and moved things around i realised that somethings we have been walking through for a while Him and i and He has been so patient with me. Some things i needed to make the CHOICE to lay down, and CHOOSE to trust that even in the unknown and uncertainty of life that i so struggle with, He is a certainty and He can be known. That it's okay to sit with the pain of my disappointment and know that God is near, that He is present in it and to it; i don't have to avoid it, or numb it. Some things would be like that heavy furniture, hard to work through but possible with Him and in community, i needed to choose community; I'm a serial isolator (made up word for this context :p), when things get hard, i hide.
So, i took a step, it looked like just lying on my bed and crying a whole lot, and that's okay, i finally allowed myself, in like forever, to connect with my heart with Him.
Do i feel more hopeful about life stepping into 2017, honestly not really, i still feel a little lost, but i know the One who is Hope and i choose to hold on to Him.
Are there things you have been holding onto for far too long and need to let go of? Ask the Holy Spirit to show you, hear His invitation to come, trust Him to be with you as you bring it before the Father. He is your Hope.
1 Peter 1: 3-6
"3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials."
