Learning in the Waiting

The only thing I really miss about living in the North is the changing of the seasons. I love how the atmosphere itself reminds us 4 times a year that we can always make things new. I've posted the lyrics to Nichole Nordeman's song Every Season on here before but this verse is on my bathroom mirror right now. In eyeliner :)

And even when the trees have just surrendered
To the harvest time
Forfeiting their leaves in late September
And sending us inside
Still I notice You when change begins
And I am braced for colder winds
I will offer thanks for what has been and is to come
You are autumn.

I feel like my soul is living in autumn right now and it's way hard. Maybe it's just not been such a good week. I've cried twice and it's TUESDAY! And I'm trying to make these contacts last until my appointment next month-crying plus mascara will wreck a perfectly good pair of disposables let me tell ya!!

Humor me? I'm a little overwhelmed. I really want to run the Disney Marathon in January but I don't know how I'll ever find the time to properly train. Between a sprained neck and horrible shin splints I haven't run around the block in over a week. There's time, but I need to make a decision and soon. September 1st is my personal deadline for being at my ideal weight. That will be 2 years since I gave up sugar. I have a really long way to go and am way discouraged about it. I can't keep my house organized, I can't keep my yard maintained, I can't keep my car cleaned out, I can't keep the laundry done (and I'm ONE person!), I feel like I'm neglecting the dogs, and my friends, and just feel halfway at any given place at any given moment.

I know you're sick of hearing about Robert Benson's book Between the Dreaming and the Coming True. Too bad! :) I'm so drawn to that book because I feel like I take up permanent residence in that space between and I'm not good at it. Living in the here and the not yet. Longing for Heaven without giving up on Earth. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Honestly, I'm leaving God out of the process at the moment (I just felt myself hit my head falling off the spiritual pedestal some of you insist on putting me!) I really am. I'm tried of questions without answers. I'm tired of feeling left by the spiritual wayside. I'm tired of feeling like I'm my biggest spiritual obstacle and not being able to get away from myself. I'm tired of telling the Lord "I can't do this, it's too hard, ANSWER ME!" and hearing WAIT. No explanation. No promises. Just wait. HUMPH!

Every time I insist on anything from the Lord the litany from Job "Where were you when...." starts racing through my mind. So true.

I've known the Lord long enough to know He cares deeply for me flaws and all and He will always absolutely have my best interest at heart. He knows that last night he added 256 tears to not my first bottle! He knows that my heart may bend to the point of physical pain, but it will not break. He knows what's around the next bend and the next corner. He knows the greatest good in this life is a relationship with Him and he will stop at nothing to see that I'm becoming like Him. He recognizes the prayers that start with, "I can't," as a sacrifice that is beautiful to Him.

I also feel certain that He would like to be included in this process, in this struggle. I feel like it would be in my best interest to learn the lessons He's assigning-even in the waiting. I don't want to waste this time. I don't want life to be different one day and think, "I really should have trusted Him in the process." I don't want to get to Heaven and God say, "That wasn't an accident." I want to learn what I'm supposed to learn where I am right this moment. I want to love Him NOW even if it's through doubts and tears. I want to find His heart now through confusion and frustration. I want to trust Him especially when the way is cloudy and the path unclear. I really, really, deep in the very corner of my soul want to. And I know He knows that.

Based on the last several posts and the comments that have flown my way (some good-some UGLY!!) I have considered setting my blog to private again. I can't do that because of Thomas Nelson and also because I don't want to. The comments I get from people who have told me I give them permission to be real about their relationship with the Lord are worth any ugly comments I get. So, take it or leave it. This is my life. This is where I am at the moment. I could write some sugary post about leaving everything at the foot of the cross or I can tell you that sometimes I don't feel like Heaven's listening. I can pretend everything is always perfect or I can tell you that life's hard (you already knew that!). This blog started for me and it will end for me. It's a perfect outlet for me and that anyone wants to read it is beyond amazing to me. But you don't have to. I will understand if you don't-honestly. But I'm going to keep writing honest posts and believing that living out our faith is a process. Some mountains. Some valleys.

To those of you who love me good or bad, faithful or faithless, funny or heartbroken - love you right back and so thankful for the ways you contribute to what the Lord is doing in this life. You'll never know how thankful.

"To the child of God there is no accident. He travels an appointed way." - A.W. Tozer