Glory Be: Faith-Filled Friday

The news is blaring with overdose and suicide...of ordinary people, and those who we hold as superstars and idols. But they are all human just the same...no matter what status the world gives.

It is still perplexing though. Why do the men and women who bring us their amazing talents and reach peaks that most of us shall never see in our lifetimes, fall into dangerous addiction or self-deprecating circumstances?

They are on top of the world as far as the world is concerned. But they are human. And they run the same race as us...just with a thousand times more pressure and show.

I am no psychologist, but I do think that I've felt the slightest sense of what it must be like for all those beautiful contributors to our treasured pop culture. I mean, I think we all have felt the slightest sense of what it's like.

As an aspiring writer, I have hit milestones along my path. I used to find that the seconds of joy and contentment were quickly eclipsed by hours, days, months of striving to the next step. The "high" of recognition for my work was hardly sustaining. It wasn't enough to sit in the joy and be blessed to go past that.

I wanted more. My human nature told me that I could get more if I just... I could "refill" that

dissolved joy and contentment if I just... I could, I could...if I just kept striving.

Thankfully, my community of writers and my realigned focus on Truth brought me to a much healthier perspective of this road to my dream. Because I've realized, I am WALKING the dream, not trying to attain the ultimate high of being accomplished. Not wanting to bottle that feeling of accomplishment so I can never feel less again. I'll never "arrive", but I'll always take steps on a purpose-filled path. And as I walk, the only way to enjoy the journey is giving Glory where it's due, and true Glory is certainly not mine, but belongs to the One who blessed me with a calling to write. I think, for our own protection, we are told in Romans:

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God."

Time and again in the Bible, we see men and women fall because of their need to find Glory for themselves. Time and again in real life we see that...we might even live that.

Before, I was hungry for my own glory. For that final boost to fill me up and complete me once and for all. The little blessings along the way weren't cutting it...the big blessings weren't enough.

There is no certain glory attained that will complete me.

Only when I looked past myself and gave the glory to my Creator, 

then I found true contentment 

during the journey.

 Each milestone passed is just affirmation for the next step, not a drug that made me feel good at the moment, and sent me barreling ahead to find the next boost.

It's futile to strive for our own, isn't it? We'll never get enough if we do. The pressure might break us. And there's no life in that.

Have a faith-filled Friday.

I Don't Cry Anymore

When I first started in this valley of a spiritually-mismatched marriage, I was an emotional wreck. I cried out to God, I cried out loud, I cried and cried and cried. I don't think I'd ever wept so much in my entire life as I had those first few months of this valley.

Seriously.

There are specific places I remember crying. And specific times. And many daily occurrences. I promise, I am not asking for a pity party...like I said...this was a while ago.

But, I think about it often, and I wonder what has changed, and why I don't cry anymore. Because, over the past year and a half, we've cycled in and out of our same lows.

Funny how we never really learn how to climb up and out. I mean...we have done a ton of climbing. And we've had an upward movement out of the valley (well, not necessarily away from the reason, but toward a peace in living with it) for a steady amount of time.

Although, it seems, there is always a broken pass in the near future and we tumble down and down and hit the valley floor again. Over and over. While I drag my feet in the same old treacherous trenches, my heart still aches, my soul still groans, and I feel the weight of hopelessness time and again.

Yet, my cheeks remain dry.

 I fear that my aching heart is growing callous to the trial...do I daresay that my vision of God's hand in all of this is blinded? Sometimes I go there. I do. I confess. Sometimes I just don't see Him anymore because the valley is dark.

The other day, my son came to me with a problem. It was something that I would normally feel unsettled about. I guess "normally" being two years ago. But our normal has changed. And I didn't fear or tremble at his problem.

That scared me.

That made me wonder if I've grown numb and apathetic to the hard stuff because of so much hard stuff. But there's part of me that wants to believe...maybe I've just grown up.

And mostly I want to think, God's grown bigger in my life and I've surrendered much to Him. So much so that I really do have His peace in me.

And I don't cry anymore.

A big problem met with peace might appear as apathetic, but even amidst the trials we are called to rest...we are called to Peace. It just dawned on me as I write this and flip through my Bible--how this past month I've been going through Psalm 23 and the psalm might just illustrate where I am at.

Which is crazy. Like I said, I don't know if I see Him.

But maybe He just showed up as I type...pulling together a big A-Ha as to what I might have lived through and lived out in the Psalm 23 challenge.

Wow, in this moment, I am reminded that He really is my Shepherd, no matter how blind I may be.
**I added the pictures AFTER I wrote this...just had to showcase what I've learned.:)**

Two Journeys, One Heart

I reflected on my life today. That's what happens when I get by myself and walk in nature. Well, nature today included a mowed soccer field and a dormant corn field in the heart of America...the great bread basket of the world.

But still.

God's breath was loud and moving--the leaves, the grass, the dried up corn stalks.

It seems that most of my memories consist of a walk. A trek of some sort. A journey. No matter how insignificant (although, I wonder at the significance seeing as how I remember the walks years later).

Like the walk I took along a curb with a friend named Zoey. It was a hot West Texas day, and we were ants on the concrete expanse of an Air Force base. She taught me that we could curse the devil with a certain finger, and not feel guilty one bit. Why does that stick out in my mind so much?

And then I think of the walk I took to school every day, clear on the other side of the world...through a quaint village nestled in the fields of East Anglia. Steps forward to a wooden gate that led to a path along the back of villager gardens, ending at the wide lawn sprawling from the little junior school of my youth.

Why do I remember that so much?

That time of my life was life. My eyes were opened to the beauty of literature, history, culture...and I had no idea at the time, but it was where the seed of a writer planted itself firmly in my soul. My heart opened wide as I read the stories upon pages of Enid Blyton, C.S. Lewis, and Roald Dahl, feeding and coloring the experiences of an American transplant in a world of old. I may have walked toward school and back home again, but really, I was walking toward a future that would not even meet my itching toes until twenty-eight years later.

There was a pretty coveted walk a few years later...one that I took several times over the course of high school. I found myself absorbing the life of characters upon a stage. I lost myself in the poetic verse of Shakespeare, the drama, passion, and rhythm of sixteenth century verse. How much my heart leapt with the emotion of my part. How odd to think back on those steps upon the stage and realize they were actual steps to my future...now just twenty years away.

But as with any good story, or worn journey, things do not find the future brimming and waiting unobstructed. And the heart gets in the way of that forward motion.
And I walked down the aisle...bashful and awkward, but hope-filled and assured in the love of a waiting heart at the altar.

And we walked toward a family--enduring the labor pains of a first child as we walked around a mall, stepped toward a future assured by each-other's security--walking around a neighborhood of our first house pushing our son and bursting with the new-found parental love--and ascending the steps of the church, to dedicate ourselves to the spiritual growth and guidance of our child...as we did with the next three children as well.

Every step moves toward something, doesn't it?

And while I was taking those steps, I thought I had a pretty good idea about what would meet me along the way.

And how wrong it was to think that I knew for certain.

I walked today, looking at my feet upon the path, remembering a most recent walk. One with my journal tucked beneath my arm, and my heart set on hearing God's voice. And I think I heard Him...and I reveled in His message to me. And I thought I knew. I thought I knew that this journey could only get better...but then everything stopped.

Who would have thought that from all the steps, the forward motion, my steps would dissolve in quick sand, and I'd not just take steps backward, but I would sink deep and low, finding myself in the darkest valley of my existence. My toes rested upon shards of broken dreams and expectations.

Even now, I can barely see the light. There is a crumb of my journey left...as I see those steps on British soil and upon the stage well up and create a story so close to my heart and so ingrained upon the pages of a novel, that I find hope there. I am not all lost.

And then, as I walked in a pitiful nature today...a manipulated one... I remembered the breath of God on my walk not long ago. It makes me wonder, if He really is still close to me...even in this darkness where the bramble of lies covers my ears and my heart?

I will keep walking. Hoping for that story--penned from the steps of a child to an adult, by the voices, literature, and art of those in history--to blossom on the paths of others' journeys pushing their hearts in steps of their own futures. This is my hope for my writing.

But mostly, I pray that the valley will not last much longer...that I will find a way out...that I will see God's hand once more, and He will pull me to the surface again. This is my hope for my heart.