Welcome to My Royally Wrecked Space to Chill...



I hope you find comradery...I hope you find peace....I hope you find joy...I hope you find acceptance...I hope you feel loved...I hope you know that your are precious...chosen...and always welcome here...come sit a spell...

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

From Swampland to Concrete

I lecture my kids...a lot.

It often begins with..."let me speak something into you that you need to know..." followed by eye rolls and "NO NO!! We get it!" They don't. But my hope is that eventually one day when they are in a college dorm room with a broken heart and it feels like the world has just ended...they will remember.

I've felt like that a lot this year myself.

I've had an epic year. Marriage, Nursing School, Pregnancy, Blended Family...it's been a lot.

A lot of awesomeness...a lot of work.

I've had those dorm room, heart broken moments this year. Not per se due to any one's fault...but because I'm living...breathing...and so is the rest of the world...and well...let's face it...crap happens.

I've begun to live out my own lectures. All the ones God deposited in me over the last 10-15 years. It's been stupendous, humbling, aggravating, perpetual work, and down right freeing.

I've learned it IS better to accept and wait and than be aggressive.
I've learned faith is only acquired through waiting.
I've learned I don't know everything and defensiveness will get you nowhere.
I've learned that standing is sometimes the strongest thing you can do.
I've learned that not everyone loves me like Jesus and my Jelton... and not everyone has my best interest as their motivation.
I've learned to let these people go and set boundaries with people that "despitefully use me."
I've grown a thicker skin that I hope is still porous enough to seep His light still while maintaining self protection.
I've learned true love.
I've learned that my defensiveness in correction lengthens the lesson.
I've learned to listen more...talk less.

In all this learning...the one true thing I've absolutely come to know...trust...chew on...claw to hang on to...is THIS:

JESUS AT THE CENTER OF IT ALL. No other foundation. Period.

I was reminded of this in my reading today...

"Don't you understand the foundation of all things?" Isaiah 40:21-24

One sentence. Summed up an entire lifetime.

He is the foundation of all things. Simple...yet exactly what I needed for the next leg of the journey.

You see...I falter. I question. I fear. I worry.

When I begin these steps, I step back into the place of knowing as quickly as I can...because I realize I've stepped off my foundation into the swamplands (shout out to my Cajun friends). I've looked down at the raging waters rather than looking straight ahead at Jesus and the shore behind him...Foundation.

I lost myself a bit last year. I was keeping a schedule for full time nursing school that was RIDICULOUS at best...husband working out of town...blending a family...working full time...then ended it with a 38 year old uterus getting pregnant...

I lost my way for a period.

I didn't do crack or cheat on my husband. I didn't beat my children senselessly. I didn't rush a baby gap with an oozy...but I lost my mental way. I lost my foundation. I stepped off the ledge. I allowed my mind to take me to places that were not solid. Not truth. Not my manifesto.

Then I failed nursing school by one percentage point.
Then my husband and family rallied me. Loved me. Reminded me who I was.
It was a dark few weeks.
I had to force my feet out of the swampland and back on to the concrete foundation of God.

In more simplistic terms....I had to steady myself in the Word. Speak to the thoughts. Rally.

And I did it again today. And yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that...you get the picture.

I'm human. I'm fragile. I'm in need of concrete in a swampland world.

I continue to learn this. I continue to cling to the concrete. I continue to find peace in acceptance and flee aggression. I continue to trust when it's the hardest part of being alive for me.

I continue to LOVE MY LIFE. Because this is all part of it...

Those lectures...they sustained me. Rallied me. Kept me. Returned me to Him and myself.

Returned me to the place of "knowing"...the place where you can see one thing with your eyes and another with your heart. The place of unshakeableness (I realize this is not a word)...the place where you slip, slide and sway but keep standing because you KNOW...you just know...

My prayer for all of us today is that we continue to flail, fail, and flourish. That we listen to the lectures and lean in....
May we be reminded we are solid. Foundation secure. Nothing can destroy us...only solidify, rectify, and remind us...

Grace n Peace,

A ~