I think I'm back..........

My usual m.o. when an unexpected struggle comes my way is to withdraw. From my family, friends, co-workers and unfortunately, from God. I have this really preposterous thought in my head (that makes no sense whatsoever I know) is that if I'm really scared or concerned about something then acknowledging it - even to God, makes it real. As though the act of acknowledging it gives it power to happen. Worries spoken aloud come true. Hey, I have warned you before that you aren't reading the work of a logical, sane person. I have had a stern talking to myself though and am working to do the things I know help and working minute by minute to lay it in the hands of my Father and LEAVE it there. Through the years it has helped to have a place that I meet God so that just in the act of coming there draws me to the throne. SO here you go - this is my altar of offering. First of all my chair: (ignore the book on the left that has fallen to the floor and the order of worship that has fallen under the table):
Here you have a little plaque/picture thingy that a friend gave me when I was going through my divorce and felt like such a failure.
Here's my lamp - it's so very much not me. But then, neither is the furniture. The house this furniture belongs in would not have books and orders of worship on the floor. And now my old Bible, my new Bible, my current Bible Study, gratitude journal, 31 Days of Power and my prayer journal plus various writing instruments. And finally, before I get too cozy with the Word, this last very important item (did I mention I'm in this place while it's still dark in the a.m.?) I just noticed that my fine china clashes with the whole furniture theme going on. I told you it wasn't me.

Second Chance......

I was looking last night and realized that although I have written 100 posts I have only posted 99 so actually THIS is my 100th post. Ta da! Another chance to be poetic, wise, deep, challenging....all those things I desire in my heart when I sit down to type.


Alas. Still not so much. I'm reminded of a cartoon I've seen in various places "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." Seriously. I cannot seem to keep a thought in my head. I'm told it's because of my "time of life". Well I suspect that's a euphemism for "you're old and losing it" but I choose to believe I have information overload and I just need a reboot.


This morning as I was doing my homework for this Bible study:
a point stood out to me that God has impressed upon my heart time and again over the years (I do remember some things). I'm getting the idea He thinks I need to hear this! I've even blogged about this before and still I read it and think "You haven't gotten it yet, Michelle!" Exodus 14:14 says "The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still." My heart just seems to zero in on those words wherever I read them and I begin feeling convicted again. I've messed up so many things because I thought it was up to me to fight the battle. It's up to me to say the right thing, it's up to me to do the right thing. I've got to think of some way to convince someone to go the way I think is right. I wonder if the result would have been different, at least some of the time, if I'd relinquished the need for action and was still and let the Lord fight the battle? In 12 step groups there is often the mention of trying to be someone's own personal God. By that it is meant that we enablers often are busy trying to talk someone into being sober, smoothing the way, cajoling, shaming, begging - whatever we think will work. Oftentimes, while our intentions are good, we are standing between our loved one and God. We need to get out of God's way. We need to remember that GOD will fight the battle if we'll just be still and quit messing in His business.


Am I the only person in the world that thinks God needs help?

The one I caught.............

Since I told the story of “the one that got away” I decided that today I would share the story of how I met Thomas. It’s a story of God moving in definite, traceable ways so that I, a very wounded woman, could trust that it was God and not me.

About a year after I learned that John (my ex) was in love with my good friend (I have since redefined what ‘good friend’ means to me) I wrote in a prayer journal: “God I am very tired of going it alone. Being a single parent is hard when the kids are so young and need so much. Where do I turn when I am worried about money or discipline or any of the myriad of things that come up in the day?” And He said, “Michelle, you turn to me.” I was learning that in so many ways and it was filling my cup and I was learning to trust Him. For too long I’d placed men of God or knowledge of God ahead of knowing God but I was learning each day the blessed difference. In spite of all I was learning about and from the Lord there was one area of my life that I hadn’t turned over to him. That was the pain and the shame and the failure of divorce. I was so very ashamed – I felt certain that there was a large bold red letter RDF tattooed on my forehead. Rejected!! Divorced!! Failure!! was all that I felt about me at the time.

The next entry in my journal went something like this: “Lord, I don’t know if there is a man in my future – I don’t know if I’ll ever trust again but even if I do, who is going to choose me? If there is somebody out there that can overlook the fact that I obviously couldn’t do marriage right – if there really is such a guy then I am going to need all the assurances in the world from you that it is your hand guiding the relationship”. Not mine. Not this mythical guy’s. Not any human hand. Then I decided to lay out my fleece just like Gideon did.

1.) He must love the Lord above all else.
2.) He must never have been married before – I have enough baggage for two.
3.) He must not have any children of his own – my children need undivided attention and loyalty
4.) He must not call me or ask me out until 18 months after the end of my marriage.

I thought I had made the list so impossible that I wouldn’t have to worry. I would accept my single state and not have to take a chance on love again because well, God didn’t send me anyone that met the requirements. Let’s face it, a man with no kids and no prior marriage at the late 30’s age point?? Most of those that were still single were single for a reason, people!

Aaaahhh, but my God is so big.

To be continued…………..

Merciful Heavens it is finally the end of the story...........

Those are the stories of my life…in the boat, and out of it. Going down for the 3rd time and walking across the top of the waves….What have I learned? I learned that what happened to me had to happen in order that God be able to mold me into a vessel he could use. Back in that first part of my life I was trusting fully in my ability to do all the right things and none of the wrong things. That was an empty, vain religion that was no life preserver when the storms of life hit. It was only after I was broken that God was able to begin a work in me that he hasn’t finished yet.

Once at a ladies retreat we looked at Hebrews 11 and the great hall of faith heroes. Our speaker suggested that we all add a verse to that chapter so that our verse 41 would read “By faith ______(insert your name) did...." If my Bible had a verse 41 it would say "By faith Michelle hung on” As I was thinking about that lesson God allowed me to see vs. 40 with new eyes. I thought about that long list of people who did great things by faith, parted the red sea, left their homeland, offered their only son, hid the spies and many other things. The chapter closes with this verse, “these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” But they had faith that caused them to act whether they saw the fruit of their faith or not. Just like Habbakkuk said in chapter 3 of the book that bears his name “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food. Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”

And so my conclusion is this – authentic faith isn’t gained by staying in the boat. It isn’t a faith that sees. It doesn’t have all the answers but it is one that is in a God that is big enough to handle the questions, the anger, the doubts. It’s the faith we possess when we are honest enough to admit “God I don’t understand. I may never understand. I don’t have to understand.. It’s a faith that says ‘Whatever, Lord’.” And that is enough. I’d like to close this long saga with a paragraph from a book I read recently that has powerfully impacted me. (The Prisoner in the Third Cell by Gene Edwards)

"You have now come face to face with a God whom you do not fully understand. You have met a God who has not lived up to your expectations. ....You are going to get to know your Lord by faith or you will not know him at all. Faith in Him, trust that is in Him...not in his ways. ....today you are resentful of those who so callously hurt you. But no, not really. The truth is you are angry with God because, ultimately, you are not dealing with men, you are dealing the with sovereign hand of your Lord. Beyond all events, behind all things, there is always his sovereign hand. The question is not, "why is God doing this?" Why is he like this? The question is not, Why does he not answer me? The question is not, I need him desperately, why does he not come rescue me?" the question is not, why did God allow this tragedy to happen to me, to my children, to my wife, to my husband, to my family? Nor is it why does God allow injustices?

The question before the house is this: Will you follow a God you do not understand? Will you follow a God who does not live up to your expectations?

Your Lord has put something in your life which you cannot bear. The burden is simply too great. He was never supposed to do this! But the questions remains, "will you continue to follow this God who did not live up to your expectations?"

And for me, the answer is yes.

Almost to the end.......

There is a quote from Charles Spurgeon that spoke to me when I first heard it:

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you cannot trace his hand
Trust his heart.

So I trusted God to show up and I asked him to hold me up. For four years we lived through the highs and lows of a family that loves an addict. I went to places I never dreamed I would go…both literally and figuratively. I never ever expected to see my child in an orange jumpsuit behind bars. I would never have imagined a day when I would say ‘thank God he is choosing alcohol now instead of pot…at least it’s legal”. Long periods of time would go by where he was almost the happy funny kid I gave birth to, followed by periods where he gave into Satan’s lies and slide into the cesspool of lies that the enemy filled his mind with and he would attempt yet again to drown out those voices of insecurity and inadequacy with drugs and alcohol. I prayed for him to get sober. I prayed that God would somehow make him hate alcohol. I didn’t see it happening. But it began to matter less to me. Not that I quit caring….not by a long shot. Not that I began accepting his life style choices. Never did I or would I do that. But I began experiencing the sweet serenity of knowing God was in charge. God loved my son more than I did…hard to imagine but I knew it was true. I still cried. I still mourned the loss of dreams I had for the kid. I still panicked from time to time. But over all I knew that he was one of God’s sheep and God doesn’t lose his sheep. [As an aside, he chose to get well on October 14, 2004 and as today has been sober nearly three years. Recovery works. He will never be cured from this dreadful disease that he has but he has chosen to live in recovery and I praise God for the deliverance. I am deeply grateful to all those who own a part of that recovery because of the battle you waged on your knees for his soul. You’ve loved him, accepted him as your own and that’s a debt a mother can never repay.]

Yet still more..........

This was not a storm I was prepared for. It was a storm fiercer than any other I had faced. I was swept out of my boat and into the darkest, roughest water I had ever imagined. Most of the time the best I could hope for was keeping my head above water and oftentimes I was barely that. This was the beginning of the long dark winter of my faith. Unlike my previous storm where I called out to God and He responded in unmistakable ways, this time God was silent. I couldn’t sense his presence. I didn’t see his hand in my life. Life became a battle---making it to the end of the day so that I could go to sleep was the highest of my goals. And every day was exactly like the gray day before it. I came to church but could never make it through an entire service. I prayed prayers that felt empty and futile. The only person in my life who loved me completely and unconditionally was gone. How was I to go on? WHY DID GOD DO THIS TO ME?

Through the love and support of a good husband, good friends, a good counselor and good drugs I was able to eventually claw my way through the depression that had settled but I still couldn’t feel God’s presence. Would I ever hear his voice again? I didn’t even have a chance to make it to the boat let alone get settled in it before the next storm hit. In many ways it was the worst one yet. The other storms had been devastating…but none came as a complete and total surprise. I knew my husband didn’t love me….I was shocked that he would choose divorce but still – mentally I had a degree of preparedness. While I certainly did not expect Daddy to die on my kitchen floor a week before Christmas I knew he would die someday. And I knew I would never be ready to say goodbye to him. This next storm was nothing I could anticipate, expect or be prepared for.

Story of the storm.........

I am the oldest of four. My parents had three girls in three years and six years later my brother came along. For a lot of years I got to be Daddy’s “son”. Friday night football games were our date nights right up until I was in high school. I got to go to work with him in the summer. I spent lots of hours riding with Daddy in his truck. I grew up believing there wasn’t any thing worth knowing, any thing worth doing that he didn’t know or couldn’t do. He had lost his own mother when he was a small boy and so grew up being passed from relative to relative…whoever could feed an additional mouth during the days of the depression. As a result of that he wanted to build a family unit that was strong – providing for us the sense of security he never had. In the eyes of the world he lived and died without much that makes a man a success. But it was through him that I learned I could do anything I set my mind to. It was because of him that I’ll tackle nearly every home improvement job I think up. I can still hear in my mind “Shoot, if they could do it we are smart enough to figure it out too!” It was also through him that I learned a deep appreciation for the Word of God. Daddy’s work day started at 4:00 a.m. and if you ever got up to go to the one bathroom our house had in the middle of the night you were most likely going to find him sitting in his recliner with his Bible in his lap. He taught me by example to “hide the words in my heart” as it says in Psalms 119:11.

In December 1997 mom and dad were coming to our house for an early Christmas celebration. Because my sister is a 12/25 baby she has always gotten top billing on that day (and rightly so!). So Mom and Dad came on Thursday the 18th and were going to go on to Abilene on Monday the 22nd. The next day was the last day of school for the year and the kids were all excited about the class parties and Secret Santa’s and the school break. That Friday morning I got my kids up and out the door while welcoming into the house the two little babies I was keeping at the time. Rylee was 2 and Nicholas was 1-1/2 and we were going to have our own Christmas party. Nicholas had gotten very attached to “grandpa” the night before so as soon as he got there he was looking for Grandpa. Daddy had waited until the kids were gone to get his shower and so it was after 8 when he came into the kitchen with Nick draped around his legs. They sat down at the kitchen table and began to play with the toy that he had just gotten and I asked Daddy if he was ready for breakfast. “Sure Hon” was his reply”. I turned to get the muffin out of the oven, butter it, pour the coffee and answer the ringing phone all at the same time. Tyler was calling – he had forgotten to take his Secret Santa gift to school. During the conversation I heard the unmistakable thud of a head hitting the floor. Moms of boys are well acquainted with that sound. Nicholas cried out and I turned expecting to scoop him up into my arms. As I bent down to get him out of the corner of my eye I saw daddy slumped in his chair and then watched in slow motion as he slid to the floor.

The next events remain vivid in my mind’s eye…as though they were burned into my consciousness forever and yet the minutes, hours and days leave no real perception as to their actual passing. I remember grabbing the phone and dialing 911. I remember screaming at the operator both to come and to let me go because I knew CPR. I can see my mom sitting on the floor and cradling Daddy’s head in her lap and asking me over and over “Don’t you know what to do?”. I can feel his chest under my hands as I began CPR – a skill I had never intended to use and certainly not on someone I knew. I can still hear the paramedics tell me I had done well and to let them take over. I cannot erase the pictures of his body lifting off the floor as they shocked his heart over and over. The surreal-ness of following the ambulance to the hospital still overwhelms me. I remember every face of every person who had heard the news and come to gather and support me in the family room of that hospital. I remember the pain in Keith’s voice as he prayed for us. I remember going into the room where the shell of the man who had shown me the way to Jesus was laid, gathering my babies to my chest as they cried tears of fear and confusion and hurt. Instead of gathering around a Christmas tree that year, my family and I gathered in the snow around a hole in the ground where they laid that shell to rest. I remember crying harder than I imagined a person could cry until it felt as though my very insides had ceased to exist.

Short story today.......

It was in the storm I met Him.

I learned that storms, though brutal, do not last forever. They eventually end. I learned that storms are survivable when God is in control. I didn’t need the oars anymore. God was captain of my ship and I thought I was exactly where God wanted me to be. He brought a man into my life that adored me and was eager to become Dad to three hurting kids. The fact that he was willing to take on a woman scarred by divorce and serious trust issues and three children who were dealing with abandonment issues of their own is proof either of God’s direction in his life or insanity on his part. The jury is still out on that one! All of a sudden this country girl found herself living in a metropolitan area that was literally 50 times larger than the community she had moved from. I went from a place where we grew and canned our own food to a place where people were far more likely to get dinner from the drive through than their back yard. I was in culture shock but God was in control. (As a complete aside from this serious post I would like to say that I have completely adapted to that drive-through thing and am compelled to say the day-in and day-out cooking thing is highly over rated!)

And so the story goes on.....

Remember the rule based religion I talked about earlier – I was finding that doing the right thing didn’t necessarily means I would get the right results. It didn’t protect me and you know what? It didn’t comfort me either. The first lesson God wanted me to learn was that He alone had power over the storm. He didn’t cause the storm but he was in control of it and he knew Michelle’s boat was rocking but not upside down. The second lesson and probably the most important was the hardest for me to accept. God had people all over that little community of 3500 that didn’t show up to the same building I did on Sunday morning. I know for some of you that is hard to understand why it came as a surprise to me. But for my time in the world it was a huge revelation and one I didn’t accept easily. There were great birthing pains as my faith stretched before I could wholeheartedly believe and accept that. Even that I had to learn the hard way though. The church we had worked with were grieving, in shock themselves and most believed (and told me) that I should leave. Only when it was those in other faith groups who sat with me, cried with me, made sure I had a place to go on holidays, who told me they were fasting for me. Only then did I accept and believe that I was receiving the love of Jesus from people who months before I would not have fellowshipped. Accepting their love for God provided me with the greatest freedom of all…I wasn’t their judge and in freeing myself from that responsibility I received even greater freedom. The freedom to make mistakes myself. I finally was free to admit I didn’t and couldn’t get it all right. And that was ALL RIGHT! The greatest lesson I learned during the storm was if I kept my eyes on Jesus the storm wasn’t as frightening. If I took my eyes off him I saw the waves just like Peter – but when I was keeping my eyes on him life was euphoric. My faith grew by leaps and bounds. God’s word became real and active. He met me where I needed him. With whatever I needed. With all I needed. For perhaps the first time I understood that God was actively involved in my life and He was really REAL. He wasn’t some judge far off but a father very near. God saw me through that first real storm of my life. I am ashamed and sorry to admit that up until this time I had been absolutely faithful in my service to God. I had been teaching Sunday school since I was 14 years old. I held teacher-training workshops and tried to teach other women to love Bible class teaching as much as I did. I went on mission trips. I was THE preacher’s wife for goodness sake….and yet I didn’t really know God. I knew all about him. But I didn’t know him. I replaced my idolization of my husband and other men of God with an idolization of the only one worthy of my worship. I wish I had time to share this part of my story. Of the ways I would pray a prayer for a specific need and a few hours later I would get a phone call that would begin with “Michelle, you don’t know me but…” Every single need. I had no job history, no marketable skills and yet we were provided for the entire time I was a single mom. I ended up with my own business that was exactly my skill set and I was able to provide food, clothing and shelter for my family. The fact that any of this happened and that I was able to do any of it is proof positive that God was in control of the storm. None of what was accomplished during that time was me…none.

and still more.......

It was somewhere during this most difficult time that a young man moved to the community as a vet in the largest vet practice in town. He was different from anyone I had known before. He talked of a personal relationship with God that was intimate and engrossing. He thrived on talking about Jesus as though he were a friend and most of all he exuded a joy that eluded me. One fall day when the pain was so great I could bear it no longer I got down on my knees in my dining room and cried out to the God that I had all but abandoned. Truth was I was angry at him. Everyone repeatedly told me that my husband was gifted from God…his ministry certainly seemed to be blessed by God. I couldn’t reconcile that with our day-to-day life and had decided that if God was blessing my husband then I didn’t want anything to do with God. But that fall day I was desperate enough to try him one more time. I told God through the tears that I didn’t understand what it was that Greg had but I wanted it and to please take anything in my life that was standing between me and the Lord’s active presence in my life. No sooner had I uttered those words than I quickly added on a postscript to please not let anything happen to my children. I didn’t think my emotional health was strong enough to live through anything happening to them but I offered up everything else in my life. As was my habit at the time I then set about planning God’s answer for him. I don’t know why I thought God needed my help…or why I thought I COULD help…goodness only knows things were a mess. But I always wanted to help so I figured out that my husband would take a sabbatical from ministry. We would have time to reunite as a family and we would be very poor but we would grow back together and things would be great. Somehow in my warped head of rule keeping I knew that marriage was for better or worse for life and I assumed that everyone played by those same rules. I was wrong. On the day after Christmas 1990 I was packing our bags to return to Texas after spending the holidays in Colorado at my parent’s home. My husband had just gotten the latest Max Lucado book and he had gone to bed early the night before pleading a sore throat. He was going to read the book and he asked for notepaper to take notes. He was an inveterate note taker and that request wasn’t the least bit unusual. I checked all the rooms for any shoes or new toys that we would miss at that precise moment when it was too far to go back and get them. No toys, but there lying on the floor between the wall and the bed was that ML book. I reached down to pick it up and the papers fell out. I picked them up, shuffled them a little to get them back inside the front cover when I noticed the words “My Darling”. An apology note I thought to myself…for any of a hundred neglects and so I sat down and began reading. I hadn’t gotten much beyond the first paragraph when it dawned on me that this wasn’t making any sense and only a little bit farther when it became painfully clear that the letter was to one I would have called my best friend. From my husband. The boat I had been riding in was rocked in a wild storm that completely caught me by surprise. The oars were washed overboard, I couldn’t see the shore and I didn’t know how to swim. Those days were the most gut wrenching I had ever experienced. In one decision by my now ex husband, I lost my identity (Preacher’s wife), my house (preacher’s home), my financial support and my church family. For 16 years I was the preachers wife.. 16 years I had lived in 3 different places. 16 years removed from the community I’d wanted to spend my whole life in. It was no longer home. Daddy had gotten sick and for me and 3 kids to move back home would have been a financial hardship. My kids were Texans! Through a series of events God led me to believe he wasn’t done with me yet in that little community.

More....

As I said, I grew up in a home that was ruled by alcoholism of the generation past. We were so busy living perfect lives and being perfect examples there was no room for mistakes or weaknesses. The way we dealt with them was to deny their existence. Keeping up appearances was the most important thing in my life. So there was nowhere to turn, no experience to rely on of how to ask for help. We were not long into our marriage when one inescapable fact was glaringly apparent. My husband and I agreed on one thing. We both thought he was the greatest preacher/teacher/man we had ever known. He was truly gifted in ministry. People came to him in great numbers. No matter which community we lived in the church where he preached quickly became a drawing card to the community at large. He did weddings, funerals, graduation speeches….he was truly gifted. But he didn’t’ love me. I became lonelier and lonelier. The verbal putdowns became more and more frequent. The predictable thing happened – I began to believe what I heard which only further exacerbated the problems. I had always wanted a big family – would have been happy to have six kids. Instead I had endometriosis and fertility was a huge issue. By the grace of God I finally got ½ my original 6 but the years of drugs and surgeries and dashed hopes took their toll on my emotional health. I had reached such desperation that I found myself standing at the bathroom sink and staring into my own eyes, willing myself to empty the contents of the medicine cabinet into my mouth. The thought that I had 3 precious babies who needed at least one parent in their home always kept my feet on the planet earth but I was broken as could be. Still, I had a role to play and I played it well. No one knew we weren’t the happiest couple in the neighborhood. No one knew that our marriage was a sham that was ruled by criticism, silence and absence. If the absence wasn’t physical then it was emotional.

Faith story continued.....

My grandfather was an alcoholic. Although he was dry the entire time I knew him, he was very much practicing his addiction when my mom was growing up. Those living with alcoholics learn to keep secrets, to act as though you have no problems and to maintain control at all costs. Even though there was no alcohol ever in our home those coping mechanisms were learned. So you better believe I stayed in the boat. I stayed in the boat with the oars firmly secured in my arms and no other’s. As long as you acted right you could get a "right" result. I carried this understanding into my religious life as well. You went to church every single time the doors were opened and you kept a checklist of the required acts of obedience. Each week you checked them off and then could feel somewhat confident in knowing you were doing right. I didn’t curse, drink, dance or date those who did. The religion worked for me and I thought I was doing exactly what God wanted from me. The boat never even left the dock but I didn’t know it was supposed to. I graduated from high school and began college right in the little town in southeastern Colorado where I had grown up. I was going to marry a local boy, I knew exactly what side of town we would live in, which elementary school our six children would attend and who would give them piano lessons. I met my local boy future husband and he would come to church with me and decided he needed and wanted to be baptized. Then the story went awry. He decided he wanted to become a preacher. Clearly my boat was getting ready to move out into the harbor a ways. I didn’t like it – not one little bit. But I could still see shore – I still had the oars and I adapted. We lived in Denver for a year while he finished school and then we began our lives as “The Preacher and his wife”.

My whole entire faith story

I don't know how God works but I know when He starts nudging me along a certain path there is something up ahead for which He is preparing me. For quite some time I've been thinking about my journey and how I got here. I've shared it recently but I don't think I'm done because there's still not that sense of "AHA! so that's why...." So I am going to be writing about it for the next however many days it takes me to get it all out there...maybe someone will be blessed or encouraged and maybe I'll figure out what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment. And so the story begins....

When you look in your Bible at examples of faith there are many - but the one that I am thinking of right now is Peter, and one particular incident in Peter’s life. That would be when he looked out across a raging storm tossed sea and in spite of everything sane he put his legs over the side of the boat and walked on water. We spend a lot of our lesson times on the fact that he walked on water. That is huge, don’t get me wrong. But for me, the real miracle began earlier. The miracle was he got out of the boat. I mean what is in a person’s head that they would think the thing to do is get out of the boat in the middle of a raging storm? You see, I’ve spent most of my life in the boat. I didn’t know that wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I liked the boat. Reality is, in real life and in spiritual life, I am afraid of the water. I cannot swim. Way back in the days of childhood when summer came my mom enrolled my two sisters and me in swimming lessons. The way it was arranged there were three different groups at the shallow end of the pool. You started at one side and progressed through those three beginner groups until you moved on to deeper water. It took me all summer long to make it to the 3rd beginner group and I am convinced it was a social promotion. I was head & shoulders taller than those kids who were jumping off the high dive but I never got over being afraid of the water. That pretty much symbolizes my spiritual and emotional life as well.
(to be continued)......

Weekend plans

Two weeks in a row I have taken Friday off! What a joy. Tomorrow two friends and I are going to the Women of Faith pre-conference and I am looking forward to it so much. I know I am going to laugh. I know I am going to cry. I know I am going to be standing on Holy Ground....I just can't wait. We're going to make it a real experience by riding the Dart Rail down too - three old gals on an adventure!! Since they are several years younger than me I'm thinking they won't want to know I included them in the old gal category. We are going to have to leave at dark-thirty tomorrow and Saturday to make it though - so I am crashing early tonight. I know God is going to do something great this weekend -- I just pray I am an alert enough to recognize it when it is happening. God bless ya!

Epiphany

Tonight I was in the car by myself when I believe that God gave me an insight into the heart of the most perfect of parents. It's been a tough spell in my parenting life, filled with a lot more doubt than confidence, tears than joy, and fear than peace. I've had to draw a line in the sand, stand firm and trust that God would give me the strength I needed. It is literally tearing me in two and there isn't a second of the day that I don't want to relent, make an exception or just plain pretend that none of the rebellion exists. As of this minute, I've had the strength to stand but it breaks my heart. Tonight I had my eyes opened to how it must break the heart of my Father when I want something that is contrary to what his will is. When I want something that is not in my best interests but I want it anyway. He says no when it is (of course!) within his power to say yes. I am not so presumptuous as to suggest there is any comparison to my feeble parenting attempts and the Lord's care for me. It was just that in that epiphany as I was hurting so much, I felt him say, "I know, Michelle. I know what you're experiencing." It doesn't ease my sadness any, but it comforts me to know that He knows what I'm going through. I am just so grateful that he lets me know that too.