all in

this is the one where i am going to step off the diving board.

though i don't have the technical experience to perfect this and i'll likely belly flop, i'm going to step forward anyway. i'll give you a nod and maybe even a slight wink, and then i'll take a step. right now.

the considering and deliberating is the scary part.

the water isn't the color i thought it'd be and the season seems a little off to me. alas, i've heard the call and i've decided not to turn back.

we'll do this thing -- whatever that might end up being i am not 100% certain -- and i'm going to just trust.

someone deemed me worthy of the life we share together. i recognize how very important our story is and i've decided not to question.

this is today's decision. i recognize that tomorrow might feel very differently and i might be torn to consider doubting again. i will wrestle confusion to the ground again -- it's inevitable -- and we'll go round and round until i get tired of myself.

we might look at each other and feel the tendency to blame one another when the chaos seems like taking this step was a stupid thing to even consider. i realize the risk in that and today i'm okay with it. because, i am embracing our humanness -- our sloppy, messy, hypocrite-like tendencies that tend to act out emotion rather than identifying, examining and discussing it.

i'm in. all in.

this step i'm taking is a surrender -- a releasing of control. an acknowledging that i don't know what is right or best or even what i want. i'm embracing the 180-like shift in our almost plans.

it feels a bit risky to dive without knowing how deep the water is, and to step without knowing what is coming next . . . but my amount of faith mixed with your amount of faith will be enough. we already are enough. and truthfully, we didn't need the faith -- He already made us enough.

so, let's embrace our enough-ness and lay low our fears and together take this step.

: : : 

to my groom,

i've acted like a child who was too impatient to wait for her father to give her what she wanted most -- who, resentful of the waiting crossed her arms and pouted, and then when the gift was handed to her spouted: "but i don't want it any more!" -- because, it was so hard to surrender into the waiting, and i'm so scared of false starts and empty gifts. 

i realize i have huge trust issues with God and a tremendous weakness in my ability to live out hope and faith, and i'm realizing that my surrendering became prideful -- a "look, i surrendered!" attitude that says, "don't make me do it again! because, i had this other vision i was asked to yield to and so i did, and now, this -- a 180 shift, again!"

and here i am, fearing that my thinking out loud here with you might be sloppy and confusing and just too much . . . that you won't get me and i'll just make a mess. 

these lower case letters are a reflection of my small, shaky voice that struggles to believe i am enough. that we are enough. that we will be given enough.

so this piece is my: "okay, i'll surrender the vision to try for one of our own" -- and again, a yielding, perhaps now to the true desires of my heart.

i'm surrendering -- giving up the control and the fight and to just see what He wills. i'm taking this step. 

i love you. more than words or my life can ever reflect. 

a

Share your heart . . . add a comment below.

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You might be interested in this:

on letting go {raw and unedited}

surrendering superwoman

how trust is a game changer

the pursuing

discomfort

jump

connect

Sometimes enough is enough.

Years of bitterness and resentment finally get to be too much to carry around. Shoulders ache from the weight.

Declaring Surrender gets spoken out of frustration. The door swings wide and creaks with tempting whines to venture through and away.

In the place where a wife and her husband make their life together, wounds have festered from failing to be treated.

Quiet and silence has erected a glass wall, clear and difficult to see. Each time the heart bumps into it, bruises deepen.

Talking with someone with expert counsel can give us perspective, sure. And medicine can help. And daily doses of alcohol, too.

But still...

     Relationship needs the kind of work that self-help doesn't repair on its own.

A daughter hears more than maybe she should. For 27 years she's watched this bitterness grow and gratitude cease. Her adopted dad goes from admired to despised by the woman who allowed him this place in their lives.

The now adult daughter takes on a role that doesn't seem to make sense and is backward in many ways. She becomes the encourager. The Hope Whisperer.

She wonders if maybe that was His design all along--for children to be the ministers.

Adult-Girl wonders if her words are making a difference. And Hope carries her through.

She trusts there is purpose in her role as the listener of her mother's heart cries and the teller of Truth.

Words come out of the now grown daughter for her mother to Do. Some. Thing. Different.--stay or go, but stop this silence and self assurance that what you say won't make a difference.

     Fight differently. Fight for relationship, not the right to be heard.

The girl's tolerance for complaining and not committing to relationship has run its course. She declares she's heard enough complaining and it's time for a choice to be made.

She tells her mother to Like what you do, and she means even her choices.
   
     If your choice is to stay, then like it. Do your choice with a wanting.

She decides to leave her mother--crying and wounded--and trusts in His capable hands. In His grace. In the truth that her mother isn't truly alone.

Sometimes declaring that we've heard enough helps people to Connect. With each other and most of all, with Him.

Connecting with Truth holds power to change things. Stories and futures.

And the morning just might rise up healing.

Today's post was intended to be part of my friend, Lisa-Jo's fun challenge each Friday to 

     "Write for five, short, bold beautiful minutes... 

     Unscripted and unedited...

     Without worrying if it's just right or not."

My five minutes of writing today quickly became fifteen as truth-telling won out. Sometimes that happens. Unscripted, unedited and without worry, these words flowed as my heart cried out for peace to fill my mother's heart--for her to connect with the one true Healer and love to conquer hurt. 

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enough

Slowly I've been led to a surrendering that leaves me shaking.

I'm confident that this is right and excitement wells up in me.

At the same time, doubt nestles close and whispers her questions.

It's worship. I know it is.

Surrender is always worship.

Still, it aches. And I know, it's not supposed to feel good.

I'm not supposed to know what my act of surrendering means.

I can't possibly know the exponential value of this choice.

What it represents--my wanting to trust Him--is profound. It's meaning-filled.

I don't always trust. I can't fully.

But digging deep and choosing this, it's my worship. This I know.

I'm surrendering conception today. The Wonder for whether we'll have another child of our own. My calendar.

And tomorrow, when the choosing is hard, I hope I do it again.

When it's a tough choosing, I trust He'll lead me again and again.

*Now* gets swept in the corner when I sprawl out my plans for tomorrow. 

I don't want to miss out on the delectable flavor of the bread specifically made for me today.

I want *Now* to be enough for me.

_______________________________________________

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living gratefully :: imperfect

Our neighbors tell us that the Boy-Man is a delight to watch.

They see his joy. His exuberance for life--how he bounds on the school bus each day, and even off it coming home.

They tell us that we're the ideal parents. And I cringe.

I worry. 

Do they consider the *issues*?

That he speaks back to us at home, and not out in other spaces, is good. Healthy.

I tell myself that the Boy needs space to be free. 

He needs to feel safe at home. To feel the weight of his emotions.

And this is truth.

Still, though, he holds back and I know it.

We keep his schedule free-flowing and not tight to the brim. Building in time to breathe and rest is important.

But what about when you don't allow for time to talk?

What about when you've structured the moments just so that he keeps to himself and hardly says how he feels, let alone even think.

The sleep walking and active mind, even when it's dark, I think about that.

And I wonder--could his mind not be turning off? 
Could he not be really resting, emotionally?
Is he re-playing his day?

Is that why he wakes up and is so talkative about the previous day when we gather 'round the breakfast table?

I worry that he'll have issues.
And I know that he will.
I tell myself that it is important that he does.

God will allow whatever it takes for the Boy to know Him. 

And I remind myself that we'll never parent perfectly.

I comment out loud to our neighbors that I hope they aren't expecting too much of us.

I ask our dear neighbor-friends if they will let us know if they sense something awry about the Boy, and even invite him in to talk with them, if they want.

Because, it takes a village. And I believe it.

My heart knows the Boy will have issues.

And I know that some of them will be from our failed parenting.

We might hold too tight.
We might not allow him time to talk.
We might tell him what to do too much,
and he might not know how to think for himself.

All I can do is Let. Go. 

Trust. Hope. Cling to Truth. 

My Father has *this*.
He knows what the Boy needs.

I am grateful for the Truth. And, trusting in this is my worship. 
___________________________________________

Gratitude for {Grace}...

...a mature conversation with the Boy about how he thinks I'm mean...

...my response that I'm being responsible in my parenting...

...explaining to the Boy that lying is not good character...

...telling the Boy that his life is a story and he is the main character...

...talking about the value of good character...

...sharing with the Boy what people tell me about him: he's a gentleman...

...breakfast laid out the next day by the Boy-Man, all proud-like of himself...

...how it leads me to pray that he isn't trying to be good...

...and how I pray the Boy will See and know His love for him...

...how the breakfast-time provides him time to talk, and us to listen...

...how the doggie-momma comforts him when he's sad...

...how she tolerates him {often like me}--she accepts him touching her...

...our neighbors' affirmation of our parenting, though it aches...

...and that we were together to hear their truth-telling...

...how that truth-telling fills us up and brings us to our knees...

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a *seat* at His heart

With one knee on the floor and another perched like a chair, he sits.  This has always been his seat of comfort - where I hold him close, rub his back and pray the Lord's protection and guidance over him.

He sleeps late today on a day off from school and I thank the Lord, for I know he needs the rest.

Unlike the usual morning's when he's wide eyed for the day and practically running to his dresser to get himself dressed - excited for the joys of the day - today he searches for me.

I can see it in his eyes, he wants his seat - to be close to my heart.

"This child has wrecked me to pieces," I said to my Gram yesterday.  I tell her about the ah-ha moment I had last week while driving down the road - a moment of realization that God specifically intends to use children in the ministering of their parents - ministering healing, grace, mercy, love.  Most especially, I think He uses children to save their parents from the grip of chains that entangle their heart from the *mixed up understanding of love* that their story has written before they entered the world.

God does the saving, but He uses the children so deliberately - with such purpose.

As I speak aloud of this revelation, I *see* that God has purpose for my life in my mother's life, and my father's life.  And as difficult as it is sometimes to battle my expectations of them, that they should know better than me, or be wiser than me in certain aspects just because they are older, I finally see that He breathes fruit in me that provides nourishment - healing - that they can't get any other way than through their child.  He uses me.

The truth of this is so clear and my heart breathes a sigh of understanding - Jesus, a babe, saved the world; a world older than He, yet a world that was saved from themselves by a Child.

My own brokenness, anger, fear, resentment, bitterness and controlling nature is aware of how the gentleness of my own babe - gentleness that only the Hand of God could have placed in him - has touched my heart and my soul in the most personal, deep and remarkable ways.

It's like God reaches into my chest each time this child sits on his comfort stool of my knee and massages my heart like only a surgeon would, making it come back to life and beat stronger and steadier.

Oh, to be that close to God.  To search for His Son, and sit on His knee, have Him rub my back, caress my cheek, brush my hair with his gentle fingers and pray to the Father on my behalf.  To have Him whisper sweet love in my ear and tell me I am more than some thing, I am some one - some one important, with meaning and depth of purpose.

Tremors have come over my body and I don't understand them.  When stress of any form settles upon me, especially fatigue, the tremors become more pronounced.  The things I do become almost impossible - nearly debilitating.  I move slowly.  Tentatively.

This morning I comment out loud that my body just isn't functioning today.

The boy-man, the child God created to shred me in pieces, he speaks with wisdom - "Give yourself a pep talk, Mama."  And I know those are words he's heard someone else speak to him, perhaps a teacher.  I am amazed at how wisdom seems to cement itself in this child's brain when he hears it spoken.

He goes on to tell me that he tries {to give himself a pep talk}, and "it doesn't seem to work."

I tell him it does work when your eyes are turned to God and your pep talk is a reminder of the Truth.

When we remind ourselves that *He gives us His strength*, we really can do all the things He's called us to do.

He's so close and I'm nearly at His chest, feeling it beat, as I ask Him for strength to prepare this morning's breakfast, and He does provide that which I need at the moment.  The strength to provide.  The strength to teach.  The strength to find Him.

God provides our strength and He provides our freedom...He provides love and He provides salvation...
 
...Even through the littlest of these.