Yardwork of the Soul With God

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Another holiday has come and for so many, the day will not be a picture perfect Hallmark card. The reasons are as numerous as the number of eyes drifting  across this page. When life has been grueling and there's no relief in sight, God can get lost in the details.

I plead guilty. I lost him. Tho' I knew he never lost me, I lost him. Have you ever felt that way? The details of life swept me away until I was awash in a sea of despair. I understand what Job meant when he said, “When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” (Job 23:9 NIV) I know how he felt when he said, “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him... When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.” (Job 23:8 and 9:11 NIV)

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Over the last several months, I have begun to pray for spiritual eyes to see God when, in my human frailty, I might miss him. The boys and I pray for the opportunity to encourage others, but we also pray for the ability to see encouragement when it is right in front of our preoccupied eyes. I wanna tell you it makes me feel good to pray that prayer because my prayer gets answered in the next few minutes. See me shaking my head?

Wanna know what's happened since I started praying that prayer? So many things here at fraidy cat central have broken it's a wonder I get anything done. If I'm not busy being preoccupied with those disruptions, all I have to do is walk outside to be reminded life is chaos.

The early onset summer heat and rain have made what should be my idyllic looking backyard look like a South American rainforest. I had it  all under control till my leg broke. Since then, not so much. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd create a yard man to come fix what I'll never be able to catch up with before an anaconda takes residence out there.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Today was a perfect day for meandering around my backyard rainforest. Instead of meandering, I mowed. Uphill both ways. If you saw my yard, you'd know I'm speaking the truth. In the midst of my mowing, when I wasn't praying to live thru the experience, I talked to God about how out of control life feels. I was scared to death my runaway yard is a picture of my chaotic, weed-choked heart: fraught with good intentions but undisciplined and out of control.

I found myself praying for help out there. Not lots of help. Only little bits of help here and there because I know our penny pinching lifestyle won't bear much in the way of overhauling this yard and starting over. Given that reality, I asked for a way to find encouragement to keep working towards what seems like the impossible.

I came in and found the testosterone unit in charge making order out of chaos here at fraidy cat central. He was doing that for me because I was doing the yard work for him. It's an uneasy arrangement because he wishes his health would allow us to switch places. Since it won't, I feel like I get the better end of the deal: free exercise while he fixes stuff for me. One small appliance was fixed just in time for our Mother's Day meal prep. He had the fridge on the mend just in time as well.

Courtesy R. Harper

I sat to rest a minute which, as you know, included looking at Facebook for a minute or 30. Up popped a picture from a friend who was selling some yard sale items online: 50ft of lawn edging for a $teal. I had just been wondering how much edging would co$t and how long till I could afford it. I had to shake my head and chuckle right out loud.

So many times, we look for God in the big things and fail to find him in the mundane things of life – like lawn edging. I saw the picture of lawn edging and saw more than yard work in my future. I saw a God who sees my chaotic, out of control soul and, tho' I've lost him, he knows right where I am.

He sent me a postcard. It said, “I see your out of control yard, and I see your out of control soul. Just as I've provided the lawn edging to encourage you about your yard, I have my eye on your soul. I'm working in you just like you are working in this yard that troubles you so. Tho' you look for me and cannot find me, I am here. You are mine. My plan for you will not be overgrown and choked out by the weeds of despair. I am the Master Gardener who specializes in lawn edging of the soul.”

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Oh, fraidy cat, is your soul like mine: overgrown, choked by weeds, too far gone to attempt a rescue anymore? May I introduce you to my Master Gardener? If you have lost him, or maybe never even looked for him before, he knows right where you are. All you have to do is look around at his creation to know he is a Creator God who pays attention to the small details of life. He is the Master Gardener with the perfect plan for our out of control souls, yours and mine.

Love you long and strong, fraidy cat. Come back and walk with me again sometime? Till then, know this: my prayer is that you and I will both know the Master Gardener is at work in the chaos of our souls.

Courtesy B. Creasy

Psalm 138:8 (NIV)

The LORD will fulfill [his purpose] for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever--do not   abandon the works of your hands. 

 

Comfortable in Our Own Skin

2008

I close my eyes and wonder what it would be like if we were comfortable in our own skin, my family and I. The pictures of us together are few and far between because the process of standing and smiling and making it look carefree and natural is painful. Save for a few pleasant surprises, the snap of the camera finds us frozen and stiff. Our discomfort is frozen in time for all posterity.

I tell myself that the color coordinated pictures other families pose for with abandon are only artful cover stories. That behind the white shirts and blue jeans and away from the sandy beach where their smiles gleam like polished pearls, they are as itchy in their own skin as are we. I sit in the dark while the tears slip down my cheeks. I wait for God to show up and tell me why. Why can't we be comfortable in our own skin like those picture perfect people?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

If emotional work made itself known in the way of physical labor, I'd have bloody fingers and calloused hands from the arduousness of the effort. I look at my hands and imagine my heart as ragged and bruised as it feels. I put on my mask and smile and pretend we are one of those families on the beach, smiling back at you making you wish you were me. If only you knew the truth I am hiding.

The night is quiet and dark, and morning is on a relentless march towards me. Still I wait. “God. Are you there? Are you here in this lonely brokenness? Will you bring joy in the morning after the tears of this long night? Do you remember my name?”

Where has he been as my heart has broken in prayer? Has he heard my unselfish prayers crying out for the faith to keep believing and to keep reassuring my family even in the darkest of times? I have not asked for wealth or fame. I have asked for faith. I have asked for eyes to see when my heart is too weary to recognize reality. I have asked that my children have faith even stronger than mine. Still, I wait. I do the next thing and wait for God to show up.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

This week. This week has ground along with bone crunching agony. Waves of despair swept one of us away. In the heat of battle, despair over-washed us all. The very reassurance for which I have prayed mocks me. It flees from me as quickly as the dark from the dawn.

I have given chase until I feel as tho' I am chasing a fairy tale Gingerbread Man who will never be caught. All around me are reasons to give up. If I give up, how will we go on? What will become of us? Even tho' I don't want to, I move again. Doing the next thing because it must be done.

I am fighting to overcome 13 years of chaos. Chaos has consumed us for more than half of my children's lives. One grew to adulthood while we waited for normal again. In reality, chaos stalked us even when I did not know it was there. He hid in our lives like a suicide bomber waiting to make chaos even more chaotic at any given moment. How did we survive? How much longer can we survive?

It feels as if we will never escape. It feels too late. It feels as if chaos swallowed us up and spit us out again. The place we landed is so foreign and remote that we will never find our way back to where we should have been. I shake my head and clear the image. We will survive intact. We will find a way to thrive. Even if it kills me. We will.

2006 - A New Beginning

It has been 6 years now since I looked the monster in the eyes. I did not know all I would come to know. I knew enough. I staked my claim. I drew my boundaries. The room grew deathly quiet. The eyes looked back at me, unflinching, as if a 2^nd pair of reptilian eyelids precluded the need to blink. The stiller the frame the greater the need for fear. I knew that truth without being told. Still I forged on.

My breath was measured, deliberate. My heart pounded as if at the command of a drum major in a marching band. I straightened my back and locked eyes. “I am not afraid of you. I may be the only person who will look you in the eye and tell you that. I am not. I do not know how we will escape this situation. As God as my witness, we will. We will move past this chaos. We will put our life and our family back together. I don't know how or when. We will. If it is the last thing I do.”

2011

Six years later, life has returned to much of what it was before it disappeared all those years ago. Strangers passing on the street have no clue we are the walking wounded. But, we are different. Wounded. Faltering. Unsure. Uncomfortable in our own skin as individuals and as a family. A shell of what I had hoped we'd be or what we might have been.

I am weary of the war. I want to see my sons laugh with abandon and move thru life with a sense of well-earned ease. I want them to move forward without always checking over a shoulder to see if disaster is again waiting to pounce. I want them to have a sense of roots and community which was torn away from them because chaos was always at the door. I want God to lean close and whisper, “Welcome home. Take a deep breath. It is ok to be comfortable in your own skin.”

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Hello, fraidy cat. I do not know what your chaos is...only that you do not have to explain it to me. You are both safe and welcome here. One must not be a super hero of the faith to belong. We live in a fraidy cat world where everyone needs a safe place to call home. I hope you will find this a warm and comforting haven as you journey through your days. Come again often and bring a friend. Love you long and strong. See you soon? 

Courtesy B. Creasy

Hebrews 11: 1(ESV)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 

 

Hebrews 10: 39 (NIV)

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.