Try

I hear the word try and I think of how much time I've spent trying. 
As if it was all up to me to earn Gods favor. That I just need to try harder. 
do better.
run faster.
think smarter.
I think of what it is like now to be 20-something and trying to live life.
And trying leaves no room for anyone to help. and you feel grateful and guilty all at the same time.
...like you shouldnt be excepting Someone else's kindness, yet without it, you are lost. 
you need the grace gift. 
you really dont have to try quite so hard. 
not just money, but time, energy, love.
these are God-gifts.
It really isnt up to you or me.
we cant win His favour by our deeds.
we have only to accept it. to live it and breathe it.
By Him we live and move and have our Being. Acts 17
if we seek him, instead of trying.
IF.
if we see him.
and move with Him.
he is here, therefor, we will be here.
if he is there, then we will be there.
if we live simply looking for his face. his hand print. his footprint.
if we live walking in his footsteps like the little child whose greatest joy is to jump from foot print to footprint his daddy leaves in the snow; will we walk that closely?
that joyously?
not thinking of anything but the greatness of following daddy around: will we suddenly find a whole life?

FMF: Hope

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul - EMILY DICKINSON

Hope. 

That all so elusive thing. 

Sometimes.

Sometimes its hard to grab onto. sometimes I'm grabbing onto it for all I'm worth... Hoping for brighter days. For days that aren't ruled by fear. By eating disorders. By more Fear.

By insecurities. By weariness. 

Yes I'm hoping.

Hoping for sunshine in my soul. For that quiet confidence that He is God. that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Hoping for peace. For rest. the deep breath of the soul that knows all is good and is content. 

hope will lift me up. entertain the imaginings of a bright future. of good things happening and joys.

Those Cobwebs of Fear

If I told myself to sit down in front of a blank space and just write....what would I say?
If I knew it didn't matter if it was perfect or not.
What then?
Just knowing that I have to sit down and write.
Have to untangle the thoughts of my mind and make space for new ideas and just keep sorting..
Doing a massive spring cleaning in the home of my mind and constantly getting distracted by nostalgia or by things that have been there for so long, well, they comfort me?
But wanting it right. Wanting it to be habitable...welcome to the Presence it needs most.
and feeling like I JUST cleaned that spiderweb yesterday...but its back again...stickier, tendrils trailing across the space it wants to inhabit and wont give up. I touch the string again and it sets off a familiar chord of fear again. and I find myself drawn in in its stickiness and I want to give up...what use is there in chasing out the spiders that will be back tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that?
Every 'use' as long as the sun still shines and I breathe air.
His breath. Breathed out on me.
Mine. Sucking it in and again.
He didn't mean for me to live with sticky webs of fear crowded through my mind. clinging to each other and anchoring themselves for the long haul.
Spinning out all the 'what ifs' of everything that could ever go wrong and choking out any sight of His dear face.
so I will clean and scrub and have Him pull out every fear that clings to its home in all the corners of my mind.
Just for today, I will rest on His grace.
and since tomorrow, when it gets here, will be today then... I'll just rest again on His grace.

Five Minute Friday: MEET

today.
today I am tired.
I hurt. In more ways than one.
I have illness that keeps recurring every time I stress out. I have something else that just isnt quite right.
and I hate having to deal with them. Despise what feels like and unending battle, a continuous cycle of pain....and then I tell myself "stop being such a baby! there are other people who go threw this too you know!"
But I think you got it all together when you do.
Maybe you don't.
 I know I don't.
the funny thing is how God shows up in my broken space.
what starts with a groan and a wondering "why again?" and progresses to a verbally rough moment with God that suddenly collapses into defeat... Or maybe not defeat. But a place where my brokenness is solidly in his hands and not mine, These are hands that CAN heal. I know that. and maybe someday. I'm Believing that. But today is more about my heart and how its wandered from its healer. How when everything was good it decided it could coast on its own. And today is healing because God met my heart in beautiful ways.


Linking with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday.

Five Minute Friday: Relief

There's a quiet relief in release. 

In surrender. Letting go. In stop trying so hard.

A guest pastor spoke his weekend on training, not trying. 

God doesn't want us to try harder. try harder. but to to train.
To come before him every day.
To do the same thing over and over like an athlete till its ingrained in us. 

That we're going to fail, but failure isn't final unless we say so. That our failures are, (oh yes!) the stepping stones on a path of stronger faith. And in this I have sobbed relief.
To be reminded again this weekend that its really not about the doing, the striving, the trying so hard; but about my relationship with him and everything falls in place from that starting point. That I just coming seeking his face because 'You have said, "seek my face." My heart says to you, " Your face LORD do I seek." ' Psalm 27:8

That love for a beautiful Savior who loved me first is my motivation for all my life. 

He's carrying me. 

So my heart was fun and i struggled and it took me twice as long to write as it should have, but I needed to try to express it. linking up with Five Minute Friday

FMF: visit

visit.
oh if I could just sit down face to face and have a cup of tea...or coffee.
face to face with Jesus and being able to ask all those pesky questions!
And hear audible answers.
you can wish for that sometimes. when it feels like too many decisions are staring you in the face and you just want a clear answer. straightforward. a this or that answer. definite.
but not sitting there straining to hear into the silence and hearing a permissive will of God. An either or. its up to you on this one. Just walk with me awhile? just enjoy these moments of together. he asks for communion. for breath together day by day and just a letting go of all your thoughts to him and let this flow happen, be connected. knitting life together and then it doesn't seem to matter quite so much that its not audible voice, because you are hearing.
he is there. and you hear best in the quiet. it carves out this slow, hallowed place. He's more present, more there. you learn to hear in a new way.

Five Minute Friday: When

when I sit here and rock my brother's girlfriend's sister's baby boy.
rock him gently and try to ease him into sleep. his hazel eyes blink and close against his will, and someone walks by and they snap open again. but he is lulled to sleep and I have a quiet space in which I muse about his older sister.
she is 2. almost.
and she is determined that she is staying here.
the house is getting picked up and packed up around her to move, but she is pulling her things back out of the bags and back on her shelves.
She is not moving. no sir.
and then I think of how comfortable I get with my surroundings and I don't want to budge cause it s comfortable, and then I wonder, how often am I like that with God? I cant see where he wants me to go, and I'm quite comfy. I just cant see it
But He can.
Just like this little girls daddy can see how much nicer and better the house is that he bought and is taking his little girl to.
then I wonder....when will I learn to trust my daddy God in all things?