Stripped

When you have nothing, you can become anything.

Tears are for a night, but Joy comes in the morning

I'm doing quite a bit better. A few days of reflection, prayer, and some nourishing phone conversations with old friends all seem to have helped me. Perhaps, as difficult as it was for me to do, I was just finally able to simply let go of the pain, disappointment, betrayal and hurt. I gave it to God, and in return He gave me some much needed peace.

I don't mean to make it sound that easy, because it wasn't. I struggle to let go. I struggle with surrender. I give things to God, and take them back again with alarming regularity. I thrash about fairly often, rather than rest in His arms. Complete trust is a complete challenge for me! I trust in part at times. I give up control in part at times; even when the reality is that my ability to control is an illusion anyway.

"People, places & things". It's an old AA saying a recovering alcoholic friend of mine taught me. Those are the elements in life we have no control over. People: self-explanatory. Places: I would take that to mean the world around us. Things: I would translate that to mean events, circumstances, things occurring externally; as well as objects, such as my nearly worthless pile o scrap metal of a car (that I can't afford to replace with a better vehicle as of right now).

This does not at all mean I'm helpless, or have no agency in my own life. It just means that my sphere of influence has it's limitations, and one of my life lessons is that things can and will go wrong, people can and will fail me, and that even my best laid plans may often go awry; but God is still in control -- ultimately, and eternally. God is still sovereign, and even if everything looks like it's going down in flames, that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes destruction comes to clear the plane for something new to be born, for a phoenix to rise from the ashes of failure (or that which seems, on the surface, to be failure). Can I learn to trust him completely despite how everything looks on the surface? Can I put my faith in the promises of God even when all seems to be lost? Can I believe no matter what? Can I, like the apostle Paul wrote from jail, "be content in all circumstances"? Can I, like Paul, praise God while still in my chains? whatever those chains may be; whether my heartache, my poverty, my ill health, my loved ones behaving unloving, or any of the other chains that bind me? Can I still proclaim in a resounding voice: "God *IS* Good!"?

Can I sing of his unmeasurable, unconditional love until the chains fall away? Can I continue to sing his praises even if they don't fall away? Can I worship him in spirit and in truth for loving me as much as he does, for saving me, for being my friend, for being by my side no matter what chains this life brings, for promising to be there at the end of my life with the key that unlocks all chains, and the gentle hand which will wipe aways all of my tears, and will then take my hand in his and lead me into life everlasting, the promised land, the place he has prepared for me in His Father's house, where the brief blip of time I spent here on this earth in toil and strife will be but a faded, distant memory, a dark moment extinguished by the light of his glory, which shall never end.

Giving darkness a run for it's money...

A dark night of the soul compared to what I am going through now would be like a picnic on the riverbank on a Sunday afternoon.

Had no Christmas.

My brother raged at my father and I over the phone yesterday, and denied both of us from seeing the two girls, my Dad's granddaughters and my nieces, respectively.

Since my boyfriend lives out of state, and I knew I wasn't going to get to be with him during the holidays, all that was next on my list was wanting to see my nieces happy and their faces light up when they opened the presents I got for them. I was denied that pleasure, and my rights as Aunt to be able to love them, and spoil them on Christmas.

I guess it wasn't grim enough for my car to malfunction on Wednesday and become undriveable. It's now sitting my my driveway waiting to be towed sometime this week.

I'm really hurting right now. My heart aches and is heavy, and the pit of my stomach is roiling from the stress and emotional pain of the last two days. I have been alone in my apartment for two days, with no transportation, and no Christmas what to speak of.

Just the facts, M'aam

I know I haven't really been writing anything too revealing here. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I am feeling rather guarded as of late. Not in person, or on the phone; ask my friends, they will tell you I am pretty much an open book. However, when it comes to blogging, I've lost some of my desire to fling open the doors of my life and let people I don't know come walking in. When it comes to the deeper things of my heart, mind and spirit, I seem to be keeping them to my real life inner circle, and to myself. If that changes anytime soon, this blog may be worth reading; or, if I can start posting on my observations of life, people, events, culture, and the other myriad things that occupy my thoughts. So, I am sorry this has been the cryptic snoozefest as of late. I will try to work on it. Although, I can't make any promises, as I'm in a time in my life when living my life seems a lot more vital to me than writing about it here. Not that I think the unexamined life is worth living, I think I am just in a place where I feel like doing my examining on a more private basis, within myself and with those I am intimate with in life.

Good news

Well, not that anyone's reading my solipsistic tidbits anymore, but it seems like the relationship I thought was over, isn't. I have some hope now. I am still not sure how this will turn out, but I'm going to give it a chance to run it's course, and with any luck and by the Grace of God, we'll actually make it.

You know all hope is lost when...

you start quoting The Smiths:

"I know it's over
And it never really began
But in my heart it was so real"

Unfortunately, it fits.

The Illusion vs. Real Love

Proust on "falling in love":

"We fall in love with a smile, the look in someone's eyes, a shoulder. That is enough; then during the long hours of hope or sadness, we create a person, we compose a character".

Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, translated by Peter Collier
(London: Penguin, 2003), 496

On the Edge

One side: the abyss

Other side: the precipice

It's fall or climb.

That's all there is.

_____________________________________

& I can't shake the feeling that my fondest dream has died, or at least is comatose, on life support, and I can feel his finger hovering over the button, ready to pull the plug.