Last Monday, Nov. 14, I took Molly to her OGBYN dr. appointment. We were both nervous, I think. She had had very high blood pressure the week before and was put on semi-bed rest. A really hard thing to do with a 2 year old. Jeff's mom and I took turns either being at the house to help with Jack or we took him home with us. I have to admit, it was sort of a long week.... However, it all worked out fine. In fact stupendously better than fine. On Friday, I took Jack to a place called 'Pump-It-Up,' a place that is filled with those bounce houses you can rent. They had some really big bounce-able activities there. It was a little overwhelming for me at first. Jack, however, was totally in his 2-year-old-lets-run-and-be-crazy mode and was delighted! He naturally gravitated to the really big pieces and all I could think was "he will get stuck and scared and will have to rescue him!!!!! and I don't know if I can do that and then what will I do.... I am old, I am still in my post-foot operation shoe, and oh my gosh I have to take it off and follow him around...please God, don't let anything bad happen to my foot...and, oh yes, or Jack too"
God was surely listening and Jack finally settled on a more manageable house. So do I let him go in by himself or do I have to go toooo???? He crawled in and came to the front screen and in his funny little way said to me, " c'mon Mimi"(supposed to be Grammy, but who cares), and uses his little signal of curling his fingers into his hand, and I was caught in a dilemma; what will happen if I don't go and what will happen if I do....?
So, as I always do, I did what Jack told me to do and crawled into a short tunnel (did I mention that I am claustrophobic?) that was pretty much kid size, and I was in. There was a dad in there with his daughter and he was bouncing to bounce her and, of course, Jack and me too. I hurriedly looked around and settled (sat) close to a sort of corner. Jack started careening into me, squealing with delight when I threw him against the wall and he toppled back into me and the fun (and it was really fun) began. We were rolling all over the place and pushing each other (I never stood up! I am not the most coordinated person in the world and in a bounce house... Horrors!) but we were both were breathless with laughter.
After that we did tackle a huge, gigantic slide where you had to go up this latter thing... Jack would slip down it while I was (carefully) going up it so I basically pushed his little bottom up as I went. We were collapsing with laughter. Who thought a sort-of ladder would be so much fun??? We finally got to the top and it was a long way down. Altho I don't like heights, Jack is all for them, so we sat down, held hands and went down down down.... Luckily, there was a big cushion thing at the bottom that we plowed into to stop.
There was no stopping, as such, us after that. I finally looked at the clock and I could not believe we had been there 1 1/2 hours! Jack did not want to leave, but I began to wonder exactly how my body would feel the next day.... To tell the truth, I was a little relieved to put my safe, but ugly, after- foot-surgery shoe. It was late so I decided to stop at our favorite Sonic to get a grilled cheese. Jack fell asleep on the way there and I had to wake him up to eat and then to put him down for a nap.
I did not play much as a child. My house was a scary place to be and once I began escaping to read, I played even less. So basically, I never learned to play and have fun. That is sad. Jack has filled my life with opportunities to learn to play, Jack style. God has been oh, so wonderful, in giving me such a delightful playmate. And now there is Owen. I wonder what it will be like to have 2 little boy playmates? What fun!
Showing posts with label Letting Go. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Letting Go. Show all posts
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Stolen Thoughts
These are some thoughts that I have gathered from other people. I am not sure who.... but I wanted to share them as they touched my heart and might yours.
You are worthy of love and belonging, and I, God, loves you.
Let yourself be seen - deeply and vulnerably seen
Love with your whole heart - even when there is no guarantee.
Practice gratitude and joy when there are moments of terror.
I have enough, I do enough, I AM enough.
We are imperfect and hard wired for struggle when it comes
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.
And there are more someplace around here...
I have lived most of my life wishing all of this was true for and about me. Thank God (literally) that I can believe most of them about me most of the time!
The belief of me NOT being worthy and NOT being enough has plagued me for as long as I can remember. That I actually don’t believe them is a sin. OK – how is that a sin? It's like slapping His face and saying, "NO! you did not do try hard enough here!!" If I don’t believe that God made me a worthy person or a person who is enough in any way shape or form, I am believing that God has not kept His promises when He made me. God always keeps His promises. Perhaps not as we think He should…….
How does one become worthy of being alive? The 139th Psalm says that God “has searched me and knows me,” that He has “laid His hand upon me” and that I cannot “flee from his spirit.” It goes on to say no matter where I am His “hand will guide me, (His) right hand will hold me fast.” I believed from the time I was a little girl that I was filled with darkness. Not evil, but dark and icky just the same. The Psalm also assures me that “even the darkness will be not dark to you (God); the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” These are, for me, such assurances. So we don’t BECOME anything, we just ARE God’s blessed and worthy creation. We always have been/are/will be just that!
There is a hymn, “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light,” partially based on these words. I will never forget the first time I heard and sang that song at an Episcopal Women’s Convention. I cried my way through the words of it. I claimed it as mine. I still do. If there is no “darkness at all, the night and the day are both alike,” then no matter how dark and gunky I was inside, He only saw my God light.
This was the start of an 18 year process of emptying out the dark and gunky stuff and turning and trusting what the Psalm and song promised, that I was light. I have had to take some drastic measures to believe that I am worthy AND enough. I have had to leave behind a job, friends, family, a lifetime, and the love of my heart to finally see that it is only God’s opinion of me that matters. And His opinion is that I am a worthy, extraordinary, precious child of His.
You are worthy of love and belonging, and I, God, loves you.
Let yourself be seen - deeply and vulnerably seen
Love with your whole heart - even when there is no guarantee.
Practice gratitude and joy when there are moments of terror.
I have enough, I do enough, I AM enough.
We are imperfect and hard wired for struggle when it comes
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.
And there are more someplace around here...
I have lived most of my life wishing all of this was true for and about me. Thank God (literally) that I can believe most of them about me most of the time!
The belief of me NOT being worthy and NOT being enough has plagued me for as long as I can remember. That I actually don’t believe them is a sin. OK – how is that a sin? It's like slapping His face and saying, "NO! you did not do try hard enough here!!" If I don’t believe that God made me a worthy person or a person who is enough in any way shape or form, I am believing that God has not kept His promises when He made me. God always keeps His promises. Perhaps not as we think He should…….
How does one become worthy of being alive? The 139th Psalm says that God “has searched me and knows me,” that He has “laid His hand upon me” and that I cannot “flee from his spirit.” It goes on to say no matter where I am His “hand will guide me, (His) right hand will hold me fast.” I believed from the time I was a little girl that I was filled with darkness. Not evil, but dark and icky just the same. The Psalm also assures me that “even the darkness will be not dark to you (God); the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” These are, for me, such assurances. So we don’t BECOME anything, we just ARE God’s blessed and worthy creation. We always have been/are/will be just that!
There is a hymn, “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light,” partially based on these words. I will never forget the first time I heard and sang that song at an Episcopal Women’s Convention. I cried my way through the words of it. I claimed it as mine. I still do. If there is no “darkness at all, the night and the day are both alike,” then no matter how dark and gunky I was inside, He only saw my God light.
This was the start of an 18 year process of emptying out the dark and gunky stuff and turning and trusting what the Psalm and song promised, that I was light. I have had to take some drastic measures to believe that I am worthy AND enough. I have had to leave behind a job, friends, family, a lifetime, and the love of my heart to finally see that it is only God’s opinion of me that matters. And His opinion is that I am a worthy, extraordinary, precious child of His.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Holding On
Like the rich young ruler
There have been many things I hold with clenched fists.
And as God has pried open first one finger then the next,
I get glimpses of His promises to me.
One by one, each finger lets go and the greed, bitterness,
Fear, self loathing, defensiveness, hate, unloveliness, worthlessness, fear, fear, fear
Are given into His hands.
At last my hands are open
And I can raise them in praise, friendship,
To give, to show love, to touch, to hold, to receive
All good things God has been waiting to
Bless me with before the beginning of creation
A clenched fist looks angry; powerful in its ability to hurt. This body language carries more meaning than any words spoken. A fist portrays frustration, rigidity, hate, belligerence, and aggression. It is where we keep what we have grasped in our lives, whether good or bad. The negative things clutched inside our fist are what will keep us from a closer walk with God.
My friend Martha told me this analogy. Imagine that you are holding a hamburger just like you like it cooked with the condiments you prefer on it. It looks so delicious. Experience tells you, you will need to hold it with both your hands or it will fall apart and make a messy pile on your plate. So, you are holding this hamburger thinking about taking the first yummy bite. As you open your mouth wide for the first bite, you notice God is standing right in front of you with a big, juicy steak, cooked just right. You want the hamburger AND the steak! (I would want take one of them home in a doggie box.) However, to get the steak you have to take one hand off your hamburger. What do you do? Try the one-handed hamburger hold? Which do you desire most, what you already have or the better thing that God is holding out to you?
In the poem above, I have mentioned many of the things that I have held in my fists. Usually God has had to work hard to even get one of my fingers open. And on occasion, I open them just to try to get a better hold. When I do that, some of what is being held escapes into God’s waiting hands and he whisks it away. What a relief!
I go on to point out what your hands are able to do once you have let go and they are open to receive. Another thought just occurred to me. Instead of holding individual fists tight, put them together and your hands will become a picture of prayer.
There have been many things I hold with clenched fists.
And as God has pried open first one finger then the next,
I get glimpses of His promises to me.
One by one, each finger lets go and the greed, bitterness,
Fear, self loathing, defensiveness, hate, unloveliness, worthlessness, fear, fear, fear
Are given into His hands.
At last my hands are open
And I can raise them in praise, friendship,
To give, to show love, to touch, to hold, to receive
All good things God has been waiting to
Bless me with before the beginning of creation
A clenched fist looks angry; powerful in its ability to hurt. This body language carries more meaning than any words spoken. A fist portrays frustration, rigidity, hate, belligerence, and aggression. It is where we keep what we have grasped in our lives, whether good or bad. The negative things clutched inside our fist are what will keep us from a closer walk with God.
My friend Martha told me this analogy. Imagine that you are holding a hamburger just like you like it cooked with the condiments you prefer on it. It looks so delicious. Experience tells you, you will need to hold it with both your hands or it will fall apart and make a messy pile on your plate. So, you are holding this hamburger thinking about taking the first yummy bite. As you open your mouth wide for the first bite, you notice God is standing right in front of you with a big, juicy steak, cooked just right. You want the hamburger AND the steak! (I would want take one of them home in a doggie box.) However, to get the steak you have to take one hand off your hamburger. What do you do? Try the one-handed hamburger hold? Which do you desire most, what you already have or the better thing that God is holding out to you?
In the poem above, I have mentioned many of the things that I have held in my fists. Usually God has had to work hard to even get one of my fingers open. And on occasion, I open them just to try to get a better hold. When I do that, some of what is being held escapes into God’s waiting hands and he whisks it away. What a relief!
I go on to point out what your hands are able to do once you have let go and they are open to receive. Another thought just occurred to me. Instead of holding individual fists tight, put them together and your hands will become a picture of prayer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)