Indifferent

Lately church for me has been a struggle. I have spent lots of Sunday's faking it, not being fully committed. Just feeling indifferent. Times where I have stood in front of a group of kids and not been sure that anything that I was saying or doing really mattered. No sure that I was in the right place, that God had surely screwed up when He told me this was His plan for me. Today, if even just for a minute, that changed.

It has been something that was coming. Something that God has been stirring in me for quite awhile. Something that I was no longer able to avoid.

Some people hear God in a whisper..in the wind..in a quiet voice. None of those are really God's style with me. It's like he knows he has to scream if I am going to hear Him over the chaos I've created.

Today, He screamed at me through the hand of a 12 year old boy that I have gotten to know since his family moved to the church. A 12 year old boy that got out of his seat and walked to the front of the church, breaking every rule that 12 year old boys have about being noticed or showing emotion.

I was at the alter dealing with so many of the things that have convinced me that being indifferent with God is better than not being with God at all. As I was there praying, I felt a small hand on my back. A small, 12 year old boys hand that had come to pray with me.

I am not sure I have ever felt so humbled...so loved...so sure...so anything but indifferent.

The truth that I have been trying so hard to resist is that I have a passion for the kids of our church. A passion that sometimes doesn't have words, doesn't make sense and most definitely is far beyond anything that I would ever be capable of carrying out without God leading me.

A passion for loving God by loving these kids that has no room for indifference.

Orange Thoughts

A week from today(6 days, 5 hours and 45 minutes to be exact)I will be in Georgia for the opening session of Orange Conference 2010. To say that I am excited is an understatement. I still don't think it has set in yet that I am actually going. I got so excited earlier today when I got the link for the live broadcast of Orange 2010 and then I had to remind myself that I would actually be there.

As excited as I am, I am also terrified. I will let you in on a little secret, one that probably really isn't that much of a secret to those of you that really know me. For all the swagger and ego and self confidence that I seem to have, I am so very easily intimidated. I still have fears that at the opening session they are gonna sing the song I sing with the preschoolers that goes "One of these things is not like the other...." and then the spotlight will land on me.

I mean really, who am I kidding? I have no business in a room with people like Reggie Joiner, Donald Miller, Jim Wideman, Kendra Fleming...the list goes on and on. I am going to the official Orange Tweet Up Wednesday night where I will meet people who's blogs and tweets I have followed for the past year and who I feel like I already know. But seriously, what in the world would they have in common with me. I image that all conversations will start with small talk like..... "Where did you graduate from....how many campuses does your church have....how many thousand kids do you serve each week...which of your Ph.D's is your favorite" The thought of that numbs me.

I don't even have the words to express the passion I have for serving in Children's Ministry and how much I have fallen head over heels in love with our church and it's people. I have this crazy dream for kids and their families, one that I know has to have come from God, because I'm just not that brave or bold on my own. But still, there is so much fear in owning that and letting other's know about it. There is an accountability that comes with spending three days with the most brilliant minds in family ministry.... and it is overwhelming.

I really want this experience to be transformational for me. I don't want it to be about changing to be more like a book or buying into a "system", but truly and honestly changed. And not like Jr. High church camp changed. The real thing that lasts more than a weekend.

I know that in order for this experience at Orange 2010 to really impact me, I am gonna have to get over the fact that alone, I really don't belong there. There is nothing that I have or ever will do that will warrant be being in such incredible company. I get that. I need constantly reminded that it most definitely isn't about me.

My prayer is that even though I know I will say dumb stuff and look out of place and at least once or twice have the urge to retreat due to just being overwhelmed, that I will take in every second of it and not just be there, but really BE there. And I pray that God, who most defiantly has a crazy sense of humor, will use the things that I learn about ministry and the things that I learn about myself during this time to move in ways that right now I'm unable to even fathom.

I can't wait.

A Love Movement

About a year ago I became involved in an incredibly cool organization called To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA). In their own words:

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

More impressive than their mission is their vision.

A Love Movement.

That's what they call it. It sounds simplistic and yet it is transforming lives. Lives that have been broken, overcome by sadness, cut and consumed by substance. People that would be the last to be loved, the last to expect love, the last to ask to be loved. And yet A Love Movement is what is saving their lives. Every month I get to send handwritten letters and art work to people that have turned to TWLOHA for help and have entered residential treatment just to tell them that they are loved. Me, a stay at home Mom in Indiana, telling people that I will never know that they are valued and that they are loved. That blows my mind.

A Love Movement.

Tomorrow is To Write Love On Her Arms day. A day where we will write Love on our arms to raise awareness about the struggle that millions of people all around us are dealing with. I think that sometimes it is easy to look at someone who faces addiction, depression or self injury and think that could never be you.

But I know it could be me. I know just how close I am to it being me. To want to feel something so badly that even feeling pain is better than being numb. To deal with noises that are loudest in silence. To crave an escape from things real and imagined. I can look back at my life and I can rearrange circumstances and experiences like puzzle pieces and all of the sudden I am there. I am that person. The one that breaks to bleed. The one that gets high to forget. The one that hurts to feel.

And yet it's not me. It's them. It's those people that I feel so drawn to. I can't help but to think that if Jesus were giving the sermon on the mount today, these are the ones that he would point to when he spoke about the meek. These are the people for whom the blessing would be given, those that would inherit the earth. That is incredible to me.

Week 3 of the Kindgom Experiment

I sat in a room last night with people who were sharing openly about some of the hardest times in their lives. Times when they mourned. Their stories were honest and personal and raw....and all in the past tense. Mourning. Something they did. Something that they worked through. A time in the past when they were comforted. Their words and their faces and their tears were beautiful.

Those that shared last night lost something or someone that was important to them. It happened one day, one time, either expected or out of the blue. But it was still that one time. The day their parent died. The day they had to say goodbye. The end of a marriage. The day they got divorced. A single event. Something that can be marked on a calendar and grieved and remembered and honored. That one day.

...but blessed are those who still mourn? Who still, day after day after day live in the same place they were originally broken. I don't know.

One of our experiments from FCU this week is this:

Going. Going. Gone

Worship pastor Mike Crawford sings these words:

"Blessed when plans
that you so carefully laid
end up in the junkyard with
all the trash you made"

Consider yourself and those you know who mourn the loss of a future that will never be realized. Spend a week considering how God redeems the dreams and futures of those he loves.

And so I will.

Kiva

Mukono, Uganda is a place that I will never probably visit. To be honest, it was a place that I didn't even know existed until early last week, and yet it is a place that I can't get off of my mind. Apolot Grace is her name and she has four kids and a husband who works a job as a civil servant. She works as a tailor, a farmer and runs a General Store. She lives in a country that has an average life expectancy of 45 years, a literacy rate of 60% and an average annual income of $1,700. By my standards, she would be poor in spirit. Not by hers. The first line of her profile reads.."Apolot Grace is a hard working lady with lots of vision.."
Vision.... I immediately fell in love with her in one sentence.

One of the challenges from week one of FCU was to pick an experiement, a sort of experiential learning opportunity, to put into practice the things that we have been talking about. One of the options was to participate in this incredibly cool micro-lending program that provides loans to people in underdeveloped places all over the globe through kiva.com.

In this upside down, backwards, counter intuitive Kingdom, the notion that Apolot Grace's and my paths would intertwine is nothing but ordinary. Nothing special, nothing to blog about or go on about. Just normal. That might be the coolest thing about it.

First Church University

One of the many really awesome things that has happened at our church over the last year of so is the introduction of First Church University, or FCU. It is this powerful, intimate, reciprocative time of not just studying the scripture, but dissecting and discussing and deliberating in order to make sense of it in a way that changes not just our thinking, but our lives. It has come to be the highlight of my week and we just began a new study of the Beatitudes called The Kingdom Experiment.

I have to admit that I kind of felt like I might be burnt out on the Beatitudes. I have been listening to Rob Bell and friends at Mars Hill while I am at the gym and they have been doing a lengthy study of the Sermon on the Mount. When Pastor Troy announced that the new FCU study was going to cover the Beatitudes, I might have ......yawned. However, I am finding out more and more that God knows how I think and more importantly how I don't, and this feeling like my iPod is stuck on replay with the Sermon on the Mount is no sort of accident.

We began our first FCU session last week and were challenged to really discover what Jesus meant when he referred to those that were poor in spirit. As happens every week, there are people that offer ideas that cause me to think in ways that I haven't before. One thing that last weeks discussion really reiterated for me was more of what the poor in spirit are not. It's not someone who has tried and failed and is open to God moving through their lives. It is not someone who is humble enough to raise up their hands and give their situation to God. It's not the sad or the scarred or those that feel life's uncertainty. I believe that Jesus was talking about those who struggle to merely exist in a consuming sense of depravity. Those who would lift their hands up and give in if they had the strength, but for them just the act of taking a breath is almost more than they can do. It's a state that is beyond broken, but decimated.

If this is true, if these are the people to which Jesus announces the inheritance of the Kingdom of God, then it changes everything. It flips upside down this idea I have of what living is all about. If the Kingdom of God is so extravagantly different than the world I exist in, I have no choice but to change the way that I live. It's like I have been given this incredible secret, I was given the first and last chapters of the story, to write the middle with no regard to the final scene would be insane.

And so that is where I am. In that place that is all too familiar, where thoughts, feelings, the need to do something, the need to do anything differently.... all collide. One of the really cool parts of the Kingdom Experiment study is to chose an experiment, or challenge, to live out each week. I have finished my challenge for the first week and will be posting a blog about it later. I am excited and overwhelmed and just a little bit scared about what the next several weeks will bring. But I'm open.

..blessed are the poor in spirit..

At least 100 times before, I have read or heard the verses of Matthew 5, the Beatitudes. At least 100 times I have thought they weren't written for me. I convinced myself that the "conditions" that Jesus spoke of are those of non believers and that as a Christian, I was automatically excluded from them. For the first time I am learning to see them for what they are. Not a suggestion or instruction or excuse. Instead, a simple and extravagant announcement. No conditions, no fine print. Made in general to all mankind and specifically breathed just for me.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3

Blessed are the poor in spirit, when I swore that the last time was the last time and yet here I am. Unsure of how I got here. Unclear of what draws me back time and time again. Ashamed and guilty. Tired of asking for forgiveness from you and yet unable to forgive myself. Ready to promise again but not sure if I mean it or if I even want to. When words and conversations play over and over again in my mind as a constant reminder of failure. When I lay down to sleep and the darkness only makes them louder.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, when the most painful place to exist is in my mind. When I allow myself to dream and get lost in a place that doesn't exist. There in my subconscious is the life I have convinced myself I deserve and it looks nothing like the life I live on the other side. Just like punching your fist through a glass window, it hurts to go through it but the real pain is in pulling your arm that is already cut,vulnerable and raw back through the jagged glass to only be gashed even deeper. And yet, I still do it. Comparing becomes obsessive and only adds to the scars.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, on days when being his mom feels anything like a blessing and more like a sentence. On days when my "religion" tells me that I have failed because I serve a God of an empty tomb, and with that comes only joy and yet I am stuck in the sorrow of three days before.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Annoyed.....

I love lots of things. Lots of things make me happy and giddy. Lots of things make me wanna smile and laugh. There are also lots of things that don’t. Here is a very short list of the things that are rubbing me the wrong way today….


~Pants that come with the back pockets sewn closed. Isn’t that ridiculous? Does this happen with men’s pants? And what it the name of Jelly Beans is the reason for it? Even more annoying than the stitching is that the only time that I think about taking them out is when I am wearing the pants, which is most inconvenient. It is not only inappropriate, but also almost physically impossible to be able to cut the stitches when you are wearing them. Ugh…

~Parents in the drop off lane at school that take 27 minutes to get their kids out of the car. I mean, seriously, your kid is gonna be at school for 6 hours, just slow down and push them out. There is a whole line of people behind you waiting to do the same. And then you always get that one renegade parent who doesn’t have time to wait behind the loiterer and then they get out of line and mass vehicular chaos ensues. Let’s get it together people.


~I really love to watch MLS soccer, but I very strongly dislike the fanatics, aka fans. Why in the world do they let them bring confetti and toilet paper rolls into the game? I mean, I know that it would be hard to look through their tents and base drums and fire pits and such that they bring into the stands, but come on. If they absolutely insist on being crazy, please keep them away from both the goals and the corners. Or at least get an umbrella for the poor guy that has to take a corner kick while being pelted with toilet paper and confetti.


~Then and than. I really can’t figure out when to use which one. Why is that so hard? Do we really need two words that mean basically the same thing? Can’t we all just agree to use either one or the other? It would really make my life much easier.


~People who write checks in a retail store. I have no tolerance what so ever for this. If you don’t have cash you have two options, either use your debit/credit card or don’t buy it. If you have to write a check for it, then you really weren’t prepared enough to even deserve the right to buy it. And on the off chance that you are prehistoric enough to need to write a check, for the love of Todd, have it filled out before the cashier gives you the total. The point where the lady says $26.37 is not the point where you should begin to dig in your patchwork leather purse with the tassels to find you checkbook.


~And finally, and maybe most importantly because it is today, Wal - Mart on the day Social Security checks come out. Enough said.

An Inadequate Arguement

"The other function of your journal is to show you to yourself"~Kim Addonizio

I have been trying really hard to write happy. I wish it wasn’t so hard. I mean, it isn’t hard to fake it, to write of rainbows and lollipops and unicorns. It just isn’t me.

I am not even sure why it matters so much to me. Why do I want to open my journal and fairy dust fall out. I think the why has to do more with perception then it does with reality.

I am a happy person. I really am. I swear. I am secure and safe. I am not a suicidal serial killer. I am not 13-year-old girl drama. I am not melodramatic or angry or depressed. Ok, maybe a little dramatic. But when I write from my soul, one might think otherwise.

I am trying to come to terms with this. Trying to accept it as just how I am. That it isn’t a sign of depravity, contamination or pollution. I have been trying. Trying really hard.

The following poem that I wrote today does no justice to my argument.

Starved, but not yet hungry
Innate, but not yet inherent
Contagious, but not yet infected

Tangible, tethered.

Autonomous

Stentorian, blatant

Inaudible

Canonical, orthodox

Defiant

Real, but not yet authentic
Permeable, but not yet translucent
Transitional, but not yet altered

Surreal

The feeling is surreal.
How could I have known you for so long, yet not?
My first reaction was to be angry.
Why didn’t anyone show me this you?
Why didn’t anyone tell me that there was a different way?

I was taught to admire and adore and to worship you.
To praise you and to pray to you.
To trust you and to fear you.
I was told to love you.
I was never told I could be in love with you.

I have spent so much time trying to do it right.
Trying to make it look right.
Forcing it.
Manipulating it.
Faking it.
It looked right.
It felt all wrong.

I’ll never forget the first time it was different.
Emmaus Road changed the way I saw you.
In dark, quiet room I experienced you in a way I never knew was possible.
There were at least 20 other people there, and yet I was alone with you.
It was more then sensing you.
It was feeling you. Hearing and touching and tasting you.
In a way I didn’t even know was possible.
It was life changing.
It was amazing.
It was terrifying.
But it was real.

There have been times since that night.
In a book, in a song, in worship services.
Alone and with other people, it has happened.
It is still just as amazing, just as real.
But with it come less fear and more longing.

Longing for it not to stop.
Craving that it lasts.
Praying that I don’t give up.
That I don’t come up with enough excuses to make the old way enough.
Needing to remember that it wasn’t you that changed.
You were always there.
You were waiting for me.
Waiting for me to change.

August 30, 2009

I can't even begin to tell you how confused I am.
I imagined this step to be so much easier.
I thought I would be sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I thought you would make it easier.
I didn't plan for it to be this hard.

You know how I think, how I feel, how I am.
You know that I leap before thinking.
You know that I don't have to be sure.
You know this because you made me like this.
Why then can't I do it now?

I think I saw you today.
Or was it just my imagination.
Have I just wanted it too much, for too long?
Am I making today more than what it was?

I don't want to be wrong about this.
I cant be wrong again.

Journal Entry August 23rd

Last Sunday was the first session of our new Fireproof study with our Sunday School class. It is a really cool group of people and we are looking forward to growing so much through it. The first question that we were asked last week was to share how we met our spouse and what first attracted us to them. This is what I wrote about that night....

Sunday, August 23rd

What did I notice first? Wow, it is hard to even remember back that far.
The first thing that comes to mind was his shoes.
Funny huh? Really, his shoes?
I thought that I recognized him and then I saw that he was wearing Samba's.
When I saw he had on soccer shoes I knew it was the same guy.
But there was more than that, more than shoes.

At 16 most guys are the same, and that needs no further explanation.
He wasn't that.
He wasn't that at all.
There was no macho, no bravado, no forced attempt at cool.

But there was swagger.
I guess that is what I really fell for at first.
Swagger. That sounds so gangster.
I don't even know what else to call it.
Confidence. Self Esteem. Self Assurance.
None of those sound as good as swagger.

It wasn't long after I fell for his attitude, that I fell in love with his heart.

He is in many ways the opposite of me.

I am loud. I think out loud.
I am emotional. I show my emotions even when I try to hide them.
I am impulsive. I act first and regret later.
I am dramatic. Ouch, I can't believe I just said that. I am dramatic.

He is reserve.
He protects his emotions and shares them with those that he trusts.
He thinks first. And second, and third, and eventually he acts. Maybe.
He is not drama. Not at all.

I am difficult to love, I have no doubt about that.
I can be incredibly frustrating.
There are times when I am so unhappy, that it seems impossible for him to even know where to start to make me feel better.

But he does.
I don't know how or even why sometimes, but he does.

1, 275......

I posted my 1,275Th tweet today. I ain't braggin, it is what it is,

There are a few ways to look at it. You can pick one or make up your own.

One is that I have way too much time on my hands and some might argue the need for a full time vocation.

Another possibility is that I just have a lot to say. Stuff that is useless, random, vague, odd, hateful, confusing.....you get the point.

The third possibility is probably closer to the truth. Therapy. Less sweaty then tanning, way cheaper then shopping. You would be surprised the release that 140 characters can bring.

Hey, you got your thing, I got mine.

You Called Me What?

Today was just strange. The truth is that I really didn't want to go to church today. I didn't want to go, but I didn't have the guts to not go.
I have been struggling with some things for the last several weeks, and I knew that I wasn't anywhere near strong enough to do this today.

Who knew that a sermon series called The Wrestler would have to be so literal. I have been wrestling with God, if that is what you can even call it. To be honest, it feels more like MMA than tumbling around on the mat. Punching, kicking, grappling. Ugly at times, but necessary. Today was no different.

In my wrestling with God, I have been demanding some things. Things that probably wouldn't make sense to anyone else. Things that I had to see and hear and feel in order to tap out, to submit. I have told him the list, shouted it at him, whispered it while he had me pinned to the ground.

I think he answered me today. But I think he called me Leah.

In the middle..

Today there are many people that I care so much for that are on top of the world.

They have experience miracles in their lives.
They have fought battles and won.
They have seen their dreams and wishes come true.
They have planned and struggled and waited.
For so many of them their waiting has ended.

They are in that place, different for each person, but yet the same.

In college...in love...pregnant...healthy...home...gone...free...taken..

I have been there with many of them, watched them dream and struggle.
I have held their hands, assured them it would be OK..even when I wasn't sure it would be.
For them, my joy and happiness is genuine. It isn't forced or fake.

They are on top of the world, I just wish I could stand there with them.


For others in my life, today they are at their lowest.

In 20 minutes a family that I know will say goodbye for the last time to their mom who died on Monday after battling cancer for three years. A little eight year old girl that will stand there, her 12 year old brother and older sisters will try to make her understand something that defies explanation.

Others are sick. Their physical body is failing them. They have wished and hoped and prayed for healing. It has not come.

Others are heart broken, they have trusted people and been let down. There are people in their lives who have taken things from them that can't be returned. They have watched their families be destroyed by the other woman. They feel like it will never be better, the pain will never get better. I want to tell them that it will, but sometimes I am not convinced myself.

They are in that place, different for each person, but still the same.

Sick...lonely...hurt...heart broken...tired...ashamed...guilty...addicted...

Today, they are at their lowest. My concern and care for them is real. My desire for them to rise up, to find peace, is genuine. I want to be there for them, and yet I never want to be to the point where I stand next to them.

Two total extremes, the best and the worst.

I guess what I am struggling with the most right now is how to exist in the middle.

Room 22

I am so thankful for the difference that a few hours can make. I am not sure if it was time, the nap or the conversation and support from friends that made the difference. The truth is that it was a probably a combination of all of them and then some.

Nine hours ago I thought the world was coming to an end. Nine hours ago the worst possible scenario in my mind had just played out. I walked out of Isaak's new school feeling like I had been punched in the stomach. Full time special education was the last thing that I was prepared for. I was prepared for some resource room time, I wasn't prepared for 61%. I was looking forward to him having some extra help, I was not expecting a full time aid when he was at lunch and recess. I wasn't expecting them to say he could only ride the special needs bus, I wasn't expecting formal IEP's and scheduling for systematic observations. I was shocked and overwhelmed.

Nine hours ago it was all about me.

Now it is about room 22.

Imagine a place where everything feels right, it feels safe and secure, welcoming and warm. It is like a little oasis in the middle of the structure and norms of the rest of the school. Room 22 isn't a place for kids that are special, but you feel special because you are in it. The teacher there is this tall, strong, handsome man that kinda looks like Clark Kent, he even has the glasses. He is real. There is no other way to describe him. Genuine.

The desks in room 22 are different. The chairs at the desks are different. They have big red rubber pillow looking things on them to help with sensory issues. The layout is different. Room 22 has it's own bathroom. It has it's own couch and sink and even it's own soundproof time out room. The ceiling and tops of the cabinets are lined with model airplanes.

There are 6 students ranging from 1st to 5Th grade in room 22. There are 6 kids, one teacher and 7 resource aids. Room 22 is well staffed to say the least, but it is staffed with the kind of people that you would hand pick if you were going to be spending time there.

The motto in room 22 is "all together". In room 22, anything can be accomplished when they do it "all together". After spending only a few minutes in room 22, you have no choice but to believe that to be true.

In room 22, there is no time to consider how many rooms away the other 2ND graders are. It isn't about any of that. Most of all, it isn't about me.

Nine hours ago I hated the idea of it. Right now I am encouraged by it, on the verge of being in love with it.

August 13, 2009

Trying really hard right now to prepare myself for what is ahead today. I am meeting with the GLASS and special education department at Isaak's new school in about an hour. We are going to decide if he is able to be in a main stream class and if so, if he will require a full time aid. It is strange to try to prepare myself for something that I really thought would never come. How do you just be in a moment that you would give anything not to be in? I need help right now to make sense of it all. It is gonna be a long day.

And so my prayer today is that I can step out of the emotion of it, step out of how bad it hurts and just be present in the reality of it. God, help me to listen, to really listen to these people that you have placed in our lives for a reason. Most of all, when I want to give up today, when I need to revert to where I find comfort, don' let me.

Is There Another Way To Look At It?

I use Imagination Prompt Generator when I am having trouble getting started writing. There are times when the prompts are silly and seem to make no sense. There are other times when I know that they are not a coincidence. Today was one of those days....

August 12, 2009

Is there another way to look at it?
The most honest answer I have is....God, I hope so.
More than just hoping.
Dreaming...wishing..demanding.

There has to be another way to look at it.
Another way to see this life.
If there isn't, I don't want to know.
Please don't tell me that I am wrong.
Lie to me if you have to, but I have to believe that there is.
That this way is not only different, but infinitely better.

Many days the view of it from here is ugly.
It's dark and the shapes are so skewed that it is hard to make them out.
Unrecognizable. Incomprehensible.
Don't tell me this is the only way.
I'm afraid if you do, I might start to believe you.

Instead tell me, no, show me the other way to see it.
Grab my face if you need to, get my attention, make me see the other way.
Tell me..show me.. over and over and over again.
When I forget, remind me. Scream if you have to.
Make me listen and make me see it.

Please don't let me miss it.
Don't let me get so caught up in looking for it that I can't see it.
Don't let me stare at it for so long that my eyes become accustomed to the dark.
So used to the dark that that my eyes can't bare to see light.
Keep me from being too tired to continue looking.
Too jaded, too bitter, too bruised.

Is there another way to look at it?
I know there is.
What I long for is that it is more then just another.
Not another failed attempt, another program, another phase.
Not just another person, not feelings..or words..or things..

More than just another way to look at it.
Assure me there is only one other way to look at it.
Please let me see it.
Let me not only see it, but believe it.
Not only believe it to be possible, but see it.
Let me see that there is one other way to look at it.
Let me see that way in the reflection in the mirror.

One of those days....

It has just been one of those days, and it is not even noon yet. Luke just got out of a time out for giving his brother a black eye. When he was done apologizing to Isaak, he had to pray and ask for forgiveness from God. Here is what he said....

"Dear Jesus, thank you for all this food (we were not eating), please make me to not punch Ikey in the face anymore or to call him stupid or dumb. Please make Mommy stop being mean at me and to make her to stop yelling at me like Optimus Prime. I am sorry for hitting Ikey with his lizard, please make Ikey go back to summer camp so I can stop fighting him and so that I dont make him dead. Please be with my Daddy so that he wont break his face anymore and thank you for my "Piderman" poster and make it not scare me at night time and thank you for Santa and make him to bring me that race car thing. Thank you for getting me Cheetos at town and that I can go to Monkey Joes with my whole family and I can punch Isaak in that jumping thing......Mommy, what was I supposed to say ? Maybe I "tan" just start over....Dear Jesus..."

More Like A Shuffle

I have convinced myself that what I do, what I say, how I live is fine.
It's not like it is bad.
I just do what everyone else does.
No one gets hurt.

Realizing that someone does get hurt has been hard.
Especially when the person getting hurt is the One that loves me the most.
Love beyond comprehension.

Today I made another tiny little step towards the life that I long for.
Maybe less of a step.
More like a shuffle.
Too small of a movement to even be noticed.
Unnoticeable by all but One.
The One that cares the most.

I am anxious to take that big step.
The one that everyone sees.
Everyone notices.
Anxious and scared
Scared of the imprint left beind when I actually do move.

So many questions and fears about what is to come.
More questions and fears about what happens if it doesn't.
Is that tiny step enough to even matter?
Less of a step.
More like a shuffle.