Delays

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It’s early Friday morning and I’m waiting for Trish my coworker to come off the plane from Wyoming.  As I sit here working on some files behind my steering wheel of my car, I find out her flight gets delayed.  Never mind the delay; I have files to do anyway.   But as time drags on, I’m feeling grouchy … The waiting seems to bring out that side of me.

 Are you like that too? I have waited for several “flights” in my life–getting married to Mr. Right, finding a career, having kids, ministry, and now kids moving out…

I remember reading a story one time in the newspaper of an elderly woman flying to Scotland.  She boarded the wrong plane at the Los Angeles airport. Due to a computer error, no one knew she took another flight. She got on board, found a seat, and didn’t realize her travel plans had drastically changed until the plane landed in a different country like Africa.

Every one of us experience situations in life like her story. You think you’re taking the nonstop flight to your dreams, and next thing you know you’re marooned in a strange land you never wished-for to visit.  You’re not quite sure how you got there, when you’ll be leaving, or what in the heck to do in the period in-between.

As I sit here in my car with my laptop I write this, that’s been on my journal pages over and over again….

While you may not be where you want to be, you don’t have to be there unaccompanied and whether or not you chose your detour/ roadblock, you can choose to make it a time of healing and development that changes the rest of your journey… 

Has anyone else ever feel like they unexpectedly hopped on that flight to Africa?

I have!!

 While waiting may not be my favorite thing for me to do, I’ve discovered there can be unexpected treasures in those times.

That doesn’t make it easier…but it does help to know and understand that God is working to make sure I won’t be boarding the plane empty-handed when the time does come. 

A Supernatural Novel Will Be Written

God made my life complete when I placed all my pieces before Him, When I got my act together, He gave me a fresh start, now I am alert to God’s ways; I don’t take God for granted. Every day I review the ways He works, I try not to miss a trick. I feel put back together, and I’m watching my step. God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to His eyes.
Psalm 18:17 (The Message Translation)

So often we try to put our lives back together ourselves, whatever happened to us, maybe it be some kind of abuse, maybe it be rejection, maybe it be loss of a loved one, or what have you. 

I know I am so guilty of leaving God out of the picture, so when I read this over my life giving coffee at Ryan Bros., I was wowed. Very recently, I have started placing all my pieces before Him, and I have seen Him begin a work in my life that has been nothing but supernatural.

 

 ”God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.”

 At times, even at the age of 43, I diligently try to keep my book of my heart to myself, not let anyone see it, including God, even though I know He can see right through the cover. Like a young girl hides her heart in a leather-bound diary, I hide my book. Never wanting anyone to open it or to see it because you never know what they will think or say. Yet secretly the book is getting heavier and heavier. Its pages are being scribbled on by other people, and me, well, my book is being written for me. My book really is only opened every once in a while, and only if I really trust you. Yet still it is hidden from the one that cares about me the most, God.

Maybe it’s because I’m ashamed of what lies on those pages?  I remember having a conversation with someone close to me once, that I couldn’t get rid of something I was struggling with because it had become such a part of who I was that I didn’t know what life would be like without it. I sat there, in the parking lot, and kept saying, but I can’t give it up. The person kept asking why. Finally, my eyes fell to the ground as I said, I’m scared to move on from it, I don’t know how to free myself from it because it’s mine, and it’s been a part of me for years. It’s a large part of the definition of Heidi. And that person said, why don’t you give it to God? And I remember thinking, it’s mine, I can’t.

My point is this, the pages of the book, like any book, are meant to be read. They are meant to tell a story, and they are meant to be seen by the one that cares about you the most. So why do we lock them up on the book shelf and say definitely not, that is my book and I refuse to share it. I honestly can say, for me, that it’s fear of change, fear of the unknown, and fear of failure. But I have noticed that when I show God chapters, or even pages, or paragraphs from my book, He tames the fear, and fills me with a new heart and a new perspective. 

A new revelation and more possibilities

Ironic it is, because for the longest time I hated it when people read my writing. I still don’t really like to hear it read out loud… But I have grown comfortable with this because I am willing to take a chance in people hating my writing for it to maybe touch someone else’s life.

So I encourage you, to open the book. Maybe that is something as simple as letting people read your writing, or maybe you need to show God some pages of the book and share your pen so He can help write the next chapter. And maybe by letting Him use the pen, you will feel renewed and put back-together.

 A supernatural novel will be written

Do People…..?

 

 

Do people feel confident when they’ve been around me? Do they experience love? Value?  Importance? Are they heard? Or do they feel unnoticed and undervalued? Do they feel like they were a disruption to what I actually would have preferred to be doing instead of truly focusing on them? 

I have always loved this quote from Maya Angelou:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

When I read it, it makes me think – think hard – about how I make people feel.

 I don’t think Jesus ever made someone feel insignificant or unimportant. He was the master of all of the interruption opportunity.

Just think about the woman who touched him while he was on his way to see a dying friend named Lazarus. Jesus took time to talk to her, to treasure her, and to laud her faith. She went away healed, but I think she also felt valued and of worth.

As a wife, mom, daughter, leader, friend and girlfriend

 – what I say and what I do only tally if they add up to giving people the sense that they really matter to God and therefore they are important to me.

 

The Chapter Book

 

I was sitting inside my Dr’s office yesterday waiting patiently to get inside  and I grew fidgety although it was so early.  Yes, I was armored with my coffee but I was still fidgety. I picked up a book off the end table, it was one those smutty romance novels.  Since, I was limited in time and NO way was I going to have this book follow me, I went straight to the center for some action. The female heroine was being described and it really caught my attention, her name was Raine.  I looked up the meaning of her name and it means “counsel, mighty army”  

Raine’s description is unfolding as being filled with strength and she demonstrates fierce safeguard and compassion for the one in her care.  Her beauty is clearly evident as you gaze into her face which shows the evidence of the battle she’s fought in the existence of blood from a wound on her brow. 

There is nothing about her existence in this particular moment of this paragraph in Chapter 6 that feels the least a bit hard.  She is pulsating, animated and soft and you are so drawn in by her keenness to jeopardize her own safety for the life of her brood.

I want my life to have a paragraph in chapter 6 like this one. 

I want to be encircled by a community of people who want to live precarious and transparent lives in order to participate in God’s salvation of people.  I want to have companions riding next to me who are so ready to draw their own swords, and that they are not threatened by the idea that mine is in my hand. 

 I want to name evil for what it is and then stand against it in a real and transparent approach, slashing at the enemy’s throat at “I am going to….” And stand up tall, ferocious, and all surrendering to a living God.

 I want to be part of a community that celebrates; I MEAN CELEBRATE true everlasting beauty and a simple tenderness and strength that in turn expose the imitations when they are present. 

 I want to fight for the restitution of life for those who’ve been stabbed and wounded by life and are losing touch with whom they are.

 I want to fight A GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH… AN Everlasting fight of faith.

With beauty… elegance… fierceness… compassion…  and  celebration..

As I Rest In Joy

I have a friend Tammy Hodge (Tam) over at inprogress, she’s amazing and she probably doesn’t even know it, but she is really good at taking someone’s heart and defining something so small and then makes it so powerful in them.  Let me explain.

Several years ago next month, I suffered a small stroke, after that her mission in life was to get me to write and write and write.  I did but quit at times, many times.  But she was my encourager.  During this process we became fast friends and now we are very close. 

Just a few days ago, I was sitting on the jetty with my notebook watching sunrise.  Something I have done a lot of in the past.  So I am sitting there journaling away and my heart just filled with this unexplainable joy.  I still can’t explain it.  I even had started singing.  Trust me you are all glad I was at the ocean by myself.  

But here’s the thing.  Even though I was at the jetty with this sudden burst of joy, I was praying for the toughest things I was facing: my job, my mom’s cancer, our budget, and my struggles with my 16 year old son.  Honestly I was hurting.  Alot.

But through the purple sunrise, through the crashing waves, and through the encouragement of a girlfriend saying two years ago in an email “sis, always find your joy” that morning, when I had wish I could have thrown in the towel. I found my joy In Him

Here’s that journal entry:

I love beautiful things. I love kisses from my little man on the neck. I love sleep. I love peaceful rainy stormy afternoons. I love coffee made in just the right way. I so love my special girlfriends. I love being in the silence with no demands, I love the ocean the most secure place on this earth. I love a really good cry, a good movie and a good friend to be there to talk about it with. I love Paul’s squeeze right before I fall to sleep…

I love paper, blank with so much potential

I love to know that I shared Huckleberries and cheesecake with the girlfriend that knows me the most.

 I love stories that I relate to; that makes me feel normal, and not so all alone. I love freshly washed sheets and a warm quilt on my big comfy bed.

 I love my nightly shower after a very long day at work

I love the business neighbor who knows that I love my California burrito with well done eggs and no pico.

I love remembering

I love the effortless joys God has created on this earth….just for me.

I love the LOVE of God   It has so many different realms, echelons, capacities, and significances. It grabs and pulls deep inside and evokes such a massive variety of emotions. Shallow or deep, the kind of love only that God gives us to experience on this earth…brings such a simple gift…Joy.

There is no other reason on this earth why we would spend so much time, using a variety of media expressions to study, understand, contemplate and dwell on this emotion every human carries with them through life,  except that it brings us joy.

I scream at the waves this morning thankful that HE has everything in control.

As I rest in joy.