Where Rabbits Run

It was a scorcher here in Knoxville, Tennessee today. Added to the mercury outside was the heat of my intense personality. I woke up once again at the mercy of my tornado of emotions: one part late mid-life hormones, one part the swirling mass of feelings that has made up me since first I opened my eyes in birth. Prayed. Looked at the scriptures I have written on note cards.  Went about some chores in my hallmark wildly ADD fashion (mop one-half of the kitchen floor then sail quickly out back, pluck pet rabbit from hutch and race across the yard to put him in exercise pen so fast that he is probably doing the sign of the cross over his forehead, violently hose down hutch to get it ready for the little darling, finish mopping, get in car and oh, go to tile place to find a matching tile for broken one, then swerve into Petsmart for supplies and then over to Hobby Lobby for one item). Oh, I neglected to mention crying in the Hobby Lobby checkout. Almost forgot.

Wait. Who does that? I mean, really. We've all got stuff, right? Well, let me back up. I am dealing with some things. Things that leave me feeling for all of the world like I am spinning my wheels in the sand. I feel heartbroken by these challenges. I feel like I am balancing a bucket of pain on each shoulder. The burdens never lift. Emotionally, I feel like a broken down compact car from the seventies, gears grinding almost impotently. Like that wobbly little compact, sometimes I break down and a friend or family member must tow me off home with kind words or prayers. I am really down to metal on metal.

I am sure this is right where God wants me. I forgot to say that, just today, just a few moments ago, actually, God gave me favor in a way that comforted me. He loves me. I know this. When I am down to metal on metal I have a great opportunity to, as the worn out (but  true) adage goes: "Let go and let God." Let's see if I will. Let's see if I will let him carry my pain. I really do need to. I need to focus on whatever positive thing the day yields. I need to live in the moment. The lady who checked me out at Hobby Lobby said that life's challenges never get better, they just change from one set of hard things to another as we move through life. That is what made me break down into tears. She looked surprised and was probably sorry she upset me. I needed hope, not a terrible forecast. As I burst into the hot sunshine I was openly wiping tears, probably making everyone assume that I had recently gotten terrible news. I did not even care.

On the way home, I saw the "Tuesday Morning" store near my house. "I am going to get myself that butterfly mug I saw in the other Tuesday Morning store the other day," I thought. Once inside, I did not find that particular mug, but did find one that fit my life even better. Colorful rabbits graced the cheerful mug. As a pet lionhead rabbit owner, this one fit the bill! I sat down to a horribly interrupted cup of tea when I got home. So, I made myself another. Sometimes you just have to.

The Space Between Life and Living

Last night I dwelt in a pocket of time between life epochs, if only for a half hour. I felt the urge to see if I could find a "Baby Tenderlove" doll on ebay. You see, the earliest Christmas that I can remember prominently featured "Baby Tenderlove." I think I was four. I still believed in Santa Claus. I had asked for the doll, and stayed awake half the night thinking of holding it in my arms next day. I simply could not wait. When finally she was mine, I carried her with love and, well, tenderness. A relative tried to shame me for not seeming interested in the doll they gave me. I felt mild embarrassment but could not help my preference.

I found a couple of "Baby Tenderlove" dolls still in the box, and crazily priced. Then my eyes hooked on one. She was out of the box, her wisps of hair still intact. Her photo haunted me. The date on the ebay listing was 1972. A photo prominently displayed the Mattel 1972 stamp on the doll. Could this be exactly like the one I cherished so much? I agonized over whether or not to pay the very low price the seller asked.

I began the purchase process, getting all of the way to the paypal "confirm" button. What would I do with the doll? I could not very well display it. Did purchasing her mean I was becoming one of those little old ladies with dementia who play with dolls? Did it mean I was suffering from a scorching case of arrested development? What, exactly, would such a purchase mean? I aborted the process, but I think I have halfway divined what all of it meant, and means again today, in the gray light of an overcast late morning. Certainly a good time to divine things.

It seems to me that a lot of women in their mid to late forties (I will be forty-six next month) are content and happy. They have done with their lives what they set out to do. Me, not so much. I had dreams of being a writer. I also love people. I became a hermit over the last nine years. I have wasted so much time, it seems. Instead of having the happy, fulfilled experience of accomplishment, I have a heartbroken feeling that I put my light out with a wet blanket of fear and discouragement. I did everything I could over the last ten years to keep people from hurting me, to sauter off all pathways to rejection. Maybe gazing at the "Baby Tenderlove" doll reminded me that there is still time to bring back to life all of the parts of me that are truly me. Maybe it is time to keep meeting people until I know the people who will respond to the real me. They are out there. I know they are.

While I was recounting the "Baby Tenderlove" episode here just now, I heard the vibration of my phone from upstairs beside my bed. I went up there to get it. Here is what I found: a text from a Christian friend who I never really got the chance to know as closely I would have liked to, but whose depth of love and genuine Christianity shone through when I did not get a medal after a group of ladies in my neighborhood walked the Music City half marathon and she took hers off and gave it to me. She probably doesn't remember doing that. It's just who she is. Anyway, here's what the text said just now, as "Baby Tenderlove" was lighting up my Christmas morning here in the blog:

"'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.' (Proverbs 3: 5-6) So he will make my paths straight when I completely submit to him. How often am I missing his straight path b/c I'm not submitting?" Even while I was typing her text here, the reality of what she wrote was hitting me hard. God has a good plan. We foul it up with our refusal to submit to Him. He made us wonderfully unique. We are to serve each other and him, but we (listen up mothers) are never to lose who WE are in the process. He enjoys our uniqueness, our distinct personalities and giftings. It's HIS stamp on us. I don't have "MATTEL 1972" etched into my neck (thank goodness), but if I had anything like that it would read "God's Work, 1968".....or maybe just the Name of Jesus, since he redeemed me for eternity after God made me in His image and loved me uniquely as he was doing that.

Making a Life

I just read something crazily inspiring for a creative-type of any ilk, written (and illustrated) by someone much younger than me who has already discovered things I should know but do not practice.

A young lawyer with six-figure student loans tries life in the big city at a prestige law firm. Quickly she realizes that the price to be paid for her "dream" job (other people's dream, maybe, her parents' dream for her, definitely) is her absolute self. What is her "absolute" self, as I am referring to it here? (That's my word, not hers.) She's an artist. Over time she discovers that her inner artist has become someone she used to be, thanks to the finite amount of time each one of us human beings are given on this earth each and every day.

Well, you know where this is going. She chucks the stuffy, soul-killing, work-work-work life and heads on into life as an artist. By degrees. She begins by rebelling a tiny bit against the dress code. Bit by bit she wades into the waters of the reclamation of her soul. Now she's a full-time artist. She is free.

Everything I think and try to do has a tieback to God. He is the creator of my soul. He is the life behind my spirit and the only reason I can get up in the morning. He created me to love writing, to thrive on shaping and bending and manipulating language to let someone know exactly how I feel, what I have seen, what I think I know.

Sometimes I have heard my son play his guitar for hours. When he is doing that, I imagine time stands still for him. He is experiencing what it means to be fully alive. When your work is not tied to your passion, it MUST have limits drawn around it to leave room for your passion. I pray for my kids' futures, that what they love will be tied up into what they make a living at. Because after all, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, they won't be making a living, they'll be making a life.

Between His Shoulders

I have had lifelong issues with anxiety. I remember feeling surges of panic and horror as a child. Most of my fears have to do with how I feel I have or might in the future let someone down, or whether or not I have done something or not done something in the same fashion that other, better people (because everyone has always been better than me in my mind) would have done it. There have been times when my self-flagellation has been justified. However, unlike most people, who repent, ask forgiveness of others, and move on, I micro-analyze my shortcomings and wallow in deep, dark dungeons of guilt and self-hatred. I also am very certain, based on feedback from people I trust, that a large percentage of the time there is nothing to hate myself for. I just always feel like I should. If something bad might happen and it will not be my fault in some way, I am sometimes very peaceful, because I know God will step in. Why wouldn't He? That's what a loving and faithful father does! The idea that He will poor grace on my humanity and honor the overall intent of my heart to love and serve him and others just keeps coming up by the roots, like a flimsy weed.

How can I get the assurance of God's love, protection, favor and peace to grow in my heart like a mighty oak planted near a stable water source? I have had some ideas, and they have born fruit in my life recently. I started to study scriptures on fear, anxiety and peace. Washing my mind with those every day has made a difference. The direction I find in the Bible is a constant source of comfort. I have made strides! I still call people too much to ask for help with my overwhelming  feelings of fear at times. I still pace some. I still have some incidents where, suddenly, my bright and beautiful world turns quickly dark with anxiety. All of the things that bring me joy turn impotent and sad. However, I am far from losing hope because I have seen the difference renewing my mind with prayer and the Word has made. I know who is coming against me. Here's what God says about him in his Word, the Bible:

"He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44, New International Version, Holy Bible, copyright 1984)

Last night I remembered a part of a verse and looked it up this morning. It is the Lord's word over the tribe of Benjamin. "Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders." At the same time that this imagery comforted me, it scared me just a little. I am a little intimidated by such intimacy with God. I will pray today that God will show me, and that I will open my eyes to see that I am worth such closeness with my heavenly father. No one who lets you rest your head on their chest can hold you in contempt at the same time.

Don't Ya Take My Book From Me....

Technology both fascinates and frustrates me! I spent thirty minutes or more just now trying to figure out which gmail address is linked to this blog, since it had been so long since I had written here. Arghhhh!!! I still use a pen-and-paper appointment book. Cannot imagine not having it. There is some comfort for me in seeing items written in my own hand. A road map, if you will, that reinforces to me that I am going somewhere, and that, since I took the time and went to the effort to write the "to-do" list down, I will remember to do all of the items contained therein. It's weird, I know. I was in a biblestudy this past spring. When the facilitator gave dates, everyone whipped out their phone. I don't keep up with my commitments that way.

"Why do you carry that book around? It's embarrassing," said my seventeen-year-old just a couple of weeks ago. "Security blanket," was my clipped reply. "I know it will never have technical problems and lose all my data." He didn't have to digest that for long. "You could lose the book," he said diffidently. Thanks for that, but the book is still in action. In fact, it's right beside me on this sofa now.

There is no real connection between the deeper issues in life and  my stubborn refusal to move with the times, my clinging to old, tried-and-true ways of doing things. Except maybe this: some things are absolutely timeless. These are the things that I am working so hard to let God make BIG in my life. "You are working hard to let God do something?" I can hear you pragmatic types thinking, or maybe, if you have taken the time out of your super-structured, task-oriented day to read this blog, even saying out loud. You make a good point. I guess what I mean is that I am trying to be aware of letting Him into every aspect of my day to work into my laziness, lack of discipline and loosey-goosey, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants time management the order that He wants me to operate with. The hard work, the focus. All of that is what He wants. If He did not, He wouldn't expect me to do anything with the good gifts He has blessed me with.

So leave my paper appointment book alone. It might be chock-full of boring details, but at least it's pretty (purple with a bit of a sheen). That's my nod to the notion that journey is supposed to be a delight.