Saturday, December 30, 2017

Bulletin Board

It's alive - an expanding, changing, rarely neat, appendage to my pantry door.  It smiles at me with the faces of my children, my in-laws, my grandbabies and my mom. It's a collection of the fragments of my life - each piece expressing a sentiment I hold.  It may appear to be attacking you when you turn the corner into this room, but I assure you it's built with love. It's my bulletin board.  And now.....well, it's empty.
I'm not sad.  It's time.  It will be lovingly removed and brought along to our new home, after 24 years of residence in this one.  I've no idea where I'll put it, but it will have a place.  The sentiments accumulate where our family resides - it's a living thing, its life consists of the lives it reflects.  The smiles will once again accumulate.  The home is not the structure. It is the people.  And therefore, it travels with us.... our home.... and our bulletin board.

Sunday, December 17, 2017

A Healing of the Heart

I have gone through a tangled jungle spiritually the last 6 months. First it was the church that I attended for 24 years, worked in for 3, led worship in for 7, which I'd so recently posted that I loved.  Through events that I won't share, the previously unthinkable became apparent:that my time there was coming to an end.  I held on with all my strength; I turned myself inside out in an attempt to secure what had served as a cocoon for so long - a place that housed my family, both literally and spiritually; a place where I'd grown mature in my faith and unshakable.  When God means to move you on, the unshakable can surely be shaken.

After we left, when asked how we were doing, I described it to those whom I love as "ripping my heart out," but, also, that I knew it was right to leave.  I've since spent time recuperating from what felt like an amputation.  The greater part of my life and identity was in that church. But I knew my Savior goes with me wherever I go - it's not about the church - it's about Christ in my heart.  I learned long ago that I am never never alone.

Since leaving, there followed a dizzying sequence of major decisions, both glorious and heart-wrenching.  We decided to sell our home of just as long and move into another large enough to give both us and our daughter's family our own space; this was in order to hasten our retirement savings, and their move-to-their-dream-home savings.  It has involved gutting and redoing the new home, and that has been therapeutic and intense. 

Still, in the midst of these two major changes, we also outgrew a family dynamic of codependence with different branch of our family.  It was abrupt and startling and not pretty.  But we came to realize that it was time.

I was churning, anxious, reliving the not-pretty parts of these changes in our lives that we had not really seen coming.  As I was relating this to my best friend of 25 years, the pain started out as a kindling fire inside that just kept burning.  And then.......it lifted.  We continued to talk, but I felt a distinct difference - and I told her, "Thanks so much. I can just move on now. It helped to tell you."  I was now peaceful - about all of it: About the changes, the loss.  My grief and loss, stirred up all over again by the family conflict, seemed to have passed.

That night, as I drifted off to sleep, my cell signalled an incoming text from my Charlie, who is married and is on staff at a church in Kentucky, where he also plays guitar for their worship.  "Do you have a heart condition?  And did Dad pray for you tonight?"

Half asleep, I responded, "Not that I know of....," completely forgetting that I'd sobbed under the weight of the stress that morning, and the tenderness in Dan's eyes as he patiently waited for me to pull it together.  He does pray for me, I know. He wants me to handle these things, and that they won't overtake me.

"Okay, I know that was random. It's just that we are at a conference our pastor is hosting, and a prophet from England called me out and told me, "Your mother.....Gail, has a heart condition.  But as you are playing guitar, she is being healed.  Then he asked who "Dan" was.  I told him he was my dad.  He said that he (Dan) was praying for (Gail),  as you're playing your guitar, she is being healed.  So yeah - may be metaphorical? Not sure but I figured I'd ask." Charlie texted.

"Gosh I hope not." I said, but when we said goodnight, I thought of the condition of my heart; of my exit from the church, and how I'd felt like a body part had been removed - I so loved that church, the people; how I'd almost felt the world had an aggressive character to it throughout that experience.

And then what I'd just gone through with family members - the realization that no matter how much you love someone, no matter how much you want growth, independence, and good decisions to guide them, there comes a point when nothing will help them but that they step up for themselves. I had withdrawn my willingness to be a safety net. My hands were weary and I could not hold up their net any longer.

And I remembered my conversation with my friend, when suddenly, inexplicably, a peace had come over me.  It was a heart condition - a condition of my heart, so that I had literally used the words "It ripped my heart out."   This conversation  with my friend took place in Virginia, while Charlie played the guitar for that service in Kentucky.

"How did he know our names?" I texted Charlie.  "'cause God told him, I reckon! lol, I've never met the guy in my life - he's from England so there's no way he could know us.=P"

Well, by now, I was surely awake, so I got up, grabbed my Bible and crept out of the bedroom so as not to awaken Dan.  My Bible opened to Deuteronomy 4:35: To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.

Earlier yesterday, after my breakdown, but before the Kentucky service, this song was on my mind. I found the lyrics and chords online, and transposed them 3x until I found the key I was most comfortable with.  I'd laid it aside before bed.  When I woke this morning, the song was again running through my mind, this time through a mind that was comforted by a miracle of heart-healing through my Godly boy Charlie.

You are my Shepherd Who cares for me
You lie me down in fields of green
By quiet waters restore my soul
For Your Name's sake guide me on righteous roads

Oh my Jesus You know me by name
You will lead me in kindness and grace
I will follow wherever You go
All my life I'll trust You, heart and soul. 

from "Heart and Soul" by Josh Fox/Paul Mabury