Life’s questions

The Feelings of Christmas

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

 

What is it about Christmas? …about the feelings this time of year brings about in us?

The stage is set in our intentions:

the twinkling of lights,
Christmas cookies baked by the dozen,
the wow gift for each of our loved ones,
a fresh-cut tree brimming with ornaments,
parties galore,
a crackling fire,
Christmas songs lulling us into a smile,
peppermint cocoa brimming our cup,
the sound of laughter,
the feeling of contentment,
[cue the softly falling snow].

How many of us experience the idyllic Christmas of our mind’s eye?  Sure, we find it in our head, and we have meaningful intentions in our hearts, but there’s a gap in what actually transpires as we ready ourselves for the season.

What are you really looking for this Christmas? …and can it be filled by the things of the season? 

Be encouraged to seek and to search. Feelings can be a challenge to deal with, yet spending some time with them can help to bring about a clarity which equips us with the courage and expectant hope to be more real in our own head and heart.

 

Advertisement

Finding Hope in the Seed of Honor

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

Honor is a seed sown inside of each of us. How we nurture and tend to that seed within every season and every step of our lives will determine what that seed produces.

From that seed, fruit can be borne. The fruit might be integrity, determination, humility, servitude, fairness, courage or trustworthiness.

If not properly nurtured along the way, resentment, revenge, selfishness, arrogance, dishonesty, maliciousness or wickedness may be what is produced from this seed that, at one time, had so much potential.

My friends! Choose honor. Bear fruit. I have to remind myself to do the same.

The path of honor is rarely straight and easy, but it is a path of peace, of joy, of contentment and of opportunity…opportunity for rewards that serve to better self, family, community, and Kingdom with what really matters in life.

What do you see around you?

Do you see the seeds of honor?
Do you see the fruit of the seed?
Do you see a harvest that honors, collects and gathers for a greater purpose?
Do you see rotted fruit that once had much potential?
Do you see the seeds of destruction?

If my life is anything like yours, we’re seeing every bit of it…even in places where we’d expect to find the opposite.

What can we do?

Look carefully,
plant carefully,
harvest carefully…
and do it all very prayerfully.

 

 

When Nothing Stops the Pain

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

To you… yes, you…
…the one who just wonders when it will stop.

The tears, the hurt, the pain, the heartache, the whispers, the stares, the comments, the grief, the emptiness, the loneliness, the anger, the what else? wonderings…

I’ve felt your pain. It’s ripped me open from inside-out, too.

It still does, at times.

The newspaper article left out so much; the television story sensationalized everything… and the social media…

Don’t even go there.
Please don’t.

The people there say they are praying for you, but so many of them are on another site sharing the story, and they are sharing their opinion of the one you love / loved / still love / used to love / are confused about.

They forget that you are you, and that you have little ones you are trying to love and protect despite his choices. They ignore that you loved him, celebrated with him, supported him, triumphed with him, and were completely deceived by the him you thought you knew. The one you thought you married…

The hate they spew toward him isn’t necessary. They wouldn’t say it if you were standing right there. They probably wouldn’t even say it that way if they were with their friends. They think tapping out the words on their smartphone gives them the right to use those words and be judge, jury and castrator, just because it wasn’t them who did this.

I get it. I’ve been there.
I’ve read their ugly words, too.

In my dark moments… deep in my head and in my heart… I still am there at times.

I know your story.
I’ve lived your story.
I am your story.

I know you want to wake up from this nightmare.
But when you are awake, the reality is worse than the nightmare, and you just want to go back to sleep.

I’m so sorry.

I don’t feel your pain,
but I know your pain.

I don’t share your tears,
but I’ve shed them.

I’m so sorry for what has been done to you.

You saw it coming, yet you didn’t. You knew there were issues, yet in your heart, you never imagined they were those issues.

What he did wasn’t about you.

You thought, hoped, and agonized that you would have been enough… that your kids would have been enough… that the life you built together would have been enough to have kept him from choosing this.

What he did wasn’t about you.

I know you know that, but I really need you to know that. His choices are playing on every insecurity in you, but this really isn’t about your insecurities, either…

It’s about his. People don’t do this kind of thing without them. They just don’t.

You know that, and you’ve seen them in him. You’ve been his cheerleader, his fan, his friend, his partner. You know how he’s needed your support and your confidence.

You just didn’t know he’d do this.

Now you are questioning yourself with the “If only I had…” thoughts.

Don’t.
This isn’t your doing. It isn’t.
That’s what you need to know right now.

I know you want this to go away, and I know you want the pain to stop. It won’t for now. It won’t for a while.

It’s probably going to get harder before it gets easier.

When easier comes, it won’t be what you expected, but you’ll get there… in time. It’s going to take time.

The system is slow.
The resolution is slow.
The healing is slow.

Take one day at a time.

When you need to, just stop and take one morning or one afternoon at a time.

When that’s too much, just take one hour at a time… and when you really need to do so, just take one moment at a time.

When you’ve accomplished that moment, you can face the next one…

…and the next one…
…and the next one…

There will be a lot of those hard moments, but each one helps to prepare you for the next one.

For now, I have some simple advice for you that will seem like it’s the hardest thing to do:

Take care of those little ones.
Take care of you.
Pray.

Pray for your kids.
Pray for your husband.
Pray for his family.
Pray for your family.
Pray for that girl. Yes, her.
Pray for her parents.
Pray for the haters and backstabbers… you’re going to meet a lot more of them along the way.
Pray for the circles of people who are praying for you… you’re going to meet a lot more of these, too.
Pray for God to give you His strength to deal with all of this mess.
Pray for you.
Pray for yourself.
Pray for your present, your future, your pain.

It’s ok to not be ok right now.
You need to know that.

Someday, you will be ok again.
It’s ok to know that it might take some time.

You are enough.
You are more than enough.

You… yes, you…
…the one who wonders when it will all stop.

You are prayed for, dear beautiful, hurting you…

 

 

Dealing With a Barbarian

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 2 Comments

I have someone in my life who just rubs me the wrong way. This person annoys me, provokes me easily, and angers me. My reasons are valid, but my reactions are not.

I’ve allowed them to have far too much control over my negative emotions. 

They are an annoyance to my joy, they cause me anxiety, and I find it hard to shake the aggravation that spills over into other compartments of my life.

They are a barbarian…

…at least I think that’s what Paul says.

I started a new Romans study, and Paul smacked me right in the face in the first chapter. The book of Romans has a way of doing that. I’ve experienced it before, and last night won’t be the last time, I’m sure, since I’m only one day into this study.

Paul kicks off chapter 1 introducing himself, and then in verse 5, he reminds us of our role in the opportunity of the Christian life:

“…we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of the faith for the sake of his name…”

Paul is talking about himself and about those with whom he served. But how can we learn from him? How can we frame our life with the reason for his words?

We, too, have received grace for a reason. Yep. We’ve already been offered salvation, and we’re sealed into His saving grace through accepting the free gift Jesus has offered. But the grace Paul is speaking of here is probably an additional gift…the gift of being able to share faith with others.

Keep reading and you see that the gift of grace is being able to be someone who “…brings about the obedience of the faith…” Part of our purpose is to do that, and the best way to do so is through our own example…through our own life and the way we live.

Keep reading through the first chapter and you get to verse 14. Paul tells us about his obligations in the faith:

“I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish.”

Fabulous. Paul was obligated to that. As a follower of Christ, am I obligated to the same? Paul knew his role and appointment was to go and spread the good news of the Gospel, especially to those who weren’t Jewish.

But the barbarians, too? Yep.

I couldn’t help but pause to think over how these two passages stood out to me. Perhaps a part of my own purpose is to be an example to others…to show them a kind of faith that brings obedience to God’s leading…perhaps even to the barbarian in my life.

…just a thought.

 

 

Finding Hope in Milestone Memories

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

A friend of mine recently crossed through a milestone moment—the anniversary of the death of her husband.

There’s no shirking the emotions that milestones like this bring about. Three years into her life change is nothing to gloss over, nothing to forget, nothing to celebrate…

…but there has been…

The lost days, the altered plans and the shattered dreams are beginning to yield to the blooming opportunities, new days and optimism she’s finding as she steps out of the losses and toward her new hopes. She’s grown, she’s gotten stronger, and she’s marking her milestone memories with plans for an unknown-yet-hope-filled future. That’s something to celebrate, even if the milestone moment and losses are not.

We all have these milestone moments. All of us. They are those days on the calendar or in our heart that cause us to withdraw and just think. They are our “would’a, should’a, could’a” moments that will always be a part of us.

But it’s what we do with them that counts toward our joy and our internal peace.

When we are walking through them knowing that the hard losses can still help us find our way to a future of something bigger…well, it’s then that our milestone moments are worked for good.