Permission to Evolve

 

 

I find myself on the brink of a new dream.  My childhood dream was for me to become a “movie star” and, as I became an adult, I felt I owed it to myself, and secretly to others, to become one.  But with that “dream,” I often felt as if there was no gas in my tank, and that I was running on fumes.   That “dream” made me feel empty.

I’ve tried to revive this dream from different angles, yet I have always, in some way or another, encountered road blocks which, again secretly, I welcomed.  These blocks gave me the chance to consider other options, or another path altogether.

But, I was afraid.

I was afraid that I would be letting myself down and that little me from the ‘80s.  But, I was more afraid that I would let others down, others that expected me, and in one or another case required me, to accomplish this dream.

But, I live as a nonconformist, always have, and … I suppose I always will.  So, why should I conform to this “dream”?  Because I have the talent for it?  Because it is what I “always” said I would be?  Because it’s what people come to expect, and even only expect of me?

News flash: I am not my talent!

I’ve gotten to a point where using my talent on stage seems to satisfy everyone but me.  Little do some know, I am a kaleidoscope with many facets of shiny brilliant light that, with each turn or shift (in life) reflects such original and unique artistry.  It took me a while to realize this about myself, and also, to accept it.

I thank God for my childhood “dream.”  It just set me up for my true calling.  Ah, how I adore my Heavenly Father.  He knows exactly what He is doing.

 

Confession & Desire: A Conversation with God?

I believe there are times when what we think we want to do is not enough.  It is during those times that we've convinced ourselves that we are capable of accomplishing what we want to do -- but if so, then where is the peace?  Where's that peace of mind, the peace of understanding that helps us to feel settled in our pattern of thought or course of action in such times?

The peace we need in those moments is nestled in an exchange called confession.  It is often exercised as an expression of our sins, mistakes, guilt, and griefs, all of which also choke our peace.  But I've found that confession is also a release of our desires, the secret longings in our hearts that we hide from our most intimate friends...and even ourselves.  

God is known to communicate through Scripture or through messengers like pastors, preachers, prophets, and teachers.  But, I realized today a more intimate way that God communicates...through one's deep-seated desire.  In our puritannical/holier-than-thou culture, desire is often mistaken for lust, a self-seeking perversion of desire, and this discrepancy causes many to stifle their truest passions for fear of being unwholesome or unholy.  On the contrary, desire's purest nature is to connect each of us to our divine calling and purpose in God.  Desire is a motivation that propels us into a divinely-designed path and enables us to be a timely and relevant blessing to a greater community of individuals.  For example, a dedicated employee may deeply desire to run his own business.  God's purpose may be for him to profit others by creating jobs for the struggling and the unemployed.  These jobs could bolster the ex-inmate, fresh out of prison, who is desperate for a second chance, or could elevate the downsized and despairing father who longs to provide for his family again.  A talented dancer may be designed by God to go into the inner city as a teacher to expose and express the hope and beauty of life to youth oppressed by poverty and abuse.  Though her talent is suited for dance, her desire may be to serve young people.

Desire is a longing that cannot be quenched.  It motivates and energizes.  Desire speaks of more than a job title or an income level.  It reverberates the heart of God and reveals the meaning of the portion of life He has entrusted to each of us.  Desire is a constant and consistent whisper from God, a through-line that is maintained throughout all of our endeavors in life.  When we confess our realization of desire to God, peace and provision accompany it.  If there is no tangible provision for one's desire and there is no settlement of peace about its acceptance, then the question one should ask is: Is this desire or lust?  Does this merely gratify me, or do I find gratification in how this will affect others? 

Sometimes, under the clutter of our own vices, we may find it hard to identify and accept the desires that God has placed in our hearts.   But God is loving and patient, and He is faithful to lead us to the place of understanding and acceptance of our hearts' desires.  Yet, it is our responsibility to respond to His gentle whispers and align ourselves with Him through our confession of desire and with corresponding actions.

After all, He gave us Life...shouldn't we live it the way He wants us to?

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart (Psalm 37:4, Amplified Bible).

G--

The Will to Live

"It is impossible to have spiritual maturity without facing the truth about ourselves." ~Joyce Meyer

The year 2011 was one of hard reality for me.  I was bombarded with truth, unanesthesized.  Like a wrecking ball, life knocked me senseless, and I endured weeks and months of deep and extreme emotional pain.  Tormenting nights of fear-filled dreams jarred my sleeping.  Depths of depression hollowed my insides.  Anxiety and suspicion knifed my consciousness.  I fell completely apart.  The year was a constant enduring of emotional suffering, the worst I had ever experienced, with thirty years of life experiences peaking to a head. 

It was truth being revealed.  The truth about me.  The secrets and unconscious matters from life I had run away from had finally caught up with me, and pain was the only way of confronting these matters and, inevitably, dealing with them. 

I thought God was punishing me, that I had failed in life somehow.  I felt like a prisoner in my own mind, and feared I would never escape the pain. 

As I lay in pieces, depleted of strength and vigor and sheer will, my Redeemer entered the scene.  He didn't come as Prince Charming on a white horse.  Rather, He came quietly, hovering over me and my pieces like a fine mist.  While many poked their fingers at me, "Why don't you just pull yourself together?!  What you doin' down there, lying in pieces, for?!  There's nothing wrong with you!"... He simply made Himself present with me...no condemnation, no demands.  He came and quietly surveyed the damage, delicately picking up the pieces of me one by one. 

With each piece, He paused, taking His time to examine me and the matter contained within.  As such, I confronted the issues of my life, truth after stinging truth, with nothing to dull the pain...yet, He was present with me, healing me piece by piece by piece...

Then, one day in December, as if suddenly, I experienced a day with a "high" that I had not felt before.  There was a new excitement stirring within.  Surely, it was my morning coffee, I thought.  But, as the evening fell, and the "high" continued, common sense told me that not even morning coffee lasts that long...

It was the will to live.

On this first day of 2012, I stand armed like a warrior princess, scarred and war-torn from a year of intense battle, yet poised and armed to attack fear or anything that challenges my will to live.  With the loss and grief I've carried, the pain I've endured, and the truth I've embraced, I am NOT afraid to lose, which means I am destined to WIN.  I will not run or back down from a threat, for "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13)."

Facing Death to Embrace Life

Tonight, I felt some grief over my divorce.  It is a grief similar to when one has lost a loved one to death and the grief has finally caught up.  I suppose over the course of the last 2 years, I've intensely processed my own inner, personal hangups which, in my case, was characterized by a deep, profound depression.  I describe depression like my experience of being 5' 1" in a 5 foot swimming pool: you must work to stay above water just  to breathe, yet your feet can't fully reach the bottom.  There is no sure footing, so you cannot rest or you'll drown. 
But now, with God's help, I've made it.  I've overcome.  But the moment I realized this, I realized what I left behind, what I walked away from.  I began to feel the grief of death, that is, the death of my marriage.  I wept, and as I did so, my tears were a soothing revelation that what once lived is now dead.  Death, although painful, is good.  It is cleansing.  It makes way for new life, just as decaying matter creates nutrients for soil pregnant with seed.  My tears reminded me of deep pain that I walked away from, and abuse I had suffered.  My tears reminded me of trauma I had experienced and neglect I endured. 

My tears speak of God's compassion for me when I felt unloved and uncared for.  My tears reminded me that though I wasn't the perfect wife, I was a good wife, and I did the things that a good wife would do for her husband. 

So, I realize that I've spent quite some time over the last couple of years dealing with the harsh repercussions of my personal responsibility for my decisions and my mistakes up to this point in my life.  But now, my tears mark a different season in my life.  I celebrate what I've done right and the strength of my determination to live my life and embrace who God made me to be.  I celebrate that I stand alone and as a single entity, full of untapped potential, ready to be harvested. 

I celebrate the God in me, the One who overlooked my faults, while helping me to face them, whose strength was perfect in my weakness, who showed me compassion when I hated myself, who gave me the grace to divorce when I felt ashamed for doing so, and the One who saved my life when I wanted to throw it away.

I have so much to live for and with new breath and renewed vigor, I march forward out of depression, away from divorce, abuse, and trauma into a new destiny, one that I've never known or seen.  I scoff at fear and embrace the unknown, because I know God is with me.  He's been faithful to me through it all, and He will continue to be.

But those who trust in the Lord for help
will find their strength renewed.
They will rise on wings like eagles;
they will run and not get weary;
they will walk and not grow weak.
                                             Isaiah 40:31, Good News Translation

A Lesson in Love

Settling down is a real mark of maturity.  When someone desires to settle down, he is acknowledging that he is settled into self, as a person, an individual.  He is grounded in who he is.  Because of this, I believe, a person then becomes naturally oriented to people and life outside of himself.  Thus, he is ready to give himself to others, which is the hallmark of love.

Just because one is married or has children doesn't mean that one is settled down.  I say this from experience.  I was married for seven years, but I was restless.  I didn't understand myself or how I fit into the world around me, and so I couldn't give myself completely as a wife.  Thus, there was lack of love for myself, and consequently, there was lack of love for my husband at the time.  Thank God there were no children born into the marriage, because I would have lacked love for them too.

People don't always marry to settle down.  Some marry out of fear.  Some fear that they will lose the one they want if they don't marry.  Others marry for fear of being alone.  Some marry for fear of not being loved.  They do not consciously know these things, for these are unconscious motivations.  What was my excuse?  I lacked the patience to wait for love.  Wearied from a string of immature romances coupled with internal fears of rejection and abandonment, I hastily tied the knot at 21. 

BUT FEAR ISN'T LOVE...

Marriage that is based in fear is in danger of failing and will fail if the fear is perpetuated.  The reason is because marriage wasn't designed for fear; it was built for love.  Love is the very antithesis of fear, for as the scripture says, "[t]here is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear ..." (1 John 4:18, NIV).  Fear and love CANNOT co-exist.  So, I reiterate: a marriage founded in fear CANNOT survive, because it is loveless at its root.

Our society criticizes and crucifies the institution of marriage because of the overwhelming number of divorces.  But, the problem isn't marriage.  The fault lies in the lack of love in marriages.  There is so much selfishness in our culture that people marry to gain something for themselves, not to give.  This is due to a lack of love for SELF, FIRST.  A person who truly loves himself can give at-will without the fear of lacking anything in return.  When you put two individuals together who have this self-love, there is an easy and contant flow of reciprocity, because there is a continuous outflow of giving between the two.  If one enters a marriage with the expectation of "what can I gain from this person, this experience, this arrangement," they have already swallowed the seed of divorce.  And to give in order to profit, whether financially, sexually, materially or otherwise,  is counterfeit love, because true love is unconditional.

If our society wants to see marriages that work, then we must begin with loving ourselves.  And to love ourselves is to submit ourselves to God because "it is He who has made us and not we ourselves" (Psalm 100:3, NKJV).  If you want to know about a product and why it was made, consult the manufacturer.  One cannot truly love himself without knowing God first, and until we accept this, we will spend our lives filling that need for Him with people, possessions and other tangibles that are good indeed, but are misplaced in our lives.  We do not have to understand God to know Him.  We must simply live in Love, because Love is who He IS.

So, because of my renewed faith in God, and this wonderful love and appreciation I'm finding for myself, I have faith that I will TRULY love the right man one day.  I have the courage now to grow in patience and exercise it daily.  I say it takes courage because I am resisting a culture of instant gratification, a mindset that says "if I can't have it now, why wait?  It's useless!" 

The reward for my patience?  I envision a wealth of little ones safe, secure, and warm in a home where love endures and never, never  fails...

And so, I wait...

Learning to Be

With all of the so-called "growing up" I've done, I feel as if I will always be just a little girl.  There's so much about life to wonder about, to be in awe about, to discover, to learn.  This is the mind of a child: wondering, hungry for insight and instruction.  The older I get, the stronger this quality seems to grow.  The sight of a ladybug causes me to put everything on hold just to watch it and wonder.  How does the ladybug feel, I wonder.  What is she thinking?  How does she fit into the big picture of Life?  I'm just like a little three year-old!  You can leave me in a nursery with no toys (OUTSIDE of my crib, please!), and I'll find amusement in playing with my feet or in contemplating the bump on the wall.  Long as you leave me be, I'm just fine.  No entertainment necessary;  I'll make my own!

I suppose I'm learning to love myself, that is, learning to give myself what I really need.  And...I guess what I really need to do is allow myself to be the perpetual child.  Not in the sense that I refuse to accept or uphold responsibility, but in the sense that I need to view everything in life as something brand new and undiscovered, like I've never seen it before.  Sure, this makes a grown, 30 year-old woman seem like a naive little pushover.  But, so what?  God always seems to send just the right person or situation to protect me at just the right time.  So then..., why should I care?

So, I don't apologize anymore for my carefree attitude or naivete, or doe-eyed, aloof, head-in-the-clouds stares, or my giggliness, or the heart stitched on my sleeve, or my fountain-of-youth looks, or even the fact that I need solitude, and privacy, and space...and a LOT of it, thank you!

Yeah...I like cupcakes, and fairy tales, and ruffles, and gag-me pink, and vast meadows of flowers, and butterflies, and everything girly and romantic!

No, I'm NOT career-driven, and if you ask me what I'm gonna "DO" with my life and where's my list of ways of how I'm gonna make a ga-zillion bucks in this great, big, fat, overly-industrialized, nothing's-worth-doin'-unless-you're-making-a-dollar, *gasp*-who-am-I-without-my-job-or-my-degree nation, I'll tell you I don't know, 'cuz I 'm too busy trying to just BE!

Amongst all the noise, I've found a sweet pleasure in walking to the beat of my own drum, carving my own path, forging a road where none exists.  No asking how or why, because I won't know until I get there. 

I've learned that to live is to simply BE, that is, to be all that God created me to be.  Not just in the uniqueness of my personality, but in the depth of my character.  I want my life to reflect HIS nature, because I love Him, and He loves me.

Thus, to be is to love.  To love is not to get what I want out of everything and everybody, but to give what is needed. 

And what I need is to be.

Body Wash and the "Complexities" of Life

Ok...so, I spent nearly twenty minutes or so deciding on a body wash.  That's right, body wash.  What's interesting is that I wasn't the only one.  A handful of folks (mainly women) slowed their pace sniffing, poking, testing...all to find the right body wash.  I mean, how could one choose?  With dozens of brands and even more selections of scents among each brand, how could I find that perfect bottle with the perfect scent that would incite visions of an English garden, or satin sheets, or a Caribbean sunset with each squirt and lather...and all for under five bucks? :/

Wait a minute, I thought.  I'm not trying to smell like a tropical dessert here.  I just wanna be CLEAN, for Pete's sake!  Then, I shook myself, grabbed a refreshing bottle of Zest for $2.97, and off I was to complete my grocery list and get the heck out of there.       

I may be reaching here, but when did taking a shower become so complicated?  When did toiletry shopping become such a treasure hunt?   And why?  All that stands before you on the shelves is a smorgasboard of the same carbon-copied goop packaged into a variety of colorful containers designed to make you spend an unreasonable average of $5 a bottle or more so that you can feel like you're in paradise for 5-15 minutes a day.  Or for the men, the right body wash will be the difference between a chick-less loser and a ladies' man...seriously? 

Let's get real.  Body wash can't cure depression, and Old Spice still stinks on a jerk.

In the meantime, I want to live a complex life, uncomplicated.  A life where I spend more of my time to indulge in the wonders and beauty of Life and God's creation, and less on being sucked into capitalistic mind games...

Here's to being "Zestfully clean"!