Healing in the dust (5-the Cornerstone saga)

Psalm 30:2
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,and you have healed me.

Without going into an in-depth detailed account of my heart at this moment. I would just like to make note that God, the creator of heaven and earth paused in his orchestration of time and space and universe to bend down and listen to me recently as I cried tears that wouldn't fall down the dust on my face... And begged God you know what I need, you see me and this and what got me here and what is yet to be... I need healing, I need you to heal me because it hasn't happened yet. I know, time heals & what doesn't make you bitter makes you better and pain is the risk in love.... But I have not healed and I need God to do what time won't.

God hears the things we can't explain and meets us where we are. He is doing that for me. After I asked for healing and Gods way of fixing me and my troubles, I went around a corner and there in front of me was one of the things I had to face, sitting there in my path as soon as I asked God for resolve. So I did the natural thing and drove past as fast as I could. Once I was out of sight I realized what I had done and realized that my fear stopped me. It was clear as day to me that I had asked for a solution and it was put immediately in front of me and I ran as fast as I could in the other direction. So that's awesome.

What's even better is, as clearly as I saw what I was doing, I realized I probably do that a lot with varying levels of significance. So the next few days my heart went thru the.wringer realizing my need for healing and how brilliantly I can sabotage it.

In the days following my speeding away from Gods answer to prayer I ended up spending some time with a friend. She's a beautiful woman, in every way and she needs healing in more obvious and important ways than I do. She's had cancer and I'm praying that its leaving her. While we wait for her diagnosis, I spent some time with her and as we talked I realized that for someone so talented, gifted and good maybe one of the beautiful things about her is, her gifts aren't anything super important to her. Her family, her son, the people around her are what's important. She's always been that way, even before she was sick.

Somewhere in the conversation we were talking about traveling. And she said she's realizing that now that she's been thru this she really has something to say. And I was sitting there thinking how much she has to give people, she has so much wisdom and God has given her understanding and now she has this story of battling this sickness on top of who she already is.

As we talked I found myself trying in my fumbling ways to tell her how important her gifts are, how vital her voice is, that she has something to say that needs to be heard and she doesn't need to let things stop her. As I hoped to convey this to her I laughed at myself, here I am, always afraid to be who I am. Sitting in front of someone who has so much to offer and is older than me so she has more living and wisdom behind her, and little me is wanting to convince her that her gifts make room for themself. That her voice needs to be heard. That her message isn't about her it's about the people who will hear it. Oh wait, I'm getting a glimpse into what I've been trying to learn all this time....

I used to be so self conscious and lacking in confidence I was afraid to get on a stage or sing or write or do almost anything. And the only thing that made me do it was when God clearly showed me it wasn't about me. My self was getting in the way, it was about something I had been given, gifts that could heal people or at least open the doors to the broken places that needed healing, if I had those gifts and wasn't getting on the stage I was wrong. I was wasting what I had.

I had to see it as selfishness before I could overcome it. It's fear, its not accepting that you could actually be used in as significant of a way as you're meant to be. As I saw someone older and wiser and (in my mind) far more equipped to change peoples lives than me, not fully realizing how important her role was. I sat back and waited for what I was supposed to learn from this because I didn't see how there was anything that I could give that could help her... I keep thinking about it, and though I have this hope that my little input might be encouraging. I think what I'm supposed to take away from it has more to do with not underestimating the little things. Not downplaying your gifts, not running from who you know you should be, to just be what you can be. Don't let life go by focused on the wrong things, or on creating a life for yourself, or pursuing a career that isn't your heart. Don't go to school to learn how to make the most money, go where you where made to go and make the most of it. Be who you are, live the life you have. It's all you've got. And you'll find the more you embrace it and accept it. You will not only be fulfilled you will be fulfilling others. This story is not complete, I am still a work in progress, but every story is about what it teaches us, above is part of what I'm learning from my friends story. Yet to be written is what I do with what I'm learning. My own healing is a process, but one part of it is realizing how important my heart is to God the verse at the top of this blog popped up on my phone in the midst of all these things in my heart. God cares enough to tell me He wants to help me, if I let him. I think this wraps up my Cornerstone blogging for this year, the rest will blend into my life from here. I probably have new things I'm aching to write about. As for this blog the story will have to be continued when I've finished making my Uturn.

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Cornerstone goodbyes with 4 of my favorite children

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of car wrecks and good things

Today, I'm taking more Ibuprofen than my liver should be able to deal with and not for the reason's you might think (by this I only mean headache's.) girl's can take Ibuprofen for many reason's and no one needs to raise their eyebrow's and nod understandingly at me.  The reason is simply this, night before last I, along with my lovely family got in a car accident. It was a minor wreck by most standards, our vehicle was rear ended we went spinning, screaming, jerking around the highway & we are all very aware that if there had been a few slight differences, if the car that hit us had been only a little bigger we would have flipped instead of sliding. But we didn't flip and we are all still  in one piece, for this we are truly thankful.

I personally would like to take this moment to mention seat belts, I had just sat down in my seat as we pulled onto the main highway. I sit on the end of the back seat along with Ben & Jessica, like 3 dominoes we are set up in age and height order leaving me on the end to protect them both...should our van be hit on the back left corner at 55miles per hour, lifted off the ground and spun around Ben will fall on Jessica, Jessica will smash into me (while making a valiant effort to hold Grace firmly down on the seat in front of her.) and I will fall off the seat hit the wall be yanked around and ram into the metal (very hard) on both the seats that I'm now wedged between. This is a fool proof plan to protect the favorite family members. And yes, maybe I would have been safer if my seatbelt had been buckled within 30 seconds of getting on the highway. But I'm prone to think the impact of Benjamin & Jess and the centrifugal force smashing my head into a window while my lower body was strapped to a seat, would have been more damaging than the inflammation, bruising and minor whiplash I am experiencing now. However I recommend that everyone always put your seatbelt on before trusting a moving vehicle... In fact I would further recommend, not trusting a moving vehicle at all.

A few other things of importance happened this weekend.
I am coming to terms with some minor & major life changes, and coming to terms with how much I should accept God's hand in my life. If I truly trust Him I need to also trust that all the details, sequences of events, variations and plan changes, in my well laid plans that I'm daily "surrendering to Him" may very well be His well timed answer to prayer. This does not make me comfortable, but it makes me appreciate the fact that the creator of the universe, very well may sit back with a mild smile on his face and an occasional laugh as He watches me stumble around, trying to believe that He really is exactly as good as I say He is, and His will for me, really is exactly as perfect as I daily say it is.

Also, this weekend specifically, I spent a day with one of the friends I've been closest to the longest. She's a good friend, and I am so thankful to have her's as one of the amazing friendships that makes my life more complete, as we walk that road of friendship that makes good times good and hard times more bearable.
I'm starting to realize why God gave Jonathan to David, we need people in our lives, for laughter as much as accountability, for teaching us to relax and feel accepted as much as for helping keep our hands to the plow and occasionally holding our arms up.

And last but not least, yesterday morning during my Dad's set after HLF's national meeting he performed a new song, for the first time in a long time. I think a part of me had started to fear and feel a little ashamed that since he gave me his guitar years ago, I had somehow taken from him the very thing that he spent my life trying to give me, the gift of writing and self expression.  I felt like by walking on into my own, I was somehow  taking away from his, if that makes sense. However yesterday morning I found it wasn't true.

All of this to say I hope your weekend wasn't quite as full as mine. And though I don't care about the football game the rest of you may have been worshiping, I will say I will always love Pennsylvania.