Hanging onto Joy

This morning I am hanging onto joy. It's been a liquid few days. By that I mean that tears have flowed freely, with resulting puffy eyes and slimy snotty upper lip and chin (ewwwwwwwww!!)







But through it all I keep finding my way back to a smile, a laugh. True, these start as a grimace and a rumbly grumble, but eventually, within minutes (okay, within hours sometimes) they are almost recognizable as signs of a heart growing lighter once again.

What caused this recent descent into the valley of the shadow? I reached out, finally, to a friend who had been out of touch with me for several weeks, asking why there had been no responses to my previous efforts at contact. Was he okay? The response was, in essence, that he'd moved on, found someone else "better. "

Half my heart said, "Well, poop on you." The other half said, "Why wasn't I good enough?" Yet another half said, "What can I say or do here that will promote healing and growth for both of us?" Still one more half moaned, "Why me, God? Why me? What's wrong with ME???"

Yes, I'm well aware that all my bits of hearts add up to more than one whole. But that's the way I feel. God has given me a huge heart with which to care and feel and ache. And sometimes I want to give it back to Him and say, "Take back my heart. I don't want it. It hurts too damn much."

And then I realize: giving my heart back to God is precisely what He requires of me. Oh.

In my prayers lately, I've come across many Bible verses that tell me to give my "whole heart" to God. I always assumed that in addition to meaning "entire," "whole" also meant a heart in one piece. What God breathed into my sadness yesterday was that it simply meant ALL of my heart. It's okay if it's broken. Just be sure that when I hand my heart to God, I give Him all the pieces. Every single shard. Okay.

P.S. The pictures accompanying this post are more of my beautiful flowery friends. They remind me to keep blooming, no matter what. Blooming is NOT a choice for them. It is what they are designed to do.

Amen.

I'm back . . .

Yes, I'm back. And the weird part is that I didn't even realize I'd been "gone." Ever since I started blogging in January, some internal calendar sent me to the computer every few days to post a message. But in May, that evidently didn't happen.

I do know that I've felt particularly unsettled the past few weeks. A dear dear friend finally talked to me, and persisted, until I was able to see that something was indeed out-of-whack. Yes, I had made a commitment early in January to follow where God was leading me, even though it felt very uncomfortable. God had promised to be my partner in the dance of life and He was urging me--actually He was inviting me quite insistently :)--to stay out on the dance floor with Him and not to worry if I didn't know the steps (He did). And I was not to run for the chairs along the wall in between songs. Just stay out there, smack dab in the middle of the world and new experiences and evolving relationships and listen for the music.

I obeyed. A result of this was that I often felt uneasy, uncomfortable. I was definitely thinking things and saying things and doing things that were not "usual" for me. True, I was uncomfortable, but I was with the Comforter. I let that assurance support me and gradually I got more accustomed to NOT feeling comfortable.

But these past few weeks, as my dear dear friend helped me see, I had lost the joy. As I prayed in private, what God revealed to me was that in those early months, it was very appropriate that I feel sort of twitchy and at times, gritchy, due to being far out of my comfort zone. But now I had grown quite a bit. And actually, I had OUTgrown that twitchy gritchy feeling and was now feeling it only out of habit. It was time for me to lay aside what was appropriate THEN, and move forward. With joy.

As nearly as I can tell, this need for emotional recalibration is what made my internal calendar go whacky, resulting in my being oh-so-sure I had left several posts here during May, when in fact I had not. (Gee, how much MORE have I thought I've done and really, I haven't???? :)

In a sweet blessing from God and the universe, even during this time with only one post for nearly 3 weeks, several new people have visited my blog and left wonderfully supportive comments. Thank you to everyone, both new and familiar, for the responses. They mean the world.

See you soon.

Who'da thunk it?

I'm happy with today.

I still feel totally at sea concerning relationships with men. Never imagined in a bazillion years I'd be single after my kids were grown. Never imagined I--once a confirmed teenaged wallflower--would find myself dating immediately following an unwanted divorce. Never imagined that in one year I would connect with someone, break up, then reconnect, only to have them fall and hit their head and die. Never imagined I would become involved with two other men with so much emotional baggage a semi-truck couldn't hold it all.

Never imagined I'd feel so open and honest and real. Never imagined I'd think seriously about drinking. Never imagined I'd pray so long and so hard and feel so close to God.

Life's full of surprises.