So Close To YOU

     So close to You, I am, every morning. Once it was just a routine, but then routine became a necessity like breathing. I could choose to hold my breath until I passed out as I could choose not to read Psalm 119 every morning until the entire day seemed pointless...void of something without words to root that something into life. Your Word has become my life line. And I am so grateful.

     You indeed have become the light and lamp under my feet.

     Sounds good, eh?

     Sounds holy and perfect...

     Just what God would like to hear?

     But the truth is that for all the morning time I spend with Him and my journal, I never seem to follow where He leads. I, after all, am human and He is...well what is He? Why is it that I can feel so pumped after spending this time every morning and loose the very nearness of Him by 9am? How real can that God be? To make me feel like I am really His daughter and then dissolve heirship after the third coffee? My intentions were so good. My intentions were so real. My intentions were so honest.

     Months ago I was led to transcribe the journal entries of my physical journal into these posts to show how Psalm 119 moved me, made me think, made me see my world differently every day although it was the same psalm every morning.
     What a fantastic idea. What an eye opening experience for anyone reading these posts and for me as well. I would learn so much by recording my walk through His Word, rereading my thoughts on His Way.


     But did I do it?
     No!
     Did He disconnect the TV so I wouldn't be obsessed with NCIS when I got home from work, so I'd have nothing else to do but follow His Plan? No! Did He shut off the power so I would be forced to find something else to do...like transcribe from my journal like I had been led to do? No! I was left to my own discretion as to what I would do with my time and TV won out every time.
     So I am left with regrets.
     Hoping I will do better.
     Faith...Hope...Charity...
     And the greatest of these is ...hope...in my case or the lack of it.l I can hope all I want but that doesn't help me be or do. Hope just leaves me feeling inadequate for the task until it evolves in feeling inadequate for any task.
   

     By the end of the night, NCIS is acceptable and I fall asleep in the chair with my cat on my lap...by the end of every night.
     So why make the effort every morning to read and write, to hear from Him and desire to follow as He leads when I know damn well that in three hours I will have forgotten every word I wrote or heard? And why does He bother to even show up when He knows damn well that in three hours I will have forgotten every word I wrote or heard? I know if I had a friend who treated me so haphazardly and rudely, who always disregarded my advice and direction, that I would dump that friend faster than I could spit.

     Maybe that is why He is God-Spirit and I am human-flesh. And for Him there is always hope for me and for me there is always .... maybe He will disconnect the TV or shut off the power.

Home

Home. 

A place of Peace Joy, Me Myself and I, sittin' back with a cup of coffee, Marlboro Silver, and music. Sweet Soft  Perfect

Like the sweet sounds of the ocean wave upon wave. Sweet Soft Perfect!

     I started the day in a way I thought was perfect, could only lead to a perfect day. Between reading Psalm 119 and writing in my journal, I discovered parts of me that I had hid in the closet, things I never wanted to think through because the memories hurt. But I did.

And the morning felt right, accomplished, and blessed. Every line of the so familiar psalm spoke new meaning to me, and I was thrilled. I was thankful. I wrote "O Lord O Lord" over and over.
     So how could I have slipped into the old habits of degrading self talk, and overwhelming frustration at work? How could the day that started so summer warm turn so gray cold?  I wanted to walk away. Quit. I had had enough of housekeeping. I could glamorize it as 'innkeeper' since I was the only one working the rooms through this Corona virus pandemic. But making myself feel important wasn't going to cut it today. Even when guests stopped to say hi or thankyou, wasn't enough to keep the grungy self talk from returning by mid-day.
     I worked at what felt like a snail's pace. More than an hour in each room? If business ever picked up, I could never keep up at this rate. Years ago, I used to be the fastest and most thorough. I felt time slipping past by the sun through the windows. The owner began to text me about guests wanting their rooms. "They are not done!" By 5:00 pm, I locked all the doors and just sat in my car. Trash and laundry would have to wait for tomorrow.
   

 But when I finally pulled into the parking lot where I live, when I finally peeled my tired body from the Fiesta seat, when I finally unlocked my front door and stepped inside the apartment, love and peace swept across me like a woolen cape on a cool afternoon. The cat cried, telling me how late I was and how hungry she was."Ya, right, Fancy. You're always hungry!" The older cat wobbled across the linoleum and looked up at me without words. We share almost thirty years of memories that need no words. "I love you, too Risha!" I obediently fed them then sunk into the old cat clawed sofa chair. "Hey google, play Lauren Daigle." and opened Where Women Create. I flipped through all the photographs of artists' havens, beautiful mirrors of their artistic gifts translated into the beams and floors of their workspaces. O Lord, I envy that she can say "I think I was born to be living life like this." O Lord, what is my 'this'? But when I read the article about Rex Foster, I put the magazine down and closed my eyes. Rex Foster followed his heart, not just one form of art but any and everything that made his heart pump fast. And he believed in himself. O Lord, how does that happen?
   

 If you could see where I came from and then where I landed...

But this is home now. No one else would understand the peace here. But in each corner of each room, I create:

prose and poetry

videos and blogs

masks and funky stuffed animals and floppy hats

     Our God is a creator, and He has put that urge to create in each of us. That's why my home feels so safe and complete, because this is where life grows for me, through His Word into the silence of a moment and then into the corners of each room. I can wish I were like the other artists, or I could learn from Rex Foster and appreciate my need to create to be happy. O Lord, I thank You for each corner of this small apartment. And when I can take the time to be silent for just a moment, i can hear my own music. 

Sweet Soft Perfect. 

Thankyou!

 

Connecting The Dots

A toe rope

 A climbing rope floor to gym ceiling

Life is child's play

A connecting of the dots

I remember water skiing as a young teenager. I remember starting from shore with two skis. I remember starting from the raft with one ski. Everyone watching. Everyone cheering me on. Exhilarating.

       I remember the afternoon sun beaming through the high windows of the high school gym. The boys gym class was on the other side of the room; girls were gathered beside the three ropes that dangled from the ceiling. And I was last in line. I was last to climb. And I knew I would make it to the top. Everyone was waiting for me to do it...the only girl in the class to do it. I closed my eyes and imagined everyone cheering me on. Some one special. That was important. To be more than a

number or even just a first name lost among all the other first names. When at last my turn came, I dipped my two hands in the white rosin, reached high over my head to the second knot, pulled my body up and swung my two feet against the rope and began. All the way to the top. And there was cheering and clapping and it was all for me.

What happened to that me?

     When I was young I knew what being the best looked like and was always reaching for it. Even in college, I dreamed of fame. I imagined that I would write for a living in my own little apartment in Chicago at a desk like the one on the cover of Virginia Wolf's A Room Of Ones Own and the friends I would have would be drinking buddies like the lore around Henri Miller and friends. Publishers would know my name and cheer me on. And of course I'd play basketball on the outdoor courts with the guys.

What happened to that me?

To coin a phrase, life happened and it seemed to happen by choice.I chose to leave all the dreams behind for a future I couldn't imagine, sufficing to just survive, to just keep my head above water,treading water with tired feet, fearing that the only reality was drowning if I didn't tread fast or long enough. But I remember one late afternoon with the pile of bills in my hand, dropping to my knees in the middle of the living room and crying out to a God who I had left behind in jr. high, to help me because I just couldn't do it by myself anymore.

And I still can't!

"Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law. I am a stranger in the earth;"

     Yup, Psalm 119. I remember being led to leave the main church congregation while they were singing and tiptoe into the old church, open an old bible to Psalm 119 and just read it through. Then every Sunday while the congregation was singing, I would slip into the old part of the church to read Psalm 119. Not that I felt my life was changing in any way, it's just something I did.

     That was more than 25 yrs ago. I have long left Bethel Church, actually any church service . Yet two weeks ago, I was led to pick up my bible and read it again. I have been reading it first thing every morning since. Not that I feel my life changing in any way, it's just something I do.

     

But something is different. I don't know if it is this virus scare that has the world tipped upside down or the silence of the morning, but every time I read Psalm 119 it is as if I am reading it for the first time. Different lines speak to my heart. To say the least, I am fascinated. But the reoccurring theme most mornings is that God hasn't given up on me, so why should I? The psalm pleads for knowledge and understanding, and so by reading it, knowledge and understanding become my prayer too. All I can say is...try it. What do you have to lose? "Let my cry come before You, O Lord; give me understanding according to Your word."

     

My Prayer: Psalm 119

Every morning after the chores, you know...the cat scratching my eyes out until I feed her and then can't feed her until I wash the dishes in the sink...and of course if I am going to wash the coffee cup I might as well fill it...

...after that I begin the best part of the morning by reading Psalm 119 with my journal open. It is a wonderful way to start the day, because Psalm 119 is a prayer...about who I am and who I want to become... a daily manifesto of my hopes and dreams with God as my anchor, my rock, my light.



Some mornings, I am not feeling it but I go through the motions anyways. It's not that I am afraid that He will be angry that I am not spending quantity time with Him. I hate being a hypocrite. For me, it's the quality of time spent with Him. But however it works, I have learned that if I spend this time with Him, by the end of this longest Psalm in the Bible, I am overcome with a feeling of His presence, imagined or not, as if I, this no name of a grain of sand, matters.

From today's journal entry: So here, Lord, here is my life. Here is my day. I surrender to You. Not because I must, but because I willingly give you all my dreams, all my expectations, all my responsibilities -

Here - do with me as You wish, as You will. Because I know You love me, all is well. 

All is well. 

I am Yours!

https://onthewingsofgod.blogspot.com/p/psalm-119.html