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| The moon is a sliver of silver and a new day is dawning. |
I've thought about picking up where this blog left so many times. But like a suitcase dropped in the middle of the beach, it felt too heavy to pick up, to lug across the sands of time. The last year and a half have been difficult in ways that only a happy life can understand, but in a long term way, good, very good.
I've thought about blogging under the post title "Lost in Germany," because this nearly orphaned blog felt that way. But I know that even though I left the blog hanging in Germany, it was not that trip that made me feel lost. I am really not sure what triggered the displaced feeling.
It may have been a delayed reaction to feeling my world shift under my feet, to losing so many old friends in LA, to missing my old groups of church friends who helped encourage me through difficult times in the past. But it may also have been life speeding up, homeschooling a busy high schooler, immersing myself into new opportunities, experiences, time commitments. Driving kids everywhere. Driving myself half crazy. But I know that it was not just that either. In the past it was the new experiences that drove me to write.
The truth is that I have been writing over the past year. I filled two journals, just from sunrise conversations with God. Most of it would have been too raw and real to process here. But it felt safe, writing with the Friend who always listens and is not intimidated by the fluctuating drama of "life is Beautiful!" and "Oh God, help!"
Unlike friends who have been through real sorrows and loss, my crises were personal, seemingly trivial, wounds of long term disappointments and unrealized ideals. At some point I had to realize that I was angry and afraid, afraid of the future, afraid of having no future. Afraid that if I made myself vulnerable I would be misunderstood, or more frighteningly, perfectly understood for the shallow, selfish demi god that I aspire to be.
There is a huge breakthrough in being honest. Release. But it doesn't come easy. It comes with tears and I really hate to cry. But this past year I learned to cry and let things go, really let go of control and give to God. And then I learned to thank God.Gratitude has to be one of the most powerful human experiences. There is no way to overstate the power of giving thanks all the time, in every circumstance, for all things.
Once that process began I could get honest with myself and a few very close friends about real anxieties that were growing large. It was like painfully peeling away old Band-Aids to put a name to the dysfunction, but once I called it anxiety and began asking God for healing, deliverance and healing, I began to heal, really heal.
On the few occasions that I have looked back over this blog, I have been really blessed to see the good days God has given me. My kids are growing up, and I miss the simple days with them. But I could not be happier with the beautiful people that they are becoming. I'm thankful for the way I blogged through those "simpler" years and I think its time to start recording the journey again. There are new days ahead, everyday. Thank you, God.
