An Honest Post

I'm sitting in a pile of scraps and wet brushes and unfinished book pieces...not sure how to feel. What used to take me 1 or 2 sittings to complete now takes 3, 4, or 5. It's a fun project worth the time, and it's not the books I'm worried about. 


Today started with no alarm, just the sun coming in round the edges of the curtains and baking my once cool body under the blankets. My eyes opened slowly and my throat felt like the size of a baseball. I couldn't say anything... so I didn't.  A quiet morning and a trip to the clinic. I think my first words of the day were, "Do you take uninsured?". Not strep, just upper respiratory-ouch and sleepy. A day on the couch, and a tired bit on the piano. Forced to rest, exhausted by any attempt to the contrary. With the RI trip cancelled, CT trip cancelled... my "plans" are changing everyday, and I'm just going along for the ride. It's like a flight...happily not in control, sitting back, but unpleasantly unaware of the planes intentions to land, when, where and in what condition?


Rest, and let Me work. Rest... begs He.


Resting...though it is my goal at the moment, frustrated me today. I couldn't figure why until now. When it comes down to it, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of losing control, losing my love of discipline, losing my strict boundaries on food, exercise, or losing purposefulness, productivity, social interactions of all types, mentoring, being mentored. It sounds dramatic, but when I go from all to nothing it seems like everything could just disappear. I have to relax my mind as well as my body, and that frightens me. I guess I am feeling the effects of saying bye-bye to a habit: the habit of striving. The habit of always having to be productive, the habit of being rigid and hard on myself,---I thought my value came from productivity and letting go makes me afraid of losing myself. Christian cliche's and even scriptures are running through my head a million miles per minute in response to my own sentiments. If I lose my life I'll find it, sure. But that's scary! Let's be real! Lose it and find what?! ... *Sigh* That is the journey, I suppose, is it not? To let myself be rid of my own "make myself good enough tactics" and be formed by the desires of the heart of my Father, and not my fear of His rejection. Is this where I find my Life? 


On the way home from the redbox tonight I pulled over and watched the sunset. It was a brilliant pink, a fan of rays spraying in every direction like a child's drawing of sunlight. Each ray weaving in an out between puffs of clouds that looked like they had pulsed from a steam train in perfect morse code. The breeze was wonderful and the sun smoldered, a deeper fiery magenta with each moment as it exhaled towards the horizon. This is worth it; learning to slow down again... 
I have been praying for God to bring back to life, to give feeling to the soul of mine that had numbed itself to survive hurtful words and disappointments. But in order to feel, I have to open my soul, and let it breathe. 


If I saw child-Jessy standing on the curb beside my car, I'd see a faith filled little ball of energy who wouldn't be dragged away from the sunset if you paid her.  Twenty-two year old Jessy looks with weary eyes towards the beautiful shifting light, reaches into her soul and finds only child-words: words like a velveteen rabbit longing to be real. 


"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. 
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 
"When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."


Make me real, make me feel. 
Even though it hurts. 

^{Psalm 34}

³ Glorify the LORD with me; 

   let us exalt his name together.

⁴ I sought the LORD, and he answered me; 

   he delivered me from all my fears. 

⁵ Those who look to him are radiant; 

   their faces are never covered with shame. 

⁶ This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; 

   he saved him out of all his troubles. 

⁷ The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, 

   and he delivers them.

The book supplies must be cleaned up now. The title of this new one is "The Silent Reading Hour" and it has quiet houses by the water on it. A perfectly timed reminder -and i have no choice but to be silent for a few days because it hurts to talk! haha! Maybe I'll put a little rabbit inside to remind me that silence, rest, is part of becoming real. : ) 

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."