Thursday, November 5, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Missing my Wordsmith - Carole aka Mommy
As the holidays approach, I’m focused on how each moment I breathe is precious. Homesick doesn’t even describe how much I miss the closeness of family and friends. The one person I find myself missing more than I expected this year is my mother. We didn’t have the best relationship, but what we shared in my short time with her in Georgia has changed my heart in a way I never expected.
It was during those short four years I found out just how much we shared and how much we hid from each other. We shared a deep love for the written word and for God. We had both experienced devastating hurt and disappointment being part of a church. We both felt rejection from people we loved. My mommy was funny and she hid her pain and emotions very well.
You would think those would be things I’d have to be around her to learn or imitate. She passed these things on by giving birth to me. The thirty years of separation can’t stop what is obviously genetic. Honestly, there hasn’t been a day in the last six years that I haven’t longed to pick up the phone and share with my mother.
I have even found myself looking up and telling her stuff. I know it’s silly because she already knows. I believe she is sitting with Jesus laughing at me. I can picture her telling Jesus how silly I was being, when all the things I need to get by she gave me. Oh what an image!
Well I’m not going to sit here and dwell on something I cannot change. I have to shake off the sadness and marvel in the glory of knowing she is now really making intercession for me. She no longer has to visualize carrying any of her children to the throne asking God to work on us, she can get in His presence and make her demands. Oh man, that image makes me laugh. If you knew my mother, you would understand.
Another thing my mother also gave me was an emptiness. An emptiness that left me vulnerable and seeking that maternal love in the world. I realized the friends I met along the way who had the mother-daughter relationships I longed for, were the ones I inserted myself as deep as I could. Trying desperately to fill the hole in my soul. Wanting to have the guidance and encouragement a mother is supposed to give her daughter.
God did hear and feel my pain and he sent me to a place to find the external emotional support, but the wholeness was still not manifested. I had thought when I had my children they would fill the void, but truth is they were only temporary plugs. Because when they grew up they didn’t need me anymore. And once again I was searching for healing and wholeness.
I have many people in my life whom I love very much and appreciate some of them for sticking by me through some of my struggles. In the struggles the one thing I have been able to hold tight to is the Love and desire I have to keep God first in my life. To serve his people in the best way I can and to be a demonstration of a faithful, loving God.
It was during those short four years I found out just how much we shared and how much we hid from each other. We shared a deep love for the written word and for God. We had both experienced devastating hurt and disappointment being part of a church. We both felt rejection from people we loved. My mommy was funny and she hid her pain and emotions very well.
You would think those would be things I’d have to be around her to learn or imitate. She passed these things on by giving birth to me. The thirty years of separation can’t stop what is obviously genetic. Honestly, there hasn’t been a day in the last six years that I haven’t longed to pick up the phone and share with my mother.
I have even found myself looking up and telling her stuff. I know it’s silly because she already knows. I believe she is sitting with Jesus laughing at me. I can picture her telling Jesus how silly I was being, when all the things I need to get by she gave me. Oh what an image!
Well I’m not going to sit here and dwell on something I cannot change. I have to shake off the sadness and marvel in the glory of knowing she is now really making intercession for me. She no longer has to visualize carrying any of her children to the throne asking God to work on us, she can get in His presence and make her demands. Oh man, that image makes me laugh. If you knew my mother, you would understand.
Another thing my mother also gave me was an emptiness. An emptiness that left me vulnerable and seeking that maternal love in the world. I realized the friends I met along the way who had the mother-daughter relationships I longed for, were the ones I inserted myself as deep as I could. Trying desperately to fill the hole in my soul. Wanting to have the guidance and encouragement a mother is supposed to give her daughter.
God did hear and feel my pain and he sent me to a place to find the external emotional support, but the wholeness was still not manifested. I had thought when I had my children they would fill the void, but truth is they were only temporary plugs. Because when they grew up they didn’t need me anymore. And once again I was searching for healing and wholeness.
I have many people in my life whom I love very much and appreciate some of them for sticking by me through some of my struggles. In the struggles the one thing I have been able to hold tight to is the Love and desire I have to keep God first in my life. To serve his people in the best way I can and to be a demonstration of a faithful, loving God.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Dream a Little Dream!!!
Well as the day progressed I realized there must be something about dreams that God is trying to get me to take a look at. So, being who I am I started looking. I found that dreams play a significant role in how God will communicate with believers. Also, there are always going to be imitations or frauds as discussed in Deuteronomy chapter 13. This chapter is also a warning to be leery of those who you tell your dreams to and who tell you dreams/prophetic words, but tell you to following other gods.
The one thing I noticed while reading the verses, which there are a total of eighty-seven, is dreams are a means of warning and foretelling of a coming event. The other very obvious thing to know about each one of the instances where God gives someone a dream is once you tell it, be careful who you share your dream with.
In Genesis when Joseph shared his dreams with the people he trusted and loved, he was met with rebuking and anger. Yet, God was letting Joseph know something that was to come into his life, allowing him to be a blessing to his people. Then anger and jealousy took root and his brothers were instruments of God, unaware they were initiating the start of Gods foretold plan.
In my mind, Joseph had to begin to question the dreams when he was thrown in the pit. The beautiful thing about this whole story is even though the enemy tried to stop the plan, God made a way. Joseph was an example of God’s statement of knowing the plans he has for each one of us and no weapon would stop them.
I have to admit, reading the story of Joseph this time, my faith was built up. With all Joseph endured until the promise was fulfilled would have had me seriously doubting God, big time. I haven’t faced all the things Joseph has and my little tribulations were nothing in comparison and I HAVE DOUBTED any good would come my way.
It made me stop and think about the things I myself have dreamed and seen come to pass, yet the dreams and promises God gave me seemed impossible. Then as I was studying dreams, somehow I ended up in Proverbs, or my bible opened to Proverbs 13. It was again a moment of gratitude for me because I had given up hope and had packed my dreams in a locked box.
Proverbs 13:12-13 reignited my faith and gave me a glimmer of hope that my time is yet coming. It was as if I was given the okay to dream once again. To break the lock on the things I pushed aside to raise my sons and deal with the cards I had picked up. To once again believe, not only in the God I serve, but believe in myself.
To believe the gift, I am so grateful to have, was the means by which God was opening doors that seemed unobtainable. Right now I honestly feel the door is cracked, but still not yet opened wide enough for me to pass through. My interpretation maybe all wrong, but I feel as if I am being shown a little of the light because if I see the whole thing at this moment I would lose my mind. Even though some of my trials brought me extremely close to a rubber room. Trials that have kept me in a state of, what I refer to as, functional depression.
I can’t even begin to recall how many times I’ve cried out to God to just let this life be over and remind him my heart and mind couldn't bear anymore defeats, disappointment or discouragement. Well how wrong I was, because the defeats, disappointments and discouragements keep on coming. I am still here, still able to stand and actually believing I have not run out of time. Believing I am not too old to be exposed to an abundant life, filled with love, peace, joy and be a blessing to others.
I feel like singing Yolanda Adams – Still I Rise!! Join me if you know it (partially posting below in case you don’t), because this is quickly becoming my theme song:
The one thing I noticed while reading the verses, which there are a total of eighty-seven, is dreams are a means of warning and foretelling of a coming event. The other very obvious thing to know about each one of the instances where God gives someone a dream is once you tell it, be careful who you share your dream with.
In Genesis when Joseph shared his dreams with the people he trusted and loved, he was met with rebuking and anger. Yet, God was letting Joseph know something that was to come into his life, allowing him to be a blessing to his people. Then anger and jealousy took root and his brothers were instruments of God, unaware they were initiating the start of Gods foretold plan.
In my mind, Joseph had to begin to question the dreams when he was thrown in the pit. The beautiful thing about this whole story is even though the enemy tried to stop the plan, God made a way. Joseph was an example of God’s statement of knowing the plans he has for each one of us and no weapon would stop them.
I have to admit, reading the story of Joseph this time, my faith was built up. With all Joseph endured until the promise was fulfilled would have had me seriously doubting God, big time. I haven’t faced all the things Joseph has and my little tribulations were nothing in comparison and I HAVE DOUBTED any good would come my way.
It made me stop and think about the things I myself have dreamed and seen come to pass, yet the dreams and promises God gave me seemed impossible. Then as I was studying dreams, somehow I ended up in Proverbs, or my bible opened to Proverbs 13. It was again a moment of gratitude for me because I had given up hope and had packed my dreams in a locked box.
Proverbs 13:12-13 reignited my faith and gave me a glimmer of hope that my time is yet coming. It was as if I was given the okay to dream once again. To break the lock on the things I pushed aside to raise my sons and deal with the cards I had picked up. To once again believe, not only in the God I serve, but believe in myself.
To believe the gift, I am so grateful to have, was the means by which God was opening doors that seemed unobtainable. Right now I honestly feel the door is cracked, but still not yet opened wide enough for me to pass through. My interpretation maybe all wrong, but I feel as if I am being shown a little of the light because if I see the whole thing at this moment I would lose my mind. Even though some of my trials brought me extremely close to a rubber room. Trials that have kept me in a state of, what I refer to as, functional depression.
I can’t even begin to recall how many times I’ve cried out to God to just let this life be over and remind him my heart and mind couldn't bear anymore defeats, disappointment or discouragement. Well how wrong I was, because the defeats, disappointments and discouragements keep on coming. I am still here, still able to stand and actually believing I have not run out of time. Believing I am not too old to be exposed to an abundant life, filled with love, peace, joy and be a blessing to others.
I feel like singing Yolanda Adams – Still I Rise!! Join me if you know it (partially posting below in case you don’t), because this is quickly becoming my theme song:
Shattered but I'm not broken
Wounded the time will heal
Heavy the load the cross I bear
Lonely the road I trod I dare
Shaken but here I stand
Weary still I press on
Long are the nights the tears I cry
Dark are the days no sun in the skies
Yet still I rise
Never to give up
Never to give in
Against all odds
Yet still I rise
High above the clouds
Yet times I feel low
Yet still I rise
Sometimes I'm troubled
But not is despair
Struggling I make my way through
Trials they come to make me strong
I must endure I must hold on
Yet still I rise
Never to give up
Never to give in
Against all odds
Yet still I rise
High above the clouds
At times I feel Low
Yet still I rise
Above all my problems
Above all my eyes can see
Knowing God is able
To strengthen me
To strengthen me
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