Home Again

If you read my last post, you now know the confusion I had been living with. I don't understand myself, so I definitely don't expect anyone else to understand me. Yet, the unexpected seems to be God's forte.

I have received such an outpouring of love and understanding and encouragement from friends and family! I marvel at how I can think so little of myself and have so many of you think so highly of me. I absolutely am not worthy of your kindness, but I thank you from the depths of my soul for all you have done for me.

This past weekend was hard. Today is still hard. Most likely, tomorrow is going to be hard too. That is a fact of my life at this season of my life. It is hard. I am disappointed and discouraged and hurting. I was so down, I thought I couldn't be anywhere but out. The Lord, through each of you, has shown me otherwise. I have been so disappointed in myself. The Lord gently reminded me that I have no hand in this. This is His work and I must step aside and let Him do His part before anything is required of me.

I had it right, but in the wrong perspective. I can't fix my life. I can't mend my broken heart. I can't heal my hurting soul. I can't fill the void left when Terry went home to be with Jesus. Those aren't MY jobs. My job is to continue doing what I was so sarcastic about before.....rest in the Lord, give my cares to Jesus, lean on His Word, trust His promises.....in short, just let Jesus love me right now. That's MY job.

It's not the job I want. I want to fix everything. That's part of my personality, I'm a fixer. I'm an encourager. I'm a prayer warrior. I'm a 'do-er'. For people like me, for 'do-ers', sitting still and just 'being' is not easy. We have a hard time accepting that we can't 'do' anything to help ourselves. I have come to a place where I cannot even pray for myself. It just is not there. I've never been to this place before; nor have I ever had to see my husband on his journey home.

I have been through times when I found it hard to pray, but never when I absolutely could not pray for my own concerns. I cry out to the Lord and I have no trouble making intercession for others, but I just cannot seem to pray for myself or my own concerns. I was so frustrated over this until I remembered the teachings of my youth and learning that prayer is a two-way exchange. I talk to the Lord and then I wait while He talks to me.

In the depths of despair, you sometimes cannot talk to the Lord. The words just are not there. Then, your spirit speaks with the Holy Spirit in that 'groaning and uttering that cannot be understood' that the Bible speaks of. So, I sometimes don't have words, but I AM speaking to the Lord. My problem was that I couldn't be still long enough to let Him speak to me. Once I understood that, it has changed so much for me.

If you haven't guessed by now, I am a person of words. I love words. I like to speak words; I like to hear words; I like to read words. To be in a place where words don't come has been a lesson in and of itself to me. So often over the last 48 hours, I have just uttered out loud "Lord, I love you; I need you". And the sweetness of His Holy Spirit envelopes me and I know He is there and He is speaking to my heart.

I have again what I could not force. The only way to get it back was by emptying myself to Him. So, the last post may have been upsetting to you. If so, I've very sorry for that. However, it opened my heart in a way that allowed me to open my spirit to the Lord and pour myself out to Him. To release to Him all that I had been holding inside myself since even before Terry went home.

Now I have that sweet comfort of God's voice speaking to my heart, reassuring me, loving me, holding me close to Himself. I have found comfort I could not find because I had closed myself to it. What joy and relief to be home again!