Category Archives: Faith

When Knowing The Story Just Isn’t Enough

by

I am a writer.

Not because I am published or known by readers everywhere.

No, I am a writer simply because that is who I am.

I take what I feel & see and I translate it into words…and when I do this, somehow even in the midst of all I don’t understand, I find that I can be at peace with life.  I have done this since I was a teenager, in various forms of journals, letters and blogs over the years.  Poetry, songs, stories and confessions…the balance within my heart has always revolved around the words that poured out from my hands…whether it was read by an online group or just me & God, clarity was found when I stopped “doing” and just focused.

So you can imagine the damage done when I decided, not too long ago, to put away my pens and paper and stop translating life as I knew it.

I would love to say it was because it was just too hard.  It was, but that wasn’t what did it.

I wish I could just push the blame off on someone or something…anything to make it seem like it was a direct result of some horrible injustice done to me.  It was, but that wasn’t what did it.

I stopped writing because to write was to feel…and I didn’t want to feel because it hurt.

So I spent a very long time in silent mode.  I sat and watched the dust gather on my journal…and with every layer, I felt myself fade just a little more.  No longer taking in oxygen, I was trying to survive on gas fumes and was somehow convinced that I could do it.  I mean, I guess I didn’t totally realize that I was suffocating…at least, not in a sense that I could see that I was doing just as much damage to myself as life was trying to.  I knew that it hurt…no matter how I tried to pretend that I was still in control, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. pulsed with an ache that screamed to be acknowledged…and instead of taking the time to deal with it, I turned my back to look for a different path to take.

No. That’s wrong. I didn’t look…I demanded one that didn’t require me to be accountable for my responses…one that didn’t require me to speak to God, who I was blaming for the intensity of it all anyway (yeah…different post, different day)…one that didn’t make me get up and out of the comfort zone I had created from within the chaos.

I stopped writitng…and I was dying as a result.

With every passing day, my connection built with God over the years and experiences lived became nothing more than pretty memories, like favorite novels on a shelf.  Before long, I had an amazing library, filled with amazing books…but the moment came when I realized that I wasn’t content to own a magnificent collection of stories.  It wasn’t enough to know the stories or to remember who I was…oh no! I wanted needed to BE her again.  I wanted it so badly that I would sit and cry, rocking back and forth with longing to just feel like I belonged in my own skin again.  That girl in those books…oh, she had it together.  I mean, she wasn’t perfect by long shot…haha, hardly…but loving God was easy for her simply because she did it by being who He made her to be.

A writer.journal3

Two weeks ago, I picked my journal back up.

I cracked the pages and started simply…song lyrics and doodles, mostly.  But I did it – allowing my hands to play with the pen on the paper, knowing that eventually that girl would make her way down from the bookshelves.  I knew that while I hadn’t given God much of who I was lately, He never forgot who He created…and I guess I began to believe in me again simply because I knew, somehow, that He still did.

He always does…and as angry as I had been, how is it possible to stay that way in the face of pure grace??  Mmmm…I suppose I made it longer than I should have, but no longer than He knew that I would…and at that sweet fact, I am blown away by love, perfected.

I don’t have it all together yet.  In fact, I am still a little shaky on this whole “transparency” thing right now, finding it intensely scary to live in the light when I have chosen to make due in the shadows for so long now.

But I get up and dust myself off because I am not content with just being a reader of great novels in the library of my heart.

How can I be when I am not a reader?  No, I am a writer.

…because that is who He made me to be and right now, that knowledge is enough to fill my soul with a gentle peace that promises that everything will be ok as long as I walk with the One who knows me best…and loves me most.

This song…an offering of my heart from where I am tonight.  This post…just another step in getting up again.

Looking up, again…as always,

Bina

Sunday’s invasion into my week

by

I love my church.

I know I can count on going and walking away marked somewhere inside.  It is a place where I am known…loved…missed when gone…and kept accountible.  I am easily distracted spiritually (think Dory from Finding Nemo) and it is anchoring for my soul to know that I can have that place to run to – to be known and to be challenged with sound Biblical teaching, week in and week out.

jeremiahThis past Sunday, our pastor covered an entire chapter of Jeremiah in one sermon…but my heart only heard one verse.

One sentence, actually, in the midst of the 34 verses listed in chapter 7…and once we got to it, my mind never moved passed it.  I mean, I still listened as the teaching continued…but I listened as one who had just tripped over a curb while following a tour guide: It was impacting…jarring to every sense I had inside me…and it has whispered itself in the air around me, again and again, in the hours since I left that pew.

…Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.

It isn’t a “new” or “radical” teaching for me, or for anyone who has spent any time in the Word.  This wasn’t the first time I had heard about His desire for our obedience…but somehow, this time, when my eyes took in these words, something finally made so much sense.

You see, I struggle with sin.

(I know.  It is a shocking confession…just keeping it real.)

It isn’t the sin that bothers me so much, but the fact that some of the things I deal with are things I have dealt with for y.e.a.r.s.  Things that I know I should have moved on from already…dealt with…accepted His atonement for and left in the past.  But I don’t.  And I get so angry at myself for still being “here“, coming in again to seek forgiveness for “this“.  Then that anger leads to me opening doors marked with things like “depression”, “self saving”, “complacency”, etc.

I walked into church three days ago with quite a few of those doors open inside of me…smiling on the outside, but boiling over within…silently begging God to just make it all stop.  To make it all ok.  To make me ok.

Why can’t I just move on?

Why can’t I just trust You enough?

…believe You enough?

…have enough faith?

God…please.

Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.

I know that, God. That’s what I mean.

I try and I try to fix it.

…to stop it.

…to let it go.

…to fight the good fight.

But I can’t, Lord…I just can’t.

WALK in OBEDIENCE.

Right. I know.

Give up the sins.

Be holy.

…a good example to the world around me.

…a person who lives a life that no one can accuse.

…perfect.

I can’t…I keep trying and trying and trying and…

JUST OBEY ME. That’s it. Stop trying to do and fix and be. Stop. Hear Me. Just walk…just take what I ask you to do and DO it.  That’s it.

…that’s it?

But what about…

…no. Hear Me, please. JUST this: Obey Me.

Think, my child.  Have I EVER failed you when you have done that?

…no.

Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it MAY GO WELL WITH YOU.

I’ve got you. I promise.

In a matter of mere seconds, that conversation played out…and I sat back in total shock that I had missed something so simple: my walk has nothing to do with my “ability to be faithful and good” and has everything to do with my “simple obedience”.

I think we “grow up” and suddenly think that we have a new, adult, mature way to be led by God…but the early childhood method works just fine: ask your parent if you can and then do what they say.  “No” means no…”yes” means yes.  Super simple in a super complicated world, I know…but is it really all that complicated or does it just seem that way?

If He said no to something (using the Bible as the basis…Godly council when unsure…also hearing that warning bell that goes off in our heads when we are going the wrong way), He meant no. So don’t do it.  Easier said than done – and yet, in the past three days, when I have been unsure or tempted, I let the verse replay in my mind and it wasn’t so hard to know what He would want me to do.

No…the hard part is just doing the right thing.

Looking up, as always…

Bina

…when the whisper wins…

by

It starts from somewhere in the back.

Small and barely audible, the whispered chant begins as hardly more than a ripple at the far end of a large lake.

You don’t hear it, no…no one does…because there isn’t anything to hear yet.

Still a small, tiny sigh in the atmosphere, it isn’t audible yet, so the world keeps on spinning as it normally would as it notices nothing…

oh…but I do.

I not only hear it, but I seem to freeze at even the hint of distortion in the waters around me.

Everything shuts down…every sense of self preservation scattering away as I just stand there.

…waiting,

staring,

and totally vulnerable to the mumble that will soon flood me over like a tidal wave

…with me too afraid to even fight back.

 ~*~*~*~

Let me digress for a moment:

It’s funny how this blogging thing works.

You log on, write out your heart for anyone to read, click publish, and hope that someone…anyone…will read it and, well, like you for who you really are.  I am so blessed to have had the honor of getting to know quite a few ladies from my blogging “circle”…I even have had one of them fly out to stay at my house, having never “met” face to face before!! (Yes, we both survived and no, she wasn’t crazy…well, no, ok, she wasn’t…ahem) It is an amazingly small world when it comes to this online journaling thing…and I have missed it more than I can express.  Well, more than I could express until tonight.

You see, there is this sweet Texan who probably had no idea what she was doing when she sat in her bedroom this morning and began to record the thoughts in her mind.  I came across a post by her on FB and, quite honestly, clicked “like” without even popping over to see her most recent post….because I wanted that “like” to tell her that I loved her without me having to actually set foot back into the world that I have avoided lately. But conviction got the better of me and I scrolled back up and clicked her link.  What I found was not only her blog…but her beautiful face and the sound of her sweet voice as she reached out via vlog to those who took the time to stop by.

I smiled as she began to speak…admired her for her willingness to tape herself withOUT make-up…and then a cold knife ran straight thru my heart as I realized that she was talking straight. to. me.

Don’t get me wrong – she had NO clue what she was doing…but God totally did…and all I could do was stare at the screen as the tears burned, and my heart stopped…and my walls collapsed under the weight of Truth that screamed up and out of her mouth as she very openly discussed the topic that has kept me off line, out of my journal and pulled tight inside my own skin for the past six months.

~*~*~*~

d. o. u. b. t.fading into sunset

  • That tingle that says you have nothing to offer.
  • That twinge that declares that you are unable to tell anyone anything because of where you have been.
  • That ripple that distorts the world around you because of where you know you are now.
  • That whisper that, if unchecked, will scream its way into a thunder that blocks out any other sound until you are alone, trapped in a lie that self-feeds and decimates every bit of truth you thought you knew.

It is that five letter word that has kept me away from this online window – because something happened along the way that knocked me off the path I was walking with God.  I don’t know what did it – and I really don’t think that it really matters at this point – but it sent me tumbling into a cocoon of depression that opened a door to doubt’s seductive call…a call I chose to answer and live with for far too long.

Yesterday morning, my church’s pastor shared a sermon that tore a massive crack in the core of the wall around my heart…this morning, a fervent conversation with my Savior while driving softened me back up to be fertile soil…and tonight, a friend from far, far away spoke the Truth He knew I most needed to hear.

And suddenly…the avalanche of noise is quiet, replaced by a simple peace…a soft smile…and a deep, deep desire for a nice hot bath. ;o)

Thank you, Jen…I love you more than you can ever know.

(For those who want to meet this amazing girlie, click HERE to pop over to her blog, where you can meet her, face to face.)

I leave you with a song I found (no coincidence, I am sure) today…if you have a moment, please listen:

(Once again…) looking up, as always…

Bina

Breaking The Tape

by

I love love.

  • Fairy tale love.
  • Chick flick love.
  • Romance love.

Seriously.  If there was a dictionary that let you look up those three things for a real-world definition…you would see my picture…goofy grin, crazy eyes and all.   My favorite movie is He’s Just Not That Into You … mainly because I relate so much to the lead character, Gigi, as she is:

  • Massively impetuous.
  • Totally head over heels in love with being in love.
  • All or nothing.
  • So innocent that you can’t help but like her…unless you are the guy she has already planned the wedding for after only five minutes together.

My husband always rolls his eyes and groans when I leap across the couch to snatch the remote from his hand to select it from the TV menu…doesn’t matter at what point it is in the movie, I am already living it in my mind.  Just waiting for the end, when the right guy finally tells Gigi that she has found true love…that she is his exception.  He says the line and they kiss…and before I can get the question out of my mouth, my ever patient man says “Yes, dear…you are my exception.”

*sigh*

…but I realize that love is the tape that runs in my head, pushing and pulling at me, telling me to be more, do more…no matter the cost.

Today I am guest posting over at Jennifer’s blog, Finding Heaven.  Won’t you join me over there for the rest of this post…and to discover a woman who inspires me to give more of myself to God and to others.  Click ~> HERE <~ to finish this post.

Looking up, as always…

Bina

still beautifully broken

by

Shame.

It is the one feeling that can keep us tied to the past…to horrible habits…chained down to a master who is wholly satisfied with our inability to see hope from the bottom of the hole that we have settled into. We all have things in our lives that we think back on that cause our faces to flush instantly.

I know there are quite a few “rabbits” that I have been chasing around in my mind only to wind up smack in the middle of my past self’s realities….  Suddenly, my heart is racing, my face is hot and I am literally looking around to ensure that the other people nearby weren’t able to watch the movie that just played out in my mind…that no one else knows what it was that I did before I became the me they now know.  Then the voices come in – I can hear their heels in the halls of my heart as they make their way to parts of my mind that are vulnerable…to the sections of me that will believe the lies they bring when they scream them out at me.

“Stop trying to fight it. You know that you are still that person. Just give in and go back.”

“If people knew what you did, they would never like you.”

“If your friends had any clue how messed up you were before the you they know now…you would be all alone.”

“It’s your body. Do with it what you want to.”

“You deserve the right to be who you want to be.  Why spend so much time fighting what feels natural to you?“

“There is no way that God can love you with all that in your past.”

The reality of it all?  I am an addict.  I lived as one, locked in the closet of denial and shame for many, many years.  Then one day, God gave me a choice: out myself and my lies to everyone around me…or He would.  I chose to do it myself because, well, I suffer from control addiction above all else!!  From the moment that He allowed His holiness to hover in front of me while asking me to walk a blameless path, I began to struggle with those voices in ways that words can barely describe…but shame was the thing that kept its hands on my throat and its heart beating for mine.

It took me 2 years to actually get clean…but praise to the Lord, He saved me from that pitfall and I have many years behind me without the use of chemicals to get me thru.  I stopped counting time awhile ago as I found that THAT was an entry way to my enemy’s tactics…trying to trip me up with how long I have been on the straight & narrow…and just how quickly he could help take it all away from me.  I had a wise woman listen to my story and tell me “Stop saying you will never do it again.  THAT is what is tripping you up – as soon as you give satan a timeline, you give him the win.  Just take each moment for what it is…a moment.”

So why have I shared all this?  I promise, I have a point.  Yesterday I had the chance to hang out with some great friends…and last night, after everyone was gone, I remembered their smiles, their laughter and the truth behind their eyes…and I was overcome with the reality that I could have missed out on any of them simply because of a path called “Addiction”.

The one driving emotion that keeps addiction rolling is shame…and shame keeps you locked in a cycle because it reminds you how horrible you are…and how little you can do about it.  It can shatter your life into pieces.  It takes the fragile, glass bottle that is your life and starts to invade it.  Soon small spider cracks can be found and then, in one swift move, it can knock your life to the ground, breaking it into thousands of jagged shards.  I know…I have been there.

But from one cry sent upwards, those pieces can be used by the One who created them…by the One who loves your soul and cares about your life.

Aaron Shust has an amazing voice…and an amazing truth comes from his heart:

To God alone be the glory and praise!

I pray you will give God the chance to show you a glimpse of the artwork He can make from your life…your ups and your downs.  I can say that because as I sit here, I know the depths of my lows and the places I was headed before He reached out for MY hand.  I was at death’s door, happy to let it ALL go for the thing that allowed my mind and heart to go numb from the pain of my life…barely able to think, much less able to believe that one day I could be living life, sober…and FREE.  Ernest Hemingway has a quote that really grabs my attention because of the Truth that lives within the simple words: “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”

Although I will always be an addict when it comes to certain aspects of my life, I can be fully strong where I once was weak because He can use it.  You can be strong where you are broken too.  Really.

Feel free to let me know if you need help finding help off the road you are on…or if you just want prayer.

(Originally posted in 2009…still me today)

Looking up as always…

Bina

along the wall {Sundays}

by

It has been a long week for me…

…physically because my husband was gone, leaving me to take on the the crazy routines of teenagers on the go.

…emotionally because, with him gone, I just don’t sleep as good as my mind really needs me to.

…spiritually because I can feel the pull to drown in His Truth, even while I still don’t understand all that He is trying to say.

But I, through the abundance of Your steadfast love,

will enter Your house.

I will bow down toward Your Holy temple,

in the fear of You.

Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness

because of my enemies;

make your way straight before me.

Psalm 4:8

So, I take a deep breath as I sit here, ready for the joy that comes with Sunday…

…releasing the tension of my body.

…surrendering the fatigue of my tired heart.

…following along the wall of His reality, straight and sure.

 

Linking up with those over here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking up, as always…

Bina

i. am. not. helping.

by

Sitting on the end of the bed where she lays, my mouth rambling in an effort to speak Truth over a situation seemingly out of control, my eyes take in the little signs that shows me that i. am. not. helping.

Passing her in the hall, I grab the body that tried to slide away…wrapping her in the hug that she pretends she doesn’t need…and as her arms hang loosely by her side, my heart recognizes that i. am. not. helping.

A single tear…sliding softly down her cheek…a lone prisoner escaping from eyes on lock down…carefully trying not to betray the reality that i. am. not. helping.

As the mom to four teenagers, three of them girls, I find that I am in a new stage of life.

I thought that when they were all little, begging and crying for everything they saw, it was the hardest time of my life as a mother.  I would pray them “older” and not so “needy”…I would complain about how tired I was…about how I just wanted one night to be able to sleep all the way thru the hours when nature was dark.  I would look at the parents of older kids and envy them for their lack of diaper bags or kids being pulled along while screaming out thier words of disagreement.

I thought it would be easier…and while on some levels it really is (…if only for the fact that they can get their own breakfasts on Saturday morning so I can sleep in…), there are other levels that make me long for a temper tantrum in the grocery store over fruit snacks.

Our three older girls are as different as night and day when it comes to what they are into, how they choose to dress and who they fall in love with….but when it comes to heartbreak and life’s bitter realities, I watch them all respond in the same ways: pull in, pull away, put on a smile and act like nothing’s wrong…and hope with all they can that no one will ask them if they are ok.  I know what they are doing because I was their teacher in it all.

I have spent my entire life with a huge smile plastered on my face because I know that no one questions the happy girl on the heaviness of life.  I have spent their entire childhood telling them “I’m fine.” when they see my tears and inquire about them.  I have been their example in how to hide.

But, because I know their “warning signs”, I rush into the fire before it begins to burn the whole house down…and while they are all still open to me rushing in, I can see them closed off to the Truth that first comes pouring out.  It isn’t God that they are against…or even my life experience that I use to relate to them…no, they aren’t against any of it.  What closes them off is the fact that while every word I speak may all be true, their pain doesn’t extinguish in the least and i. am. not. helping.

Yes, I know that I really am helping in the long run because I love them…

because I keep trying…

because they know I am there for them…

because I am leading them back to God’s Truth…

because I am praying and believing for them, even when they can’t…

…but in the meantime, they hurt and so do I…because a cute bandaid and a hug no longer make it all better.

Today, I take my throbbing heart to His feet and I find comfort in His promise that He loves them more than I do…and that He not only knows the pain I carry as their mother, but He longs to comfort in the same way that I want to:

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.  Isaiah 66:13

Today, I hold tight to the One who creates their path…and pray that while they have learned “how to hide” from me, they will also learn from this example of “how to cling”.

Linking up with Jen and others for Soli Deo Gloria

Looking up, as always…

Bina

to let you go – explained

by

I am touched by the number of people who read my post from Monday, “to let you go“. That poem came as I tried to take my emotions to God…for relief, for understanding, and for peace. But I thought it might do some good to explain a bit about my relationship to the one who passed:

Many moons ago, I was an 18 year old girl who had just gotten married to a man in the US Air Force. We were stationed in Germany, at the same base that I had spent the last few years as a high school student. My new husband was sent on temporary duty just a few months after our wedding and, since I had moved straight from my dad’s house to my husband’s, I found myself alone for the first time.

Enter Mia…the wife of our deacon at church. She was the mother of three small kids, lived a few buildings over from me on the AF base where we were stationed…and she opened up her home for me to come and spend nearly every waking moment of my days at. I helped her fold laundry, learned what Anne of Green Gables was, watched her put on her makeup…and in her, I found my first real example of what it meant to be a Christian wife, mother and woman. Because I was there so much, I latched on to her kidlets in ways that I don’t know how to describe. I played with them, laughed with them, tried not to laugh when they were cute while being punished…they were my life.

Flash forward all these years later…Mia and I don’t keep in touch so much anymore, but all three of her kids are on FaceBook and accepted my friend requests. Minimal contact…just the joy of getting to see them grown, happy and beautiful. I never fail to smile when I see their pics…most especially when the include their mother…a woman my heart forgot that it no longer knows. Then this past Saturday, I logged onto FB while we were driving home from our family vacation and I saw a photo that said “RIP” and it was a photo of Jackson…the youngest of the three kids.

I thought it was a joke of some sort…until I clicked over to his page and saw post after post of memories, photos and goodbyes. Time seemed to stop as the world around me disappeared.

How. Can. He. Be. Gone?

Just a week ago, he had messaged me to send him some supplies in a game we both played.

Just the day before, he had posted a photo of his brother while they ate breakfast.

My chest was tight and the tears began to flow…for him, for the unknowns…and for his mother, my friend, that I still remember as that amazing woman who adopted this girl before she was really a woman.

Since that day, I have talked to Jackson’s brother…and then his mama…and while I am still aching for the pain that his death has caused, I find that I still think of him as the tough three and four year old boy who didn’t want to snuggle, but loved to hide-n-seek…wrestle…make faces at me while eating his veggies…and making my heart swell with as much love as my pre-children-of-my-own heart could muster up.

I appreciate each and every kind word that has been sent my way…and I covet your prayers on behalf of the family that buries their son/brother/grandson this week. I take strength from the words of my sweet friend who told me, just days after this all went down, that she knows God is total control and that He is a wonderful God indeed.

Such strength…all these years later, my mind still marvels at her and my heart still swells with such awe at the beauty He places for us to see it…when we choose to look for it.

Looking up, as always…

Bina