Be Strong Of Heart And Wait

Psalm 27:1-14
The Lord is my light and my salvation-whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life-of whom shall I be afraid?
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek Him in His temple.
For i n the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; ...

I am confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong of heart and wait for the Lord.

I wrote this probably 2 years ago, I have returned to my blog and found this verse.
Heard this verse in church Saturday evening.

What I Know.

I know that my Father will never leave me, He will never forsake me.
I know He always waits for me, however far I wander off.
I know He waits for me to turn and see - there He is.  Waiting.
I know that in times of despair I would be wise to run to Him.
I know His Spirit that He left with us wants to surround me and bless me with the peace that passes understanding.


What I do. 

I wander off, distracted by a shiny thing, a bird, a butterfly...

I run off in fear.

I curl up under my blanket and just wait for the minutes to tick by - in my despair.
I cover my ears with my hands and sing, lalalalalalalala, I can't hear You - in my failure to walk in my faith.

I think there is no one to hear me, I feel alone - not remembering Your promises

Still working on the Love Wins thing. I fear I will never get there.

Update.
We are now a family of 6.  I love to say that. If you count marriage, we are actually a family of 7.
Our guardianship has turned into adoption, our situation is sanctioned by law and permanent.  We no longer need to fear separation.  Praise God.
All good .
Yet, I return here tonight because all is not well in my world.
I read this line the other day: we all secretly desire to be loved.
I attended a church that proclaims Love Everyone Always.
I attend a church that proclaims You Are Loved.
I proclaim Love Wins. (before Rob Bell published it).
I long for it, yet I am so bad at doing it.
My family of origin - a mess.  My heart breaks. We are so disconnected.  I search the Word to hear that I can just let this be. I can shake the dust off my sandals and walk away. Yet, I am pretty sure I cannot simply walk away.
I desire to be loved. I desire to let my family know I love them. I long to embrace them and to be embraced by them.
When I am. Embraced by them, I scream inside - it is not deep enough. You. Do not love me enough.
And then my heart breaks.
I had opportunity to love and I did not.  Instead I threw a tantrum like a 3 year old. Because I felt left out.

He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic. Rebel.
A thing to flout.
But love and I had wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.

I learned this little poem in grade school. THIS is who I want to be, who I long to be. I know I can cite Bible verses to support it, and, I failed.
My only comfort is that God loves me because I am His, not because of what I have done.
I pray and wait for another chance.

I will wait upon the Lord.

Be still and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10

I will wait, He will fight for me.
My hope is in Him. The only thing I can do, the best thing I can do is to lay it down before Him.

I am not who you think I am.
Still working on that whole Love Wins thing.
sigh.

So you think you understand...

If you are thinking I am not taking something seriously enough because you cannot see the blood from my broken heart spilling out all over the floor, ok, that's good cause that would scare people.

Maybe, what you are seeing is me standing on the rock of my faith - my incredible Father, Who is working things out in our lives.

Or, maybe what you are seeing is some therapeutic dancing and singing because I am intentionally choosing not to live in the pain every. moment.
You know they say you cannot judge a book by its cover... along those same lines - you cannot always see the brokenness in a life by looking at someones' face.

Imma gonna dance on - with you or without you, it's ok. I have friends who get it.

New Adventure

Today.
Today was my first afternoon as an "empty nester".
The most recent children in our house launched this morning. I spent a bit of the day on the road. I drove one of the children to the 1st day of school, came home - the other child left with mom to begin a new adventure. Drove my oldest to work because of car trouble and rain, had coffee and lunch. Drove back home. Drove back to school to deliver papers, then to pick up oldest from work. Drove with oldest child (adult child actually, but since I'm talking about my empty nest... child ...) to location of the troubled car where I assisted by straightening up my car a bit, playing with my camera, then reading while I waited. Drove home.

I experienced answered prayer twice today. Both times the prayers were answered within an hour, the second prayer within 15 minutes actually. I do not believe in coincidence. I asked, He answered.
Kind of like -
"God! Father! Are you there?"
"I am."
He reassures His child.

I see the empty rooms and I feel ... I feel, quiet.
I do not know what I will feel tomorrow as I wash linens, make beds, put away toys, but right now, I. just. feel. quiet.
I feel at peace.

We will put our house in order and then we will wait. We will wait upon the Lord.

Tomorrow I intend to sit out on the deck with my Bible, my journal, a cup of coffee and my camera. There will be no one bickering in the sandbox, because there will be no one playing in the sandbox.

I will wait, with a grateful, praise-filled heart.
I do not need to "find my new self" because I have heard a whisper, I have felt His eyes upon me. He hears my voice, I know that He is near and I know that I am His. I am His, and I breath and I move and I wait.
Tomorrow, who knows, maybe despair will find me, maybe I will be walking in the valley. But, for this day I certainly understand what it is to delight in the Lord. I am feeling the peace that passes understanding. It's good.

He. IS. good.

Today was a hugging day. That is what our 3 said. And she said, "tomorrow is a hugging day too." I don't know why. And our 6, he hugged a lot too. I don't know why. Hugging is good. I told her hugging is good, then left her so she could go to sleep.
I think God is up to something.
We'll see.

Receiving the word no.

By 9 am I was ready for and in need of a "do over".
No. How many times a day do I say no to my Father? And how is my spirit when He says no to me? So many words have been written on prayer, specifically unanswered prayer. We do not like "no".

So, I'm getting ready to make lunch for the little ones and am able to breathe again. I sure don't know what was going on this morning with the 2 year old princess, but apparently leaving the house to pick-up our 5 year old has caused a refreshing wind to blow through - my brain - my heart - my soul - my - ? All of that I think. Well, it sure has blown through and now we get a crack at the afternoon. Another chance. Back to the making lunch thing - I'm making lunch and I am thinking about the morning, and then my blog comes to mind and I think - Love Wins. Cracked me up. Massive fail. But then, I need to remember that love wins because I am so not there yet. So, just so you know - the name of my blog is Love Wins because I need to get there, not because I am there.

More thinking. This morning; she is a reflection of me. Looks like I may have been the problem. Oh my, will I ever get there. I have found a community of women with children who I can follow, I think of them and comparatively, I have no challenges. That's not true, we do have our challenges, and I believe it is attachment disorder.

February 11 Devotional
"The Lord your God will cleanse your heart...
so that you will love Him with all your heart and soul."
Deuteronomy 30:6

I am counting on Him because I sure don't have the love or the strength. It is loving Him, knowing that He loves me, that He loves them, that encourages me to stay the course when I just want to stop, give up, quit. Guess they're stuck with me.