Today is a hard day. It's been looming for a long time, but here it is smacking me square in the stomach and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
I've long known that some people don't speak my language. Some people think my language is jibberish.
See, I speak a language that involves experiences that other people find silly, nostalgic, or highly impractical. This kind of behavior was embedded in my soul by the Creator and as a child I fully embraced it. As I got older folks would chide me for being too emotional or tell me to get my head out of the clouds. God is in the clouds, why would I want to abandon them?
God is in a moonlit night. God is in the stars. He dwells among the quiet places where the wind whispers, tickling the trees and bending the daffodil. He speaks to me in moments when I can do nothing but hear the thunder of His love in a garden where jasmine sends wafts of fragrance over me, or the chirp of the birds remind me how much care He took in creating an opera of natural music just for me.
I used to walk to places that seemed lost or forlorn to find Him. I sought out the solemnity of quietude in places where the busyness of city could be forgotten.
I have longed my entire life to live in a place where this could be my daily experience. No neighbors whose phone could interrupt my solitude. No dogs barking from too close proximity to break the reverie of prayer and meditation.
It was so close.
I will never see it this side of Heaven.
My destiny seems to be a plot in suburbia where I will dwell among the many of us who only dream of such a life. Mary Engelbreit says to "Bloom where you're planted." I get the theology behind it and I embrace that, but I don't want to be planted just anywhere.
I want to bloom to my fullest potential in a place that feeds my soul. I will always embrace the gifts I have been given; a lovely family and home, a husband with a great job and all that goes with that. But I've wanted this for so long that the realization that it isn't to be is...well... heart rending.
So many people accept that to commune with nature is to go to a park and carve out a little space in the crowd to call your own for 30 minutes. I don't think that's how God meant it to be for us. Jesus himself went away at times to be alone in nature to pray and hear God's voice.
I have heard the voice of God. I have lain on the grass and been overcome by His immensity. It's so much easier to do when no one is watching.
Scott Hahn talks about these things in a book I'm reading and how he sought out a place in the city in the middle of the night and prostrated himself at the foot of a cross and wept. How many people would do this? So few.
I would do it if I had that place in the country because that's what feeds my soul and makes me open to those experiences. I'm weak around too many people. I second guess everything I do. I feel shackled among the throngs of people whose eyes judge and mouths voice opinion. Who am I to do things to upset the balance of life.
I'm just so fragile and weak.
It's not an excuse and while many of you will think I'm whining, it's far different than that. It's a loss that I am mourning.
I am mourning.
I am torn from the place where I can find Him so easily. My soul is breaking open in despair. I long for Him to nurture me and I see cars speeding by, fast food chains, and shopping malls. Will my children ever know what it means to "Be still and know that I am God?"
Not in a once-in-a-while kind of experience like some people are satisfied with but DAILY! Can I learn to teach them to do that when my own soul is screaming from the noise and can't hear anything? I am drowning in this vacuum of come and go. I'm like a child fallen in a well screaming at the top of my lungs whom no one can hear because it just blends into all the other sounds that make up a day.
I know friends will say if you can't do it here you won't do it there. I also know that's completely wrong. I know myself. I know my past. I know the desires of my heart. I know the me God made and I know this ache stems from more than just a misguided desire for something different.
This isn't something that just popped up recently. It's a lifelong passion. A hunger. A longing.
Yes, there's some anger rising up because as much as I love and respect those who give me advice, I wish I had the nerve to really take them on in this argument. No one knows me like He does. And no one will ever know the pain that has come from this dream being abandoned for the sake of...convenience? I can't explain any more of this, it's not for a blog.
I will always love too deeply and be far too passionate in all my endeavors. But that is who I am. Healing will come in time, and Jesus is my refuge in the time that it will take to mend (and beyond.)
I am destined to read the blogs of those who daily post about how they are nurtured by nature, fresh air, and the slow pace of country life.
I will read them and my soul will cry a little each time I feel the tug on my heart. But I'll read on.
God bless you for blogging, keep me in your prayers.
Like Mary, I will cry out,
I've long known that some people don't speak my language. Some people think my language is jibberish.
See, I speak a language that involves experiences that other people find silly, nostalgic, or highly impractical. This kind of behavior was embedded in my soul by the Creator and as a child I fully embraced it. As I got older folks would chide me for being too emotional or tell me to get my head out of the clouds. God is in the clouds, why would I want to abandon them?
God is in a moonlit night. God is in the stars. He dwells among the quiet places where the wind whispers, tickling the trees and bending the daffodil. He speaks to me in moments when I can do nothing but hear the thunder of His love in a garden where jasmine sends wafts of fragrance over me, or the chirp of the birds remind me how much care He took in creating an opera of natural music just for me.
I used to walk to places that seemed lost or forlorn to find Him. I sought out the solemnity of quietude in places where the busyness of city could be forgotten.
I have longed my entire life to live in a place where this could be my daily experience. No neighbors whose phone could interrupt my solitude. No dogs barking from too close proximity to break the reverie of prayer and meditation.
It was so close.
I will never see it this side of Heaven.
My destiny seems to be a plot in suburbia where I will dwell among the many of us who only dream of such a life. Mary Engelbreit says to "Bloom where you're planted." I get the theology behind it and I embrace that, but I don't want to be planted just anywhere.
I want to bloom to my fullest potential in a place that feeds my soul. I will always embrace the gifts I have been given; a lovely family and home, a husband with a great job and all that goes with that. But I've wanted this for so long that the realization that it isn't to be is...well... heart rending.
So many people accept that to commune with nature is to go to a park and carve out a little space in the crowd to call your own for 30 minutes. I don't think that's how God meant it to be for us. Jesus himself went away at times to be alone in nature to pray and hear God's voice.
I have heard the voice of God. I have lain on the grass and been overcome by His immensity. It's so much easier to do when no one is watching.
Scott Hahn talks about these things in a book I'm reading and how he sought out a place in the city in the middle of the night and prostrated himself at the foot of a cross and wept. How many people would do this? So few.
I would do it if I had that place in the country because that's what feeds my soul and makes me open to those experiences. I'm weak around too many people. I second guess everything I do. I feel shackled among the throngs of people whose eyes judge and mouths voice opinion. Who am I to do things to upset the balance of life.
I'm just so fragile and weak.
It's not an excuse and while many of you will think I'm whining, it's far different than that. It's a loss that I am mourning.
I am mourning.
I am torn from the place where I can find Him so easily. My soul is breaking open in despair. I long for Him to nurture me and I see cars speeding by, fast food chains, and shopping malls. Will my children ever know what it means to "Be still and know that I am God?"
Not in a once-in-a-while kind of experience like some people are satisfied with but DAILY! Can I learn to teach them to do that when my own soul is screaming from the noise and can't hear anything? I am drowning in this vacuum of come and go. I'm like a child fallen in a well screaming at the top of my lungs whom no one can hear because it just blends into all the other sounds that make up a day.
I know friends will say if you can't do it here you won't do it there. I also know that's completely wrong. I know myself. I know my past. I know the desires of my heart. I know the me God made and I know this ache stems from more than just a misguided desire for something different.
This isn't something that just popped up recently. It's a lifelong passion. A hunger. A longing.
Yes, there's some anger rising up because as much as I love and respect those who give me advice, I wish I had the nerve to really take them on in this argument. No one knows me like He does. And no one will ever know the pain that has come from this dream being abandoned for the sake of...convenience? I can't explain any more of this, it's not for a blog.
I will always love too deeply and be far too passionate in all my endeavors. But that is who I am. Healing will come in time, and Jesus is my refuge in the time that it will take to mend (and beyond.)
I am destined to read the blogs of those who daily post about how they are nurtured by nature, fresh air, and the slow pace of country life.
I will read them and my soul will cry a little each time I feel the tug on my heart. But I'll read on.
God bless you for blogging, keep me in your prayers.
Like Mary, I will cry out,
- "My soul doth magnify the Lord.
- And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." ...wherever I am.
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