Things with in our family dynamic is greatly changing. My work and volunteer time is changing. My service in the church is changing. The view that I have of myself is changing. The problem with all of that is that even though I think of myself as a very flexible person, the truth is that I am not. I honestly don't like the things that are becoming exposed in my heart and mind. I am not the sweet and understanding person that I thought myself to be. Instead I find myself selfish and with out much mercy. I hold a list of checks and balances in my small mind of requirements that need to be ticked in order to have mercy. Grace has been a subject that I have avoided like the plague and have tried to have as little to do with as I can. But God is shaking and shaking and shaking....He is burning and burning and burning.... And I know that at the end of it all I will no longer be who I am or who I thought myself to be , but rather who He is calling me to become.
So much of this began all the way back in May of 2011, when Dad first grew ill. I was called to a place that I neither wanted or pursued. I was called into the arena of intersession. A place that for years regardless of the pull I resisted. It took Dad laying on his death bed to get me to step up. Don't get me wrong... for years there had been a few people that the Lord had really laid on my heart to pray for on a regular basis, but prayer was general and shallow. (I hate admitting that)... For the time that Dad was in the hospital I felt like I was somehow the banner carrier. When he went home this settled down and I so simply went back to some the back row things that I was so accustomed to. I knew that I had a new found authority but all the judgmentalism and my mercy and grace issues really a huge issue for me. I was walking as close to the walk as I could but it was exhausting and without merit. I found myself running in circles that led me to the same place over and over.
When we lost Josiah in 2013 I found a new place in life that lasted for close to year. I was driven and I felt a confidence in who I was. I knew that God would use it and that I could rely on Him, but that began to change. My ideas of grace began to be challenged. My understanding of who I was began to change. We decided to try for another baby and instead of easily becoming pregnant we were faced with month after month of negative pregnancy tests. Our OB did tests and could find no reason. He began to suggest that we see a specialist. I felt and feel broken and incomplete. Selfish as it may be my heart yearned for that baby. My arms ached and still do for a bundle to fill them. Through this I began to really question if I was in fact who I thought I was. A job that I was sure that I was a shoe in for looked past me. My position as a worship leader all but disappeared and I was basically replaced(or felt replaced). I felt like I just flat didn't matter anymore. That feeling the first day we found out Josiah was gone was with me at all times. I was dropped. No I was thrown away. I was only good for what everyone needed doing until someone better came around and then easily discarded and thrown away like a disposable diaper. I caught myself saying to someone "They all just want to suck the life out of my until I'm empty and then the trash is all I'm good for." I began walking around in a constant state of rage and hate. I couldn't stand to be around any one. I couldn't stand being around myself.
I would be alone in the house and a suddenly ideas and thoughts that I had not had in over a decade began to flood my mind.
"No one cares and wouldn't give a rip if you just disappeared."
"My children would be better off if I just died and then Mick could remarry someone who is so much better...someone not broken like I am."
"Why not just run away."
"I hate me...I hate who I am...I hate i hate I hate!!!"
I was sinking into a place that was full of misery and utter disrepair. I couldn't bare to tell anyone how I felt. As a matter of fact this is the first time that I have actually admitted most of this. I couldn't find my way. I would try to pray and seek, but I just hated going there. I didn't feel any peace. I didn't feel any strength... When someone suggested that maybe God was moving me from Praise and Worship and the place I volunteer my thought was, "Great that figures. Why wouldn't God take away that one last thing that I cared about that I enjoy." I just couldn't stand anymore.
I can't tell you that there was life changing moment or that there was an instant that I can mark. All I can tell you is that He is shaking me. He is making me really dig deep and look at my heart. I'm learning to quiet my thoughts and and just be still. I am choosing to not listen to anymore whispers from the enemy of who people think I am or how they value me. I am having to trust that I simply can't see the big picture and maybe my heart longs for things that He doesn't have planned for me.
It doesn't change that I still long for that last baby to complete our family. That doesn't mean that I have grown elephant skin. It just means that I am going to remember to breath. I going to remember to breath and go from moment to moment and try with all I have to trust Him.
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