Emerging

Take a walk in my yard with me. Do you dare to take a walk within my soul?

















There is a heaviness to the air in my world. Life is a journey filled with much amazement each and every day. There is joy and there is sadness. There is life and there is death. There is light and there is shadow. I have been getting better at the dance in the middle but lately the scale has been beginning to tip...

I spent an early hour at church singing the lyrics to Better Is One Day with a crackly voice and tears streaming down my face, all the while I was picturing what my youngest son would look like at four years of age and dancing in heaven. I pictured all the wonderful images that are a part of his world now apart from me and our family. I pictured such amazing things and then I felt strong knowing, that if given the chance to come back to me, that Jeremy would not. I imagined heaven as that wonderful...

I opened my eyes at the end of the song to see a few babies all around me happily snuggled up on laps and nestled close within their mama's arms and then I felt empty all over again. I felt as though I have missed out this wonderful thing that is so very precious and my heart just ached as it has so many times and probably always will.

My arms feel so very empty and they have ever since that sweet precious baby was called to go to his forever home. The pain is so very great and all consuming at times.

I feel like there is this dark place within me that I don't want to see and that I don't want to remember. If I choose to close that part of me off and refuse to go to that place, then I choose,in part,to not remember Jeremy. What a quandry...I leave the dance empty handed and brokenhearted-EVERY TIME!

Perhaps it is more likely that this is the time of year when I just remember too much?

I took a brief walk this evening in my very own backyard. I could hardly believe the changes that have happened in a time period that seems like overnight. We have had unusually warmer weather this season and the early spring could surely be attributed to that for sure. I am not complaining overall since the sunshine and I seem to get along well together. The feelings that have crept in this week just go to prove that the painful memories embedded within the dates of the calendar are more powerful than the sunny weather I guess.

While I was walking, I had this overwhelming feeling of the newness of life and of growing. It was afterall, all around me. I feel as though there are places withing me that are dead and dark. These images that I saw within my backyard stood to remind me that new life can and does grow from the most unexpected and even dark places. I felt a supernatural peace this evening. I was reminded that, as I have been busily trying to recreate, grow, and nurture what was once mine,something that is humanly impossible I might add, that the growing season for that fruit is over. That season and a very short one at that, yielded the most beautiful fruit... and now it is time to let it go and embrace the next season of growth which can and could be amazing in it's own way.

Perhaps my trouble, as it has always been in the past, is that I am much too busy looking backwards to see where it is that I am going. I have noticed along the way some rather profound fruits that have grown in areas of my life that I almost never would have imagined.

This ever so bitter and lonely place yields much human hearted growth, painful and the hard way as it must be, but growth for sure.

Where it is that I am going and what I am being pruned to do next, I am just not sure. Something is on the horizon though, I can just feel it. It is emerging.

... being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Phillippians 1:6

Friday Sunshine

It's Friday. Wahoo. We made it through another week. Have you ever had the experience when you repeat an activity, say the same day and time each week, that when that event rolls around, you wonder how it was that another whole week went by? That's me lately.

The day started off a little foggy but I am trying my best to find the sunshine right?

I managed to find a few moments to grab a few things at the store alone! Anyone else prefer shopping with no kiddos? Amen. I snagged a few things for the weeks ahead, oh how I love when that happens! I also had a chance to volunteer at school this morning. I love working with the kids and being present in the lives of my children. I value their school, their education, and their awesome teachers.

Fridays mean Family Movie Nights in our house. We are all just so tired by the end of the week and we love to snuggle up to watch a good movie together. I really look forward to this family time together. They will be grown up all too soon. I stopped by our local Redbox to rent a movie and low and behold the Redbox man was there servicing the machine. How amazing is that? Let me just say that he was drawing a small crowd of curious customers who wanted to see what the inside of that happy Redbox machine looked like and just how it worked on the inside. It was pretty cool! To top it off, I even scored a free movie. Here's hoping that I picked a good one!

I am even excited about what I am planning to make for dinner tonight. I can only hope that it lives up to my expectation. I actually made this meal for our monthly meal swap, intended to post that recipe here, and then got sidetracked with lots of other things on my plate. It's called Shrimp Destin and you can go here for the recipe and try it for yourself. One of my meal swap friends made her meal and served it over homemade pasta. She said it was delicious. The recipe says that you can serve it over fresh toasted french rolls, pasta, or even rice. I think we will go the route of pasta too, but mine will likely come from a box.

The day is ending up to be pretty sunny after all! I hope your day has sunny so far too! I am adding prayers to those that are near and dear to my heart that are going through hard times right now. I pray that the Rays of Sunshine that shine down on your path today, wherever you are, sustain you through your difficult days.

Shadows

We've all been hooked on this song in recent days. The kids request it almost as much as I do. Click here for the link to hear the song, Shadows, written and recorded by David Crowder.

It is significant in the fact that there is such joy and such sadness all around us in almost every direction we look. That's life though... I continue to walk with such balance of having the two together at the same time. Sometimes it is easier than others.

The lesson in the song that speaks the clearest path to my heart...we remember
When shadows falls on us we will not fear, we will REMEMBER.

Here are the lyrics if you'd like to read as you listen. Don't forget to push pause on the music at the bottom of the screen before you link up with You Tube.

Life is full of light and shadow
O the joy and O the sorrow
O the sorrow

And yet will He bring
Dark to light
And yet will He bring
Day from night

When shadows fall on us
We will not fear
We will remember

When darkness falls on us
We will not fear
We will remember

When all seems lost
When we're thrown and we're tossed
We remember the cost
We rest in Him
Shadow of the cross

The darkness wants to suck me in and make me forget from where I have come. I have been here before, I have been rescued from this place of fear a time or two before. My flesh and soul oppose one another at times, but I want to remember.

I want to remember this place of comfort and the feeling that no matter what-all has already been won. For me, for you, and for us all...