Summer...oh summer.....

I have said before as I sit at my computer, looking out the window at my amazing flower bed, how very blessed I am to have my little corner on the world, (although, I am thinking about stealing a bedroom as soon as one is available for my scrappy stuff).  I am sitting here listening to the oddest sounds float out of our family room as Aaron is practicing a "bull elk call" and making some pretty hideous sounds.  Its actually a little bit comical, listening to him Ryan confer on the whole process whilst watching a video.  (He sounds nothing like the vid!)

It has been a busy summer and I have been so lazy about blogging, preferring to grab every moment in the sun that I absolutely can since the only warm weather we ever get is right now and then the rains will be upon us.  John and I went on vacation to Diamond Lake alone this year. I have to admit that there were many times that I was walking on my way to the bathroom or somewhere else, and would feel myself go all melancholy and sad, missing the sounds of our kids in camp.  The many memories of shouts and laughter kept pushing themselves into my heart most often when I wasn't expecting it.  Over all though, it was a wonderful time and one we very much needed! John read 2 books and nearly completed his third, I read several myself and we played many many games of Triple Yahtzee and Rummy.  We both felt it was another step in our life as empty nesters and it was very wonderful.  I wrote so many pages in my journal and read the Word and spent time with my husband and the Lord and began some serious work on some areas of my life that need the healing touch of Jesus. John and I spent many hours talking and laughing.  We also had so much fun with Mike and Nancy as we got to, for the first time ever in our friendship, have 5 whole days of unrestricted access to each other! It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!  So much of what transpired I really cannot even begin to write about because it is so deeply personal and intense but the Lord began to plant some very good things in me. It has been both a wonderful summer and a very hard summer.

Earlier in the summer I spent some time alone with the Lord as I wrestled with some pretty big things in my life. I had taken one of my all time favorite books "Hinds Feet On High Places" and as I just spent time resting and praying I felt led to read that book.  I have read it at least 20 times so you would think that I would find nothing new in it and would, in fact, be bored by it but from a young age of 14 or so the Lord has used this book in my life as a way to identify things in myself, identify with Him and to see things that He wants me to see.  I so dearly love each and every page.  The story is an allegory about a girl named Much Afraid who longs to go to the high hills with the Shepherd and receive the flower of Love in her heart. (based on Habakkuk 3) and as she does, the Shepherd tells her...

"I must tell you a great truth, Much Afraid, which only few understand.All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at.  Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love.  Many a quiet and ordinary and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love's flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a place of delight where the King of Love Himself walks and rejoices with His friends.  Some of my servants have indeed won great visible victories and are rightly loved and reverenced by other men, but always, their greatest victories are like the wildflowers, those which no one knows about. Learn this lesson now much afraid, and when you get to the steep places of the mountains, it will comfort you."

I literally wept while I read the book this time, the whole time and as I have begun to finally see a few things, a few really BIG things in my life, it has been a comfort to me to know that I am not alone in the struggle but it is a revelation to me to know that much of the journey of my human struggle, of my heart, is one that no one knows about but the Lord. I am grateful to a Savior who knows me so much better than I know myself and is not content to leave me as I am.

I "stumbled" upon another small part in the book that took me aback and gave me some food for thought.

"Whenever you are willing to obey me, Much Afraid, and to follow the path of my choice, you will always be able to hear and recognize my voice, and when you hear it you must always obey.  Remember also that it is always safe to obey my voice, even if it seems to call you to paths which look impossible or even crazy"

WOW!  I have struggled with the issue of safety my entire life and when I read that, it took me awhile to stop crying.  You know what literally stuns me?  That all these years I have not really KNOWN that I struggled with that issue, I just  staggered along under the weight of it, not understanding or "getting it" and then, one day, something happens in my life and BAM! I am faced with a huge pain and a huge dilemma...to believe the truth of His Word or...well...not.  It may sound crazy to you, but sometimes, believing the lie is easier than living in the truth. I know, I know, is IS CRAZY and yet, many of us do it, we believe the lie, we live with a false belief system and don't even know it.  We listen to the voices in our heads telling us things that go absolutely counter to what the Word says about us and we stumble around, in pain. Familiar pain, but pain all the same.  I have learned something this summer.  Once I know something about myself, once I understand that something is being worked on by the Lord, I cannot lay it down and walk away. I must allow the change to happen, I must obey the voice of the Lord, even when everything in me wants to run away, wants to not have to do the work, wants to stay safe in the lie (hear that?)........BUT I am SURE of this very thing...."He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it" and I am willing to rest in that for the moment.  Oh if only it wasn't such hard WORK!!!!!

Have a nice night!