Monday, January 7, 2013

Sacred Moment Monday

Happy New year friend.  Is it just me or is it always a sluggish transition?  By it's very nature Christmas moving into New Year's sets itself up for examine. Reflection. Heart check-in. 
Christmas is pregnant with desire.  No other time of the year brings with it such longing and anguish.  Why am I still surprised by this?

This Christmas was especially tender coming off a break up. Hope rises for the miracle. When the miracle doesn't come despair is close at hand. To keep a heart o p e n, to expand to hope, means also to live in the ache. 

"Susie you opened up to life. You chose life.  I hear resignation creeping in."

She named it.

I felt it. All it's usual drudgery. Nothing will change. Back to life as usual. Hold it in. Play it safe. Tame yourself. Nothing's different.

An alarm began suddenly rattling and ringing at my very core.

No.

No. Not her. Not Miss Resignation.

I choose life.

But see to choose life, to choose to let my heart keep expanding, does not mean safety. It means messy, sticky, uncomfortable, fighting for fruition, being in process, believing from death comes resurrection l i f e.

"Hope cannot be separate from it's gut realities. We think of hope as something "out there" that we either find or lose. The reality is, hope is something that rises up inside of us with a gentle strength that requires response." (Jan Meyers, Allure of Hope)

Which makes me wonder, do I try to push down hope because deep down I don't believe it will be responded to?

If I put my ache, the deepest longings, visions, and tender places out there will it be met with intrigue or seen as a nuisance.

If I believe that my heart is not worth being engaged, I will work to keep it shrouded.  My heart hides. My heart peeps out but doesn't show up.

But what if I let it be messy? What if I trusted enough to offer the tenderness, relinquish the control, stop the clamoring and crucifying attack on vulnerability and instead let it be so. Wasn't ashamed of the ache, but let the ache draw me, open me up to be met.

Yes, met.

Responded to.

Strength waiting for me.

And I have a hunch I am not alone.  That many are cowering in fear, clinging to control, and living a tamed femininity. One that does not live in the birth pains but instead pretends everything is "fine."

The jolting alarm bell for 2013 is ringing. Resignation is not the way to l i f e.

The l i f e  that few find is met when we fight for life! Push through and groan our way through the labor because it is good.  Painful but good. Life is making it's way through the canal.  You may not see it, but she's coming.

Stay in the game. Fight the good fight.  I'm saying this to me as much as I'm saying it to you.

Groan for what's coming, cry out for more, believe in what's expanding in your heart, cling to what is good, right, true.  The Holy Spirit is the conceiver of miracles, together we let our hearts expand in the waiting and pushing, holding steadfast to our future joy!
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:18-25





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Faith, hope, and kindness.... Good things. XO RCS