Sunday, October 6, 2013

On Richness

I am prone to much frustration over how busy life is. Oh how I hate the need to calendar every second of our lives. I am a slave to the calendar. I try my best to see it as a good thing, but really struggle on that point. Where I struggle the most is carving out time for family.

I am a huge proponent of living someplace other than where you were born. I feel like we live in a big world. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience other places for at least part of life. If you prefer where you were born after you've lived a few places, fine. Go back and be happy. The flip-side, however, of what I believe is a really great idea is the source of my biggest frustration. I have lived in three different states. I have family spread across all three. And.... none of those family live in the town where I currently reside. That is MONDO annoying. It means that time with those I love dearly requires calendering. We can't do impromptu.

Well..... the planets aligned or something and I was able this weekend to spend almost 48 whole hours at the place I call "home". It's the home of my non-biological parents. God loved me enough 19 years ago to graft me into their family. Though not legally adopted, I became one of them. That family placement has afforded me MUCH healing, much love, much laughter, etc. I really felt like I needed to "check in" with my parents concerning this new big, hairy monster-slaying journey of mine. The trip even included one-on-one chat time with my Dad which was awesome. He's a bit of a rock-star for Christ kind of a guy and time with him can be difficult to attain. I'm super proud of who he is and am happy to share, but I really enjoy my time with him.

Every time I'm at my parent's house I feel super safe. I struggle to not become one with the couch in my favorite room. I sleep like the dead with no worries in the world. I don't feel the need when I'm there to pretend to be anyone other than myself. They fell in love with the real me years ago when I was too broken to pretend to be anyone else. Leaving is always hard. I was considering the reasons for that yesterday on the drive home. The biggest reason why it's hard to leave is because of the safety I feel there. I love not having to pretend. Admittedly, there are things they don't know about my life. But, I have assurance that they could handle any and all of the ugly truth that is me.

After hearing about what God is doing in my life these days, my parents hooked me up with a resource called TrueFaced while I was there. I experienced the first chapter this afternoon and I'm still "chewing". I will say, this journey sure is going to be interesting! I have been a mask wearer perhaps forever. I have absolutely been striving to please God and everyone else, for that matter.

Here's the thing I've been thinking this afternoon: I've been able to trust fallible people and receive love from them with knowledge that they can handle my imperfections, but have refused to trust God whose love and understanding far surpasses what any human can offer.         How cracked is that!? God offers a richness of love, a richness of grace, a richness of understanding because He made me to be me. HE KNOWS already who I am and that's who He wants me to be.   Duh!.... right?

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