"Stuff It"

meet Spidey, my 13-yr.-old houseplant

Pss. 64:1 “Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.”

Stuff It

I’ve been telling you about my emails targeting me? Well this morning’s email, once again, gave me a God-slap moment. It came right out and basically said, ‘stuff it’! Okay, it didn’t tell me to stuff it, that’s what it said I’m doing with my emotional baggage instead of surrendering the juice of the problems up to God.

I figured the reason a person likes reading my blog is that they connect with my blunt honesty of any given subject. I really try not to sugarcoat anything I’m experiencing; I lay it all out there for you to read. So why am I being told that I’m really stuffing my emotional baggage when it comes to God? I’m supposed to be getting rid of it all so I can heal, remember? Total surrender, remember?

Apparently, I’ve been stuffing it! I loved this line in my Bible Gateway email by Amy Carroll, she said it was a famous punch line so I’m not stealing it from her. 

“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.” 

There it is. I think I’m surrendering my emotional baggage all to God but really it’s a form of denial when I suppress the meat of the problem. God doesn’t want the orange; He wants the juice, pulp and all! He doesn’t want a lamb chop, He demands the entire Lamb! Wow! 

In other words, God doesn’t want our artsy fartsy lifestyle laid before Him, like our religiously reading of the Bible, our attending church, getting everything scripturally right, or our loving thy neighbor. Yes, these things are all well and good, but God wants our pains, the heart, the soul of man and all of the ugly portions, not just the package wrapped up neatly with a bow! We never give Him what keeps us awake at night, we give him our day, we give him all the cute parts that we think He’ll enjoy seeing from us.

I may read too much into things these days but the accuracy is chilling. Another example, I received my Neck Traction Device. An email came with a picture stating it had been delivered, but there was something missing from my purchase that I didn’t know I was supposed to get (maybe that free item had expired), there was a silk mask. You know the kind, the ones that gently go over your eyes for a better nights rest? It hides the light so you can sleep better. I didn’t get one. I thought, now I know why, I’m already wearing one! I may already have the Light in me, but I hide the rest thinking He can’t see the mush that’s still there. He let me know, HE SEES IT ALL!

Think of it like this. You are baggage on a conveyer belt at the airport, before you can go on to your next destination, you need to be scanned by an x-ray so you don’t get anything over on ‘the powers-that-be’. The one time I went on a plane I was a little surprised my pen that hides a very pointy letter opener inside, made it through the x-ray, the rifling of my purse, the checks and double checks, but my underwire bra set off the beep on the scanning process!

You see how I over think things? I’m thinking I’m baggage being scanned and everything is exposed but still, there is that ever so small portion that is hidden inside that might not be detected. I’m telling you, know that God is seeing your hidden emotional baggage! He detects it all. He knows when you’re giving it all to Him and when you’re hiding a small portion. Stop being so selfish and share the very depths of your being with Him; ALL of it!

How do we fix it? Well, it sounds like a tedious chore is at hand but I may be making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t think so. I seriously have work to do especially if I’m ever to be fully healed and rid of this lingering disease. First, I’m adding to my much-needed break. I need this time to look at the whole picture and reassess the ever-long journey I’ve placed myself on. And yes, I’ve taken quite a few breaks in the past forty days but for the wrong reasons. I have a renewed purpose. Don’t read too much into it, my breaks may not be what you’re thinking they mean. REST! I need rest and reassessment!

Psalm 62:5 says, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him” (NIV)

Second, I will strengthen my stance by surrendering everything to God and allow Him to be my rock when I’m unbalanced and trying to walk. I’m inviting Him to a feast and I’m not serving up toxic food in the form of a pig or just a spare rib, no, I’m offering him the entire lamb for sacrifice on the x-ray table so he can see the whole me.

Pss. 62:6 “He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved.”

Third finding shelter in His arms as the tears begin flowing downstream releasing denial into the river in Egypt. I am healed by His blood, I am strong in His arms, I am protected by his Light!

Pss. 62:8 “Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.”

I can tell you’re all intrigued by this journey of mine. If only to see my success because you’re a dear friend or a person who just needed a little spark to reassess their life. I’m your go-to person! Whatever you do, don’t tell me to just stuff it because I’ll tell you to get out of your own denial and unpack. You're home and now is the time to make sure your bag is empty so you can go to the REAL home that awaits you to be delivered. 

All praise and Glory to God! 

geese! 

Reasons...

Job 17:7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.

A Reason

As you can imagine in the depth of my grief, I search endlessly for reasons why things are the way they are. My dad was in the hospital for three weeks when he finally succumbed to COPD in the same hospital room that my grandmother had passed.

I’ve gone over the WHY’S:

Why did he die?

Why was I not there?

Why am I here (in Nebraska)?

Why didn’t I make it to the funeral?

Why didn’t my poem reach his ears?

Why, why, why?

Then I went over the reasons behind all the WHY’S. I wasn’t torturing myself I was more like self-analyzing all the reasons there are for the way things happened the way they did.

Let’s go in order:

Why did he die?

Well, he didn’t just die. For twenty years since his first heart surgery my father had sought out God. He had become closer to God in his final years, not saying he attended church or anything but in his own way he embraced his religion, what it meant to him and where he’d go in the final chapter of his existence, heaven.

My father suffered for many years with heart problems and the last few years it had gotten worse. He was a survivor of throat cancer and watched his sister succumb just this year to the deadly colon cancer (among other cancers she was hit with), and he’d watch from afar his brother-in-law fight with lung cancer.

Over this past year my dad would need more and more oxygen. It got to the point he barely made it to the car with the heavy tanks he had to carry with him. He struggled to breathe on a daily basis. Something we too often take for granted, he was relinquished to begging for more.

Why did he die? Because his heart and lungs couldn’t take it anymore. There was not enough oxygen on this planet to fill his lungs so he had to go to the place where he could breathe easy without any struggles, heaven.

Why was I not there?

It just wasn’t meant to be. I carry a smidgen of guilt but am relieved when I go over the reality of not being there. Reality, something no one wants to hear, they just want to play the point-the-finger-at-the-lousy-daughter game. Yeah, my brothers are back there in Baltimore pointing fingers and wondering what kind of daughter doesn’t make it to her own fathers funeral. I’ll tell you what kind, the kind that lives in the REAL world!

Had I had $3,000 dollars hanging out of my pocket I surely would’ve hightailed it back to Baltimore disability and all. The reality of the matter is, I don’t have $3.00 hanging out of my pocket. I have a roof over my head, I have food on my plate, the house is heated and I have a wonderful husband! Can anyone say they really want more? Then you my friend are a prisoner of a false reality. I don’t live for WANT, I live for NEED and am provided for my needs daily! I WANTED to  be back home but apparently I wasn’t NEEDED.

Let me let you in on another reality. I have two brothers that could’ve very well paid my way back there with no skin off their nose! Did I WANT them to? No! They have their cable bills, their new cars and trucks to pay for, their season tickets to football/baseball games, goodness, where would they EVER find spare cash to help their sister?

My one brother from Tennessee drove eight hours back home but allowed my mother to pay for his hotel for three nights? I forgive him for that since he is the one who paid my mother’s $150 a month garage fees to park their car for the past five or six years. My other brother is a drugee, and my sister has a rental place with her three kids living there.

Why was I not there? 

For the plain and simple reason, MONEY. Sad but true. The reality of life is, that EVERYTHING boils down to money, remember that.

Why am I here in Nebraska? 

Because a man saw a wounded soul 1400 miles away from him and just like a puppy in the middle of the road, he saw to it to rescue me from death.

Why didn’t I make it to the funeral? 

For the reasons above of why I wasn’t there in Baltimore. If you read into the picture I painted of my family, they are who they are and I am no longer a part of them; that bothers them to no measure. I’m happy with nothing (but everything) and they are miserable with everything and more.

They didn’t want me back there because they love me, they wanted me back there to relieve their conscience and so they’d have something and someone to talk about.

Why didn’t my poem reach his ears?

My sister had my last words to my dad on her phone and she was ‘going’ to read it to him but didn’t find the time. Did she read it at his funeral? No. Why? Because she was taking care of other matters that were more important than my last wish to my father.

It wasn’t meant to be. My poem finally made it to my mother via snail-mail and her words were somewhat hurtful, “I’m glad your father didn’t hear this before he died, because it was SAD!”

I’ll tuck that one under my belt.

So again I’ll ask, why am I here in Nebraska?

Because the Lord saw me worthy to be loved! To know what love IS! To feel HIM wrapped around my heart and to bless ME!

While my mother and father were the only two that truly loved me (back home), my siblings claimed to love me but I say to you, to KNOW love is to SHOW love, and in thirteen years I have not been shown love by any of my siblings.

Granted, if they read this, they’d spew that I don’t know what I’m talking about, and * I* never SHOWED THEM love. It’s a tit-for-tat game with them, a game I quit many years ago, out of LOVE for my self and my sanity.

Also granted, that if they knew I was writer, they’d read my words. They love me so well. (Yes I gave them a link to my writing but they lost it somewhere over the years.) Remember, if I’m not making MONEY, then I’m not a writer.

All my WHY’S and REASONS have been answered and now I search for PEACE in the midst of my grief. I go with faith in my hand and God in my heart and I move on to the next phase of my life. I feel the wind beneath my wings…

God bless you all!

Pss. 38: 8 I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.