4 WriteStuff

As we prepare to celebrate another round of birthdays next week, I am having to come to terms with my own this last summer… I bypassed the contemplative side of my birthday by filling it with activity, but fall is coming, and sooner or later we have to deal with that present left unopened, “another year has passed, and this was a BIG year.”

Birthdays are so often hard for women… I think for me it is because it is an annual spiritual/emotional checkup – how’s my vision? My core hope and  dream has remained the same since my youth. I tend to be super self-critical and, I confess, my self-evaluations often begin with, “how could I be so stupid as to think I could be ‘that person’?”

Sometimes grief is not the death of a person, as much as the death of a hope, a dream, an idea… this year has seen a lot of grief in so many forms… and the grief was compounded. With the passing of loved ones, at least I have the reassurance that we will see each other again on the other side of this veil we call life. The death of hope and dreams, of relationship is harder…

At my age there are things which, if they have not come to pass, will NOT come to pass. Sometimes we have to sort through the clutter and make the most of what we have rather than living in regret of what cannot be. Some things, some people are out of reach until/unless God softens hearts. I have boundaries/comfort zones I expect to be respected, and as such, must be a respecter of other people’s comfort zones and boundaries.

As I sort through the heart clutter, I also have sorted through the life clutter and am trying to simplify. I like it, and wonder why I waited so long. One of the things I have struggled with: I have several jars with sand – places we have gone… they are just sand, but where do I pour them out? I think of the places I long to go, but have not been able to visit; I think of the places I never expected to go, but there I was. Some of the sand is brown and coarse, other sand is fine and white like sugar. Yet, it does not seem as those these are separate sands… somewhere along the journey they all combine into one journey…

There is a point when we go through the stuff so that we may travel lighter. Travelling light might look like carrying a grain of each sand rather than a jar… which is quite funny in light of my next confession: I love rocks and cannot bear to part with even one.

Is this not life? we carry the heavy load and release the lighter. Even as I release all that I cannot have, I still have trouble letting go of that rock: the dream, the hope that weighs on my heart and the prayer that some day, this will change… I would love for it to be this side of heaven… but some things are not mine to change, and so I release the sand and carry the rocks – the prayers – for another day. Yet the rocks do not seem as heavy as the sand… because Jesus carries my prayers… Maybe today will be the day that this precious heart will be set free from the lie…

Another rock, another prayer… my standing stones – my reminders of what God has done, is doing, and will do…