Sometimes, music just hits you right where you are, ya know???

She Always Gets Back Up.

Just because.  Life is hard.  Being a mom is hard.  Single mom-ness is hard.  REALLY hard.....and we never feel like we're doing enough, being enough, etc, etc, etc.

This.

Losing Fingers....Or At Least the Feeling in Them...

Ashlyn has 4 diff nausea meds that we are rotating, trying to find the magical combination.....one of which (that seems to work pretty well) comes in a non-crushable capsule type thing that she can't swallow and that I can't crush and administer through her g-tube. In the hospital, they extracted the liquid with a hypodermic needle....for the 2nd day in a row, I have put a hypodermic needle almost all the way through my finger trying to get the liquid out...it is NOT as easy as it looked. Ouch. cry emoticon Who needs that finger anyway.....and where's that firefighter I mentioned yesterday?? I could use some medical attention myself right now! wink emoticon

Her throat and tongue hurt and we may be starting to see the appearance of the mouth sores.....

‪#‎PrayForAshlyn‬

And pray for my nursing skills. That stupid capsule is not going to get the best of me....I may lose a finger trying, but I won't stop trying to conquer it....wink emoticon

Strength For The Journey ~ Pinterest

I thought this post was going to be the beginning of something.....and it was.  Just not what I thought....I thought I was going to write my way through a journey of mine, here.  It turns, out, however....that now is not the time or place due to circumstances beyond my control.  I will write about it someday....maybe here, maybe in another blog, perhaps anonymously.  Or maybe, if I wait until a safer time, I won't have to be anonymous.  For now, it remains to be seen....waiting for it.  In the meantime, feel free to visit and follow my Pinterest board on the subject....sharing in the hopes that it will help you find Strength for your journey, too.  <3

Follow Jill's board Strength For The Journey on Pinterest.

It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

There’s a girl you know, or maybe just know of.  She used to be happy.  Joyful.  Cheerful.  Always smiling.  But something has changed.  She’s been told her smile isn’t as bright….that it doesn’t reach her eyes anymore.  If you’re close to her,  you might know why, or you might just wonder why but don’t want to ask.  You’ve  watched her change right before your eyes.  You watched as she began to laugh less.  And smile less.  You watched as she lost her song.  She has been asked about…..and talked about.  She’s been questioned on whether she has lost her faith.  On whether she has been faithful to read His word regularly, to seek Him in all things, to pray.  The answer is NO.  She hasn’t lost her faith.  It’s the one thing she clings to….the one thing that keeps her going.  The answer is YES….she kept seeking Him, turning to His Word, and praying even though she has felt those prayers kept bouncing back at her.  She’s  had to.  She doesn’t know how else to live.  Her faith is as real to her as the air she breathes….she doesn’t know how to live without it and doesn’t want to, doesn’t know how NOT to pray….sometimes she lacked the words, often times it was just crying out His name and knowing that He could see her heart and hear the words she couldn’t find.  She’s been filled with confusion and hurt.  With PAIN.  She has been mad at God….YES, mad.  She has questioned Him, has cried out to Him, has yelled at Him….but she hasn’t turned away from Him.  She knows that He’s a big God and can take it…that He knows her heart and her hurt, that He can handle her emotions….that if there’s anyone it’s safe to be REAL with….it’s Him.

She’s felt like just a shadow of her former self….and the changes in her, her visible descent,  began long before it showed.  You never knew what lied underneath her laugh and her smile….but there was something there before they were  gone.  She’s been on a journey so painful, it’s threatened to do her in.  She’s been stuck in a realm of confusion and indecision, of a 2 steps forward, 3 steps back process of awakening and enlightenment that left her in a holding pattern, hovering over which direction to take to break out of it….feeling so close to reaching bottom but never actually touching down.  Her closest friends have wanted to push her, prod her, somehow  get her moving….hurting as they watched her hurt and feeling helpless.  It wasn’t something they could do for her….she had to do it herself.   And she couldn’t.  Not until she knew for sure…..and she couldn’t find a way to know for sure.  It took something coming into her life, briefly and completely unexpectedly….something she never imagined would be there….to break her holding pattern and cause her to make the final descent to the depths that were  bottom.  To shake her up completely, to just give out in every way….to cause her to see what was happening to her….to the person she had once been, and would continue to happen if she didn’t come out of her fog.

That emotional bottom is paralyzingly dark….so dark, you wonder if you’re going to stop breathing and have to force yourself at times not to.  Days of  functioning  just enough to get the basics done….because life goes on whether you’re up to it or not…. while the tears won’t stop and the burning, clenching ache in your throat, your chest, your stomach just won’t let up.  She spent sleepless nights curled up around that ache….spent sobbing into her pillow, crying out desperately for the Lord to just SHOW UP….pleading for Him to turn His face towards her again, begging for His deliverance, for His clarity and firm direction on what to do, for Him to reach out and lift her up out of this pit of confusion, to finally hear His voice again.  And in those darkest hours, while her children are sleeping and all is quiet….everything she’s lived, every painful memory, every hurtful word and glare and experience….every bruise on her body and soul is relived in excruciating detail and she can’t make her brain stop thinking.  She can’t hear His voice no matter what she does, no matter how her heart longs to.  She reaches an exhaustion she didn’t know it was possible to live through.  And then….in the darkest of nights, the voice of the One to whom she had sought and the music she kept playing but couldn’t hear….slowly began to speak.  Through the darkest of the dark, He came.  It was just the faintest glimmer, like the hesitant glimmer of the most distant star breaking through the clouds on the stormiest of nights….but it was there.  And she clung to it.  All night long.  And when daybreak came, she still couldn’t see that path laying out before her, brightly illuminated so that she could see days ahead or months ahead or the clearing on the other side.  But she saw a stepping stone.  Just one.  And it was clearer than clear in which direction she should go to find her way to the dawn.

She’s still broken and hurting and scared and isn’t healed yet.  She’s still at that bottom….but she’s no longer lying on it.  She’s standing on it.  Her legs are shaky and her knees are weak and her step onto that first stepping stone  is tentative….but sure.  And she knows what she’s supposed to do…..and she knows that if she’s had to live what she’s lived, and has to travel this journey she’s on, you can bet it won’t be wasted.  She knows that part of her healing lies in the telling, the surrender of writing her way through her journey.  She’s known for a long time that she is supposed to, she just has been too afraid to.  She keeps stumbling upon women upon women with similar stories….feeling trapped and hurting, needing someone to see the pain in their eyes and respond to it….to reach out, speak to, listen to and identify with their most hurtful of hurts.  She knows without a doubt that her pain, her story, her journey….is not her own, to keep to herself.    Others need to hear it.  Others are caught in that painful, soul-wrenching, imprisoning, joy-stealing, oppressive, stagnant fog and are desperately trying to find their way out.  They need to know they’re not alone.  They need to know they’re not crazy and need help finding their  way out. 

She’s still afraid to write it.  She’s afraid to click that “publish” button that will mark the beginning.  It’s hard….and it’s going to hurt.  But she’s already hurt more than anyone ever should and knows that in this hurt, this surrender to doing something so hard but knows she’s called to do…lies a step to that healing she’s desperate for.  It leads to another stepping stone and to that clearing along the path that she can’t see.

Not yet, anyway.  But she believes it’s there, she KNOWS it is…..beyond her vision, but not beyond His. Her vision is dark….but His.....HIS vision leads out of the darkness and into the dawn. 

One Step Closer to Letting Go

Today was meet the realtor day....the day we took one step closer to putting my Granny's house on the market.  She was here for five minutes and as I listened to her talk and begin to get details about the house and why it was being sold......I couldn't stay.  I walked to the back of the house, closed the door to "my" room and fought with myself as tears and sobs escaped and I struggled to stuff them back in.  Deep breaths, tissues, shoes on......I had to get some air, had to go for a walk.  My sweet youngest son went with me and as I walked down the drive, I looked over my shoulder at the house, the yard, the trees......and cried.  Once again willing them to stop, his sweet hand found mine and his sweet voice told me, "I'm sorry this makes you so sad, but I understand......I love you".  We walked and walked and walked around this little town, walked until I felt like a grown-up again and could return to the house and act like one.

For the next two hours or so,  I listened to the realtor talking as she walked through the house with my  mama and uncle, commenting on how big it is, on the five bedrooms, what good shape it's in, trying to pry up carpet that needs replacing to see if there's hard wood flooring underneath.  I listened as she said what a good house it is and how great it is that the only things that will need to be done to get it ready to put on the market are cosmetic, painting rooms, replacing light fixtures......I wished she would go.  She couldn't believe how big the rooms are, how "just wonderful" it is, how the timing for putting it on the market is perfect.....blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.....I wish I could move here and make those changes myself and keep this house.  Irrational and unrealistic, maybe.....but I still wish that I could.

I listened as they talked of selling my Granny's things at a yard sale.  A yard sale.......the thought of strangers carelessly sifting through items that mean nothing to them, looking for a cheap bargain & haggling over fifty cents here and a dollar there, makes me want to yell and scream......and cry, yet again.  The items from the kitchen.....they won't know how my Granny used those items, pots and pans and baking dishes....to love her family.  They won't know how she put that secret ingredient.....an extra dose of love....into everything she served.  They won't know that nothing gave her greater joy than to cook and bake for her loved ones, and how much pleasure she got from watching them eat and enjoy the fruits of her labor.  How she would literally beam as she watched plates being cleaned and people going back for seconds, exclaiming how good everything was.  Those baking dishes and other items....gifts given, from a daughter's cruise or a grandchild's trip to Sea World, and trinkets collected from family trips, will just be a good deal to them, something they picked up for a dollar or two from someone's yard one Saturday.

I listened more as they talked of taking down pictures, removing items that make this house a home, the items that are all pieces of my family's story, that tell the tale of the lives that were lived here, of the people who were loved, of milestones reached and accomplishments achieved, of moments shared and of memories made.......so that another family can move into this house that my PawPaw built "from the ground up" as I always hear my mama say, brick by brick.  They won't know how the original family of five lived in a two-bedroom house until my mama was in her teens, how they worked and worked and worked at their restaurant and store and gas station, and worked in other ways as well, to save......until they could build this house.  They won't know that in these rooms, I can still feel the assurance of the unconditional and desperately needed steadfast love that I found here, strong and steady when the world outside was not.  It won't mean as much to them as it does to me......I didn't even realize how much it meant to me until now.  I never knew you could be so attached to a house, but with each step of letting it go, along with saying goodbye to someone who was so precious to me,  it feels like I'm losing a big part of myself, too.

One of Granny's sitters came by and brought a friend with her and they walked through each room, looking around, and I overheard them talking about the furniture, overheard the friend telling my mom that she was interested in some items....what good shape everything is in and what nice things she had.  Much of it is already spoken for.....many items will be going into a house we are currently building and as I listened and inwardly raised my eyebrows, I'm pretty sure I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and the thought went through my head before I could stop it, "too bad, so sad".  Eloquent and mature, I know.......the thought of others rummaging through the items that made up my Granny's life and the reality of it happening is a hard one and I think I can sympathize well with people who are hoarders right now.

This day tore me up inside and I literally trembled as I struggled to keep it all in,  keep it under control.  The only way I could keep the tears and emotions at bay and keep my composure as the realtor and my mom talked to me here and there, asking me questions, asking my thoughts and input.....was to channel it all and write my way through it.  I sat and typed as it all went on around me, smiling and talking when needed, while everyone thought I was working on something.....never having a clue that behind my calm and quiet demeanor, a torrent of emotions was threatening to erupt.  I thought about how weird I am, having to write to keep those emotions under control, to keep from crying.  The same compulsion to write through my Granny's death and funeral pull at me now.  I told myself I was being stupid and that people have to do this all the time, that I should just get over it and it shouldn't be this hard, shouldn't be making me feel this way.  And I heard the voice of a friend telling me more than once to stop belittling my feelings and struggles.  That it doesn't matter what other people think or have gone through or are going through, that my pain is my pain and that I'm entitled to it and have to let myself deal with it in the ways that I need to.  To stop being so hard on myself.

The only person whom I think could possibly understand what I'm feeling and why lives very far away, our family estranged by hurt and bitterness and unforgiveness.  Relationships broken and severed.......but she would know and she would understand.  I wouldn't have to try to explain anything to her.....I know she would know because this place in the middle of nowhere meant as much to her as it means to me.....she shared that with me recently, wrote nearly the same words to me that I have thought and spoken to a few when trying to shed light on this part of what I'm going through.  I stared at her words in disbelief that, so completely different than me, she was feeling the same feelings and I found it somewhat of a comfort.....to know that maybe I'm justified in the depths of my hurting.  Because I always have a need to justify it in order to allow myself not to feel guily for feeling it.

Two girls, six years apart in birth and light years apart in personality.  Two girls who lived through the same childhood, survived the same dysfunctional family, different in how it affected us, different in how we reacted and responded, different in how our hearts were broken, in the wounds and scars left on our souls.....but forever bonded by blood and the hurt that both share whether different in nature or not.

On this chilly January night in Middle Georgia, as I write to try to settle the onslaught of thoughts that won't quiet down because it seems to help....it does help, enough so that I'm doing it regardless of what people think,  I wonder if it's possible to feel more alone than I do right now and I wonder how many tears a person can cry before they just run out.  Pulling my Granny's blanket up a little higher, I am beyond thankful for the Bible studies done,  for the scriptures and songs that flood my mind in response to each thought and feeling that pierces my heart.....telling me, once again, that even though it feels as if I'm alone....I'm not.

(You can disable/mute the auto music player at the bottom of the page so as not to interfere with the video)

Worn, Weary....and in Need of Rest

I'm so very tired, and yet I'm awake. I sleepwalk through most days, sure that I'll collapse into bed each night and sleep blissful sleep......like, the whole night long.

I can't remember the last time I actually did that. Why do the thoughts & memories & hurts that I keep giving to the Lord continue to come back to haunt me? This is the question I'm asking of Him tonight as I lay awake, tossing this way and that, trying to push the thoughts from my mind until I can't take it anymore.....and I find myself here. I had let this go.....had let my domain renewal lapse, determining to let this part of me that can put the things I'm thinking and feeling into written words when I can't find the adequate words to speak....go. I had determined I was done here. No words left. Or maybe, in the middle of the night when I can't sleep yet again, there are some left after all.

I've asked the same question so many times over the past year....."Why do the thoughts & memories & hurts that I keep giving to You continue to come back to haunt me?"  I ask again and again, I give it all to Him again and again.....and find it right back in my lap before I know what has hit me or what I have done to put it back there. I just want to REST.  Sweet, peaceful, contented......Rest. I pray for Rest for my body.....and soul, the kind of rest that I haven't had in what seems like such a very long time. I beg for it desperately and can't seem to find it, and wonder, wonder, wonder....what I'm doing wrong.

I honestly don't know.

I know that I'm tired.  Worn out.  And I'm tired of being tired and word out. There's a big part of me that's broken.  And I desperately need Him to fix it.  Desperate enough to post this post, or maybe just so tired in the middle of the night that I'm delirious & I've lost good judgement and common sense.  Desperate enough to be blatantly transparent and to ask for prayer.   I'll probably regret it in the morning. ;)

I'm leaving tomorrow (or actually, today)  to take a weekend trip that I'm dreading so completely. I don't want to go. I have to be strong and do the right thing and I have to go, but I feel so weary. Never in my life have I felt such weariness and after an emotional week, I'm afraid I can't handle it.  I'm afraid I can't be strong enough and hold back the tears and emotions for those I want to be strong for.

I know His peace and the Rest I pray for will come in His perfect timing.

Please, Lord, let it be soon.  I'm ready.

(You can disable/mute the auto music player at the bottom of the page so as not to interfere with the video.)
 

I Need You Now

I haven't been able to write for months. I come here, I browse blogs, I browse my own and contemplate writing something. I click on "new post" and stare at a blank page, then log off. I grab a pen and notebook and stare at another blank page, praying that the words would come, that I could somehow express what's going on within,  then close it and put it back on the shelf.

People want me to talk about things that I can't talk about, or don't want to talk about, things that it hurts to talk about, and they don't understand that I wish I could find the words, but I can't get them out past the lump in m throat, past the pain in my chest, past the aching tension and tightness that extends throughout my core.  I wish I could talk, wish I could write, wish and hope and pray for some outlet for the things that even I don't understand, don't want to think about, and don't know what to do with.  I've never been in a place quite like this before.

I've always had a song to sing, but I can't find my joy.  I can't seem to find a way to connect the words to my heart the way they always just have naturally.  I force it when I have to, when I'm obligated to, but I don't want to have to force it.  What do I do when the words won't come, when I can't find my song......when I don't know what to do?

Sometimes, He'll send me one....He'll call to me in a song, when I think He's forgotten, when I think no one understands, when I feel so very alone..... and the words hit that place just where I am.  It's not even the first time I've heard it, but it's the first time I've really heard it.  I heard the story behind the song, and it caused my ears and heart to tune in.  And as tears fall and nothing has changed, and I'm still in that very same place that I was before, He says to me, softly and quietly, whispering words of comfort to a tired and confused and weary heart, "You're not the only one who's been in this place.....and you're not so alone".

And in the hours of the night spent when sleep won't come, and in the moments of both the day & night when I feel so overwhelmed & incapable & unsure of everything........like so many times before, I've got a song that becomes my prayer.

I Need You Now 

 Well, everybody's got a story to tell 

 And everybody's got a wound to be healed 

 I want to believe there's beauty here 

 So, I get so tired of holding on 

 I can't let go, I can't move on 

 I want to believe there's meaning here 

 Chorus: 

 How many times have you heard me cry out 

 "God please take this"? 

 How many times have you given me strength to 

 Just keep breathing? 

 Oh I need you 

 God, I need you now 

 Standing on a road I didn't plan 

 Wondering how I got to where I am 

 I'm trying to hear that still small voice 

 I'm trying to hear above the noise 

 Chorus:

 How many times have you heard me cry out 

 "God please take this"? 

 How many times have you given me strength to 

 Just keep breathing? 

 Oh I need you 

God, I need you now 

 Though I walk, though I walk through the shadows 

 And I, I am so afraid 

 Please stay, please stay right beside me 

 With every single step I take 

 How many times have you heard me cry out? 

 And how many times have you given me strength? 

Chorus:

 How many times have you heard me cry out 

 "God please take this"? 

 How many times have you given me strength to 

 Just keep breathing? 

 Oh I need you 

God, I need you now

 I need you now 

 I need you now