What is REAL? I mean really? When it comes to quantum mechanics, nothing is real. Everything is in motion, continually transforming from one point to another with multiplicities of possibilities in between Point A to Point B. By the time energy in motion comes to exist as Point B, it has already transformed to another possibility being thought of during the transition from A to B.
So is there ever Really a Point B since the initial vision of Point B transforms with each step taken on the journey towards Point B. It would seem more Real to say we are always journeying from Point A to Point X… the Unknown.
In the world of computing, the asterisk is known as a wild card symbol to allow Unknown objects to be revealed. When I look at the asterisk (*), I can’t help but notice it’s an X overlaying an I. Perhaps we are symbolic of the “I” and “X” is the wild card spaces that exists and can only be revealed when we allow the unseen to be seen, the unfelt to be felt, and the unthought of to become thought.
What is it to be REAL? Authentic? Transparent? Is that an imagined state of being? Wide Open… Clear… See through like cellophane… Is that possible?
Who dares to be vulnerably raw and real? I mean who really likes digging in to SEE things about yourself that you don’t want to see, much less allow other to see. Why would we want to see them in others? Restriction. That’s why.
To withhold or deny the parts of us that we may call bad or ugly is to restrict the true, expansive freedom of expression of who we are when we are feeling and being our BEST. Expansion feels SO much better than restriction. Haven’t we had enough restrictions over the past several years?
So am I ever being fake? Or am I simply delayed when I’m not being authentic or living up to the potential dreams of possibilities I carry in my mental suitcase? Is it not clarity of sight when a moment arrives that we feel uncomfortable inside ourselves? There in That moment our consciousness is providing a compass of realization that a future Reality is something we desire more than our current one. Awareness allows the doors of other possibilities to be Possible.
I believe it is possible to live in an authentically real world if we give up resisting and restricting and allow ourselves and others to be real and transparent around us. Otherwise, we are only delaying and keeping authentic reality trapped by our inability to acknowledge it. Nor should we limit it from coming to fruition because we don’t necessarily like what we see from a small glimpse of a thought because we don’t yet understand the full picture. How could we? We haven’t allowed ourselves to experience it, perhaps because we are stuck in fear based awful-izing.
So what is transparency really? Is it the idea of a flawlessly clear human? What human is flawless? NONE. Every single one of us has flaws. It is part of the Human Condition. So is discovering our Awesomeness!!!
Have you not discovered something about yourself that you didn’t realize was within you at one point in your life? The way to Awesome is through the Awful. It isn’t always as awful as it seems to get there. In fact it can sometimes be Awe-Fully Wonderful!!!
Imagination is SO important! Yet even our imaginations can pale in comparison to what IS Possible in Reality. We just haven’t experienced it yet. It’s still behind the curtain as the unknown Point X or the wild card * space. What exists in the wild card space of consciousness that has yet to be experienced? I imagine it’s Awesomely WILD and WONDERFUL!!!
Are you looking out? Or are you looking in? The Wizard is within You. Our brains think the visionary thoughts. The heart moves energy of desire within towards the vision. Ultimately, it comes down to courage to push through fear and take action towards arriving at the next Point X.
Most of us look at Dandelions and think of them as weeds not worthy of fertilizing. Yet the Dandelion starts out a stunning shade of yellow like that of the Sunflower. Children are drawn to its bright, beautiful color and believe it to be a delightful flower worthy of picking. To a child, the Dandelion is a perfect masterpiece as it is. They are ignorant to the fact it is just a weed.
What is the fate of a Dandelion that no child reaches toward? The once beautiful structure turns grey and is blown by the wind never to be seen again. The Dandelions are much like the lost souls who are suffering in our world without a relationship with God. They are born as a masterpiece of beauty. They begin as precious, innocent babies. Any adult child of God would be drawn to love them, ignorant to the fact the child may be headed for a life of pain, powerlessness, nowhere, nothingness….
What is the fate of the lost souls that no one chooses to reach out to in our world? Feeling unloved, they may be blown by the winds, growing old and grey without knowing a way home to The Father.
The Phlox
The Phlox has a tiny stem. By itself it doesn’t look like a flower of magnificence. Its petals are few and its center is tiny. Do not be deceived by the power of this precious, little flower. This flower can be planted among the rocks and the worst of soil and still flourish and spread. Perhaps it is their tiny roots working together in community to seek their way down to find water in the soil together is what gives them nourishment to multiply the way they do.
If you’ve ever seen a bed of Phlox, you know it can hardly contain itself. No boundary can withhold this flower from spreading its beauty. Each person who has found God is just like one of the Phlox. It is hard to comprehend that one little person in God’s flock can do so much for the rest of the flock, but it is harder to be filled with the Spirit of God when you’re walking the journey alone. By bonding together and gaining nourishment and strength from each other and our source, our cups overflow onto those around us and inevitably we extend our boundaries. Like the Phlox, most who have found God can hardly contain ourselves and we just want to spread God’s Love for the sake of everyone around us.
The Sunflower
The Sunflower has a stem so thick it looks more like a stalk. It is full of the strength needed to uphold its massive flower. The Sunflower does not need anything to lean on like other tall flowers. No fence or trellis is required. The only thing the Sunflower seems to yearn for is the Sun. It looks to the source of its strength every moment of every day, its face obediently turning and following the Sun as it arcs across the sky from East to West, never wavering.
Can you picture how hard it must be for that stalk to bend and follow its source of strength and yet still fulfill its duty to support that enormous flower? When I think of a Sunflower, it reminds me of Jesus. Like the Sunflower, he was so full of the strength needed to uphold his massive mission. He leaned on no one. He always turned to his source, The Father, as his supply of strength. He never wavered.
Is there another flower that has a center like the Sunflower? Its heart is so huge and so full of seeds to be spread on the earth. Likewise, I can think of no other man whose heart was as large as Jesus’. Whether you believe in him or not, you have to admire how big of a heart he had. My heart aches and wants to break over the thought of just one of those that I love not making it to heaven. This man’s heart was so huge his heart ached at the thought of any soul not making it heaven.
He must have been full of sadness for each and every one of us to wish to endure what he did and die for every last one of us. Perhaps he didn’t just go into solitary places to pray but to cry his heart out seeing how far so many were from home. I believe he is watching our world and still crying…….
While he spread so many, many seeds upon the earth to bring souls home to The Father, there are still so many Dandelions in our world who need the Phlox of Gods children to love them.
Faith Without Works
What would happen to the Phlox if each one became comfortable? What if they thought they were safe just by being part of the massive bed? What if they let the others do all the work of extending their boundaries? What if they stopped drawing from their source of nourishment believing they would be nourished by the work of others? Their mass would dwindle and become sparse. Their brilliance would fade since the Phlox are most admirable for their beauty in numbers.
What would our world look like if each one of us who believe in God became comfortable? What if we believed we were safe just being part of the masses but never trying to practice what the mass teaches? What if each of us believed there were others to do the work of extending the boundaries of God’s love and left that work all up to them? How would we treat others if we stopped drawing from the source of our own love from the Father?
You see, that Son flower must still be crying because there are still so many Dandelions out there … lonely, suffering or feeling unworthy, not knowing the love of The Father. They have no one who cares to reach out and fertilize them with love as any young child would do for the Dandelion.
How many in the flock of sheep are too comfortable in our self absorbed world? We must become like little children who run to the Dandelions and proudly say “Look, Daddy, a flower!”. We must run to the Dandelions of our world and with a great sense of joy and pride say to our Heavenly Father, “Look at the precious lost soul I have found and have loved!”
A Prayer for You
To the Phlox: The next time you see a Dandelion, may you be reminded of this parable. May you pray for a soul you know is suffering or feeling unloved to come into the flock of God’s sheep. May you be reminded of your innocence when you were a child and ran to the Dandelions. May you feel deep in your soul you are helping this person, pride within your heart for doing so, and God’s love shining upon you in gladness. Whether that Dandelion is young, bright and yellow one or an old and grey one… please pray, for even children find something worthy in the old and grey ones. In fact, if that Dandelion is an old and grey one, may you take a risk and feel like a child again, pick it, and make a wish upon it for a lost Dandelion of this world.
To the Dandelions: May you know that you are loved by God even if no one extends love to you in this world. May you know that you are beautiful just as you are. May God introduce you to one in his flock who can help lead you into the knowledge of the fullness of God’s love. May you enter the journey of becoming one of those in the flock who can help other Dandelions, for you can identify with the lost souls more then anyone else. You are the least threatening to them and can do the most to reach them since you’ve been one yourself.
To Those Striving to be Sunflowers: May you never give up in your determination. May God give you the strength to endure the rest of your journey and the answers you need in order to get there. May you pray earnestly for the Dandelions of this world. May you feel the sadness that comes with knowing they need your prayers but still not lose sight of the joy. May you pray for those in the Phlox of our world to yearn to be Sunflowers, for just imagine what the world would look like if everyone in the flock of God’s children strove to be as obedient to their source as the Sunflowers. It would be Heavenly!
So here I am beginning to blog. I’ve only been talking about it for a month now but resisting. What was the big hold back? Well… DOUBT. Every time I began contemplating what to write, my thoughts would turn to all kind of questions… the defeating kind of questions… the kind of questions that tell me I’m worthless… the kind of questions that stop me in my tracks from being a useful source to humanity. But the real waste isn’t in sharing worthless material… it’s in not sharing at all. So here I am… writing about the questions.
Questions like…
“Who would really want to read your blog? I mean what makes you so special?”
“What makes you think you have anything worthwhile to say… to read… and do you really think anyone is going to get any REAL benefit out of it? REALLY???? Who are you kidding?”
“Aren’t you being a little high and mighty and grandiose by calling your blog ‘The Calling’?”
“Do you really have a calling? If so, why aren’t you out there ministering to the world instead of spending all your free time on Facebook when you’re not working, doing domestication stuff, mothering 2 kids and hosting a plethora of neighborhood kids?”
I mean look at you Deb… you’ve got THREE kids and one of them isn’t even speaking to you right now. Yeah okay… people love you… people want to hear what you have to say… you touch people alright. Look at all of the people who’ve been fleeing your life because of YOU!!
Ministry should start at home before trying to help heal the world! And look at all the brokenness in the relationships around you that YOU caused because of YOUR decision to divorce your husband!! Look at your damn life for God’s sakes!!! What the fuck are you thinking??? Get a freaking grip!!!
Okay… I’ve said it! I’ve exposed all my fears. I’ve let the cats out of the bag. They can really claw at me now! But maybe… just maybe… the cats needed to be released. Not so I can be wounded by judgment or failure….so I can make space… so the cats can run wild… away from here.
The truth is… there really aren’t any cats… and there is no bag. It’s all in your mind and you don’t really believe what your mind is projecting anyway. Deep down… you believe in YOU… the gentle, loving, strong, giant Light that you ARE… king of the jungle… Leo the Lioness. So let yourself ROAR girl!! Share what you’ve got to say even if you’ve got no clue where you’re going with it. JUST WRITE!!!
Alrighty then! Let’s look at those questions again now that the imaginary cats are gone. Let’s look at them with the eyesight of the Lioness.
“Who would really want to read your blog? I mean what makes you so special?”
Well… LOTS of people! Just look at all the people who read and intimately respond and react to your Facebook stuff. Look at all the people who seem to truly care about Deb and Deb’s world and what Deb has to say. You ARE special because you FEEL special by all of the wonderful people you label as ‘special’ that you interact with. You say it ALL the time… “water seeks its own level”! Believe it!!
I’ll be honest… sometimes I ask myself why people care to interact with me? I am continually in awe over the people… total strangers… who find me on Facebook and make very real soul-felt connections with me. I am amazed at the time people take out of their day to read through what can sometimes be very lengthy threads on my wall or very LONG comments I make on their posts. I know they do because of what they add to the conversation. They WANT to participate and I can clearly see they have a desire to share their own personal experiences, wisdom and words of encouragement with me… not to mention other viewers who may benefit. So yeah! I’ve got an audience and I KNOW it!
“What makes you think you have anything worthwhile to say… to read… and do you really think anyone is going to get any REAL benefit out of it?
Well… let’s look at the evidence. There are numerous people who’ve told you the impact you’ve have had on them by what you’ve shared on Facebook. How many times have you taken a leap of faith and posted things you were hesitant to put out and people have appreciated your honesty or told you it was EXACTLY what they needed to hear? Or how about all the silent observers you thought were laughing at you for putting your personal stuff out there and sharing your candid openness with respect to God and spirituality?
Yes indeed… there have been many of them who have sent private messages to tell you how much you inspire them and given them courage to make some very REAL changes in their lives. Yes Deb, YOU’VE GOT IT!! You’ve got stuff to say!!! Not only that, but the stuff you have to say is THE most valuable stuff a person can talk about… soul stuff! You believe this with all your heart so DON’T doubt the worthiness of what you’ve got to say for a second, because this is the stuff that makes living your life worthwhile. You believe in it!!!
“Aren’t you being a little high and mighty and grandiose by calling your blog page ‘The Calling’?”
Well… NO! One thousand percent NO!!!! Of all the questions you could ask yourself, this one is filled with the most bullshit and you KNOW it! You know it because the answer came so quickly and you felt your energy shifting towards conviction. You can see it in the point blank “NO”, nothing further needs to be said.
Why do I know I have a calling? Well… because I’ve had it for a really, really long time; because I’ve answered it on various occasions in a variety of ways and witnessed the results; because it pulls on my soul continuously in a way that I cannot ignore; because I always seem to be in a waiting state for the next Call; because I’ve experienced the magical mystery of an open line of communication with and without words between myself and others through the speaker of all speakers… GOD.
I’ll never forget when I first knew I was called to be a voice for God in the world. It was at a group gathering held weekly in a private home. Initially, I had been the seeker in that group. I had so many questions and rarely received answers. One member, Kevin Dixon, recognized the strong desire for truth in me and introduced me to another type of group where I engaged in the most soul-searching process of my life. I found the answers… they were within me the whole time. Simultaneously I became engaged to the greatest love of my life… my God.
Well, one Sunday night the topic of the meeting was about the God of our understanding and there were many in the room that had little to no understanding. As each person took turns going around the room, I listened and my heart was breaking… they didn’t know. They were pondering, they were inquiring, they were ridiculing, they were angry at him, but not one of them KNEW God. I could feel an energy building inside of me. It felt like a fear-based energy because there was a heat… a build-up… a rushing feeling inside of me… like a flame turning into a powerful fire very quickly… the fire of God.
When it came time for my turn to speak, I opened my mouth and the words just flowed effortlessly. Gone was the intensity of the fire and it was replaced with a peace. The words that came from my mouth were gentle, yet strong; simple but conveyed deep wisdom; promoting but yet attracting every single person in the room.
I still don’t even remember what I said, but I will never forget the experience of it. There was a spellbound atmosphere in the room. It was as if time stopped and everyone’s souls were wide open and deeply hungry and there was me… I was not the food… but I was the delivery girl. I could literally feel the transference of something going on while I was speaking, as if there was an invisible umbilical cord between me and all of them.
When I was done speaking, the room was speechless and there was a sense of awe in everyone’s eyes that asked “What just happened? What did I just witness? What did I just experience? Give me more!!” I could feel it in all of them. I would hear from each of them individually in the days following telling me how powerful it was.
There was one guy, Wayne, who never looked at me quite the same after that day. He actually made me feel uncomfortable at times the way he would look at me as if I was different. He would openly refer to me with other people as a very deeply spiritual person. I didn’t feel like I deserved this kind of reference because I felt I had only just begun my walk on the spiritual path. Not only that, the power was not from me. I was the messenger but the message was not mine. It was from God.
Because of this experience I knew exactly what the bible was referring to when years later I read it and discovered the passages that said” Jesus spoke as one who had authority” (even though he was not in the authoritative role of a Pharisee), and what Jesus meant when he himself said “These words are not mine, they are from my father”.
To this day, I still get those warning signs that God wants to use me and I am supposed to speak and someone always comes up to me afterwards and confirms I heeded the Call. So why am I not content to just continue to do what I do with speaking? Well… because God isn’t content with that. He’s been calling me into new directions for some time now. I don’t know the “what’s” or the “where’s” but I’ve felt the tremendous pull and I’ve remained open to the details falling into place. I don’t think writing is the only direction he is calling me to either.
Why a blog? Well… a number of people have told me I write beautifully and say I have an ability to share things beyond the copy/paste quotes that I put out daily. It was mentioned to me a while back by my friend Marie that I should start my own website or blog. I tucked it away and felt like it was a good possibility but didn’t feel it was the right time with everything I had going on in my life.
Recently I’ve been developing a new friendship with my co-worker Cindy who is a writer. I shared a few of my writings with her and she spoke to me as “one who has authority” and told me very strongly to “JUST WRITE!!!” It was a different type of authority if you know what I mean (haha). Through my resistance the past month, she keeps encouraging me in a very adamant way. Something tells me she won’t give up until I do it, so here I am. If anyone is helped by my blog, they can thank Cindy, the force who pushed me and helped me set it up. She may not realize it, but she is a messenger herself… because God used her to push me for His purposes.
“Do you really have a calling? If so, why aren’t you out there ministering to the world? And what about your current messed up life situation?”
Well… I believe I have given much to those who appear to be broken or who have vacated my life. I trust that God, in his infinite wisdom and bearer of blessings, is going to be the power that transforms their lives and I am very clear that it’s NOT going to be through me. If I have any part in it at all, it’s only that I allowed the opportunity for God to make such transformations by heeding the very real, very strong Call on my own life for a re-direction.
So what do I hope to accomplish with this blog page? To do exactly what I do on Facebook but on a more extensive level of writing…. to be me… to share me… to share what God would have me share of my doubts, my fears, my strength, my wisdom, my faith, my experience, my hopes and my dreams for myself and the world.
It has always been clear to me I am not supposed to be a religious leader, in part because there isn’t any one religion whose dogma I believe in whole-heartedly and in part because I don’t like the spotlight. I prefer to remain a humble behind-the-scenes kind of servant of God… quietly touching as many lives as I can and bringing healing in a way that allows people to touch and heal a deeper part of themselves and remove what blocks them from knowing true joy, true peace, true happiness, and true love… for that is what God IS.
(Written in 2011… my initial calling… which I heard but put on pause in 2012 due to a detour to love and release a devil disguised as an angel delivered to me through Facebook. It took years for me to recover. Break time is over!!! Time to play catch up!!! ~8/2/2020)
Our household was like a war zone last night. My kids were treating each other absolutely atrociously. They were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and calling each other vile names. It was so upsetting. In an attempt to regain order and peace in the house, I stepped in. Much to my regret, I added only more anger to an already chaotic situation.
When all was said and done, I grounded them and told them if they could not communicate with each other properly, they could not communicate with others. I removed all cell phones, laptops, xbox live, ipods, etc. they use to text and talk with the outside world. Of course, this was not received well at all. All kinds of remarks were hurled at me… making me feel like as a parent… I have completely lost control (as if we ever really have any right?).
As I went to bed, I pondered the whole situation realizing that some of those remarks hurled at me were in fact true. How could I expect my children to treat each other with love when they’ve witnessed very little of that between their own parents lately? How could I expect them not to lose their temper and display anger towards each other when I was capable of doing the very same thing in my attempt to regain order?
Then other questions came to my mind…
How could I expect them to improve their communication by taking away all their means of communication?
Am I asking too much of an 11 and 12 year old to have a healthier relationship when they are siblings and probably need to be able to vent their anger somewhere?
How healthy is it really to ask your kids not to display such anger for each other if that is truly what they are feeling?
How unhealthy is it for them to repress these emotions for fear of losing their stuff or to fake happiness with each other in order to earn it back?
Don’t we already have enough problems in this household with people being unable to express their feelings and those feelings not being heard?
How effective am I really being here by diminishing such opportunities because the feelings are simply ugly?
And finally… God, how do I make this better… what can I do differently?
After my meditation this morning, an idea came to me which I’m hoping was a gift from God… an answer to prayer. I decided that in order for my kids to earn their stuff back, I was going to have them do an exercise. I wanted it to be a journaling exercise that would allow them to get in touch with their feelings and to really feel them and express them… to discover what was behind their anger…. to challenge them to look at themselves… and to put an intention in black in white about how they could do things differently.
So I asked them to each get a notebook and a pen. While they were doing that, I asked God to PLEASE direct me on the questions I should ask them. I then asked them these questions one by one…
What are all the things that bother you about the other person?
Why do these things bother you?
How does it make you feel that the other person does this?
How does it make you feel when you express your anger towards them in return?
What good things do you see in the other person? (they both said nothing and refused to write)
So I asked… what would you miss if the other one was gone?
What can you do differently to express your anger in a healthier way?
How are you going to treat each other better in the future?
When we were done, I asked them to exchange notebooks and read what the other one wrote. Neither could decipher each other’s writing so I volunteered to read their answers to each other one question at a time (another blessing by God I think).
Well let me tell you… it was an experience for all three of us!!! While both children had done the writing with total attitudes, a hesitation to be open to the other in any way, and a conviction they were still in a place of justified anger for the other… it all began to melt as I read their answers and added my own insight to what I was reading on the paper… to what I saw they were really both saying… since they are much too young to understand that behind their anger is pain and hurt.
It was just so sad to read it and I tried to keep myself composed emotionally as I read and conveyed what I saw. Rebecca was angry with Frankie because he stares at her and he is loud playing his video games and will never let her play with him. Frankie was angry with Rebecca because she makes fun of him when he looks at her and she threatens to humiliate him and tell people about his Tourette’s if she doesn’t get her way.
So I explained first to Frankie that what I see is that Rebecca cares about you and just wants to spend time with you and alligator tears began to form in his eyes. Then I explained to Rebecca that Frankie cares about you and wants to look at you and Frankie’s began to cry harder. Then I said… what I see is they both have a desire for connection with each other and love each other and Rebecca began to cry. All of this was too much for me and broke my heart as I realized that I am living in a household full of people who just want love and connection to others and cannot seem to have it with each other and it broke my heart and I began crying too.
After I was done explaining the rest of their answers, I told them they had one final exercise to complete in order to get their stuff back…. that they had to do the 30-second hug therapy which we had all seen posted on Facebook. It was a video of two young kids whose father had made them hug for 30 seconds as therapy, which seemed like an eternity to me watching it, and was so touching.
I had asked my kids to do this the last time they had a brawl and they flatly refused but this time, it was a condition of getting their stuff back so they were willing. I told them I would only do 10 seconds (my thought was eventually to work up to 30 seconds if we needed to do this again). As the seconds clicked away, I couldn’t get enough of seeing them hugging. Since they couldn’t see the timer and are too young to be really aware of time, I let the timer go… and go… and they got their 30 second hug therapy without even knowing it.
So long and short, my kids have their stuff back. I have no idea if any of what I did will change their behavior. But for me… the miracles that happened were that both my kids were crying… in touch with their feelings… expressing them not repressing them… and the feelings were sadness not anger… a longing for love and connection… not hatred… and they each got the opportunity to be heard, even if it was through the voice of their mother…. and finally… watching them have a piece of that loving connection in that 30 second hug.
May God please guide, bless and direct my family every day… as he did today.
(Written during my daughter’s Rebecca’s recovery period from spinal fusion surgery.)
I have been reflecting on a situation that was killing me to witness a little while ago. I now realize it was a beautiful, intimate exchange of love between my son & my daughter.
Rebecca was bawling in pain from doing a little too much today and nothing I did to reposition her seemed to help. Frankie was watching the whole scene of her crying and me struggling to help her to no avail. His face was becoming bright red as the stress of the situation was escalating. It was too much for him and his Tourette’s tics just started to flow from his face.
After a little while Rebecca finally regained her composure and she says to me “Frankie has a new tic mom” and then goes on to describe what she saw. She asked me to explain to her why he can’t control it and what it is inside his body that makes him do that. I tried to give my best explanation in a way that a child would understand and explained to her that he can try to control it but then eventually he has to let it all out.
Then she directed all her questioning towards him and the two of them started this open dialogue with her asking questions and him answering, although he couldn’t really tell her how he is able to control it. Then Rebecca says that Nicole, (big sis who also has Tourette’s), was doing her tics when she was sitting on her bed in the hospital and it was hurting her back when the bed was shaking but she didn’t want to say anything.
Being the mother, the whole thing was heart wrenching for me. To know that one of my children was laying there in pain, my other child suffers with trying to control an energy in his body that says “let me out, let me tic”, and remembering how much it broke my heart when Nicole would come home from school and release all the tics she had suppressed so kids wouldn’t make fun of her and that she still struggles with it today when she gets stressed. It was just too much for me to handle. I wanted to puke from all the suffering.
But what I realized afterwards was…
That it was the first time Frankie has ever seemed really comfortable talking openly about his condition and I see that as a blessing and a freedom for a kid who has no freedom of choice in what his body does.
That Frankie’s tics came out tonight because he cares about his sister. The tics overflowing translates to the level of his love for her.
That Nicole’s love was also overflowing as she sat on that hospital bed shaking away with concern for her sister.
That Rebecca could have been solely focused on her own agonizing condition tonight but she was tuned into her brother’s condition because she cares about him.
That she sacrificed her own comfort so as not to make her sister uncomfortable when she was shaking her bed.
That I have 3 kids who love and care very deeply about each other.
That we are one blessed family in spite of our difficulties.
There is something to be said for the ground of stability, even it is unhealthy soil. There is just some sense of security in “the known”. But that’s about where the something ends. There is absolutely no real security in anything that is slowly killing you inside. At some point, you’ve got to face reality that in order to really live the way you’re meant to live, you’ve got to make a change.
Change is a scary thing, even when you know you want it, even when everything inside is calling you to make it. On some level you know it’s going to shake up some dirt and there goes your sense of stability, your false sense of security. Something inside you just doesn’t easily allow you to comfortably and peacefully make the change. Perhaps its procrastination, perhaps it’s the fear of “the unknown” or perhaps it’s your intuition telling you now is not the right time.
All the agony you’re trying to avoid by making a change… the fear… the potentiality of regret… the affects to other people… those aren’t the real things that keep you in agony. All the thoughts of “what ifs” and all the self-sacrificing in the world to insure the ground of stability is not compromised for others isn’t what keeps you in the state of discontentment. No. The agony… the lack of peace… the state of continual turmoil… is nothing other than you NOT answering the call placed upon your heart to make a change.
Sometimes you know it long before you get up the courage, but you don’t really want to know it. You ignore it and deny it as much as you can. You question yourself continually. You engage in long, windy discussions about it, but you do nothing. Even still, because you’ve recognized it on some level, you find no sense of peace in doing nothing at all. You just agonize internally.
The truth is… you know it; you’re just not prepared to know it. You feel it; you just don’t want to experience all the feelings you may have to face in making a change. You wait… hoping for the precise moment when it’s going to be simple, easy, and you’ll feel the least amount uncomfortable, but that day may never come.
There aren’t too many changes that are as easy or simple as changing your underwear. There are very few changes that feel as good as putting on fresh, warm clothes from the dryer on a cold day. The time you take in between the recognition that you need to make a change and when you actually make it, is really nothing other than you… trying to control it.
The reality is… what feels the most uncomfortable is existing in your own skin when everything inside you is telling you that you MUST make a change and you don’t listen to that call. At some point, it just becomes unbearable NOT to make the change. Like a plant that’s outgrown its container, you feel constricted. You know in your heart that you’ve exceeded the limitations of what you will accept for the conditions of your life. No amount of watering or fertilizing seems to help.
The longer you wrestle, ponder, agonize and sit in that uncomfortable space waiting for the right moment, the more you start to die inside. The root of your life… who you’re meant to be, how you’re meant to live, of WHO YOU ARE starts to corrode. You wither and people see it in you.
Just before you’re ready to completely keel over and die, you experience the moment… the shift. You let go of control and you surrender.
Suddenly, all the pros and cons of making the change disappear. It’s all pro and grow through the change or else let the shred of life that’s left of you go away completely. The peace you’ve longed for is suddenly there even though you may be in for one of the biggest transplants of your life. You consider the fact that you may lose a few of your precious roots in the process, but there is no fear because everything inside you seeks to preserve that one major root…your own life… the only one you’ve been given.
You then know… you then feel… you then experience the empowering conviction that now is the time. You look back at all the agonizing and all the waiting for the right moment and you realize that there never even would have even been a struggle to begin with if the change wasn’t needed. We just don’t struggle when we are content with “what is”.
So if you’re struggling with making a change, you can ask yourself all the questions, you can talk-talk-talk, you can sit in the fear of shifting into the unknown, you can wait all you want to, you can attempt to control the change as much as you wish, but hopefully one day you will surrender as I have.
Don’t worry… if you don’t like the outcome, you can surrender again.
The Calling 