Sling Shot Training

I am still struggling with my inner dialog and trying to quiet it all down. Shhhh! I know part of it is being human, a woman, whatever, but sometimes I just want to say....STOP YELLING AT ME! I had this revelation this morning about how the enemy works with me. I am constantly worried about doing what is "right" and making sure everyone else agrees that I am doing the "right" thing, I always need this validated. This is where he gets me. I get caught up between decisions I have made, some God has asked of me, others I know are right or godly, but this little voice constantly nagging in my head says "is that really godly? is that really how you should act? is that really what God said?" Kinda sounds familiar as a voice described in Genesis? Shut UP!

My fear of man and people not "being mad at me" really gets in the way of my boldness or even believing actual truth or living in peace. Trying to juggle everyone's happiness in order to soothe that part of my broken soul is both tiring and impossible. I have to learn to let this go, its clearly an on-going process.

I have been fighting with myself about writing as well, do I write here, do I write on Eisy Morgan, do I write about my whole process and the whole story, do I write about what moved me today and what I am learning now. Too many questions and wanting to do things in order. It reminds me of how I am with tv shows. If I haven't watched a show from the beginning I won't watch it, I have to watch it in order, I have to know what happened and why its happening. I suppose I think this is how my blogging should be too, but I don't know why I make these rules up for myself. Donald Miller put up a quote the other day saying something about don't write what needs to be written but write where the writing is taking you. Or something like that. I kinda took it as freedom, like, don't THINK so much about it and just start writing. I clearly THINK way too much, anyone else?

Anyways, as I work through these things I am still trying to listen, trust, pay attention to God and what He is teaching me, showing me, etc. Being broken does require some constant wound attendance that I can't just let slide. I must say that this last week I was really proud of myself. I kept my apartment clean all week and cooked almost every night of the week, and got almost all of our laundry done. This is kinda huge for me. These things seem to bury me sometimes. But I felt the Lord telling me or reminding me that those who are faithful with the small things will be given more. This is what He has given me right now, even if it seems meaningless and trivial.

Today at church there was one illustration that really stood out to me. He was talking about David and the story of Goliath. I have always liked David and Joseph because they were people who God told early on who they were but they didn't become those people then, it was a long process to that day. He said we are all familiar with this story and David killing Goliath with his sling shot and don't always consider how good he was with that weapon, not by coincidence or accident, but by all the days he spent as a shepherd. He pointed out that even after Samuel anointed him as future king, he still hung out there with the sheep. Protecting them from bears and lions and so what was a giant? His whole life has been leading him and preparing him for this moment, one that didn't seem unfamiliar, hard, or over whelming. All this time he was getting really good at using that sling shot. And I thought, yes, this is what being a stay at home mom is going to and is for me. I am learning to use my sling shot, and its going to become second nature to me.

I was also listening to Beth Moore this week, (what a shocker), and she was talking about an article she had read by a great speaker about our quiet times being stale or boring and to try taking a walk with the Lord or watching a sunset and taking in his glory this way. She said, yes, this was a very nice thing to do every now and then, but not a steady diet of how to spend time with God. To not know God's word and be in it, the thing that changes us and gives us power, especially against the enemy, is vital. What are we going to say when we need a word when lies or attack are coming against us...."oh yeah, guess what? I watched a sunset today". It's so true.

 Sometimes I have fought the idea of quiet times and you must do this or that with the Lord. It all seems too stuffy and fake. But this is different. Especially because I have been so defeated and bombarded with lies that I see how much I need truth, to help me, free me, remind me of its reality and power and protect me. It's not about rules, time, do this check list, it's about freedom and power. It's about learning how to use a sling shot. I don't want to be a helpless weak girl, when I have to authority in Christ to be a powerful bold woman. The only way this will happen is for me to know Him more, know what He says about me, about others, about love, about life, and on and on and on. These are the stones I must be collecting.

Overcoming Insecurity

This spoke to me today....

My name is had...

I heard this recently on Beth Moore’s “When godly people do ungodly things” and it struck a cord and seems so true to me right now…

 

 “My name is Had. You may know me, but you may not know my new name. You may have no idea what I’ve been through because I do mu best to look the same. I am scared to death of you. I used to be just like you. I once held my head up high without propping it on my hymnal.

 I was well respected back then, and I even respected myself. I was wholeheartedly devoted to God, and if the truth be known, sometimes I was the slightest bit proud of my devotion. Then I’d repent…because I knew pride was wrong. I didn’t want to be wrong. Not ever.

 

People looked up to me. And life looked good from up there. I felt good about who I was. That was before I was Had. Strangely, I no longer remember my old name. I just remember I liked it. I liked who I was. I wish I could go back. I wish I’d just wake up. But I fear I’m wide awake. I have had a nightmare. And that nightmare was me. Had.

 

If I could really talk to you and you could really listen, I’d tell you I have no idea how all his happened. Honestly, I was just like you. I didn’t plan to be Had. One day I hadn’t, and the next day I had.

 

Oh, I know now where I went wrong. I have rewound the nightmare a thousand times, stopping it right a the point where I departed the trail of good sense. The way ahead didn’t look wrong. It just looked different. Strange, he didn’t look like the devil in the original scene. But every time I replayed it, he dropped another piece of the masquerade. When he finally took off his mask, he was laughing at me. Nothing seems funny anymore. I will never laugh again as long as he is laughing.

 

If only I could go back. I would see it this time! I would walk around the trap camouflaged by the brush, and I would not be Had. I would be Proud. I thought I was Good. Not Proud. But I don’t know anymore.

 

Would you believe I never heard the trap shut? Too many voices were shouting in my head. I just knew I got stuck somewhere unfamiliar, and soon I didn’t like the scenery anymore. I wanted to go home. My ankle didn’t even hurt at first. Not until the infection set in. Then I thought I would die.

 

I lay like a whimpering doe while the world howled in the darkness. I got scared. I pulled the brush over me and hid. Then I felt like I couldn’t breath. I had to get out of there or I was sure it would kill me. I didn’t belong there. I refused to die there.

 

I pulled and pulled at the trap, but the foothold wouldn’t budge. The blood gushed. I had no way out. I screamed for God. I told him where I was and the shape I was in. He came for me.

The infection is gone. He put something on it and cleaned it up instantly. As He inspected my shattered ankle, I kept waiting for Him to say, “You deserved this you know. You have been Had.” Because I did and I have. He hasn’t said it yet. I don’t know whether He will or not. I don’t know how much I trust Him yet. I’ve never known Him from this side. My leg still hurts. God says it will heal with time. But I fear I will always walk with a limp.

You see, I wrestled with the devil and he gave me a new name. Had.

There's a baby in there and thoughts on being a stay at home mom

Sometimes there is so much going on in my life to think about that I just don't think much about the baby. I think wanting to know the sex and therefore bond with the baby is something I am sort of anticipating.

I am sitting here feeling their little kicks to my insides and wondering what they will be like, look like, what will we name them, etc etc. Will they be like my Ashton or completely different? Outgoing, shy, good sleeper, eater, pooper? You know?

I am taking photos to document my belly growth every other week. Since I think I will have the baby at 39 weeks, it should work out ok. My self image throughout pregnancy is spotty at best, but the truth is that I will forget this time soon enough, but it's to document a precious life that is inside of me regardless of what I think about myself. So these photos are for that person, whoever they may be. I can't yet imagine the love I will have for them. If its anything like what I feel for Ashton, I can't wait:)

Here is 17 weeks

Add caption

Here is 19 weeks

Here is Ashton and I

this week (19)

Being a stay at home mom is hard. I have some friends that are excellent at it. I think that I have this idea in my head that I need money, a car, and good mental health to be a really good stay at home mom. But I think even people who have all of this, it's still hard.

I am wondering if this toddler stage is a part that is the hardest? Before there are games, or school, or all of that. Not business hard, because there isn't any of that. But psychologically hard because there is a lot of just "home time", at least for us, and for me that has equaled a lot of or TOO MUCH thinking time. Thinking about how I fall short, watching others succeed or do things I used to do or wish I could do, etc. Really a time of losing identity completely. Who am I?

Sometimes I feel like I wish I could DO something else, so that I could escape my own head. But soon enough I know Ashton will be going to school and this slow part of motherhood will be long gone.

I sometimes have to tell myself that what I am doing, chosen to do, etc....it matters. It matters to Ashton, and I am glad and grateful to be able to do that for him. That its ok that I am not a super woman who does everything. That is not me, I am a be-er and not a do-er by nature. That God gave Ashton and this next little one to Daniel and I for a reason.

Yes, for sure, I will affect the negatively in some way. But overall, who they are...they were given to me and for all my flaws, there must be something I can give them that no one else would. They are my gift. And soon, I will be crying that they are going to college and leaving me forever.

I am trying to realize this time is shorter than it feels, to give myself grace but also realize that maybe I have more time to analyze things that maybe don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.

And just pray for wisdom.

Battles & Questions

So here comes the battle already.

Yesterday I wrote about my thoughts on this time of letting God define my beauty, my self worth, etc. These thoughts have been encompassing my thoughts a lot about Facebook and other social media elements and I find myself thinking twice before I post anything and asking "why do I need to post this? What do I want from this? Am I looking for something"

I realize as I have started to think through this that this is a place that God has me in right now. That it is less a criticism of society as a whole, although maybe something to be looked at, but more about what God is showing, teaching me, etc.

This morning as I was getting ready I was listening to Beth Moore online and she was talking about the Isrealites I believe in Exodus 40 and how He told them to remove all their ornaments. This is something very physical and outward to what I am sensing God is asking of me as a whole of who I am.

She said this...
"You come clean before me. No other form of security. Nothing else that makes you feel good about yourself. NOthing you're hiding behind. You just come clean before me."

My self esteem has been rocky to say the least for a long time now. I think it really broke when I was pregnant the first time with Ashton. I had no control of my outer beauty and felt like I lost who I was physically. How little did I know at that time that I was or would lose so much more of myself than just the outer.

 I question my worth in all apsects of life, looking for others to validate me and give me meaning. I have tried to find it by wanting to be a successful blogger, a marathoner, be really involved in ministry and wanting those people to tell me I am godly and how much they see my worth and want to use me to serve, etc. etc. And its almost like in all these situations I am giving them my question.

 You know, you've heard that before, asking them my questions of "am I worth it? am I good enough? am I godly? am I desireable? am I valuable?" and I lay it at their feet in ultimate vulnerability waiting and hoping for some stroke of my ego, some validation, some meaningful and life giving answer to my questions. Sometimes I get a fraction of what I was wanting, but most of the time I get the exact opposite. Sometimes the way people respond to me has crushed me because I wear it like their response to me IS my identity.

And these are questions I feel like I am subconsciously asking through my social media use. And yes, I do think that I find myself "self hating" because watching other people's lives makes me feel like my life is "less awesome" and I take that on, or I have.

So having written about it yesterday and thinking about it, listening to what Beth was saying this morning and feeling that God was speaking it to me directly about letting Him create an inner beauty during this time. I suppose again, finding my identity in Him, bringing Him my questions. And with all this in mind I came across this Relevant article called "Stop Instagramming Your Perfect Life"and because it talks about so many things that I had been thinking I posted it on Facebook.

I immediately got, in my opinion, "negative" feedback. Certainly not the responders intentions I would presume, yet to me, it immediatley hit me. One comment in particular cut to my heart, as if it was intended to do so. I immediately saw this as an attack to so much that God is saying to me, teaching me, speaking to me. It seemed clearly obvious.

I sat there in Barnes n Noble watching Ashton playing trains and that familiar anxious feeling arose in my heart. At this exact moment I told Ashton it was time to go and he started throwing a fit. Being pregnant I can't just pick him up like I used to and I am never sure what to do in those situations. Freak out, yell, spank, who knows? Well I went with pick him up, despite my best judgement and he kicked off his flip flops. I am feeling flustered now and ask my mom to help me find his flip flops. A woman with a stroller says "its over here and almost hit my child" all snotty. Oh yes ma'am, get mad at my three year old for kicking his shoe at your kid...please, that helps! I said "well he didn't do it on purpose" and she says "well he almost hit a baby". My mom told her she needed to calm down. WHEW! All of this within 5 mintues. Usually these things litterally crush me. Call that crazy, but that is where I have been with my mind. The weight of these things began to crush me and the usual tapes began to play and that burning heart heaviness layed across my chest.

I felt like I wanted to run away and I had to process it all over the next couple hours, let it go, let God defend me and realize it all for what it was.

The great thing about this incident, was that over the next few days I find my fight starting to rise up in me again. Like I am NOT going to take this crap anymore. I am TIRED of being afraid, for GREATER IS HE who is in me, then he who is in the world.

I have also been listening to Beth's "When godly people do ungodly things" and she was talking about how we have this emptiness in us, like beggars. She was talking about Is 61 and Jesus calling to the poor and how usually we think its the physically poor but that it can also be the spiritually, mentally, heart poor. We take our beggars cup around asking our friends, family, etc. They try, they do their best, they encourage us in that moment but then....we get home and our cups are still empty. God is the only one that can truly make a difference to our cups, our meaning, freedom, etc. In yet another teaching from her she said but so applicable here is " one of the most important things we can do to be effective Christians is to let people off the hook for not being God" . So often I get annoyed, let down, hurt by people because they can't be what I need, and that is actually something that was created for only God to fill.

Stones of Rememberance...

I want to write down what is happening right now in my life as a way to remember all that God is doing. It's so easy to forget all the answered prayers and all the little things that He is doing all the way.

The Lord told the Israelites when they were crossing the Jordan in Joshua 4

"Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, ⁶ to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ⁷ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

So I suppose these posts are my points of remembrance to God's faithfulness to me during this time...

Last night I went to my parents small group which is led by one of the pastors of our church, who happens to be Northern Irish. They had been praying for me while my mom fasted for me and my mom asked if I could come and be prayed for. They said yes, of course.

At the end of the study and prayer pastor Rob pulled me aside to ask if I struggled with guilt? I do, it is or HAS BEEN all encompassing part of my life in the last years, maybe more. He asked what I feel guilty about and I said that I am pregnant and I am not excited about it, that I am going to have a baby and that I don't like the baby stage, to ask for help, for not serving enough in church, etc. etc.

He asked if the group could pray for me before they all left and told them about my guilt issue and that it seemed like I was just guilty for being alive, and that really resonated with me. He said it was a false guilt and they prayed it would be broken over me, have no more control or heaviness over me. They were all so loving and supportive and the whole thing really reminded me of my time in Northern Ireland, truth, hope, love, the Spirit at work.

I came home and told Daniel everything, and had the sweetest sleep. I am asking the Lord for increased faith and to help my unbelief about who I am in the Lord, my authority, and the power that lives and works in me. That Jesus did in fact die for my freedom and I am holy, it is my identity.

The other "revelation" of the night was about this process, about how it works.
I am not sure I have written about this yet, but I felt the idea or thought about Elizabeth (the mother of Jesus' cousin John the Baptist) kept coming to my mind one day and felt really to have significance. I couldn't really think why but my new mentor encouraged me to just ask the Lord. So I did.

I felt like He said that this was like a time of new life growing inside me spiritually as well as physically. I have also considered how long Elizabeth had waited for a child, something that she thought might never come, and the purpose was great and significant.

Then last night I was telling Daniel about all that and how I can no more wish myself done with this process than I can wish myself done with this pregnancy. Every stage has significance and meaning, but the revelation part was that I do NOTHING to grow this child inside of me. I take care of myself, vitamins, food, doctor, etc. but I have nothing to do with the growth of its nails, blood flow, hearing, nothing, it just happens. I am just the host and God does all the work. I am just here, waiting, feeling the changes before they are evident to the world around me. But then in the process along the way, people will start to see that life, they will see what has been happening for some time inside, and then one day that child emerges and for the first time we are seeing what has been growing for months and months, the life and beauty that God Himself was developing and creating.

And the other thing that I thought just now, as I write this, is that pregnancy for me is just plain...ugly. I feel ugly, I look ugly, I have acne that won't quit, I have puffiness, I have tired eyes that just don't look like myself, its just part of the process for me. I can't control it, or change it. It's not beautiful, but the end result IS. It's not forever, it doesn't have to devastate me, it's just a short time in life that has purpose even in the unattractiveness of this period. So while I find that I can't be beautiful on the outside right now, I pray the Lord makes me more beautiful on the inside. Who I really am, free.

Easter 2013

Yesterday was a good day.

The biggest blessing in it besides the Lord Himself was the gorgeous weather that I soaked up as much as possible. It was around 70 and just perfect. I love when it's like this and I can't wait for it to be so consistently for the spring. It's starting, slowly. They say snow tonight, but...I deny that!

I had been wanting to watch the Passion and it was on Saturday night on TV so we sat and watched it and I cried through most of it, as expected.

It just makes someone you love so real, and the sacrifice so tangible.

I am so grateful for what the Lord has done for me.

That by his wounds I am healed.

I feel like it was so fresh to me yesterday, as if every word that I had heard for years was the first time I was hearing them again.

My love for Him overwhelmed my heart and I think things are going to be better for me.

The sermon was timely in that he was talking about being who you are created to be. To figure out what it is you were made to do and go out and live large. I so want to. I know I am always in such a big hurry with myself. Like, "OK I feel better, now let's get on with the thing..." but I know the completion of this healing process will be longer than I may want it to be. I want to give myself the time because I don't want to get frustrated with myself or circumstances either.

The other BIG thing the Lord did for me this week/weekend was let me see and feel His love so tangibly. I was literally freaking out with the idea of having to move to Pueblo for Daniel's work. I was trying hard to trust the Lord and thank goodness how I act does not determine how the Lord responds to me. I was frustrated with Daniel and finally asked him to at least check to see if there were other options than moving. Not now, not that I have my family, an awesome church, mentors, doctors, etc coming up on a pregnancy that frightens me just a tad. So he did.

It was no big deal at all and they are giving him a position in Denver in July and he didn't have to quit after all:) I am so so so thankful for this and thankful that I get to stay in beautiful Denver for the time being.

But for all the positive that has been happening and growing, yesterday I was hit hard again with my self image issues. It's like they really haven't been a big deal for a while and it just was what it was, but yesterday it was like a constant barrage of thoughts and sadness over what I look like.

I am just trying to be as honest as possible. Be the real me. The me that is almost always disappointed in myself for not being more beautiful.

I really don't like my brown/red hair anymore. It's all faded and dry and I just want my blonde hair back. My mom might help me get it done for my birthday, but I just feel ugly with it....no matter how I do it.

The other thing is just my body. I know I am almost 18 weeks pregnant, and again, I am supposed to be all "in awe" of it, but I just feel huge and yucky all the time.

It's like I feel this need to do something to prove to myself I still have some redeeming piece of beauty. I am not sure how to reconcile it all and I really need to ask the Lord about it, because it's a huge part of my struggle, I know this as well.

I want to enjoy life and not be OBSESSED with it, but obviously need to take better care of myself which I am not good at, not yet. But if the Lord can help me in one area, He can help me in all. And I want to open up every area that hurts me, especially...so he can bring love to that place and healing.

I am starting to trust and believe, at least, that every little thing He has purpose, healing, plans for me to work through with Him.