Kumbayah
We had a memorial service for a lady at my church today. She was a well-loved lady, the sanctuary,fellowship hall and narthex were packed. The remembrances from her family and friends were very heartfelt and warm, all showing she was a woman who loved and cared about people and children very deeply and did so because she loved God the same.
Kumbayah. Come by here. I could sense the reality of marge, that is the ladys name who passed on,being in the presence of God now. So strange how His presnece can be felt so strongly and at the same time seem to just as quickly dissipate. What is it that makes that happen??? I ask that rhetorically because I know answers as to why. I just fight with them. I am in awe at some of the things people are going through in their lives, and how they find the courage and inner strength to move ahead. Especially when it appears as though God is not doing anything to lighten the load or assist them in the way they want Him to or think He needs to.
I want God. I want Jesus. I want the Holy Spirit. I want to obey the 2 greatest commandments, to love. I also fight this and I hate that i do. I have this combination of knowing and believing that God is All He declares Himself to be in His Word and as He has shown by His actions in history and by what Jesus has done. I also feel a pain deep deep inside that says God has let so many bad things happen to me,to family and friends and other people. It is an emotional pain that doesn't care about the logical,rational and intellectual truth about God. It cries out to be able to know and feel that God really will be there to love,protect and care about me as He says He does. I am feeling so much as i type this. I want so much to let what i have gone through in my life be used as a way to help and minister to anyone who it needs to. I feel the weight of carrying guilt and shame and not valuing myself as He desires me to because I believed that my acne made me ugly and that my weaknesses made me less somehow. I feel Him wanting me to be free from self period. I just have not ever really gotten just how to do that. I know and can understand it, but internally my fears and pain reverberate and create this boiling cauldron where i feel so trapped by this self that wants to find freedom in Him, but is caught by its inability to rest in trust and loving acceptance. Again, so clear how He does this for others, but something just makes me feel ineligible to really lay still and know I can trust Him and that no matter what He will be with me in a loving accepting and caring way.
Nothing i do can make God love me any more than He already does. Nothing I do can make God love me any less. He loves me unconditionally. Help that truth to penetrate the walls of fear and pain that keep it from being a emotional reality O God. Kumbayah my Lord Kumbayah!!!!!
posted by Robert @ 12:07 AM
3 Comments:
I hate how highschool stays with us. Those teen years seem to hold our lives at bay.
So you know I was a cheerleader, briefly, because my college boy friend who lived in Topeka loved playing basket ball. I thought I might need to learn more about the game. I learned nothing. That’s another story. I was class clown and loved life. I didn’t have a special group of kids to hang with because I refused to draw that line in the sand. I would have been nice to you. There were those girls who tried to bother me but I gave them little notice.
If you’re thinking ok Milly was popular I get it you’re wrong I wasn’t the most but I didn’t care.
So why tell you this? Be patient I’m getting to it.
Several years ago I was asked to throw a class reunion. I didn’t want to and I live in a different city. I called the other two who live near me. One was very happy to hear from me and the two of us even lived rather close to each other. The other let me know that highschool was horrible for her. The two of us were friends. She told me how much she still hated some of the girls and how she never wanted to go back. A reunion.-No Way No How! She said that she felt different in highschool. I replied “We all did.” her answer to me was. “You were.”
No one can believe that I married and apparently it will be no surprise of a divorce. I didn’t want what they wanted. I wanted life. I wanted to travel. I wanted college. I cared very little about being like them.
We all were different.
Robert you are different and that’s ok. You just need to tell yourself it is and believe it. Different is good holding on to highschool isn’t. You aren’t there anymore.
Wow this is going to be long.
A few years ago I was at a ladies convention and one of the ladies I was with talked to us about her affairs. She had several early on in her marriage. Her husband had for given her but she couldn’t forgive herself. I told her that God had forgiven her. Then I said this “Who do you think you are not to take the forgiveness that Jesus died for?” Robert we need to remember that Jesus died for us. Even before the first nail was driven we were forgiven. He took pain and suffering so that we can watch the sunrise and know that it’s a new day for us, free of those sins.
Yes I do think that you are helping others and in doing so you will help yourself.
I pray that God leads you in this walk.
milly- wow thank you so very much. I am so grateful for the time you took to share with me what you did. You are exactly right, who am I to not take and bask in the gift given by Jesus on the cross and after He resurrected?? I don't think of it that way but you make a very real point milly and one i want ingrained in my soul. Thank you for sharing yourself with me to encourage me you are a sweet sister in Him!!!!!
Robert, I understand this, as well. Good words, millster.
I worry about my son, who also has acne; there are so many good treatments that we have spent $$$ on, but he doesn't follow through with them.
When you were younger, and I was younger, we would have loved to have those options, wouldn't we??
Your soul shines through, Robert. The love that God has for you shines through, too. After suffering so much, how can you love so much but for the Grace of God speaking through YOU?
He is and you are.
We beat ourselves up and see ourselves much more harshly than the world.
I wonder if God gets sad that we can't see ourselves like He does.
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