Wednesday Word - "SHINE"

I love this picture. So many things bring me joy but people and children are my favorite. Look how tiny she was and her mouth is opened, of course, because from birth this little sprite had lots of words. I am often told "she gets it from you"! 😂😂 Funny thing, I never saw myself with as much spunk and sparkle as this little human exhibits. She KNOWS who she is and what she loves and has BIG DREAMS...that didn't describe me as a child or even as a grown ass woman for many years. Others may have been able to see those qualities but I was blind to the beauty I carried INSIDE.

I believed lots of lies, some of which were told from places and people I trusted and believed were "right". I didn't trust my own heart, having been told over and over it was "desperately wicked". That twisting spirit of separation, separated me from my true SELF, the one we're born with, the one you see in the picture of this tiny perfect human.

I was inadvertently pressed down into a box of someone else's making. "they" didn't know what they were doing. They believed they were right and had the answers to all the "how should we live as Christians" answers. All the while I was in the box of safety and certainty. I was so comfortable, I didn't even know I was in a dark drab cardboard box. I thought I was living in freedom, probably because that's what they told me freedom looked like.

I began stepping out of the boxes and healing my heart about the same time this picture was taken, a little over 9 years ago. It's been a long journey to where I am today and the "becoming new" won't stop until I draw my last breath. I still struggle and stumble and have days when I don't love myself or others well but I'm still moving, slowly, one step at a time, doing the work of recovery.

I share these words and this picture to remind myself and you that we are ALL capable of change and growth. Living things, they grow and change and die and are reborn, over and over again. NOTHING stays the same and THAT's the way our lives are supposed to be. We were created to explore, discover, uncover and become more of who we started out as, when we were born into this crazy human experience.

What if we all believed in the Shine Theory? What would it be like to live out that truth!! There CANNOT be too much light!! Can there? Why should we dim our light? Or why would we try to turn out or cover up the light of others? So we'll shine brighter??...NOT EVEN POSSIBLE!

Shine on humans....be BIG and SASSY and SHINE your light and don't let anyone tell you what that is supposed to look like.

This Wednesday Word is brought to you by me, recovering control freak, perfectionist, approval junkie, pushing against the norms of conventional Christianity because it's been keeping us Safe and Comfortable for far too long.

You're welcome!

You ARE seen!

Over the past 7 years of being "on my own", I've been lonely and felt "unseen" at times.  This emotion is based on the limiting belief that if I had a particule "person" of my own, I would feel seen and loved and have a place to "belong".

Not long ago I heard a quiet voice whisper, "no matter where you are, that's where you belong".  I received those words and stored them up.  When I remember them, they soothe the longings, until the next wave of situations rise up in an attempt to cripple me along the way.

The social distancing for those of us who are living by ourselves has a unique sting and is partiular to our situations, traumas, harm and grief inducing losses.  Maybe that is the case for all of us, I'm not sure.  It definitely holds truth for me.

Since this pandemic started, I've been up and down, back and forth, tossed and turned as I attempt to surf the tidal waves of my own experiences amid thoughts and emotions demanding to be felt.

I want to share that I have also experienced the love of my creator in the most amazing and unimagined ways since this began in March.

The FIRST episode of my feeling SEEN and LOVED came when I went to an Open House on February 23.  I had no idea this particular house was even for sale, let alone Open for viewing.  My dear friend stopped by on a prompting from her own heart whisperer because I had left my coffee tumbler in her car the day before.  Her words "I was really tired and wasn't going to stop but then I had this thought, 'tomorrow is Monday and this might be the only coffee tumbler she has, she may need it'".  That's how I found out about the Open House, through a whisper.

The two of us headed to the house, which was 3 blocks from where I was currently renting, and went inside.  The minute we walked in she exclaimed, "This is YOUR house".  Completely stunned by her commentary, I replied that this old house was way out of my price range and most definitely not MY house. 

As we stepped into the kitchen I saw a gas stove.  It was a tender reminder of a the dream I've held in my heart for over 20 years.  We continued through the house and out into the back yard.  Item after item that I had been dreaming about was laid out right in front of me.  Raised beds, check.  An herb garden, check.  A patio area for a fire pit, check.  A garden shed, check.  Brand new windows and a completely remodeled older home in my small town with a front porch for sitting and rocking, check check check.  And bonus, a doggie door for Mr. Charles Bingley ("Charlie").

The other desire I had was for a space to offer on AirBNB and this property had a three car garage apartment with an attached "shop" area.  The apartment space is huge, in need of TLC but EXACTLY what I'd been dreaming about for months.  Long story short, I took a risk on a house I could definitely NOT SEE how I was going to afford and made an offer.  I literally jumped into the unknown!  I closed on the house in 29 days, which is NUTS even under the best of circumstances.  All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place as if this house was MEANT for me, had been there all along, just waiting for me.  As I stood in the shower for the very first time after moving, I couldn't help feel like I was living someone else's life.  Was this a dream?  It certainly felt like one.

All those little deatils helped me BELIEVE that God SAW ME and LOVED ME and was providing all of my hearts' desires, in a VERY TANGIBLE WAY.

Fast forward a couple weeks, all the social distancing, the disruption of one of my most intimate relationships, lots of unsettling in the seen and unseen realms and my body reminds my mind of the ways I've been harmed in the past and my emotions get right on that train headed for a dark place.  I'd like to be able to say that those trains of thought never come up, but that wouldn't be my truth.

And, of course,  that's not the end of the story, because it never is when we're willing to be open and receive the new and release the tattered and torn hand-me-downs of the past. 

As a reminder to my ever forgetful self, two more gifts were delivered from unexpected sources in the past two weeks.  One is so extravagant I can hardly accept because in my mind I have done nothing worthy of such a glamorous treat.  And again today, a new co-worker drops off a special house warming gift.  In the personally initialed basket she delivered were many little treasures.  Among them was exact salad bowl and tongs I had seen at Target a few weeks ago.  I didn't purchase those for myself at the time because, well because I was afraid if I bought something I wanted I wouldn't have money to do the things I need to do at this house that I bought.  Fear held my wallet in check. I know, it makes perfect logical sense. :)

It is not lost on me WHY I can't grasp the Abundance of Life that is available to all of us children, not just the "chosen few".  I was brain washed, innoculated with a false Gospel and told many half truths (the most dangerous lie) in these 50 something years. Those lies took root at an early age in a soft and tender little lamb heart ready to receive all.the.things given with the label of Truth and spoken by the special servants of the Most High.

No one is to blame and yet there are reasons and systems and people who have contributed to the pressing down of the soft tender shoots so as to squash the life right out of them.  I should know.  I used to be one of the "squashers", the fun suckers, the perfect police, the do shoulders and the critics. 

Thankfully, those false ways of living are in the past, burned up in the hell I had to pay to get here.

The price of Freedom is costly and the terraine is treacherous but the rewards are sweet and worth every messy and beautiful moment. 

Those of us who have untethered ourselves and opened to the unfathomable reality of abundance are experiencing it, first hand, right before our eyes. We have expanded, leveled up, moved into new spaces, figuratively and literally.  Believe it or not, there are more than enough gifts for whoever is willing to turn from their idol worship and look inward to discvoer the hooks frozen in their heart.  The stoney hearts hold their own poison and lead others down the straight and narrow being careful to avoid the slippery slopes.  Disguised with words like safe, certain, and systematic the little lambs walk slowly into the slaughter of comsumption and group think, never batting an eye as they are sheared of their individuality and labeled "for the master's use".  But who is the Master? 

As for me, I've replaced the Power Over in my own life with a more liberating mutuality, always warey of the ones who tout they know the Way that is best for everyone.  And it's all good.  There is purpose and reasons for it all.  Maybe I would not know how to speak of freedom if I had not been bound.  The contrast reveals the beauty, always. 

And so we journey on, into the next space, the next season, the next thing we are to experience, knowing there is always beauty to be mined in this world full to the brim with possibilities!

xo

Remembering

I wrote this blog post exactly THREE years ago.  

Things have changed quite a bit over the past years, as they always do.  We grow older, people who were in our lives are no longer and new ones enter.  The spaces left are sometimes never filled completely, the impint remains as a reminder.  Memories,  some you long to recreate and some you wish were never a part of the story, the light and the shadow, both.

Chasity was both, as I am both, light and shadow.  

 I keep my shadowy parts in check for the most part, posturing and tucking and hiding my humanity as best I can.

My desire to live in the present moment where the true living is experienced keeps me from going to the past on any regular day.  Regret becons, as do guilt and shame.  I greet them and bid them good day.  But, on days like today, revisiting is a given, a choice to remember. 

The squeezing in my chest reminds me of the absence and the imprint that will forever remain. Tears well behind my eyes and after I've felt the sadness, I turn to the happiest memories.  The ones we capture with a flash and a smile and I'll never forget the ways our lives are changed because she was here with us, laughing, living and dying.