A sense of smell

One breath was all it took...

Thank goodness, thank God, for this week! In my previous entry, I describe how God touched my heart on Saturday and somehow, removed the hurt and bitterness that had started to sink in. That feeling of freedom and relief has continued this week and has even multiplied!

One of my biggest praises this week is the way that God has assisted me in changing my attitude. Even if we are blessed beyond measure, with everything we could possibly need or want, it is still in our power to choose to turn our back on God and live in a place of bitterness.

It's so easy to get stuck in a place where we refuse to take responsibility for our attitudes or our lack of effort and blame everything on God. The truth is, God can save us. God can provide us with our needs and wants. He is capable of comforting and providing in times where we may not be able to do that for ourselves. The trick is....we have to trust Him. We have to turn to Him and believe that He will provide. Most importantly, we have to start feeling strength in God instead of feeling sorry for ourselves.

As I was walking on campus yesterday, I took a deep breath and was struck by a feeling I have not experienced since living in Florida. It smelled like home. That may sound strange but for me, smells have always been able to conger up memories like no other. And this smell, it was distinctly of home. It's as if God removed all of the barriers for my loving Him and loving Florida and now....I can see (and sniff) clearly.

Florida was never the culprit and He is allowing me to remove the clothes pin and sniff out my place here.

Amazing Grace

It Finally Clicked!

I have been praying for months (literally) that I would be able let go of some pretty heavy duty baggage I seemed to have picked up when I first moved to Florida. It's been a long haul and for anyone who knows me well, it's been evident. I've allowed myself to get really low, really often. I can, without hesitation or doubt, say that the wallowing has not helped my situation and if anything, has hindered me greatly.

I have no clue why God chose today to speak to me on such a profound and palpable level but, I suppose that's kind of the thing with God, you never know when He's going to bless you with clarity. To be honest, I am not going to waste a second of my time wondering why today was the day that the gears clicked clacked like a well oiled machine. I could care less about why today was significant because I have some truths that I'm laying my head down on tonight. Some incredibly significant truths that I've been blinded to for quite some time now.

I am here for a short time and God has incredible purpose for my life. Although I am but a grain of sand on a huge beach full of other tiny little grains, God sees me as if I were a diamond. I have an exceptional family and that includes all the wonderful friends I have from growing up in Indiana as well as some amazing people I've met so far in Florida.

So what's the point of me blathering on about all the blessings I have (by the way, I left out about a million for the sake of the length of the blog entry)?

If I wallow, if I choose to get all caught up (tangled, really) in "stuff" that doesn't amount to a hill of beans...I'm missing all the good stuff! I don't know how and I don't know why now but God let that thunderbolt hit me tonight and well....it feels pretty freaking awesome!

Thank you, God for having been patient with me during my idiocy since I moved here and for loving me enough to snap me out of it.

Me and my friend Walt

"My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs."

WW Song of Myself

Obvious to me, the connection between the lovely Mr. Walt Whitman and yours truly, for quite some time now. Brilliant in ways that I should hope to be, the man was able to vocalize what was internal, beat out of his chest what seemed incapable to unearth. As common among poets, he was a emptier. He would empty himself of thoughts, of creativity, of emotion...of functionality in an effort to rid himself of the heart that beat thump, thump, thumpity thump thump from within. I wonder if sometimes he emptied so much that he found it difficult to see himself clearly. If he ever looked at himself in the mirror of his secluded cabin only to be met by a blurry vision of the man that stood before the mirror...

My imperfections are evident. My flaws float to the surface, regularly, for each and all to see. Even when I attempt to gloss over the bumps in the road, fleeting seconds, and there they are in all their glory. I have stopped fighting the flaws because, well, quite frankly, it's damn exhausting. Of course, I strive to better myself but I have learned to hug tight those little annoying traits about myself because I'm a big collection of faults so why the hell not?

There's this one flaw, though, that I cannot seem to embrace. I cannot seem to get my short stubby arms wrapped tightly around this particular flaw. My hands won't clasp together behind its back, the way your hands clasp tightly when you love something so dearly that the thought of releasing it makes your stomach churn and burn up your throat. My inability to embrace this flaw comes from years of being bitten by it and listening to others warn me that its bite is as bone crushingly strong as its shrill bark.

My capacity to love.

And we're not talking about butterflies and rainbows kind of love. We're talking about the kind of love where I find myself crawling down into ditches that others have dug and begging them to begin slinging the dirt. It's innocent, really. My faith in others to change. I have not a clue where its birth place lies, except that its been with me since day one and it lives in the lowest place in my gut. That place deep in your person where that which creates the very fiber of your being nestles in for the long haul. It all sounds so gracious, so kind, so lovely. In reality, it's a bitch of epic proportions. The lectures, the "let me tell you something, Lizzy's," the "you'll learn when you get olders" they are the byproduct of this lovely vice I hold in my hands.

The funny thing is, I get it. I, contrary to how I may appear when faced with any conundrum of the technical variety, am a pretty smart one. At least, when it comes to introspection, I've got that ground covered two fold (probably three.) It's not that I don't see the error of my overly nurturing, worrisome ways. It's that I have no idea how the hell to go about changing the beast into a beauty.

How do you shut off a faucet when you can't see the dial? I don't know how to keep my arms from flinging open. And such, in the words of my friend Walt, is life...