Fullness of JOY

Without you, Jesus, I would have no joy in the sunset.

  

Without you, I would find no happiness in in any possessions; No latest item of fashion or car or house would fill me. 

Without you, my soul would be a vacuum, craving and feeding - craving and feeding, but never feeling full.

It is because You are my God that I take pleasure in this life. 

It is because this world is NOT my final home and is not my true dwelling place, that I can take joy in living here on earth.

It is because I know the Creator of the sun and the waves and the sand, that I can delight in a love for the ocean. 

It is because I know You!!!

Lord, when I don’t feel you near me, when I lose sight of who I am in You, not even my favorite things satisfy me.  When I have forgotten my understanding of what You have given me, now and eternally, my heart hardens and life becomes dull.

But Lord! Oh Lord!  When you give me the sweetness of Your presence no circumstances around me matter!  I could delight in your presence in the midst of construction, at the edge of the waves, or in the front seat of my car.  Nothing is sweet than those glimpses of eternity, nothing is sweet than knowing You!

It is knowing You that brings me joy during my times of prosperity.  When my troubles lesson and when provision is generous, I glory in the pleasures You allow me because they are gifts from You.  A dinner out with my husband, a new dress, a fresh bouquet of flowers on the table – these are all expressions of my love for You – of who I have been made to be – an unique expression of Your image. 

It is knowing You that brings me hope in more uncertain times.  It is understanding that I have been created in Your image, that You have called me as Your child, and that I have an inheritance as a daughter of God Most High that brings me purpose.  It is knowing this to be my destiny that allows me to submit in leaner times and to still delight in Your presence.

Lord Jesus, God Most High!  Worthy are You and all Your works!  In every season of my life, may my lips always utter praise!

Yes, Lord.  Yes, Lord!  In Your presence there is truly fullness of JOY.  

It Comes In Waves

Everything is fine again! Life is so lovely, summer is just stretching her legs, and the sun has been smiling.

New friends are being made, new hearts being discovered, and new joy showing itself to me.
I’ve been reconnecting to old friends, discovering the richness of being known, and discovering the beauty of receiving.

God is good and life is beautiful.

And so I thought I was done grieving.

I found out I’m not.

It hit me tonight in the quiet – when I could no longer hide in the noise.

I usually relish my quiet space. I plan my time alone to the fullest with the things I want to do to recharge my soul, spiritually and practically.

But in the past two days of complete quiet after work, with Adam gone at networking meetings and not a single sound in the house except the buzz of the refrigerator and the hum of the air conditioning, I’ve had a complete lack of desire for anything.

Folding one basket of laundry is so difficult that I can’t deal with the other overflowing basket. I put it back against the wall. I pull into the gym parking lot and can’t make myself walk inside. I even go to one of my favorite Starbucks in Laguna Beach and I just want to leave. I really just want to be home and sit.

And finally, after two days of resisting the quiet with attempted chores and lots of iPhone app surfing and lots of attempted life planning, I finally went to the corner spot of the couch and just sat there.

And then it came.

The second wave of grief for the baby I lost 3 weeks ago. The baby I buried with Adam outside the window where I type these words. The baby I was able to see and hold at only six and a half weeks.

A baby who had a visible brain and spinal cord. A baby whose arms were budding and whose eyes were visible.

A baby who, for a little while, I had given life to. And a baby who was taken home even earlier than it’s sibling two and half years ago.

And so I sit here, for the second time in three years, grieving how two unplanned joys have turned into two of the biggest heartaches I’ve ever known.

And as I sit here, I'm hoping that this isn’t all I will ever know of motherhood.

Walking as a Warrior

My year learning to be a Warrior has been a good one.

A GREAT one.

But the battle is tough.

My last post was about Playing it Hurt. I said it was time to start playing hurt, and by that I meant that I no longer wanted my fears to hold me back from getting in the game. The game of life, of relationships, of passions, or of my goals.

So, although I stopped writing about it for awhile, I DID get back in the game.

I've faced alot of fears this year - especially in the first six months of 2011. One of the biggest was that I worked up the nerve and courage to take an audition prep class, take a voice lesson and prepare for an audition into the Pacific Chorale - a professional Chorale whose concerts I have attended through the years.

I was so nervous - but I went. I followed through.

I tried.

And when I walked out of that audition, I had NO idea if I had a chance or not. But I was elated because I tried and fear had not won.

To me, that was the victory!

A week later, I received a voicemail saying that I had been accepted into the Chorale. Tears from out of the hidden places of heart lept out of my eyes - I kept thinking, "What if I hadn't tried? What if I kept listening to my fear?"
That is one example (and one of the bigger ones) of how I am allowing God to help me fight my fears.

But I am also learning that being a Warrior doesn't just mean facing fears.

It also means having vision.

And THAT is what I have been seeking for these last few months.

I know my purpose is to serve my King.

"But what, oh King, do you desire from me? Put vision into my soul of Your purposes for me, and give me the strength and character of heart to follow after that vision."

This is my prayer as I continue to seek to be His warrior.

Playing Hurt.

The heart of a warrior is what I'm after. And this week, I've learned that the heart of a warrior must be honest and it must choose to be humble, even when it feels humiliating.

In the past few days, I've had to look at myself in the mirror and say, "This is what actually happened, Heidi. This is the real reason; this is what has been going on all along. Plain and simple - you're scared."

While reading a book for my creative writing class entitled, "The War of Art," I ran across a small paragraph. It was as if this small paragraph was a mirror that the book held up in order to show me myself.

The paragraph said this:

"What are we trying to heal, anyway? The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt."

He has to play hurt.

It was a wake-up to reality for me.

It was a kick-in-the-rear to stop blaming, stop rationalizing to myself, stop making excuses, and stop waiting for my emotional hurts to be all healed and fixed in order to move forward in something that I still want to do.

Maybe outside factors actually were a part of making one of my biggest joys turn into one of my biggest fears.

But a warrior can't always, if ever, choose the conditions in which he fights his battles. He must simply fight with no excuses. The conditions around him, or perhaps, even the conditions inside his own heart, may make things more difficult, but he still must choose to fight.

It's time for me to step up and start facing one of my biggest fears and not waiting until all the wounds are healed because waiting for complete healing has simply become an excuse for procrastination.

It's time to play hurt.


What about YOU? Do you ever rationalize your fears?

Finishing Strong

I'm currently sitting at the curved, bamboo counter of the busy Starbucks on Main Street in Huntington Beach.

An empty cup, which ten minutes ago was filled with my tall-soy-chai-latte-with-no-foam, sits to my left.

To my right sits another individual fixated upon his laptop. He was just talking on his cell phone with someone in either Florida or Haiti...I couldn't pick up on the definitive details to determine which location it actually was. (Not that it was any of my business....)

I am writing a blog post right now but I should be writing a first-grade lesson plan. I am in the middle of my LAST college class and this week I am supposed to create a lesson plan to teach to 1st graders for the daily math and daily language. I'm looking forward to teaching the lesson and working with those adorable 1st graders that I've had chance to spend time with the last few Thursdays but I don't want to sit for an hour and type up all the formal explanations of what I will be doing in that half-hour of teaching.

I can hear my mom saying, "Dreading is worse than doing...."

I can hear my dad saying, "Finish Strong, Heidi! Finish strong!"

"You're right, Mom."

"I will, Dad."

Come on, Heidi. Just half a class left! Four more weeks of assignments and textbook readings and tests. Four more weeks of writing and proof-reading paragraphs and hitting the "submit" button to turn in my papers.

Four weeks to being DONE.

And just three months to walking across that field in cap and gown and receiving that slip of paper that documents my six-year pursuit of a college degree.

Three more months until I offically have a Bachelor of Science in Education.

I cannot wait.

Ok, I'm gonna get to writing that lesson plan now.

It's time to Finish Strong!

Returning...

It has been too long since I have posted!

It feels good to once again hit the "New Post" button and start typing in a blank text box.

Tonight, as it is 10:30, (and my original goal was to be asleep earlier than my normal 10:00 hour and be in bed by 9:30), will not be yielding an in-depth post.

However, I just had to come back to this little spot on the Internet after nearly a month.

Many lovely, lovely things have occured in my life! So many lessons to glean, stories to tell, and experiences to share. Some difficult and stretching experiences have occured as well and the lessons I continue to learn from those experiences always produce the gold that the furnace of the Refiner's fire promises.

2011 has truly been shaping up to be a year of training for me - the training of a Warrior. This One Word has truly proven to not be a mere idea but a true foundation for the work that God is doing in my heart and mind and life.

I think about how that word relates to my identity on a daily basis.

I have a growing playlist on my iPhone with songs that have themes of being a Christian Warrior (and I could always use new song suggestions!)

When confronted with decisions that make me want to hide, ignore, or pretend ignorance of a situation, I cannot escape the question in my head "What would a Warrior do?"

It's truly been a season of growing in strength. It seems, at least to me, that most of that has all been internal work. I'm not sure how much it shows externally in my attitudes and actions but I'm confident of the work taking place because I can feel my King is guiding me through it.


How has the beginning month-and-a-half of 2011 been going for YOU? Did you pick a OneWord for this year? Or do you see any themes taking shape in your life lately?

Perfect Love.

You see the tall, leafy tree.

You see the flowers blooming on the bush.

You see the ivy creeping farther and farther up the old building.

What holds these plants in place?

The Roots.

Where do these plants originate from?

The Seed.

..........

You feel the stress of an impending occasion.

You feel the anger at other people's choices.

You carry the burden of other individual's responsibilities.

What keeps the anxiety-producing burdens attached to you?

The Roots of Bondage.

What produced these anxiety-producing burdens that are held to you by the roots of bondage?

The Seed of Fear.

Out of the seed of fear comes destructive habits or patterns of thinking, anxiety, anger, and a host of other burdens that grow and attach themselves to your heart through the entangling roots of bondage.

These roots can feel so strong and powerful that you feel you will never have any freedom from the burdens that they keep you attached to.

In all your efforts of strength, you try to release your burdens, forget your anxieties, and calm your anger. But just as a weed grows back wtih more vengence when only the portion above ground is cut, your burdens quickly grow back and begin to strangle your hope for peace.

You know now that the only way to be released from these burdens is to completely uproot these roots of bondage that grew from the seed of fear.

You go to work at tearing out these roots only to find that you have made no significant progress, you are exhausted and left more vulnerable, and your burdens now seem even heavier to carry.

You are then handed two tools to help you rip out these strong roots. You unfold two scraps of paper and read these two phrases:

"The truth shall set you free..."

"Perfect love casts out all fear..."

You sit and stare at these two phrases. How can these familiar words work together in such a way to free you from these roots of bondage?

As you sit, the Holy Spirit give you this answer, "You must know this truth: That your burdens, anxieties, and the theft of your joy is being grown from the seed of fear. And you must know what specific fear it is. Let me reveal truth to you in order to make you free. I will show you the specific seed of fear that has been planted in your heart."

You allow Him to show you, and you are amazed to find that all the burdens you are carrying are growing from this specific fear - a fear you didn't realize you held!

You say to Him, "Holy Spirit, I had no idea this fear was in my heart. How do I uproot this fear when the roots of bondage are so strong?"

And He says back to you, "You can't do anything. You see, only perfect love casts out fear, and in your humanity you are far from perfect. You must trust Jesus with this fear. His love is perfect and He can provide real healing. But, be warned, although His healing is complete it is not devoid of pain. Are you willing to entrust your healing from this fear to His perfect love and His perfect methods?"

That is where your free will comes in; this is where you must decide to allow Him to heal you.

..........

That is what I must decide.

A specific fear was revealed to my heart today. And I desire to be freed from these roots of bondage that keep me carrying these burdens.

Now it comes down to surrender.

And so this is the earnest prayer of my heart,

"Lord Jesus, help me to trust You. You have called me to walk in victory over fear and live a life victoriously with joy! I give You this fear and I surrender my desire to avoid pain. I trust in Your perfect love and your perfect healing."