THIEVING

                                                                                                                           But he said to me,                                                                                                                                                                                                       “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”                                                                                                                                                      Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,                                                                                                                                                                                     so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

This morning I woke up feeling lost and alone. Trickles to slowly track their way out of the corners of my eyes and pool in stains upon my pillow.

I don’t panic anymore, when I wake up with feelings, they are what they are but I am only what I allow them to make of me.

I laid here awhile with Abba, just letting the trickle flow, no more hiding allowed, holding in only creates pressure til I blow.

I am tired of blowing up.

Abba is showing me how these trickles are release, how they can flow from me, collected of Him and become this stream of healing waters. He shows me how I can lie within them and rest, not worry about their source as He purifies them. The frozen icecaps of emotions denied, bound up and locked away melting to be these crystal clear waters of now.

Now

This is where He has me, showing me and teaching me that I am His now girl.

The tears and running still now as I say this, for He is showing me this morning that I have been a thief.

Thieving to survive much like a child on the streets of Calcutta does

Mine to be an emotional thieving

You see I can be with folks in all the wrong ways, past ones.

I want family and I can pretend others is mine

I crave touch and I can watch someone getting a hug and draw from that to satisfy wishing it was mine

I steal smiles sent others way and pretend they passed me by on the way to them

I thieve to survive emotionally

In the end robbing myself

I have so much love in my life from not only my God, but people too

I am no longer hidden away or cast out

I am inside

So I must choose

I must break the bonds of these old habits of survival or they will rob me of now as then did so long ago

It is so hard to let go, to say I am me here I am and what you can give is sufficient

I am oh so childish in wanting so much more, all of people

Help me Abba to make You my all that I turn to you

For hugs and holding, a whisper to my heart, the twinkle of an eye upon me

I don’t want to live off of stealing anymore

Open my eyes and heart to the treasures surrounding me that are already mine

Take my eyes off of wants

Purge me of my selfish give mes

My childish perspective of need

Hold me tight

Teach me right

I yield, to You, this day…. my sin of thieving.

I HAVE TO LEARN

I have found my lost years in a new way lately, not a pleasant one either.

I am finding that I, “Have to learn.”

Learn like all children do. Things that seem natural to you are so not for me.

All grown up means sharing and putting others first, I am finding I feel quite selfish sometimes.

All grown up means I listen, not just to hear the words but to put them in practice.

All grown up meant acknowledging where I fail and changing that.

If I am grown up I will see that life isn’t all about me no matter how much I wish it was, also realizing that life is about more than me.

Finding my footing grown up is hard, painful and oh so sad sometimes.

It feels like part of me is just going away, the part that has loved me always.

Childhood vanishing, I suppose, is what I am feeling.

How I wish I had more of it sometimes… more all me attention, more take care of me, more don’t leave me please, kind.

Thing is at the same time I am so excited to be making friends and carving time out for myself.

I like knowing I am doing someone proud and choosing right,

I love feeling grown up and that maybe someday I will be all grown up inside… the kind that is brave and strong.

I don’t feel so brave sometimes these days or strong, rather it feels that I am straddling two worlds.

Teeter totting back and forth

Up with independence, down with loneliness

Up and down, up and down,

Scared to brave, Sure to doubtful,

But it’s ok

This playground sure is a lot safer than the one I used to live in,

Now I can experience all of these childhood passings while safe,

Accept that I feel forgotten but am not,

Know that scared isn’t something I have to be because no cruellness is behind the words and actions

Only love for me,

Rooted in kindness and graciousness, forgiveness

All the important things that ease the passage from childhood to grown up.

I have been childish some these last weeks, so childish

whinny and full of tantrums.

Thing is I can see it so that’s good.

I am at the top of the slide

and oh so ready

to go down.

I shall enjoy every moment of it

and by the grace of God

surrounded of the love of friends and family

I shall land on both my feet

Even if I fall down a bit I shall glory in the ability to get up

Falling down isn’t the end of the world that I thought it was

so…

Goodbye childhood,

I hold you dear now and that in of itself is more than I ever expected to land in my heart.

 

 

HOT POTATOE

Today reminded me of this childhood game, the one where you pass the “potato” round the circle because you don’t want to be the one left holding it when the music stops. If you were you were the one out of the game, everyone to yell, “Hot Potatoes!”

No fun to be the one out.

I felt out today, like I didn’t know what to do with what I was left holding.

Me.

How I felt, the feelings from an interaction with someone.

I have been holding so many “Hot Potatoes” emotionally this last week that I truly felt I would drop this one.

I cry now just remembering.

How on fire my feelings were, so alive and just here. Learning to sit with them is so hard and yet I so want to grow. I know that I must claim all of me for this to happen, I must take my turn, hold onto all of me no matter how much it sears my heart.

For in the end it cautherizes the wound a bit more. Painful healing that is needed.

“Hot Potato.”

Looking back I know things the problem being it is so hard to feel them. I know I wasn’t being reprimanded for failing rather shown an area to grow in.

Thing is knowing and feeling are so far apart sometimes for me.

I know I please this person with my performance yet I feel so like I failed. I know I didn’t, so must put the feeling aside and embrace the facts.

Pointing out areas I can grow in isn’t reprimanding, it is supporting me in growing fuller into my job. Offering advice to how I can handle something better isn’t condemnation to how I have but a sharing of personal lessons that I find my footing better.

“Hot Potato”

I think I dropped this one tonight. Allowed the feelings to win. Cried while acknowledging I was ok. So much questioning of self, fear building that I messed up. Self loathing that I didn’t remember to keep after things for better cleanliness, pity for self followed by anger.

“Hot Potato”

Worth holding onto. One to keep close that the warmth of it remind me that I have come so far, far enough to feel. Just as I have learned to find joy and embrace peace as God intended so I must the glory of what was handed to me of God today.

Allow myself to feel, all emotions, good and bad. Hard or easy, right or wrong.

A Hot Potato, that is my “Potato.”

I am out, out of then and choosing to go away.

I am in though because, of this out.

Out of wrong.

Into right.

 

 

MOMMA MARY

I read this poem recently while browsing other’s blogs. I actually read it the day I wrote ?, oh how it stirred the longing of that writing to even deeper desire, longing, want. It felt as though a fire had been lit, one of give me, please… I need and want love…. now, now, now.

At first I was even a bit angry, “Why, God, would you show me this and intensify my struggle? Not good timing, Abba, not at all,” to be my inner ranting.  How childish of me, for Papa, God, He always has the timing just as it should be. A loving parent responds with what is best for their child, not what their child thinks is best for them.

So, with my loving Father doing just that, purpose came from “His timing.”

Read on and see how tender-hearted He was unto me in all my tantrums, “love me, anyone, for my Momma  didn’t”

 

A Child’s Angel

Once upon a time there was a child ready to be born.

So one day (s)he asked God:

They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?

Among the many angels, I chose one for you. She will be waiting for You and will take care of you.

But tell me, here in Heaven, I don’t do anything else but sing and smile, that’s enough for me to be happy.

Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you every day. And you will feel your angel’s love and be happy.

And how am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me, if I don’t know the language that men talk?

Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will

ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak.

And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?

Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray.

I’ve heard that on earth there are bad men. Who will protect me?

Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its life.

But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore.

Your angel will always talk to you about me and will teach you the way for you to come back to me, even though I will always be next to you.

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from earth could already be heard, and the child in a hurry asked softly:

Oh God, if I am about to leave now, please tell me my angel’s name

Your angel’s name is of no importance, you will call your angel:

Mommy

(Author Unknown)

 

Do you feel it? The sweetness of these penned words, of all our hearts are meant to hold at the simple thought or whisper of, “Mommy?”  This poem lingered upon my heart most of that day and into the next. I simply didn’t know what to do with it, I yearned for that word to be mine to claim, even now with my Mother dead, gone. It is simply the way of a child’s heart to do so, hence, I left that with Abba while asking Him to fulfill this craving.

My how He did.

While at our ladies church meeting, CCW, God drew near is such an intimate way, one you may not understand as being possible, yet, is. He shared His Mother, Mary, my Lord and Saviors Mommy. As we recited the closing Hail Mary’s, I was drawn to look upon the statue of her. Christ to fill me with what He felt for her as His Mother. To share with me what it was to be loved of her, cared for and wanted, despite all it would mean to her heart. She kept it all in her heart, loved knowing her heart would be pierced as well. “How I heard God whisper, “Let Mama Mary love you. She understands pain and longing, she desires to hold you tight and love you right. Be at peace this night upon your bed, tucked in of Her and watched over of Me.”

So, I did. I spent time in prayer that night, sitting with in the arms of the Sweetest Mother ever, opening myself to the Holy Spirit to connect us, to lead me emotionally to where God would take me. I sat with love that night, and all the days since.

Slowly the need to leave, as I realized,

“I am loved…

I am home…

I have a Mother…

her name is Mary.”

 

?

I am the desert, thirsty, dry, parched

For what I know not

I feel the heats intensity

The beating down of wanting

Weighted of the longing

Sourced out

I am the desert lost within myself

North to lead south as east confounds west

Spinning compass gone haywire

Which way is right?             

How do I find what is needed to quench my hearts thirst?

Where am I in all of my confusion?

Or am I really quite the opposite?

Am I the dessert?

Am I so full that I am drowning?

I feel so much

I know not where to go with it

What to do

It is as being lost in a desert of an ocean

Floundering to stay afloat                                                                                                                                                                   Love, the waves, crashing upon me

Storm brewing as I die of this thirst

For I know not how to open myself to the quenching of love

Who will love me?

Pull me from these depths

Save me

Simply show me how    

Life was meant to be

I understand why children need so much repeated soothing

For I am as one

Not knowing these feelings      

Alone and flooded

Drowning

Collapsing in upon myself

The sea to swallow me whole

That I lie upon its bottom          

My desert returned

I have learned to forgive

I have found loves touch

Still I float

Forlorn

Forgotten

Alone

Left

Not outside

Rather inside myself           

LET

How this simple little word can so confound me at times.

My Momma wouldn’t let me love her, she would say, “Don’t you dare to think I care or that you are allowed. who do you think you are that anyone would want you or your love?”

My Papa wouldn’t let me alone, my older brother wouldn’t let it be.

While others, let it happen.

Let, let, letting.

I said something to someone yesterday that sat with me through out the day and night, “Thank you for letting me love you.” It doesn’t seem right in some way to say it that way, even as it makes perfect sense to my heart.

Love isn’t about letting or not letting, it is about being and not being. Being there right, not being there wrong. It is the actions visited upon us.. or not..

It is the nature of God lived out to all, of kindness and gentleness, words pondered and spoken gently even in correction.

I am twisted yet with this one, I feel it. Knotted inside with gratitude and confusion all one

My small abused me to wonder why she would let me love her while the healing part of me dares to grasp at her response, “It’s easy.”

Me, Tammy, easy to love..

Loved not of Father, Mother, Brother or Husband. My love given, so fully, rebuked.

Now, here, this women of God, along with so many others past and present on my healing journey, love me.

Let me

Be a part of their lives,

Welcome my presence,

Help me, see me, hear me.

I have nothing to let happen

I needs must let, letting, go

For in the end, it is God Who allows all things to be

even for me

so i let go…      and…      let Him

FLESHED

 

Raw, wounded, gaping and open

That’s how I feel today

Lots of day actually of late

For my abuse has torn from me, me

I to be left oft, by the simplest word or action, naked

Perhaps my perception of this feeling is tied to when I was denied the essentials of life

Clothing to cover my nakedness

Shoes and coats full of warmth and comfort

Ligh

Love

Living

I am fleshed

My emotions worn out

As I see myself bleeding desire

Right desire

Yet

I feel so raw that that which me screams for to feel as though it would sear my flesh

A hand upon my shoulder so craved

To please just be held for awhile

Allowed to cry and be heard

The giver not minding my fleshed me

Wiling to touch the ugliness

Bandage the open wounds

Love me with heart, yes

See me with compassion, of course

Yet, mostly touch me right

For as I sit with memories of just that

I feel the growth

Flesh to come together

A child denied

Aborted outside the womb

To be recreated

Inside the womb of now

Here

With people

That fleshed she be               

 

SPIN ME THIS

 

 

Spin Me This

 

Lies and deceit

Oh so carefully spun

Shroud me

Cloak me to hide me

That I be the one wrong

 

Slithering within

And without

Wrongness

Upon their hearts and minds

Paints my me

Stains my heart

 

Am I not more

 

I am

Yet

I feel less

 

I am the calories they consume

Feeding their desires

Ravished

Exposure al I lived

Cold embraced

That it not exist

 

Fearful of light

Never the dark

I teeter

 

 

High above

Perched

Fearful and sad

Upon the tightrope

 

 

The clowns below

Watching                    Smiles painted on                      Waiting for my fall                        Eager for it                     They will consume me                       They always do

 

 

I wake

It is but a dream

One lived before

Tied to now

 

Now

 

I am weary from my minds traispsing around in then

After finding my way out of now

 

 

I am lonely

And hungry

For truth

 

Tears falling

 

 

 

 

 

As I am small

Before my Father, God

My Mother, Mary

I kneel

 

Reaching Homeward

Heavenward

 

 

Hold me, please

My heart screams

Let me feel arms around me

More than a hug

A never letting go

 

Tight

Lasting awhile

Sitting besides kind

 

Claimed to keep

Wanted just because

 

I am me   

“TELL ME”

“Tell me” when all is naught as it should be

“Tell me” when your past comes knocking, fear of then to cinch your heart

“Tell me” how vapors rise, fogginess to lay grip on your mind

“Tell me” and fear not, for there is naught to fear here

“Tell me” that I may “Tell you”

“Tell you” that you are safe and loved

“Tell you” that present is where you are, where you shall stay

“Tell me as I tell you” that you need not go alone, never, ever again

“Tell me” please, I long to hear, to help, to be there with you

“Tell me” that I may “Tell you” I understand

“Tell me” for I want to hear

“Tell me” in childlike faith believing

“Tell me” for I am listening to hear

“Tell me” that you too may hear

As God “Tells you” Listen for the color of life   

 

Listen for Me in then

Hear the sound of my heart

Find the beauty of staying

Hold tight to the colors of now

“Tell me” for I and Mine are right here

and We are going no where without you

 

USED UP

I am worn and weary of late

So full when I want to be empty

Have less at the very least

So much of life is more

more than I expected it would be

more than I know how to

Find or be

Though I try ever so hard

I find my safety used up

That I yearn for it as a child does their snatched blankie

I flounder for the contentment a place gave me

Searching for what is lost

Even I to feel used up

Done

I cry

I want to be small

To simply have less

 

Selfishly I want more of me

For me

I cry tears of remorse

Of forgive me Abba

for even as I know these feelings are mine

I know they are not to claim

You see, a place

A person

A memory

A time

None of these are mine to lose

Not if I am used up of Abba alone

Not while He is my safety

He my home

He my blankie

My Security

Make it so Papa, God                 Please             Make             it             so.