In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety And the gray promises that sameness whispered, Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And out you stepped onto new ground, Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning That is at one with your life's desire. Awaken your spirit to adventure; Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Patrick Weaver and Patrick Weaver Ministries do some great social media healing work from African American and we've-been-there contexts. Their most important work is intended to speak to women and young people experiencing abuse and trauma, I think. Some of it is had to read because it's so real and raw. Please catch up with Patrick Weaver Ministries on Facebook and on the Web if this is something that you need. Most of us do need this at one time or another in our lives and journeys.
Patrick Weaver recently wrote the following:
The hardest part of my trauma healing wasn’t the work, it was managing the depression and the anxiety that would creep up out of nowhere. Always with a vengeance and always leaving me emotionally drained …sometimes for weeks and even months. Whatever progress I had made would be erased, and with each bout came an overwhelming sense of sadness and unexplainable, inaudible grief.
It was an emotional roller coaster ride from hell that lasted for years. After some time, I realized that my determination to be instantly “healed” dishonored and neglected my right to feel, to be OK with just feeling what I felt without having to rush through the process. I realized I had a right to grieve without treating each phase as if it were a speed date. You see, healing isn’t an event, healing is a lifelong process of learning how to honor our story without dishonoring our destiny. Somebody will catch this…Jesus grieved in the garden until it was time to get up and fulfill His purpose, and not one minute before.
Healing isn’t about unseeing or unexperiencing the trauma, it’s about seeing and experiencing the trauma from a place of honor. When I accepted grieving as a necessary and important part of healing, honoring my story gave grieving a purpose, a cleansing purpose, an anointed purpose. If we try to bypass or neglect honoring our story to catch the next “healed” bus that promises to bypass the grieving process, our incomplete grieving will keep showing up in the form of depression and anxiety.
The Apostle Paul put it this way: “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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). See, healing doesn’t always mean that the thorn will be removed beloved, sometimes healing means we’re trauma-informed and thorn transformed…so that Christ’s power may rest on you. By honoring our story, we’re able to reconcile our survival with the miracle we are, the incredible purpose we must have, the powerful plan God must have for our life. We cannot give God the glory for a dishonored story beloved.
Our identity in Christ is developed from the story we grieve through, the story we honor. The Bible tells us: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5).
If you haven’t been traumatized by abuse, relational abuse, complex and compounded trauma, you won’t understand what I’m talking about. You don’t unsee what you saw, unexperience what you’ve experienced, or forget what you’ve been through. You’re not unbecoming what happened to you, you’re becoming the next version of your Christ identity…grief honored, trauma-informed and thorn-transformed. It will happen beloved…honor your story and God will get the glory.
This comes from the "Journey of a mountain woman" Facebook page. I think that many of us can fully identify with it. I do worry about the children who are growing up in environments where manufactured games and tech are the first go-tos for fun and attention. Here is the post:
Good morning! My great grand daughter is eighteen months old and loves anything electronic. She also loves empty plastic bottles, puzzles, her shoe, and a myriad of other things that have nothing to do with today's modern world of computers. I think about that. She is not capable at this age to make a good decision so we do it for her. I try to make my own decisions to be good ones but I often fail. I have messed up many times in life but I keep trying. There's a lot to be said for 'trying' so this Sunday morning don't beat yourself up for failure but thank God for the strength of trying. We are so hard on ourselves, more so than we are to anyone else in the world. Think about it. When you wake up at three in the morning do you count your blessings or think of the failures? So for today be kind to yourself...give yourself kudos for trying. Love you my friends. Have a happy Sunday.
1 When Jesus returned to Capernauma after some days, it became known that he was at home.
2 Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even around the door, and he preached the word to them.
3 They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
4 Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves,
7 “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?
8 Jesus immediately knew in his mind what they were thinking to themselves, so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?
9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’?
10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”—
11 he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.”
12 He rose, picked up his mat at once, and went away in the sight of everyone. They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”
John 20:19-29 and see this: https://www.goarch.org/thomas-sunday 19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21 [Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit.
23 Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
24 Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
28 Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
For many years I lived about 8 miles from Ola Belle Reed's country store where she and her family sold groceries and had an auditorium in the back where they broadcast a radio show on WCOJ on weekends and had some famous musicians play. I believe that they also ran an outdoor music venue down by Rising, Sun, Md. I remember her as a big woman with lots of jewelry and bright red lipstick who was mostly or all business.
The last time I saw her was at a fundraiser for a daycare center. I remember her people complaining because people would call them "hillbillies" and treat them badly and her folks would answer that they came from an area of western North Carolina that was flat.
