Declaration of Dependence: Dying on My Life Bed

It's raining outside.  It seems to be raining harder on the inside.  I can't see to drive.  I can't see to type.  I can't seem to find the end of my tears this morning.  It feels like I'm crying something out of me.  It hurts like birth.  It hurts like death.  I think it's both.  I find it hard to collect what's all over me and speak it out and make sense.  My heart is swirling around itself.

I said goodbye to my boy this morning.  He made his childhood dreams come true months ago and moved himself to the mountains of Montana.  He was home for a short visit this week.  He has chosen some things on his path that are different from me; different from what I would have for him.  I don't think he's believing Truth at the moment but I also believe Truth has hold of him.  I looked him square in the eyes, though, and told him that I loved him, told him that he makes me proud.  That I would never abandon him.  Never turn away from him.  He held me close while I sobbed out what felt like my guts.  I would die for him. I loosened my hold on him and let him go. "Oh my God.  This hurts," I screamed silently.  "Hold him for me.  I can't anymore."

I have to stop typing here for a second and try and breathe.

My faith, this year, has wreaked havoc on me.  I don't do life like I used to.  And I don't want to.  I have learned to love and live more authentically.  I know many of you that will read this don't believe like I do, don't make the same choices that I do, don't understand everything I'm saying.  I don't care.  It doesn't frighten me or frustrate me anymore.  I grab hold of  you glad anyway and am pleased to have you in my life, if you'd like to be.  I know how to let you be beside me and not be exactly like me.  There will be a place for you at my table, regardless.

I've sold myself out solid to what I do believe is truth and I'm situated there quite uncomfortably.  Nothing about it feels okay.  Everything, including myself, feels unfamiliar to me.  As soon as I staked myself into the ground and called out boldly, the ground started rumbling underneath me.  I could feel myself look around with a wild eyed look, holding my arms out to steady me.  My walls started to fall down around me and I found myself exposed and standing in a very bright light.  "Be naked," I seemed to hear in wordless speech.  "It's in your nakedness that I will fully use you."
Trouble is, when you're naked, you stop wearing your defenses.  God has become that for me.  He doesn't do things the way I would.  This makes me nervous, breathless, wavery some days, but boldly honest with Him and everyone around me.  I can't afford to hide anymore.  It costs too much and I don't have that kind of currency.  I traded it in for Grace.

My "work", what I do to eat and have electricity,  is fulfilling to me and given to me straight from His hand.  The thing is, it feels unsure and fluid right now, like mercury.  I don't know where it's going. It scares me a little to not know what's next.  It scares me a lot actually.  And I have dreams of bigger things, riskier things, that I carry around in a bubble over my head.  Will they happen?  God?, I say, as I peer up at the bubble.  For right now, God, though, will I have enough money to pay for living?

I met a man this year.  I did not go looking for him.  It woke my heart up and it started to beat in his direction and toward his beautiful boy.  He sent me a picture of the two of them one day and I fell into it.  I thought sure God had given him to me.  I had a dream and believed it.  But, the man?  He did not have the same dream I did and I had to usher myself out of his life to try and get my balance, to let him go on his way and not get in his way.  I cried disappointment bigger than I could contain; still do some days.  I miss him, miss his boy.  How could I have read that so wrong?   I'm learning to live in the unanswered, the mysteries of why with no "because" response.

I've called myself out to all of you, standing true to my failings.  And here recently I've gone to the last vestige of my own hypocrisy and walked out my faith by walking back into my mother's life.  I feel vulnerable so big it makes my teeth chatter like when you're so cold.  She scares me where my heart lays open.  She's wounded it mighty.  But I lay it bare, knowing full well I will probably feel the sting again. I went because I don't own myself anymore.  I went because the One who loves me asked it of me.

I sit here alone on the floor of my friends' empty new house, waiting for the carpet installers to get here because she had to go to work.  I had the time, time unfilled, that I'm trusting the Father with.  This is where He wanted me today.  I grab my Bible, one given to me by a death row inmate several years ago, and read these words out loud into the silence of the house and my voice echoes :

My heart exults in the Lord....I rejoice in Your deliverance
There is no holy one like the Lord
Truly, there is none beside You.
There is no rock like our God.
Talk no more with lofty pride
Let no arrogance cross your lips.
For the Lord is an all knowing God
By Him actions are measured.  1 Samuel 2

I look at the day in front of me; the unknown days ahead, and I lay myself down with no weapons beside me, no lofty pride, no arrogance.  I've spent it all bankrupt.  I have made Him my one thing.  I learned this week that "shalom", in Hebrew means "all is well, as it pertains to a prosperous spirit."
So, if you ask me how I am?  I'm not okay in the "just fine" sort of way; but shalom seems a good answer to me.

Being Born in a Driveway

There's no trace of what this picture cost.  The healing I've received is beginning to erase the memory.  I have no need to recall it to you anymore.  This is my mother.  Today my Father clearly said "Go.  Today.  Right now.  I have things I want to pour out on you.  I can't.  Until You go."  It was then I recalled.  This day?  It was my parents' anniversary.  My father's been gone a year now.  My mother is alone. And she is not well.

I looked at my daughter as we drove in the car.  "We have to go there.  Now.  I'm getting flowers first."  My girl; she's game for my twists and turns.  I feel warm and proud when she doesn't hesitate.  She's fully aware of the price my heart has paid.  So loyal, she is, to me, but she understands my faith embryo that's growing inside of me these days.  It's kicking at the shell to burst out green and tall.

I drive up unannounced to my mother's house.  She stands still, leaning on a rake she was using to get up a stray leaf or two, a bewildered smile makes her face light up. I get out of the car and walk towards her with the ruby red vase of flowers I'd found.  The vase, especially, means something to me.  I was born in July.  Ruby is my birthstone.  I'm feeling like I"m being born standing right there in her driveway.

"It's not my birthday!", she says, the smile still there with a question mark.
Perfect segway.  Thank you, God.
"No.  But it's your anniversary," I say
Her shoulders slump and her hands cover her face as she cries.
"I didn't think anyone remembered," she whimpers.  "It would have been 59 years today."

We sit on her porch and my girl and I eat fudgesicles from her freezer.  We tell her what we've been up to.  I'm surprised at how easy it is.  How peaceful blows on the breeze as it comes through.  Today was well and good.  My Father is pleased.  I've made God smile.

Bless a wounded woman, will you?  I'm placing in your hands, her address.  Just tell her you're a friend of mine.  No matter where you live, what you believe, what color you are.  Maybe take a minute to send her a drawing, card, verse, poem, something in your own hand.  Pass this around; repost this and flood her with love.  Teach her to know that she still matters.  Do it for this healed girl who got born in a driveway today.

Doris Gray
16 Louis Circle
Cold Spring, KY  41076

Porch Walking at Midnight

I headed up to go to sleep and Something called me outside.  It's curious to me, how, the closer I get to God, the lonelier I can feel sometimes.  The world seems tasteless to me in those times.  My appetite seems to crave something I can't find.  I go back downstairs to get a chocolate brownie and take it with me back outside.

I have this song plugged into my ears right now as I stare up at the ceiling of stars.  My boy sang it at my father's memorial service last year. God?  See me here?  I've banked every. single. thing. on You.  I'm screwed royal if You don't show up.  My work, My yearning to connect.  My desire to be loved while I'm here walking the ground You made.  My car that threatens me every few months to stop cold and take all my money.  You're all I got, God.  You're it.  You're my everything.

I grab the air in front of me to remind me He's real and hold His "hand" in my mind.  I'm staking me here, right here on this porch.  Yet though You slay me, still I will trust in You.

When You're eyes on on this child?  Your grace abounds to me.  I'm counting on that.

Abandoning To Canaanland

Andrew Peterson is a man who seems to reach into my soul and call it up high with his music.  I sat this morning, in front of my mirror, all make up brushes and eye shadows, and listened to him sing this song that made me stop and look at my reflection.  So many truths piled up in my spirit like a traffic collision and I grabbed my headphones to I could get it real, real close in my ears and listened again.  And again.

He sings the story of Sarah.  Her man asked her to do the craziest thing.
"Take my hand, love of mine.  Let's go on the wildest adventure.  There's sun and amber and honey and soft green grass and stars full of blessings. Oh Sarah, fair and barren one....come to Canaan, to see the the grains of sand like our many sons.  Come!

I can't fathom the trust that took, the risk, the fear.  Imagining the impossible, the downright laughable and then you catch the vision and start to believe until it hits you, what you're believing, and you shake scared. Your smile freezes. What if it's a trick?  What if it hurts?  What if?

What scares me more?  What if she hadn't taken the dare?  Think what she'd have missed.  Think what we'd have missed!  Next time your Lover calls out your name?  Grab hold of His hand.

With Love He means to save us all, and Love?  Has chosen you.  And me.