Write Something

I know what a stupid title huh?! Write something, that's what I came up with - wow the genius!!! But sometimes 'something' is just the thing to write, or sometimes 'nothing' is just the thing to write. And as always, if you don't have something good to say don't say anything at all...right? Well, I disagree; sometimes saying even the not so good things is the something to say.

So now I have the blank page in front of me and I have no idea what it is that I'm suppose to be writing here, so I decided to just start typing. Believe it or not, this is exactly how I started blogging....just typing, with no real purpose. I believe somewhere in this jumbled up mind of mine there is a title to this writing, although right now it is not for any reason being allowed out through my fingers. It is almost as though there is a basket of fruit in my head and none of the fruit matches.  Ha! Now you have to admit that's funny when you think about it, especially from a woman's point of view. I'm sure that most of the women that I know are multi-takers, take on way to much at one time and somehow in the midst of chaos, we seem to get everything we started finished (albeit a month down the road-it's still completed!).  So there it is, something to write about... a fruit basket! (I bet you didn't see that coming!) So, 'what's in your fruit basket?'


I do, as you do too, have a fruit basket of chaos in my head....most of us, willing to admit it or not, do. My basket, well it's been full of things not to productive and more distracting than fulfilling and goal oriented as of late. Its funny how something takes hold and before long I have a plethora of issues controlling my days and nights. This usually happens when I least need it and somewhere along the way I find that more unwanted fruit make it into my basket. One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch! Well, of all the sayings that I steal, I'd have to say this one is true. One bad apple has not only ruined the bunch but created more bad fruit to go along with it! I wonder most days how to battle keeping the bad things that run through my head at bay, how to make them less part of my thinking and I have yet to find an answer. I have yet to get to a place where, when I need something the most, that thing is not provided. When I want to hear something the most, I never really get to hear it. And in times like this, I usually find that I am more apt to dwell on what I need as opposed to what is needed. What do I dwell on? Well, right now its the needs to feel care for, not in the 'take care of me' sense, but the 'are you ok' sense. Does that make sense? And along with that need I have found that there are lots of times in the past when I have met those needs for others and the same has not been returned. The problem with my dwelling here for too long is during this time, those moments of need dredge  up all the other moments that were not provided. Come on! You know exactly what I'm talking about! Women especially, I believe without a shadow of a doubt that we have a memory like an elephant and when one thing sets us off, its not to far off that we will find a connection to a past thing that relates. Almost comforts and confirms the one thing that we least of all need confirming.

So here I am, this basket full of fruit jumbling around in my life and none of it worth eating or sharing. And I wonder, if this is it? If this is what I'm going to deal with for a long time until I can get out of the hole that I am in? Is this the battle that I am stuck in until somewhere in the future a trap door will open and all that bad fruit will just roll out? I highly doubt that will happen but I chose to live with this bad fruit basket or I can chose to have a different one. Gal 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." There's a basket of fruit I'd love to have! One that has no law, unlike the basket that I'm dealing with now. I read this today looking for a scripture about peace, this is not what I was looking for! The need for care is something that I miss now and missed growing up. I have always been hard-headed and it has made for me to be something that I'm not...strong.  And in the life that I created, due to circumstances and situations, I have put myself in a position where I show no need for care. I know that in my head but my heart still says that I need it.  So how do I get this basket of fruit, one that will give to others as opposed to giving to myself? I have no idea! But, somewhere in my body dwells the Holy Spirit, I don't know where He is right now, and I am having trouble finding Him, hearing Him, feeling Him, but He's there....albeit somewhere. And with Him there is a place that can take care of all the needs that I have and someday I'll get to find it, someday I'll get to open the trap door and dump all this bad fruit out and be filled up with the fruit that Galatians 5:22 refers too. But, until then, I have to persevere through this storm of bad moments, press through to a place where I don't have a need to feel cared for by a law but a fulfilling of being cared for  and loved because I am.

Write something but what? Maybe the things that are holding me back from Him are the things that I've let myself believe I need from this life. Maybe the things of this life are just that, things. Maybe what I need is something from a place where I refuse to go as oppose to having a problem finding. I don't know the answers but I know that somewhere along the way through this journey of non-stop depression and piling on bad fruit, there is an end. And end with out a law that says 'this is what you need' but an end that writes this on my heart 'I am what you need, I will give you love, joy and peace, I am the goodness and faithfulness that you look for, and I will take care of all your needs.'

Seeing is Believing

I have always heard and on some part believed that seeing is believing, haven't you? I mean we go through life asking for proof of things from basically everyone; everyone from scientist, to theologists, to friends and family members who we offer our trust.  Seeing is believing, wouldn't you agree? But is believing seeing? There's a question for you! Is believing seeing? I don't believe so or at least not on all levels, because I have seen something and still do not believe. I saw people who were much older than me (when I was much, much younger) be calm and collected with dealing with a temperamental horse - when I would have (and still might) become more forceful than necessary to get the point across. Mind you not to a point of abusing but probably from an outside look at the brink of abuse.  And in the back of my mind I could hear myself say "you aren't getting anywhere" and within a time frame of a minutes maybe and hour the horse would give and settle. And yet I didn't believe.  So seeing is not always believing, even though that is the thing that should say more than any other thing about proof. I would tell you today that if I had seen it I would have believed it but from just one example in my past, that statement would be a lie.  I would bet to say that the same is true for you. And I would say that seeing should make a believer, in whatever it is, for each and everyone of us. But if that were true, then when I stand at the cemetery and look at two headstones with the names of my son and his best friend, I would believe that they really are no longer here. I would believe that this is real and I'm not going to wake up and find out that this is all a dream (not unlike the phenomenal end to the TV show Dallas some 20+yrs ago [sorry if that does not ring bells with you]). Is seeing believing? I would say no, not on any level is seeing believing and the same is true for the flip of that statement. And yet they are used in every sense of life, every way we handle our every day life.

It is not secret not even a little one that I am in a struggle with believing, believing in purpose, believing in faith, believing in the word of God, and simply believing that things will eventually get better.  It is obvious to you now why that is not a secret. The struggle that I am dealing with spiritually, in every day, has been bled in every aspect of this blog, and I have used this blog to express that struggle and the hope that I try to cling. So how do I believe without seeing? I think this is the question that needs answering because seeing is believing is not working.  How do I get to the place where I can believe without seeing? How can I get through this struggle and onto a place of true healing, not forgetting, true comfort and peace, without loosing that part of my life? Simply....by faith. Which is easier said than done; faith is the impediment of believing is not seeing. John 20:29 "Then Jesus said to them 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed'." Seeing is not always believing, thats what this statement is saying, that just because you see doesn't always mean you believe. I mean in essence that's what Jesus said, right? Maybe not exactly in those words but I wonder if because I didn't back read or forward read to this scripture (by the way thank you ex-brother-in-law Mike for the location) what was happening when Jesus said this to the disciples? I know that throughout the scriptures the disciples with Jesus didn't always believe what he was saying. I wonder if they often didn't believe His words. (I know "good night she went there!") But lets face facts, the most believing moments in the disciples time with Jesus was when he was doing miracles, right? When He was doing something amazing - and my guess, which is just that a guess, is that when He was just being Him and telling them things they were probably like "yea right?" (Ok so not in those terms.) But don't you just wonder why Jesus had to say this to the disciples? Why did He use this statement? I don't know I'm sure He had some reason, some purpose, something in mind and probably more intense than what I read.

So is seeing believing? I don't think so. Do I believe everything that I see? No, still don't believe that I stand at a plot and see the names Kaleb Lee Valliant and Thadius Ian Markle and believe that this place that we are in and this time we are going through is real. But do I want to believe that somewhere, in some future time, believing is not seeing and that its ok to struggle and question, doubt and be angry, and sometime out there He knows that my faith is based solely on believing, thats all. Seeing is not believing, that is more true than the standard version. Seeing is not believing no matter which way you cut it. I read John 20:29 like this - I know that you know Me and that times you do not believe, but I know your heart and that you believe and are blessed even when you don't want see and still believe. Doesn't that make much more sense? I think so.