Back--And Thinking

Thank-you so much for welcoming me back and for the lovely birthday wishes, too! They, you, are so very appreciated. My birthday was sweet, peaceful. Happy sigh.

And now I'll throw a kinda controversial post at you just to liven things up around here, ok? :)

I have known widows who, after losing their husbands, just wanted to lay down and die. To just 'give up the ghost' (as they say) and zoom off to Heaven right this very minute because the pain of living alone was too huge. Too much loneliness, too much quiet, too much picturing a bleak, black string of future years.

Personally? I've already told Tom that I refuse to hand over that kind of power to any person on Earth--even to him. I will not, cannot, present to any human-being my whole will to live. For me, that's way, way too much power to give to anyone but God.

And yes, it is natural to feel a dire-ness when a spouse dies, especially at first. But! Each day I wish to aim for something beyond just natural. I want something higher, something more. I want to be more, especially.

And truthfully? I believe God's been building this whole other life inside me for decades, a sort of other universe where He and I take walks 'in the cool of the evening' and where it's nearly always springtime and kinda Garden of Eden-ish. You know, rather like this:



"But let it be the hidden (wo)man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." 1 Peter 3:4



I believe there's a type of Quiet Land inside me which God and I (but mostly God) are building together, a place I can slip over to when things turn all impossible in the outside world. A quiet park-like setting to escape to when everyone else is losing his or her respective head. And what matters is that I, now, allow God to build whatever He wants in that lovely green place and that I form the habit of meeting Him there whenever He calls. 

Before the really hairy times of my own future arrive.

It's like Jesus' story of the ten virgins who waited hours and hours into the night for the bridegroom, so long that five of them ran out of oil for their lamps. Then while those five ran to the store for more oil, the bridegroom arrived and they missed out. Majorly.

Five prepared ahead of time, thought ahead, learned from experience, brought extra oil. The other five didn't.

So what I'm saying here today is simply that I want to prepare now for the journey which is ahead. Transitions are up the road for each of us (Life is always changing!) and I just want my transitions to be less painful if there's any way to make them so.





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Here was another similar post of mine with some added practicality.


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"He leads me beside the still waters..." ...from Psalm 23