2023 and I'm Still Here

I've had too many things floating around my head to write a single post on a single topic. Or I get too rambly. So here's a general life update and a few thoughts. 

It's the beginning of 2023. I'm a totally different and new person to any I have known before. I've lived through a trauma and I'm getting to see how it has shaped me. The part of me that has emotions was turned off for so long that I feel like an infant learning to walk again; Learning to feel. 

And that, coupled with having a daughter has me exploring this idea of differences between males and females. I want to rejoice in the true and beautiful difference that a daughter is from a son. Especially in a world that wants to make it seem like there is no difference. But it is not true, and so I'm on a journey too of self discovery on what makes me, as a woman, unique from the other half of humanity. That, I am excited about learning! So far, I think there's a great mystery in hormones! I had to go on some artificial ones, during my recovery, and it was surprising to see something outside of myself control me! So now I wonder, that what we women see and experience as normal may be something vastly different to what an ordinary man sees and experiences in day to day life! Just by having a different hormonal makeup. God's creation is fascinating and I think we don't even know the half of it.

I met the Pharaoh yesterday (If he sees this post somehow, I hope he takes my silliness as a compliment). He was older and wiser and happy to share that wisdom and experience in a short conversation. And he's really from Egypt!

In a short getting to know you convo, he picked up, somehow, that confusion that can happen in my stage of life. That feeling that I am not contributing all I can to this world and God's kingdom. 

He said (in my words), most people try to live based on their gifts. They do sports or have a skill or interest, and they try to do that thing. So if something happens in life where they can't use that skill, they are frustrated and feel they are wasting their life. But he says it is better to live towards a particular task or goal. We have many skills and talents and will not use them all at once. But if we focus on the task at hand, then our days will make more sense. What we did in our teen and young adult years may look very different to what we will do later. And that isn't bad. Because we are using different skills isn't wasting the ones from before. That was for then. 

It seemed simple, but I suppose to have him pick up so quickly that that is exactly what I needed to understand, really blessed my heart. It also was encouraging to think of all the beautiful and new things I am yet to acccomplish.

(Sometimes we don't need to start a 'prophetic ministry', we just need to listen and love the believers')

And that segways into my final thoughts...church and attendance. 

Ive already written about it in a previous post, so no need to beat that horse again. But what is new to me is to dig into the idea of the importance of Sunday mornings. It was always a ritual to me. A tradition. A good one, but in my mind, not binding. An excellent small group, I thought, was more beneficial and fruitful. But I am leaning in to this idea of where the tradition comes from and what it really is for. Tradition/old way doesn't mean bad. We don't have to find the newest latest thing for it to have value. Why has something lasted all this time? What does it mean?

I'm still digging into those questions, but what has been coming out is quite simply worship. Pausing to give God worship with others. 

It's like going to the concert. The main event. Having the CD (I'm old) and learning all the songs and belting in traffic in the car is good. Talking on forums and sharing with others about the amazing Amy Grant or Island Kings is important for any fan. Following the pages and wearing 'merch' is also great. But none of those compares to going to the live concert. It's an incomplete analogy, but the point is still that using your money to buy tickets, finding the time and going, live, makes a difference. I don't know which feeds into the other, if the concert pushes me to buy the CD or if playing the songs over and over pushes me to want to go to the concert. Maybe they are so intertwined, it's pointless to try and dissect it. But you cannot be a true fan of Beyonce and hear that all the other fans are gathering together to go see her, live, and say that you alright cause you could listen to her on your way to work. 

So even though I have family members and friends that don't go to church, and it is easier to see that and wonder if they truly are fans of the Lord, I think it has helped me to also examine why I am going. So that it isn't just a ritual or something I'm doing for the children. I get to learn the beauty and importance of it. 

And....and, I get to serve. When I don't want to. When things aren't going as planned, when people are difficult to work with, I'm still there and it is sanctifying me. Stay in the church and work through it from the inside. It will be easier from the outside, but you may end up not coming back in, cause who likes hard? 

Im married almost 12 years, my boys are 10 and 8, and I have a daughter! There's so much joy and so many challenges wrapped up in that one sentence. But God still has me. Not me holding on to him. This is a time where He has been holding me as I sometimes wrestle to get away. But He still has me. 

Bird.