Tag: seeing things differemtly

For Everything there is a Season

Dear You,

This year has already been the hardest year of my life, and it is just coming to the end of March! Right now I feel like I am being crushed on every side. I had to make the decision to move from where I lived suddenly because it was no longer serving me. Great wonderful, with God’s grace and the determination of a friend I moved with her into a really nice flat. Comfortable, nice. Yes, this is life! I felt a little freer, so I got cosy.

Then wham, work troubles. I cannot do anything right all my decisions are poor and I walk around with egg permanently on my face, yolk dripping on the floor. Okay. This is a new experience. My brain felt fuzzy I walked in a daze. I need to fix my face, permanently stitched in terror of what happens each day. “You can do this girl, God’s got you” – weekend prep talk leading into Monday morning blues. I swear every day I gonna resign. But, I have to keep holding on. Each period of the day was a struggle of wading through the Sargasso sea, with no life jacket, just God and me. Well, isn’t this nice, it seems this is the price to dear step out. Okay, let’s try again. Another day, the struggle is real, and things blow up in my face. Oh, maybe this will become a cake. Let us carry on at least I can see. Well now, look at this! It is a nail and let’s look over there, a coffin! I try to edge away from both. Then I trip. I now have the privilege of rest in waiting. All that work, all that effort snatched and frozen just out of reach, at lightning speed.

This year has been so hard, I don’t know how or where to begin. I think I will start with, I am alive. Therefore it must mean that God ain’t finished with me, so I go. But, I think too many things are now on my face, weighty things, burdensome things, I cannot see the way. I have been beaten into admitting humility and gratitude. Thank you, Lord, for this lesson. It has been painful, and the price may be heavy but thankfully the cost will yield favourable returns. They say every lesson is a blessing and now as I sit waiting on God oh, I believe it. I know I have had to wrestle with keeping myself, myself. In the process, I am shedding those parts that do not serve me, but the shedding is painful, the shedding is constant. In the process, I have to find my voice respectfully, speak my truth don’t kiss ass (pardon my Latin), like it or limp it. It has been so hard, but praise God it will get better soon…

Yours dearly,

Kim

From Cold Col’ Inglan’

The Years

Twenty years
have come and gone
still there are tears.
How to recover?
I do not know
Where to turn?
I cannot say.
I feel just as I did -
wrenching pain
of loss
and still
the world looks on
as if nothing is amiss.
The only change are
the number of years
nothing else
nothing quite seems real.
Grieve engulfs me
terribly
hammers at my resolve.
I must carry on
continue on,
the dream must stay alive!

Peace is Priceless

After many years of wrestling with this, I have finally concluded that peace is priceless. No amount of money, accolades or accomplishments can beat having peace. To get up each day knowing that the smallest thing will bring you joy is peace. A job you love may be hard and you may make mistakes but each day you want to work, you want to challenge yourself to do your best for that day. That is peace. To feel the freedom to be yourself, your true authentic self that is peace. No one has predetermined your worth or has decided they know who you are but are willing to concede that there are layers to you, that is peace. When you can sleep a deep deep sleep and wake up knowing you are ready for the day, that is peace.

It seems that finding peace is harder than it seems. Many of us can only grudgingly sing: “When peace like a river attendeth my way when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul”. No, it is not well with my soul, because people have a way of imposing themselves and their expectations on you and making your life a living hell. In hell, let me remind you there is no peace, joy or contentment. So earth becomes hell because when you try to reach beyond your means and the expectations of others the chains imposed seem to strangle you, rip the breath from you and smack you to your knees. But you look around and people still expect you to function and not malfunction but they are your malware.

We are too hard on ourselves and too hard on each other. But society tells us this is okay and so we have vampirous leeches in the form of each other, who suck and tug the air breathe. So, going back to peace; it can only be achieved when we say no to unfounded expectations and the violations from the expectations we seek from questionable sources. Peace is necessary but elusive in a world that glorifies wars. We feel alive when we wage war, how ironic because war means certain death. We are not satisfied with the mundane, where peace resides. No, we have to reach past the safe and choose violence instead. Do you see how hard it is for peace to permeate? I spent all paragraphs on violence, conflict and oppression.

Peace is priceless. It is better to have peace than riches but society says to get it at any cost, even your peace of mind. Society is not satisfied with letting you be, it tries to fix you until your insides become your outside and your outside disappears. Again, I have digressed from extolling the virtues of peace. Even in these few words is little evidence of peace. But best believe, peace is priceless.

Grave Clothes

Bitter strips of agony
they ripple and ride
stealthily
ravenous
untamed
mapping all your pain
buried deep within the stench of shame
wrecks the sense
making you feel insane
bound tight
too tight
as you seek the light again.
minutus steps are all promised
leaps defeated
eternity unfolds
slowly 
ever slowly
to get out of deathly
grave clothes.

Maladaptive Daydreaming and God

I never thought that daydreaming was a problem. Yes, there were times when daydreaming became the best part of my day. When I couldn’t wait to get from school or later work, to continue with my daydreaming. When I did not want to be interrupted, or talk to anyone because I was good in this space I was crafting for myself. It was my space. There were nights when my dreams were based on my daydreaming, it was so good! So good in fact that I lost touch with reality and my daydreams seemed more real, feasible and comforting than my actual day-to-day life. Even in sleep, it was with me, continuing the escape and pleasure I experienced in my waking hours. Do you see the problem? If not let me tell you: daydreaming took me further from God as I relied on them to help me get through whatever struggles I had, not only did I escape the realities of my problems but the reality of God. Could I have developed a reliance on my daydreams to the detriment of my relationship with God?

Once I realised that my daydreaming was getting out of hand I started leaning into God more, or so I thought. Yes, I would read my bible. As a matter of fact, I have read the whole bible more than once but without much conviction. I learned specific scriptures, but there was no fire behind my efforts. I still went back to daydreaming. I chose it over building a solid relationship with God. There were times when directly after my devotion, I would go back to daydreaming. Trying to fit everything in my day, trying to hit all the checkboxes and getting nowhere it seems. And the inconsistency in my walk with God has become a cyclical dilemma that I have not gotten a hold of. I have been daydreaming it seems all my life, could it really be that bad?

It can be. When we spend too much time in our daydreams we spend less time with real people and even worse, we give little of our time to God. We expect God to wait until we are finished and we can use leftover time to get to Him. What a thought. What a terrible thought! It does take us further from God – But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15). My daydream takes me to places and provides things I cannot get in my reality, desires that are not authentic to God. Simply put, daydreaming can actually reflect opposition to the will and truth of God. So what takes over? Well if left to its own devices our daydreaming can open our thoughts to be controlled by the devil. I remember I was so angry with a situation that did not work out in my favour that the person involved was violently killed in my daydream. I sought retribution on that person, and their family (who I did not know at all) and I threw in some imaginary enemy whom I eviscerated with much gore and took unnatural pleasure in. I totally lost sight that vengeance belonged to the Lord and in no way did I care about forgiveness. It took me down a very dark place and I was not even aware of it because it felt so satisfying. And don’t think I haven’t created situations where I am the victim and face great opposition from everyone and no one is to be trusted I have. I have even shed tears imagining how bad my situation could get! About how if I died that would be so sad but finally people would miss me but by then it would be too late. Man, this thing can get deep!

So think about it, have you allowed whether now or in the past, your daydreaming to take you to and has kept you captive in a dark place. also here is a sobering thought, daydreaming can become a disorder. Where does that leave our relationship with God? Hopefully, we can consider this next time.

Loyalty… Sacrifice

Stop lying. You are not truly loyal. It’s desperation. I ain’t condemning you. I seen it in myself too that’s why I can tell you. You is a liar.

Too often we feel trapped in ticking all the boxes to please people until we tick ourselves right off a cliff. We feel we need to take care of it all but really we lying about the truth of what we do. All we do is hold ourselves captive to what we think we should do to sit at an imaginary table that never had legs to stand on much less a seat for us to sit. Many of us are still blinded by the need to do all at the cost of self and we claim to be doing something, like helping others. How are we serving others by sacrificing our health, our mind, and our spirit? No one asked, nor do they have the right to expect that. So stop being unkind to yourself.

When last did we help ourselves by being honest. By saying you know what we don’t want to do this, “this is no longer about using the gifts God gave me but trying to please others for their approval, this is not about serving God by serving others. This has become catering to the will of another human being”. When will we turn around and be honest and truthful to ourselves and to those we are trying to please? We take care of others, and when you think about it, we are okay with thinking we have some special talent for it. No, we need to be honest about the fact that because we are human we are limited. Stop doing that job to make others happy. Be yourself don’t sacrifice yourself for a cause you were never called to take up. Jon of Arc is a saint, but you are no Jon of Arc and nobody should expect you to be.

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8: 34)

For this advent period, we need to think differently. We need to start thinking of living in truth not living a sacrificial life based on how much we can please others and how much we need to please God. We need to reflect on why we may do the things we do and how we can work at being more intentional. It’s finally time to start being faithful to who God has called us to be and not to the calling of the world. Let us be loyal to Jesus and not the flesh

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,  and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)