A Pilgrim's Process

Have you ever been in a season of your life where NOTHING goes the way you planned and EVERY way you thought you would react is absolutely not the way you end up reacting?
Or how about the one where you don't just wrestle with God all night long - but for MONTHS long?
Or what about the season where you almost welcome the ugly truth at any cost, just so there's finally some absolutes in the muddled mess of chaos that seems to be all-encompassing in the brain and heart part of your life?

Add those 3 examples up and stir in a few more - and you've got the season I've been in for probably the last 2 months or so.

I've had more midnight encounters with the Lord in the last 5 months than I've had in my entire lifetime.
I remember asking God to inconvenience me if it meant losing sleep at night.  I didn't know that the answer to this prayer would be accompanied by the turmoil I've been facing in my heart these past few months.

In a nutshell, I've been facing the all-too-real fact that apart from God, I can do nothing that benefits me or anyone else.  Not only that,

Start at the End

I just took a thought stanza from my journal and created a poem from it today.

I put a lot of deliberation into this little bit of my heart. :) As a (sort of acrostic) syllabic verse, this follows a alternating 7-6-6-7/6-6-6-7 format. Enjoy!


Please Don't Go Away - Start At The End
by Sarah Faith

Dancing down rolling hills
with a leap and a whirl
that flies out of control
my dear safe place spins Away.

Face to face with whats real
Not as spiritual
as I thought I had been.
Where did all my green grass Go?

Color isn't gone away
I find that its just bare.
No longer can I hide;
As of now I think I Don't.

Before Your eyes I end
My desperate little heart -
Reality of need.
Begin again, if You Please.

But, He was not in the Wind...He was in my Car.

I'm surprised at how much I'm writing recently... but after quite the lull in my creative streak, I'm back;  probably because I finally have something useful to say.

I think... that I'm at a place where when heartbreaking things happen to me, I can't fight God anymore about it.

I'm at a point where I'm tired of fighting.  I'm tired of asking questions that I'm not sure I'm supposed to know the answer to.

I must say though:  I am proud that I did what I was supposed to.  I'm proud that I did the right thing - and didn't  hide who I was or shrink back in what I believe in all of this.
If  I'm not supposed to go a certain route in this journey with God, then there's nothing that can keep me going that way, if I'm truly following Him. For that, I am grateful.  He is so sovereign.
I know I'm going to be okay.  In a way, I'm relieved because I finally feel like I have a grasp on whats going on in my life now - love life, really.
God is going on in my love life.

My life in a Poem

Deep inside my heart I know

a desire within me grows - 

to put away all youthful lusts

for holiness and righteousness.

Struggle still,  easy, no.

For I, myself, my greatest foe.

My heart to long for heaven things

my flesh to fight in opposing deeds.

All I long for is out of reach

the things I hate, I try unteach.

I battle for the sweet and pure

I've lost, I feel; my victory's sure

For by God's grace I move ahead

sometimes I lose, yet still not dead.

One day I'll walk tall and strong

as the Son revealed, my Glory has won.

2-3-11 -Sarah Faith. 

 

 

...Calculated Chaos in the Midst of ... Peace?

My life has taken a few undetected turns since I last wrote...
But strangely enough, I'm not too alarmed.  There's so much going on with my family ... dare I share that I believe God may be restoring us?

My brother and my sister (my sister being gone and not around for a year and a half, my brother being gone for about 5ish/6ish months) are finding themselves back at home more and more often, and our family is receiving them with loving arms.  Last Friday, along a brave young man's request to pursue me, my family... my Family was all together for the first time in a year and a half.  My grandparents included... EVERYONE around the table.  ... Something happened in my heart that night.  It felt like home for the first time in a LONG time.

"I REFUSE!" .... is easier said then done sometimes.

thrusting forward to get to a place to go back.
Back to a place where when I first met Him
...
I believed Him.

I believed what He said. There was no question.
I saw the Lord. I spoke to Him with a simple understanding that if He was real, then so was I.

So what happened?

People hurt you deeply.

Circumstances grow you up. Sin grows you old.

Difficulty begins to define you instead of the Word.
I mean, after all, "difficulty meets me in the reality of the world."


I struggle with myself, consistently. Sometimes I'm okay, and other times I'm in a shambles. Its easy to get my heart turned towards the Lord and determine that "all that is mine is actually God's" when I don't have the numbers of my checking and savings accounts in front of me, after forking over hundreds in car repairs.

I'm struggling quite a bit actually. All this stuff is just running through my head, "what if I can't get my savings back up? what if I need money for ANOTHER emergency and I don't have any? I CAN'T get my savings back up right now! I reaaaally need to get it back up. What if I got married in 5 years? I don't have ANY MONEY set aside! How am I going to pay for the internship? I SHOULD have health insurance, but I just can't afford it. OH MY GOD. MY HOURS are friggen cut! How am I going to pull this off?" LOOPING OVER and OVER! And I have to stop myself and try to remind myself that God takes care of these things! But....


Okay... so, SARAH has been taking care of herself for a long time in this area. When Sarah needed to buy something, Sarah saved and planned and budgeted and worked. She was in control of all of this, and she was blessed.

But now? One thing after another and another and another. And it JUST KEEPS GOING!!!!!!!!! I've never felt so.... insignificant in all of my LIFE. I am SO responsible with my finances, how could this happen?

And so I'm struggling with the truth that - God is entirely in control. I need to take my place here - and that place has NOTHING to do with me being in control.
I just feel like a total failure and I have no idea how I'm going to regain all that I'd worked for.

But then..... Why did I work for it? What was I working for?

I don't know.
I definitely feel defeated.
And I understand that this is a VERY good thing, do not get me wrong!
In fact, I pray that a sweet lesson in humility is learned through all of this - and gained, a strengthening of faith.

I have no idea how I'm going to provide financially for myself, going forward.
But you know what?


This time - I need to let God cover that area of my life. Just because something that was entirely out of control happened, doesn't mean that I'm irresponsible or that God thinks I failed in what He gave me to take care of.
I KNOW this. - in my head.

But I REALLY need to know this in my heart, and I don't.
Its why I'm so upset about it.


Sigh.

you know? These were Sarah thoughts today. Nothing profound or intelligent. I just needed to write this out for myself.