A New Mosaic

There is a song that through this journey that I have been forced to embark on that resonates so deeply inside of me on a couple different levels.
The lyrics go as follows:
This might hurt, it’s not safe;
But I know I gotta make a change.
I don’t care if I break, at least I will be feeling something.
‘Cause just okay is not enough; Help me fight through the nothingness of this life.
I don’t want to go through the motions,
I don’t want to go one more day
Without your all consuming passion inside of me.
I don’t want to spend my whole life asking
What if I had just given everything
Instead of going through the motions.
No regrets, not this time
I’m going to let my heart defeat my mind.
Let your love make me whole
I think I am finally feeling something.

My whole life for the last, well, a lot of years have been spent in just going through the motions. I have gone through life just going through it. I have gone through the motions in my marriage and in my spiritual life ( and pretty much anywhere else in my life).
The line in this song that says I don’t care if I break, at least I will be feeling something, is where I am at right now.
I am broken…shattered…laying here on the floor in pieces. Don’t mistake that for sitting around my house crying my eyes out or walking around whimpering. But nonetheless, I am broken. It’s a great place to be after years of just going through my life like a zombie, serving others at the expense of myself (and not even doing that very well, mind you). I am slowly letting God pick up my pieces and putting me back together in some new fabulous mosaic piece of art, that will be far more beautiful than before! The thought of it makes me a little excited!
Nobody broke me. Well, nobody here at least. I feel like God reached in and saw where I was and threw me up against a wall, shattering me so completely.
You might recoil at this thought; Of a God that would be so brutal. I see something different. I see a God that cared way to much about me to let me sit in that deceit, sin, and unhappiness. He knows as much, if not more how, less than happy I have been for such a long time.
He knew my unmet desires and expectations. He knew how afraid I have been of certain things that I would never admit to anyone else. He knew what has been holding me back and covering up the real Amber! He loves me more than anyone could even come close to loving me.
Today, I stood at a crossroads. I needed to make a decision. I believe that I have chosen the right decision, but it is not an easy one. I am still not 100% but maybe that is a good thing. I am just tired of going through the motions and I am not doing it anymore.
So here is to all you broken people out there…may the new mosaic of your life or current situation bring beauty to all that look at you when you are all put together again, and bring beauty to this planet and be an encouragement to others sitting on the floor in pieces!!! CHEERS!!!!

Faith

Last night I could not sleep even though I felt like I couldn’t keep my eyes open, my heart was pounding. There are a million things to think about and figure out how to do. There are a million things that have been said to me that tend to run through my head and continue to wound me over and over again, bringing a sense of humiliation, guilt and sadness to the very depth of my soul. There are images in my mind of what possibly happened that play like a horrible movie. Sometimes it is just hard to sleep!
I got up and turned on the light and grabbed a pen and notebook and started making a list of all I need to accomplish with in these next few days.
Still not tired…
I got out my Bible and started reading Hebrews chapter 3. I was reading about how the Israelites, the people who God rescued from Egypt in a miraculous way didn’t get to see the promise land because of their unbelief. They did not believe the God that rescued them could bring such goodness and do what he said he was going to do.
That coincided with my devotional for the day out of Streams in the Desert, believing God, simply faith. Faith is believing without seeing. I thought I had a handle on this, I know God can do what he says. Then I got an email from my brother, someone that I have had such a broken relationship with. He shared with me what he was going through and shared with me something he read about, guess what? That’s right Faith.
He shared with me about when the Israelites were faced with the Red Sea. They were there with no hope, had God brought them all this way, if front of a giant sea, just to die. From all appearances the answer to that question would be yes. Behind them an army was pursuing them and would kill them all, mountains surrounded them and in front of them a great big sea, they were all going to die and God had played a cruel joke. We all know the story, God opened up that sea and to their amazement they walked, (I would imagine that they would have run personally), across dry land and when they were all safely on the other side God allowed to sea to close up on the armies that were chasing them.
Still can’t sleep…
Well, I missed church two weeks ago and so I thought I would catch up on the message, so I got my computer and turned it on. Our pastor is doing a series on guess what…Faith.
Okay, I am starting to get it now, maybe God wants to teach me about faith on a whole new level. By now my head is swimming because I have no faith that God can change certain things in my life because I have no control over them. I know that He can change me and heal me. I know that I am willing and done with playing games and being a person who has neglected so many areas in my own life and has become lost in the truest sense of the word. I do not however believe that God has the power to fix my marriage or the other person involved in this whole process. I have no control over that, I don’t want to risk being hurt over and over. Yesterday, I was finished, completely done with my current life and I was throwing in the towel and moving on with just my daughter and I! That’s were my faith was.
Back to the message I was listening to, the whole message was on the topic of faith, yes but faith when you don’t believe. What do you do when you doubt. What do you do when you just don’t believe. I was thinking that because I have no faith right now in God’s ability to mend and change things that He was not able to do anything that deep down in my heart, I desperately want. (Whoooo, that was hard to admit!) Pastor Chris brought up a few examples of areas in our life where we might not believe God can work and he used one example of the fact that “maybe you have been married for 14 years and your marriage looks over and you can look back and see that it has been broken from almost the beginning”. I started crying, I have been married for 14 years and the other day had to admit to myself and then my husband that I think things have been broken from almost the beginning!!! Some might shake their heads and think I am silly and that was just a coincidence that the pastor made that as an example, I however know that God spoke to me. God isn’t angry with my disbelief, he understands. I am willing for him to help me with my disbelief!
After I fell asleep I had the best night sleep with no dreams about all this drama, for the first time since this nightmare started three weeks ago! I have not even to been able to escape this nightmare when I sleep, I have always been a dreamer but come on!!! I have just wanted some rest. I have woken up with a sick stomach every day and at times it has been so bad that I sit in the bathroom throwing up for a half an hour, not the best start to my day.
This morning was the first time that I didn’t have a stomach ache when I woke up. I feel like I just might be coming back to life.
My faith is not perfect, my faith is not strong but my faith is being strengthened.
I have so many new blessings in my life right now that I would not have had, had my life not imploded. I have had old friends come back into my life that I have missed and relationships reconciled that I thought were lost forever. These are helping me remember who I used to be and giving me hope that I am going to be just fine through this.
God is truly so good!!! I have FAITH!!!

OUCH...

Valentines Day, 2010

I just got done pruning my plants out in the front. These plants were beautiful the first year I planted them. They have vines that wrapped around our two columns in the front of our house. They were really bright and green and had lots of white, trumpet shaped flowers. I ended up just doing the basics to keep it alive. I watered it a few times a week and once a year basically gave it some plant food.
I pass by these two plants everyday. I look at them several times a day as I come and go from my home. Sometimes lately I have looked at these plants and felt a little guilty because they are no longer beautiful and I know that they are dying. I don’t even water them anymore. I thought about just throwing them away and getting new ones.
So today, the sun is shining and I have been going through a personal hell and feel like I have had someone come and suck all the life out of me. So, I got my scissors and started cutting all the dead vines away. I don’t want anything dead to stare at anymore! As I cut into the first vine that from all appearance looked dead, to my surprise inside the hard, ugly vine was soft green life. I kept cutting through what looked like death to me and found life over and over again. Under all the tangled ugly vines were dead leaves and mold where spiders found refuge and made their home.
After I cut all the vines I started sweeping all the dead and dry leaves that covered the soil, hiding the soil from any sunlight so it could thrive. I then took a long stick and punched holes in the root system because I remember that if you want plants to continue to grow and thrive you have to injure it so that it can be stimulated into new growth.
I got out the Miracle Grow and water and poured water all over the injured seemingly dead plant. I know that in a few weeks there will be proof of new life in the form of those beautiful bright green leaves on brand new vines and eventually flowers!
I am injured and cut down. My marriage seems hopelessly over and damaged. I am standing here bare and exposed. My root system has been severed and I sometimes just sit and shake in the brutal cold and wind. But I know that God is good and through this He will bring about new life. I will one day be more beautiful and full of life than I have been in the last few years.
Neglect is such an ugly thing…it is so easy to take advantage of something so beautiful. You pass by it everyday and in the back of your mind you know you should tend to it so that it can stay beautiful but before you know it, it seems like way to much work and it would be easier to throw it away and start all over. Where is the glory in that? Where is the worth of something so precious? I have neglected so many things and been so overwhelmed to even know where to begin to fix things…well the pruning began without my permission. God knew better than I did. Imagine that…