Habakkuk 2:2 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Dear End of The Sidewalk,

Please know first of all that I miss you.  Yes, I miss you terribly.  And that I fully intend to come back to you.  It’s just that so much has been happening in the past two months and I’m running nonstop and I’m so tired and I  need to find a place to catch a breath, but I just don’t have the time or energy yet!  I really do have so much to tell you!  So much that it may completely change the direction of this whole blog once it’s all out!

You see, there was the fundraising and bake “sale-ing” for the mission trip to Nicaragua.

There was the preparation for the Deeper Still Retreat.

And then there was my life…

There was work and housekeeping and dad’s cardioversion and mom’s trips to the hospital and her broken collarbone and then her TAVR and the family texting at all hours of the day and night.  But in case you missed that, all 5 of us were “talking” every day and saying I love you all the time… every. day. And my heart was happy and sad and exhausted all at once.

Then Dan and Emma broke up- after 7 years- and my heart broke… but I’m healing and hopeful for whatever the future holds for each of them.

Then I couldn’t get ahold of Sam for his Birthday and I was really sad… and I miss him so very much.

Then there was the actual trip to Nicaragua, and I can’t wait to tell you about that!  I went there fully expecting to be moved and changed because of the people I encountered.  As it turned out, it wasn’t about the sweet people of Nica, but the condition of my heart that God wanted me to see.  It’s a long story and I have most of it written in a draft, almost ready to post.  It’s my interpretation of how my ripped out heart was examined and put back together, and not until sometime after we came back. It’s still mending.  But I promise I will get it on here with all the pictures I took.  Soon.

Then there was the Deeper Still retreat!   Oh, my!  To be on the other side of that process was just as heart breaking, heart mending, soul cleansing and soul filling as when I went through my own retreat last summer.  I remembered sitting on the sofa last summer, listening to them tell me they had prayed for me, by name, for months before the retreat and then during the retreat, too.  I have learned over the past year through participating in their monthly prayer meetings that they were telling me the truth.  I saw the same questions in the eyes of the participants at this one. Oh, how I wanted them to know that we were still praying for their peace and that all the doubts and fears would be wiped away.

I’d been preparing for this retreat spiritually more than I prepared physically for Nicaragua (that’s part of the mission trip post so you will have to wait for that!) but I wasn’t expecting to learn about myself again…. that seems to be God’s theme with me these days…

My heart is very different since that last post about how God is connecting my dots.  He has taken me to a different place, to a new level of trust and faith, a new level of compassion and desire to serve others.  I didn’t realize how much He talks to me until I actually focused on shutting up so He could be heard!  I saw a sign on Pinterest the other day that cracked me up, so I made my own….

So, there ya go.

The fear that ruled me for decades is no longer my friend.  There’s no room for it in my life anymore.  I have something much better.  I know who I am in Christ now.  I am the apple of His eye and I am deeply loved by Him.

I am learning who I am to me now, too.  I am searching for a place to land as I come off of the “pink cloud” I’ve been told I was riding on for the last almost-16 months.  As I become more grounded in Christ, I am looking for the place He wants me to be grounded in my service to Him.  Whatever that looks like is fine with me.  But I feel Him pulling me. I can just feel a change coming.  I don’t know what or where or when, but I know I’m not afraid.

I will trust Him and His ways.  All His ways.  Always.

Peace y’all…