“Love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image… otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” ~Author Unknown

“Love slays what we have been, that we may be what we were not.”
– St.Augustine

If we can love others and ourselves with the kind of love that does not twist and force…judge and loathe, it will change us.
It can SLAY us.
Challenge us to live better, be better and give more.
Find beauty in ALL things.
That kind of love requires a simple faith, of supernatural caliber…the kind of love we cannot generate on our own.

If there is anything I know for sure, it’s that everything is connected. All of these elements are what make me a human being, right?
Body, mind, soul and spirit. It is all connected. We ALL have the same make up…dealing with the same issues, simply packaged different.
Yesterday I revealed some of the pages of my own history. Dug up and exposed some of the roots in my heart that have gotten tangled, making a mess of things. Ultimately, as I continue to study it seems that exposing those very things are what is going to be what bring healing and fresh air into my life.

The truth is life is messy. Dirty, ugly, messy. It’s hard to see the good sometimes when life is unfair. Each day seeming to deal with blow after blow. It’s lonely, even though we’ve all felt it, when its our turn it feels light years away from where everyone else is living.

I have some dear friends who were dealt some bad news yesterday. The timing could not have been worse. Feeling helpless as a bystander. Offering any help needed just falls short when people you love are scared and hurting. The only comfort and hope being that all things are connected and held together by God for an eventual greater purpose.

For whatever reason the best part of ourselves is revealed on the other side of pain. Not one of us would be up for volunteering for it, but each if us takes a turn or two in our lifetime. The magic seems to be in how we deal with our trials, not necessarily the outcomes. The people who stun and amaze us have endured. Overcome. Pressed through. Survived. These are the ones in life we genuinely celebrate and root for. Admire. Love.

This is the kind of love that can slay what we have been. This love can demolish the untruths that we get comfortable living with. Press us past the weaknesses that hold us back. Demolish monuments built to pain.

Press us towards being who we have not been yet.

I’m excited too see who it is I’ve not been yet…

HEAVY THOUGHTS

Will they know that I loved them as much as I could?
Would they know that thier little voices and faces made my life?
Will they know that I was trying?
Forging a new way?
A new path?
Away form the steel traps set for them ?
Large gnashing rusty teeth…ready to spring up and clasp onto their skin and sink into their flesh?
Locked down in a tight hold so they’d be forced to learn how to walk with it fastened on?
Hobbling, wincing with each step.
Learning to cope with that pain then eventually living with it being normal. Forgetting life when it was innocent and without the weight and burden. Without the lugging and heaving and dragging.
The chains only giving so much slack before yanking them back, again and again to the same place.
The place where this generational curse is birthed and handed down again and again.

No.

This new road is the way.
I’m so sure of it!
Here I am an explorer for my young. Thrashing through thick brush, twigs snapping, earth crunching.
Finding my way through…learning my surroundings, documenting my finds.
New smells, new creatures.
Sounds all around me.
Songs and words.
Exotic and strange…curiosity leads me on.
I can’t help myself!
And moving through this seems right where we should have been all along. Like we were made to live here.
To set up our tents here.
To break bread and strongholds here.
To fall into and make love here.
To run and dance and play here.
To raise our babies here.
Abundant life has been offered here.

Will they know this journey is for them, for a new life and not my own selfish vacation?
Learning to live off of this land, foreign terrain.
Finding the soil fertile and the water clean.
I’m such a stranger here but I feel welcome so far.
Invited.
Being beckoned by Love.