The Whirlwind

 I sit here contemplating a list of things to do.  I have to start writing everything down.  The key is to do some of it.  Cross off some of the stuff off of the list so that tomorrow, when I look at the list again, I have less to do.  There are moments when I think I wake up overwhelmed.  You can tell a little bit by the way that I close my eyes and attempt to go back to sleep.  I am keeping things at bay.  I mean, let's not read into anything too deeply.  I am trying to finish school.  I'm streamlining my life to accommodate my sweet husband.  I'm trying to find my purpose... that's all.

Yes, it's a little bit like a whirlwind.  At first, it all gets me nervous.  There is an up and down motion of a whirlwind.  But then I remember this ride that was the Whirlwind.  It was one that went around and around and it also had ups and downs.  The centrifugal force would have me crushing the one on the end.  Or I would be the one that would be crushed.  What was my disposition on this ride?  Amazingly enough, I would be laughing.  It would by hysterical.  Eventually, it would get worse and I would go backwards.  I scream with the thrill of it all.  The ride would end and I would get in line to experience it all again.  

Every now and again, there would be a person that was not ecstatic.  They would be panicked and screaming.  They would complain about the pressure of crushing or being crushed.  It was clear that they were not enjoying the ride.  What do you tell that person?  Would you tell them to sit back and relax, the ride doesn't last long?  It doesn't... I mean, the ride doesn't last long.

So... here is what I am doing.  I am continuing to trust God.  Sometimes it doesn't look good.  There are moments of apprehension.  I look out the window at the beautiful sunny day.  I am thankful to God for my family.  I am thankful to God for my Love.  I am thankful to God.  I drag all of my concerns and worries to God.  I know that He hears me. I feel heard.  The joy of the Lord is my strength.  Nehemiah, the prophet told this to the children of Israel.  They had been disconnected from God.  They got together and heard the Word of the Lord read all day.  They listened.  They were convicted.  They remembered... But God.  Nehemiah tells them:

"Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared.  This day is holy to our Lord.  Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."  

It's almost like we have some super power.  "Elle, aren't you worried?"  Elle sitting down eating chicken wings and a flavored seltzer.  Elle says, "No.  God's got this."  I really wish I could be like this.  This is going to be my prayer.  Lord, help me trust you not just in the storm but in the whirlwind.  I pray to laugh and know that You have it all in Your capable hands.  Let me remember that Your joy is my strength.  I'm smiling now.  The day is still beautiful.  I am thankful.  I may even laugh.  Praise the Lord!!

  

The Newly Married

 It's super early right now as I write.  In a moment, I will wake up my children to get them ready for camp.  My husband?  (It's weird to say it but I like it.)  My husband is at his apartment and he needs to get his brother to airport.  I have started writing down everything that I have to do in order to get it all right.  There is lots to be done.  It has begun the busyness of becoming a missus.

I know there are questions.  How was the wedding?  Are you going away?  Where will we all live?  I'll answer some of these type of questions.  For the most part, I'm in prayer.  I don't have all of the answers.  Things are still in flux.  For those of you who are planners, I know that you are biting your fingers for me.  I am almost tempted to bite my fingers too.  Makes me glad that I put those acrylic nails on.  I probably wouldn't have any nails left.  

The wedding was beautiful.  It was planned in a matter of months at the tail end of this pandemic.  I think we did pretty good.  Geoff would say that there needed to be a little more food.  I will say that there could have been more dancing.  I couldn't dance as much as I really wanted to.  The dress, and the bustle, and the girdle and the layers of fabric had a steam room going underneath my underneath.  I promise you that when I stepped out of the dress, there was steam.  For this reason, I didn't try and dance more than you know I could have.  But at least I got to dance a little with people that love me and whom I love.  

We are going away.  It does not look like we planned.  Sometimes, life doesn't have an itinerary.  I mean, the Israelites didn't really have a list detailing what to do when God gave the okay to leave Egypt.  They painted their doors with blood and waited.  I feel like I'm a lot like those Israelites.  They walked on dry land in the middle of the sea and got to the other side unscathed.  As soon as they were over, the water came down on the Egyptians pursuing them.  God delivered them out of Egypt, just like they prayed for.  Not too long later, they are complaining that they should have stayed slaves.  They didn't get the itinerary and felt that they needed one.  They needed assurances.  Faith is not about assurances, is it?  Either you are going to trust or not going to trust.  

What's going to happen next?  Where will you live?  What's going to happen with this and that?  I didn't get an itinerary and I'm trying not to make a run back to Egypt, whatever that looks like in my life.  I want to be one of the ones who trusts in God.  So I'm in prayer.  I'm attempting to read Paul Tripp and I'm doing the best I can with what I have.  It's definitely not enough (she writes while smiling).  I am okay with this.  I know that God meets me where I am.  

Some of you might not have gotten the itinerary.  It's okay.  Pray and try to trust that God has the wheel.  It's hard work this trusting business.  What if something goes wrong?  Like what?  Like the bottom falls out and you lose something and go through unsurmountable pain?  Talking from experience.  God stays with you in the fire.  God will not leave you and He brings His peace with Him.  It's almost like... crossing a sea, in the middle with enemies at my heels and making it through the other side.  Now excuse me while I follow Jesus (my cloud by day and my pillar of fire by night).  In the meantime, loud enough to be heard, PRAISE THE LORD!!!

The Night Before the Wedding

 It's been a crazy month so far.  Honestly, it's been a crazy season.  There are still things that need to be done before tomorrow but I'm sitting here praying thankful prayers tonight.  I'm clueless.  I don't really know how to go about things.  My friends have been understanding.  I mean... I planned this thing during a pandemic in a couple of months.  I'm amazed at the love and the support that I have felt this year.  I didn't know this was coming.  I couldn't predict this.  I can only thank God.  I pray that I can lose the mess that I currently am to allow Him to work.  I would like Him to work on and through my life.  That's why I write these blogs.  I think it's okay to be a mess.  I think it's okay to not have all of the answers.  I think it's okay to be older.  It's okay to be not so pretty and not so personable.  I think it's okay to be not so thin or wonderful.  It's okay because God takes my minimal oks and He adds to my account.  

I recently said that I could afford to be kind.  It's true.  I can.  Because He forgave me and died on my behalf so that I don't have to worry about the burden of sin.  I'm learning that I can AFFORD to forgive too.  This forgiveness thing,  I don't know how it works but it is a healing thing not to put out more hate and anger out into the world.  

I love my fiance.  I am happy to love him and I pray that I can love him well.  I can go to God, who is love to find my source of more love.  More love to pour into my marriage.  More love too pour into my children... Just more love.  Not even my pale, poor love but God's love, the real kind of love, the good stuff.  

I know I write about God a lot.  I love Him.  I owe Him everything.  God allowed me a whole relationship.  And then, my sweet husband went home.  There was pain but I was not alone.  I was never alone.  I was being looked after and loved.  Even then, I was blessed beyond all measure.  I was a widow.  I was that sad word.  

Did I find Geoff or did he find me?  I don't know.  He smiles at me and the world becomes a beautiful color of wonderful.  He belongs to us and we belong to him.  I think that God had something to do with it.  

The day before my wedding, I'm sitting here thankful.  I posted the live stream link.  I think it will be okay.  I'm excited.  Be in prayer for us.  Sing all of the wedding songs tonight and be happy for me, please.  I was lost but now I'm found.  I was blind but now I see.  Praise the Lord!

He is

 I am caught up in a current.  I'm realizing a few things about my life.  I'm a mess.  For a minute before I wrote that statement, I was slightly overwhelmed.  I have Lauren Daigle on.  It seems like she is singing right to me, personally.  It's almost like she is the voice of God reassuring me.  Can God play Marco Polo?  

I bit off a lot this year.  I know I did.  I was led to believe that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  I tried not to make decisions based on fear.  Kicking and screaming with tears pouring down my face, I am learning to trust in God.   I am learning to trust in God with anger and curse words (I can have quite the potty mouth).  I am learning to trust God through the times when I don't think I can navigate the rocky terrain.  I am trusting God through the old dusty floors of my house that haven't seen a mop in at least a week.  I'm an angry messy Christian.  Surely, God wouldn't want one of me, right?  

I can't do anything right.  Not on my own, I can't.  Instead of Murphy's Law, I like to call it Miller's Law.  I am a needy individual.  I need... everything.  I'm definitely not enough.  I turn to God.  "God, I don't think I am enough!!!"  God tells me, "You don't need to be.  I am."  Isn't that His name?  "I am."  He tells me.  "God, I am not strong.  I am not wealthy. I am not good.  I am not so many things."  "I am."   Alleluia is literally Praise Yahweh or Praise I AM.  It's His name.  When we are not, He is. 

So, for this reason, I have to pray.  For this reason, I am thankful today.  For this reason and for this season, I am looking up to God to be Who He is.  I am reading and believing in his Word.  I am in a transition.  I am making a jump.  I suspect that there is an enemy who wants nothing more than for me to fail, for me to fall.  I want to start crying and make myself into a ball and cry.  "I can't!" He says, "I can."  So I stand.  I look at all the things I am afraid of: failure, abandonment, criticism, success, judgment, and more than I can write.  Romans 14:8 says, "If we live, we live for the LORD; and if we die, we die for the LORD.  So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."  With this in mind, I will jump.  Praise the Lord!!! 

The Widow Laughs

I just read an article on Burn Out in the New Yorker.  I am not as burned out as I thought I was.  In fact, I am hopeful.  I am discovering that I am just tired.  It's true that it is bordering on exhaustion but I think what would be best for me is getting a little bit of rest.  

I am marinating on the past four years.  I would say that the season began at the beginning of 2017.  This is when Santi's lymphedema started becoming more swollen.  He started moving less.  I became afraid.  I try to be one that confronts my fears.  This was one that I barely looked in the eye.  Looking back I suppose there were signs.  His death came as a surprise in 2018.

This year was a year of grief and pain.  Yesterday was Santi's birthday.  I was sad and maudlin yesterday, drunk off of tiredness and food.  The scars still ache when it rains.  In 2018, I was just trying to get by each day.  It was a year of survival.  It was God and my people who got me though.  Thank you.

In the summer, I tried dating and I documented here as my therapy. I was trying to sweep away what was.  It was rough.  I am thankful of that time and the things I learned from the people that I met.  It was still not an easy year.  I questioned myself and found myself in other instances.

2020 is the year that is marked by a pandemic.  It was the year that I met and fell in love with Geoff.  It was still not so easy but it was easier because of him.  It is all God's timing.  So many things on my list and now they are being addressed.  I still believe it is His timing and His sovereignty. I stand where I am because of Him.  Alleluia.

I am planning a small wedding.  I apologize if you didn't get an invitation.  I know there are some that I should invite but it would be for me not for the benefit of us.  More people stress us out and I don't have it in me to be too stressed out.  I'm sorry.  I'm planning a small wedding in less than a month and there needs to be a lot done.  If you plan on coming, don't expect a lot.  I don't really know what I am doing and I am having a hard time not being exhausted enough to fix things.  It won't be perfect but I'm marrying my love.  Does it matter?   

I'm leaving my job of 10 years. I don't know what I will be doing.  I'm looking at options that may or may not work out for me.  I'm excited.  I had an interview yesterday and the sweet man vetting me asked, "Are you willing to work more than 40 hours and on weekends?"  LOL!!! No, I'm not.  There is a shortage of what I do.  I am in demand.  I don't know if I want to teach.  I may...  I want to take a minute to see what else is out here that I can do.  In the meantime, I'm trusting in God to lead me.  The trust part is the hard part but I'll tell you something... If He could be with me and get me through the last four years, He could do anything.  As if there was any doubt.  (She laughs out loud.  The widow laughs.)

Pray and trust in God.  Praise the Lord!!!

Dress-Wearing Mama

 After you go through a significant transition, you begin to question who you are.  Your identity changes because you are no longer who you were before, you have changed.  I tend to think about Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  My friend, Gandalf went through something and came out as Gandalf the White instead of Gandalf the Grey.  Gandalf the Grey was as his name suggested, not exactly motivated or pure.  Gandalf the White had more purpose, I would say.  Either way, Gandalf changed and it was evident in his appearance.  His hair changed and his clothes changed.  Why?  Because he had changed.

I have been writing now for a while.  I felt the need to write right away after the death of my late husband.  One of the things that I was contemplating was my new identity as a widow and a single mother.  I find that now my identity continues to change as I prepare to get married again.  It's weird to say my second wedding or my second marriage.  This is why I continue to write and use this platform as therapy.  I also use it to remind me of God and the greater purpose of my life.  

So, today I was walking and I have decided something.  I like dresses.  I am a dress wearing person.  When I look at clothes, I tend to look at dresses.  This is significant.  Dresses don't always befit a person.  So, I am affirming to myself that I am a person that wears dresses.  I am making a decision about myself.  You see, this means that I have tried other means of clothing.  This means that I can evaluate my closet on some of the other clothes that I have not decided on.  This means that I can determine which types of dresses I prefer and the clothing that I love.  Believe it or not, the last couple of years, I had not been able to do this.  Some of you are thinking, "Duh, Elle!!!"  But some of you, who have had busy lives and who have not had the time or the know how to think about it, need to determine your identity. 

It goes to say that my identity is in Christ.  This is another thing all together.  But because I have decided that I will allow my identity to be dictated by God, that I have time to think about the other little tangible stuff that makes me up.  For a while, I would say that my clothing style was "Clearance" because that was what I could afford.  Now I'm happy to say that it is "Clearance Dresses." You see how I am becoming more specific?  

Know who you are is important.  Asking yourself questions can be equally telling.  Every now and again you reach a question that you have never thought about before and it rocks the paradigms of your world.  Who are you?  And what are the things that represent who you are?  Well, now I have Jesus, hot messes and dresses.  Do they rhyme???  Let me find out.  So I'm a Jesus loving, wearing dresses, hot messes, mama.  Praise the Lord!

Toxicity and Raising Standards

On social media, I have seen posts on staying away from toxic people.  The other day, a woman was advising other women to have high standards for themselves in terms of men that they are looking to date.  I don't think I agree with any of it.  I want to look at it almost as if it were a Covid situation...  If you have a vulnerable immune system, take care of yourself.  Focus on what you need to focus on.  Use precautions and stay away from people.  Wear a mask.  Clean up your home from potential germs that can contaminate you.  Healthy vaccinated people can have more mobility.  What if you have a vulnerable spiritual life?  What if you need to take care of your emotional state?  Maybe you are an immature Christian or not strong in the faith?  Let's take a deeper look.

I believe that God has made up to worship Him.  We, as humans, have the opportunity to pursue a special relationship with God.  We are made to worship, and we will worship something.  I have seen people worship their children.  I have seen people worship wine.  I have seen people worship themselves.  I have seen people worship their spouses.  They are expecting the thing that they worship to fulfill them.  God says: 

"Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love."  Jonah 2: 8

And don't read Isaiah 44:9-20!!!

"All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together. The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. ..."

People upset me.  I think I can be honest here.  They cut me off on the highway.  They seek for themselves first.  They yell their pain from their bruised and fragile egos.  They feel so much.  I feel a lot too.  I know enough not to go to anybody else but God with my wheelbarrow of concerns, every second of every day.  I'm one of those needy Christians.  

I mean... even today I was mad coming in.  I don't know what to do with my anger!!!  I want to yell and snap at people.  I took a moment and prayed to God.  Somehow, like the way that God does,  I was able to calm down a little.  Why was I mad?  I'm not so much mad but crabby.  I ate poorly yesterday.  I didn't feed my body with good things that it needs.  So... I'm probably dehydrated from the Doritos I ate (Doritos are the devil).  And then I was exposed to someone's negative thinking.  People develop their own defense mechanisms.  I bring it all to God and allow the Holy Spirit to infiltrate in the dark recesses of my mind and the dark spiritual places I am exposed to.  Praise God!

I may have a vulnerable immune system but I think I can practice Romans 12 on people.  That's the prescription, Friends.  I'm working on it.  It's not easy.  Do not repay evil with evil but repay evil with good.  I know!!!  "Man, Elle!!  That's a lot to take on.  How are you going to do it?"  I'm not planning on doing anything.  I'm planning on letting God work through me.  I'm working on taking myself out of this equation so that only God shows.  That will be the hard part.

"So... what about raising your standards for men?  What would you tell your daughter?"  I think I want to tell Janet the same thing that Jesus tells us, "Seek first the kingdom of God."  I will tell her what my favorite Psalm (Psalm 37 if you were wondering) speaks right to me: Trust in God and everything else will follow.  If she does this, then God will lead her to the life that is meant for her.  I would tell my son the same thing.  And when things go south, when both of my children are faced with the valley of the shadow of death, then they will fear no evil for God goes with them (Psalm 23).  Because the relationship that needs to be strong is not with any humans.  Humans will be human.  The relationship that will save them is their relationship with God.  Yes, my daughter should marry a God-fearing man who is filled with the spirit of God, if God leads her to this. I pray the same thing for my son. May God lead my children to be strong Christians who are spiritually strong.  I know people who have married Christian men and women and it didn't work out the way that they wanted. I want my kids to understand that their happiness is not found in another person, their happiness is found in God.  Why?  Because when I was faced with the valley of shadow of death, it was God who was with me and shone His light on me to lead me out of that valley.  If He could do this for me, He will do it for them.  He will do it for you.  

I will lower my standards for friends in my life. I will speak to them about the goodness of God to those who do not believe. I will pray for them.  When I need to rest, I will rest but trust in God.  God is bigger than our anything we have going on. Trust in God, Friends.  Praise the Lord!!!