It takes 2.34 miles of pure torture before a run feels like a good idea. It takes another 1.41 miles before I actually feel settled into my groove. It's not until around mile 8 that I feel like I've successfully completed a good workout.
There are so many emotions to sweat away. So many reasons to just grit my teeth and keep on pushing harder, longer, farther.
And I'm starting to wonder if this is discipline, or just pure crazy madness.
Promise and Faith are supposed to be raking leaves. It is a balmy 64 degrees on a February day, and well, this Momma needs some sanity, on this President's Day, with five kids stuck at home on a Monday. They just need to successfully complete one job today. Just one job.....so I can praise them. Because, it's been rough. Really, desperately rough. But, it looks a bit futile. Yes, futile, pure crazy, madness.
Bear is practicing his advanced throwing skills. Rocks are pelting Faith and Promise in the backs.
Joy is finally sitting at the kitchen table and drawing away. One assignment from a precious aunt, and she is busy for an hour. Never mind I have tried to start school with her today at least five times. Each start met with harsh words, feeding into my already crushed self worth. I am carefully walking around these broken eggs trying to avoid another bloody mess.
I've already had my good run today, but right now I'm about ready to lace right up and start running away again. My Hope Man-Child already warned me. My time is already spent. He is tucked quietly away in his room pretending to do homework.
There are so many words, so many, many words. I should just keep my mouth shut.
Pure, crazy, futile madness.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Thursday, February 2, 2017
I Have Hope
Hope stands defiantly tall over the fire in this house. Even on dead, gray, cold mornings. Even after she searches for filth on a school computer, and cannot comprehend her wrong. Even when she rips her face open again to feel the seeping release of blood. Even when lies are believed as truth, Momma and Warrior Daddy hearts hammered to sharp, fine shards.
I gaze out the window in this freezing moment. Even in the absence of warm rays, the small flakes shimmer. Hope. I can feel the defiance inside my soul.
I sit at the worn farm table, lay Hope right open, and grab my pen to scratch out my thankfulness. Thank You for fresh falling snow, a sleeping toddler, a dishwasher emptied, a warm blanket. A preteen still sleeping....what time is it? Is she alive? "Trust Me," I hear whispered in my heart.
Thank You for a moment, a gentle quiet moment alone.
The Warrior Daddy, sitting tired on our bed, said it late last night after the one-sided interrogation quickly subsided.
"This is the sins of the father visited upon the children."
He says so few words, and my heart is burning angry. He sits there so stoic, and I struggle for breath in my fury.
She stood resolved on the side of my bed. She connected her eyes right on the center of mine. She doesn't know why she made the choice to go to Google and type what she did. Doesn't know why she cannot stop lying and disobeying the teacher she loves. Her very best friend. "I just don't know," is all the words she uttered as she stood challenging me with her stare. There are no tears, no visible signs of remorse.
I felt the pound of the hammer crash another chip off my cold heart.
How on earth can my heart burn with fire and shiver so cold at the same moment?
I glance at my Bible, randomly open to page 355.
Lying.
Yes, thank You for this encouraging push.
I read on. Rahab. Within or beyond her control, a woman of mixed character - a liar, a prostitute. Yet she believed in Him, honored Him, honored His chosen. And He made her a mother. Wove her right into His chosen family with that scarlet rope. Rahab, a mother, a great, great.....of Himself. He loved her, even when she lied, even through her lie.
My world is surrounded with trauma, trauma that entered my life through my beautiful girls; trauma that entered their lives while embedded in wombs that are not my own. Lies; manipulation; inflicted pain; constant, draining emotional struggle.
I glance over to the wood plaque resting over the stove. Yes, Hope is still here.
I sweep the pages back to pages 161-162.
Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." Exodus 34:5-7
Right here, He proclaims He is merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth. He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. And in the same breath, proclaims He by no means clears the guilty. And He visits the iniquity of the guilty father's sins upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
He had to say those words in the same breath for my cold, shattered heart. Because when the Warrior Daddy uttered them last eve, I had a terrible time remembering His mercy, graciousness, longsuffering, goodness and truth. Pain can hide the Truth from a hurting heart.
And maybe, just maybe my precious ones are the third or fourth generation. Maybe He has shouted, "ENOUGH!", plucked them right up and placed them here, within these walls.
Here with broken hearted, broken parents who seek You, know You, and will travel anywhere for You.
And how will we ever really know, with different abandoning birth fathers, each just another in a line of lost for their little broken hearts?
And yet, they do, by Your almighty hand, have the same father, the Warrior Daddy. And we all, by the same almighty hand, have You, our heavenly Daddy.
There is hope.
I walk across the kitchen, zap my coffee for the third time. Feel the heat radiate through my cold hands to my body as I journey back to the table. I sit my coffee mug down, and there it is, printed right on my mug. Hope.
I swish the pages forward to 1609.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?"
But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:23-26
Yes, Hope stands tall over the fire in this house.
He gazes upon this fiery furnace and reminds me it is impossible on my own. I cannot even rescue myself, let alone them. It is impossible. So You came down to live here with me. To walk with me until the battle is all done - complete.
I have Hope.
I gaze out the window in this freezing moment. Even in the absence of warm rays, the small flakes shimmer. Hope. I can feel the defiance inside my soul.
I sit at the worn farm table, lay Hope right open, and grab my pen to scratch out my thankfulness. Thank You for fresh falling snow, a sleeping toddler, a dishwasher emptied, a warm blanket. A preteen still sleeping....what time is it? Is she alive? "Trust Me," I hear whispered in my heart.
Thank You for a moment, a gentle quiet moment alone.
The Warrior Daddy, sitting tired on our bed, said it late last night after the one-sided interrogation quickly subsided.
"This is the sins of the father visited upon the children."
He says so few words, and my heart is burning angry. He sits there so stoic, and I struggle for breath in my fury.
She stood resolved on the side of my bed. She connected her eyes right on the center of mine. She doesn't know why she made the choice to go to Google and type what she did. Doesn't know why she cannot stop lying and disobeying the teacher she loves. Her very best friend. "I just don't know," is all the words she uttered as she stood challenging me with her stare. There are no tears, no visible signs of remorse.
I felt the pound of the hammer crash another chip off my cold heart.
How on earth can my heart burn with fire and shiver so cold at the same moment?
I glance at my Bible, randomly open to page 355.
Lying.
Yes, thank You for this encouraging push.
I read on. Rahab. Within or beyond her control, a woman of mixed character - a liar, a prostitute. Yet she believed in Him, honored Him, honored His chosen. And He made her a mother. Wove her right into His chosen family with that scarlet rope. Rahab, a mother, a great, great.....of Himself. He loved her, even when she lied, even through her lie.
My world is surrounded with trauma, trauma that entered my life through my beautiful girls; trauma that entered their lives while embedded in wombs that are not my own. Lies; manipulation; inflicted pain; constant, draining emotional struggle.
I glance over to the wood plaque resting over the stove. Yes, Hope is still here.
I sweep the pages back to pages 161-162.
Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." Exodus 34:5-7
Right here, He proclaims He is merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth. He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. And in the same breath, proclaims He by no means clears the guilty. And He visits the iniquity of the guilty father's sins upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
He had to say those words in the same breath for my cold, shattered heart. Because when the Warrior Daddy uttered them last eve, I had a terrible time remembering His mercy, graciousness, longsuffering, goodness and truth. Pain can hide the Truth from a hurting heart.
And maybe, just maybe my precious ones are the third or fourth generation. Maybe He has shouted, "ENOUGH!", plucked them right up and placed them here, within these walls.
Here with broken hearted, broken parents who seek You, know You, and will travel anywhere for You.
And how will we ever really know, with different abandoning birth fathers, each just another in a line of lost for their little broken hearts?
And yet, they do, by Your almighty hand, have the same father, the Warrior Daddy. And we all, by the same almighty hand, have You, our heavenly Daddy.
There is hope.
I walk across the kitchen, zap my coffee for the third time. Feel the heat radiate through my cold hands to my body as I journey back to the table. I sit my coffee mug down, and there it is, printed right on my mug. Hope.
I swish the pages forward to 1609.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?"
But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:23-26
Yes, Hope stands tall over the fire in this house.
He gazes upon this fiery furnace and reminds me it is impossible on my own. I cannot even rescue myself, let alone them. It is impossible. So You came down to live here with me. To walk with me until the battle is all done - complete.
I have Hope.
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