Echoes

"God whispers to us in our pleasures and shouts to us in our pain."
~ C. S. Lewis ~

I remember one summer as a child being at my grandpas house, standing on the back porch and yelling out toward the lake just to hear my echo. I can only imagine what the neighbors thought! lol Me screaming just to hear echos.

Recently in my Fighting Back with Joy Bible Study book it talked about sacred echos. How God speaks to us. In our minds and our hearts we know when we are being spoken to. Usually in just a few words that repeat over and over again. Sacred echos Margaret calls them.

Yet so often we barely hear those echos and instead we hear the louder ones. The ones that create doubt, anxiety, fear, depression, anger. Joy robbers Margaret calls that.

I have also been meeting with a friend going over a book called Fervent by Priscilla Shirer. I love her! The chapter we went over was about confronting your worries, claiming your calling. Oh my what a chapter that was..... God doesn't live in the past either. Guilt, shame, regret. None of that. Nor should we. One part in the previous chapter said this: "Priscilla, wipe your tears away. That road is behind you now. I have other roads in store for you in the future, roads I've been preparing for you. Just as you've passed this exit of shame, so you now are beyond the pain that accompanied it. I make all things new." Now put your name there.

Strategy 6 really got to me. It started out by saying: "If I were your enemy, I'd magnify your fears, making them appear insurmountable, intimidating you with enough worries until avoiding them becomes your driving motivation. I would use anxiety to cripple you, to paralyze you, leaving you indecisive, clinging to safety and sameness, always on the defensive because of what might happen. When you hear the word faith, all I'd want you to hear is "unnecessary risk""

Ouch...... Reality often isn't it? Maybe not all of that but much of that at times I'd wager.....

My friend also brought up learning curves. I chuckled and said sometimes it's ANGLES. So I made this in light of it.

Fear is one of Satan's primary schemes for crippling God's people. Chronic worry, up at night anxiety, worst-case scenario thinking, becoming the only or most of the probabilities you think about. It's not when we are busy that we are ambushed with darkness, worry, fear, anxiety, etc. it's in the middle of the night. Literally and figuratively. It's when we are in the still quiet of the night, it's when we see the caller ID and know who's calling that we get the fear and dread. It's on the long drives to and from appointments and the hum of the wheels on the road gives your mind time to think and think and magnify even more what is already there or what was said or what the new diagnosis means. All of it.

A favorite "bad mood" song....

"Take It All Away by RED"

You've stripped me down, the layers fall like rain
It's over now, just innocence and instinct still remain
You watched me while I slowly disappeared
I reached for you to save me; you were frozen in your fear
Take it all away [x4]
Circling the pain inside my soul
I reached inside your silence to steal what you won't show
I tried to find the answers in my fears
But what was found is lost again as soon as it appeared
Take it all away [x4]
I'm breaking; I can't do this on my own
Can you hear me screaming out, am I all alone?
You take away [x10]

Also

Epiphany by Staind.

Your words to me just a whisper
Your face is so unclear
I try to pay attention
Your words just disappear

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

So I speak to you in riddles
'Cause my words get in my way
I smoke the whole thing to my head
And feel it wash away
'Cause I can't take anymore of this
I want to come apart
Or dig myself a little hole
Inside your precious heart

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

I am nothing more than
A little boy inside
That cries out for attention
Yet I always try to hide
'Cause I talk to you like children
Though I don't know how I feel
But I know I'll do the right thing
If the right thing is revealed

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

 

The struggle is real..... It's really real....

So where is your root in fear? What feeds yours? I think my main root is fear of not being good enough, and acceptance. For all my life, I have fought so many battles and have won many. Some barely and lost some. Yet if I fail around those who see me, what good am I? What good of a wife, mother, woman does that make me? A failure which therefore a failure equals also to not accepted and worse, an outsider/ostracized.
I think that's the root. Usually when I fail or feel I have, I get angry. Usually at myself.
I do honestly fight myself on being seen as just mediocre at best to those around me too. Goes with the acceptance and being good enough....

I have been bad at this lately..... Thinking this way.... BUT!

"So talk it up, devil. Because as high as you choose to ratchet it up, you are only showing off "the breadth and length and height and depth" (Eph. 3:18) of the love of Christ extended toward me!."
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind! 2 Tim 1:7

"Our God is fearless. And because He is fearless, we can be fearless too. When His presence is with us and going before us, no Red Sea should faze us or give us a pause." ~ Fervent ~

As hard as it is to combat this, we can be victors. We just have to keep our focus. "Poke holes in the darkness till it bleeds light" ~ Margaret Feinberg ~
March forth with joy and peace that God gives. Celebrate little things, Give joy to get joy.

Walk on. Have faith. FEAR NOT!

I shall replace that song with this instead.

Just be held.

Accept + Adapt + Depend = STRENGTH

I must accept that my children have struggles that others don't. I must accept my own shortcomings. I must accept that life is what it is. I must accept that I can and HAVE found the good in the bad.

"We Christians are the speakers of light. We are the proclaimers of joy. Wherever we go, we are the mascots of the gospel, the imagers of the infinitely creative Father, and the younger brothers and sisters of the humbled and triumphant Word. We speak in this world on behalf of the One who made up lightning and snowflakes and eggs." ~ N. D Wilson ~

Thanks to a craft we did last night in Bible Study talking about JOY, I think I know what I'm going to do before I go to Dallas with my son. IF we get a room at the Ronald McDonald House, I hope every family there can get this. I hope that as I feel the abyss trying to surround me of the unknowns and fears as I await his MRI, I can sit at Children's Medical Center that day and find joy. I can spread joy. I pray that no matter how good or bad his MRI is, I can hold my head high and feel peace.... Hear God's sacred echos...

We can't stay around in mourning over what could've, should've, would've..... We can't share the light doing that..... Fight back with joy. Smile among the tears, find something to laugh at admist the sobs. As you see the dark storm coming toward you, turn the lighthouse on and be the light in the storm.

May I be better in the coming days at being a light in the storm instead of letting the storm beat me around amongst the waves and wind....

"March on, my soul; be strong!" Judges 5:21
Be strong indeed.....

Hope is a vital part of this journey. It is what helps you get up in the morning, move forward. Without hope, you can't hand your baby over to the paramedics, the surgeon, the nurse. Hope is why you do therapies, medications, appointments.
I think all life really is is one big cha-cha. Even you don't have the energy to keep on dancing steps forward and backward, one has no choice if they refuse to give up. Life may be a cha-cha but I sure wish calories were burned during this dance.... I would quickly be the jeans size I was in high school! Amen?

Blessings!
~Special Momma ~