Thinking, that's All: In Which I Write My Heart Out

All week {um fall long?}, I feel like I've been writing for everyone else.

And that's left me here in these quiet moments too exhausted to write much of what's been on my heart and mind despite there being a flood of thoughts and emotions.

Writing here in this space has been a lot like taking a bucket to an overflowing river, trying to reduce the flooding one bucketful at a time; by the time I get back from emptying one bucket, the river has again spilled beyond its flooded banks and I'm just dipping into a tiny bit of it, carrying it away.

This week, especially, has been one of these overflowing weeks.

I said goodbye to my grandpa just days before he slipped from this side of eternity into the next ... and days before my late father {his son's} birthday, which is always hard because I think of how old he would be and what he's missed with the boys and what my boys have missed of him.

This weekend, we'll say a proper farewell, but I'm positive it won't hold a candle to spending an hour with him Sunday, talking to him, holding his warm hand, praying with him and voicing my appreciation for him while he was still conscious enough to hear and understand and respond.

I grieve for the loss of such a great patriarch; but I find joy in the hope that he's with his Creator ... and my dad and my grandma {his wife} experiencing fullness in the reunions. I give thanks for having had 29 years with him and for having the chance to say so and say goodbye.

I woke up this morning to my eyes washed with streaks of red across the white, and I wished that I didn't wear my heart so visibly on the outside.

It's hard to explain a week like this to the people who read the heart in your eyes, a week so wrapped up and bound in not only my own sticky grief and gratitude but that of others who are hurting or weighed down by the heaviness of life.

Selah.

No one knows exactly what that translates to but its splashed across the pages of the Psalms. Some say it means to give pregnant pause and reflect; others ponder that it means that with an infusion of praise. 

I feel like my life is a Psalm this week.

I've cried out to my God through tears of sadness, praise:

"I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies." 

Psalm 18: 1-3 

And joy.

"You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah." 

Psalm 32

Strange thing is how one can cry tears of grief and yet sing songs of praise all within almost the same breath.

Today was my 90-day check up with my crazy-smart holistic doctor and E's eight-week check up.

Though I knew the report would likely be good because I've been feeling so.much.better these past few weeks especially, I couldn't help but let tears spill onto my cheeks when she told us both my and E's candida infections were cleared up.

After more than a year and a half of both E and I battling that infection and all of the imbalances produced during other less effective treatments and the infection itself, our bodies have been cleared of it.

Cleared. Healed.

All I could say was thank you to her for her help

thank you to God for giving her such insight into the body

and allowing our paths to cross and linger

and

Selah.

Tonight, I'm done carrying buckets of overflow.

I'm just going to wade and cry and sing and praise.

Selah.

Five-Minute Friday: On Waiting

I've spent more time waiting to live than I care to count, admit.

And not just at the doctor's office or in line at the store but really waiting.

Waiting to go to college so I could taste freedom.

Waiting for the semester to end so I could resurface and breath something not-journalism or comma related.

Waiting for a ring, so I could become John's wife.

Waiting for a baby, so I could become a mother.

Waiting for winter to melt into spring.

And I wonder, if I added up all those minutes I spent waiting to live or love or maybe even just enjoy, piled them high and attempted to climb to the peak, how far gone would I be from having my feet planted on firm ground, cemented in reality.

How many moments have I waited away, not enjoying the sweetness of the seconds I spent with a tiny baby nestled deep inside my 9-month-pregnant belly or the butterflies fluttering around inside my stomach before my wedding day or the secure, soft comforts of living under my mother's roof or the moments spent snuggled on the couch while watching big fat flakes fall?

And in all that waiting, I've rarely put such a honed skill to good use; the times I've waited on the Lord are far and few.

Until now. Because I'm not going to wait on my circumstances anymore. I'm going to wait on His voice instead -- no more, no less.

****
Time's up!


Five minutes feels so short when I'm writing. This week's Five-Minute Friday prompt at The Gypsy Mama was "On Waiting." There are no rules except to abandon all rules of editing and style and word choice. You simply just need to write for five minutes. And then go encourage others who have done the same. Simple!