Tag Archives: Religion and Spirituality

Solitaire?

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Le Shrinking, Reflections

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I’m the only one who can live my life.

That has got to be the scariest thing I’ve thought about in a long while. Whereas it’s indisputable that I’m, at heart, a loner, there’s phantom comfort in knowing that looking around does not yield a barren landscape. I’m so used to living on the fringes of my world (my sister would say the problem is that I have a world…:P) that I don’t often spend time in it. The price paid for that tends to be total disrepair.

Change is hard…and I have to change. As great and supportive as people are/can be, and as grateful as I am for the amazing people in my life, no one can do this for me. No one can hold my hand through the process of learning to breathe…not to the point that they can make me function in ways I refuse to. No one can make me get up one day and decide to do more than take fleeting glances at what it means to live. I want no one to.

I’ve never been that person who can’t be alone, who doesn’t know the value of silence, who finds the company of self to be petrifying. In the same breath, the alternative leaves me most out of my depth. This is who I am. Just a weirdo trying to glean lessons without having to be knocked senseless first. I’m no superhero. I’m not even a real person most days, but I’d like to think I’m learning what that looks like.

This is who I am…and I embrace that fully, remaining cognizant of the reality that I am not static. I will not always be this person, but if I don’t engage in the process, I may not like the person I become.

I’m the only one who can live my life. And, I will.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’

Ezekiel 37:5, 6 (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Sabotage

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Reflections

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Fear is one of those things I don’t process well. I just don’t have many active fears. I have huge categories of fears, and then they morph into…aversions. 😛 Weird as it sounds, I think I have an aversion to “good”. As soon as my life begins to look up, as soon as I begin to make smart choices, something in me retaliates by finding the quickest way to sabotage it.

I think this would be easier to handle if it were deliberate. It is so intrinsic and so entrenched in the essence of Lori that I very often don’t see it outside of the lens of retrospect. But, I see it now. I’ve seen it before. And, I can’t change it. Maybe that’s what I need to embrace. Left up to my own devices, all I can do is kill myself, succeed only in depriving my soul of one breath at a time.

And, you know, part of me says this shouldn’t be so. I mean, I’m smart enough (I reckon), I’ve known God long enough, I have enough amazing people in my life for this to not be who and what I revert to with such ease. I know God saw this–saw me–coming, and still chose me. Gladly. He didn’t choose me to remain as I am, though. He chose me to remain in Him. But, I don’t…won’t?

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the same plight plaguing all of humanity — that innate core of rebellion against the Creator. Whatever the case, I can’t keep living as if God is a liar…as if the life He offers is somehow on a plane that ought not to impact and define my everyday life. I cannot persist in the distorted reality I call ‘grace’, for if grace were seen correctly, if grace were my reality, would it not spur me on to abundance of life? To obedience? My head gets grace, but my heart? Well, that story is perhaps best left untold.

So, why continue to kill saplings of anything good and beautiful in my life? Why act as if my worth is such that I’m most content within the confines of Suckville? Why, if I love myself as much as I’m convinced I do, won’t I give myself the best possible chance at life? Or, any chance, for that matter?

I can’t be alone in this…well, I hope not. Undoubtedly, I’m extreme, but there are elements of sabotage in each of us. How easily we tend towards our own destruction. Overcoming that tendency may lie outside of our reach, but there’s nothing to stop us from embracing it…and giving it to the Only One who can make us into what we were designed to be.

O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help. I will be your king: where is any other that may save you…?

Hosea 13:9, 10 (KJV [paraphrased])

My Jorge, one of the best friends a Lori could ask for, gave me this song. (Fine, her name is Georgia…and how much I love her? No words…) Like, she’s all sunshine, rainbows, and pink rooms sometimes, and I kinda thought the song was along those lines, but it’s…sneaky. Maybe it’ll sneak up on you, too. 

Leftovers…

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Reflections, Uncategorized

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It is so unlike me to have had absolutely nothing I wished to share with my little section of this vast blogosphere…for over three months! My mind was far from blank, but the thoughts were less than comforting. When my mind runs away with me, it often goes to places too dark for comfort (and yes, some dark places are quite comfortable, thank you very much).

Recently, I found myself doing a bit of a mental inventory, taking stock of all the things that were within my reach and would have been mine without there needing to be a miracle. Of all the things I could have done, of all the things I (kinda) set out to do, of all the things I came close to wanting, how many of them have ticks (not the parasites) beside them? None… zero… not even one.

When I take the time to crunch those numbers, I wonder what’s the point. I’m pushing 30 (26 is almost 30, so there), and what do I have show for it? I wouldn’t say, “nothing”, but there are days it seems pretty close. I ask myself…what’s left? After all I’ve lost/thrown away/strangled to death and then stabbed for good measure, what remains of this Lori creature? That is perhaps the question of my lifetime.

My nephews were watching the first episode of “The Jetsons” the other day–the one in which they acquired Rosie (epic robot maid). There were complaints that all they had were leftovers, and Spacely (boss dude) was coming over for dinner. Rosie saved the day…with the leftovers.

One of the hardest things for me to accept is that God can and will redeem (buy back, restore value to) my life. I believe firmly that He is able to redeem anyone and anything, but I somehow manage to exclude myself from this process, if only on a subconscious level.

I do not dare to suggest that God is an epic robot maid (He’s infinitely cooler), but I dare to believe that one day, I will believe in His power to redeem from a place that transcends intellectual acceptance of God’s goodness and faithfulness…to me.

If God could make the world from nothing (which He did), if He could make the way for all mankind to be restored to Him through Jesus (which He most certainly did), then imagine what He can do with leftovers… with Lori. Imagine what He can do with you.

Honestly, I can’t picture it yet, but it’s coming…like a sunrise stealing across my soul.

Hosea 13:9, 10 (KJV [paraphrased])

O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help. I will be your king: where is any other that may save you…?