Just be One

 Usually when I get still to write I have some sort of idea behind the keystrokes, but tonight I do not. 

Tonight I just am feeling life.

Tonight I am in tune with no only my own feelings but feelings of those whom I love dearly. 

Tonight, I write because I have no other outlet, because I have exhausted the outlets I know and I am left with me and this keyboard. 

Tonight, I write because I am feeling in the midst of this journey. 

Tonight I write because I know I am not alone. 

Tonight I write because I know I am loved and seen just as I am. 

Tonight I write because there is something bigger in me to be expressed than just in a simple conversation. 

I wonder how many times I have ignored this sort of urge to write, how many times I just didn't have an idea of what I was going to say so I didn't say anything... but tonight I'm doing my best to stay true to a promise to a friend and write when I know my soul needs to... this is the most me I can be when I'm writing so here goes nothing...

In a world full of unknowns, this I know to be true: the unfailing love of my Savoir, My Creator, my Father knows no bounds. He is and has always been there right beside me when I had nothing other than my empty hands to display to Him and tear stained cheeks to look up at Him with. He alone is my constant. Through all the things I've endured, a lot to my own hand, but some not, He has never waivered. 

Just for instance: I always dread the 29th of July since 4 years ago I commenced to do what I could to not exist any longer... the day brings overwhelming emotions both good and bad, but is a day that I do not look forward to in any way. Alas, here we were, the night of the 28th, I'm trying to make lists of why the next day will be good and why I do not need to call in sick to be able to just sleep the day through and low and behold I saw on social media that my dearest Angel, Julie, was in my neck of the woods. In my sadness, I felt like I should still reach out letting her know I was not far from her and she responded so quickly  it almost took my breath away, she wanted to do coffee on the dreaded day... she had no clue, but she didn't care, she just wanted to see me. 

 So alas, the next day comes and I have something to look forward to, some Angel that God put in my life from a very early age (I'm talking pre-school age) was near by enough to touch my soul once again...  She had no idea, for in her world she was just meeting up with a girl she's prayed for since probably birth and a girl who she's known since pre-conception ... she didn't know the blessing she would be that day. 

We chatted over coffee, caught up in just good ole chit-chat. 

Then I told her. 

I had the strength to tell her. 

I told her how much I dreaded that day, that I wanted to just stay in bed and sleep it away. 

But she didn't bat an eye, she shed a tear with me and just said "I'm so thankful we are here". 

That about summed it up. 

We kept chatting about life and how she could pray for me in the things I was facing but I'm not entirely certain if she knows how special her presence and reaction was to me. . . she didn't flinch, she didn't gasp, she just felt it with me. 

That's what we need so much in this world, people willing to hold someone's hand and feel with them. 

She may never know the impact of what her kindness, her tears with me, or her prayers have meant to me, but I know for certain she understands the impact of what it means to feel and BE with someone in their struggle. 

I pray I am like she was one day to someone. 

I pray I can sit across the hotel lobby booth from someone and shed tears with them both in joy and sadness but mostly in love and just sit in it with someone. 

I pray that she has many jewels in her crown in heaven because it is not every day people, even myself, feel comfortable with a soul enough to another their rawness, but even more so to not have a reaction other than of love. 

Love is what we need so badly in this world. 

Someone to sit in the yuck and just hold our hands and say "I'm so grateful  you're here". 

I needed her that day, and God provided. 

I didn't sleep the day away, I actually had a pretty great day... and I know He put that Angel in my path to make sure it happened that way. 

Angels are among us. 

Just look around, just be one. 

Some things I am Learning

Lessons I'm learning:

• I am courageous.
• It's not conceded of me to think of myself as courageous. 
• It took a lot of courage and faith to make the steps I have in the last few months. 
• Courage and Faith go hand in hand. 
• Being courageous comes does not mean it comes with the responsibility of how others react to your choices. 
• Being courageous isn't always a welcomed trait to people around you. 
• I am His. 
• He has given me the courage to do lean in on faith and trust that He will provide. 
• He has provided. All my needs. 
• I am loved by my creator. 
• He chooses me over the sunsets He creates and calls me (us) His masterpiece. 
• He has held me and given me Peace that only the God of the Universe can give. 
• He is in control and I only need to surrender, surrender everything. 
• I am okay no matter how I feel.
• Feelings are convoluted. 
• Feelings are a distraction from the spiritual truth. 
• I can feel alone, I can feel defeated, I can feel gross... but the foundation I am standing on never changes.  
• My life is an ongoing journey, a journey in which someone else along the way may need me for and it all glorifies my King in the end if I let it, meaning if I'm vulnerable enough to share my story. 
• No matter my journey, God has put someone in my life at my lowest who asks the simple question of "How did you do it?" 
• There has not been a painful season that I haven't told the story about, the story of how God pulled me through...and that will not change today. 
•  My dog is a great companion. 
• Frank is an un-certified emotional support dog. 
• I am so grateful for this dog. 
• He's cute. 
• He's an extension of God's love to me. 
• I am never truly alone despite the devil trying to convince me that I am. 
• I have Frank the Dog. 
• I am literally on the phone most nights with someone at least once every day, someone who loves me, someone who knows me, and someone who wants  to hear my voice. 
• I have people that are grateful to hear my voice and look forward to hearing said voice. 
• I am a survivor. 
• I have not been defeated  by any one of the battles I have faced. 
• I am still here today. 
• This season of my life requires a lot of grace for myself and that is okay. 
• Having grace for myself is a learning experience and one full of vulnerability, it's not always pretty. 
• Being okay with having grace for myself to not do anything one day when I know I need to do things but have no strength to do anything, that's perfectly acceptable of someone who is experiencing healing. 
• Healing requires patience and grace with yourself. It's not overnight, it is a process *(yes Christy, I am trusting the process) 

I am learning with every day, every sunrise, every sunset, every phone call with those I love.... I am learning. 

Four Years - The Gift of the Other Side

 It's been four years since .... 

Four years... 

Who am I today after four years? How have I grown? What have I done with this gift? 

I don't know the answers to any of those questions, I just know I am here.  I am here. I am here. I am here. I work through the days, I stumble, I make mistakes, I sometimes make good choices... but I am here nonetheless. 

You want me to say I'm grateful, and most of the time I am, but every year around this time I cannot say fully what I am other than just here.  I haven't found the reason why He said "No, not yet", but I believe in one day finding out that answer.  Today, I am here. 

So many other people do not get this chance to simply say they are here and for that I am grateful. 

Today, this week, I am clouded with the grief of knowing how I felt in my same body four years ago... alone, weak, sad, abandoned, shipwrecked, and uncomfortable in my own skin. Isolated. Shameful. Alone. Unworthy. I could go on, but I believe you and I both get the point... it was pretty bleak. And it comes back to me during these days. I feel for the person I was during that time, like what I imagine it is to feel for a child who goes through these things... it hurts, but it doesn't quite hurt the same way. I feel those things in a diluted form because I have been given the gift of the other side. Does the other side give all the answers? Heck no! But the other side gives hope that I didn't have in those days. Today I get to feel those things with a glimmer of hope and peace knowing that there is a reason I am still here.  Days like today I have no earthly idea why in fact I am still here, but I know I am and there must be something to it. 

Recently I was talking with a friend and told him the higher you get in life, in the good, in the vulnerability, in the grandness of life the deeper the pool is at the bottom of the cliff.... which isn't all bad... we must know the risk in the high to appreciate the depth. The depth isn't all bad, for it is where we do the most knowing... it isn't the high that we understand things but in the fall and the plunge where we realize the beauty of the scenery from above, and honestly, sometimes we appreciate the scenery below more too. 

All I know is that I am here, and for that, today .... right now, after a good talk with an old friend, I am grateful. It doesn't always feel that way. But in the midst of the plunge to the depths this week is certain to bring (along with the beautiful goodness in the depths), I am grateful. 

He told me NO four years ago. 

In four years I've seen my niece grow to celebrate her fourth birthday, I've seen the expansion of my family by one double dimpled goober, I've surprised my first niece for her birthday, I've moved to a new state that I am absolutely in love with, I've seen states I've never seen before, I've walked through a global pandemic and two career changes, I've hugged by parents and hugged strangers.... I've lived. I haven't figured it all out, but I have lived. 

He told me NO four years ago and gave me the gift of the other side, He never said it would be easy, but I know and I truly believe, it is for a reason.  Maybe one day I'll know the reason, but until then, I'll keep living in the gift of the other side. 

Excerpts from Encampment

No, I haven't been camping out in the woods for an extended period of time.  As absolutely wonderful as that would be in my mind, the title of this post is not about a good ole camping trip.  The idea of encampment came from the book You're Already Amazing by Holley Gerth.  In her book, she talks about where God is leading us and the different stages of the journey in reference to the Israelite's journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.  

You see, I had been in 'Egypt' for a while but in chains in Egypt with hope of something greater since about March of this year.  I struggled, I was whipped to the bone, I was broken.  

God lifted me and took me out of Egypt... into the desert for me to be with Him, to prepare me, to love on me, and to give me rest.  

And there in the desert, in the camp where I spent 60 days in the center of His hands, He prepared me for the journey ahead.  I learned many lessons in the time there, lessons I will be sharing for the remainder of my life... but before I begin going into those things, I figured I could share some excerpts from that time.  

" Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, God 'has made everything beautiful in its time. He also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.'  That verse speaks to what it's like to be in the mysterious middle -- of circumstances, of unmet expectations, of the journey from Egypt to Home.  When we're in the 'middle' of life, we can take comfort in knowing we're right in the center of God's hands too. 

If you feel 'encamped' in your life right now, it may be for any of the purposes we talked about above.  Whatever the reason, use this time to rest and receive the truth your heart needs for the journey.  You are loved. God has a purpose for you.  He is working out his plans for your life. 

And just when you least expect it, you'll be on your way so he can take you all the way to the Promised Land. "

From You're Already Amazing by Holley Gerth

August 10, 2018

Instructed to write a letter from God to ourselves in that very moment:

Darby,

I created you.  Do you hear me?  I am the same One ho paints the skies you look at in awe; I created you.  You are more beloved to me than the mountains and the skies, than the painted fields in the spring. I love you more and created you with more art and thought than those. 

You are my prized creation.  Out of it all-- you are loved by Me more.  

I did not create you to only witness those beautiful things around you, but to be the beautiful and passionate woman you are and to recognize it.  You have to let me have control.  Look how the skies have no control and the work I do there-- can you not trust me to do far more for you, my love?  Can you stop abusing my creation, you, and begin to let me love and heal you with complete abandon of control? 

I got this. 

I have you, I always have.  I love you.

- God 

 September 2, 2018

God is so good... 

My God is powerful, gentle, and wonderfully strong. 

He speaks with grand truth in quiet ways.  

He shows His hand by the mouths of broken women seeking a Power greater than themselves. 

He moves in my heart with the force of armies in the stillness of a song. 

He breaks down my walls with kindness and completeness, showing me more of Himself and more of my need for Him. 

He abounds in Grace and is jealous for my heart.  

A Mother's Love

I am not a mother so there are things that I will not understand until I have a child of my own, however, I have been  blessed to be the daughter of a mother who exhibits the kind of love for her children that I pray to feel when I have my own children. 

My Ma, as I like to call her, loves me to a fault--  if at all possible.  She has loved me through some very hard times and loved me through the times where the wind was at my back and I felt like I was soaring.  

Yesterday was Ma's birthday... she survived another year of loving a stubborn, driven, emotional, challenging, free spirited child.   She deserves to be celebrated more than just for one day.   I have not always been a huge fan of my Ma's love, in fact, there has been times where I didn't want to feel it and wanted to run from it--- but if there is one thing I know more than anything else in the world today it is that my Ma loves me ferociously and despite whatever foes I believe to have in myself.  

My Ma deserves a standing ovation for how hard she loves and the example she gives to not only myself, but to many others about the purity of a mother's love for her children. 

I am rarely at a loss for words when it comes to my writing... but I truly believe that words cannot express how much I appreciate the Lord giving me to her to be her daughter... but I am going to give it a try: 

Since I was a child, my mother and I were more often at odds than not... but I even when we were at odds as a small child I would wake her up and go jump on her while she was in bed.  She would let me sit on her knees that she had propped up and play the 'horsey' game.  I cherish those memories of those quiet mornings together because no matter what the day before held or the day ahead, we started our day in laughter.  

As I grew older, the wooden spoon was not my friend and I threatened more than once to run away-- but only after I had dinner. (trickster she was...) I was a fearless stubborn child that pushed all the limits I possibly could without knowing and sometimes even with the knowledge because, well what kind of strong willed child would I be if I didn't push all the limits?   With each step closer to the line, Ma would not only still tickle my back at night and sing me to sleep, she would remind me she loved me. 

And that she does.  

As the years went by I challenged her (and my father, but mainly her) in many different ways... I was not the daughter I am sure she had hoped for as I became less happy with shopping and more happy with being outdoors or with my dad.   I has my own sense of 'fashion' that was not exactly close to hers at all, but she still loved me enough to swallow her fashion senses and let me dress myself.   

We fought, oh we fought during my teenage years... we tore each other down and refused to surrender our stances.  And even during those hard days when I didn't really understand why I was such a problem, my mother still loved me.  She began to love me in different ways.  She started a prayer group for mothers so that she could be encouraged and so that strong women of faith could come together in their pains and pray for each other, but more importantly pray for children like myself.  She loved me so hard, I  am sure every time they met she cried for me as well as herself as we suffered so much from a lack of ability to get along well with each other.  

Years past, and Ma watched me struggle with friendships, relationships, and simply life... she was and still is always my first call when things feel like the end of the world.  

Looking back now I am able to clearly see how beautifully she has loved me. 

Ma has been my backbone when I didn't know I needed one.  She has cheered me on unselfishly and without question when I believed in what I was doing and the battles I was fighting due to my passions-- she has unselfishly relinquished cherished holidays for my sake so that I could have them around when I was working.  Ma has loved me when I pushed her away in ways that I could not imagine (part of the not having my own children thing I guess), worried nights on end about me, cried countless tears for me, and still put on a smile and tried to cook my favorite meals when I came home.  

Words do not do her justice- do not do her love justice.  

In my years, in my ups and downs, I now can say without hesitation that my mother, Jamie Dawson Barksdale, has always loved me more than I deserve.  I can also say, with a little bit of hesitation because I am still who I am, that I am my mother's daughter in so many beautifully complex ways.  

I know my love, my emotions, and  my gift to feel so deeply is from her.  I know that my jealousy for those I love, my 'motherly spirit' that has won me the honored name of 'Ma' with some friends of mine is from her and her alone.   I boast in the love she has for me, despite the heartache that it may cause both of us.  

I am forever grateful for the unconditional love of my sweet mother-- because she could have easily given up on me, but she has chosen over and over again to keep at it knowing that one day I will be better for it.  

I know that I am not in a great place, I know that right now we likely have the same tear count for what I am going through-- and for that, I cannot thank the sweet Lord above more because I am never alone in my trails.  No matter how much I would like to think I am alone in it and facing these giants on my own-- she is standing in the shadows praying, loving, and fighting with me.  

I pray that I am able to love half the way she loves her children and I am so thankful she has never once given up on me. 

I love you, Jamie Lynn Dawson Barksdale.  

Thank you for being my mother and for all that means. 

Happy belated birthday.