An Unexpected Night

Tonight started out as any other. At home watching a t.v. show on the internet. A friend came home with the promise that I would drive her home later. She had mentioned a dream she had and I wanted to hear it. It had rattled her.

Too many people in the house and no where to go in it to talk alone so we left to “take her home”. I was itching for an excuse to get out of the house and just away. She wanted an Ice Cap, and I wanted to drive so I headed to the next city. She turned on the tunes as we drove without words, listening to the worship songs she picked. I found it very hard not to sing.

We stopped and had our treat and I listened to the God dream she had last night. We both had the same interpretation. That was confirmation to me that I am still discerning correctly. Haven’t had very many opportunities to exercise that part of me in a long while. 

I was still restless. I wanted back in the van and to just listen to worship songs. With every turn I went the opposite way from home. I just had no desire to go home. At least not yet. My friend sat quietly, DJ’ing our drive and unknowingly my heart, while I piloted the van a very long way home. Away from town at first, then back towards it the long way. Or so I thought....

As the tunes kept coming they continually softened my heart. I was content to enjoy the drive the long way home until it felt too long. My heart was turning to jelly and my passenger was noticing we should have hit the city by now. We were in the middle of nowhere. A new experience for me. I’m never lost, I have a very good sense of direction. But the fog, dark shiny roads, and the ‘too bright’ headlights must have caused me to miss a sign to turn somewhere. We realized we were nearly an hours drive south of town. Definitely the looong way home!

I got gas and we responsibly turned around and headed back to the City on an actual highway, giggling about our silly adventure. All the while more songs pouring out of the speakers flooding my dry spirit and heart with words and songs I have not heard in a long time, or had the chance to actually soak in. Little did I know at this point how unexpected the rest of my night would turn out! 

I remember saying out loud that I didn’t want to go back home. I seriously contemplated turning down the cut off towards a completely different city while my friend was looking down at the iPod for the next song. I thought she might get upset if I did so I kept heading home. 

At some point I noticed I was mush internally. I seriously needed to lay on the floor and just let these songs keep doing their work. But I was driving! We were both singing the songs we knew and listening to the ones we didn’t. I don’t know if my passenger was feeling the same softening of her heart as I was feeling. I was really liking her song choice and did not desire to stop that. I decided to push through and just get her home.

After a song that had a lot of Hallelujah's in it I could hear her still quietly singing and praying while I was quietly praying in tongues. It’s been too long since I did that too! I took the cut off to the bridge way too fast. I was less in my mind and more in the spirit then I have been in far too long. That turn was scary. I was sincerely worried my friend would not trust my driving again. I apologized several times. 

Now the unexpected happened. Still driving. Still heading for the bridge I was having to purposely breathe calmly. I opened my window fully. My spirit was now at the boiling point. I really really needed to lay down, and said so. I was getting more and more overwhelmed in the spirit than I have ever been. I was trying not to hyperventilate and I was releasing some of that boil-over by making the odd noise here and there. My friend thought this was hilarious. 

Trying to find one last song to tip me over the edge seemed to take her forever. I was anticipating more but was not expecting its force. Especially while driving down a full circle turn off! The first note of the song and I was as doubled over as I could be while still attempting to drive. I felt like I had just been punched in the spiritual gut. I was losing it fast! My passenger was both concerned about my needing to pull over and laughing hysterically at me, saying, “More Lord”. 

We were so close to her house I couldn’t see pulling over. I just wanted to lay down and let happen what needed to happen. I had been SO spiritually thirsty that I was soaking it all in! It was all I could do to stay focused on the road and drive. I pep talked myself there in between groans and spiritual gut punches. By the time I reached her driveway I had pretty much lost the ability to hold on. I was so relieved to park and turn off the van. Still laughing, my friend said she was just feeling Joy. I was shaking. I didn’t yet know what I was feeling except beat up and so full of His spirit that I couldn’t stay still. She had the nerve to keep saying, “More Lord, give her move....” I didn’t hear all of what she said. 

She did say that God was asking me ‘was I ready yet’. My first response was, ‘ready for what? No! I’m not ready, I’m tired of crap’. That response really shows my lack of trust for God I think.

I just wanted to lay down. My giggling passenger got out of the van and headed to the door, asking if I was coming. My legs were shaking so much I didn’t know if I could walk. She refused to help me but went to opened the back door. I stepped out of the van with too many things in my hands, couldn’t seem to lock the van with the FOB and doubled over. Now the full on laughing began. It was giggles at first, then full blown, but muffled laughter. I was only half way to the stairs! About three steps from the van. The second I saw the steps the laughter got harder. There was NO way I was going to make it up those three stairs without a handrail to hold myself up and I knew it. There is no handrail so I crawled up, dragging my purse along with me and laughing harder with each move towards the door. I couldn’t help it. I was loud and was being shushing. She was telling me to get in the house before I wake the neighbours! There is a first for everything : )

I was now laying on the back porch laughing hysterically and unable to move. My friend was sounding rather concerned about something and all I could do was laugh. I really didn’t want to remain in the cold and the dirt of the porch so i somehow managed to get to my knees and crawl into the house. I don’t know if I got part way up, all the way up or not up at all. Maybe I was picked up. I don’t remember but I eventually did end up in the laundry room, safely within the locked doors of the place. As she stepped over me she said I was definitely drunk. I guess I was. This would be a first for that too. I was never this drunk on alcohol before so I have nothing to compare it to but I was dizzy, loud, couldn’t see straight, and couldn’t even sit upright. Next thing I knew I was sliding sideways to the floor again, unable to stop laughing. It has to be the most fun I have ever had, hands, and me, down.

Still being coaxed into the living room I managed to move into the kitchen and sat in front of the oven, trying to catch my breath from all the laughing. Now my body was responding. I was coughing hard enough that I thought I was going to throw up. Not being able to breathe fully does cause me to cough during laughing, but this was a bit more intense. I was vaguely aware that there was praying going on for me. Asked if there was anything I wanted to get off my chest, I instinctually said no. She repeated the question, with an, “are you sure you don’t want to get something off your chest”? Here things changed completely.

I blurted out a statement to which her response was an automatic “no you don’t”, but I said it again and started to bawl. It’s not something I would ever want to repeat again. It was shocking to me too that it came out of my heart in the first place. But it was just where I was at the time. She quietly prayed. When I stopped internally complaining to God about the issue immediately I was being encouraged that He wants me to keep talking to Him about it. She was on the spiritual ball right then. Her spider senses were working and accurate! 

It got quiet for a bit and my friend asked if I had ever lived in the country, or what I thought of the country. I’m a city girl at heart for sure, but something in me would also love to live off the grid and more naturally and sustainably. But all that is a lot of work, work that I’m not really willing or able to do. She described a picture she saw of me, older but not old. Sitting on a veranda in the country. I was at peace. I had more grey hair than I have now, but I was not wrinkled to show actual age. Not much older than I am now in other words. There was stuff like mountains in the distance and I could see much further than most could. I had eyes like eagles eyes. (this vision is deep and intense!) 

STILL wanting me out of the kitchen, and having calmed down I obliged and got off the floor with the help of a kitchen chair. I was still dizzy and stumbled into her living room. Once I plunked down on a couch something seemed to change. I still didn’t want to go home, but within minutes she wanted me to leave. She checked often if I was ok. Maybe she was checking to see if I was falling asleep. Then statements like, ‘I have to get up early for an appointment’ started coming out. As true as I knew that to be she had missed so many before. Simple things have stopped her from going before. It seemed so sudden a change in her attitude. I knew that she must have felt uncomfortable about something, and it was most likely what I had blurted out in the kitchen. If I had been one of her younger girlfriends would she have been so quick to kick them out? Or would she have let them stay the night and see them through to the end of whatever was going on inside? 

It was obvious the night was over weather I wanted it to be or not so I forced myself off the couch and out the door. Yes, I was still a bit stumblie. But I was having to shake it off and sober up so I could go home now. Everything in me was crying to not go home, but now I had no where else to go but home. That feeling of being trapped clamped down on me rather harshly as I drove over that bridge toward home.

I recalled that there had been a change in her tune again once I was in the kitchen. Asking if I was ok, she was now wondering if I should stay. Was that just out of guilt perhaps? Unless there is a spiritual difference in each room of her house. That’s possible too. But it was too late by then. I was not going to stay somewhere I felt I wasn’t wanted. Had I just unintentionally crossed a line of exposing myself too much?

Perhaps that was the reason for the unsettled feeling that had suddenly appeared. Maybe I was being rejected again because too much got exposed and it was felt that I am too much to handle. This whole experience kind of did blindside both of us. Maybe my friend was just not prepared to handle the clean up of the train wreck that had just happened in her kitchen. When God moves, you gotta be prepared to see His work through. If He started something He will help you see it through if you let Him.

It should be interesting to see what the relationship feels like over the next few days. I really hope it’s not damaged. Only time will tell. So far my friend has not checked in with me to see if I even got home safe. Maybe I should be the one to contact her and find out  what she has going through her head and heart about tonight. It would be the mature thing to do. I feel that shrinking back feeling of shame and embarrassment too though. I’ll have to fight it if I want to show her I want to keep our friendship. It is really important to me. She is really important to me.

A side note: As I think about the vision she had of me earlier, it strikes me first that I was alone. Second the grey hair without the age to match speaks of wisdom beyond my years. Thirdly, the eagles eyes speak of the prophets ability to see what is coming in the future. 

Peace is one of those things I have learned by experience to stop hoping to enjoy. Maybe peace really will one day come. I can’t make myself feel it. It will have to be a gift that I don’t work for. I’m willing to let it come and until it does I will wait.

Let it be Lord.

12-09-02

Twenty-somethings and Hiding

Funny, how life is sometimes. Who enters your life at certain times, for seasons or for longer.

I have been bored these last few weeks. Sitting at home doing the minimal of housework, cooking, mostly driving kids around, watching T.V too, or surfing the net...mostly Facebook really. Just plain bored. I told someone the other day that I have no vision. No future aspirations, no hope for something bigger or better to come my way. That was all stripped away with every hospital visit, doctor appointment, cast, surgery and late bill statement. I have and still do just plod along in day to day stuff because I don't know what else to do. Even my desire and love for crafty things is gone. I haven't scrap-booked in over 5 years. My last painting was done 3 years ago. I don't crochet, because I have enough scarves and that's all I know how to make. I haven't sewn anything productive besides fixing a hole or adding an elastic to something in over a year either. I don't know where my enjoyment in those things went, it's just gone.

Enter the Twenty-somethings into my life.
Recently over the last year or two I have had the enjoyment of a few young women enter my life. They come mostly from different backgrounds, but all have the same hope. Christ, and a better future than the path they were on was previously leading them. For some unknown reason they seem to keep coming back to me. I'm pretty sure I have more "cool" friends now then I ever did in all my years growing up. I'm finding it strange, and fascinating. I'm not much different now from my younger, "ugly duckling", unconfident self. I am often struck with wonder at why these beautiful, popular, and take charge young women willingly choose to spend time with me. Sometimes even often! It's fun though having friends who are 20 years my junior; in an awkward kind of way. It's like I am getting a chance to re-live some years with them I never had when I was their age. But still, down right baffling.

(A switch of gears here, I feel I now need to be much more revealing and am already feeling hesitant. I have only exposed some of this to one person so far, and am embarrassed that I have shared any of my inner self with anyone.)

I am now at a loss for words. I want to be forthcoming. I'm not the type to lie or deceive, but if I can hide I will; from others, but also from myself. I don't like knowing how stupid, immature, and self centred I can be. No one likes to look at them selves in the mirror when they are at their most ugly. Funny how we as humans can think others don't see that part of us. Often times, they do and just don't say anything....and sometimes they do. Just like the other day, when one of those amazing young women told me I have been acting rather childish towards God lately. Ouch!

I'm not mad, or hurt at all. I'm sad that I have been that way. I've been rebellious at heart and actually I still want to be. I want to hide. From myself, from the disappointment I feel towards where I am in life, from who I was before I was fully trampled by circumstances. I want to run from the possibility that this is all my life will amount to; over due bills, a house that we can't upkeep, the string of second hand vehicles that keep breaking down and costing so much money. Lack, lack, lack. I want to hide from my kids when I hear or see something that reminds me of how bad a parent I was when they were younger. I want to hide from friends because I am feeling that I can be too much. Not in a way that my life's circumstances are too much for them to deal with anymore, but from the feeling that I can be too clingy and needy for their attention. I'm working my hardest to not let on that I'm like that too. Or, I could just be over reacting to these new relationships. Friendships, deep ones, are very new to me and figuring out what is right or wrong to do, appropriate or inappropriate to feel in friendships can be confusing to the heart when encountered for the first time. This is stuff that kids learn on playgrounds and schoolyards. Not the stuff that is learned in your early 40's for pete's sake. Yet, here I am. And I want to hide from that fact too. I want to hide from God as well. It's impossible I know. But if I stay just out of reach enough....maybe I'll blend into the woodwork and coast through life without any more trampling or pain.

That's never going to happen. I too deeply want my life to be more than that! More than it has been. I want to matter to others. I want to have a friend who can't live without me, instead of it being me who can't live without them. I want to have adventure, to take risks and win for a change. I want to be able to not look back at some part of my life and not feel regretful or cheated. I want to have the kind of relationship with God that I hear others say they have, where they hear Him and feel Holy Spirit in a tangible way. Where He tells me stuff, good stuff. I want to be on the inside with God, not the outside fringes. It is a constant war internally between wanting to hide, and wanting to be in the center of it all, not left out. I guess when you get down to it I want to be in the least painful place I could be. Neither option is it. Both come with their own set of hurts and painful circumstances. And so, I want to hide from even making that choice.

I re-read a blog posting of a friend, which is really what started me to write tonight. It was an eye opening view. To see the struggle of a promising young women who pulled herself out of some bad life patterns. Comparatively to see her now living such a beautiful life in deep relationship with Christ. It is easy to see from this side of things how all her difficulties and worries, all valid are mere speed bumps or detours on a road to success in everything she does, no matter which path she takes. Our lives were so different, our paths so completely opposite. I wonder how someone who made all the safe choices in life could end up so desperately wishing that she hadn't. So strongly wishing she had taken (or could) a path like this young women had traveled for a time and is now out of. Wishing to be comfortable in her own skin, and confident with her abilities. Motivated to change, to step out and take a risk now, forgetting about the fear of failure and instead grasping the excitement of something new and fun. Instead I want to still hide. Hide from failure, embarrassment, and fear. To hide from the person I want to be, but do not have the courage and confidence to be.

  So really. Why do these twenty-somethings want to hang out with me?!!?