unsettled

Sunflowers
Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp

It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart--
oh let them take me now.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God--spend them however you want.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Love Poems to God

I'm feeling a bit unsettled in my heart today. I've been feeling good, and am still doing good, but just continuing the soul-searching. Trying to figure out what's right. It's so very hard sometimes to know the right path, especially when it requires maybe hurting someone's feelings to speak your own truth. Goodbyes are never easy for me. But sometimes doors need to be closed to allow in new light. I bought the sunflowers for myself today. When I first got divorced I bought myself flowers every week. I haven't in a while, but I know I don't need someone else to offer me that gift of life, spring, sunshine, rain, color, spirit that flowers represent.

I had a sort of breakthrough the other week about this Bible passage that is often quoted, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jeremiah 29:11). I never believed it applied to me. For one thing, when you read the whole book of Jeremiah, the Lord is very specifically talking to the prophet Jeremiah not to all the people. But it's commonly quoted like it applies to everyone. So I always thought how do we know it applies to everyone?

One lesson I've learned from Debbie Ford is to try to always ask whenever there's something that appears to require another person or another "thing" (if only I have this, or that, I'll be happy), you ask yourself, What is it really that I think is being provided in that feeling? One of the things that I always desire and seek after is that feeling of "falling in love" (blame Hollywood and all those romantic comedies!) and I got to asking myself, in that Debbie Ford manner, what is it about the "falling in love" feeling that I really like or want?

Immediately, I answered to myself that when falling in love, I feel like I have a future to look forward to (with someone) and I feel hope. As soon as I said that to myself it was like a huge aha moment, and that Jeremiah passage came to mind - because I hadn't even been thinking about it. I was like, Wow. Maybe that passage does apply to me. Maybe that is what He means. God wants us to feel that same feeling - that we have hope and a future - because that's what God wants for me, for us, for everyone. Imagine if we could feel that confident, secure, in love feeling always because we know that God loves us, and we are totally secure in His love. It's something I need to meditate on and contemplate, because I don't feel it yet. In fact one of the breakthroughs I had in my grace group was that I really don't trust God with my "inner child" and I feel like I have to take care of myself.