It has been over a year (almost year and a half) since I have written and published a blog. Written, yes. Published, no. A lot has happened in the last year, but my reason/s for not writing has nothing to do with the insanity and sheer nuttiness of the world… if anything, it has been for the insanity and nuttiness within me. As I’ve hinted in previous blogs, it may have had something to do with a girl, although I won’t really touch on that here. What it has had to do with though, is my journey with God.
I’d like to say that for the last year+, life has been rainbows and unicorns and being led by still waters to lie down in green pastures, but it hasn’t…as I’m guessing the last year and a half of anyone’s life hasn’t been. However it is life, and life serves one ultimate purpose… to lead us towards death. That’s not me being negative in the slightest. It’s just what happens. For every one began ends in death…#truestory. Well, except for Enoch and Elijah and Jesus.. but the odds of that happening to any of us… pretty slim.
And herein is why I’m writing again. It is who I am and what I do. I am a writer. It is my gift and I’ve done okay with it up to now on a very, very, very small scale… but I need to do more. “Feed My sheep” is how I believe He put it…and continues to put it. “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, yet don’t do what I say?” Yes, Lord…I will do what you say. Yet I’ve written very little here and almost none in the last three years, whereas I had been writing every day. Would I have liked to be writing as I had before? Yes. I have at least fifty ideas and/or topics to write about, and more opportunities arise daily… yet here I sit.
But this…ALL of this, the last five years have been a part of my journey…to get me to here. I’m okay with words, but am not overly eloquent. I don’t have a filter in real life, so I don’t see the need to have one here. But I will write to honor God and don’t believe He would want me to filter His words….or say anything that needs to be. And while I believe God has given me the words to say in previous blogs, I think He wants me to step up my game. He wants me to write from my heart.
I have named and renamed my blog a few different times over the years before settling on The Eyes of the Heart. Here are a few reasons why. One of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, who I will quote occasionally titled one of his books the same. And, of course, it led me to one of my favorite Bible verses, Ephesians 1:18-20.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms…
“Know the hope to which He has called you” “His great power for us who believe” “…the same power that raised Christ from the dead”… I don’t know about you, but I want me some of that. “The riches of his glorious inheritance”… such a great chapter of the Bible. Such a great book in the Bible. All of the promises of God are for us.. on Earth as it is in Heaven.
So I write again. As I’ve said I was writing before, or dabbling in writing, but hadn’t quite hit on “eyes of the heart” writing. My Journey with God. I was only seeing with the eyes on my face…and if that is all I am capable of seeing with, I might as well be blind. If I was concentrating on writing fiction it may be different…I may have gotten away with it, as most of our fictional stories all have a bit of truth in them. That’s not good enough, though. My wants in writing have become to put on paper what God wants me to, so I’ll stick with non fiction…*Atheist opinions may vary. Guess that was a little off topic, but I have a way of making short stories long. 🙂
The hardest part I’ve found, so far, is cleaning out the gunk, cobwebs and debris from past hurts. I recently asked God to dig up (and heal) my heart as it has needed renovation and renewing for far too long. He came to heal the brokenhearted. There’s a lot of messiness there and so many things, scary things, things clowns that live in the sewer system are scared of I had stuffed down for so long and put to death…or so I thought. But as good of a God as He is.. as loving and compassionate as He is, He cannot and will not let us stay there. If you aren’t operating from the heart, you are among the walking dead. He is taking me back to the beginning to begin healing. He is not a half hearted God. He won’t stop at halfway, because halfway healed is still broken. He wants our true selves.. That isn’t to say He can’t use us otherwise, but He knows and loves us, but not the earthly versions of us we pretend to be. He wants the person He created before we were born. That is who He needs us to be. And thank Him for not quitting on us until we’ve become that person.
We all have a story of woundedness, yet if we don’t ever meet it head on and heal from it, we will most likely operate from that woundedness until we do. And so many people never do… I don’t want to be one of those people. My story isn’t unlike many, many others. A boy waits patiently for his father to come home when he’s two years old which becomes three which becomes five, then ten, then becomes he’ll never come for me, which becomes no one will ever come for me, and that’s where the boy learns to live out of. A girl waits her entire life time to hear her mother say “I love you” one time…. just one time, and that one time never comes and now her mother is no more, and she’s still waiting for words she’ll never hear. And that is where she learns to live out of. An area of pain, hurt and anger… and they both vow to never be in that position again.
So, eventually….once upon a time boy meets girl, they fall in love and they tell each other the words they never heard growing up…and they don’t know what to do with them, or how to process them, so they don’t. They part ways. They could be in each other’s arms in thirty minutes or less, but now they’re strangers. Once everything to each other…now they don’t talk. Hurt people hurt people.
Again, two stories that may not be any different from your own, and there are stories much more horrific than those. The parents who hurt us were once children of parents that wounded them. And most likely, intentionally or not, we have done the same to our children. Now would be a good time for a Bible verse… and I have nothing.
But then again, I do have something. I have everything. I have God and she does, too. That doesn’t mean there will be a happily ever after story between said boy and girl. The journey between them may be over…it may have just a chapter in the story of their journeys to God, but there will be a happily ever after story with God.
But it’s a process. It is always a process and we should always be a work in progress. And my progress is currently in digging up the past and healing. Until recently, I couldn’t tell you much of my life between two and twenty. But the parts I could tell weren’t any worth telling. Not sure if the second twenty something years would be any different. Smiling didn’t happen much and still doesn’t. Yes, I was a class clown and to this day enjoy making others laugh at work, at church, the check out line at the grocery story, at anywhere I go…I try to make others laugh even if I fight back tears while doing so. But I’m not content in staying there…..anymore. For a long time, I’ve been the man at the well. For probably longer than the 38 years it’s been said he was there. Soooo, I think it’s time to pick up my mat and walk…..but mostly talk/write. 🙂
Yet, that’s a scary thought. What are you supposed to do with your new found wellness? Unfortunately, we have curled up in our blankets of brokenness for so long, that we have made a home of it…and it’s not that bad there. Cozy, comfortable and every now and then the sun peeks in the great room between the blinds. It isn’t much, but it’s home…….or is it? Doesn’t look like life and to the full to me. So, everybody…. at the count of three, pick up your mat and walk.
Three.
Okay. Anyone there? Me either….but at least, I haven’t rolled my mat out again. I will continue writing and I will hit the publish button for the first time since July of last year. Hopefully, it’s a little more from the heart, or eyes of the heart and will continue to be. It can be a bit unnerving to hit the publish button without knowing what to expect. Will anyone read it? Does it make any sense? Does anyone care what my version of writing with the eyes of the heart truly is? Do they get it? Do they share the same thoughts? Are their wounds and pain too deep to uncover? Will we say a collective “what’s the use?” and keep trudging through what’s left of life? I hope not.
Hitting the publish button under any circumstances can be a daunting task, and it is with an odd mixture of pride, fear, humility, laughter, uncertainty, trepidation, etc and the underlying thought of “I hope I don’t scare them all away” as I move towards doing so. This is an attempt at seeing everything… you, me, the broken boy and girl, the homeless man pushing his overloaded cart towards the underpass to sleep on a cold night, the wealthy man cutting you off in his vehicle that cost more than your house with the eyes of my heart. We’ve all been wounded and scarred (and scared) at some point in our lives, and somehow find a way to live out of these places. Some with nothing. Some with everything (or so they think), because things are just things. They don’t make us complete. Only God can do that. There is an empty spot in all of us only He can fill. If only we would let Him.
Let Him. I’m kinda talking to you there, but talking to myself more. This is me and I hope some of you like it. This is who I am without the mask. I hope to write more from the heart, until I find myself no longer needing to wear one. God wants us as our true self and loves us enough to not let us remain behind the masks. He wants our tears, and sweat and snot and bloodied, bleary eyed and brokenness, the lost and long forgotten hopes and dreams, the absolute worse as in the vow, for better or worse, He wants us. So that He can heal us. Again, it’s life and to the full. He came to bind up the brokenhearted. Let Him…. see above. Kinda talking to myself again.
Back to the boy and girl story…still no happy ever after. It actually reminds me a little of Romeo and Juliet. No, we weren’t star crossed lovers, but were very good for each other. But the same things that brought us together were the same things that eventually tore us apart with all the unhealed damage we brought (from other people and our pasts) to our relationship. Heal! Get well! Don’t use your hurt to hurt others. There are resources available….and I don’t mean self-help. You can’t self help your way out of this. Find a Christian centered therapist, a friend, your pastor or a church worker that can steer you towards the right people. Try more than one, if nothing seems to be happening with the first or second or third one. Pray, pray and pray more. Turn to God. Open the door… for His sake, open the door!!
Back to Romeo and Juliet…..sort of. They ended up dying way too young and needlessly. I think. It’s Shakespeare. I only read it because I had to over 40’something years ago. YAWN!! Anyway, it was a tragic ending to their young lives. Dying once cannot be an easy thing to do, but I have to assume it’s better than dying every day for the rest of your life… Get well. It’s time we all learned to see with the eyes of our heart. It’s a beautiful, messed up world we live in. Rejoice and be glad in it. I say again, rejoice!
The Eyes of the Heart 