Pressure

Sometimes I feel pressure, God. Maybe it isn't meant to be that way, but it is nonetheless how I feel. It's like I'm in a pressure cooker. At those times I try to not think at all and just let whatever thoughts drift in and out.

And so Coleen came to mind earlier. She had a way of making a point and making you laugh at the same time. Oh, how I miss that! And that reminded me of the time she described to me what it was like to have children.

"They're like leeches," she said, with the straightest face you could imagine. I always thought she knew how naive I was and so she did that kind of thing for shock value. Truth be known, it worked better than she could have hoped for. I was mortified. And fully aware of that fact, she emphasized the statement with, "It's true!" I'd lie awake sometimes thinking about what she said and how she could say that stuff out loud and not worry about whether she could be committed or not.

And so after having proclaimed her kids leeches she went on to explain. "During pregnancy you're not really aware of how much pain and interference these little things are going to make in your life. The first pregnancy, that is. After that it's all a case of I should have known better."

I nodded (like I would have known never having had any). She continued, "But the very first time you become painfully aware of how much pain is involved is when you realize that you are trying to force something the size of a bowling ball out of an orifice that is the size of a golf ball. Dark thoughts embrace your every fiber in that moment of realization. And you can't wait to get even. The problem is... you never do."

"So then the sweet little darlings suckle at your breast for an eternity. But you have to believe that it will end one day. Your nipples crack and are in such pain that you are sure the only remedy is surgical removal. The meat cleaver in the kitchen becomes oddly the tool of choice as you ponder exactly how much pain that would be."

Needless to say, at this point I am questioning my friend's sanity. But it gets worse.

"The next thing you know, breast feeding is all done... Yippee, thank you, God! But are those critters done with their dependency on you? Oh NO! In reality it's only begun. It's not too bad until they get legs underneath themselves. You can pretty much contain them in a playpen or a crib. But once they're mobile, forget it. They're like rats on roller skates. How do you think they came up with that little term of endearment 'rug rats' anyway?"

She paused as if she were reliving a particular moment in time and at the same time things were beginning to have some clarity for me. I shuddered at the thought. Kids being leeches was making sense to me!? OMG, had I gone over the edge? But like three paragraphs back... the worst (best?) is yet to come.

"Somewhere around three or four you realize that they have attached themselves to you. No matter where you go, no matter how hard you try to hide, there they are... ON you. Leeches, I tell you. You wake up in the morning and in the night one (or all of them) have had a bad dream. There they are ON you. There's one on your shoulder, one in your back so you can't roll over, one at your front so you can't get up. It's a hostage situation for sure.

"When you are finally able to make it out of the bed and into the bathroom, there's a skirmish outside the door. Who knows what they are fighting about so early? Who cares? It's then that you realize you will never again get five minutes peace until... well... until... oh God.... NEVER! You feel yourself slipping away. But you muster every bit of energy you can, brush your teeth, drag a comb through your hair, and go down the stairs to make breakfast. As the coffee brews you find a renewed sense of gratitude as you realize it could be worse. You nearly cry to know you will never be able to personally thank the guy who invented school.

"As you watch them go out the door for school you make a silent wish... 'Please don't come back until you are 35.' It's then you know wishes like that don't come true. But you thank the Lord you have the whole day to yourself... as if! There's a price to be paid for those 'precious packages.' It's called housework, endless, perpetual housework. You get what you can done and hope for the best. It never happens."

I'm exhausted just listening to her, but she's just getting wound up it seems.

"They come flying through the door, literally, screaming for something to eat. Carnivorous little creeps. And then they take their place ON you once more. They all want your attention at once. Me first... that's all you hear. One is nearly as tall as you and is blaring in your ear. One on the left has me around the waist... Mom, Mom, Mom! The little one grabs for what he can and is wound around my leg."

She stands up to show me what she means. Her arms are flailing all around. Her face gets red and I think her blood pressure is a kabillion over whatever. And she says, "Just once... JUST ONCE, I'd like to take them like this.." And her hand goes up to her shoulder. She grabs some air and very briskly and forcefully throws it on the ground saying very loud and in a near tearful stage, 'JUST GET OFF ME!'"

"They're leeches I tell you. And they never leave. They will be with me to my dying day competing for attention and having to have a piece of me." And then she sat down exhausted from the pressure of it all. For once I didn't feel so bad about never having kids. I could count this as one of my blessings before I went to sleep tonight. And then her face softened to the Coleen I loved and adored for her strength and she said, "But you know, Sal, I wouldn't change a thing."

I've recounted that conversation dozens of times. It was probably the best and most honest description of having children I have ever heard. And I learned a lot that day. Pressure is different things to different people. What is a breeze for some may be a tightrope for others. My dilemma may just be your walk in the park.

Coleen's kids have had to let go... permanently. She died a few years ago so very young at 55. But her laughter and perspectives live on as long as I have anything to say about it. She lived and loved and laughed and cried. She did it all with a verve I could only hope for. She died very quickly and suddenly.... just like she lived. I don't think she had any regrets. What better way to live than that?

My pressures seem trivial now that I've had this memory. At the appointed hour it will be only me who dies. In the meantime, let me live... perhaps not as I should, maybe not even as I like. Just let me live my life to the fullest so that when that time comes, I will have no regrets. Thanks for the soul print, Coleen. Thanks for the pressure release, God.

The Fall

Dear God, I fell.

It wouldn't have been so bad I suppose except it was the second time in as many days. I sat with Grace nursing my wounded knee and shoulder lamenting on the condition of the world in general.

In a moment of silence a thought came to me - "It's not the first time you've fallen, and perhaps not the last time either." I got to thinking about falling. Grace is so good to me to point out things like that.

At first the thoughts didn't progress too well. But I was determined to think it out until it was exhausted. That's another thing that Grace allows me... the time to let all the ideas flow and come to fruition. She nudges me and then just lets me be.

But as most ideas go, the thoughts began to fall into a rhythm of their own and before I knew it myriad ideas of falling crept in upon my consciousness. Only a few held any positive aspects to them. But as I dug deeper I found that most terms weren't all that great.

Of course the first one I would think of was that glorious feeling of falling in love. I fell for you... OMG what a fall to take! Especially when you fall head over heels. It's the only way to do it if you want to do it right.

Day breaks but for some reason night falls. I thought that was odd. Nature has a lot of falling. The tides fall, snow and rain falls, leaves and stars fall. There are, of course, waterfalls. And let's not forget the air pressure and how we hate to see it fall. All the rain it brings falls short of any hope of sunshine for a while.

My thoughts shifted to people after the nature trail. That's where the troubles began to fall into line. All this thought provoking exercise was showing me was that it wasn't as easy as falling off a log to delve into the falling experience.

I always say that people are strange birds. When that came to mind I was reminded of falling in dreams and how you never want to get to the Splat point. On the other hand there was the freedom one could feel in free falling like in skydiving. I always wished I had done that.

But then things started to get ugly as I probed further into the falling realm. If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. I could have fallen over backwards the first time I ever heard that! But then I had to count the times I had fallen for all manner of stupidity. I felt the redness fill my cheeks as the memories came rushing in.

Yes, I had fallen prey to schemes from many people in my younger days. I had believed the poison that fell from insincere lips. More times than I care to count I took the fall for someone else's behaviour. And I had believed those people who fell all over themselves to make an impression on me. I wasn't too smart back then. At that moment I wished all the falling thoughts would fall away, but to no avail.

Back in the day when I was more resilient I had fallen flat on my face more times than I could count. But every time I fell down, I picked myself up and got on with life. I had my youth to fall back on. And the more that things fell through and I fell behind, the more determined I would be to press onward.

My thinking was that sooner or later things would fall into place. I didn't know how, why or when, but it just seemed that the odds would dictate a better outcome SOMEday. But the fates would fall upon me and I would not know true happiness for a very long time.

I felt my face fall when that thought entered my mind. So I asked myself, "What was your greatest fall?" The answer didn't come soon. But I had been with Grace long enough to know I had to be patient. And so I just sat for a while.

I had lead a truly imperfect life filled with doubts and demons. I fell in with a bad group of people and nearly destroyed myself in the process. To the victor falls the spoils. But I would never know that feeling. My fall from power was of a personal nature. It was the willing relinquishment of any choice I had over my own life that was the hardest part to own up to. I believed I had fallen through the cracks. Happiness just wasn't in the cards I had been dealt.

I had pointed the finger at the world, at You, God. My whining fell on deaf ears most times. I had a falling out with just about every person I ever knew. I couldn't (or wouldn't) believe the things a lot of them had to say to me. Many times they were right. I can see that in all clarity now.

In the end, the responsibility would fall on me for the choices I had made or refused to make. It was as if I were living in a non-waking state, like that feeling you get as you're falling asleep. It was a nowhere land. I had fallen ill so many years before. It was an illness of the soul. The lies I told myself ripped a hole in my soul and at the same time built a wall around it. Nothing could get in, nothing could get out. My darkest hope was that I would just fall off the face of the earth and that would take care of that problem.

But in Your Infinite Compassion You saw fit to help me to change. A flicker of a light fell upon the corner of my eye and I began to hope again for the first time in a very long time. Perhaps I wasn't falling apart after all. My fall into the ways of the world had to be seen for what it was, a mistake. But in the end I would have to come to know my greatest fall of all. That was the hardest one to accept.

These little scrapes will heal. The soreness will go away. But when I look back now, I know I had to do all those things to get to You. I had to take every fall and come out the other end of it. I'm no Icarus. My wings didn't melt because of the sun. But much the same as he, my fall was of my own doing. All along You were there, but I was blind and could not see. From where I sit now I know I have survived the greatest fall of all - my fall from Grace, Your Grace. What else could I possibly fear now? Thank you for believing in me when I couldn't or wouldn't myself.

　

The Healer

I'm just sitting here recalling

how I hated I was falling

as I saw the floor was rising to my face

But in that moment was a blessing

I could feel His hand just pressing

ever upward in His all amazing grace

He not only saved me that day

but each and every day in some way

from those things over which there's no control

I'm embarrassed how I falter

ever-stumbling to His altar

ever seeking even more than is my dole

I should lay before Him prone

knowing well that on my own

there is nothing in this world that I can do

without Him right there by my side

The Great King who for me died

is the Fixer and the Healer through and through

Eternal Life

Dear God...

How can I possibly be worthy of Your gift of Eternal Life when I can't follow your rules? I can't imagine your boundless love. How can I be important to you when many times I am not important to myself?

I can't even wrap my mind around eternal life. I look back over the landscape of the lands I have traveled in this life and that feels like an eternity to me.

I doubt anyone comes to you fully ready to die. There has to be regrets of things undone, unfinished, unattained. And yet the transition is made.

Is it true that as long as someone thinks of us we live on? I wonder who will think of me. I wonder whose life I have touched (good or bad) that they would be bothered to invest a thought in me after I am gone.

It all seems so complex to fathom. When I stumble on an answer it only reveals more questions. Maybe that's it... we live only as long as we don't believe we know everything there is to know.

As always... I thank you for listening.

Infinity... And Beyond

in·fin'·i·ty NOUN:

1. The quality or condition of being infinite.
2. Unbounded space, time, or quantity.
3. An indefinitely large number or amount.

I particularly am intrigued by number two. Unbounded, limitless, immeasurable, inexhaustible, perpetual and eternal.

It's no wonder I can't fathom your boundless love, God. Or your entirety. Or your flowing Grace. I suppose this is how the word 'awe' materialized. So that we could marvel at all the things we could not comprehend.

For me... I marvel at the marveling. And I thank you for those moments I do.

The Burden of Knowledge

Hello God. I've been thinking again. And you know how that goes.

It seems at times that having knowledge about certain subjects is a burden to be carried. I'm not complaining. I'm just confused. So maybe you can help me out on this one if you're not too busy.

You tell us to treat others as we would have ourselves be treated. That's a good thing. Yet there are times when it seems as though the knowledge one possesses is usurped at the expense of the person possessing it. I suppose it is better to know certain things than to not know. And to freely share it is surely a talent that has only been given by You. But is it fair to be selective about who you give it to? I wonder if that makes any sense to You... You who have given Your life for us. Do you think that a person is being stingy when they become selective?

Perhaps it is my perspective that is askew. It could possibly be that this knowledge is not a burden at all. Perhaps it was given by You to hone character and develop the person into a loving image of You. It's all too complex for me, I think.

I would rather be the trees in winter holding a new fallen snow silently and graciously, than be the person who thinks the knowledge is some sort of horrific burden to be endured rather than a gift to be shared. Help me to be that person, Dear God. Help me to be more benevolent and let Your Light shine through me.