Resolved

Right now, I'm taking my final class to get my Associates Degree. It's Astronomy and it's online, not something I would recommend to someone who hasn't been to school in a few years. Nevertheless, I am learning and I love it. I was reading about different telescopes and one of the powers is the ability of a telescope to reveal fine detail. This power is called its resolving power. Hm. What was interesting is that when two images are separated, astronomers say they are "resolved", meaning that they are separated from each other. Separate, resolved. When I first read this, it reminded me of a long term friendship that ended badly. I moved in with them and as I began to pick up finer details about them, and they about me, it was the healthiest thing to be separate. Now, when I re-read it again, it reminds me of another meaning. I read this article just this week as we celebrated Passover: http://ffoz.org/blogs/2013/03/god_fearers_easter_ham_or_pass.html It's about the separation that has existed between Jews and Christians and well, just read it. The same day I read it, I trained a client who was a little girl in Communism in Slovakia. She is alone now in the states with no children and her husband recently deceased. She remembers not being allowed to go to church or talk about any religion. She remembers sneaking away with some cousins to a nearby village where they secretly had Easter celebration. They didn't decorate eggs or have bunnies. This got me thinking. My thoughts are still in process but some of my thoughts are that since I've started keeping Biblical Feasts, sometimes deemed inappropriately "Jewish Holidays" by many, I've experienced judgment from Christians. I've been argued with, corrected, spoken to as if I don't read or know how to read the Bible, judged to be "under the law" or "without grace". I've experienced frustration when I go to library to find books about the upcoming Feast, only to find there are only Christian holiday books. I've then experienced this understanding of why people only spend time with people that believe the same, because at least you can find some peace and continuity. What all these things have done in my heart is created the desire to want to judge back, to fight, to be right. When this woman shared her story about sneaking to celebrate anything Christian, I just listened. I saw the finer details, the resolving power in my soul to just let people have their journey, to love them, to support and encourage them. It was the first time I didn't tell someone "you know the pagan roots of that holiday don't you?". She invited me to church with her, in the gym, in a Personal Training session. How beautiful. I am crying at the beauty of this. Do you see it too?

Positive Thinking...Denial?

I hear from people in my circles and read alot about this positive thinking power. Let me say that I do, in fact, agree with most of what I hear and read, and even say myself. Yet, I also hear it in other terms, from church people mostly, coined like this "have faith", "trust God", "don't speak that out." The thing is, the non believing crowd I'm around, and the Jesus followers (Yeshua also), are saying the exact same things. I heard someone say "well, if you say that, you create more of it and speak it into existence in the future". OK. I do agree on a level. Then there is the other level. We must be honest. We must have integrity and humility enough to say what our reality is. Otherwise, you're the tele-evangelism guy you love to hate who "names it and claims it". How is that any different? Or, its lying and living in a pollyanna denial. What I mean is this. It is OK and HEALTHY to say and be sad. It's ok to let yourself cry, to let yourself get angry. Its not being a human to not allow these emotions, its a human doing, not a human being. I think many say these things because they are afraid of their own feelings. I hear alot too that "if I let myself cry, it will be too much" or something like that. So, you zip up yourself nice and tight and think you're open-minded? Really? Zipped right up. OK. No, not ok. We are not here to be doers, to have it all together all the time, to say the right thing, have the right attitude, be the "positive energy" or "faith-filled". No. We are here to LIVE. FULLY. To be present. To love fully. To give sincerely. The thing is, and I need reminding on this, is that these feelings need to be shared, felt and talked about in the right place and with the right people. That's the hard part. Many of us have complainers around us, or sympathetic people but not healthy people, the list goes on. We don't have many safe people. The feelins but be with safe people, in a safe place and at a safe time. Having your feelings ignored or trampled on is what caused you to shut down in the first place, to strive to have it all together because if you didn't, boy oh boy, hell to pay. So, find that place. Find that person. There is power in ALL our emotions, not just the "good" ones. If rain really is the earth crying, as a metaphor of course, then the tears truly do cleanse. But, first they kinda make things muddy and yucky, gloomy, cloudy. At first...be patient.

Legacy to leave: Story to tell

I've been thinking alot about how I view the world lately.  I get to feeling sorry for myself sometimes.  I had a chance to take a trip I would LOVE to go to, all day dancing Messianic, with like minded believers.  The only problem is there are zero children going and I'm the only single mom.  The other adults going seem to be annoyed when I come to practices with my daughter in tow.  Of course, I don't have a choice.  And then I get mad, then I feel sorry for myself.  I don't have shared custody.  I don't get every other weekends or even every Tuesday for a few hours to myself.  I don't live near my folks so I can't drop her off for a few hours even to go grocery shopping, or more importantly, to go a meeting for my soul.  I get comments so often used to make me mad, and sometimes still do, but now I realize it's just not in someone's radar.  And frankly, I don't want it to be.  It's ok.

I hear people talk about how many single moms there are, how so many make it work.  Well, thats great.  Are you one? No.  I don't hear other single moms say that.  I hear them cry.  I hear them do everything in their power not to scream at their child, not because the child is misbehaving but because they're at their end and have NO place to turn for reprieve.  It's impossible to comprehend if you haven't been there.  Having a husband who is gone alot, is not the same.  It's just not.  To have the sole pressure of providing financially, being the provider, roof cover-er, emotional support, spiritual guide, encourager, so many roles to list...is not the same. 

All that to say, I am sad.  I am overwhelmed.  I feel alone alot.  I mean alot.  BUT...I decided I am going to try not to talk about it for awhile, how hard it is anyway.  I don't want the first thing I say about myself is how I'm a single mom.  I don't to someone keep needing people to understand how it is for me in the first few minutes or sentences.  That's just um, lame.  I mean, I love the title because I love being a mom and my daughters mom.  I love the title because someday it will make me finally feel strong. 

I don't want my daughter to pick up on these things though.  I remember hearing my dad talk about bills or the expense of things and I felt it was my fault somehow.  That if i wasn't another mouth to feed, he would be happier.  That's not how my dad meant it and certainly he didnt feel that way.  But, still, I picked this up.  I do not want my daughter to get the impression that she is the cause of any of my pain.  Not one iota.  I mean, it's not like I didn't make choices that brought me to this place too.  It's not like I am a victim. 

It's hard to feel obsolete sometimes.  I don't know where I stand or if I fit in sometimes.  I've been dismissed and I wonder at the future.  But what I am committed to remember is that I have hope.  I am more than single mom.  I am a writer, a dancer, a singer, a fitness professional, silly, goofy, serious, madly in love with the King of the Universe of whom I must begin again to place my trust in.  It isn't just a cliche (of which I abhor) to say I have a hope and a future.  This Lover has never dismissed me, has never abandoned me, knows how I feel, and cares about how I feel.  I have to change my thinking.  I have to change what I say as a result. 

I hope someday soon I will have a story to share with others that inspires.  Other single moms who feel this way, I hope they can know it will get better too.  I actually believe that day is coming.  I've seen this happen in my lifetime in other ways, with other struggles.  It's not just a hope.