Twisted Sisters
Sometimes God just blows me away.
Tonight I came in from work feeling emotionally numb. There were so many things on my mind that could have potentially dragged me down that I chose instead to try not to think at all. I have been finding that much safer of late than exploring such fickle and flighty things as my feelings. As I stepped into the kitchen, I saw a little pile of mail. It's funny how in these days of email and cheap long distance that my heart still leaps with hope at the sight of a pile of stamped envelopes freshly brought in from our rural mailbox. Well, there could be something in there for me! Maybe even something handwritten and personal. It's possible!
I flipped through the pile and there, to my great delight, was my dear sister Brenda's handwriting on a large brown envelope that was addressed to ME! Bless her heart. I tore it open to find a home-made CD along with another envelope - this time a white one. On it was written in scarlet, the words, "Susan precious lily". (Susan means "lily" and God used that meaning at one point in my life -and with Brenda's help facilitating - to impress profoundly on my deeply wounded heart that he is the author and protector of my identity - that though it had been badly damaged - even fractured - in my youth, its essence had been kept safe and hidden in Him. With that understanding came the beginning of a great healing and I had been able to start the long and slow process that continues to this day - of receiving my identity back from Him, where it had been safely kept.
Inside the white envelope I found the beautiful photoghraph of a little waterfall flowing gracefully over rocks into a pond covered with lily pads. In the pond were several yellow lilies, their petals curved in on themselves. But in the center of the stream, near the bottom of the waterfall is one single white lily in full and glorious bloom. Inside the photo-card was a note explaining the CD and ended with a postscpript that was both a blessing and encouragement. It was so perfectly suited to what my heart needed in that moment that it could only have been written with one's ear tuned into God while pen was put to paper. A message straight from Him! I put the CD straighway into a player and let the words of the songs she was sharing touch my heart and begin the softening process. It was wonderful to have something that God was using to minister to my sister's heart now touching my heart too.
I went to the computer, my heart a lot lighter on some level, but still deeply saddened and confused on another. I was completely stuck for what to write about tonight. I had a few thoughts rumbling about in the depths somewhere, but I just couldn't pull them up into the light and put words to them. I just sat in my chair and looked about for inspiration when my eyes landed on the neat little row of my journals - haphazardly kept over the years, mostly chronicling only the most painful times.
I chose one at random - it happened to be the summer of 1994 - and opened it to the first page.
"There's nothing here," I thought. And I was right. Nothing I wanted to use for a blog post, anyway. But I did bump into something - written, strangely enough - on Brenda's birthday, June 20th - that struck my heart full force. Something too deep and personal to share here, but suddenly all the feelings bottled up in my heart were released, and the confusion I had been trying to keep buried as I walked in the door this evening were replaced by a depth of understanding that could only be God. My heart, softened by the music sent by my sister was now wide open and Light was flooding in from every angle. The really amazing thing was that everything I read in my journal was confirmed in little ways by the things that had arrived from my sister in the mail.
That wasn't all that happened this evening... If I were to consider writing it all down, I would have at least three more posts worth of raw material. But how important in starting the whole process of God's meeting the needs in my heart was that envelope in the pile sent from one sister to another. We never know how profound an a effect a small act of love can have on the life of the recipient...
So thanks Bren. I'll be listening often in the coming days to those songs you sent. And loving the connection that they will give me to you and to the One who watches between us when we are absent from one another. How grateful I am that our lives are firmly entwined.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecc. 4:12b
Love always, Susan.
Tonight I came in from work feeling emotionally numb. There were so many things on my mind that could have potentially dragged me down that I chose instead to try not to think at all. I have been finding that much safer of late than exploring such fickle and flighty things as my feelings. As I stepped into the kitchen, I saw a little pile of mail. It's funny how in these days of email and cheap long distance that my heart still leaps with hope at the sight of a pile of stamped envelopes freshly brought in from our rural mailbox. Well, there could be something in there for me! Maybe even something handwritten and personal. It's possible!
I flipped through the pile and there, to my great delight, was my dear sister Brenda's handwriting on a large brown envelope that was addressed to ME! Bless her heart. I tore it open to find a home-made CD along with another envelope - this time a white one. On it was written in scarlet, the words, "Susan precious lily". (Susan means "lily" and God used that meaning at one point in my life -and with Brenda's help facilitating - to impress profoundly on my deeply wounded heart that he is the author and protector of my identity - that though it had been badly damaged - even fractured - in my youth, its essence had been kept safe and hidden in Him. With that understanding came the beginning of a great healing and I had been able to start the long and slow process that continues to this day - of receiving my identity back from Him, where it had been safely kept.
Inside the white envelope I found the beautiful photoghraph of a little waterfall flowing gracefully over rocks into a pond covered with lily pads. In the pond were several yellow lilies, their petals curved in on themselves. But in the center of the stream, near the bottom of the waterfall is one single white lily in full and glorious bloom. Inside the photo-card was a note explaining the CD and ended with a postscpript that was both a blessing and encouragement. It was so perfectly suited to what my heart needed in that moment that it could only have been written with one's ear tuned into God while pen was put to paper. A message straight from Him! I put the CD straighway into a player and let the words of the songs she was sharing touch my heart and begin the softening process. It was wonderful to have something that God was using to minister to my sister's heart now touching my heart too.
I went to the computer, my heart a lot lighter on some level, but still deeply saddened and confused on another. I was completely stuck for what to write about tonight. I had a few thoughts rumbling about in the depths somewhere, but I just couldn't pull them up into the light and put words to them. I just sat in my chair and looked about for inspiration when my eyes landed on the neat little row of my journals - haphazardly kept over the years, mostly chronicling only the most painful times.
I chose one at random - it happened to be the summer of 1994 - and opened it to the first page.
"There's nothing here," I thought. And I was right. Nothing I wanted to use for a blog post, anyway. But I did bump into something - written, strangely enough - on Brenda's birthday, June 20th - that struck my heart full force. Something too deep and personal to share here, but suddenly all the feelings bottled up in my heart were released, and the confusion I had been trying to keep buried as I walked in the door this evening were replaced by a depth of understanding that could only be God. My heart, softened by the music sent by my sister was now wide open and Light was flooding in from every angle. The really amazing thing was that everything I read in my journal was confirmed in little ways by the things that had arrived from my sister in the mail.
That wasn't all that happened this evening... If I were to consider writing it all down, I would have at least three more posts worth of raw material. But how important in starting the whole process of God's meeting the needs in my heart was that envelope in the pile sent from one sister to another. We never know how profound an a effect a small act of love can have on the life of the recipient...
So thanks Bren. I'll be listening often in the coming days to those songs you sent. And loving the connection that they will give me to you and to the One who watches between us when we are absent from one another. How grateful I am that our lives are firmly entwined.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecc. 4:12b
Love always, Susan.
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