Security - Part 5

Guarantees:

There are few guarantees in this world. "The only sure things are death and taxes" used to be the cliche. That's a bit cynical but with divorce and unemployment on the rise, certainly some certainties are becoming less so in our Western Society.

If you Google 'security', the first items that come up have to do with financial planning. We put a lot of emphasis on money matters and give a lot of attention to acquiring, earning and managing money.

In 1929 when the stock market crashed some people who were wealthy on paper became impoverished literally over night. Some of those people jumped out of windows to their death because they couldn't cope with their loss. Their security lay in their financial circumstances and when that security was lost they were devastated.

And yet I would like to suggest that if we feel secure in ourselves - with the sense of who we are - whatever surprises life may throw at us will be less of a challenge to navigate. Furthermore, the more confident we are in ourselves the better our relationships will be. We will be better able to express and to listen to others. And effective communication has certainly been seen as the root of relationship success.

How do we become more confident in ourselves?
By spending quality time alone, discovering what we value, hope for and want most out of life.
By taking responsibility when we make mistakes and forgiving others when they make theirs, becoming less judgmental, more accepting and more transparent.
By reaching out, helping others in need and receiving help when we need it.

When I look at who I was as a young woman, how much I craved love and affection and put my emphasis on my yearnings, my decisions revolved around other people and having them satisfy my needs. I made bad choices, particularly in romantic love, because I had a need to be met and all my attention was on finding fulfillment in that. What I've come to realize is that when I am willing to give up my ambition and focus on what others need, my life is full of love, joy and far more value than if I clung to that one desire above all else.

Once I recognized my desires but gave up searching for them and instead began to see others and their needs, I became much more confident, contented and fulfilled. The fact is, what we think we want and what we really need can be quite different. Once we surrender our wish list, we can get on with living -- giving and receiving life and it's opportunities. Then we become enriched by the ebb and flow of existence, where the guarantee is that there will always be challenges that enable us to grow in character, personality and self awareness.

As for me, the irony is that once I gave up pursuing romantic love, it found me. I think that, when we enjoy where we are, rather than exist to find what we think we want, life is more fulfilling and the things which need to be are more likely to come into being.

The road ahead may not be certain but when we are comfortable in our own skin, the journey is far more pleasant.

Road Ahead by Sarah Tun

May you enjoy your week. And remember, before too long, this blog will morph into LarusBlog, a part of my website. You will still receive email notification or Google+ postings as you are now. The look and organization will be a little bit different, but it'll still 'me', examining, sharing, flying through life.

Love and God bless to you this week. See you next Thursday... AND:




END NOTE: For those who haven't known me for long, and perhaps for some who have: You might enjoy my other blog:
Life from the Lighthouse -- all about what God shows me when He talks to me and I listen. New posts monthly on the 1st.










My website for the Self Publishing House is www.LarusPress.com where I blog on wholeness, witness, the Word of God and worship & warfare. Larus Press offers Christian-based books, blogs and literature to inspire, encourage, equip and empower your living spirit.
Subscribe to our free newsletter, Soaring Post, with issues every Thursday to equip you for your spiritual walk.

See you next Thursday here at A Life Examined.

Mid Life Crisis - Part 5

      e
Br k n es
   o    n   s:

There is a story in the Bible, which I happen to believe is a piece of human history, about a woman who broke open a jar of expensive perfume and poured it, along with her tears and her hair, over the feet of Jesus shortly before he was arrested, tried, crucified. It is believed she was demonstrating her gratitude to him. I'm nowhere near as generous as that woman, but I believe I have an inkling of what her level of brokenness feels like.

Over the past month, there have been times when I've felt numb. Weighed down by a loss of expectation, I seemed sentenced to inertia. I have felt the weight of uselessness, purposelessness, hopelessness. The woman who cried over Jesus' feet transformed her brokenness into a generous demonstration of thankfulness at his mercy and forgiveness. For me, brokenness came from realizing there is nothing I can do to make a difference in this world, nothing I can give that is needed in the greater scheme of things, nothing I have to offer that is needed on a grand scale. My brokenness has been all about me. While she demonstrated humility and grace, I have wrestled with vanity and pride.

And yet, time has taken me past myself. The inevitable has happened: I've discovered my limitations, and by discovering the futility of my efforts, I've been given a gift. Coming to the end of myself, I've discovered, is hugely freeing!

When we carry responsibility, capability and opportunity on our shoulders, we are delighted with the strength and self-sufficiency we feel. But if these things are ripped or stripped away and our powerlessness is exposed, our abilities are called into question, and our pride is wounded. When all of our vulnerabilities are exposed, we've nothing left but to feel broken. Brokenness is that state where there is nowhere to hide and nothing left to lose. If pride is the excuse we hide behind to avoid admitting failure, then brokenness is the inability to deny failure. Without a place to hide, there is no shame. Once we hit rock bottom, there really is nowhere to go but up!

At rock bottom we discover our identity and become free to explore.

This is the Christmas Season, a time for joy, love, laughter, sharing and giving. So, to you I want to share the discovery I've made - the gift I've received - which is that, in being utterly and completely broken of any sense of efficiency, confidence, purpose or use, I've realized I am unburdened, unshackled and reborn. I don't know where I'm going, but I don't have to force anything. There may be joy, love, laughter ahead. There may not be. But I've discovered there's peace in accepting where I am, rather than speeding ahead to where I think I ought to be. And in that, I've received a gift I never expected. I've known for a long time there's nothing I have to do or be to be acceptable; I am acceptable. But now I also know, there's nothing I can do or be that is acceptable. Relinquishing any hope I'd make a meaningful contribution to society has taken a huge burden from me. Now, life will unfold as it should, and although I don't know how it will unfold, I'm open to surprises.... perhaps more open than I've been for a long time...

Water Flow by Sarah Tun

So, come on 2014... I'm looking to let the future wash over me. And rather than pushing through the waves, I hope to roll, toss and float to discover how the future will unveil itself.

Merry Christmas to all, and I'll be back here on Boxing Day! Best wishes.

Love and God bless to you this week. See you next Thursday... AND:




END NOTE: For those who haven't known me for long, and perhaps for some who have: You might enjoy my other blog:
Life from the Lighthouse -- all about what God shows me when He talks to me and I listen. New posts monthly on the 1st.










My website for the Self Publishing House is www.LarusPress.com where I blog on wholeness, witness, the Word of God and worship & warfare. Larus Press offers Christian-based books, blogs and literature to inspire, encourage, equip and empower your living spirit.
Subscribe to our free newsletter, Soaring Post, with issues every Thursday to equip you for your spiritual walk.

See you next Thursday here at A Life Examined.

My "Perfect" Life - part 8

'DISTANT' COUSINS

I've been chatting about my family as a means to disclose my own journey through childhood.

Today I'm going to digress slightly, and launch ahead to recent encounters with relatives I never knew before last week as a testament to the value of all of our 'intimate' relationships... I'm so glad I've discovered them.

I value family, though growing up in my own nuclear family I felt pretty isolated most of the time. A week ago I went to visit my first cousin whom I'd met only once before. Last week I met his family too. Though his wife describes their family as 'pure soap opera', I'd like to focus on the operative word: PURE.

What a motley crew my first cousin has! First, he's 2+ decades older than I am, which means his children are my age. Add together the fact that he had his children in his twenties and I in my forties, and we get his four generations of family to my two. My son played with my cousin's great grandchildren who are his peers. How bazaar is that? 

It must be neat to be a great grandparent; to watch your children's children have children must be awesome, though unfortunately the contemporary world has brought about family pain through broken relationships and an absence of marriage that has affected the third generation in my cousins family just like it has so many others across the Western world. Nevertheless, this family is bonded. For me it was positively charming to see the love and appreciation they showed toward each other -- and they had plenty extra that spilled over onto my own family. These are honest folk, striving to keep afloat in this economically uncertain time and who are venturing to make their own unique way in the world. I would sum up this family in a word: united.

For some of us, the word family conjures up thoughts of joy, for others frustration, and for still others, pain and heartache. To me, family is meant to represent acceptance, love, and safety. This is what I observed and experienced in my visit to my cousin's last week. 

We are not our family nor our past. Everything we experience forms and shapes our lives, and family - good, not-so-good or indifferent doesn't make us. Sometimes we fit right into our biological family and sometimes we don't. We don't have to. But we do all need a sense of family to give us a sense of connection and relationship. Sometimes family is biological, but often it isn't. From where do you most experience your sense of family?

Social networking provides a sense of family, when we share blog posts; sometimes these conversations are more intimate than face encounters. Church communities share a common bond. Friendships begun in childhood and carried throughout the stages of life are relationships that are familial in nature. These are not substitutes for family but are versions of it.

I have been blessed with a healthy and happy family now that is shaped by where my husband and I have come from. I trust that in two generations of time, the marks of love, acceptance, safety and unity that we share will still be hallmarks in future off-spring. It was wonderful to observe in my cousin's nuclear family the transparency and love for one another. And an affirmation for me that my own family is on the right track.

Desires of the Heart

In this the last post for the "Heart Series" I'd like to begin with this quotation from the Bible:

"He will give you the desires of your heart." Does that mean I am guaranteed that whatever I want I will get? Or if I do not get 'it' does that prove there is no God, or that if He does exist, He's a liar?

The whole of the quote from Psalm 37 goes like this,

"Delight yourself also in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart."

So, the receiving of the desires depends on my delighting Him. Hmm, how I do that must be somewhere in the Bible too? I suppose "Love your neighbour as yourself" might be instruction as a means to that delighting. But having the desires must surely depend on my asking or at least knowing what those desires are. Here I must confess that personally, I've had a rather poor track record of knowing - never mind telling - "What I really, really want" (anyone out there a SPICE GIRLS fan?)

What ARE the desires of my heart? Are desires the same as what I want? My ambitions? My goals?

I think that my desires are not really my hopes for notoriety or privacy, for money or acclaim. I think the desires of anyone's heart are less about the tangible rewards of a job well done and more about the people we touch or are touched by. I used to think to have a successful acting career was my desire or what I longed for. But now I see that relationship - love for family and friends, desire to have people close to me, to share thoughts, hopes, fantasies and the regular ups-and-downs of life - is what really matters to me. I wonder for those who say their heart's desire is fame, if behind that want is the need to be loved or to prove to someone 'I am worthy'? I think sometimes we want to please the voices in our heads, voices of people we want to impress or satisfy or prove something to. But is that a desire of our heart? I think not.

In addition to quality relationships, another thing that matters to me is to have a creative outlet. That's why I write. I blog to get folks to hear about my writing, and to build on-line relationships as well. And I write to convey my passions: my God, my values, my quirks and creativity. I try to create characters that have some of the same questions I've had, the same needs and shortcomings that we all wrestle with, and the same demons. I hope my insights will touch others and make this life journey a little clearer for readers. In that sense then, a deep desire in my heart is to make a positive difference to others through my writing.

So, I write and my desire is to have people read what I write. Even my writing is linked to building relationships. To make a living from it would be wonderful, but I do it anyway. If I delight my God, and it is my passion to earn a living from it, then earn a living from my writing I will. But I've lived long enough now to know, that if it isn't my heart's desire, if it isn't a deep-seated need, then I need not focus on it but know Him'll sort me out. You see I've had desires fulfilled that I thought were impossible to be fulfilled, and others I didn't even recognize were within me. I would say I'm blessed indeed that we don't necessarily have to articulate our desires in order to receive them.

We don't always know what we desire or if we do we don't know how to get it. When I was younger, I wanted to find someone I could love forever, and marry. Only after I 'gave up hope' did I finally find my dear husband. I thought I never wanted a child. But now I have a child and he is the greatest source of joy, hope, discovery and creativity I have. I never imagined I would write; journal writing was a very private hobby. Now I have one book published and it has received very good feedback:
http://bit.ly/VQDs1k
And this blog is one of three and is perhaps the most reminiscent of my journal writing.

Others:

http://www.laruspressupwithlife.blogspot.ca/

https://www.lifefromthelighthouse.wordpress.com/

But none of this was planned or even conscious. My life, along with the fulfillment of the desires of my heart, have manifested more in spite of myself than because of me. I think I was protected against myself. If I'd had what I thought I wanted, by now I'd probably be a lonely public figure. Instead, I am obscure but steady, secure, at peace with myself and loved for - and in spite of - myself.

The desires of my heart have been met and I am grateful.

What matters most to you? Being honest with ourselves is the key to knowing what to ask for, how to go after it, or how to receive it when it is offered.

Until next time ... Thursday 14th March... may you have a lovely time with yourself and those closest to you.