Tag Archives: Desire

The Waiting Place

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Sometimes-I-feel-like-Im-waiting-for-somethingThe Waiting Place

According to Dr Seuss, it is a most useless place … the waiting place where people are just waiting.”

The place where plea bargains happen, oaths to the Creator made, and life priorities re-evaluated.
But when your back is up against the wall, desperately wanting an outcome …
The messages kept coming back as prayer requests …
Mom’s not well, she’s being admitted.
It looks like endocarditis (an infection of the heart’s inner lining)
Antibiotics not effective …
Medivac’d in the night to a bigger cardiology centre
(They are all displaced-this is not even their home province)
Surgery scheduled, cancelled, then rescheduled
Twelve hours in surgery …
Bleeding, she had to go back to OR …

With those texts as background, I picked up a book … Moving the Hand of IMG_2878God, by John Avanzini(1990). The book disappoints, and I argue my way through the introduction, I don’t see God as Formulaic, as one who cannot see through this as attempted manipulation.
My friend’s life hangs in the balance. She is younger than I, she may not know she is in the waiting place … where is one’s spirit when drugs render unconsciousness? Her family gathered are also in that waiting place. Waiting for good news, waiting for improvement …. waiting for the rain to stop.

The sign should read: WELCOME TO THE WAITING ROOM…
Waiting feels helpless, we are geared to do something.
Pause, Breathe …
When Life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.
Lamentations 3:28, 29. But how does one wait with hope?

Can I Trust You?
Dear God
I woke with knots in my stomach … so many questions whirling my head …IMG_0001
can I trust You with the knots?
Heavy heart as her life hangs in the balance … machines breathe for her
Can I trust you with that?
Life not being what I or they thought it should be or would be…..
Can I trust you with the future?
Despair and doubt want to hinder any Bold prayer
Can I trust you with that?
Even as I speak these words I KNOW without a doubt, I have no one else that I could trust these things to, so why do I hold back?
Can I trust you with that?

And your answer is a Resounding—YES YES YES!

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope. Alfred Lord Tennyson

Desire’s Journey-is it worth the trip?

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        THE JOURNEY OF DESIRE              Image

I spent the weekend camping in the mountains. Alberta has some majestic scenery & I feel privileged to experience it. The book I brought along was John Eldredge’s  “The Journey of Desire,” sub title – “Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed Of.”  I bought the book  at a second hand store, although it was in new condition. The inscription read:  “Mom & Dad,  Love M   2006.”  No underlined sentences, no dog eared pages, no coffee stains, NO signs of wear – I wondered if my eyes were the first to read it – even the newness of the book, reinforced the premise of the first chapters I read. The heart longs for something more in life, and then as disappointments come, we abandon the journey for deeper meaning and settle for ‘getting on with life.’ Gerald May writes “There is a desire within each of us, in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart … Our true identity our reason for being is to be found in this desire.” (The Awakened Heart)

But Eldredge says too often we lose hope after cumulative disappointments in life,  and begin to accept a life of resignation and complacency instead of pursuing our heart’s desire. And in Christian circles we label these people dreamers, full of youthful idealism, and consider it a sign of maturity to suppress the inner longings.  Do I stop dreaming because it is easier to live with disappointment than dashed Hope?

These words challenge me, as I know my life is not what I expected or wanted it to be.  My heart aches with understanding alongside stories women have shared about the closed doors of their hearts, because it is too painful to risk.  I long to live a passionate life, to seek out beauty, to see the wonder and mystery in this thing we call life. I do not want to settle for superficial.  (Although is super part of superficial?)

The challenge for me, I pass on for you to think about …. WHAT is it you want? Have you listened to your heart? Sitting in the beauty of the mountains, my heart longed for more. Do I dare the risk of entering that journey of desire?

I’d love to hear any thoughts you have, or perhaps you have also read the book.

IMG_5314Mystical Mountains near Exshaw