Undirected

     I'm not quite sure what I'm going to write tonight. Which makes this all the more adventurous and scary.

     I've been verbally processing this season out with good friends. God bless their ears, their eyes, their arms.

     Their ears, because they've listened to me bark about my own bitterness, my own frustrations, my anger towards God and still dare to say, "Patrice, but we know who you really are..."

     Their eyes, because for the last month they've watched me at my physical worst and still told me I was nothing but beautiful, glowing even...in my weakness.

     Their arms because they've hugged me and held me more in this last month than I've been held in the last few years.

     The storm is seemingly raging, but I'm now finding my sweet spot in the eye of the hurricane. Swirling can be happening all around, and yet, there's a stillness within me. I didn't know this was possible. Not like this.

     See, there are stages in your teenage years that you think the angst and emotional turmoil might just overtake you, but you overcome.

     And then your twenties come and you feel invincible and vulnerable all at the same time. Which leaves you at times, an insecure wreck. But again, you over overcome.

     And now, in my thirties, I feel "out there" - like dang. This is it. This is really happening. This is my life. So much is the same, so much is different. But there's a new sense of security that hits your soul.

    You feel more comfortable in your own skin. But concurrently you feel how quickly life can alter in the blink of an eye, how precious and fleeting it truly is. And as much as you know, you realize you still don't know enough. And all that you know is not all that there is. And you'll never know it all...not on this side of heaven.

     Humbling.

     And yet, I do feel this sense of deeply rooted peace.

     It's anchored itself within me.

     I didn't try to put it there, believe me, I was too busy panicking trying to figure out my entire future.

     But when I got a little still this week, and stopped looking to the right and to the left frantically, I realized a gift had been given to me.

     Oh, so that's why they call you the Prince of Peace...

     My needs have been met. I have been fed, I have been nurtured, I have been prayed for, I have been checked on, and texted throughout the day to make sure I was okay.

     My heart-needs have been tended to.

     In the midst of it all, the fight remains: to not become jaded...

     I don't want to come this far in my journey, to simply phone it in.

     The fight will always be, to not become jaded...to have a heart that is receptive to love. A heart that hopes and is quick to believe the best about a person and not the worst. A heart that is so very aware that everyone is fighting their own battles on their own battlefields on almost any given day.

     I tried writing in my personal journal this morning, writing down the dreams of my heart. The whole process felt like going to the dentist. Just awkward and painful. 

     And I thought, Wow God you have your work cut out for you, because my heart is in critical condition, and only You can truly revive it...

     But amidst the fog, I can still see a few things...

The beautiful and grand love story that is meant for me. 

The moving stories I'll get to produce and tell through film once again.

The ways in which I will help other artists find their voice.

And a place of retreat and refuge to speak into the hearts of my favorite people on the planet: Teenagers...

Dancing...I can always see myself dancing...

      But see, none of these things will hold its ultimate weight for me, unless the presence of God is completely saturating every moment and place of dreaming.

     He's home to me. 

    And the countless times that I thought my own mountain top would bring fulfillment, I would find myself at the top, and think: "Meh. It's alright."

     But that moment I sense the peace, joy, gentleness, kindness, presence and strength of God, everything becomes a million times better. And I think to myself, "Yes, this is what I was made for. Now I'm LIVING."

     A wandering stops. And a completeness of sorts takes over.

     I've missed this.

     But oddly enough, I think His overshadowing presence is enveloping me in a profound way--yes, even in this hurricane of a season. 

     I'm letting go.

     I'm trusting.

     I'm hoping.

     I'm believing.

     My heart is broken. But it has not flatlined.

     And now we watch to see how this will all unfold.

     I don't have my Thomas Guide, I now have Siri...so to speak...

     There's something about directions being given to you verbally, versus feeling autonomous in reading and figuring out the directions for yourself via a paper map.

     So now...

     It's time to simply listen and wait...and to let the Navigator lead and speak on these matters...

Wisdom's Knocking: 

“Part of doing something is listening.
We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind."

― Madeleine L'Engle, Swiftly Tilting Planet

Aloha

     A beginning and an ending.

     Just finished watching the movie, "Aloha" and it's put me in a perfect mood.

     Aloha. This idea of a hello greeting and a goodbye greeting...feels so vivid to me in this particular space and time.

     It's true. One must be willing to let go of the old to truly embrace something new. But often these changes in seasons intersect, or rather overlap in certain ways.

     And I, doing my best to rest and pay attention, feel like I'm on the tail end of one of the hardest emotional seasons I've had in a long while.

     A sense of heart pain, hopelessness, sickness, and unrest.

     But something's ending. 

     And something is beginning.

     Aloha.

     A few nights ago, Mr. "Full Attention" and I crossed paths once again.

     And my heart was soft and tender.

     To me, in my current state of affairs, it's absolutely amazing--to have an engaged and tender heart, in lieu of the previous circumstance that was an offense to my heart.

     Sometimes you just want to understand what is going on inside the head and heart of a person. And perhaps see yourself through their eyes.

     I wonder how he sees me? Or if he just looks through me, or is turned off by me?

     But that night reset something in my heart.

     It wasn't about him and me.

     Or me and anyone else for that matter.

     It was about what God was speaking to my heart.

     And I listened.

     I was challenged with the subject of Forgiveness.

     I hadn't realized how I was staying stuck in some sort of emotional heart trauma because I let bitterness stay and live in my heart. It felt good to have a target for my anger. For what has felt like a decade of injustice in the area of my personal romance and love.

     He was no saint, but he definitely got caught in my own personal crossfire.

     But now, it was time for me to Forgive.

     Aloha.

     As it's been said before, forgiveness is truly about setting your own heart free as well as releasing someone from a prison of your own making, that they are rarely cognizant of.

     It's not so much about excusing the wrong, but actually admitting it--and choosing the higher way of love for your own heart's sake.

     It truly is amazing how our hearts and minds can get stuck, once we enter into the cycle of bitterness and unforgiveness.

     Yet in order for life and love to truly thrive, Forgiveness is a non-negotiable.

     And oh the healing that it brings.

     So that night, I was challenged and invited into Forgiveness.

     And I said yes.

     This past season, I've dealt with random health scares, facing a strange man almost breaking into my house, a fender bender with a semi-truck, sleepless nights, nights full of tears, and a wrestling with my own personal destiny in God and a despondency regarding my own romance journey.

     Yet something is ending.

     And something new is beginning.

     I want to feel the embrace and breath of destiny surrounding me. I want to be held in those moments in all my vulnerability. I want his comforting hand to gently stroke my back, as he looks into my eyes, as if to search for a constellation--reading the stories which are held there. 

     It's not all said and done for you and I just yet.

     The air is still thick with Promise, although Trauma from this past season would try to step up on some two-bit soapbox and dictate its demands.

     But no.

     Something is ending. And something is beginning.

     Hello.

     Goodbye.

     Aloha.

Wisdom's Knocking:

“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Full Attention

When we first met, it was kind of awful.

It was awkward and ill-timed. Perhaps too soon.

The anticipation of meeting you almost overtook me.

And then your attention and affections were elsewhere. Eyes jetting to and fro, but never truly on mine.

And I was present, but you were somewhere else.

I expected so much more, and that may have been the problem.

But first impressions are quite something.

Wisdom's Knocking: 

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

- Simon Weil