Good Morning to all!
Thank you for reading Blog #2.
It's a rainy morning in Brunswick County, creating the perfect atmosphere for snuggling up with espresso in front of the computer to do some good ol' fashioned bloggin'.
A few weeks ago I was at church looking around and thinking, "Who will I make conversation with to not let my awkward social skills be obvious to all? Ah, there's someone." A girl there that I know who was going through a truly trying time walked over to me. I asked her how she was and she said with a smile and a hint of revelation, "I'm here. We're all just here." I can't stop thinking about that. "We're all just here." I say it to myself and it causes me to exhale-we're all just here. We're all in it together.
Romans 8:22
"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
Mother Theresa-one of my favorite people, has been a refuge for me in my times of doubt. Her words have often helped me to go on. She knew we were all just here too.
A story from Brennan Manning:
When he (a man named John Kavanaugh) met Mother Teresa, he asked her to pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she replied. He then uttered the request he had carried thousands of miles: “Clarity. Pray that I have clarity.”
“No,” Mother Teresa answered, “I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.”
When Kavanaugh said that she always seemed to have clarity, the very kind of clarity he was looking for, Mother Teresa laughed and said:
“I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”
There's a scripture that talks about how God is not a God of confusion. The unknown and confusion are not the same I've realized; Confusion is only present when trust is absent. I wouldn't necessarily label my trust status as "absent", but let's just say, "tardy".
You know when you are in the midst of a downward spiral and you find yourself in the dark pit? You're there for a few weeks, months, or years, and then something wonderful happens and God picks you up, takes your hand, and leads you around the corner to something brighter. You look back at the way you came and almost always, you say, "Aaaahhhh! That's why that happened; that's why I had to take that road to get here!" It all of a sudden becomes so clear and what was ugly to you before then becomes exceedingly beautiful.
Well, that's been the story of my life anyway.
What gives me faith when I doubt is what's in this journal. Only a few people know the full story of how I met my husband (I call this the "Holy Spirit" version). We have gotten into the bad habit of only telling the worldly details: how we were both 'Casey Townsend' when we met on myspace, how we made the discovery of his family living in my hometown hundreds of miles away to give him the excuse to come to meet me for the first time, how we only saw each other in person 4 times before we were married, and how we were engaged for a grand total of 17 days. You can gag yourself with a spoon after you finish reading.
The God stuff is absolutely the best part. If and when I sink into the blackness, I remember our story and I believe.
I know, I know, "Get to the hilarious foster care stories!!!" For you to appreciate it in its fullness I have to fill in these few gaps first.
I have to tell you all that I had more than a few relationships before I met Mr. Casey. On the flip-side, he had had NONE. 23-years old, and he'd never so much as held someone's hand. Ah, the Redemption. I know many of you out there know what I mean.
I was in what I'd call a "serious" relationship before I met him. A military guy who I tried to make myself believe I'd marry someday, "when I was ready". Sidenote: if you're not ready now, if you can't picture yourself with them now, it's probably not going to happen. Think about it.
The short version of this story is that we were together, me and military guy, for 2 and a 1/2 years. He was overseas in Iraq, and was finally coming back for me, or so I thought. God, in His always infinite wisdom, knew that I had been planning a little "Welcome Back" trip to Colorado for him. There was a women's conference taking place in Fort Mill, NC during the same dates I was planning my trip to Colorado. My favorite worship singer, Rita Springer, was going to be there and it was killing me that I wasn't going to be there because I'd never seen her live before.
I firmly believe that if God wants to lead you somewhere, He'll step in to redirect your path. This seemingly conflicts with free will, but somehow I think it's all reconciled but I'm simply not smart enough to explain how.
I had plans to drive military guy's truck out to Colorado with one of my friends (probably Jenna, I can't remember) and meet him there. These plans were quickly squashed with one epic break-up phone call.
He called one night, and I was gushing with excitement over seeing him, asking how we were going to meet up, making our plans. I could tell he was uneasy. His initial reply was, "I don't think you're going to be coming to Colorado." You know that sinking feeling you get? Yep, that's what I felt.
He informed me that he had been having a second relationship with someone in the military with him. It had been going on for almost a year. His exact words were, "I've got a baby on the way." He shared all of this with me in one epic break-up phone call right before he was coming home for his leave of absence from the field, during which I thought we would be reuniting and planning my move to Colorado and our eventual marriage.
WRONG.
He married her just a month or two later.
Needless to say, after the "epic break-up phone call", North Carolina was in luck. :)
Please come back for Part II of the story in Blog #3 tomorrow and I will reveal the secrets of the journal!
Thank you for reading.
