springtime

Sometimes a changing season comes and impacts you in a way so deep you can't quite grasp it. Let me tell you about the past week. 

I mentioned that somehow the idea got in my head to go to Mexicali. It was like Inception. Like the idea was whispered in my ear and I couldn't ignore it. So we went. Matt, Alice, and me. It was the first time we've gone just us without the "adults" like my mother or father and so we were left to our own schedule and devices. We stayed where we wanted and went where we wanted. We were free. 

I've mentioned before the relationship with my mother is bad at best and so I went to Mexicali without really talking to her about it and she only knew I was going because I asked for my aunt's phone number and she kinda pieced it together from what others told her from my facebook account. Because we were free to come and go as we pleased and not bound by my mother's antsy-ness we spent a great deal of time with an aunt and fellow Jesus follower and let me tell you, the time spent with this aunt was so precious to me and gave me great comfort, relief, and healing. This was why God wanted me to go because by now I knew it was He who had whispered the idea into my heart. A huge 20 year burden was lifted from my heart and my brain. Cheaper than therapy! 

The day we left we stopped to visit another aunt and she gifted me with something very precious. My beloved nana, hero of our family, had this wardrobe that had a key and she would sing me a song about it. My aunt asked me to come with her and in her room she passed to me my grandmother's key. I immediately sobbed. My aunt held me and told me she loved me and that I was very loved by my grandmother. I put the key in my pocket.

The next day I took Alice to the library and then again a voice whispered to me: Go to Disneyland. And I went and I was sad before but it's impossible to be sad at Disneyland. As I walked by The Little Mermaid ride I felt some people approach me: IT WAS MY BROTHER AND SISTER IN-LAW AND NIECE. I had my phone off so I didn't tell anyone I was there which just blew me away. We went to lunch and I told them the tale of Mexicali and my brother asked "You needed this?" "Definitely. I definitely needed this." "That's just God telling you He loves you." 

That night some awful things happened between my sister and my mother and I got in the middle as I vowed that I would and things were really bad. And as I sat there feeling worthless, I looked up from my bulletin board and I saw my grandmother's key. A simple item but a symbol of love and that I was entrusted with so precious an item because my aunt thought I was worthy of it. And at a time when I felt so worthless, that little key gave me hope. And had I not gone to Mexicali I wouldn't have had that reminder. 

The following morning I woke up with the desire to go to McCambridge park. No sooner did that idea come into my brain that Matt received a text from a friend asking if we wanted to meet at that very park with his children. We went and as I'm standing there we run into our old small group leader and she and I talk about life and the events of the past week and I am just FLOORED. God telling me He loves me. As we arrived home my father greeted us and we went to lunch with him and he did the simple things I long for my mother to do with Alice, just played with her. Just enjoyed her without any agenda, just loved on her as a grandfather. 

I don't know what you put your faith in but mine is in God. My worth is in Him. My trust is in Him. And the events of the past week have so deeply shaken me to the core that I can't ignore His calling out to me and reaching out to me. And I believe that a new awakening is coming this spring and I see it as clearly as the blooms on my peach tree that though the winter can chill you, soon comes spring and the promises of Easter. That out of death came resurrection. 

And believe me, the trials kept coming as I was going forward and they probably will continue to come, but God is on our side. God is on my side. God is on your side.