When I need to heal, process, talk to God, write or just
BE. STILL.
This is where I go. Hiking until I can find just the perfect spot to converse with God, I can escape the world just long enough to fill that emptiness my heart feels, and satisfy that craving my soul requires.
I used to go away and rent a cabin for a night, just to escape while living in Phoenix. Or hike down into Oak Creek Canyon with all my textbooks to study while in graduate school in Flagstaff.
Nature, and more specifically, mountains are where my soul resides...
The cool crisp air, the bright warm sun, the pine smell, the rushing streams and waterfall beckon me to them. It is where I do my best writing, it is where I feel closer to my creator.
In counseling we had agreed that Lee would give me 2 hours a week to use how ever I like. Away from home, so as not to be distracted by motherly duties or housework. Instead, I would deliberately escape for awhile and write or just be. Something that would help me process through my grief.
This was the first week it actually worked out.
The weather is improving and beautiful and the mountains called for me to trek their passes.
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Today I was overwhelmed by God's beauty. It is then that a song came on my Ipod, that I had never heard. It is called "Stranger Here" by Tenth Avenue North. It tells that we are only strangers on this earth, and soon we will touch God's face and all sorrow will cease.
Today I was overwhelmed at the sheer beauty of God's creation and tears spilled forth from my eyes. Not that this had never happened previously, but this time was different. God's artistry was just exceptionally more beautiful, more colorful, more vivid to my eyes and heart today. It had truly been my first hike since losing my sweet Daddy and he would have loved this hike, and even joined me. I knew that if God could orchestrate the divine construction of such an unparalleled adult playground, could he not just blow our minds with the artistry that we will find when we get to heaven? The architecture and colors, and mountains in their majesty that will exist in heaven! And at what a magnitude they will be there, just blowing these out of the water?
This realization made me think of my Daddy. How he is already playing in his heavenly playground. He loved the mountains and just like me, always said his heaven would have them.
I can't wait to run without bad knees and a bad neck and back, through the mountain passes with my Daddy in heaven! And with Jesus too!
I was just so simply overwhelmed with this beauty today that it overtook me and led me to a waterfall and rushing stream where I rested and just shut off my brain and my phone and just sat still. Talking to God about my fears and needs and asking him for divine healing of my body. But more than that, just being still, asking him to open up my eyes and ears and heart to hear Him speak to me.
Although today I didn't hear anything, just taking the practice to be still for 30 minutes of NOTHING but rushing water and quiet was nourishing for my soul.
God has seemed so distant to me lately, despite my intense clinging to Him as my greatest source of comfort. And yet, I know that the Bible says this happens. There are times He wants you to cling, and he will take a step back, to ensure your faithful dependence. I long for him to speak to me again, loudly, boldly, clearly. Or to do something mighty and miraculous like heal my tired aching body and thyroid. So far, nothing, but I feel I am on the brink with him.
And so I will wait some more and just today be blessed by this amazing earth he created and that I am blessed enough to live 7 minutes away from enjoying it!!!
Today I cried in overwhelming Awe of my God, this amazing artist. I felt my dad for the first time since I lost him. Not his actual presence per say but more the feeling that he was with me in the wind and trees, and that he would love where I was. Almost the feeling that he was saying "Sis, you can't even BELIEVE what you're gonna get up here! Just wait Sis!" in a playful way.
They weren't just the painful heart wrenching tears that symbolize the unbearable pain we must go through in grief. No, instead these tears were cleansing. Still painful, but cleansing. That God is good and beautiful despite all my dad went through. That if the God of creation made this area of Utah so lovely, then what else has he done magnificently. And how extraordinary will heaven be? I was baffled by his Greatness today. And that was enough.
Awwwwwwww I miss him. I cried many tears today but I noticed something.
The cleansing tears meant I love a God who is still remembering me. And that I am beginning, to ever so slowly, allow God's healing hand to touch me, and glue the pieces of my broken heart back together.
Cleansing Tears of Relief
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