My Tender Joints and Stiff Knees

                                                   My Tender Joints and Stiff Knees

I just read a post titled 'Tender joints and Stiff Knees' and I decided to blog on my feelings here in the now.  I have sat in this house too long. I no longer run down the road and sit at a friend's kitchen table or try to find a group to take my mind off my feelings. Rather I have endured my own solitude with more grace than ever before in my life. I have made friends with loneliness and solitude. It is a formal friendship for the most part. I have not allowed my emotions to spill over and bounce off the walls and strike me on the side of the face or in the mirror with the fervor and intensity I feel deep inside. Guess that I have realized only God can handle my passion and even I cannot take much of my own pain or raw desire. No, I have faded a bit from the me I used to be back when I had a mate to pour feelings out on. No one but Jack ever stayed. Even I would run away or run amok if I had to deal with it very often. Yet it is as if I wear a phantom backpack filled with amazing insights and screams of rage or wonder depending on the day and the direction of my burdens. When I paint or write I level somewhat. I was made to express but not made to invade the people around me with my frenzy of thoughts and feelings.  Other times I keep that backpack of writhing and ripening bits of emotion or opinions. Then I can read a book or watch endless hours of good network or HGTV. I avoid the things that ignite my passions which just could be dangerous to myself or the surrounding landscape. I pet my dogs and talk to cupboard doors and tell myself 'I don't care' over and over like a mantra. Do I care?  Dig into this backpack I CARRY and you will find layers of caring that go from casual to blood red and flowing passion. HEAT AND LIGHT AND LAVA ALL MINGLED IN ONE ASBESTOS LINED SAFE PLACE.
 However to show that to anyone is a risk of high levels. Most would not care to know and many would not have clue how to deal with the me who once was full fledge storm. I earned my nickname Stormy from my intensity of passion and depth of anger with what I saw surrounding me AS WELL AS WHAT I FOUND WITHIN ME.. I got much much ease from coming to Christ and trusting Him with my soul and my self whom He calmly accepted and loved. This brought A SOOTHING BALM to my psyche.
Losing Jack was bigger than anything. Caring for this man who lost so much of who he used to be,  caught up in the strangling effects of the disease just increased my inner rage. I carry a hot rock of pain for him. He had no recourse but to let himself be bound up in the limitations and frustrations of not knowing himself in this body which was uncontrollable and a mind that lost the very things he was and wanted to be. I carry the scars of that. I also carry the residue of reaching deep inside with the help of God  to be the one who walked him through this and watched him die. I am glad for him. He is with Jesus and all his frustration is gone. I am glad to still be alive and to watch my children raise their families and live through all the things which strengthen or break our faith in God but I am changed. I am not bitter. I am maybe some better but also deeply changed. It was not without cost. I paid a large price although sometimes reluctantly and without panache. My friends occasionally saw the old angry me surface from my flesh when I reacted before allowing God to pour a balm over my heart. My regret at allowing my temper to rage when I was on the edge of ...what? Was it murder or was it defeat? I cannot know this. Only God knows the heart that rages and the motivations that dwell in deep recesses of pain. Only knowing the nature of the savior could stop me from falling into the abyss of my own making. I am grateful for the words of a friend calling me back from the edge or the prayers of those who couldn't know what I was going through but prayed anyway. I am deeply grateful. I look forward to the day I see that man again and can tell him how sorry I am that I didn't do better at comforting him who was locked up in a prison that seemingly had no key.
I must leave here. I long for heat where cold has crystalized me. I long to write and here I cannot seem to keep on writing I need a safe place to drop the pack I carry. I need a canvas of a different color to slap on the paint of my passion. I am ready to go. Will I be more understood there? Well, perhaps not but I will be someone whose past is not written in slaps and dashes on the lives of those around me. I will look out on a new horizon. I will remember the mountains of his and my beginnings instead of the rolling hills of our ending.. I am ready and God is allowing me to go. I need to seek God without the constant reminder of the brokenness of the church and the divisive design of the enemy. I am sallying forth hoping to find an ease for my tender joints and stiff knees. I do not need anyone's permission but my own as God is allowing me freedom to go. I have been strong too long. Now I want to learn again to feel and to seek the God who holds my healing open armed waiting for me to walk into his embrace. I go with God and I expect great things. The time is short and I must be about this journey.

Blessings to you!