Painful? um.yes.

This is not a book. It may only be a half page at this point in time but its my feeble attempt to practice taking 1million thoughts per minute and collecting them into a place where I don't have to talk so much, which can be exhausting. I wonder if everyone who is meant to write, has a bazillion fascinating things in their brain at all times and at once, that they never can possibly express but nevertheless demands expression as if their life depends on it.
My profound rumblings tonight include suffering and lots of it.
What if this journey of trials and tribulations is a  blessing in disguise (the kind of disguise you are freaked out by, on Halloween.)
What if they are the actual forming of the answer to your prayer and most desperate cry...the trial is the path to the answer. So I cry out for answers from God, the next thing I know, I am on a road with thorns, thistles (what are thistles anyway?) and stormy clouds, and steep narrow cliffs and wild animals lurking around every dark corner like snakes and horrible spiders from Australia. I am not exaggerating but I sincerely wish I was.
Like Bilbo...his journey with the ring...I suddenly thought I am at once wanting the answer and hating the answer. Not recognizing that the uncomfortable, painful, downright miserable, and forsaken by all, state of my life,  could be very well the answer to my prayer. So I best get on with it, keeping the answer in view, and lots kleenex, bandaids, chocolate, and warm blankets near by because I am not who I will be and I think I am living the answer, though its yucky, miserable and I really just hope I am right on this! Or else I am going to start complaining (even more loudly and vociferously than I already am)

It happened at 8.

The clock struck 9 and she entered the room with concentration and a stern countenance.
The severity of her voice and the absolute incongruity of her clothing were striking.
Not inviting by any means of the imagination.
I was her prisoner. In my mind I had done nothing to deserve this.
She talked incessantly while I was continually silenced.
I yearned desperately for an escape from the horror of monotony and no choices.
The window was there though. And I could walk into the meadow of my mind through that window.
And so I began to be a bird who can fly and to build airplanes in the sky for those like me
Forts were constructed with second floors and elaborate hiding places and of course porches and stairs. Skies were blue out this window and forts magnificent. Flying was second to nothing else because I could be free with the air beneath my "wings".
Day after day, the contrast between my window and her seeming total lack of interest in me as a person, grew more stark.
But then one day I found also, that a fellow prisoner was engaging and very funny. It was the beginning of my carefully planned strategizing to come crashing to the ground.
Soon Mrs. Stern Countenance pounced upon our silent delightful chattering, which was forbidden.
We were soon laboring over  written punishments such as could take a life time to complete. Shame and anger and the gross lack of justice were unshakeable as tears rolled incessantly upon paper and desk.
And that day I changed, and knew that my window world and that of my friend would never have the same appealing delight they once represented.
The reality of no control and no freedom settled in, though not without a secret rebellion that burned in my heart.
An acceptance was demanded by those who had the power to punish. In that surrender, school became an enemy and I became a victim .....and I grew up that year doing math and reading under the punishing eye of a stern countenance, who I don't think I ever crossed again.

The day it all changed.

It all happened a very long time ago. I can't believe it was in my life time.
It was the day that a very awful weight was suddenly gone..no not the pounds. The weight on my shoulders, on my heart and on my mind.
It was always there in my life. I had never recognized how heavy until that day it lifted
I had survived my life, I had thought deeply about it all and decided life was a fight and I didn't want to lose it.
But the weight. It was so heavy.
Then one day, my strength and the wind in my sails came to a halt. It was the end. The end of me.
Too many crisis on the plate of my existence
Too few answers and a very poor view of who I really was born to be.
I was about to suffocate. And I was 23.
It was January of 1977.  I was a new nurse in a new job in a new city. It was windy and cold and it was winter. So appropriate. It was winter in my life. No sign of life, no comfort to be found.
I was alone in my pain.
I did however have a very perceptive landlord. She said things like ..."I am praying for you" and weird stuff like that. I thought.."how nice" but inside, I thought "why would she do that?"
So one morning...I got up. I staggered into the early morning light with lead in my step and anguish in my heart. It matters not the events leading to this moment.
I was stunned and exhausted and knew I could not do this life. I knew I did not have it in me.
I felt inept, hopeless about myself, and very very sad.
I said...God if you are there, help me.
Suddenly I heard "I will never leave you". It was clear as day. Like a bell ringing. And it was unmistakeable. And although I did not know what God's voice sounded like, I knew this was my Maker.
This rush of warm comfort came into the room. I wrote it down. It was a beginning. It was an icicle melting in the coldness of my heart.
Days started to unfold like that. I would ask a question, and I would hear His voice again plain and clear and I would write it down.
Suddenly I remembered one day after many had passed, that I should get a bible and read from it. My Dad had shown us this. He was not ever far from his and I wondered at his preoccupation with its words.
So I went to the bookstore that day and purchased one. I would read a little and think on it..searching for answers, searching for the comfort that came from His voice.
Weeks passed, I moved back to my home town, and found my next job.
Pain gnawed at me, this lingering question...but it was in a dream and a fog.
Then one day in early April I came across a prayer someone had given me. It was a prayer of surrender to God. now there was no fog, only a stark question.
I was so frightened when I read it. I hardly knew what to do. It churned me up and upset me so. What if He was really bad and meant only for my life to be harder than it already was. Voices of doubt and fear rose up like giants. I was at once moved to do this unspeakable thing and fight it with all that was within me.
But then I remembered...I am helpless and this state of mind is no good for going forward in life.
Then the question became clear. It was up to me. Yes or no.
In the 3rd week of April, the mounting pressure to answer that silent question I could take no longer. I knelt down next to my bed and said "Jesus, take over" .
And then it happened. The weight..it lifted off in a mighty way, in an instant, the lightness of life poured into that spring morning like sunshine .
It was love. It was love like I never encountered before. It pierced my soul like a million tiny pieces of joy, peace and love and light. It engulfed me.
I felt ecstatic and I felt....loved.  no more trying. no more panic and no more despair. This was the door which is ominous on one side and exhilarating on the other.
That day, I became me. That day I tasted my first taste of freedom. That day was the first day of the rest of my life. Surrender meant prison doors flung open. Surrender meant an exchange of guilt for love.
Surrender meant Life. Who would have thought? who would have guessed? that the very death of me meant a life I would never regret or  could never attain by trying. It was simply a gift. ...the anguish, the despair, the eternal weight and no answers for difficulties upon me...was simply leading to an invitation. An invitation to eternity.