Patience....patience

Aaarrgghhh.
I think if I hear this one more time I am going to scream.
Which shows that I need to hear it again.

I have to admit that I have never really realized my lack of patience before.
generally I have it for other people in spades....which is the most important thing.
I think?

But for myself....very little.
And for "things" (like computers or skills I want to pick up).......ZERO patience.

I see that this is very much affecting my life.
And not in a good way.

So, I am game to learn patience with things and hence, myself.
Yet, how do I go about it?
Do you just decide to have patience?
As a fruit of the Spirit can I pray that God will cause it to well up in me?
I expect that and also just choosing it as I walk life out.

Hm. Partnership. ;)

"We're not good, I guess, at this 'long obedience' thing.
We want instant access everything -- all our questions answered by return.
But life is a journey with its own pace.
There is often a process in God's dealings with us....."
(Peter Grieg Red Moon Rising)

Just Rawness

Why can I not get past this wall in my heart?

And why has God put me in a fencing class to pull out all these painful things?

I feel like a filleted fish...just all laid open in class, three times a week no less.... all my guts out there to see and everyone picking out the bones.

I know it is so good for me.
I know it is the Hand of God.
But, oh, it is so painful, so confusing at times.

Like today.

Like -- why am I angry? I am not THIS frustrated with fencing.
Like -- why can I not try and be wrong? It's as if I think the whole world will crumble if I do.
Like -- why am I afraid of my heart being so wide open? It feels panicky.
Like -- why do I feel powerless? Why do I feel like I have no voice? And that if I chose to have a voice that would be "ungodly" or "lacking in meekness?"

I feel like I want to fight everything and everyone.
And for the most part no one is actually doing anything wrong.
And so I lose a fencing bout....why do my emotions rise up like the world is ending?

It makes no sense.
And yet it makes tons of sense.

Here we go with the inner healing again.

Oh how I wish I could just go in there and try, even if I am "100% wrong."
Just make a choice and go with it.
But then the niggling voice rises up "if you're wrong it will all fall apart, someone will get hurt, you will get hurt, you cannot trust your own instincts...."

Hm. I know where THAT comes from.
And it's not fencing.
I assume I am wrong before I even start in most things.
I only try these days what I know 100% I will be able to do.
Because to fail incurs disaster in one form or another.\
And someone gets hurt.

I really really do not trust my own instincts.
Because I HAVE failed 100%.
And my world did fall apart.

How do you start over from there?

I have no idea.....

But, I do know that God is pushing the buttons.
And pushing them hard.
Really hard.

Maybe there is hope in that....

Lessons in Living from the Heart

If I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times.....

"Leigh! You are too analytical."

But I never really understood it.....

......until this past Sunday afternoon.


I mean, some things you have to analyze, right?
If you don't think it through you can't truly own it.
It doesn't become part of you.

Yes, ok.

But now I see there is a place where you go too far in thinking.
Something may be a part of you but you are not living it from the heart.
You're still stuck somewhere in your head.
Trying to get it right, or perfect or whatever.... so you have control.... or so someone does not get hurt ....or so you do not get hurt..... or whatever the issues are.
And then it is a living from the head.

I think I finally get it.
God has been taking me through a process of learning to live from my heart.
Trusting what He has placed in there.
Trusting what I have learned.
Trusting myself for goodness sake.
My instincts, my own judgment, my likes and dislikes....just trusting that what's in me is not evil.

And what was the final push that got through?
Well, fencing class of course! ;)

I was learning to do something.....well....ok....going through something I had already learned.
And I kept glitching. I was frustrated. I was tired. I didn't know why but I felt I couldn't get it right and knew that I should be able to.

Kelly, also appearing frustrated, stopped letting me go through the motions slowly and really started pushing. I got it all right at that point and was completely shot through from exhaustion. I remember standing there trying to catch my breath and off comes Kelly's mask, she looks at me and says "Stop analyzing this. You cannot think this through." And a few other words to that affect.

It went through me like an arrow to its mark: "Oh my gosh. I am not playing with my heart. I am playing in my head which is screwing up my reflexes. That's what it means to be overly analytical."

I got it.
On a thousand levels.
It cleared up a handful of fencing questions to be sure.
But more than that it cleared up alot of life questions.

I have quit allowing myself to live life from the heart.
My relationship with God, with others, with life itself has become boring, grueling, shallow, fraught with fear and concern and every other yucky thing....because I am so cerebral about it.

Relationship cannot be lived from the head. It must be lived from the heart.
Relationship with God.
Relationship with others.
Sure, you need a good foundation that you have thought through.
But that's the foundation, not the actual living. the walking out.
And, yes, living from the heart is messy and scary....but it is LIFE....it is being fully alive.

Life, in all its aspects must be LIVED from the HEART.

I get it.

Now let's see if I can let go and allow myself to do it. ;)