gratefulness

Loving On My Abba

~ Patrice A London ~ Leave a comment

God is amazing. I am in such awe of Him. I love how He moves, blesses and protects us. I love how He uses any and everything to reach us, change us and elevate us. I love how merciful and gracious He is, how He cares about every little detail. I see how He plays with me and helps me practice hearing Him. Just the other day, as we looked for something we didn’t even end up needing, I closed my eyes and saw what looked like a picture of what we were looking for. I went to that location and found it there. I feel that was God practicing with me. Every interaction isn’t as obvious as neon lights, screaming a message. Sometimes, actually, a lot of the time for me, He speaks calmly, quietly, almost imperceptibly. I hear Him this way often. I wonder how many times I miss Him.

I love how good He was to me and my family in 2020, when so many collectively complained about the year. It was an amazing year in so many ways. I am now seeing that the last few years, while incredibly difficult and painful, were also not just great years, but pivotal years for me. I needed to deal with and go through it to come out the way God intended. I love how He is teaching me to look to Him and trust Him in deeper ways. I am far less concerned about how I am perceived by others now. I feel like a new person and at the same time, more of who I really am. I am ok with others’ disappointment. I’m ok that I won’t always be understood or accepted. I don’t need to break things down to people so that I am vindicated or justified in their eyes. It doesn’t matter. God has me covered. I am not so easily swayed or manipulated any longer. I have a much better understanding of where others end and I begin and I’m not confused about how, when and where to draw definitive lines. I’m no longer banging my head against a wall, trying to understand, make sense of, or participate in toxicity and chaos. I am free and at peace.

If there’s joy to be found, God will help me find it. We have fun with that. If there’s a reason to laugh, tickled, I will be. If there’s something to be done by me, I will do it. If I need to pull back and have a seat, I will do that too. I aim to keep my head to the chest of my sweet Abba. I aim to be ever aware of His rhythm and flow along, because with Him, I am safe. His love knows no bounds. How utterly beautiful He is.

Grateful

~ Patrice A London ~ 2 Comments

I am grateful and hurting. Happy and a little bit angry. I feel loved and a bit isolated. And, I feel dizzy, and nauseated and sleepy, but mostly grateful.

Someone in my family had twins today. I asked what kind- boys. I said, “That’s nice. I have twins too. The dead kind.” Eventually, I shed some tears as my husband held me and snored in my ear.

Then I looked on Facebook and someone I love posted lyrics to a song that talks about surrendering all to Him, withholding nothing.

I love that. I am so grateful to have a God who cares about me so much, who loves me so deeply and understands me so completely. I can be totally honest, raw and uncut with Him and He can take it. I can ask questions even the hard ones, especially the hard ones and He doesn’t get angry with me or try to make me feel guilty for feeling the way I do. He just loves me right where I am.

I am grateful that He has done something in me where the pain of loss is greatly lessened. I don’t understand what He has done or how nor do I really care. I just know I am not experiencing what I have in the past, what I could be experiencing right now.

The pain I feel now, I know it could be worse. I noticed it first with the passing of my sister, who is also one of my dearest friends. She passed on my birthday this year. I have experienced mourning in a very different way. God has truly “changed my pain” as we sang at her funeral.

This makes me feel so loved, so cared for by God. As I lay here recuperating from a significant amount of blood loss, dizzy, tired and a bit nauseated… I am thankful.

I’m thankful to be able to say aloud, any feelings I am experiencing about anything, about everything, especially concerning the children I won’t get to raise on this side of Heaven all the while rejoicing because when I see them, we will never part again.

I can rant about how unfair it is, all while referencing atrocities like abortion. I can cry to Him when so and so has her baby or babies or my other friend shares pictures of her beautiful twins or my other friend announces the sex of her twins. He understands that I am both happy for them and sad for me as well. He gets that.

What’s more is that He is with me when I decide to be brave and not only go out, but go out intending to serve His creation. He knows I love operating in the gifts He gave me, so right as I am bleeding, knowing that I am losing the second baby, but seeking to serve, He meets me and shows up in a way that only He can.

When I can only envision myself as a puddle on the floor, He gives me an unfathomable strength to prophesy through song… A song that has never been sung before and will never be sung again in quite the same way. How amazing! How awesome is He?

To leave my home where I literally cook for everyone else and forget to make something for myself because I don’t eat meat. Where I can be seen walking around with two right slippers, feeling at times as if I am coming completely undone, hanging on by a thread, but He cradles me, whispers sweet everythings into my spirit. Then He gives me the strength to keep going and still touch the lives of His people in a mighty way. Nobody but God Almighty does this!

So, even while experiencing the hurt, dizziness, sleepiness and all that comes with this type of loss, I feel so encapsulated in love. So protected, so strong, because in my weakness, He pours upon me His strength and it’s more than enough to get me through this… And for that, I am grateful.