I laid it down...and dared to move.

 

I had been carrying it on my shoulders like a 50 lb. bag as I walked down this long road of life.  On this day...an unremarkable day...I laid the burden of my life down.  Did you hear me?  I said,...I laid the "burden" I have carried all of my life...down.  I laid it down.

I.  LAID.  IT.  DOWN.

 

 

On this unremarkable day, after 25 years, I just let that 50lb. bag fall off my shoulder onto the dusty road.  Can I shout this achievement to the heavens and to everyone I know?  It is a heavy burden that I have carried since I was sexually abused at 14.  Why today, did I lay it down?  What did it?  To put it plainly...I was just done with it.

 

When that bag labeled SHAME, hit the ground, I swear the earth shook and moved.  The dust from the road swirled around me like a dust devil, from the heaving of that mass towards the earth.  My hair flowing around my face, caught up in the churning of the dust and wind.  At first I shielded my eyes from what I had just done.  Then ... then as the dust settled, I looked at what I had accomplished.  I looked at it lying there.  Looked back down the road, then looked up the road I had yet to travel.  Each outstretching straight and long, unable to see the beginning or the end.  I stood there breathing heavy, relieved of my burden.  I stood there taking stock of all I had just laid down, and reveling in the freedom I felt.  I realized, with new found delight, the lightness of my own self.  Now, ...now all I had to do was leave it behind on this road.  Leave it.  Just leave it.  But my feet were planted.  I stood there still contemplating picking it up or what to do with it.  Could I really just leave it here?  What would happen with it?  Why did I care?  It obviously had served a purpose and had had a payoff for me in carrying it around.  I could stand here and analyze what the payoff had been.  But I already knew.  I held onto that bag labeled SHAME, ... so I... so I.... so I didn't have to move forward and discover who I was without this as my identity.  It had been my security blanket.  But now, I had outgrown it.  Like a small child outgrows their "blankie".  I had security greater than this bag that lie in the road.  I have found and established a relationship  with my Heavenly Father.  The Father of all Father's...He is my true security now.

 

Now,...now I needed to just move.  I just needed to move before I thought about it anymore.  No thinking and analyzing like I always do.  No, I just needed to move.  I had to dare myself to move ahead.  I could see myself in my minds eye taking one step, ...two steps.  I stopped.  I took a look over my shoulder,...at who I had been and where I had carried that burden.  My footprints were deeper there...scaring the earth in my history.  I looked at them now...it was time to move.  I dared myself to leave it behind...that bag of SHAME in the road.

 

 

I dared myself to just leave the SHAME of being a woman who was molested by her father at 14.

 

I dared myself to leave the SHAME of being a woman whose mother was so broken herself, she could not get her child to safety.

 

I dared myself to leave the SHAME of not doing more, as a child, to get away from the abuse.

 

I dared myself to leave the SHAME of what is, isn't, should and shouldn't be in my relationships with my father, mother, sisters, and brother.

 

I dared myself to leave the SHAME of the separation my husband and I had 4 years ago.

 

I dared myself to leave the SHAME of the bully inside my head that beats me up with the reel of negative thoughts over and over.

 

I dared myself to leave the inheritance of SHAME, that I take on as my own.

 

 

 

No.  I say no.  It stops now.  I lay it down now.  I lay it down today,...here and now.

 

 

I looked up at the road ahead.  I would look no more at the road behind and what laid at my feet.  I would hang my head no more, in the body language answer of SHAME.  No, I would lift my head up.  I would lift my face up to the light, the light shining down and all around me.  The light that encompasses me every day....the light that guides, warms, feeds, and is my compass and security.  That Heavenly light.  I would hold my head high and receive all it had to offer.

 

My feet started walking again...slowly at first.  Then faster and faster....suddenly my feet broke into a run and I was eating up the earth, putting distance between myself and that burden.

 

 

I was lifting my face to the light above me and ahead of me, and moving towards all that I could be without the SHAME.  Running towards all that I wanted to be, needed to be, and desired to be with the deepest parts of my soul.  Those soul yearning places where God has been gently breaking me apart to reveal HIS full light filled creation in me, by peeling away the SHAME layers of my earthly family inheritance.  Revealing my true inheritance in HIM.

 

 

I have carried the burden of SHAME from the sexual and emotional abuse I received as a child, for 25 years.  I have spent the last 25 years piling more of my own created shame on top of that which was given to me.  Today, I release what was given to me, back then, and I will take on no one elses shame nor create more for myself.  This particular blog post, is me pouring out my heart and painting with my words.  I actually had a moment where I closed my eyes and visualized all that I have written here.  I was already wanting to let the SHAME go, but visualizing it was what helped me to get unstuck and to solidify it more.  The visualizing, writing, and sharing...that, is Artful Living.

 

 

- What burden do you carry that you need to lay down?

- Is there a payoff with keeping it?

- What is that payoff?

- How is this burden weighing you down in your daily life?

- How is it holding you back?

-How is it impacting your daily life? Negatively? Positively?

- Could you use visualization as a tool to see yourself, putting your burden down or someplace else?

-Do you think the tool of visualization could help aid you in letting go of the burden you carry?

 

 

Here is a song by Switchfoot called, "Dare You To Move", that helped inspire the visualization of my letting go of my burden.  I hope it inspires you right where you are.

 



 

 

Challenge: Use the visualization technique to help you to let go of a burden you carry in your daily life.  Let your imagination sore.  Let God into the moment with you.  See yourself with your burden.  See yourself letting it go.  See yourself without it.  See yourself with God and where He is leading you.
 

 

 "I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.  Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame." - Psalms 34:4-5

"Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you." - Psalms 25:20

"To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God.  Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.  No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse." - Psalms 25:1-3



Gratitude: The Lens For Uncovering Beauty

I stood in the golden morning sunlight at the kitchen sink.  It was there again.  The shimmer of the spider's web on the window sill.  I wiped away the little web for the 5th time that week.  It was a little game Mr. Spider and I had going.  I would wipe away his pesky web each morning and the next morning his web would be rewoven.  By this 5th morning, I marveled at his tenaciousness, patience, and his delicate sculpture flirting in the morning sunlight.  I was entranced with this one single moment of my day.  Captured in my own childlike awe and wonder at my Father's creation.  I realized that in that moment, I was so grateful for seeing something beautiful...again.  I was grateful,...that I was able to feel gratitude.

 



As a child I had this awe and wonder in me at all times. 

Then...then I grew up, and got a really "big life".  Job, husband, kids, house, schedules, and schedules for schedules.  My "big life" was too big for awe and wonder.  Then the day came in my "big life", where I stood at that same kitchen sink and wanted to run out the front door and run away from my really "big life", and into the arms of the awe and wonder of my youth.  This was all there was?  Have you ever wondered that?  Is this it?  This is all there is?  I thought there would be "more" at this point in life.  But no more was to be had.  I had every earthly thing there was to have....yet something was missing.  Do you know what that was?

Joy.

 

J. O. Y.  Three simple letters that encompassed the "more" I sought.  I remembered Joy from my youth.  I had to close my eyes and sit with my memories.  Those bittersweet memories.  I was a child who knew hurt and rejection, yet some how I had found Joy in the midst of the that pain.  How had I done it then, yet could not find it now?  I didn't have the pain I had then, any more?  How had I done it?  I then remembered.  I lived in the moment.  I stayed present.  And I found gratitude for the moments of awe and wonder that permeate children's minds.

 

So, I started an experiment with myself and tried on the ways of my youth again.  I sat with memories to help guide me.  I spent more time getting into my children's world.  I spent more time getting small.  I got really, really small.  Getting out of my "big life".  And you know what I found?  I found the "more" I had been looking for.

 

Gratitude was the lens for uncovering the beauty in the midst of my everyday life.  These moments with beauty...led to JOY.

 

 

My "big life" wasn't so big after all.  It was the smallest of moments that magnified God, that were the "big life"... the FULLNESS of LIFE.

 

 

Challenge: In this month of November, we celebrate Thanksgiving only one day.  I want to extend an invitation to be thankful for each of the days in November.  An invitation to come up with at least one thing each day of this month that you are grateful for.  Journal them, tack them up on the fridge, pin them up on a bulletin board, or just Facebook one a day.  When we start thinking and writing for a project like this, we tend to think on a Level 1 of writing of gratitudes.  For example,  "I'm thankful for my job, my spouse, God, kids, etc."  I would challenge you to get to that Level 2 of deeper gratitudes. Take a look at the examples below. Get your children involved and have fun seeing how you grow and change in the level of Joy you experience in your life. 



 

Here is a little inspiration.  Below are a few things I am thankful for:
 

1.) The freckles on my daughter's nose.

2.) The gap between my son's two front teeth that allows him to make a whistling noise when he pronounces any word with an "s".

3.) My husband's hands...the hands that work to provide for us,...tend to boo boo's,...and hold me at night.

4.) The warmth of a hot cup of coffee on a crisp morning.

5.) My eyes...my sight...the sight I have today.

6.) Heated car seats.

7.) The smell of the leaves on the forest floor in Autumn.

8.)  My cleaning lady.

9.) All of my girlfriend's hugs...their knowing looks in their eyes...and their reassuring squeezes of the hand.

10.) That my children, today,...in this moment are still loving mama hugs and cuddles.



"He has made everything beautiful in its time." - Ecclesiastes 3:11

"Be joyful always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16 - 18