Sara Groves - Less Like Scars

It's another blog post, and another song.

Less Like Scars by Sara Groves...

It's another song that is one that I turn to when I just can't seem to see my way through ... a reminder ...that things will be ok ... that God is growing me. Sometimes, the scars feel like they've been opened, fresh wounds ... but ...they will heal, and they will become character.

This last year ... has been a roller coaster ...from the building of our house, release of my book, resigning of my pastor, the death of 2 friends children, a couple of other deaths, not being able to handle being the center of attention from the house and the book, my husband almost dying, and then, my husband recovering and coming home ...and walking on his own again ..and oxygen not being a 24 hour requirement ... my son's learning disabilities going from severe, to ... they kind of interfere with his school performance. The changing of therapists ... and the therapist being able to really see the real me, get past the masks ..very easily. The leaving of my psychiatrist who I adored ...no other word for it ... I adored him, like I do my big brother. To the emergency medical leave of my therapist (in the same week I found out I couldn't follow my psychiatrist to his new clinic, he wasn't any happier than I) and leaving the worship ministry for a new adventure in Children's ministry ... and then today ... our church ratified a new pastor ...96% ratification ...

It's been a hard year ...but I'm climbing out of the rubble ... and one day ...

It's been a hard year
But I'm climbing out of the rubble
These lessons are hard
Healing changes are subtle
But every day it's

Less like tearing, more like building
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel you here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like
Character

Less like a prison, more like my room
It's less like a casket, more like a womb
Less like dying, more like transcending
Less like fear, less like an ending

And I feel you here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars

Just a little while ago
I couldn't feel the power or the hope
I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing
Just a little while back
I was desperate, broken, laid out, hoping
You would come

And I need you
And I want you here
And I feel you

And I know you're here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad, bad situation
But you are able

And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars (x3)

And more like
Character

Faithful

I woke up today and had decided to go ahead and go to church. It's been quite a while since I was sick before all this happened with Don.

I got dressed in a black jumper dress, tourquoise blouse, and black shoes. I went to choose my jewelry and decided on some that meant something to me. To others, it would just be Peggikaye in her elephants again.

To me, it was not just because I like elephants, but, a while back I figured out what it was about elephants that facinated me so. It all came down to Dr. Suess.
I meant what I said
And I said what I meant....
An elephant's faithful
One hundred per cent!

Faithfulness. Today, I wore a tangible reminder of faithfulness. A necklace a friend gave me, a bracelet my husband gave me, an anklet I bought with a gift certificate someone else gave me. All elephants.

God's faithfulness to me ... and my friends faithfulness to me ... the faithfulness has been more than visible this last 2 weeks, but tangible.

Tonight, as I sat next to Don, while he slept on the Bipap, some questions still unanswered, not knowing what lies ahead ... I knew one thing was for sure. God was with us. God had been with us through the last 11 days or so ...and God would be with us.

It is strange ... to feel so worn out, so tired, so ... weary ... to have so many questions looming in the air ...

and yet, to feel so comforted, and so peaceful ...and to feel so confident at the same time.

I guess, the scripture that says that in our weakness, He is made strong ... is how this is lived out. Every moment, I must lean on God's strength, God's wisdom and God's faithfulness ...

My new counselor asked me at my second session when I'd felt safe in my life. Really safe ... it hasn't been often. There hasn't been a whole lot of security.

I told her about the dark times in my marriage and how the sanctuary in my church provided that safety for me. How Sanctuary, became more than a archetectual term, but lived out it's original meaning for me. It was my place of safety for a long time.

And now, this last 11 days, ironically ... I have felt that safety ... that sanctuary ... that I am safe in God's arms ... never closer to God as I have been in the last few days ... as tired, and weary and battle worn ...

I am sure of this one thing ... I know whom I have believed, and He is able to keep that which I've committed, unto Him, until that day.

What's more ... my husband, is one of those things I've committed ... and I'm sure he can keep my husband and the things that he has committed as well.

Power

In the first month of my blogging ... I blogged about discovering that my life could be compared to a train ... and this week ... I came across a train on it's tracks and it made me think of life in terms of a train once again. I'd forgotten about my own life comparrison to a train. Until I decided to blog about it.

The minute I started to do so, my brain went ..wait? What did I say before ... So, I found it ...

Tuesday, November 30, 2004
I have learned I am a ChooChoo train ......

I think I have figured out how I cope with things. I've been calling it compartmentalizing, but it's more than that. I have people who will come up to me a week or so after I've been sick, or after the boys have been sick and ask if everything is ok and I just give them this blank look, I've gone on, I have no clue what they''re talking about. Those things happen so much, once it's over, it's over ... I just say that I've compartmentalized it and gone on, and that's the best explination I've had ... but today, I came up with a better one ...

I'm a train and I have all these train cars that I have that I'm tugging behind me. Some, like lupus, MG, kids with TS are permanent, other's like flu and Bj's meningitis are temporary.
When I get sick with the flu, the flu car gets coupled to my train, making my train just a little harder to pull, I need more steamto get to where I'm going. But when the flu is over, I stop,and uncouple that car and leave it behind, going on with my journey.
The eating disorder car, that's probably a permanent car, but it's cargo has been unloaded, it will always be attatched, but the heavy burdened load it was weighted with has been removed, so now, it's just an empty car that I have to be careful doesn't get loaded up again.

I have to be careful that I don't keep going on my journey with train cars that don't need to be still attatched. If one is done, it's important to remember to stop and uncouple it, dragging cars that are no longer existing, is going to make my journey harder. (If I'm constantly thinking about how many cars of colds I've had this year, and not uncoupling them, I need to know how many I've had so my doctor's can take good care of me, but not dwell on them so to speak)

I also need to make sure that I have all the appropriate car trains attatched. So that my train is properly balanced. I have my church car, my family car and my friends car.

When the journey gets hard, is it the tracks are going through mountainous regions ? or is that I have more cars attatched and are they permanent and therefore I need to figure out how to add more coal to the engine? Or is it that a temporary flu car has been added that will shortly be uncoupled and out of my way?
*************************************************************************************

So ... I've got that part figured out ...but what I failed to figure out was ...who and what is controling the engine cars? AM I the engine cars? Am I the engineer? Do I simply hire someone? Contract that job out? Or, am I the engine of the train itself.

The engine of the train, is in fact, it's most important factor.


Without an engine ... the train simply sits on the tracks ... doing nothing ... and going no where ... just sitting waiting for the cargo to be loaded or unloaded. Sitting there ... rusting ...useless in their journey. Their wheels cannot be used for what God intended the wheels to be used for, because the engine is not pullinging them.
They sit ... quiet, and unassuming, apparently useless, maybe having had a use at one time, but now pitiful and with soemthing to be written off as potentially useful.


With the engine, the train can work ... in the coldest of weather, to work in the snow and the ice ...and in the lonely times. When others say it may not be the wisest time to go, the Engine gives the train the power and strength to go where it needs to go .. to keep the train on the track ... and to get to the destination, safely. Sometimes a lonely, quiet steady job, but it will get done.

Then there are the times when it feels like we're never going to be seen or noticed again, the train engine, will for sure, get ALL the glory. The maginficent engine ...and all it's hard work ... everything it's done to save us ... and all it's done to put help us ...to save us and to guide us ..to protect us and to lead us ... and we just want to be shown off ...just a little bit?

Would it really be such a shame for the train to want to be separate from the Engines every now and then? Is it really that important/ Do we REALLY have travel wITH the engine every single time? Why ... why can't we, as the train make it on our own ...just once ... we could give the credit to the things the train engine had taught us ...

So I think ... tonight ... we are going to try .... to do things ourselves.


The train itself will move the heart and goals and dreams of the spirit along. Making sure that the callings of God and the work He's called us to get done. The train, without the Glory Seeking Engines ... will now be responsible for getting the body and the body's family to all appropriate functions. Physically and emotionally.
This should be an exciting time in the New Eagler Transportation system!





What? ... What? ... you mean there is a problem? What? You've had all of a couple of minutes and you can't even get going? What do you mean you can't go? It's simple ... the back car has Nanna on it, she needs extra care and be transported to and from work. Get going!

What?
What? push it?
What? we can't? are you serious?
not even a little?

Well, get nanna to sit and take a day off.

Sigh ... prayer car ... what do you mean the prayer car is falling a part. Yes, I agreed to pray for a certain number of people, Beths, house, and Melissa at college, Wanda, and Mom. The funeral today ..what's the problem? What do you mean?

WHY do I need a train engine to pray? oh that just doesn't make sense! I'm going to have to come back to that one!

I'm so frustrated, how hard can this be ... lets try to get the directions straight ... shouold we go this way or that way...the map isn't even clear! There are so many decisions, Why is it when I'm reading this in the navigators car, it all makes soooo much sense????????

I'm going for a walk ......



The full train ... the engine .. it gives the train it's power ... the power comes from the Holy spirit ... it is the guidance needed, the navigation ... the wisdom ...
The engines ... give extra power .... for the prayers to be powerful and spirit led!


The train .. .is all me, but cannot function without the fullness of the holy spirit ( the train engine) He is the one who enfuses my train with the power to be what it was called to be ... and is destined to be.

We saw a train sitting ... 3 miles from it's train engine ...and the engine just drove off ... leaving it's train sitting there and I thought ... no Lord ...please, don't ever leave me .... take me along with you. Infuse my train with your power. I am useless without you and I simply want to be your servent to do your desire.

Paradigm Shift

When I took intro to psych I first heard the term Paradigm shift. I could not quite grasp it ...and I could not get my brain around it ...no matter what I did ... I could not understand what the concept meant.

So, Sunday, a speaker comes and is explaining the ressurrection of Jesus Christ and how it changes the face of religeon for all of mankind forever and my brain went ... CLICK! PARADIGM SHIFT!!!!!!!!

So, while the speaker didn't use the term ... I finally got the concept. In doing so ... it was a puzzle piece to my life that I needed ... desperately.

I have mentioned a few times since moving into my new house and having my book published that I've had a bit of trouble enjoying the fruits of the wonderful blessings in my life. The change and adjustment has been so severe I just can't seem to get my brain wrapped around what has happened or why and how and why I ended up here ... and welll ... quite frankly, it felt like I was a complete fraud taking advantage of a system or program or something. I had no business getting the blessings I've been given.

The better it got, the more guilty I began to feel. Then, it all came together ...all at once ...and the puzzle piece ... in one fell swoop fit together and my life was changed .... I went through a HUGE Paradigm Shift.
Nothing would be the same ...not the way we look at things, not the way others look at us ... not the way we do things ... everything involving our lives required us to change the way we lived life on this planet.

And I froze in fear. I could not function. I had this wonderful beautiful house. I had this terrific marriage and wonderful boys ... I have a book that's published and they're paying mme for it. I have friends, who really love me. I have a safe house that is beautiful and I can have friends over. I have a church that I'm active in, and I have leadership responsibilities as well as privileges in ... my health, while not good, has been far worse.

Just what in my life would be changed? What could you change? What if I were given the chance would I change? Really ... my health, ya,that's a given ...but in the grand scheme of things, that's a small thing I can function ya know?

So ... I've got this great life ...so why am I frozen?

Then I learned about Paradigm Shifts ...and I learn that they ALWAYS move ...from one state to another ...and the second state is ALWAYS a more positive, more stable state ...but that the GETTING to the state requires a lot of churning, and sometimes violent turning of ideas, ground and moving around of things standards up turned ideas upended ... the paradigm shift might happen violently and suddenly but there is years of hard work and preperation that goes into the paradigm shift!!!! no paradigm shift happens out of the blue and they all happen because of someone's hard work and perserverence.

So ... I'm sitting on the other side of a paradigm shift ... just having my life as I knew it, up ended ... the life I knew ... one of poverty, dilapitated trailer, bad marriage and unknown name and no career of any sorts to suddenly ... litterally ... over night ... to a good marriage (great? marriage?) a solid house, light on the path of the tunnel to get out of poverty and a career!

Success ... failure to success ... overnight ... literaly!

Granted .. it didn't happen quietly, or without pain or lots of pain and churning to get there ... there was tons of preperations to get us to this point ... but it happened. But when it happened, it awas not a gradual process like one might expect, it was a Paradigm Shift.

My reaction was to become stunned and frozen.

I didn't quite realize it ... but I had reacted with guilt. I'd felt like ... I'm the girl who fails. I'm the girl who doesn't complete things. I'm the girl who doesn't finish. I'm the girl who is irresponsible. I'm the girl who doesn' do what I need to do to accomplish what needs to get done. I don't deserve to have good things.

There fore ... this good marriage
this house
this book being published
this great family
this set of friends
these responsibilities at church

They all belong to someone who has earned them ... not to me! I've stolen them from someone else ...they are not mine ... I've stolen someone else's birthright! I felt guilty and horribly horribly desperately guilty for what I had. Enjoying what was in front of me wasn't happening ... All I felt was guilty.

This week ... I've been challenged to name what went into the forming of the paradigm shift .... and to name the last time I failed, the last time I quit, the last time I didn't complete something or was being irresponsible ...
I don't know ... I can't find those ... they are not parts of my current character!

Who I am now ... is determined ..and I have perserverence ..and I have patience and I have self control and I have the wherewithall to do what God has called me to do ...and you know what ... I didn't steal these things!

They were not handed to me on a silver platter (as I had been feeling they had) I worked hard for them, and God really was working with me ...and is simply rewarding me and now he wants me to be a good steward of the things he's given me.

wow. that's a whole nother subject isn't it?

In A Little While ....

I was 18, and Amy Grant was the princess of Christian Music. I loved her music. I could sing with it and the words spoke volumes to me. There were always a couple of songs that meant a lot to me. A couple, I've never forgotten and think about frequently ... Fat Baby, El Shaddai to name a couple.

But one ... I'd let my mind forget. Or time took over. Not sure which. It was a song that I would play over and over and over again. The tape wore out because, of this song. I'd play it, hit rewind, play it again ...all while driving mindlessly around the city singing it at the top of my lungs.

It really wasn't a top of your lungs kind of song, but it was a top of my lungs song. I have a few of those now. Usually Matt Redman songs. They keep me grounded ...they remind me that God is in my life ...and that he has ME under control even when I don't think He does.

It was a hard song ... it was about a letter from The Father ... I was so freshly grieving the loss of my step father. I wanted it to be a letter from Daddy ...but I learned ...through singing it over and over again ... God is my Father. His Word is a letter to me ...and when I hurt ..that is where I need to go.

A pattern developed in my life ... because the way I was raised, because of the teaching I had ...and in large part because this song reminded me to. The pattern of when I just can't take any more ... to open the Letter from God. To go to His Word ...to find the Words he's speaking to me. I learned that it was temporary pain, and God's Word was eternal. I learned that God loved me no matter how bad my day and my purpose was to live for God.

I didn't set out to learn those things. I think it'd been much harder to learn if I'd known that was what I was working for. But, as so many other times in my life ...God used a song to touch my deepest pain, fear and hurt and to teach me to lean on him.

Many songs have come and gone to replace the song. I hadn't even thought of it years. I doubt I've even heard it since my husband and I got married 19 years ago! We take off in the car tonight ..and our Christian Radio Station KXOJ is having their 30th Anniversary. They're playing a lot of hits ...old and new. They played a song by Petra from the 80's and it was such a thrill to hear. Then suddenly the piano/guitar started ... I felt myself lighten as I about yelled "I remember this one!"

The words started ..and I started to sing along as if it hadn't even been a day since I'd heard it. Then ...the tears started to fall. The years that have passed in between that life line and now ...and how much I learned from it ...and how true it's become. How often the promise in the song has proven true for me. In A Little While ... We're just here to learn to love Him



Got a ticket coming home,
Wish the officer had known
What a day today has been.
Then I stumbled through the door,
Dropping junk mail on the floor.
When will this day end?

But then your letter caught my eye,
Brought the hope in me to life,
cause you know me very well,
And I bet you wrote me
Just to tell me,

In a little while,
Well be with the father;
Cant you see him smile? (ooooooh....)
In a little while,
Well be home forever,
In a while....
Were just here to learn to love him;
Well be home in just a little while.

Boy, that letter hit the spot--
Made me think of all Ive got,
And all that waits for me.
Guess Ive known it all day long;
Wonder where my thoughts went wrong.
When will my heart believe?
Waking half way through the night,
Reaching toward the lamp for light,
Picking up the word I find;
Heres another letter
To remind me.

In a little while,
Well be with the father;
Cant you see him smile? (ooooooh....)
In a little while,
Well be home forever,
In a while....
Were just here to learn to love him;
Well be home in just a little while.

Days like these are just a test of our will.
Will we walk or will we fall?
Well, I can almost see the top of the hill,
And I believe its worth it all.

In a little while,
Well be with the father;
Cant you see him smile? (ooooooh....)
In a little while,
Well be home forever,
In a while....
Were just here to learn to love him;
Well be home in just a little while.