Winsome Words And Wet Canvases

I am a processor of things these days with winsome words and wet canvases.

I write down words in the silence of the night with the hum of a quiet house with endless tears streaming or I blare the music and sling paint and pray and process…I process within both extremes…

Tonight I sit … in the quiet hum…with tears streaming …processing the latest news and life’s most recent gut punches… it seems like there has been far too many lately for so many I love.

We embark on a new month and season soon. Just moments ago it ushered in July 1st!
The second half to a already strange year.

A calendar all of us should have probably wanted to forget in so many ways … but also treasured in so many others.

As I reflect and process that this month will also bring in a Jubilee Birthday for me, I am turning the big 50 at the end of July, I am wondering if that has me pondering so much more deeply lately …

So, please follow or forgive me …
I don’t know how to process any other way.

When life doesn’t provide the answers to things and yet some would scream – God, where are you?

Even in my processing God is there… He is thick and comforting as I learn to dwell, rest, trust, and abide, fully, in Him.

When my faith is tested and I have to trust Him for what is unseen and lean not on my own understandings ..
I don’t scream and shake my fists anymore … I simply ask —
What am I missing, Lord? What do you want to be for me in this situation? What am I to be in this situation for others?

Oh this “Life” … fragile and full,
yet, eagerly empty for some.

Boundless joys and deep gut wrenching sorrows.

A world drowning in countless counterfeits and cares or are we simply – beautifully, in over our heads?
(Thinking of the song..
It makes no difference if I sink or swim . I am beautifully in over my head)

Is that how life is to be lived?

Booze sales on the rise and I too know what it’s like to try and numb with those things .. but they can’t even come close to really numbing our pain. They just create more pain.

So, what really wraps up our pain?
Or are we suppose to feel it in all its rawness?

Why aren’t we good at simply handing it over to the only One that promises to carry our burdens and bind up our wounds?

Why aren’t we good about sharing our pain?

The yin and yang of it all.
The Light is always dancing amidst the dark. Shadows moving and rearranging. Oh’ how do we keep missing the forest amongst the trees?

Winsome … words… and wet canvases … maybe that is my newest drug of escape?
I will take it … because both take me deeper with God.

My outlets of processing… always processing it all, but life is anything but winsome (appealing) right now…or is it?

We have all been given “time” the same for all of us in a given day … and yet, do we use it well?

Do we make the most of each moment or think we can bottle it up and frantically save every last second of it or do we waste it and let it keep flying out and pass us by at warped speeds….
Or do we really have any control over any of it?

I think of the song again and think … when we are in over our heads or our place of understanding, we fight it .. we fight the rising waters …we panic and numb and try to escape the pain — but God is not calling us deeper to have us drown… that is simply not in His nature.

So, how do we view and live life differently?

Instead of saying “When it rains it pours” to surrender and say “Carry me Lord through this storm”

My natural sight is blurred and dark and fear wants to try and creep in frightening me …
but my vision, His vision, is still laser focused, full, clear and vibrant …
How can that possibly be?

Oh’ the parallels and paradigm shifts … and wonderings of it all.

What do we do to harness this “time” we have been given and not squander it?

Where are all the answers to our pain and pondering found?

A year halfway over …

A New month …
A Month of Life Moments and celebrations woven among the unknowns and uncertainties …
But as crazy as it all seems,
I am still certain of this very thing …

God can handle my questions and my cries. He can handle my worries and my weaknesses. He can handle my angst and anger …even with my gritted teeth and clenched fists at the unfairness of loss and tragedy and sickness and a world gone stark raving mad…

Because really ..
Has it gone mad? , or is this all simply still part of His Master Plan?

Oh’ I am certain… but does it sink in deep, really and fully to every part of my being when I am grieving and clinging and pondering …
That God is still good? … even when nothing looks or feels good in this moment ? …. is He still good?

My answer is still and always will be a resounding …Yes!

When I don’t see it or feel it in the natural – I know I have seen Him do it before and I know He WILL do it again!

I clench a little tighter to His promises and declare them back to Him…

Yes Lord! … Oh’ Won’t You Do It!
Again and Again And Again …
Work, Yes Work, even this,
Work it ALL out for our good.

Take me deeper Lord – it makes no difference if I sink or swim …
I am beautifully in over my head.

Carry me through the storms of life. Carry my family and my friends and everyone else that is hurting or facings unknowns …

Carry us all through the storms of this present life Lord.

— XXOO Michelle Cosby Bollom

And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.
— Romans 8:28 AMP

Here is the link to the song I was referring to above 👉🏻.. https://youtu.be/qv3-TDdD1pM