sweet tea and laundry sprinkles

A necessary revisit.

July 25, 2021.

This (below) was written last year, September 2020, I think. 

I need it. Right now. 

This heart- my heart- is struggling; I needed to go back and remember. To see how it was, even just a year ago. 

These words were true then. What changed? Me? Life? 

 

Truth isn't fluid. It doesn't change. 

It's truth. 

Funny though- our bodies are like a bazillion percent water... fluid... changing. Not cool. So we go up and down, wax and waning, ebbing, flowing, vascillating with the rocking of our worlds- the containers in which our fluid resides. Thinking stuff is so true, thinking stuff is so real, believing the contradictions by which we make significant decisions. 

The Bible says that Satan's native tongue is the language of lies. Satan works overtime on our minds, trying to get us to believe a bunch of horseshit. He's the worst. But whoa, is he good at his job... he's the master manipulator and we are so ready to gobble down that sweet liefruit he dangles. So ready. 

Stupid Satan. He's crummy.

So when I go back and look at the words I've painted here, I'm eye-opened to the fact that I'm the artist that penned all this. I'm responsible for these painted heartbeats. I wasn't fluffing around, I wasn't just flirting with pretend... I meant them. I mean them. 

I just needed a reminder. 

_____________________

September 2020

notes in his hand, scribbled at church. food lion flowers cut and water-crammed into a Coke bottle. his heart poured out in the sweetest, most him-genuine of ways. 

Ticks of the clock pound upon us when I struggle to keep from hurling the bottle at his head, and the penned heart-words sailing through the air in slurried anger. and sometimes, the feelingswords can’t be stopped before they shoot quiversful into the same one who bestows the flowers and the notebook soul-pages. 

I used to be one who wanted to talk. One who incessantly shared, cried way too much, manipulated, or begged conversation and “but we have to get this out”-ed an issue to death. 

But, walls went up. My compassionkind mouth and my heart slammed shut. My tears, ashen. Non-existent. Broken on the outside, battered and swelling internally, wanting to feel SOMEthing. ANYthing. 

He doesn’t sweep me off my feet. He sweeps the bathroom when I ask him to. 

He doesn’t pour me champagne. He pours into my heart- or a tea or coke if I need it. 

He doesn’t shower me with diamonds or stuff. He reminds me I need to shower when I don’t have the energy or motivation. And “stuff”? Stuff looks like groceries, or donuts from Sandra’s, or “I grabbed some laundry sprinkles today.”

He doesn’t provide us a “Chip and JoAnna” farmhouse with shiplap and metal-stamped backsplashes. He provides us a “Little” home, with prayer, mess-ups, grace, forgiveness, Jesus, and love.  

He hasn’t travelled the world to find me. He has crossed the same small towns, pain, struggles, life, and loss- and we’ve been God-smashed into each other. 

doing this thing right is the most difficult- often painful- work I’ve ever encountered. without a doubt. I have never been so introspective and so “truth-and-right” seeking, not ever in my life. 

I remind myself frequently that it takes not-so-pleasant and pressure and pain and discomfort to get through to the other place- the “light at the end of the tunnel”, I guess. 

It’s dark in here, I feel squoze, and it hurts, y’all. 

But if I squint just a little, I can see the tiny glimmer waaayyyyy down yonder...

_____________________________________________________________

7.25.2021

Funny. I wrote this TODAY when I was taking my sermon notes. 

Then when I was looking at blog stuff, I landed on this one from Sept 2020, and saw the highlighted part. 

God is so timely.