This post came out of our story sessions write in this morning.  It goes deep for me at a time when acceptance runs low and the well is dry.

Hope.

There is hope coming.

Beckoning me.

Arising out of the depths of my soul; slamming out of the depths of things all around me.

As I was reading Rilke this morning I was struck by this line:

“am I a falcon, a storm or a great song”

A great song is what I want to be.  I want my life to sing.  To “live in widening circles, that reach across the world”

My world, their world, her world.

Hope that can be something bigger

Hope that is and will always be in front of me; reaching towards me and showing me the way.

Showing me the way to……..

Freedom

Not “take this bible study and you’ll be free” kind of freedom.

That’s the only way to their “Promised Land”

I don’t want the conference or women’s retreat freedom.

Those are empty words and emotion driven actions.

I want freedom to say who I am and know it changes nothing.

I desire, above all the freedom to be loved in my messiness because as Jennifer Lawrence’s character in “Silver Linings Playbook” says:

“There is a part of me that will always be messy and dirty and I like that”

My fingers long to dig deep in the dirt be okay with accepting every single ugly part of my past.  To grasp the mud of the most painful and the ones that give me nightmares and SCREAM freedom and beauty over them.

I am terrified to speak of the ones that have shame smeared on my face and scars left on my arms.  To speak those to the ones I love feels forbidden because of the “what if’s”

Freedom from the “what if’s”

I ache for the freedom of sitting with Jesus at the well.  It the heat of the day knowing that to some close minded onlookers that He shouldn’t be seen with me.

But He is seen with me.

And He sees me.

He gives me the freedom to accept being called Beloved.  His freedom means acceptance goes so deep that even though the ink of the word landed on my wrist when I did not truly know Him; the word is there now and I see it daily.

When He looks at me and says “You have a new name.  You are no longer called —— but Beulah”

As Always,

Bethany

*Poetry quotes from Rilke in the Book of Hours*

Advertisement