Liturgical Living (Question the First)

Question 1. Where do you feel joy and gratitude in your life right now? - can you find it? are you thanking God for it? are you asking him for more of it?

Answer #1:
My life feels very small right now. So it's a small list constituted of seemingly small things. The list looks remarkably similar to one you had me make back in July (here's a cut-and-paste):

Things I am thankful for...
For yet another glorious Montana summer morning

My wonderful neurotic Scout-monster
An adopted family who keeps me accountable yet loves me in the midst of my messiness

An actual family who's always got my back

Good food, and the ability to enjoy it again

The financial security to have a nervous breakdown and have it not ruin me

A body that still works even when it's cranky about it

A place to sleep where I feel safe

Sleep in general

The ability to feel again even when I don't like what, or how much, I feel

The opportunity to serve, in whatever small way, in this fledgling community of other messes

You also had me make a list in October of what I was asking God, in hopes that cataloguing it might help me see progress (yet another cut-and-paste):

Please take all of me, even the parts that I'm holding back without realizing it, and make me into the person You want me to be. Not just “fix” me, but recreate me according to Your plan.





Please give me joy, at something, anything. It ends up coming out as “Give me BACK that love of life that I used to have.” but it's not a desire to move backwards... I just want to feel something positive, some energy, and what I once felt is the only frame of reference I have.



Please help me DESIRE to move forward.




SLEEP. Please provide sleep.


Please give me my appetite back.


Please give me a vision for the future; or at least make it so I don't freeze up or freak out when I try to think more than a day or two ahead.


Please help me see hope, and progress, and be able to praise You for it.


Please help me be able to pray. The Psalms, since I don't seem to have my own words. There's so much there, and I can't seem to make the connections, or get the words out, or do anything but shut down. And the more often I fail, the harder it gets. Please remove the walls, and let the words flow.


Please BREAK THROUGH. Help me believe that You love me. Tear down the walls. Yes, I know that I built them, but now I can't seem to un-build them. Please come find me.

Please give me the ability (and desire!) to talk to people – to ask for help, to reach out and offer encouragement... I'm not really sure what to ask, I'm in such unfamiliar territory here...



This list is more helpful in today's context, because there are a few concrete things that have moved in a positive direction.
–I do DESIRE to move forward.
–I have started sleep, if sporadically, again.
–The rest remain mostly prayer requests. I still desperately need a vision for what God's future for me looks like. And I feel like a primary thing (person? people?) I need is a prayer partner(s). Do they still do women's prayer group of any kind? I mentioned DNA groups to Ryan, but haven't heard back. Morning prayers were very helpful to me. When it's just God and me, I often don't know where to go.

And most importantly, I'm still asking God to break through, to reveal himself, to help me believe that he loves me.

Here's my thankful list for TODAY:
–For the springtime, and the sunshine that truly seems to lift my spirits
–That my stomach no longer hurts all the time like it had since mid-February
–For 3 consecutive nights of reasonable sleep
–For the ability to focus on the things I'm reading – being able to process and make sense of them, with the ongoing hope that all these dots will one day form a coherent whole (I could use another "Eowyn moment sometime soon.)

I am thanking God for these things. I am asking that he help me see more of the good stuff. I am looking for opportunities to reach out to others. I remain insanely grateful to my adopted family for all they have done for me. And yet I'm afraid to say that I love them and miss them, for fear of being told that I'm hanging on to the past. But I do miss you all. And I don't think that's a bad thing. You have changed my life, and God orchestrated that, and my love for your family – not what you did for me, not what you can do for me – is very real and present. I'm moving forward, and I'm still failing to understand why that means we can't move forward, at least in some ways, together. I will never be able to prove to you the motivations of my heart, the moment I discover that Jesus is way more beautiful to me than your family is. There's nothing I can do about that. All I can do is my best. But even though all this hurts, it remains a fundamental thing that I feel joy and gratitude for.