Author: Tamara Belanger (Page 17 of 74)

I’m typing this all by myself from my brand new platform that, save for my girl, would not be happening because all things techno make me get all sweaty.  In fact, after I get done typing this she will then show me how to add to it because I have this irrational fear that if I hit the wrong button a war will break out somewhere in the world and it will be my fault.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=children+of+the+earth+josh+garrels

So here I am, my picture and a whimsical song that makes my heart want to dance.  To be free enough to share me with you and invite you to do back…..to feel safe and welcome here.  That is my hearts’ desire.  To remind you Who loves you, to “illiminate the darkest hours.”  If you’ve joined me on this adventure, thank you.  I’m so pleased to have you here.

Up in the early hours.  Thinking about Easter.  It’s soon for that kind of thing, I know, but the warmth the past two days, the searching my heart, the pain and the purpose of it, points me to that hope and I love it so much.  Was a time when pain caused me to question God, shook my faith, made my knees shake in despair.  How could You?  How could You?  Something quiet has happened in my life the past three years.   Now when the tears fall, when people do hurtful things, when the unexpected happens, when the inevitable comes, I turn to Him safe.  I still cry.  I still get lost sometimes.  But He knows my name and He calls it.  And I always find my way back.  It’s okay now that I don’t understand.  I don’t strive to anymore.  I don’t need to.  I wouldn’t anyway, even if He told me.  Because I’d always do it differently.

I curl up on this Sunday morning and reach for the Jesus Storybook Bible.  I love how the author uses childlike terms to explain big thoughts; “Jesus went up into the bright air”, “He came to make sad come untrue.”  I turn out my light and smile into the dark.

“I don’t know where Jesus is,” Mary said urgently.  “I can’t find Him.”
But it was alright.  Jesus knew where she was.  And He had found her.
“Mary!”
Only one person said her name like that.”

He has said my name like that these days.  He has taught me to see the pain as level ground in this world that hurts us sometimes.  Even people that hurt us?  Don’t really mean to, if they could see past this murky veil we live behind. He’s teaching me what grace looks like.  Days sometimes make me long to leave this place.  But then He shows me a glimpse of it’s beauty and I gasp sorry that I almost missed it.

He gives me reasons to keep going.  Kaitlyn, Connor, Jamie, Amy, Naomi, Solomon, Caleb, Hannah, Noah, Rachael, Jeremy, Beatrice, Benjamin, E.T., Hannah and Madison, Julia, Erick, Melody, Rachel, Julie, Judy, Jonah, Shane, Emma, Jenna, Laurie, Tonya, Bill, Carley, Graham, Penelope, Katie, Tricia, Phoebe, Alan, Michael, Michele, Carrie, Bob, Neva, Terri, Heather, Shirley. Loretta, Dorothy, Tina……the faces go past my eyes endless as I close them and I picture the people.  We are here for each other, while we are here.  It’s all transitory, so fragile, so temporary, save the final goal.  The forever goal.

Carry things loosely, reach out quickly, use the currency of your life wisely.  Fix your eyes on the prize, whether through your tears or through the “bright air”.  It’s going to be alright, in the end.  He has told us so.

Only with a better ending for the song…..”Yesterday, all my troubles seemed they’re here to stay, now it looks as if they’re far away.”

I walked into school yesterday morning quiet and still so as not to wiggle the jello in my stomach.  My emotions were tender and precarious, after the day before, like the first day after the flu when you don’t dare eat more than dry toast. After baring my soul, and after feeling “called” to do just that, I just wanted to sit just quietly like Ferdinand the Bull, a children’s book I used to read to my kids.

As I made my way through the day, first one, then another, of the kids and teachers and parents found their way to me.  “I’m praying for you.”  Some hadn’t even read my words from the day before and had no idea of my hearts’ wound.  It’s just because the Creator of my wounded heart wanted it held extra close and so He whispered to people around me who He knew would love me into His shadow.

The morning turned into afternoon and, it being Friday, and the weekend approaching; that time when everyone but you seems to have plans to put on Facebook; I started to feel myself sink a little with the late day sun.  I went into the bathroom to be alone a minute.  “God.  I want to panic again.  I don’t know what to do with myself.  Tell me what to do.  Ugh.  I miss my boys far away.”  It’s funny how sad can wrap itself around lonely to compound the fracture.   I sat a minute and let myself cry in a gaspy sort of way, just for a minute and then I knew.  I was going to go get my girl and I something to eat and come back and watch the basketball game at school.  I don’t even like sports.  But my “family” was there.

We walked into the gymnasium, full of hamburgers and garlic parmesean  fries and found ourselves surrounded by friends; the kind that make you laugh too loud.  As I threw back my head I looked up at the rafters of the ceiling.  “Thank you, Father.  Good, good Father, for giving me what I didn’t know I’d find.”  We left with plans to meet for breakfast and talk life the next day.

The girl and I came home and piled up 3 blankets deep on the couch to watch a movie until we fell asleep.  It was our plan to stay right where we fell.  Sometime during the night, I woke up from a snapshot dream.  My Hannah and Rachael, my older girls, were in it.  “You guys!  Come look!  It snowed!”  Hannah’s voice was excited but quiet and sparkly enchanted.  When we looked out the window there was a glittery light surface white shining in the moonlight.  And then I woke up sleepy and groggy.  I felt a lifting, a peace, from the day before.  “Father,” I heard myself whisper, “hear the prayers of your children, my friends, on my behalf.  Renew my strength, my thoughts, my emotions, my heart, my vision.  I am Your container.”

I still feel tender.  But I’m not sure I need to lose that feeling.  It makes me aware of how fragile, how precarious, how rough the way here can be.  And points me in His direction.  Because, the truth is, this world is not my home.  I’m just a passin through.  How deeply grateful I am, though, that He’s put pilgrims beside me to help me carry the load.