Not a work of fiction, more a telling of my last two weeks. Maybe a little churchy for some tastes 
It was hot. I guess fire and brimstone had nothing on good old East Texas summer come late July. It’s pretty alarming when even the monkey grass bordering the proudly dying lawns starts to curl up. Heat and fat girls just plain don’t get along, I remarked as I reclined in the lawn chair in a garage. I was fixated on a quote on a pack of Pall Mall’s I’d rather fastidiously decimated. “Where Particular People congregate” edged slightly below the Latin “in hoc signo vinces” which I think means something like. In this you will conquer. Hell, the only thing this pack conquered was the last bills floating around in my wallet. I didn’t feel much like I was going to conquer anything.
The echoes of the last two weeks clanged in my poor tired head. Here I was following the whim of what could only be The Holy Spirit. Ain’t nothing else in this world would have convinced me to leave behind the security and comfort of the meager but satisfying life New York offered me for this that I had now. But then, I’ve known for a little while He had been trying to convince me, through vivid dreams, of some things I was just plain unwilling to face. Conviction, that’s a feeling that leaves a person feeling like they’ve got a head full of bees. That and the knowledge that I’d intentionally surrounded myself with people who I figured wouldn’t know how to handle me if they had any inkling of my penchant for spirituality.
I watched my dog lazily amble up the driveway, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as if to say “it’s even too hot to search out trees to piss on”. Things that I’d once taken for granted, like the unconditional love a dog has for a previously estranged own, flooded back into my life. Zeek was an old man now, not even bothering to chase the UPS truck. Another cigarette. Man, I gotta quit smoking so much, I grumbled as I thought about how awfully terrible these particular cigarettes tasted. I watched the sky darken somewhat, morphing in a white sky. The kind of sky I always romanticized for it’s pure simplicity. I felt the urge to give forth another prayer. Damn, ever since I had it in my mind to come back down that’s all it seems I do is pray. Maybe to anyone who doesn’t know I must look like a schizophrenic.
Why am I here, what is my purpose? General questions that I managed to condense into circumstance. Why did I feel so painfully impressed to come back down that I have likely done irreparable hurt to someone I love deeply? Why am I here when it’s been painfully clear that no matter where I go, I seem to be someone else’s little black rain cloud. Tom Shiftlett ain’t got nothing on me, darling. One thing was for sure, I was getting answers that I really was too uncomfortable to face. Why did He want me here to face perhaps my greatest fear? My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my husband and his father walking into the garage.
“She just won’t have none of it.” I heard his father drawl. “That ain’t no kinda Christian I wanna be around.” he was an opinionated old man and in a strange sort of way I love him dearly for that. It’s a quality that, for better or worse, was passed onto his son. I knew what they were talking about. I, or rather my step mother in law’s reluctance to include me in the family aid mission, was becoming pretty hot business in smaller social circles. My husband stayed at this house, as did my daughter, but I wasn’t allowed to. Sometimes when I hang around the house too long, I can see her frowning at me from the corner of my eye. It’s the kind of thing that completely contradicts her attitude towards me. She’s always nice and cordial. When I first arrived she gave me clothes for church and nice shoes, always invites me to meals and never has anything to say that could potentially ruffle a single feather. Adamantly, however, she insists that I am not allowed to live here with my family.
It was because of this I finally wound up staying a full 24 hours at a homeless shelter, an experience that I feel I was meant to have in aid of some purpose. This place was run by people who perhaps started out with good intentions but have faded into bitterness over time. A pregnant teenaged girl arrived the same time I did and where they failed to show even basic compassion I made it mission to give. I was torn apart by the coldness of the place and in the end, after I was sure the girl was taken care of in the best way possible on her journey back home, I had to leave. I left there with a heart too heavy to carry without dragging it on the ground as I limped (emotionally, spiritually) away from that place. It was the experience that made me reconcile with an old enemy, humbling myself in a manner that required me to ask help from someone I tried so hard to refuse in the past. It was an experience that made me feel as if the greatest gift I had to offer life was compassion. Despite the roads I’ve traveled, and the hardships I’ve encountered, I still have an almost self-destructive amount of compassion for others. If I could wish it away, I would, but it is something I’m supposed to carry I think.
I would have thought that after sharing the atrocities of “my last restort” I would have at least earned a few days respite from frightening homelessness, but no such luck.
I looked at the world around me. There was still something magical about it. I watched the way my daughters white gold hair waved as she poked at a poor millipede on the scorching driveway. I would have done anything to be close to her, even if it meant facing an old, persistent fear. From her I looked at my husband. I’d spent the last 2 years trying to run away from the past I had with him. Still haunted by the moments in time that I felt heavy with fear and sadness, I still found it hard to find any real trust in him. I still have a hard time sleeping sometimes. My mind wanders in my half dream state and I imagine that I will wake alone and that I will have to go searching to find him, half alive behind some random building. I don’t trust him yet, but nor do I fully trust Him either.
Lord, I’m working hard to do it. How many prayers did I feel were ignored back there. “Please let him be safe, please make this stop.” What I didn’t realize until much later is that they were answered, he didn’t die, and his incarceration did put a stop to his downward spiral and gave him time to figure out a few things necessary to become the person he‘s supposed to be. I know He’s got a funny way of doing things, but as the Word says, He is always right on time… maybe not my time, but on time nonetheless. This is no longer about me battling for some kind of menial custody agreement, nor is this about what I want over what I am supposed to do. This is about once and for all doing it right and doing it right by Him.
My walk with God has always been like a game of Sorry. I get a few spaces down and inevitably someone’s going to land on my space and I’m going to have to start all over again. But, when I finally realize that God transcends the rules of any game, I understand now that God’s version of Sorry, without rules, makes more sense. If someone lands on my space in an effort to knock me back down, I don’t have to start over again. We can both fit just fine in the same spot. Neither of us would have to lose and we can both win in the end. So, no matter who lands on my space, I’m not starting over this time. I’m just going to keep moving forward. So there, take that.
Well that’s where am, still homeless but I have faith it will work out. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that just a couple weeks ago I had a job and a home, a fridge full of food and no real drama. But I guess I’m just too hardheaded to seek out my path if I’m too comfortable. I’m learning a lot about humility. I didn’t leave the shelter with the attitude I went in with, “I don’t belong here with you guys because I was working recently and I had it together.” The past is where it belongs, in the past. What I have left is the future. I don’t know what it holds, but I can assure you, God and I are working it out with each passing moment.
It was hot. I guess fire and brimstone had nothing on good old East Texas summer come late July. It’s pretty alarming when even the monkey grass bordering the proudly dying lawns starts to curl up. Heat and fat girls just plain don’t get along, I remarked as I reclined in the lawn chair in a garage. I was fixated on a quote on a pack of Pall Mall’s I’d rather fastidiously decimated. “Where Particular People congregate” edged slightly below the Latin “in hoc signo vinces” which I think means something like. In this you will conquer. Hell, the only thing this pack conquered was the last bills floating around in my wallet. I didn’t feel much like I was going to conquer anything.
The echoes of the last two weeks clanged in my poor tired head. Here I was following the whim of what could only be The Holy Spirit. Ain’t nothing else in this world would have convinced me to leave behind the security and comfort of the meager but satisfying life New York offered me for this that I had now. But then, I’ve known for a little while He had been trying to convince me, through vivid dreams, of some things I was just plain unwilling to face. Conviction, that’s a feeling that leaves a person feeling like they’ve got a head full of bees. That and the knowledge that I’d intentionally surrounded myself with people who I figured wouldn’t know how to handle me if they had any inkling of my penchant for spirituality.
I watched my dog lazily amble up the driveway, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as if to say “it’s even too hot to search out trees to piss on”. Things that I’d once taken for granted, like the unconditional love a dog has for a previously estranged own, flooded back into my life. Zeek was an old man now, not even bothering to chase the UPS truck. Another cigarette. Man, I gotta quit smoking so much, I grumbled as I thought about how awfully terrible these particular cigarettes tasted. I watched the sky darken somewhat, morphing in a white sky. The kind of sky I always romanticized for it’s pure simplicity. I felt the urge to give forth another prayer. Damn, ever since I had it in my mind to come back down that’s all it seems I do is pray. Maybe to anyone who doesn’t know I must look like a schizophrenic.
Why am I here, what is my purpose? General questions that I managed to condense into circumstance. Why did I feel so painfully impressed to come back down that I have likely done irreparable hurt to someone I love deeply? Why am I here when it’s been painfully clear that no matter where I go, I seem to be someone else’s little black rain cloud. Tom Shiftlett ain’t got nothing on me, darling. One thing was for sure, I was getting answers that I really was too uncomfortable to face. Why did He want me here to face perhaps my greatest fear? My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my husband and his father walking into the garage.
“She just won’t have none of it.” I heard his father drawl. “That ain’t no kinda Christian I wanna be around.” he was an opinionated old man and in a strange sort of way I love him dearly for that. It’s a quality that, for better or worse, was passed onto his son. I knew what they were talking about. I, or rather my step mother in law’s reluctance to include me in the family aid mission, was becoming pretty hot business in smaller social circles. My husband stayed at this house, as did my daughter, but I wasn’t allowed to. Sometimes when I hang around the house too long, I can see her frowning at me from the corner of my eye. It’s the kind of thing that completely contradicts her attitude towards me. She’s always nice and cordial. When I first arrived she gave me clothes for church and nice shoes, always invites me to meals and never has anything to say that could potentially ruffle a single feather. Adamantly, however, she insists that I am not allowed to live here with my family.
It was because of this I finally wound up staying a full 24 hours at a homeless shelter, an experience that I feel I was meant to have in aid of some purpose. This place was run by people who perhaps started out with good intentions but have faded into bitterness over time. A pregnant teenaged girl arrived the same time I did and where they failed to show even basic compassion I made it mission to give. I was torn apart by the coldness of the place and in the end, after I was sure the girl was taken care of in the best way possible on her journey back home, I had to leave. I left there with a heart too heavy to carry without dragging it on the ground as I limped (emotionally, spiritually) away from that place. It was the experience that made me reconcile with an old enemy, humbling myself in a manner that required me to ask help from someone I tried so hard to refuse in the past. It was an experience that made me feel as if the greatest gift I had to offer life was compassion. Despite the roads I’ve traveled, and the hardships I’ve encountered, I still have an almost self-destructive amount of compassion for others. If I could wish it away, I would, but it is something I’m supposed to carry I think.
I would have thought that after sharing the atrocities of “my last restort” I would have at least earned a few days respite from frightening homelessness, but no such luck.
I looked at the world around me. There was still something magical about it. I watched the way my daughters white gold hair waved as she poked at a poor millipede on the scorching driveway. I would have done anything to be close to her, even if it meant facing an old, persistent fear. From her I looked at my husband. I’d spent the last 2 years trying to run away from the past I had with him. Still haunted by the moments in time that I felt heavy with fear and sadness, I still found it hard to find any real trust in him. I still have a hard time sleeping sometimes. My mind wanders in my half dream state and I imagine that I will wake alone and that I will have to go searching to find him, half alive behind some random building. I don’t trust him yet, but nor do I fully trust Him either.
Lord, I’m working hard to do it. How many prayers did I feel were ignored back there. “Please let him be safe, please make this stop.” What I didn’t realize until much later is that they were answered, he didn’t die, and his incarceration did put a stop to his downward spiral and gave him time to figure out a few things necessary to become the person he‘s supposed to be. I know He’s got a funny way of doing things, but as the Word says, He is always right on time… maybe not my time, but on time nonetheless. This is no longer about me battling for some kind of menial custody agreement, nor is this about what I want over what I am supposed to do. This is about once and for all doing it right and doing it right by Him.
My walk with God has always been like a game of Sorry. I get a few spaces down and inevitably someone’s going to land on my space and I’m going to have to start all over again. But, when I finally realize that God transcends the rules of any game, I understand now that God’s version of Sorry, without rules, makes more sense. If someone lands on my space in an effort to knock me back down, I don’t have to start over again. We can both fit just fine in the same spot. Neither of us would have to lose and we can both win in the end. So, no matter who lands on my space, I’m not starting over this time. I’m just going to keep moving forward. So there, take that.
Well that’s where am, still homeless but I have faith it will work out. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that just a couple weeks ago I had a job and a home, a fridge full of food and no real drama. But I guess I’m just too hardheaded to seek out my path if I’m too comfortable. I’m learning a lot about humility. I didn’t leave the shelter with the attitude I went in with, “I don’t belong here with you guys because I was working recently and I had it together.” The past is where it belongs, in the past. What I have left is the future. I don’t know what it holds, but I can assure you, God and I are working it out with each passing moment.
