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Maya Angelou ~ “There’s no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”

Ernest Hemingway ~ “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Before I start, I must say thank you to my friend the Valiant Sheep because a phrase he said to me this evening has helped me write tonight. So here goes…!

Maya Angelou is one of my favourite book writers and has been able to capture my heart many a times in her books and he writings. And like her, there are many other writers, like Malorie Blackman, Alan Gibbons and Jane Austen, and Jesus… I find most inspirational, especially those who have trudged through life, pain and glory to experience in every sense of the word “LIFE”, and have lived to tell the tale in dancing letters on the pages of books that we read. And Maya Angelou summed it up best in her quote that “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you…” For Real! These are true words and right now I’m experiencing that. And sometimes its felt like there’s nothing to write so as Ernest Hemingway said it best, I’m gonna bleed…

So today, I know it’s been a while since my last post and there have been a million and one things buzzing through my brain and my head that every-time I’ve come to write, I’ve had writers block and the blank page that sat before me became my intimidating mountain suddenly – Huh, how can it happen to a talkative like me? 😉 well, in addition to other things it has been a growing frustration as there have been so many ideas and so many things I’d love to do and write and the endless possibilities of doing many things have been endless but between me and my dream just appears to be this wall and road block. It’s frustrating.

I’m growing, yes. Like many of us are. Yet I feel stagnant like still life. Recently, I completed a course and since then it’s been a “now what?” situation. I also completed a bible reading marathon with my young people successfully in less than 72 hours (which was awesome and beautiful by the way! So many people came to help out and for that I am eternally grateful! There are amazing testimonials surrounding it… maybe that will be another post) and after that it was  a “now what?” situation.

I went to many other events that were amazing and was set on fire in my heart with a passion for life and people and souls and to keep going and then I met another “Now what?” situation. By the end of all this, though I had been filled and was left to a degree, satisfied, it was only temporary as I met a huge challenge. My health – again! And also, I tried and have been trying to figure out where I was headed next. Money was and probably still is an issue and although I’m not worried and the Lord has amazingly provided for me week to week, I’ve been fighting feelings of being stuck, trapped, or just waltzing along feeling lazy and then condemned, then fighting back, then keeping positive and fighting to remain focused and “fighting the good fight of faith” then, struggling with physical pain and false accusations… the list goes on and on etc., it’s brought me to my knees in prayer to question what is it? And what do I need to do to just break out on the next level or chapter of my life? Because I’m neither in the last season and not properly landed in the new…

Which way to go God?

Even with writing or music or with the many other talents I have, what the heaven does Heaven want me to do with all the talents at this time? And what does he want me to use? And why do I feel so average? Why so distant? And yet You (God) talk to me every day?!  Yup. This is just a glimpse of the thousand and one questions buffeting my thoughts but I fight them by pressing and forging ahead and taking each day as it comes, just believing and working hard. But guess what? Aside from the blood, sweat and tears, I’m exhausted. I’m tired. Yes, I sound like a moaner but I know that I’m strong and my Maker is my strength , but I got to let this out and when the battle is constant, and it feels like you’re not getting anywhere, you start to quiver or shake (I’m not shaking I’m just tired…just to clarify)

Then I feel the word, “Wait”. Well, what does that mean for me in this instance? Then the imagery of a waiter in a restaurant comes to me. I understand. While I’m waiting for answers and breakthroughs, I should serve even if it’s giving me peanuts. And whilst I’m serving, “Wait” on the Lord and serve others. But right now, everything has been at a bit of a standstill because I’ve been recovering from a bout of health challenges…

Ah well, the Lord is my strength! As you know by now, I keeps it real!

What else happened today? Oh yes! Also, the Lord kept bringing by friend’s article to me today so I decided to re-ready his post again today and two phrases this time jumped off the page at me (not literally but you get what I mean and every time I read this article I always find something new…it’s good to re-read stuff) which obviously I’d seen before but not like the way the Lord kept ministering (showing and using it to speak) to me on them today… the phrases “Fit for Him” (which he highlighted btw) and “at last” (highlighted also)… (you should check it out ‘cause the article is amazing! I recommend it: http://wwwvaliantsheep.com/2012/10/she-will-come.html )

waiting…serving…waiting…serving…

“Fit for him…This at last is bone of my bones
        and flesh of my flesh;” ~Gen 2:18-24

What hit me about the phrases was the sense of satisfaction that came with them that I hadn’t read or felt before when reading this particular verse. Then in addition to this, it felt really strange because today, all he’s been doing other than that verse and the article is he’s been bringing old skool love songs and memories and thoughts to me that I haven’t even thought or heard of for a very long time. I was laughing, crying, and singing along loudly (yes I is proud!) and even just at one point, just quiet and in daydream land, aside from sleeping and pain management (thank God for morphine tablets…hate them but they working…)! I really recommend you read the article so you understand what I’m talking about…and there are others! (Oh yes my dear friend, shout out to the Valiant Sheep!)

Here’s a like to one of the songs that have been in my head all day…

Look…here’s the deal. There’s been this building and growing frustration for a manifestation of something that writing, or working doesn’t seem to be hitting the mark and it just seems like a block…so I decided to just rest in Him (especially during these last two weeks of palaver…) – The Lord that is- just thinking about him, praying, reading (well not much of that but more listening) and just letting him love me. Obviously. But the more I rest, the more this growing frustration keeps kicking… a just-want-to-break-out-and-breakthrough kinda thing? Like, you know something’s coming but you don’t know how to position yourself or what you need to do exactly to connect or access what it is and you feel it’s something big and every time it’s like…Gosh why am I still here??

And as I write, I’m reminded of what the Lord said to me last week using a famous quote from one writer who wrote in James 1:2-4 “count it all Joy…whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance and patience. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything…” Then I understood, and this time this word has been rather comforting to me rather than a rebuke or a telling off for those who don’t understand what rebuke means. So therefore, whilst I wait, I being transformed from the Caterpillar I once was, to the cocoon I’m now in where the growing pains and growing frustrations of life will lead me to the point, where like an eagle in a chicken’s pen I break out and fly like the butterfly I was born and supposed to be. Till then, I will wait and when the time to tell my story arrives, it will be told in all its fullness, purity lacking nothing so that he that has an ear can hear what my Spirit is saying…

Thanks for watching me bleed…now to mop up the mess! Now, where is that mop? Oh and where to start…? Cinderella…

As ever, Keeping it Real,

Peace, The Elected Lady xx