I really was planning on writing about that tonight. But doing so would have required me to upload pictures onto my computer, and instead of doing that, I got involved in all kinds of other shenanigans tonight (none of which included uploading photos), BUT I'm uploading them now, and in roughly 7 hours, I will have pictures on my computer. (Not quite 7 hours, but it might as well be.)
So instead of NYC, you're getting FEAR! Aren't you excited?
I know. I'm exciting like that.
So here's what's on my heart tonight....
Fear is strange.
It has a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it, and wrecking everything that you thought to be true of your life.
We expect fear to come after a shooting or a natural disaster, but sometimes the fear likes to hold off and store itself up so it can attack when you least expect it.
I have written about fear many times on this blog. If we're going to be honest, it's something we all battle.
But yesterday, it came crashing back to me......A made up reality that I started to play out in my mind.
See, I have the honor of serving on the Board of Directors for Hope Link. Hope Link is a non-profit organization that provides support to families who have children with rare, serious, or undiagnosed conditions. These moms have the heaviest burden I have ever watched anyone carry.
Last night I sat in on one of their meetings. I have been to numerous. This was not the 1st. But there were at least 4 mommas in the room who have buried children. It's unfathomable.
And I heard them talk about how it never gets easier, and how it only gets different.
It's a walk that you would never wish on anyone, and they're living it. Our worst fears realized....these women are living it.
This week I have also had so many things come up about BRCA 1 and 2. {Insert Angelina Jolie.....and quit giving her a hard time because I don't think you would know what you would do until it became a reality for you.} BRCA 1 and 2 are the breast cancer genes. My mom carries both of them. She went to the doctor for her yearly check up and was once again deemed cancer free. It's been 5 years. I am so grateful.
But everyone wants my sister and I to be tested. And rightfully so. It's knowledge that I believe I need to have. But it's scary. And part of me doesn't want to know.
And then my friend came down from Kansas. She carries both genes. We talked about it all night.
One of the consultants on my Scentsy team died last week from cancer. She had 2 girls.
And the mind runs.
Does your mind do that? One thought leds to the next which leds to the next, and before you know it, you're on a runaway train headed straight for a cliff?
Speaking of minds that run, that reminds me of the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.
(I was thinking about our minds and at the beginning of this post I was thinking about NYC, where I saw Wicked for the 1st time......thus.....The Scarecrow!) Just in case, you wanted to know how I got there {runaway train}.
You know that song he sings about all the things he would do if he only had a brain? I looked up the lyrics....
(Scarecrow)
I could wile away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain
I'd unravel any riddle
For any individ'le
In trouble or in pain
(Dorothy)
With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain
(Scarecrow)
Oh, I would tell you why
The ocean's near the shore
I could think of things I never thunk before
And then I'd sit and think some more
I would not be just a nuffin'
My head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain
I would dance and be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain
I was lying in bed last night thinking about that silly scarecrow and how he so desperately wanted a brain when on most days I wish I could give mine away. It's what takes me down those runaway train tracks and straight into fear.
The Scarecrow says that he "would dance and be merry" if he only had a brain. But it seems to me that my brain is what often keeps me from being merry. It starts to think about things and reality and then it creates a nonreality that I start to think is reality, and things usually go downhill from there. The snowball you could call it (and not the good Dave Ramsey, debt smashing kind of snowball), the kind of snowball that takes one idea and turns it into many and rolls and rolls and rolls and gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
I sort of let fear sneak in on me last night somehow like that crazy snowball rolling down the hill gaining momentum with every turn. But I learned something last night that I do not want to ever forget.
When I was sitting in a circle with so many moms who had lost children, I heard one of my dear friends say that losing a child makes you "yearn for heaven." And I watched as they nodded their heads just like I would in church when the pastor says something really good and I want to say amen, but I don't want people to think I'm crazy. It was serious nodding. Yes, yearning for heaven is what we do.
Why do we live so consumed with this world, that we allow fear to overcome us so much so that we forget that the worst that can happen to us is that someone would threaten us with heaven?
In our humanly sin filled minds, we have a desire to stay on this earth because it is what we know. But I know people who yearn for heaven, because what they know and love and carried and birthed and loved is there and not here.
So tonight I'm praying for a heart that yearns for Heaven. I want a heart that could take or leave this earth. Just give me heaven.
I used to actually be afraid of heaven. And sometimes if I let my mind wander, I can end up down that road again. I don't understand what eternity looks like. I can't make it makes sense in my mind, so because I don't understand it, I fear it.
That is the craziest thing you have probably ever heard. But it's the truth.
But the rest of the truth is that the more I have gotten to know the Lord that I call God, the more my fears have learned to wash themselves away. The Prince of Peace really does come with peace. It's a package deal.
And really, when it comes to my worst fears, what's the worst they can do? As Vince Gill would say, "Threaten me with heaven....that's all they can do."
Until then, I am going to do my best to lessen my love for this world, and increase my love for Christ, so that I too can yearn for Heaven.
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