I keep listening to this song. It streams from these speakers and balms this heart which is caught in a bittersweet wave. Something has been ending for a long time, and something new is beginning and I both love it and grieve it.

This isn't about a move.

This is about my whole life.... all of it... the whole slew of hurt and pain that started when I was 17. This July 24th marks the 14 year anniversary of when I lost my baby. I am healed from that. It doesn't hurt like it did for years, but losing a child is not something that one ever forgets. You don't "get over it," but you learn to live despite the loss and you keep going... keep living...

This past year and a half has been a series of just begging, begging, begging to make it through each day. Never sure of what pain or fatigue awaits me when I open these eyes every morning. I went to sleep one night strong, independent, happy and woke up as some kind of half-self with pain and a state of tired that I have never recovered from. If anything it is getting worse. This condition/disease/alien that has taken over my body.

If fibromylagia has any positive side to it, then for me it would be that having such a debilitating condition has left me all the more dependent on God and less dependent on people or circumstances. I have lost friend after friend as my limitations prevent me from making plans, keeping plans, and actually living amongst the craziness of the world. I feel sheltered. I feel like it has been so long since I have had a normal day, a day without repercussion, a day without the narcissism of my health problems getting in the way. I have become someone else without realizing it. Day by day by day has led to this moment, these tears slipping onto the keyboard are not about a move. No, they are the long overdue salt of sorrow.

I feel sorrow.

sor·row/ˈsärō/
Verb: Feel or display deep distress.
Noun: A feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others.

I am mourning the end of one life and the beginning of another. I'm finally ready to accept it. To accept who I am, to love who I am NOW. I am ready to stop living in the past. To stop thinking of nannying as the definition of who I am. To stop thinking back on the Philippines, the Girl Scout trips, the life change retreat, leadership, Vision... ALL of it. I am letting it go.

In 2007 God asked me to burn my journals. The 80 something journals I had been keeping since I was 13 years old. I obliged. One night me and a few dear friends sat in a backyard and threw journal after journal into the flames. I felt free after that. Free from baggage. Free from the girl I had been. As God had whispered to my heart in prayer "I don't keep a record of your wrongs, so why do you?" I let it all go. I never looked back.

I feel that now. I have written this blog as a way to let those who cared enough to read it be educated about fibromyalgia. What I realize now is that no words will ever be able to accurately convey the stumble and darkness of getting any kind of health issue that transforms everything about one's way of living. I think back to the darkest months and wonder how on earth I made it through. I wanted to give up so many times. I cried more then I ever have in my life. I resisted the rest my body begged for. I tried to stay strong. I tried to stay the same.

Now I know that I never knew real strength until this time of my life. I never knew the demands that would be placed on me by my own vessel. I just kept waking up and getting through each day. Every tantrum, every fear, every guilty breakdown has led me to this moment. The children entrusted to me once upon a time are now growing up. There are 4 beautiful teenage girls standing in place of those silly young girls they once were. I see Jesus working in their lives. I see how He is using one of them to impact her family and how because of her love for Him, her Grandfather and brother are coming to church with us tonight. I see the other kids thriving. Hear of them doing well in school, taking swimming lessons, having piano recitals. I watch as Mylie becomes a compassionate, loving child and I weep.

I weep with joy because Lord, you amaze me. You dazzle me. I feel like the luckiest woman on the planet to have lived this life. To have been privy to the wonder of it all. To see, to hear, to entertain all of the senses as you've led these glorious children into the separate journeys they will walk on. I am so very lucky and I have no container to put all of this joy into.

I have lived. I write as if life is ending. As if I am 98 years old about to fall into the sweet slumber of death, and I realize that is because a part of me DOES feel that way. I have felt robbed. I have screamed and wailed and cried and asked why this had to happen to me at 29 years old..... and now at the still young age of 31, I understand that although I have lost out on so much due to this weak body, I have never once been robbed when it comes to feeling. To enjoying the sweetness of life. If anything I have learned to appreciate it that much more, because IT IS fleeting and the people we love may not always be with us. We may have to fall behind and that's okay. It's just fine. No one can take away what my life has been. For every tear I've cried, there have been that much more smiles and laughter. Through illness the "trash" of my life has been weeded out and I am still standing.

This move is what Georgia was supposed to be back at 22 years old. This is my new beginning. This is my next chapter.

I will miss my family here in California, my real friends- especially the ones I grew up with and the ones I have the most authentic fellowship with, and I will miss the "kids" most of all. I grieve the end just as much as I welcome the beginning, all the while having peace as an anchor. For the people and places I have loved will stay with me for all time... tucked neatly in my heart, and that is enough. In fact it is more then I could ever ask for.


Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.


I let go of all of the yesterdays... good, bad, in-between. Safe as memories. I am free to fly now.