take another look

It's ready.

My new blog is called "take another look". Go ahead click on it.

It'll probably need to be tweaked a little here and there, but I like it.

Enjoy.

change is in the air

It’s time for change. I’ve thought for quite some time now that I wanted to start another blog. Restoring Love has been a “restorative” experience for me. I’ve written things here that I probably never would have spoken out loud to another person other than my husband and a very few select others. Expressions of disillusionment, regret, anger, joy, peace, and hope are found here. I’ve been as honest as I know how to be. It’s been a place to which few have been invited primarily due to my own comfort level of exposure. I thank all who have read and participated in this adventure with me.

I’m in a different place now. I want the freedom to invite one and all to a new blog that I‘ve been mulling over in my mind. As soon as it is up and running I’ll post the link on this page.

embrace doubt

Last week I heard Mike Williams say,

“Embracing doubt is more powerful than embracing belief. The freedom to doubt is the power to believe.”

About four years back I came to a place of letting go of most of my beliefs about God and religion. Because of the devastating nature of the circumstances I faced at the time, doubt just happened. It wasn‘t really a decision. I had no energy to consciously deal with the condition of my spirituality at the time.

Eventually the time came when I was ready to reconnect with God. Certainly I had never been disconnected but my perceptions were that I was far from God and He from me. My entire “belief system” had to be reconfigured. I gave myself the freedom to doubt many concepts that I had previously accepted as truths.

Mike also said,

“If we don’t embrace our doubts, we don’t truly believe anything. Walk into the arena of unbelief and embrace it.”

This is what I’ve done in the last two years... questioning anything and everything. I’ve been willing to embrace unbelief and allow myself to explore what it is that God has done and what it is that I really believe, separate from the threat of hell. The reason I accepted Christ as a teenager was to escape hell. I did not want to be separated from my friends for eternity.

Any relationship established under threat is not founded on love but fear. My foundational beliefs were based in fear. On top of that I attended churches that mixed law and grace for my entire Christian life. Because grace is nullified by the keeping of one law, I had only a concept of grace and love. Understanding the Gospel message, perhaps for the first time, has brought incredible freedom and peace to me.

no fear

Unasked Questions

“One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we were afraid to ask.” ~Thomas Merton

Most all of my life as a Christian I have had questions and have been afraid to ask them. Several years back I decided “NO MORE”! My life had to work if I was going to stick around. No longer was I going to “go along to get along”. If there was a way to live this life with God, I was going to find it. Otherwise… I don’t know what the otherwise would have been. I never got there.

Getting to the place of “giving up” was the best thing for me. I read this post by Stacey Robbins over at the Free Believers website and thought it described my journey so well. Take a few minutes and ponder her words. I respect her honesty.

for a new beginning

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue