patience...not my forté...
and, of course, since it is one
of the "fruits of the spirit"...
always a big part of God's plan...
waiting...
calmly... joyfully... expectantly...
knowing when to be active...and how...
and when to cease activity... and "rest"....
in the last week or two...
I'm being led to be calm... to trust...
to rest in the Lord...
and wait...
I'm being told that...
"delay...is NOT denial.."
but rather an opportunity for "needed" work...
to be done...in me, or possibly others...
so I must wait...
for the renewal of my spirit...
for the withered, burned-out places...
to begin to bloom again...
with new life... but in a different form than before...
until rather recently...
I had always been so afraid...
very insecure in my "ability to be liked or loved"...
to the point of needing to grasp tightly to anyone I loved...
for fear of loosing them...
of course... this kind of behavior almost always
has the opposite effect on the person involved...
grasping, needy smothering will chase away anyone...
who is not that needy themselves...
after accepting that I was "open for possibilities" last November...
all my insecurities came out...
fear of loss, grasping, needy, smothering...
I had to deal with them all... and let them go...
truly surrender control of my life...
friends, health, work, money, hopes, dreams...
ALL... surrendered to Him...
before... that much loss of control would have made me
like a shaken-up soda...
I would have exploded in some way...
binge eating... deep depression... binge shopping...
anything ... that would fill the emptiness ...
assuage the deep sense of loss...
distract me from my deep sorrow...
and anyone I loved, would have been inundated...
with gifts... attention... anything...
to make me feel connected to someone...
that was my pattern... and it never worked...
yesterday, I had lunch with a "long-time" friend...
[at my age, I don't use the term "old" to refer to anyone...
even in such innocuous terms as "an old friend"...]
we've known each other nearly 40 years...
we went to music school together...
are "sisters" in Mu Phi Epsilon,
a national music fraternity...
and I played for her wedding...
we've worked together as musicians innumerable times...
taught school in the same district at the same time ...
and got "fed up" and retired about the same time...
if we would meet at the market, we'd talk for hours...
and had been trying to " do lunch" for a while...
so we finally just set a time and did it...
during our 3+ hour visit, we discussed her kids...
her health, the difficulties of weight loss, choirs, conductors,
mutual acquaintances... who had died, who was sick...
her plans for the summer, house remodeling projects...
contractors, singers, churches, the effects of hormones
on the post-menopausal voice, my vocal issues...
and the possibility of me ...
taking a couple of diagnostic voice lessons from her...
we also discussed the major changes in my life,
segued into from a discussion of my weight loss and improved health...
as we got into my failure at relationships,
which she had seen firsthand...several times...
she observed, in her honest and direct manner,
"you've always glommed-on to people...
and smothered them with yourself..."
well, of course, she's right...
she was right 40 years ago when she told me the same thing...
I couldn't deal with it then...
a bunch of failed relationships later...
she's still right...
or, was right...
because that part of me is gone now...
not even someone as insightful as my friend...
would be able to know from such a brief encounter...
that I HAVE changed...
I guess no one, including me, will really know...
that I am different... and how much different...
until I have another chance to become close to someone...
and can trust enough to let them be...
to not fear loss...to not be needy or grasping...
so I guess that this... is what this waiting is all about...
for rough edges to be smoothed...
organically... naturally...
without stress...
to "let" the transformation come
to its full completion...
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