There are so many things to list when we truly start looking at our lives through the eyes of God...
One of 4 reminders from God (just in the past 4 days) that He is behind my urgings to
oops, gotta just say check back this week for that info:
Last week
Ann reminded us that true communication comes from the desire to connect hearts, more than refining skills...and we were able to live that out this weekend...our sweet tweener loves the Lord, has asked Him into her heart years ago, but sensory disorder issues prevents her from truly enjoying our church's contemporary services...the crowds, the extra boost of speaker volume during praise and worship, and the changing of lights between dimming and brightening can cause anxious feelings to go off the charts. This Sunday, the anxiety was escalated further by Poppa's deep sighs as he tried to not fall asleep! But those sighs sound a lot like his angry sighs, and tweener was sure he was angry at her for having to cover her head to deal with all her sensory issues...and of course elevated hormones didn't help matters! I was helping with babies in the nursery, so when she found me after services were over and her voice shrilled "I need you to call somebody", I knew something was a miss!
It wasn't the phone call that was critical, but her need to connect
(hearts need to connect...) No one picked up the other end of the phone
(no connection = no heart available, at least in her mind - and she believed Poppa's heart was closed to her at the moment too). "Please come to the movie with us this afternoon!" her voice begged, inviting me on their father/daughter date;
(her heart desperate for connection and her hoping mine was available).
I was longing for another type of connection this afternoon - with the computer, with my website building plans, with creating art to use in the online,
(my heart longing for impersonal internet connection!) But hearts needed to be
connected, not
corrected (tho' her intensity was causing a less sweet version of tweenerhood to emerge - it was the Lord who kept a guard over our parental mouths to give her time to travel through the thorny path of the angst in the center of her soul). One simple word, 3 little letters, a sacrifice of 4 un-interrupted hours of treasured time - "Yes," I acquiesced - and relief washed through her being, as the guarantee was sealed: the burden of un-connectedness would no longer be hers alone to bear.
"Are you feeling anxious?" I asked her, already knowing she had just gone through a sensory maelstrom...
(Ahhh, heart connection brought her thorny journey to a quick conclusion!) "No! I don't know! Maybe! It was really loud and Poppa is mad at me!"
Which was news for Poppa! He declared, "No! Just the opposite! Why do you think I am mad at you?"
(Yes, 37 years of us learning how to make heart connections has honed his ability to reach towards her heart, and not defend his own)!
"You were sighing so much!"
(Senses trying to make order out of chaos had registered the deeper breathing of another, and assigned a sometimes true meaning...) Research shows that only 7 percent of communication is verbal; the other 93 percent is made up of body language, voice tone, facial expression, emotional states, personal "filters", and more - is it any wonder it is hard to communicate through all that potential clutter, unless we are determined to find the heart connection!??
And it turned out Poppa was having a struggle of his own, that had nothing to do with her - she merely "misread" the meaning
(and in moments her heart was re-connected with his - tho' from his perspective it was never lost to begin with!)
Giving thanks for:
Feb. 19: 3 gifts that were "Plan Bs" - the matinee, reading the Kindle at the restaurant, early tuck-in after "possum hunting in the garage" (that says it all, doesn't it?!?)
