Lightness

Last week I wrote about how my family was feeling under spiritual attack.  We walked through our home and took turns praying over the various spaces of our home.  Spiritually, it felt like we were sweeping out the cobwebs of despair.  It seemed discouragement was lurking in corners we hadn't yet uncovered, and only the name of Jesus could clean out the crevices unseen to us.

Yes, there is something mightily creepy about all this.  I'm not denying the "creep factor" here at all.  It should be creepy.  Satan is real, and as bad as it gets.  The fact that he exists at all should render a constant creepster-hair standing on the back of all our necks.  Yikes, right?

I might just avoid the subject all together if it didn't effect me...but it does, and it will, and there is an answer.  And, so avoidance is not only impossible, it's futile.  So, we fought back.  We prayed.  We continue to pray.  I can have nights riddled with nightmares that have no founding except the evil that would love to keep me up worried at night, doubting the power of my God.  Then, my husband speaks the name of Jesus over me, or I pray aloud and ask for peace.  And peace comes, peace is available, peace is always there right in the midst of the cloudy chaos that surrounds me.

Life is a series of steps through light and dark.

Here's the truth, right after we gathered and paraded around our apartment praying like southern preachers preparing for a revival...a burden was lifted, and a lightness entered our home.  Personally, I was so amped up that I kinda felt like a kid who just walked off the bus from church camp.  God was real, and present, and the power of the Holy Spirit was part of the Pardy home.

Guys, I'm not really into "hyper-religion" or "super-spiritual" or "pentecostal apocalypse" happening around me all the time.  I don't speak in tongues or heal people.  I tell the truth.  I'm normal (even a little boring) and honest.  That's it.

So, believe me like you'd listen to your best friend telling you about the latest sale at Nordstrom when I say this:  Prayer has power.

I've loved Jesus for a long time.  I've been talking to Him for years now, and I still don't exactly totally absolutely without-a-doubt completely understand how prayer works.  I know God hears me.  I know He can relate and speak back to me.  I know He cares.  I know He interacts and intercepts and interrupts me when I need it, regardless of what I think I need.  I know prayer can change feelings and futures.

That's enough for me to know to get on my knees and keep being honest with God about all my thoughts and questions and desires and fears.  That's more than enough.

And, this new lightness in the Pardy home...well, it's hard to describe.  "On paper" nothing has changed since last week, really.  Daphne is feeling better (thank you, Lord) but, a job is still on its way and not in our grasp, we still have the same struggles as last week.  So, it goes without saying that technically we should be feeling just as discouraged as ever.  But, we're not.

There's a new lightness among us.  There's a divine presence of protection that we're constantly interacting with.  It's okay if this post weirds you out a bit.  It's also okay if you go home and pray aloud over your furniture and invite Christ to be part of your literal, tangible, everyday life.

Tomorrow, I'll move beyond furniture and share with you how the prayers of people are making a difference.  This lightness is extending far beyond the Pardy home...and I hope it finds you today.

Rx: Humility

Take a dose of humility and call me in the morning

The next two weeks after my klutzy-yet-dramatic fall down the stairs were sheer misery.  Evidently, I had been taking things such as sitting, standing, laying down, walking, and bending down completely for granted.  I had bruised my lower back/hip so deeply that the ugly colors of a usual bruise didn't even surface until about 9 days after my fall.  Crazy!  I didn't even know you could bruise yourself like that?!


It didn't help that I have this weird quirk in my physiological make-up that renders pain killers nearly useless.  I don't know what makes me that way, but my mother is the same way, so there must be something in our gene pool (I'm guessing X-Men related) that makes it so the usual dose has no effect on my pain.  I tried to explain this to multiple ER doctors in between my screams, but (as I've encountered in the past) most physicians think I am just faking it or overly dramatic, or wanting extra drugs.  Whatever, it's real.  Just ask the OB-GYN who nearly started in on my c-section before I objected with an "UM, I CAN FEEL THAT!" yelp to his very surprised "Really?!"expression.  True story.

All that to say, the pain killers helped me sleep, but that's about it.  My nerves were having to relearn how to function in my back muscles, so a constant Charley-horse contraction of muscle spasms kept me shrieking throughout the day and night.  It was so frustrating for me and completely annoying to everyone else, I know.  I understand it's no fun being around someone who is repeatedly wincing and grimacing and needing to have you please get her another blanket or drink or remote or pillow or whatever.  I hated being incapacitated.  Hated.

As brutal as my pain was, though, my husband was suffering as well (my words, not his).  He took on full-time super-Dad duty, as well as waiting on me hand and foot.  He is not a complainer by nature, but I could tell it was all taking its toll on him.  How couldn't it?  We were both beyond frustrated.  Here we were, new home, new city, new everything...and I'm couch-ridden for two weeks (and for how long, we didn't know at the time.)

A cozy companion while I was couch-ridden

The thing with healing a muscle is (as I learned) that you can't heal a muscle by sitting still.  After a few days, the only way the muscle will start to heal is if you use it.  This meant a whole lot of pain and determination on my part, and I was grateful that my stubborn streak could finally be used for good and not evil!  Slowly, slowly, after a couple weeks of wincing at nearly any movement, I started to be able to move without pain.  It was such a weird sensation to feel changes day-to-day in my healing.

It's been almost 4 weeks now, and I'm practically fully recovered.  I still have a bruise and stiffness, and it will be a while before I touch my toes again...but, I can walk and drive and even pick my girls up. Hallelujah!  If you met me today, you'd never know I was completely debilitated a matter of weeks ago.  GOD HEALS.  Also, God made our bodies HEALABLE.  That's crazy.

I'm learning a LOT of things through these challenging first weeks of our move here.  In the wee hours of the morning, when I was weary from the frustrations of the day and propped up by pillows to sleep sitting up (which I did for over two weeks) I would just pray and nag God with my discontent and desires.  These are the moments I'm not trying at all.  I'm not trying to be kind or cool or even myself.  I'm just there, whispering gratitude that's mottled with complaints.  No apprehension or pretense.  Just Emily and Jesus, in the stillness.

I do stupid things ALL THE TIME with no intention or effort behind them at all.  I had no reason for falling down the stairs - it was just one of those freak accidents that suddenly changed the course of our lives for a short while.  My actions have repercussions.  Sometimes I see them and they effect me deeply.  Sometimes they go completely unnoticed.  But, they matter, and I matter, and Jesus sees them and uses them and no matter what - we are healable beings in His eyes, regardless of our stupid actions.

I don't need to DO anything for Him to heal me or use me.  I want to control life so badly - which is ironic, because when I do try and take the reigns, I'm so bad at it!  I'm not in control here.  I can't be. I don't truly even want to be.  And when I'm stopped (albeit, against my will) and literally left helpless in order to regain perspective on who exactly has the reigns in this here life of mine, I can't deny the experience.

Needing help is humbling.  It's uncomfortable for most of us, and that's just ridiculous, because when I pause for a minute and take a step back, I realize that I constantly live in a state of needing help.  How can something be so uncomfortable if I'm in a constant state of it?  Constant.  I'm never going to not need Jesus.  Do you hear that?  Do you feel that?

Pain killers come and go.  Nerves reattach.  Muscles regrow.  Miraculous healing is present in my very being, my actual person, and yet - this world offers my soul no hope for completion.  Only Jesus fills the constant void I have for trying.  Trying anything.  Trying at all.  

Only.  Jesus.

So, if there's a few morals to this story at the end of it all (or is this just the beginning, sometimes I lose track?) I'd say this:  We all have wounds that need healing.  Sometimes these wounds are ugly right away, and sometimes they take a long time to surface.  Sometimes no one even sees them.  But, they can be healed.  We are healable beings, inside and out.

Watch your step, you might be closer to healing than you ever thought possible.

Sight Unseen

One takes many risks when deciding to pick up and move across the country.  Sure, there's the cost, the inconvenience, and even the courage you have to muster in order to conquer the distance.  But, in our case, there was an additional mystery added to our venture.  We had never seen the apartment we were about to move our lives into.

Now, I've moved into a new space "sight unseen" before; but, that was way back before a husband or children were in the picture.  I figured I could just about get by living anywhere, and indeed I did.  But, this was a whole new ballgame.

When the final decision was made that, yes, indeed, we were officially moving to Nashville.  I started scouring the internet in search of our next home.  I had limited criteria, "safety" and "location" being at the foremost of my priorities.  Certainly, "cost" was a MAJOR factor as we anticipated the probability of moving without a job in place.  But, the nice thing was that when you live in California, just about anywhere is going to be cheaper than your used to, so that was a huge bonus in our favor.

I clumsily bounced around various websites, filtering out the scary ones and weeding through the unattainables.  Still, I wasn't really finding anything that seemed to fit our needs.  Then, a friend of mine in Nashville emailed me a very casual "maybe check out this place" as a friend of a friend of ours lived there years ago.  The thing was - there was no website, no photos, no nothing to go on what this apartment complex actually looked like from 2,000 miles away.

It was a Friday when I called their leasing office.  Against all odds (and the manager actually told me, they never have openings for their 2 bedrooms) there was an opening in mid-June.  On Sunday, I emailed our application.  On Monday morning we got a call that we got the apartment.  Done deal.  Whoa.  What had I just gotten us into???? 

This is when it started to really sink in that we were going to move.  We had a new home waiting for us.  We just didn't know what it looked like.

Fortunately, I was able to have my sister-in-law and my friend drive-by the complex and scope it out a bit.  It appeared well taken care of, and nothing scary on the outside.  I got a few photos sent to me of the premises and even our new front door.  But still, the inside was a mystery!

So...you can only imagine my anxiety, my hope, and my relief when we pulled up and I saw a clean, stable, brick building before me.  The grass was mowed, the cars in the lot were normal (nothing up on cinder blocks, thank goodness) and a few nice big trees dotted the lawn in front of our new home.  The time had come....ENTER!

Tune in tomorrow for a look INSIDE!  :)