Day of 17

Today has been a day of 17 – over and over again. It was the gate at every single flight I flew, the number on the jersey flashing over a screen of the Dodger Stadium going wild and even the room number I ended up with tonight; 917.

As I watched the batter take the plate waiting on a chicken sandwich at the steakhouse downstairs of my hotel, again seeing the number 17, I remembered the words of Dennis last November predicting that this year I would meet my twin soul. He told me that my ex husband was not my person and the one I’d met in LA was not either. Alice even instructed me to “shut the door and seal it closed.” But it’s very hard to let go of the love you feel for others when you don’t see a replacement in your future or even know that such a person could exist.

I don’t want to be selfish in my pursuits and I certainly don’t wish to write on this space a dialogue of my heartbreaks with essentially every man I’ve ever had in my life beginning with my first stepdad that left when I was a little child. However, I also don’t want to be fake. To deny my own inner thoughts is to suppress emotions that ultimately make me feel ill and at war with my own heart. Speaking of that, the scripture I started blogging about last night on my instagram has an opening line I didn’t see last night. In reading it images immediately entered into my mind as I was downstairs awaiting my order.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. – Galatians 8:7

To sow to please the flesh is to reap corruption? Does that include in love? The vision that flashed inside of my mind was first of D and then of the man who’s let my son stay with him over the past 2 weeks. What I feel in my intuition is deception that I have no reason to feel towards someone who’s helped me so much. And to be honest I’ve guilted myself for this feeling and even convinced myself that I’m the one with a problem because I don’t trust men. I mean, it’s understandable because I’ve literally never had one show me true love that isn’t wrapped around motive. My step dads left with the marriage to my mother and both of them made these cuts final when a new woman demanded they do so. The man seems to be drawn to love of the flesh first and foremost and will even deceive, betray and abandon his own child in order to get that body love from the woman who’s pleasing his flesh. I saw the same with my ex-husband. I couldn’t have done any better to show him true love after his brain accident. To lay my life down for another human and focus only on his life and his healing was the most amazing act I’ve ever witnessed in myself. And to be honest, I knew it wasn’t me that was in the drivers seat at all – this was a spiritual love; God’s agape love that he was pouring into me and I was pouring out into another. But when temptation came into his life as his brother took him to strip clubs and he found porn sites as his pastime in the house, he then began acting as an enemy to me. He literally tried to destroy my life and only seemed focused on how many women he would have sex with after he moved out. His words were honest in making sure I knew of this. But why? What is in a man that makes him hate the true love (agape) when the physical love between a man and a woman is lacking. I wasn’t giving him sex and therefore I was worthless in his eyes. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Last Fall when I told D that I didn’t want to see him anymore I experienced my first dose of vulnerability and panic in his voice. I could sense it easily when he called back stuttering on his own words. “Well, the sex has value. It’s very valuable,” he told me before unfolding his side of a debate to try to convince me that I should be satisfied with our strange situation. It hurts as a woman to admit to myself that I’ve never truly known a man’s love outside of this parable. But the ultimate wound I carry is that of my son’s departure from my life. He didn’t leave because of a woman or sex but maybe in a way that was part of his decision. I was a strict mom that made him follow a curfew and never gave him a lot of space. I would imagine that was a little embarrassing to a teenage boy who was trying to impress girls and have fun outside of his schooling.

I don’t want to make the same mistake again as he’s back in my life and here with me in California. I really want him to live and I want him to know that I love him and to feel that I trust him. Likewise, I don’t want to hurt anymore or walk in bitterness of all the woes that have come upon me at the hands of a man. This abandonment wound I carry and the self-worth issue tied to feeling like I’m always only as valuable as the sex, (as D so ineloquently put it), creates a layer of darkness around my thoughts in how I view love and relationships.

Is it possible to have both? Can I have a man in my life who loves me fully and completely? Is there a man God made just for me who will see me as precious as a Father sees a daughter and as beautiful and desirable as a husband sees his bride? Can God’s agape love be the driving force of a man who walks by the spirit and all the rest seen as icing on the cake? To appreciate sex as a gift given to the man and woman as a pleasurable expression of the love they have inside is a type of dreamlike idea that I’ve never seen or witnessed. But I hope it exists.

My son loves me. I felt it tonight when I was talking to him on the phone as I walked the river downtown Spokane. He sent me a picture of a rocket in the sky and I confessed I was lost trying to get back to my hotel at dusk. “Mom, don’t do that. Don’t go walking in these cities alone. Find your way and call me right back so I know you’re OK,” he ordered as a protector over me. It felt good. Not the being the lost part. But the authenticity of concern in his voice is something I’ve missed so badly since he went away 6 years ago to live with his father. To be loved like that, where a person feels a heart connection that prompts oversight of your being is a wish I would imagine every woman has somewhere inside of her.

Tomorrow I fly home and for the first time ever, I have no desire to see LA with a hope that D will call and come visit me. Rather, I want to see God’s miracles unfolding in my life with my son now there. I have these odd little dreams of him getting back on the horse with inspiration to be an athlete again. Maybe he could play pro baseball or basketball or even be a type of trainer. I don’t know if he even has that desire but I have a hunch it’s still there. After all, his first word was ball.

What if the story I’ve been trying to write for years as I see prophecy and hope only in the spaces of consciousness without physical evidence of its existence, is about him? What if he is going to be someone someday that inspires millions of young men who walk in his shoes and will someday in the future too? What if he’s the boy chosen by God to go through hell and come out of it all on the other side as a testimony of the Sovereignty and miracles sent down by the Father of Lights?

I pray for God’s best to be the substance of this hope that my eyes will one day soon see.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the power of prayer as a weapon that you’ve gifted me to come before you and ask for your hand to author the painful parts of my life. Thank you for the miracle of Josh coming to California in the beginning of June. Thank you for the people who’ve opened their hearts and their homes to let us stay. Thank you for the shimmer of hope I have today in the number 17 as I believe you’re showing me that this is where you’re working right now in my path. Lord, you know everything. You know our financial situation and that he needs work, a home, a reliable car, friends and angels of inspiration in the flesh to open doors and motivate him to walk in the direction of the path you have lit for his good and your Glory. Your word says you are the author and finisher of our faith and our stories and so tonight I ask you to give me discernment by YOUR spirit to know your plan and where we should live. I ask you to make it clear to me and lead me in love not anxiety. I ask you to make a miracle plot twist in all things as you can change our entire worlds in one single moment. I ask for redemption and abundance in love, career, faith and the testimony I seek to write and share here and now. I ask you for your best and I thank you Lord that you’re here and you hear me tonight.

In Jesus Name,

Amen