jodiebethinhercrystalroom

Please bear with me as I learn all this new technology.  My teenagers can only spare me so much of their valuable time to explain how to use new-fangled ‘quipment!

Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”  What a difficult goal this one sometimes is!  Here in my Crystal Room I ponder how often I allow myself to be bullied by my own inhibitions and ideas of what someone else might think.  And I consider myself one of the more open people I know!  But if I am truly a child of God with His Divine Spirit dwelling within me, what am I so afraid of?  I think the greatest gift we can give to the world is to be just who God created us to be.  How can we possibly fulfill our purpose if we don’t step up to the plate of our own identity?  Just a thought.

So, if, as I believe, writing is a huge part of my divine purpose, won’t I serve humanity better by embracing who I really am?  I think of the most natural people I have known–you know the ones–no pretensions.  They might swear in church if they spilled red cool-aid on the choir director’s white robe.  They are just who they are.  And what a gift they have been to me!  These are the souls towards which I am intrinsically drawn.  As I am writing, here, and in my novels, I believe my writing will benefit from concentrating less on what Sister Bertha-Better-Than-Me (thank you, Ray Stevens) is thinking about me because of what I’ve written, and more on truth.  Truth for myself as I understand it today, and truth for my characters.

On another topic, I have been walking this past week through what I have always called:  The Valley of the Shadow of Death.  This is not a new place for me.  I have been here many times.  Sometimes it feels it gets harder with each loss or possible loss.  But, apologies to King David, I think the semantics have done me a disservice.   Death and loss pile up until I am drowning beneath my own thoughts.  Sometimes I have to be reminded to take a deep breath, let it out, and on the next inhale, breathe in a different perspective.  I have decided from now on I am going to call this valley:  the valley of the shadow of transitions.  Death is forever.  Human souls are eternal.  Those I love do not die; they walk through a door I will one day walk through myself.  This door never closes.  Too much traffic, maybe.  But even though I can’t walk through that door myself, yet, I can certainly meet those on the other side at the threshold!  I am not losing.  They are not dying.  We are just going through life’s changes.  Now, there’s that new breath in and I find it much easier to breathe.  Now I have that peace that passes understanding.  I am getting it.  You probably already had it, but now we can share!

Does this mean I don’t weep or feel sorrow?  Remember that bit about being my true self?  I have been created a feeling, thinking, acting, spiritual being.  I need to fire on all cylinders to be me.  Jesus wept at the grave of his friend, Lazarus, and on the night before he was seized and put to death.  Think not?  I cannot imagine, “sweating as if it were great drops of his blood,”  not invoking weeping.  I’m sure there were many other times, too.  But I have learned that I can weep and still be at peace.  Imagine that!  I’ve experienced it lately and I still can’t believe it!  Feeling bereft because of change and the possibility of someone who makes my days so much brighter not being in that dearly loved vessel of clay where I can reach out and touch and hug makes me weep.  Knowing life is eternal–really spending time in silence with God and knowing it–that makes me weep also.  In gratitude and joy.  How wondrously we are made!  What phenomenal craftsmanship!  And each of us truly unique–no wonder we feel loss at the idea of losing such a one-of-a-kind miracle from our fleshly circle.   Well, that’s the first installment from my crystal room.  See you tomorrow.  And thanks for coming to visit!