Rejuvenate is a foster and adoptive moms support weekend. Here I wrote about my first experience there, in 2017. The next one in Pennsylvania will be in 2021, Lord willing. If you can make it, please do. Such a joy to meet some of you there; thank you for making it memorable.
I went with friends: JoElla, Rachel, Carrie – beautiful women.
With friends, I went needy: hoping to hear from Him.
With friends and needy, I went grieving: facing another transition before I am over the last, missing so many small people, and wondering if I am not giving my heart like I ought anymore because I am afraid.
With friends and needy and grieving, I went in isolation: long walks in the sunshine around the pond, sitting motionless up in the woods, falling asleep on a porch swing, forgetting to take care of the people I brought.
With friends and needy and grieving and isolated, I went savoring: sweet ice cream with toppings, a movie, startling colors and textures in the centerpiece bouquets, food I didn’t cook or clean up, cool hands kneading my back until it tingled, dozens of unexpected gifts, kind eyes looking into mine, stories and stories and stories.
With friends and needy and grieving and isolated and savoring, I went creative: the paintbrush and the hammer and the string making patterns I could follow, steady, tangible, sensory.
With friends and needy and grieving and isolated and savoring and creative, I went thirsty: wanting to know this journey is worth it, that others wrestle with it and survive, that some good end results from it occasionally.
With friends and needy and grieving and isolated and savoring and creative and thirsty, I went undone: losing control of my emotions in some really uncomfortable places, cracking open to the place where the hurt lives, leaking tears onto the shoulders of strangers.
With friends and needy and grieving and isolated and savoring and creative and thirsty and undone, I went surrounded: never apart from grace, held by the sisterhood, reading the precious words of faith they gave me, listening to the drip drip of healing oil in the heavenly realm we cannot see.
Things are no less real for being invisible.
Tears. Hugs.
❤❤❤
♥️
Teary eyed by reading beautiful words. Your heart feels deeply and for this you are loved.
This makes me cry. The Lord has been showing me that if I am going to keep giving myself to little needy people, I must be receiving care. Before I can truly receive, I must first be willing to face and acknowledge my own neediness. Your post is a beautiful, vulnerable example of receiving to give.
Beautiful!
Being with your needy, grieving self was a gift to me!
I loved meeting up with you. ❤️
I was unprepared for the sense of belonging I felt. I went home at a loss of how to explain to Sheldon how deeply this touched me. So thankful to experience this weekend!
A beautiful description of a wonderfully blessed weekend…