And Then What Happened? Part 2--When I Know It Isn't Just About Me

A few blogs ago I started to explain the interim of "I'm closing my blog" to "Guess what! I didn't." Then life got a bit busy...which is really just a trying-to-not-look-like-a-dork way of saying I was looking for words. I was trying to sort through it in my brain and put it in a reasonable sequence and explain things so they make sense. The fact is, not all things in life fit into a reasonably sequence. Sometimes life is a scatter shot, and sometimes, if you haven't been there, no explaining will make sense, and if you have been there, you don't need me to explain.

Even with this blog, I am writing this AFTER the blog is done. The way I started it is not the way it went, but a lot of my life is like that, and I trust God will take it where it needs to go to speak to the folks who need to hear it. He is just groovy like that.

But...about that interim space...

Honestly, when I said I was planning to close the blog, it wasn't so folks would come to the rescue. Honestly, I was at a mental place where I didn't expect anyone to care. The reason I didn't just close it is because the Lord spoke clearly to my spirit:

"You cannot just close it. There are people who find a place there, and if you just close it, it only feeds the sense of abandonment and rejection. You have to give them a warning, and you have to make sure they understand it is about where YOU are in your struggle."

I don't know about you, but I've been in places where non-personal things were hugely personal. I remember one day after my dad had died I went to buy makeup. I've used the same brand, same everything since high school, so fifteen or so years at the time.

They had quit making it.

Now, I know it is only makeup. Seriously. It is ONLY makeup, but at that moment, it felt like a punch in the stomach, and although this large makeup company has no clue who Jerri Kelley Phillips is, it felt like a personal hit. Except, I didn't feel personally dumped or dismissed by the makeup company.

I felt dismissed by God.

I mean, really? How hard was this? I had just gone through a hard end of illness time with my dad. He had died. My marriage was rocky, and how hard is it for God to provide my makeup?! It is JUST makeup! How hard would it be for God to simply make sure they made it long enough to get me through this?!

Some of you are staring at your screen as though you just read a lost chapter from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Some of you are laughing because you've had that moment. Some of you are misty-eyed because, "Thank God someone gets it!"

Yep.

Sometimes the little things are not little. Sometimes the little things speak volumes.

I didn't want my closing my blog to speak the wrong thing.

When I was going to close my blog, I didn't want anyone to feel like God had dismissed them.

As I said, at that point, I didn't see why anyone would miss my blog, BUT I knew what I had heard from God, and I didn't want anyone to feel abandoned. I didn't want anyone trying to find it and wondering why God let it get pulled down TODAY OF ALL DAYS! I didn't want anyone to feel like they had found some place to stand or something they could at least partially depend on, some semblance of normal when too much was changing too fast or they were just having a bad day, and then, POOF! It be gone.

So, I did what I felt like God told me to do. I gave a heads up.

"This isn't personal. It isn't God forgetting you. YOU are fine. I am not."

Really, that is all it was--my attempt to close the door quietly instead of jarring someone with a resounding thud.

And then what I never expected...happened.

God took these precious people whom I didn't want to feel abandoned or lost and created a search party to find me in my own darkness.

And then the Cavalry came.