Blog

Can I come….To Ladies Bible Study Group…as I am …without any answer to your need? You see I think you expect me to bring as I have before and these perceived expectations sometimes make me apprehensive. Apprehensive in ways that cause me to want to stay away because I might disappoint you.

Can I come….To Ladies Bible Study Group…as I am …without any answer to your need? You see I think you expect me to bring as I have before and these perceived expectations sometimes make me apprehensive. Apprehensive in ways that cause me to want to stay away because I might disappoint you.

Can I come….Into the conversation….without words....just listening and observing Life? Do I have permission to learn from you without partaking verbally? Can I internally process my reactions without sharing them out loud? Can I invite you to see my heart by my expression and attentiveness?

Can I come….To a walk…and just be myself, present without an agenda? Enjoying your company and you mine. Walking along enjoying the sun and shade. Watching the other walkers and their pets.

Can I come….To a counseling session...without a problem to be solved within the hour? I would rather you ask me questions and help me with self-discovery. The why's of my current situation. The journey into my heart, the struggles of this life. The re-current themes that haunt me. To carefully guide me to a place of understanding.

Can I come….To a holiday dinner…without looking great and all my children looking happy? Sometimes family holiday dinners create such stress in me that I really cannot relax. I struggle between the "put togetherness of myself and the other members of this family". I find myself carefully avoiding conversations that could lead to hurt feelings or untimely tears. I dance through the hours tiptoeing around the discussions that could lead to the truth of our common and mutual dysfunction.

Can I come….into my Husband's Arms…such a place of comfort? This invitation to come and rest is most consistently a real place of peace. But even as most of these times bring calm there are those times when he beckons me to come that I'm too distracted to fully engage or too "undone" by other relationships to settle in his embrace.

Sometimes your answer is yes I can come without condition and sometimes my answer to your yes is no. I cannot come without an agenda, an answer, a thought, a plan, because just to come seems unprepared and dangerous and vulnerable. To come empty handed seems ill-mannered and childlike in ways that do not allow me that freedom.

But my Father God says "Baby Girl, Jaimi Lynn, come as You are." And even though I know that I can come as I am, I still feel obligated in some way to bring something to the table. An offering of gratitude or even an important dilemma to discuss. Not ever wanting to waste my Father's time. I do not want to be a burden or too needy in His presence. I'm learning to receive His invitation to "come" and to "rest".  But the underlying thought is always there, Will I disappoint? Will I be enough? Will I be too much? So you see the question of "Can I Come" is so big and often overwhelming.  It seems like a kind invitation to "come" but I am often hesitant to answer yes.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 (NIV)