Places of Rescue.

This week has been a hard week. It has been filled with turmoil of resurging winds. First, the overarching rides of wrong apartments, misplaced floor plans, and continues carpet complications. Then came the Ikea disorder; the doldrums of double places for rental trucks, duplicate phone calls to carefully place orders, drives to the warehouse with then an empty marketplace, more phone calls and delivery options and three hours later, still defeat. A returned, unfilled rental truck, overcharges and arguments, and finally, defeat.

I could only be tough for so long. My backbone of strength gave way and tears flooded my cheeks instead. I used to be told repeatedly that I was too sensitive, and I needed to toughen up. The problem is, I'm made sensitive. So I can only be so tough for so long before I break back into a china tea cup and need to regather strength to come back as a painted, hardened coffee cup again.

So I fled. I grabbed nothing but my ipod and never even walked in the doors of the house I no longer wanted to see or wanted any association with. I crept each mile with gaining speed to get out of this area I know as South Charlotte to forget the people, the places, the city which gnarled me and was throwing me up like Jonah in the vomit of the whale.

And to the mountains I tread. I laced up my hiking shoes, let my paint-splattered capris dangle with strings, and moistened T-shirt loosely fall over me and caught ahold of the mountain space. I nooked in the corner of an over-hanging tree, sauntered along root-covered paths, and just let the breath escape me, and recenter me with the sound of weekend boaters. Refresh. Renew. Replenish. Regather. Rescue.

The mountains. Morrow Mountain. One of my favorite places of rescue.

And this pattern of broken defeat continued today. I woke up this morning with clutching feelings in my chest and crawled out of bed for coffee and the morning news on my new couch. A new day. A new pattern of grace.

But within an hour, dishes already clattered and broke. Pieces shattered across the counters, and cracked platters crested with crumbs of what used to be beauty. Twice.

So I crawled back into bed. Mortified, discouraged, defeated. Just dangling, and lamenting for one piece of wish or hope or grace or dream. I let the covers close over me, and the scent of lavender be a soothing reminder of life and living and lavished love. Then I laid with my journals overlapping me and words being reminders and letters of His love.

"The Lord takes great delight in you.
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17

"Therefore, I am now going to allure her,
I will lead her into the desert
And speak tenderly to her...
In that day, you will call me,
'My husband';
You will no longer call me my master...
I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
In love and compassion.
I will betroth you in faithfulness
And you will acknowledge the Lord."
Hosea 2: 14,16,19-20

And ended with his words, given to me over and over and over again...

"So do not fear.
Do not be discouraged.
I will strengthen and help you..."
(Repeated in some form in Joshua 1, Isaiah 35:4, Isaiah 41:10)

And now I sit in my second place of rescue. In Joseph Beth. An independent bookstore, close to my heart. It is huge, with hardwood panelling and stone fireplaces and water trickling over glass. It holds shelves of books -- of travel, of literature, of contemporary authors and issues. Trinkets for reading or writing or storing or sending line parts of tables and sprawl in segments throughout the store. A hazelnut latte sits in my desk with a warmed, banana nut muffin, spread with butter and sliced into pieces, while more books and Bibles and journals lay surrounding me and the words scrawled across the scenes of this blog.

It is my second place of rescue. So different, so opposite of the first. It is again reinforcing the dichotomy of me: now I sit with slanted heels under red-painted toes, my favorite brown eyelet dress covering like billows of beauty and layers. Purple sparkles dangle from my shoulders while pearls enamor both my ears and hair. I am quiet, soft, feminine, me. I am rescued once again, in a place that holds a careful atmosphere, almost composed as comfort for me.

Relaxed. Refreshed. Renewed. Rescued. The ramblings of the mountains, the rest of the bookstore. The places of Rescue.