Tracey Marley

I am so excited to finally be back working on Forgiveness for Yesterday, book two in the series. It’s funny how God uses real life circumstances to help me tie a story together. The entire time I’ve been writing, I’ve felt my attention particularly drawn to the topic of pride, a major theme in this book. Just last week my Bible studies brought me to the fourth chapter of Daniel where I studied the lesson King Nebuchadnezzar learned regarding this peculiar evil. King Neb was sitting high and mighty on the palace throne of the greatest kingdom on earth, Babylon, thinking me, me, me and yet the Lord still managed to bring him so low  he was completely humiliated and remained that way for seven years. Seven years! I praise God not all of my life lessons and punishments have lasted that long!

I, like everyone else, have at one time or another experienced the intoxication of this sin in my life. It creeps in undetected and smelling as sweet as honey. The problem is, before long we’re so indulged with ourselves we can hardly breathe! Mercifully the Lord has always been quick to convict my heart and clear the air before I start to stink. I have, however, learned a thing or two during my seasons of self righteousness.

One, pride is quick to blind and two, it’s sure to bind.

Pride is an evil that blinds us to our own faults and shortcomings while redirecting our sight so that we may find fault in others. It’s excellent at creating justifications, exceptions and excuses that lure as well as producing criticisms, judgments and foolishness that harbor. There is no sin quite like it. Once we are blinded by our glorious state of self righteousness, we are more apt to hold to our stubborn opinions and concepts, never admitting a mistake nor forgiving a wrong. It’s a trap—a carefully baited and comfortable trap, but still a trap. Oh that we may have a careful eye to watch and guard ourselves against it!

Scripture tells us in Proverbs 16:18 that, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” That was certainly Nebuchadnezzar’s case. Can you image a higher distance from which to fall? Surrounded by opulent wealth and power, surely there wasn’t an insecurity in his mind! Or was there? I’m still pondering the relationship between pride and insecurity. At first the pair seem to have very little if no relationship at all but the more I study, the more I find a deep and embedded connection between the two. Often, I find mustering up a little pride goes a long way in dealing with my insecurities. I guess my question now would be, is there a balance? What part do our insecurities play in keeping us humble? I’m sure there is more to this line of thinking, and something tells me the Lord will reveal it as I work my way through the situations happening with Bret, Karen, Chris, Amanda, and Laurie. Yes, Laurie makes an appearance in book two. I can’t wait for you to meet her!

Till then, please pray diligently with me that the Lord will bring all the details for this story together like only He can. I love this stage of the process! It’s like pulling the cord on a mini blind and watching everything come together and work as one.

All my blessings, Tracey

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? … You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”" Matthew 7:3 and 5 NIV

Great news! I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve been moving—a major change and undergoing for me. Here are a few of my journal entries to catch you up to speed.

March 14^th, 2010
A friend of mine once told me that she liked change. Considering the extent of her wardrobe and the frequency with which she rearranged the furniture, I almost believed her. Change is new and exciting because it’s different. The more I thought about the statement, the more I knew I had to make a correction. “You like change you can control,” I told her. My friend agreed. Most of us do not like change, at least not the type that makes us feel at the mercy of whatever our circumstance.

I, too, change pocketbooks and lipstick colors like the wind, but that is not the kind of change I seem to be experiencing these days. After two and a half years on the market, my husband and I finally sold our house. That means I am going through a time and a season where I don’t feel like I have control over anything.

I won’t go through all the details but I will say that moving from the home I’ve spent the last ten years in is bittersweet. It’s a blessing to have a fervent prayer answered; yet there are many happy memories in my home that I am reluctant to leave. I guess that’s why I feel the need to write one more blurb, one more thought from the corner of my dining room where my computer is the last thing perched amongst what is now a landscape of bare walls and dust bunnies. The need to say one more thing from this tiny little sanctuary where God has revealed so much to me is strong. I type with dirty and splintered hands, the result of the laborious task of moving. I sit on a disproportional stool and have an aching back. Rest assured I anticipate something important. Today, however, I hope it’s something more for me than for my readers.

And I wait….

As I sit and wait on God to pour something through my fingers, I ponder these last few weeks. It’s almost funny how I thought with the writing of Karen McMasters I had really gotten into the character of someone who had lost a spouse. I was sure I had examined all the emotions and fears one would face because death is truly an uncontrollable change. Wow. Looking back I know there must be so much more than what I wrote. I’m only moving and feel like I’ve got an all day pass at the world’s largest emotional amusement park.

One moment I’m overcome with the excitement of something new and unknown, and the next the excitement that is so appealing feels like a flimsy band-aid that is barely sticking to a gaping wound that’s gushing a thousand other things. Fear, worry, loss… Yes, it seems I paid the price for an arm band when all I want to do is leave the park and go home.

I guess you could say I’m a little disappointed in the way I’m handling this. I should be handling it better. After all, it’s just a house and this is just a move. People do this all the time and after two and a half years, I should’ve been prepared. What was I thinking would happen? I should be relieved. Then again I’m geared in such a way that it would be foolish to expect something of this magnitude to be an easy transition.

I’m helplessly sentimental, have a memory that is as vivid as a high-tech TV, and many, many days my emotions are the driving force behind my actions. I know that is not the way to live life—it’s certainly not the plan God has in mind for me—but suddenly in the face of change, I feel like I am being battered and tossed about by the wind. Women, and me in particular, crave security and at this moment I feel completely insecure. All I know is that God is moving and that He never misses an opportunity to teach me something. In the end, I will probably learn a valuable lesson from this, but for now… For now I know it’s best to just hang on.

April 6, 2010
And hang on I did because, praise God, I’m anchored! The week before closing was one of the hardest weeks I’ve had in a very long time. We were settled into our rental property and having to go back to do those final things and say good-bye was a gut wrenching experience. I cried until I couldn’t see. Ridiculous, I know, and I can’t wait until the day when I can look back at myself laying in the kitchen floor crying and laugh at how silly I was. Unfortunately that day is still not today.

Cleaning out alone clarified just how sentimental and clingy I am. I own things that if asked about, I would deny having—things that represent something special to me, a time frame I guess you could say. The old sweater my mom gave me when I was in high school just because she said it was me, the outfit I was wearing the day my husband proposed, a cassette tape of me and my best friend acting silly back when you could record stuff off the radio. Things that I can still look at and smile over.

Our rental house isn’t big enough for all that. I got rid of what I could stomach to part with and packed up a lot of my memorabilia, waiting for another time to purge when I was less emotional. It still hurt like I had severed a limb, but mercifully the actual closing day seemed to bring the closure I needed. Putting a face with the new family who is moving in somehow settled my mind and my emotions like nothing else. Sometimes my imagination is my own worst enemy.

As a way to put a happy ending on this hard chapter of change for me, our family made a trip to Florida to see my sister, Tammy. Tammy is eight years my senior and where I’m the one who is all mushy and sentimental over old diaries and clothes I don’t dream of fitting into again, she is geared much more practical and has the upper hand of experience. She has moved at least ten times and it’s been through her coaching that I’ve managed to survive this whole letting go phase.

Just last week I walked into her current home and had to search for something I still recognized as hers. For some reason or another on Saturday I was in her closet and there I spotted it. I froze in my tracks, hand glued to the light switch. On the top shelf of her closet there it laid, a faded yellow teddy bear from our childhood. I asked her about him and she said, “Don’t you remember Lemon Bear? You gave him to me when I was going through a really hard time. You were eleven and you told me I could have him. I slept with him for years.” I had very little memory of Lemon Bear and no recollection of this gifting whatsoever, but she assured me it was fact. I was, and still am, totally flattered that my sister who redecorates more often than Rooms To Go held onto this small treasure. She kept him as a reminder of an act although forgotten by me, was priceless to her.

Tammy went on to pull out other things from drawers and stowaway places, explaining who’s they were and why she kept them. A huge part of me was relieved. What she had done was healthy, practical…effective. Those things were her reminders, not a means of living in a lifetime past. Honestly, I think that was my biggest fear and struggle with the sell of our home. I feared once I moved from its four walls, I would eventually forget the happy seasons that came to pass while I was there. I feared I would no longer be the woman who experienced them. Somehow living in the setting where everything started kept me closer to the days when Chad and I were newlyweds, to the babies who were born there and to the toddlers they became. It’s easier to remember and reconnect when you can actually sit amongst the backdrop that laces a thousand happy memories.

Nevertheless, what’s done is done and it can’t be undone. Chad and I will continue to celebrate anniversaries wherever we are and my young children will continue to grow up no matter what our address. Even if I could undo the sell of our home, I don’t know that I would. Except for the cat running away, regret is something I do not feel. You see, my husband and I have a dream to one day build on land we own by the lake. We’re not looking to build a big fancy house, but a home with a yard. A place to make new memories. Still, it was especially hard to give up the house that I could see, touch and feel for what I cannot yet fully envision. I think that’s where this thing called faith comes into play.

And so God teaches. I’m still learning lessons on faith and standing by decisions already made, but something that I’ve already learned is that you can’t hold tight to one thing and still reach out to receive another. Sometimes you cannot experience the greater because it cannot be gained without first letting go of what cannot be kept. Actually, I think it’s a lesson our fictional Karen learns early on in the book, only now I’ve experienced it for myself first hand.

So here I am God, arms and hands wide open and emptying out, not that I should receive material blessing alone, but lessons like the one You’ve been teaching me. Lessons that can only be learned by letting go and choosing to live life in the present.