Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A Trip to the Mall

By nature I am a glass half empty kind of person. I don't mean to be but for some reason I can find the dark cloud behind every silver lining. On Monday the office went on a field trip to the mall and it was very mind opening or expanding or whatever one should call it. I would have questioned whether one could learn much about the church or about walking with God from a simple trip to the mall but as often happens I would have been wrong. My glass half-empty mentality does not speak of faith nor does it draw people to God. Too often, on a Sunday morning I hide from people instead of welcoming them. On the very morning when I always get to have company at the house (house of God), I too often am moody, tired, or I just plain revert to my natural tendency to be an introvert. It is the morning when I most often feel the greatest sense of loss as well as shame. But I need to get past it because Jesus died and rose so I don't have to be bound by those feelings. I felt so challenged by that simple trip and went home and had a long talk with God about my attitude. Of course, then my computer at work crashed, catastrophically; not one of those minor crashes and I got caught up in some other stuff and down went my attitude. I feel like I have been challenged to walk by faith. I feel like I have been confronted with just how often I don't. I feel that little fear I sometimes get when I fear I won't ever get it right. Glass half-empty; that's me. I think I will try for glass only quarter-empty soon. And another trip to the mall, this time to actually shop!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A Year

This past year since Bill's passing and the one before it have been very instructional for me. Instructional in a most uncomfortable way. There is a part of me that wants to say that it is good to be stripped of everything you know and are comfortable with and be faced with who you are without all those props but I can't say that. What I can say is that I still believe that God is good and I am not. I am even more sure that I am not good and in fact much of my outside facade was based on the comfortable props I had all around me. At this moment I feel very much out of control and in that feeling I am learning how very much I did like control and did feel in control of my existence. I would have told you and argued that it wasn't true, that I relished God's control of my life but it isn't true. I find myself wanting to control the lives of those around me, fearful that they will make a mistake and I will have to go through more loss. A little bit crazy I know. I am just now learning the painful process of letting go and watching others make mistakes without needing to rush in and try and make things better or right. I am also learning just how full of pride I am. I don't want to have my failures paraded in front of me and yet lately it seems that all I see is failure. My heart has felt so broken this year as I have reflected on the past and gone through some trials in the present and I have felt very much vulnerable and on the edge and I hate it. While I used to relish writing and putting out my thoughts and so called wisdom I have struggled with it of late. And that is good. It is hard to have your life turned upside down. It is painful to go through loss and see the ones you love make mistakes that you know will have consequences that they cannot fathom. It is hard to look back and see just how arrogant and prideful my life has been and how greatly God is working to get my attention. It is hard to love deeply and have it ripped away. This week marks the first year of life without Bill and it has been one of the most difficult years of my life. I have felt a sense of things being ripped away unfinished and it is hard and more time will need to pass before that changes. Our family is being tested and challenged and I covet your prayers. I came home today feeling weary of life, tired of being "okay" and so needing the peace of God. We will be moving this next week and I am praying that along with a new address that I will have a fresh peace in my heart. All I desire is to be pleasing to God and bring glory to Him. Right now that is not coming easily but I am trusting in Him who said that He will finish what He has begun in my life. I am trusting that His righteousness and mercy covers all of my failures. I am believing in Him who still answers prayer. I know the God that I believe in and I know that He is good and His mercy endures forever.

Friday, June 3, 2011

All that Matters

He is a mystery. He can’t be figured out, labeled, picked apart or contained. He can’t be analyzed, dissected, picked apart or completely known. We will never fully understand Him, His ways or His decisions. He is God. Bigger than my thoughts. Greater than my understanding. While my life feels like a train wreck, completely out of control, I know that’s untrue, it is completely in His hands. But in those times where everything feels like it has fallen apart and I feel like I cannot breathe it is hard to remember how He holds it all. It is hard to know that at times the greatest of blessings come from the fiercest of trials. I am trusting for the blessing but I am still living in the present. Faith and hope are built on the future. They are the things we believe in the middle of the storm. They are what we cling to in the fire of the present while we await the joy of the future. I hate these times when joy does not come easily and my heart feels broken. But it is in these times I look back. I was lost, alone and lonely. Jesus found me, loved me and saved me. And He will do it for you. I guess that is all that really matters.