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!

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.

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.

Encouragement

Responding to great trial in a manner that is pleasing to God only can come by clinging more closely to God than the trial seems to weigh upon you. That is what I have been seeing the past couple weeks. Every time I have been tempted to want to give up or give in to discouragement I have instead been drawn back in to God. This has not happened by itself. Lately, in the flesh, I have desperately wanted to just quit or hide. It seems easier to try and avoid the problems by avoiding life. But each time I have come close, God has sent encouragement my way. Just this past Sunday my bosses gave me a gift and compared me to Anna, my favorite woman of the Bible. I don't even come close to being like her but just to have that comparison made  lifted my spirits and made me determined to walk through this time of my life. I am also very encouraged by gifts; it is part of how God made me. Their kindness was unexpected and at just the right time. This happens often with me. Of course it is my choice whether to take the encouragement or refuse it. There is a pleasure in self pity and in giving into emotional pain. Even writing that last sentence seems ridiculous but I know from experience it is true and that it is deadly. When I give into my circumstances I doubt the power of God and His wisdom. I conclude that I do not believe that He works all things to my good or worse, I do not care. I say in effect that I refuse to walk the path He has allowed (the paths we are on are not always His perfect will but He uses them still). When I am self-focused my prayers and actions lack power and while I may still believe in God and walk with Him I am of little use. Another encouragement for me has come through making a prayer list of the things I am most concerned about; the things that make me lose sleep and threaten my peace. I put checks when I see improvement in a situation and stars when there is an answer. It has only been a month but I am seeing lots of checks and one star already. As often is the case, there is one prayer concern that has no checks or stars but seeing the others makes me hopeful that they will come soon and keeps me persevering. I still feel shaky and often near the edge but am also encouraged by the faithfulness of God and by His nearness. I believe that "I will see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living" Psalm 27:13 and that God does not leave me alone or comfortless. He is good; He is alive; and He is able to meet us where we are at and answer our deepest needs.

Feeling Cold

I am struggling. I am tired and weepy and am struggling to feel hopeful and that is not me. It isn't about God. More about me. I am second guessing so many decisions I have made; seeing so many mistakes and failures. It is hard right now to see the light and part of me feels like running away. Of course that is silly; where would I run to? Life cannot be avoided but is to be lived; its good parts as well as the bad. It is at times like these that I am glad I have developed life habits. I am glad that I go to the Word every day. I am glad that I have tried the Lord and found Him faithful. I am glad that I start and end each day with prayer and spend much of the middle praying also. I am glad that I have started to fast, in the past year, and that it is now established in my life. Recently I have started reciting truths and promises of God each day I am continuing for they help me see God.  For without the Lord I would totally lose heart. Without the Lord I would not feel convinced that I will pull through this space of time. But I know and believe that the Lord is good, that He answers prayer, that His will is never thwarted and that He is on my side.  I know that but I am not feeling it at the time. It is good to develop your relationship with God every day because in the day of darkness it is not something you can put on quickly. My mood has been like the weather of late and for the first time ever I am longing for summer. I am feeling cold and both my body and spirit long to be warm. God is good; all the time, this to shall pass.

Rejoice

I was thinking about Easter today. How easy it is to push to get so many things done that you forget. I took pause for a minute today and made a mental decision, Note to self - Rejoice! It is easy to forget the reason behind all of our activity. It is easy to let other stuff crowd out this most glorious time of our year. I felt myself feeling the push this week. Telling myself, just get through the day. Concentrate on your list. Get everything done. Forgetting the joy. Forgetting that I am set free. Forgetting that the resurrection of Christ is the most significant event that has happened in all of history! I pray that each of you gets a moment to pause and reflect this week. I pray that you all have notes to self that remind you to rejoice. I am excited to see what happens in our services on  Good Friday and Easter Sunday this week. I have watched the guys working hard and can't wait to see everything. As a church we have been praying and inviting and planning and now we will see what God does.

Pray without Ceasing

Today I am filled with both excitement and trepidation. I am going to our churches ladies retreat in Leavenworth. First, the trepidation. Ladies retreats scare me. I have had some bad experiences on the very few I have been on. For years I avoided them. I have also never gone over the past in my adult life when there was a hint of snow on the road. Thankfully today there is just barely a hint but there is snow in places so I am nervous. When I was a teenager going to a snow camp I was in a wreck on the pass. I think that is where my fear may come from. All this to say I am feeling a bit stretched today. Stretching is usually a good think but it does bring with it some anxiety. I spent quite a bit of time on my knees last night casting that anxiety on the Lord and getting up feeling the wash of His peace over me. A friend of mine explained it well yesterday when she told me how she was praying for peace. She knew God was trying to give her peace but she wasn't accepting it too well. I kept feeling the same way so I kept at it and it took awhile but the peace came. For a moment. That is how peace is. It waves over you but you have to keep pursuing it. It is not a by-product of a single prayer but the by-product of ceaseless praying. Anxious thoughts invade. We pray for peace. Anxious thoughts return. We pray again. Praying without ceasing is a rhythm. See a need. Lift it up. A name flits into your head. Pray for them. You notice someone in your journeys. Pray for them and for why God made you notice. What else you might do. You are nervous about something, like I am about this retreat. You pray. You notice you need an attitude adjustment. You pray. You feel hurt and alone.You pray. You are happy. You prayerfully praise and thank God. You love your family. You pray for them. Rhythm. Ceaseless. God gave us prayer because He knew we would be lost without Him and that too much of our lives we cannot do on our own. He gave us prayer because He loves to be with us. He gave us prayer because He is the answer. Pray.