Not again!

First of all, I'd like to report that I still have four (count them 1..2..3..4) baskets of clean laundry sitting on my floor.  Yesterday, when I asked Him if I could fold it yet, He told me to go out and pull weeds while the ground was still soft from recent rains.

Dirt under my nails vs. clean folded laundry.  The ground will dry and harden, and weed pulling will be much more difficult.  The clean laundry isn't going anywhere.  I pulled weeds.

Today in my Bible reading, 1 Peter 4:12 jumped out at me:

"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you."

Anyone else do that?  Trial comes and the first words out of your mouth or into your mind are words of surprise and disbelief.

It's not like Jesus didn't warn us or anything:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

I have a short memory.

Something goes awry in my day, and I act surprised and sometimes even offended and there might just be a thought that goes something like: "God, how could You?" as if He owes me a problem-free day.

They are just going to happen.  It's guaranteed.  Jesus warned us.  Peter reminds us not to be surprised.

So, then, why am I?

I don't know.

But I do get surprised and I do get offended and I do allow unbelief in the utter goodness of God to cloud my senses and totally disrupt my day and in comes the stinky attitude of "why me?!?"

What if I tried something different?  What if next time a problem arises I try a different question?  What if I try asking "Why not me?"  I mean, is there something special about me that says that I should be precluded from problems?

As I am extrapolating my thinking process here, I quickly realize that my reaction to problems in my day reveals a self-centered mindset that causes them to grow bigger-than-life and my view of God to shrink in size.

That doesn't change who God is, but it does screw with my attitude.

Reading (and re-reading) 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp has radically shifted my perspective and highlighted my great need to develop the discipline of thanksgiving. 

After I read it the first time, I remember talking to my sister, and she said: "I decided to stop doing it.  It's just hard."  And I laughed and she laughed because we both knew that neither of us really wanted to give up the habit of thanksgiving.

It's just that the habit of "oh, no!" and "not again!" is so much more familiar and, well, comfortable.  New paths are hard to carve out.  It's so easy to slip back into old patterns.

But God IS good and His grace IS plentiful and He IS strong when I am weak.

He can take any mess, any interruption, any problem, any catastrophe and give me peace.  He can and He does.  And I must increase in awareness of His work going on all around me to take everything and work it for my good because I'm called according to His purposes, and He uses it all to rub off rough patches and reshape twisted places and mold soft parts and soften hard ones so I can look like He created me to look ...more like Him - a glorious human being created in His image.

It's getting better and I have so far to go and He is so faithful.

That's where I land today.  On His faithfulness.  He is faithful even when I am not, even when I am surprised and offended by trouble that comes my way. 

He gently picks me up, tilts my chin up to meet His gaze, looks me in the eye, and says in voice so tender and true:

"Hey, you.  Remember Me?  I have overcome the world.  Here, have some peace instead.  I'll take that worry and stress and selfishness and stubbornness and weakness and infuse it all with strength and beauty.  I'll be Me in this situation, and you can just sit back and watch and be amazed at My goodness.  Because I am, you know.  Good.  Really, really, really good.  You are weak.  I am strong.  You're in me, so guess what, I'm strong for you." 

Deep breath.  Big sigh.  Relief floods my being as I am recentered on what is true about God and suddenly here He is big and tall and enough while my problems shink to their true size, just a tiny drop in the palm of His hand.

~peace

Peace and PacMan

If you want the peace that surpasses understanding, you have to give up the right to understand. - Bill Johnson

Don't you know that's what it is that hinders my peace the most.  The need to understand. 

It's the wrangling and the wrestling and the attempts to understand why this is that and that is this and why this doesn't look like that or that like this.

And my mind goes round and round and round with peace gobbled up like dots on PacMan except in this game I want the peace to line my path, saturate my path, flat-out overtake my path.

Not get eaten up in a mindless, or, rather, mind-full attempt to get some understanding.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

So, I keep asking Him...can I fold the laundry now?

And He says, Not yet.

I say, Why not.

He says, Just trust.

Just trust?  Just trust when to get the laundry folded?  How does that work?

And in trying to wrestle with my own thoughts and limited understanding to try to grasp this bigger-than-me plan, I whiz by peace and pick up worry and stress and anxiety.

Oh.

That's what PacMan is eating.  That's what feeds the frenzy and the panic and the irritation and the shortness and the wild-eyed momma that sometimes appears at the slightest provocation.  He's not eating peace: life-giving, abundant, protective, warrior-like peace that God has designed to stand guard over my heart and mind.

I, in my own effort to run from the "ghosts" (or gobble them up if I've eaten a really big dot that makes me momentarily invincible), am trying to hurry and scurry and get it all done so I can...what? Clear the board and go to the next round?  Isn't that an endless path to only more to do?  Where's the life in that?

Obviously, God is not against me folding my clean laundry, but He is teaching me about a pace of life that sees, truly sees, what is really important.  I still have children at home.  I can, right now, avoid a large trunk-full of remorse and regret if I grasp this concept sooner rather than later...if I can hand over to God my right to understand so that, instead, I can be guarded and enveloped by His peace.

Peace that says that today I hear the birdsong and see the sky-tinged pink in early morning hours and chat with friend and stop and hold my littles and connect with my olders and realize that what I'm doing in this moment is where I am and to be fully present right here right now, not rushing and missing all this life that surrounds me.

"Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in wake of all the rushing...Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away." ~Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Your Sabbath, 45.

No advantage at all. 

So, I'm dumping this PacMan game, this "right to understand."  I'm giving that up to God.  No more going after the high score of achievements and successes measured in clean floors, laundry folded, and lessons planned, my life measured by some arbitrary yard stick of things done instead of people loved.

Want to join me?

Father God, I hand to You this right to understand, this need to know what all of this means before I can trust You.  What do You have for me in return?

(I know what He told me, but what did He show you?)

And, God, can I go fold my laundry now? ;-)

~peace

One of those days

Actually, this could more accurately be titled: Every day seems like one of "those" days.

I'm hopefully growing more in thanksgiving because God told me a while back that it would be what would get me through this season.  He's giving me a chance or two or three every day.

Some days are more of a struggle than others, particularly those days when I am almost falling asleep on my walk because I'm in a season of not as much sleep as maybe I would like.

Be thankful, I remind myself, be thankful.

And today, I have much to be thankful for as I do on every other day if only I can get past the mantra in my head: I just want to go back to sleep for just a little while...

So, I'm off to the kitchen to fix some hot tea and my super healthy smoothie and then maybe I'll stand on my head to get all of the blood flowing there.  I might then try putting on some Gypsy Kings and jumping on my rebounder to, literally, jump start this day.

Because today I cannot go back to bed.  It is my son's 10th birthday and there's lots to do and lots to celebrate.  This boy who ate blueberries until his fingers bore an almost permanent stain and tells jokes at the most opportune times and runs 10Ks like they were nothing...this boy will fuel my thanksgiving list today as I reflect back on his life and the myriad of ways he brings us so. much. joy.

I love you, little man.  You rock!

I can trust Him

As if there were any question
As if
So why do I go there
With my doubts and fears
And wonderings of what if
Instead of as if
And then when I find
The fears empty of reason
My heart sighs so deeply
Another test season
But each time
It's true
I go less to doubt
And more often to trust
So progress is made
Trust grows
Hope blooms
Faith strengthens
Mind renews
To ever increasing goodness
And glory
And life in abundance
With relationship forming
My heart now knowing
That even this mess
This pile on the floor
Or pile in my head
Quite over my head really
Is working for me
A good plan to refine
To bring me closer
To complete wholeness
In Him.

Laundry

Laundry.

It's the never-ending chore.  It's the one thing that, unless we run around naked for a day, I can never FULLY complete.  I can have all of the laundry washed, folded and put away, but as soon as someone gets undressed for the night, the dirty laundry that was there all along on his/her body now shows up in the once-empty laundry basket.

You know the drill.  It's just always in process.  And I'm not even talking about the 1 sock that didn't get thrown in or the dirty shirt underneath someone's bed.  Laundry just can't be done...perfectly.

There's that word again. 

Perfect must've come into existence once Adam and Eve decided God was indeed holding out on them by prohibiting the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden.  What a rude awakening it was for them to realize that stepping past the No Trespassing sign meant taking on a burden of responsibility they/humans were never intended to endure.

Perfection is measured in right and wrong ways of doing things, a certain standard that sometimes feels quite arbitrary, but most definitely always whispers, even to the most perfect of us: "That wasn't quite good enough."

Perfection is never satisfied.  It creates an atmosphere of unrest and discontent like little else will.  It drives me to distraction and sometimes hopelessness because, after all, why even try if it's never going to be good enough.

Laundry is a good lesson for me, one being worked out within me even as I type and so I'm not fully able to articulate it yet.  But it goes something like this: it is enough that the clothes are washed and dried.  The fact that there are loads of clean laundry still sitting in baskets two weeks later isn't a big deal, nothing I need to strive to fix or beat myself up over. 

Yet, I do.   It's in the back of my mind all day long, and then when I go upstairs there are the baskets reminding me what a failure I am for not getting the laundry folded days ago.  I mean, how hard can it be? goes the conversation in my head.

Perfection and shame are a split second apart.  I think the correct order is shame whispers and perfection slides in on the whisper, closely followed by despair: will I ever get this laundry folded???

If I let them, the thoughts spiral on down to the complete irrational as perfection gets completely wrapped up in a basket of clean laundry.

And how on earth can a basket of clean laundry cause all of those negative emotions?

I don't know, exactly, but I'm going to let them surface and let the Lord teach me a better way. 

So, while there are many legitimate reasons the laundry goes unfolded, today it may just go unfolded on purpose while I let God sort through these ways of thinking that need His healing touch.

~peace

Present and Awake

This morning, I got up and out of bed when really all I wanted to do was sleep in.

Rainy days are good for that.

I'm on the go so much that it's more than the rain that makes today seem like a good day for staying in bed.  There are six other reasons I have, though, that remind me that it's probably better to go ahead and get up.

So I did, and here I am, and today I want to live vigorously, joyfully, present in each moment with a thankful heart.

My littlest comes to me with a paper where she's making a list of activities like piano lessons, games, dancing, singing, cooking, arts and crafts, and exercising.  She's six, and she'll likely be a program director of some sort.

She started this last night and had us each sign up beside an activity or two or three or four.  Before the evening was over, she had most of us involved in a short game of Twister (who knew how much core strength that game requires!!!) and then she and I played two rounds of Master Mind before we settled in to watch the rest of the episode of Mission Impossible.

She's growing up.  At our Monday co-op she has ballet.  Our routine involves going to the basement to the bathroom with a lounge where she can change into her ballet clothes.  Then we go sit outside her classroom, and she draws in my journal, continuing her drawing from the week before.

Used to, I never let my children draw in my journals.  It was mine and my special place to write down my thoughts.  I would usually find them their own notebook or scrap of paper from my purse to draw on.  That is until I realized that I like looking back in my journals and seeing drawings and doodles from kids now grown.

Now I turn to a blank page and hand over pen and markers and pencils, and she draws and colors and creates until time for class.  I kiss her and hug her and watch her go in.

But last Monday, she tells me that now she'd like to walk herself to her class.  All alone.  I can walk her to the basement, but I must stop at the bottom of the stairs and allow her to walk on unassisted to ballet.

I asked her what about drawing and sitting together before class.

She replies that, well, she'd just like to go by herself.

So I smile and comply and watch this big 6 year old walk herself to class, so grateful that I didn't hold my journal too tightly those Mondays before.  That season is over already and I didn't even see the end coming until it was there and done.

What moment am I living in today that may be near its end?  I'm here and present and awake and accounted for and aware, oh so aware right now, that these fleeting moments are gifts to be savored and treasured and...

What's that?  Time for my piano lesson I signed up for? 

Gotta run.  Here's a moment to savor presenting itself.

~peace

Imperfect blogging

It's better than no blogging.  Or maybe no blogging is better.

Whatever the opinion is, I'd rather get back to it. It makes me happy, even if no one ever reads what's here. 

I write in my head all the time.  If someone created an accessible device that turned thought into written word, I'd be golden.  As it is, those blogs float in the stratosphere of thoughts.

What keeps me from blogging (or doing anything, really, that I'd like to do)?

Perfectionism.

I have to find the perfect moment with the perfect amount of silence with the perfect amount of time and the perfect words to create the perfect thought.

Sigh.

And I thought I was done with it.

I don't even fold my laundry these days because there's no perfect time to do it.  I might get a pair of socks folded before I get interrupted or distracted or need to leave or have to check email and Facebook.  And one pair of folded socks a perfectly folded basket of laundry does not make.

Probably, if I sat and folded for every minute I spend on email or Facebook, I'd have been done and then some days ago.  As it is, the clean unfolded laundry sits in baskets for going on two weeks now.

But I have cooked dinner and I have played games and I have done something fun like take kids to see a movie one Saturday afternoon.  I've hugged and kissed children small and not-so-small.  I've made bread and granola (I'm really proud of that one for some reason).  I got our newest vehicle aquisition inspected.  I've attended skits and played Twister and watched Mission Impossible (the original series).  I've procrastinated more times than I'd like to admit over cleaning off  my desk and writing a 1000 word essay that was "due" last year (or maybe the year before?).

There's something the Lord is doing here, though, and I try not to miss it, try not to look so much at what I haven't done and see what I have...however small...however insignificant.  Because for so long, I only saw what I didn't get done and, invariably, carried along with me an underlying feeling of failure.  And I've tried to use "not going to fail again today" as a motivator for getting stuf done.  It may work for a while, but it's not working for me now.

Only makes me want to go back to bed.

So God's been working on me to talk about what I have done and trust that what I haven't done or the messes that still sit messy can be worked out for my good by the only One who really knows what good is.

I'm trusting that somewhere in these messes that I can't seem to get to and these ideas that I can't nail down and the hard drive crashing and backlog of projects and decisions left hanging and papers that need grading and new things that still keep coming that want or need my attention...Somewhere in all of this unorganized meandering that has become my life, God is setting me free and recalibrating my default mode and teaching me about being over doing.

Being over doing.  Loving over judging.  Laughing over correcting.  Smiling over stern face.  Talking in unhurried tone, communicating love and grace instead of demanding control and a perfect existence for things to be ok.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the knots are unraveling and freedom is resting and new life is happening...

And so maybe blogging will too.

Not sure about the laundry.