S Day

Normally on Sunday, I get up, get ready for church and then look at my work schedule while I wait for princesses to be dolled up enough to go to church.  Today, though, is different.  Today, I set my alarm to make sure everyone else was up (I'm a martyr like that.)...at least the other two someone elses in the family that are not gone to camp (My oldest 2 children are blissfully away at camp.) and then I went back to bed.  When I awoke again, I was alone.  Not blissfully alone though.  I get to spend this day cleansing my colon.  This, as I understand it, is quite different from cleansing your aura.  I have never cleansed either before and on this day, I can only focus on cleansing one.  I am also only taking in liquids.  Clear liquid diet...words that make me shudder.  AND part of those clear liquids will include 3 bottles of magnesium citrate.  I have had one already.  Yuck.  I bought three different flavors so I could possibly get over this experience with no hatred of cherry, grape or lemon flavorings.

So, my bowels will be cleansing very soon.  This is a good thing too, because after 40 years, they probably could use a good cleaning.  Tomorrow I will have a partial hysterectomy and I am mildly worried about it.  Worried less about the surgery and more about the recovery.  I have been told by many not to even bend over because things can become 'undone' quite easily with this type of surgery and then you find yourself going back in to be 'restrung'.  So now I will be too paranoid to even move, which sounds nice, but in reality makes you want to do everything.  The cure for laziness is FORCED laziness.  I do recall bed rest with two of my pregnancies.  All I wanted to do was vacuum...a chore I never do when not on bed rest.

I have friends who have promised to kidnap me and have movie marathons.  I have two new wonderful books purchased by me and for me plus the 62 I already have waiting in the wings to be read.  Netflix, of course, is ready and waiting.  Erik will be my nurse.  Lilly is giddy with the very thought of waiting on me hand and foot.  However, I know with all of my heart that this will get old and tiresome quickly!

I will strive to look on the bright side.  This will fix my 'problem' which has been beyond terrible.  I am very blessed to have health insurance when so many do not.  It will pay most of the cost of the surgery.  I do have family, expended family, and friends that want to help me/us.  I have a forced 'time out' from lifting and strain of any type for 6 weeks.  I am very blessed.  And only mildly worried.  Keep us in your prayers...mostly that this six week 'time out' will fly by.

Grace

One of the most challenging things I have heard lately and it resonates very deeply with me:


"One cannot receive grace until he has tried. Until he has tried and failed, it isn't grace it is just sin."

This makes sense to me.  AND, I HATE it.

I am nothing but a sinner, but there is some sin that is unintentional and other sin that is intentional.  The sins are not equal.  Not at all.  When I look back over the last few days of Bible study and fellowship, I keep coming away with the same message for me...a message I don't like hearing.  It even makes me read scripture differently.  Songs that once made me feel one way now make me feel another way. (His Grace is Sufficient, for example.)

Shortly before I left for my spiritual oasis that is Summer Celebration, one of my friends had a loving discussion with me about something she wanted me to reflect and pray about.  It was not exactly a sin in my life, just something she wanted me to pray about.  And as God usually does, He has tied that concern to all of these other teachings and now I am seeing and hearing it everywhere.

I am a good person.  I try to always do what is right and I fail alot, but I also succeed alot.  I read and study my Bible.  I have a very healthy prayer life.  I do, however, have some sin in my life that I don't address or deal with or even try to stop.  I have tried before and failed and then just pretty much gave up.  I've 'given it to God' and counted it 'covered by the blood'.  AND, as of a couple of days ago, I am totally convicted.  Because I don't even try to do better in some dark sinful places in my soul any more.  "I am not perfect and never can be."  True that...but not even TRYING to do better in my sin isn't honoring my Lord and Savior.  I am begging for grace to cover those sins and I am not even giving it a half-hearted effort.  I am giving exactly ZERO effort and thinking His grace will be sufficient.

His grace IS sufficient.  Sufficient that when I am weak, He is strong.  Sufficient that when I try and fail, His grace will overwhelm me and give me the strength to battle another day.  His grace is sufficient to shine brightly through all of my breaks and cracks.  His grace is NOT a license to sin.  It is NOT an excuse to remain in the muck and mire of my sin.  If I am a true believer in the blood of the lamb, remaining in a life of sins...even ones I have deemed 'not that bad'...is not the way to receive the Grace of God.  Battling my sins, repenting, and begging for grace when I fall is the way to receive it...and the strength to begin the battle anew until I have totally given the sin to God and the victory is won.

Points to Ponder

•  Our churches are much more aligned with Roman traditions than Jewish ones.  Is this a good thing? I don't think so.
• I heard an amazing morsel about parenting...it's a paraphrase:  I had children with every intention of helping them grow into great kids...instead they have helped me grow into a great dad.  AMEN...God has grown me up in so many ways through my children!
• If one person is the source of all your misery (as in a marriage) then you have allowed one person to be in charge of all your happiness.  Good luck with that one!
• Marriage is not meant to meet your needs, God is.  If you are unhappy in your marriage, God is not your focus...changing your spouse is.  God should always be your focus.  **This is so common these days!
• No one should ever be given the role of completing you or being your 'other half'...you should each be two wholes.
• If you always refuse to give your opinions and preferences, you are not allowing others to know the real you.  That doesn't mean you should always get your way, it just means "I don't care, whatever you want." usually leads to passive aggressive behaviors and does not allow people to really know you.

I am pondering much and look forward to tomorrow's pontifications.

Face With A Side of Face

I hate to be wrong.  It sucks.  The only thing worse than being wrong is being wrong in front of a whole bunch of people.  However, I don't hate it as much as I used to.  AND, lately, it happens alot and I kind of just admit and move on...I twelve step it.  I try to promptly admit it, fix it if I can and move on.  The worst thing about it is that I am the kind of person who lives out loud...so my mistakes are usually loud too.

Lately, I am developing a filter.  I think it is something to do with sanctification.  I am a better person than I used to be.  I am growing wiser with each passing day.  I do catch myself right in the middle of being wrong...and sometimes willingly start backpedaling my way back.   Sometimes though, I am kicking and screaming a little on the inside.  And then of course, there are the times I miss it altogether and God or someone else has to draw my attention to it.

I certainly don't think I have it all together.  In fact, I don't even have a fifth of it together.  BUT, it comforts me to know that I am improving with age.  I am not still making all the same mistakes that I used to make.  I am learning about myself, about other people, and about God.  I am better at receiving grace and also dishing it out.  I don't seem to be letting things fester...but I am not exactly 'slow to anger' either.  I look forward to that though!  So does my family.

I just thought I needed to stop and reflect a little today.  I give alot of credit for my personal growth to this blog.  I was angry and hurtful when I started writing this blog.  Some people applauded my expressions of anger, some people spoke out against it, others listened to the words but also heard my heart, and all of those things affirmed me in a different way and helped me heal.  I am grateful to the life community God has blessed me with-in real life and virtually!  Honesty is the best policy...but it requires alot of finish work so it doesn't wound.  It isn't mean to harm, but to heal.

I am so thankful for my little corner of the internet.  The real me and the virtual me are almost completely the same person now.  It used to be that I was fake nice in person and then virtually scathing...I think I am almost down to only one face now.  It feels good.  Keeping up with two faces is exhausting.

I am going to to make a very profound statement.  It is something I believe is the absolute truth.  And to quote Monk, "I could be wrong now, but I don't think so...".  It's a jungle out there.  Popularity is a myth.  It is a myth that destroys.  It is actually a plan of satan to bury a seed of discontent deeply into our hearts and grow a bumper crop of comparison and jealousy.

I have fallen victim to the myth of popularity all of my life, because, like 99.9% of the people of the world, I enjoy being liked.  I want to be 'in the loop'.  I want to be in the  'IN' crowd.  I not only want to be liked, I want people to like me so much that they seek to earn my favor and be friends with me.  AND yet, during the times in my life that I have been 'popular', it didn't feel like what I thought it would feel like.  I did not feel like everyone loved me, valued me as a person.  I actually felt more like, wow...how long could this possibly last before they turn on me.  Answer, not long.  Popularity is elusive.  Fleeting.  It doesn't stay in one place very long, is fickle by nature and does not care who it hurts.

I am pontificating popularity because I have three children...girls.  It is sad to see them pursue something so unattainable.  Soemthing that is not even defined, just desired.  And disappointing because it is so empty.  The most satisfying friendships of my life are now, a decidedly unpopular time in my life.  My 'dance card' is seldom full.  We are not gonna ever make the cover of Posh magazine.  And yet, I am very content.  Content that I am who God says I am.  Content that He is faithful to help me raise these girls into what He wants them to be.  Content that He hears my prayers and pleadings and that He will use my desperate, broken self to somehow bring glory and honor in His kingdom.

If I could go back to being a teenager knowing what I know now, I would NOT...NO WAY!!  Those are not the best years of your life.  The best comes later, much later.  Around 30something.  How about you, would you go back? 

Choosing

This is not a recent memory, but for some reason, I feel compelled to share it.

It was enough.  The problems in our relationship had become insurmountable.  I did not feel I could go on.  I called a dear friend because I could not stay home but I could not be just anywhere either.  We went out to dinner.  I shared all my woes with her, the good, the bad and the ugly.  I poured my heart out as to all the reasons I could not stay anymore.  Then I poured out all the reasons I could not go.  Then I cried a river over being in such a miserable unhappy place that I could not stay in, nor could I leave it.  She just listened.  I talked and talked and cried and cried.  When I was all done, she had these words of wisdom:

"You have a choice.  You can do anything.  You have friends that love you and that will help you no matter what you decide.  God loves you and He will be with you no matter what.  You get to choose your future."

I sat there stunned.  It was the scariest thing I had ever heard.  To have a choice.  To think beyond the here and now and imagine the outcomes of either decision.  MY CHOICE.  It was unfathomable.  I had given her both lists: Why I could never leave, Why I could no longer stay.  And her reply: "It is up to you."  MY choice.  My choice.  It sank in deeply.  It washed over me with intensity.  It was a life preserver around my neck while being tossed around in a sea of despair.  My choice. 

When all of my tears were cried and I had soaked in the loving words of encouragement from a dear friend, we parted ways.  I was a changed woman.

I came home to my darling husband and CHOSE him.  AGAIN.  I chose to love him no matter what.  I chose to love him the way he loves me-unconditionally.  I chose to embrace him, faults and all, the same way he embraces me.  I chose to be grateful to love someone more amazing than I gave him credit for being.  I am still choosing him every day and I love it.  AND, I now feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

AND, the only thing that changed that night was my attitude.  Funny how much our attitude affects our outlook.  I am so thankful that attitudes and outlooks can always be changed.

Home Alone

It is Friday night and I am home alone.  BLISS.  I am listening to:  SILENCE.  It is golden...and silver and all other precious metals...and precious gems.  Maybe it takes growing up and having a delightfully busy, loud household to appreciate quiet, but I do love quiet.  One of the reasons I often stay up into the wee hours of the morning...to be alone in the quiet. 

Perhaps I had to be old enough to like myself.  I do like myself, finally.  I like myself enough that you don't have to.  That wasn't always true.  But what I have come to realize is that the more I like me, the more other people like me too.  Funny how that works.  People are repelled by the desperate 'PLEASE LIKE ME' but strongly attracted to 'I don't care if you like me because I like me enough for both of us.'  I wish I could teach this to my daughters, but alas, it is a lesson only life can teach you.  The good news is I don't think it will take them as old as it took me.  I think they will be mid to late 20's whereas I was mid 30's...plus a year or two. ( ;

That is all of my precious alone time I am gonna spend musing.  I just thought it kind of funny that I am savoring this time while there are lots of people out there in the U.S.of A. who wish they were not alone.  I am a very blessed woman.  Juxtaposition is a good thing.

Cheater Post

I wrote this for my church bulletin and since this blog is a record of my writing life, I am reposting it here. I think it is relevant to most believers.  It was supposed to be 100 words.  It was over 300.  I remember when I thought it was so hard to write long essays...just one of many things that get easier with age.

This church loves to sing. We do it well, passionately even. While
I am not a singer, I do find music fascinating. I love how songs
often have built in rests...usually those rests are in place so that
at the next part of the song, there is full breath and notes are sung
with fresh intensity. Sometimes, we make our own rests...to get a
throat tickle under control, sip some water, and maybe even to listen
to other voices around you. Then we join back in with a renewed
voice. We may even refrain from singing an entire song we aren't
familiar with. The point is that we return to singing and keep
singing because we know God commands us to. Love God, follow His
commands.


There is another command similar to singing. One that requires
catching our breath, renewing ourselves and sitting out entire
'songs'. It is teaching and mentoring the children of our
congregation. Some of us may feel that we have "been there, done
that" and you may even have the t-shirt. Some of us don't think we
can teach. There has been no one in the history of this church more
reluctant to teach than I. I was not good at it and did not even
think I liked children. Becky and God helped me learn how.
It is a discipline ANYONE can learn. Where we are weak, God is shown
strong. I will help anyone learn to love to teach if you are willing.
We know Jesus has a soft spot in his heart for children. He wants us
to as well. Teaching children blesses both the teacher and the
student. We all smile when we think back on a teacher that loved and
nurtured us. Imagine being the cause of that smile. Love God; love
a child; love yourself. Be plugged in to the Spirit of God by
helping someone else learn to live as Christ. I promise it will be
tough. I promise it will challenge you. I promise you will learn as
much as you teach. I promise God will bless you abundantly.