Why IS Enough Not

ENOUGH?!

It is crazy the way we consume and then consume to store what we've consumed and then have sales and make donations to make more room to consume more!!!!!

STOP! I want off!!! 

I have been hungering for space in my life since 2004. It's in my prayer journals and in my devotions and written on my heart!

Then why has it taken this long to let go?

Because I didn't want God more than anything or anyone else in my life, plain and simple.

I so often have felt like this... 

but... all I do is this...

It is, was , will ALWAYS be my heart...it's a heart problem. The more cluttered my life gets the more distracted I am from what really matters.

SOMEtimes...

that's a good coping or defense mechanism, but ULTIMATELY...

I miss the real life I was meant to live and lose touch with the real person I was created to be because...

I have lost sight, I have lost touch with God...my one true, faithful, forever LOVER of MY SOUL!

He always is here.

He always is in love with me and calling me.

He always wants to just be with me and to bask in one another's presence.

I  have filled up the empty times, places, spaces, and seasons in my life with STUFF...good and bad STUFF.

Well, I am tired, fatigued, and weary because nothing, no activity, no person, no ministry, no addiction can replace the very source and Love of my life.

It's funny. I am a creative artistic type, but have a strong desire for order. I have never been able to figure that out...and maybe never will...but MAYbe...just MAYbe... some of that is because I have been unsettled and distracted like Martha. 

             

Luke 10: 41-42

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed - or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her."

Martha wasn't wrong to serve, but she was possibly motivated not out of love and devotion to her Jesus, but perhaps for baser reasons. Reasons such as approval, acceptance, prestige, and on and on. We've all been there and done that! 

I FEAR...

I have lost much time with that mindset far too often. I sense my God has been grooming me to quiet myself and let go on so many levels that it has been scary and difficult, and yet exhilarating and freeing. The things of this world, this life we think is oh so real...it has been slowly losing it's flavor for me, like gum that's been chewed too long. 

HOWEVER...

God knows me and knew just how long I would dawdle. He knew my tolerance for staying with "fillers" and "fluff" and the idols that would never fill me up or quench my thirst...and He just waited and loved me and gently spoke terms of endearment to me. Sigh! What a lover He is! What a pursuer of my heart he has been. Grace...it finally broke through and into my numbed out mind and heart and said, "I'm here, I've been waiting. What a sweet journey we will have in this life and after!" 

I KNOW...

I will stray back sometimes. I will heed the call of the sirens. I also know, that it is less often and that I more quickly find myself back at His feet, letting Him stroke my hair and speak truth and light and life into me...filling me up. 

Psalm 63:1-8

(When David was in the desert)

You God,are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you, 

My whole being longs for you,

In a dry and parched land where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary

and beheld your power and glory.

Because your love is better than life,

my lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live,

and in your name I will lift up my hands.

I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;

With singing lips my mouth will praise you.

On my bed I remember you;

I think of you through the watches of the night.

Because you are my help,

I sing in the shadow of your wings.

I cling to you,

Your right hand upholds me. 

What more could I need? He is enough.

Once Again It's 4 a.m. 

So many things could be waking me up.

Is it the 12 hour decongestant I took at 8 a.m. yesterday morning?

Is it my "time of life"... again?

Is it the "blue light" stimulation from being on the computer too close to bedtime?

Is it the recurring back stiffness and at times pain from this herniated disc?

Do one of these things awaken me, but then my mind switches to the "on" mode?

Images and thoughts come unbidden into the half awake/half asleep place.

I finally realize I have been awake too long to stay in bed and go back to sleep.

I have to get up, make my beloved fragrant hot Aveda Comfort Tea/ Sinus Soother Sleepytime cocktail, sit in the semi-darkness of dimmed lights and get the thoughts out of my head.

The images and thoughts are so many things...

Too many things to write out here...

God, You know I desire to sleep deep and undisturbed. You know that it has so long been an issue, so I trust you in this...again.

I feel secure in you when I fall to sleep and what can I do but turn to you when I "fall awake"?

I lay my sighs before you and all those things that make up those sighed prayers...all those concerns, all those images of people I love, people I know or have met, and those murky images of the past or of an unknown future.

I know you hear me, I want to wait in expectation, but I also want to sleep...the deep restful sleep that I seem to remember from some time a very long time ago.

The furnace cycles on, the house creaks as cold areas warm up, I have finished my tea and and as David the Psalm-writing king did I also I offer my words, my sighs, my cries, my prayers, my voice, and my request to You O Lord.

Help me to wait in expectation...to sit with you a while and just be in your presence...to know you.

Breaking Bread

Two things I love are traveling and preparing food and eating with loved ones and friends.
The traveling costs a fair amount as we dream of returning to Italy someday after two trips there and amazing memories made and food shared! So, cooking and eating food here is more realistic in my life right now.
The winter is always when my "inner cook" surfaces at our home. There's just something about the cooler temps and shorter days that make it more pleasant to be in the warm, aromatic kitchen. Whether chopping (very therapeutic by the way), baking, or stirring and sautéing, I love to feed my senses and love to feed others' senses as well.
We've exchanged the art of hospitality, comfortable "down time" around a family table for the art of entertaining and impressing others with our culinary achievements and beautiful, creative presentations.

http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/soup/vegetable-soup/squash-bacon-and-swiss-cheese-soup.html

One of my favorite memories is of having a friend over in the middle of the day and serving her leftover homemade chicken pot pie and a salad and sitting in our old, funky eating area next to the kitchen and talking and sharing for hours that winter afternoon. It warms me every time I think of it.

I need to ask her if it does the same for her.

There's so many more. Sitting with friends at our table or theirs after a homemade meal, sipping wine then, hot tea or coffee, lingering over some sort of desert and just being with one another and sharing in one another's lives, the good, the hard, and the reality. Laughter and tears and often some praying. We seldom leave the table the entire evening!
It is quite possibly one of my favorite times of the day.
Even when it's just Fred and I, I love the camaraderie of working together in the kitchen on the evening's meal, sipping a glass of wine and catching up on one another's day. Then we either sit and with music playing or we have a few lovely BBC shows that we are addicted to and we stream those often stopping them to talk about something going on in them or to clear the table and finish up our show or save the rest of it for another evening.
Shauna Niequist says in her book Bread and Wine that really communion is whenever we gather with others and share food.
"Communion is connection, remembrance" and "He's here! God is here, and he's good. Every time we eat, every time we gather, every time the table is filled: He's here. He's here, and he is good."

FEARFUL and Yet God...

 FEAR - God

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

     

Fall is here and it is my favorite time of year. It's when things supposedly slow down a bit. 

Yard work tapers off more and more. 

Outdoor gatherings are more mellow. 

School schedules dictate earlier bedtimes...quieter evenings at home.

This fall also holds fear for me.

An uninvited guest pushing it's presence into my thoughts and at times into my heart.

I DO firmly believe that we are to look at our problems through the lens of our God and not the other way around

I am a person of prayer and committed to praying for those I love and even for some I may not particularly like. I pray for myself as well and am quick to ask for prayer from those with whom I feel safe doing so.

It's not like this has never entered my life before. nor is this the FIRST fall I have found fear an unwelcome companion at times dogging my heels.

But...

I have three friends at the moment dealing with breast cancer.

One is recovering from it and the treatment (mastectomy and treatments) and she is a beautiful woman and friend and wife and mom! Strength is what she exudes, though I know she often does not feel strong, she has endured multiple major health challenges! Sonja, I love you so deeply! 

Two are newly diagnosed and just starting treatment.

My friend Linda is a peer as far as time of life and age and is just starting radiation after her diagnosis, biopsy, and surgery in August. She has a wonderful attitude and faith!!! My heart breaks though as she endured her sweet husband's own battle with cancer several years ago and finally had to release him to the Lord. A year later she also said goodbye to his father at the same hospice center AND room! We were to get together today after her radiation treatment to celebrate our August birthdays at a local restaurant...alas, she's not having a good day and we had to cancel again.

My other friend is Rachel, a young wife and mom of two girls, who just moved far from her established home with her husband when he accepted a lead pastor position in another state. A few years ago Rachel's husband, Matt, also battled cancer and beat it! However, it forever alters your life no matter the outcome. Rachel, diagnosed in September with breast cancer, is presently starting chemotherapy and even with her tremendous sense of humor and her faith she is able to share honestly how hard this really is on so many levels.

For the past several years, I was having mammograms every six months because they found a spot they wanted to monitor. I went for several of those and then talked with my primary care doc who I trust very much. He agreed with me that since it hadn't changed and I have a history in the past of lots of Fibroid cysts and there is no family history of breast cancer that I should take a break from all the radiation exposure and mammograms and wait until after the first of 2015 to get another one.

I was good with that...we are looked at here in the U.S. in amazement by Europe as over-reactionary and needlessly scaring women and performing lumpectomies and mastectomies when the "cancers" being excised would often not create any problems for the woman and she would die a natural death before it ever impacted her life, if ever.

I WAS good with it...

However, I also have lost sweet friends to breast cancer and I have a daughter that is an oncology nurse, so I do not have my head in the sand...I know that there is real breast cancer and I am seeing these three friends deal with it right now.

My problem is that this has all triggered my own fears about my situation and I am going to God asking him to bolster my faith and to remind me that it is he alone is who responsible for each and every one of us.....I am not doing well right this moment. I do believe my fears and my problems are small in the light of who God is. I do! The more I stay in the scriptures the better I do, but sometimes I just have "a day" or  "a week" or even "a season".

I guess I just want to be real and honest about this all and in the midst of it ask anyone who just might happen across this blog to lift my three friends up in prayer and pray for me as well. I know my eternal destiny and that is truly amazing as far as dealing with my mortality. Sometimes though, in the quiet night hours I lie awake and Fear knocks, I try to see if I can feel what my mammograms see, I can't, I think of these women that I love and I do not want them to endure any more losses and then I pray for us all...and then I cry...life here is not what was intended for us...   

Earlier Blog Draft I Just Discovered :)

"When will I ever learn to live in God

When will i ever learn?

He gives me everything I need and more

When will I ever Learn ?" (Van Morrison)

(This was an entry that never got out of my draft pile...just written in the last six months or so, so here it is!)

I am sitting at my computer right now after running...literally running... to the bathroom seven times tonight! Nope, it's not my "fun night of prep before a colonoscopy". Nor is it a flu bug. It apparently is the tail end of 48 hours of hyper inflammatory issues in my gut and elsewhere....that migraine last night was a kicker. My body always lets me know when I have overtaxed my reserves and not done a good job of feeding it and resting it! I will get this resting in Him thing down more consistently sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, so I don't trash my self physically and I can stretch out the mileage on this shell that houses me for a lot more fulfilling years and not just survive to a ripe old age.

I have struggled with busy times and I have struggled with times where I am so depressed it is an effort to get out of bed. I think we all have struggled with these to a greater or a lesser degree. Either one requires letting go and letting God.
Either one requires admitting we are weak and He is strong.
Either one requires that we learn to care and nurture the life God has lavished upon us...no matter what socio-economic bracket we are in or what our ethnicity is, we need to honor the life He gave us and care for it like the precious gift it is. When I abuse myself or others with my actions, my words, or worse, my heart and attitude, I am saying to the world, "I don't value myself very much, nor God Who created me, nor anyone else." I need Him every moment of every day...every breath is a gift from him.  This is a sweet blog post on resting in Him by this woman!!! Good stuff!

Coming Out of a Fog: The Need for Renewal

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At the beginning of the year, I was on book deadline. Shortly after turning in my manuscript, I got pregnant. With the pregnancy came extreme morning sickness – the kind that almost landed me in the hospital for dehydration. Then my...

Prayers for Ferguson/St Louis/Our Country

Prayers for those two families most impacted

Prayers for our hearts and motives and actions

I do not have words of wisdom, nor deep, deep insights about the recent events here in St Louis.

I have a sadness and a fear that nothing will ever change, mixed with a hope that things really might begin to change in the right direction.

I have read and seen things that have lifted and crushed my spirit at the same time by people at the scene in Ferguson, online sitting at their keyboards, and in conversations going on all over the place.

I really am hopeful that we all remember that the  lingering effects of such a traumatic event stay with people for longer than the news coverage ever does.

I am hoping that the intentional behavior of many of us to be kinder, more aware, and careful of what we say or even what we might nod in agreement with, becomes habit and not just a "crisis response".

I think that most of us would agree that there is no right or wrong 100% on either side of the coin, but there is a stalemate in our culture that is slowly snuffing the life out of many of us. It's an apathy that breeds many symptoms that at times flare up and that can create pain and suffering and even death.

I need to confess that I do not want to enter into the discomfort of what these events call me to do. I want to stay in a comfort zone that falsely promises to protect me and mine. 

And yet, I am weary of the ongoing heaviness that broods in our land...a darkness that requires that the light of the gospel and the love of our Lord be released into it in the ways each of us are uniquely wired by God to release it.

I am thankful for the life God has given me. I do NOT take it for granted. But, I am required by his love towards me to share that love willingly and not sparingly.

My heart goes out to all of the residents and the families in Ferguson impacted by this terrible tragedy. 

My heart also goes out to all law enforcement personnel and their families that put their lives on the line for us every day. 

I am not ignoring or discounting the fact that there are people who have done terrible things both as citizens and as law enforcement officers, but I believe that most of us want peace and unity.

As I said in a FaceBook post a week or so ago, we need to take personal responsibility for our own actions, attitudes, and words. 

Especially as we sit in the relative "anonymity" of our homes or cars or offices and type away on social media.

Words have power.

Words have meaning.

Words reflect what is truly in a person's heart.

What we choose to post or choose not to post shows more often than not what sort of person we are.

I pray that these struggling words I have clumsily written reflect God's character more than mine, I really do!

The longer I am around the more I realize so many things just do NOT matter.

Missing the traffic light...doesn't matter.

Messing up a meal...so NOT the end of the world.

Forgetting why I walked into a room...oh well.

My hair, body, outfit, voice, face does not look (or sound) just perfect and the way I think it should...no one else is noticing, if they are, "Get a LIFE!"

People doing stupid things in traffic...ummm, do I NEVER do stupid things while driving?!?!
(This is SO not worth getting into it with someone over!)

What someone else thinks of me...more often than not they are not thinking of me, but if they do and it's unkind, I have been blest with an abundance of safe, loving people in my life, I can let those others go!

Having the last word...it's exhausting, besides,  I like saying "Hmmm.." and walking away from a convo.

A clean house...sanitary, yes, squeaky clean and always presentable?...got over that years ago!
Plus I have loads of "cheater" things I do to make it presentable in under 5-10 minutes:)

Winning...WHY is this so important to so many of us? Grace and mercy and love always win!!! Big!!

Then again there are several things I have come to realize really do matter!

Time with those people that I am close to, either in person, face to face, or at least on the phone...NEVER lost time!

Lying about and doing nothing, daydreaming, and looking at the sky, or a baby's foot or sleeping face...priceless and restorative.

Reading good books...THIS is one that social media and "smart" phones have robbed from many of us!

Praying and listening for God's "voice" or direction...never enough time for this one, but we so often SQUEEZE it in!

Responding to that little impulse (Holy Spirit time?) to do something like go visit someone, or talk to that person in the checkout line that looks weary, or send a note to an old friend...or a new one...those are the moments I am sure that if I skip over them (and I have) I will miss out on getting my socks blessed off!

Sleeping...naps are a good thing and going to bed early just because you can and you are tired does not mean you are a nerd!

Doing something for someone "just cuz", especially for someone that cannot pay you back or that even knows you or that it was you that did it for them...this is one I  LOVE!!!!

Returning an unkindness with kindness...you may never know the impact of this, but the effect on others is stunning.

I am sure there are so many others, but this is a start.
I needed this today, because making mountains out of molehills is something I aspire not to do, yet find myself, at times, doing very proficiently!