Griping at God

Lately when I've been spending time with God, I sense that He wants more from me....or more of me!  It's comforting to know that God and Don, the sweet man to whom I've been married for 36 years (Aug. 9th) still want more of this old woman....who is grouchy more than I ever thought I could be!  For many years, I have been writing my prayers, but again, I think God wants more from me....more struggling with Him in prayer, more of my gut feelings that can't even be written down in neat, legible computer font.  He still wakes me up with a song, as he does my hubby.  Our songs tell us a lot about where God has taken us in our dreams, and sometimes He gets after us with our morning songs!  Don and I have been griping at each other a lot lately.  We have had a hard year, the hardest so far.  We find ourselves talking too much about problems and not saying, "thank you:" to each other enough.  I suspect we have been treating God that way also.  Maybe He just wants to hear our "gripes" aimed His way, instead of at each other.  So, last night, I watched a sad episode of the Waltons after Don went to bed, and I gave God my worst.  He can take it.  He's God.  And He turned it into my best.  He did a Romans 8:28 on me, and so I stayed up all night writing, and this morning Don found a less gripey version of his same old wife!  He hugged me and apologized for being gripey with me last night.  I apologized too, and we gave each other our morning kiss.  I'll find out what his song was later, and I'll share my prayer time.  It's the best part of marriage....being friends!

Abba, Father!

I am up early, anticipating a farewell for now ceremony for my friend and sister, Rhonda Krawczyk, who went home to be with God last week.  Left behind is her husband of 32 years, John, her daughter Courtney, her sister Cynthia, and many many friends.  Last night my husband and I went to her viewing, and really, I think we should call such gatherings, "remembering".  Rhonda wasn't there, at least not in her body.  It never ceases to amaze me how none of who we are is left in the body we leave behind.  Rather, who she was was in that room last night, in the pictures, in the quilts she made, in the faces of all who loved her.  She left behind a lifetime of love, and she beacons all to follow her where she is now!  We're coming, Rhonda!

I am also up early, because that's what I've been doing....getting up with my neck hurting, from a dental procedure induced neck injury, going downstairs, sending up my son and his puppy who usually fall asleep in front of the TV.  Last week, every morning around 3, I would wake up thinking about and praying for my friend Jami, her daughter Jaylyn and her parents, all of whom were trapped in Tokyo since the earthquake/tsunami.
As we all watched the horror unfold on TV news, knowing from Jami's reports that it was much much worse, I would pray for Jami and family.  Now they are home, and the horror of Japan has ceased my heart even more.  I keep seeing the sweet faces of the Japanese people I have known, humble and gracious, smiling people.  I have taught Japanese children in preschool and Japanese adults in ESL.  We humans are all alike.  Seeing the humanity swept away by the tsunami, while running to get away, being urged to run by the people filming from the relative safety of a tall hill....one man going back to help another.  I think both were swept away.  The film was diverted before we saw that happen.  I don't have words.  Other than, God!  Please help these people!

I'm thinking about Jami, what she must be processing.  I'm waiting, like all of her friends, to hear what she has to say.  Mostly I just know she will need to say it all....at least to God and her husband, she will.  Like my neck, which has been ceased up in agonizing muscle spasms all week just from a little pressure put on my upper mouth during a crown building procedure, we humans are fragile.  We are truly vapors that are blown away after such a short time.  Yet, we are eternal!  We are valued so much that our Creator sacrificed His Son for us.  It is laughable that when we are young, we feel invincible.  We are not.  Not even when we are young!  We are not, even when we are old.  Especially when we are old.  But, with years, at least we learn, sometimes, where to go for Power, security, eternity...and our hearts cry out, "Abba, Father!"  (Daddy!)\

Seeking Him--Living by Faith: This, too, will pass!

Seeking Him--Living by Faith: This, too, will pass!: "Yesterday it rained in torrents here! The rain was so heavy at times that many roads had to be shut down, and it was too much to even ..."

This, too, will pass!

Yesterday it rained in torrents here!  The rain was so heavy at times that many roads had to be shut down, and it was too much to even consider making the walk from the parking lot to the movie theater, so we just camped out at home.  It reminded me of a storm we are currently experiencing in our family.  It is not the hurricanes of the past, or even a quick moving, though devastating, tornado.  This is more of a long, drench-you-to-the-bones, soaking rain, like yesterday.  We know when it began, but we do not know when it will end...or how it will end.

It is beyond my ability to fix this situation, and the hardest thing for me about it is that I have to wait.  While I wait, I have many things that I need and want to do.  But I'm off-kilter, mid-crisis, and depending on someone else to make choices.  Still, I have my supporters and critics.    There are no easy answers, and we just have to wait out the judgements.  Only time will prove them right or wrong.  It doesn't really matter to me who is right and who is wrong.  I just want the best thing to happen for my loved ones.

So what do I do mid-crisis?  I hug my husband, I serve the Lord, I pray for who and what I cannot control.  I read my Bible,  put one foot in front of the other, and hope we are walking the right way.  I guess, right now, this is what it means to live by faith.  Trust in the Lord to guide us along our path.  Make the choices He would have us make...support each other.  Love Him...love others.  What else can we do?  This, too,  will pass.

Forever Dreaming

I've always dreamed big.  As a young teen I had a crush on Davy Jones from the Monkees, and I used to drive my parents crazy by singing their hits, loudly, into forks and spoons as I washed the dishes!
They thought I was dawdling, but I knew I was auditioning, for the first female lead for the Monkees and for  Davy Jones' future wife!  Mind you I can't recall of a time the Monkees toured Iowa Park, Texas or wandered down Karen Lane where I lived, but that didn't matter--I knew it could happen.  My mother worried that I really didn't see myself accurately, and she was right!  I didn't.  I was a chubby little girl from Texas with a wobbly soprano voice, but I dreamed big!

I still do.  I am not satisfied being a writer.  I want to be published.  I am not satisfied with oil painting.  I want my art to be hung in a museum.  I don't want to just lose weight, I want to run a marathon!  Those dreams may or may not come true, but my biggest dreams are not dreams at all.  And I don't have to wait to see whether they will come true...they already have.

I want to live forever.  I want to sing with the angels a song that never ends.  I want to live in a mansion made and designed for me by Christ Himself.  I want to thank Him for choosing my favorite colors for the sunset and the walls of my mansion.  I want to sit down with Peter and ask him how he managed to recover after denying Christ three times.  He might ask me how I managed to recover after hurting my best friend.  Or maybe we will both have forgotten those earthly sins.  I hope so.

What I really want to do is walk the golden streets and see the faces of souls who are there partially because I told them about Jesus.  I want to walk arm and arm with my husband, knowing although we won't be husband and wife, we will live forever together in paradise, with none of the worries we have had on this earth.  I want to see my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and their children playing together on the heavenly fields, the laughter of children ringing in all of our ears.  I want to see friends from all different nationalities joining in song in a land where none of us are strangers.  I want to see my sick friends well and my sad friends joyful.  I want to hug the people who couldn't accept a hug here on earth and gaze into the eyes of those who would never meet the gaze of others.  I want to rejoice with everyone to have left the world behind and to be in our eternal rest with God our Father, with Jesus His Son and with all who entered there before us.  I dream big, but God made it happen!

Seeking Him--Living by Faith: Judge not!

Seeking Him--Living by Faith: Judge not!: " I am ashamed to admit that there were years in my life when I thought I had all of the answers! How I managed to b..."

Judge not!

     I am ashamed to admit that there were years in my life when I thought I had all of the answers!  How I managed to be so arrogant in my thinking while maintaining a pretty negative self-esteem, I certainly don't know.  While I am sure I am not alone in  possessing a history of an exaggerated sense of self, I am not eager to have that history repeat itself in my life.  I didn't even hesitate to self-righteously proclaim the scripture from Matthew 7, where Jesus admonished, "Do not judge, or you will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
     In my mind's eye, the judgmental soul, certainly not me, would stand before Jesus on the judgement day, and be "measured" using the tool with which he "measured" others. While I will not, at this time in my life, claim to know exactly how we will be "measured", I do know what has happened in my life every single time I have had the audacity to judge another person:  I have had to "walk a mile in the moccasins" of each person I have judged.    
     Years before I ever faced chronic illness, I misjudged young, seemingly healthy people who suffered from prolonged colds, recoveries from surgeries or pregnancy, even grief.   I realized the folly of such judgments when I was diagnosed with a series of chronic illnesses, one right after another.  And, as I judged others, I too was judged by people who had not yet suffered from any prolonged bouts of ill health.  As I judged others, so I was judged....the measure I used was used to measure me.
     When I was a young parent, I often wondered, I remember now with a helpless shaking of my head, why it was that I was not asked to speak from the vast store of my acquired wisdom, at seminars on how to parent successfully!  It wasn't until my oldest was a teenager that I first learned how ill-conceived of an idea that was!  It was then that I began to realize how very little I knew on the subject!  Today I could hold an entire weekend seminar and fill it with lectures on how not to parent, based on my own mistakes as a mother!  How tragic and disheartening it is to know that my own children had to suffer the consequences of my self righteous assessment!

        These days I often cringe inwardly when I hear a young parent pronounce judgement on another person's parenting style or character.  I really don't want anyone else to have to learn life's lessons on judgmental behavior the hard way, as I have had to learn.  No one really arrives in this life--not as a parent, not as a Christian, not even in our chosen professions.  There will always be more to learn, more to achieve and inner strength and wisdom to acquire.  And the Source of that wisdom and strength is the Creator of all good and perfect gifts, He who wishes to give true wisdom to His children, if only we ask.  And, sadly, if we are judging others from the position of superiority, then we do not possess the humility to ask.  Judge not....