Recently life has been rushing by so quickly that i come to the end of a week and I’m not even sure what happened. There is absolutely no chance to process it before charging hard into the following week. Drill weekends each month mean a certain 14 day work “week” every month. Last drill weekend ran right up against my 3 year old getting so sick with pneumonia that the pediatrician almost called 911 to transport her directly to the ER…again. Last time that happened she was in a reverse pressure tent for a week straight. So, thank God, we avoided another extended stay in a sanitized hospital floor. Instead, I took care of an incredibly sick kid while working from home, to include run the clock breathing treatments. The steroids caused fits of rage, even while she was sleeping. So she slept through violent, screaming, sobbing outbursts and nebulizer treatments, while i slowly morphed into a zombie. We are on week three–and the tail end of the whole ordeal–and it feels like and absolute lifetime ago.
But God has been teaching me so much that i truthfully don’t know where to begin. I haven’t even been able to keep up with Him. Thank goodness too because most of it has been wholly painful lessons. I don’t think I could have borne to meditate too long on most of the stuff He’s been working out in me. Even now I shudder and cringe over some of the stuff over the past few weeks. The cool thing is that He has also been faithfully matching each difficult and painful word with encouragement, reassurance, and complete love. So much that I just can’t even capture it all…
The whole whirlwind of the month-long insanity was just this past weekend closed with an incredibly busy and stressful, but AMAZING women of faith conference in washington DC. It required commuting there and back for two days, a couple of 5 hour energy drinks, asinine logistical feats, my youth, and a full year of my life, but it was totally worth it. God spoke some amazing words over and into me that weekend. I’m tired and worn down, but i have this insatiable desire to seek after Him and to fight for a life that is just so wrapped up in Him that nothing else matters.
All day today has just been a hair off because of a series of events that seem insignificant and culminate on borderline disaster. I was at the conference, someone else spent the days with my girls. Someone who considers babysitting to be chocolate, 1.5 gallons of chocolate milk, candies, pies, 30 hours of cartoons, no naps, 3 hour-late bedtimes, and MacDonalds. Ephacus! Needless to say, Elena was “off” this morning. We fought the tired fight of her refusing to get dressed. My roommate and I were late leaving the house, I was late picking up the girls because I stayed late at work, not having time to cook, i was picking up dinner on the way home…everything off. Thats when it happened: two cars going for one lane (one of which was mine…) and the game of baltimore traffic russian roulette was played and, well, that’s why we have insurance. Ugh. I just, ugh…I just didn’t really need that today. But i was surprisingly nonplussed about the entire thing. DIdn’t change my patience or interaction with the girls., but just felt a little beaten down is all. I was briefly tempted with I got home to sulk a little bit and get irritated over other things that were already bothering me (unmowed backyard, unswept kitchen floor, broken vacuum cleaner from the weekend and the now furry living room floor, laundry undone, hyper anxious kid get home an hour late and only an hour before bedtime, and the list goes on). But what had changed? what had really changed in my life from how it had been two hours prior? Nothing. i mean, my car is scratched to heck and my insurance will probably go up, but my actual life hadn’t exactly changed. And as I prayed and asked God to help me keep from sinking into that pit of wallowing, and anger, and embarrassment because of my need for all the elements of my life to not look like such a wreck to everyone all the time, the God of heaven turned His gaze wholly upon me. I realized that my circumstances hadn’t changed because my God hadn’t changed. He is my circumstances, not all of these things that crowd up the space around me. I’ve been so challenged recently by Angie Smith who talks candidly about her painful choice to cling to God through the death of her daughter. Did her circumstances change? hmmm…I wont answer that question for her, but what i do know if that in the moment of hearing that her daughter was going to die, when her husband asked her was she was thinking, she said “I think my God is the same God as when I walked into this room an hour ago”. The funny this is that that anecdote is something I heard after what God and I were talking about on the back porch tonight after dinner. I turned the littler sermon thing on because I just needed to hear a little bit of funny wholesomeness while doing the dishes and trying to not think about everything I wanted to dwell on. Kind of just wanted to check out and the sermon was on mother’s day. i figured it was a safe one. true to God’s character, He brought it full circle, and i ended up having to confront the thing i really would have rather hid from.
Oh God, that I would learn to based the truth of my life on the Truth of Your person.
Ps 51:10-17:
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right[b] spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Outpouring Trickle 