Thank you Lord, for your body here on the earth. For brothers who will proclaim you and glorify you, and for sisters who lift you up and adore you.
Even in my slump, Lord, I get to witness the radiating love you pour out on those who gather in Your name. I love you. I'm glad that when I have lost the energy to turn to you, I have brothers and sisters who will grab on to me, and hold me up, and take me to you. I'm so grateful that when I'm not "feeling" it, you are still being explored and loved and adored, and I can witness it.
Thank you that I don't have to do this on my own. That I was not made to do this on my own. That I was made to be part of a corporate expression. Your body, your parts, functioning together.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Friday, May 13, 2005
This is One You Would Usually Glance Over and Pass By, But it Ends Well
It's been quite a busy week. The Mavericks game is on tv, and it's a bit too early to go to bed...I think I'll take a bath and read. Wow, I'm tired. The little things have really gotten me down this week. I try to remember the Lord at the good times as well as the bad.
Emma had her ballet recital yesterday, and I don't think she could've been any cuter. It almost hurt to look at her! She was so happy and sparkly and excited, and she did so well! I was very proud of her. I was the backstage mom, and our little group of girls was the best behaved bunch! I don't know if this is because they are all a bit shy and were uncertain of the situation, or because I scared the living daylights out of them. I don't think I was very bossy, but a little bossy for me is extremely bossy for others. Oh well. They had fun. No, they did, really!
On call this weekend. House is a mess. Dishes in the sink from lunch...faucets dripping everywhere, dust in corners, weeds in yard, unmentionables in garbage outside, the AC in my car makes a funny noise when I turn it on and smells like rotten fish. My back hurts. My nose is running incessantly, and I am frequently sneezing. Emma threw 3 fits today, 2 of them public, and I broke Mom's expensive plates at the shop. I left my bracelet and watch at the salon. (They called back and said they had them.) I had 2 close calls in the car today, and I haven't had a shower. I guess I could do that instead of blogging. But I'm sitting here now, and to do the other would require too much movement at this point. Sitting still is nice.
Again I'll say it, whether I succeed, or whether I fail, He is all. This could be a list of the wonderful, fabulous, "everythings-going-so-well" day I might have had. Then I would be all "Oh! God is so good! He is so gracious and loving, and in every moment! He overwhelmed me with good things and showed his mercy and kind-intention on a minute by minute basis." You would believe me, and would wonder what was wrong with you that God didn't bless you like that. Well, sistah, I am here to tell you that my day was wretched, and oh, God is so good. He is so gracious and loving and in every moment. He overwhelmed me with Himself and showed His mercy and kind-intention on a minute by minute basis.
Believe it? You'd better, because that's the truth. He is our strength and our weakness. Our joy and our sorrow. He is all. Everything comes from Him, opportunites in every second of every minute of every hour of every day to KNOW Him. As He is. Not as we think He should be, but as He is. He far exceeds every expectation.
Emma had her ballet recital yesterday, and I don't think she could've been any cuter. It almost hurt to look at her! She was so happy and sparkly and excited, and she did so well! I was very proud of her. I was the backstage mom, and our little group of girls was the best behaved bunch! I don't know if this is because they are all a bit shy and were uncertain of the situation, or because I scared the living daylights out of them. I don't think I was very bossy, but a little bossy for me is extremely bossy for others. Oh well. They had fun. No, they did, really!
On call this weekend. House is a mess. Dishes in the sink from lunch...faucets dripping everywhere, dust in corners, weeds in yard, unmentionables in garbage outside, the AC in my car makes a funny noise when I turn it on and smells like rotten fish. My back hurts. My nose is running incessantly, and I am frequently sneezing. Emma threw 3 fits today, 2 of them public, and I broke Mom's expensive plates at the shop. I left my bracelet and watch at the salon. (They called back and said they had them.) I had 2 close calls in the car today, and I haven't had a shower. I guess I could do that instead of blogging. But I'm sitting here now, and to do the other would require too much movement at this point. Sitting still is nice.
Again I'll say it, whether I succeed, or whether I fail, He is all. This could be a list of the wonderful, fabulous, "everythings-going-so-well" day I might have had. Then I would be all "Oh! God is so good! He is so gracious and loving, and in every moment! He overwhelmed me with good things and showed his mercy and kind-intention on a minute by minute basis." You would believe me, and would wonder what was wrong with you that God didn't bless you like that. Well, sistah, I am here to tell you that my day was wretched, and oh, God is so good. He is so gracious and loving and in every moment. He overwhelmed me with Himself and showed His mercy and kind-intention on a minute by minute basis.
Believe it? You'd better, because that's the truth. He is our strength and our weakness. Our joy and our sorrow. He is all. Everything comes from Him, opportunites in every second of every minute of every hour of every day to KNOW Him. As He is. Not as we think He should be, but as He is. He far exceeds every expectation.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Lego Man Bo
When I find something great, I am crazy-mad in my advertising of it. The fires are hot, but generally short lived. So, while Bill and I are all about blogging right now, I just had to pass the joys of it on...in this case, to my five year old son.
Here is his little blog spot. He plans on writing a lot of stories to put in there. I think they will all feature the following characters: Spiderman, Power-Bam (his made-up alter ego super hero), Annakin, Luke, DarthVader, Vladek (a lego guy from the Knight's Kingdom series) and Dok Ock, who was invading our bathroom this morning with his clanking, assaulting arms. (It is ra-heely hard to brush that dude's hair!) Thomas may make an occasional appearance, but he is outgrowing him a a bit. Sigh.
http://www.legomanbo.blogspot.com
I'm sure he will be willing to respond to any comments posted his way!
Here is his little blog spot. He plans on writing a lot of stories to put in there. I think they will all feature the following characters: Spiderman, Power-Bam (his made-up alter ego super hero), Annakin, Luke, DarthVader, Vladek (a lego guy from the Knight's Kingdom series) and Dok Ock, who was invading our bathroom this morning with his clanking, assaulting arms. (It is ra-heely hard to brush that dude's hair!) Thomas may make an occasional appearance, but he is outgrowing him a a bit. Sigh.
http://www.legomanbo.blogspot.com
I'm sure he will be willing to respond to any comments posted his way!
Monday, May 09, 2005
Jesus Christ: Our Daily Reality
I've been thinking alot about being a Christian these days. You know, what it really means. I found a quote I couldn't quite believe from T.S. Elliot:
"We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time."
I almost don't get that, and yet it rings so true! How could something so foreign to this skin and bone be "home" in my experience? How is it that when I turn to the Lord, it's like I'm really breathing for the first time? I know I have never been without Him, but the willful attention makes such a difference. I guess He responds out of His longing for us to do just that.
There's a song on the new U2 album and a line of it goes: "I'm alive, I'm being born at this time. I'm at the door of the place I started out from, and I walk back inside. All because of You, all because of You I AM." I have been listening to this album for a couple of weeks now, and I just heard that for the first time today. Sometimes it seems that creation echos a theme, and it's just waiting until the idea is discovered and then it showers the truth of it all around you!
That is who He is. Once He is discovered, then it is all encompassing, overflowingly evident that He is all there is! It's like going to see the ocean for the first time. You knew it was there, you never doubted for a minute, and then when you were first presented with the real thing, you were dazzled by the immense truth of it. Everything assaulting the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin were declaring "Ocean" and there was no escape. So you plunge in it's depths, taste the salt, dig your toes in the sand, feel the balmy air in your hair, the sand beneath your feet, and for the rest of your life, even if you never have that experience again, you will not forget the reality of it.
As time goes on, and visits become less frequent, the clarity of it darkens, and though you could spend the rest of your life with only that one encounter, it will become more dreamlike, and it will be harder to remember the feeling of the sun warming your back. Your life is busy, and you don't have time to even think about it, so you don't really miss it all that much.
But some people, having seen it once, cannot be without it, so they pack up and move there. And in every moment, the sea is there, calling, calling, calling. They have chosen to know this sea in it's every mood, at different times of the day, during different weather, and find there something new to discover in every moment.
The Lord is present and available. He is the reality you can not only visit, but in which you may live. Why do without? Why be Emily Dickinson, who wrote: "I never saw the moor, I never saw the sea, but know I how the heather looks and what a wave must be. I never spoke with God or visited in Heaven, but I am certain of the spot as if the chart were given." Why live with a dream-like God, when you can have morning, noon and night fellowship with the One who loves you so totally?
Just call His name, and then enjoy the results.
"We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time."
I almost don't get that, and yet it rings so true! How could something so foreign to this skin and bone be "home" in my experience? How is it that when I turn to the Lord, it's like I'm really breathing for the first time? I know I have never been without Him, but the willful attention makes such a difference. I guess He responds out of His longing for us to do just that.
There's a song on the new U2 album and a line of it goes: "I'm alive, I'm being born at this time. I'm at the door of the place I started out from, and I walk back inside. All because of You, all because of You I AM." I have been listening to this album for a couple of weeks now, and I just heard that for the first time today. Sometimes it seems that creation echos a theme, and it's just waiting until the idea is discovered and then it showers the truth of it all around you!
That is who He is. Once He is discovered, then it is all encompassing, overflowingly evident that He is all there is! It's like going to see the ocean for the first time. You knew it was there, you never doubted for a minute, and then when you were first presented with the real thing, you were dazzled by the immense truth of it. Everything assaulting the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin were declaring "Ocean" and there was no escape. So you plunge in it's depths, taste the salt, dig your toes in the sand, feel the balmy air in your hair, the sand beneath your feet, and for the rest of your life, even if you never have that experience again, you will not forget the reality of it.
As time goes on, and visits become less frequent, the clarity of it darkens, and though you could spend the rest of your life with only that one encounter, it will become more dreamlike, and it will be harder to remember the feeling of the sun warming your back. Your life is busy, and you don't have time to even think about it, so you don't really miss it all that much.
But some people, having seen it once, cannot be without it, so they pack up and move there. And in every moment, the sea is there, calling, calling, calling. They have chosen to know this sea in it's every mood, at different times of the day, during different weather, and find there something new to discover in every moment.
The Lord is present and available. He is the reality you can not only visit, but in which you may live. Why do without? Why be Emily Dickinson, who wrote: "I never saw the moor, I never saw the sea, but know I how the heather looks and what a wave must be. I never spoke with God or visited in Heaven, but I am certain of the spot as if the chart were given." Why live with a dream-like God, when you can have morning, noon and night fellowship with the One who loves you so totally?
Just call His name, and then enjoy the results.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
NSD!
Happy National Scrapbooking day everyone! If you are looking for me, I will be on twopeasinabucket.com. I did step away from the computer for a minute to do this:
http://twopeasinabucket.com/pg.asp?cmd=display&layout_id=556806
Gotta run! I might be missing something fabulous at 2p's! S.
http://twopeasinabucket.com/pg.asp?cmd=display&layout_id=556806
Gotta run! I might be missing something fabulous at 2p's! S.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Exerpt from Les Miserables
Reading Les Miserables. I like so much of it, but this is one quote I read to Bill the other night, and we agreed that it needed to be copied down somewhere. So where better than here?
"Savage. We must explain this word. What was the aim of those bristling men who in the demiurgic days of revolutionary chaos, tattered, howling, wild, with cudgel raised and pike aloft, rushed over old overturned Paris? They wanted the end of oppressions, the end of tyrannies, the end of the sword, work for man, education for children, an amenable social climate for women, liberty, equality, fraternity, bread for all, ideas for all; the Edenization of the world, Progress. Pushed to the limit and beside themselves, terrible, half-naked, a club in their hands and a roar in their mouths, they demanded this holy, good, and gentle thing, progress. They were savages, yes, but the savages of civilization.
They proclaimed the right furiously; they wanted, even if through fear and trembling, to force the human race into paradise. They seemed barbarians, and they were saviors. With the mask of night they demanded the light.
In contrast with these men, wild, we admit, and terrible, but wild and terrible for the good, there are other men, smiling, embroidered, gilded, beribboned, in silk stockings, in white feathers, in yellow gloves, in polished shoes, who, leaning on a velvet table beside a marble mantel, softly insist on the maintenance and preservation of the past, the Middle Ages, divine right, fanaticism, ignorance, slavery, the death penalty, and war, glorifying politely and in mild tones the saber, the stake, and the scaffold. As for us, if we were compelled to choose between the barbarians of civilization and the civil advocates of barbarism, we would choose the barbarians. "
"Savage. We must explain this word. What was the aim of those bristling men who in the demiurgic days of revolutionary chaos, tattered, howling, wild, with cudgel raised and pike aloft, rushed over old overturned Paris? They wanted the end of oppressions, the end of tyrannies, the end of the sword, work for man, education for children, an amenable social climate for women, liberty, equality, fraternity, bread for all, ideas for all; the Edenization of the world, Progress. Pushed to the limit and beside themselves, terrible, half-naked, a club in their hands and a roar in their mouths, they demanded this holy, good, and gentle thing, progress. They were savages, yes, but the savages of civilization.
They proclaimed the right furiously; they wanted, even if through fear and trembling, to force the human race into paradise. They seemed barbarians, and they were saviors. With the mask of night they demanded the light.
In contrast with these men, wild, we admit, and terrible, but wild and terrible for the good, there are other men, smiling, embroidered, gilded, beribboned, in silk stockings, in white feathers, in yellow gloves, in polished shoes, who, leaning on a velvet table beside a marble mantel, softly insist on the maintenance and preservation of the past, the Middle Ages, divine right, fanaticism, ignorance, slavery, the death penalty, and war, glorifying politely and in mild tones the saber, the stake, and the scaffold. As for us, if we were compelled to choose between the barbarians of civilization and the civil advocates of barbarism, we would choose the barbarians. "
A Bad Reaction
Why do I let people get to me like that? My eyes are swollen from crying, my throat hurts, my head aches. It's wretched. I'm late to get the kids because I don't want them to see me like this. All over work. It isn't like I'm the president, but it's also not like I'm filing sundry papers in alphabetical order. People, mostly elderly people, are looking to me to keep healthy or recover from illness. I think I give off an "I really do care" vibe. I look into people's eyes and listen to them. I try to do my best. Sometimes it isn't enough. Sometimes you just can't make them well. Or happy. I have a great boss, who really understands this, and is trying to help me understand that because some people get sicker, or (God-forbid) complain about services doesn't mean I'm a bad nurse.
But why can't I just get angry, slam things around and drop it? I just cry and fret and cry some more. I really like this job. I can't let these few instances ruin it for me. I feel so stupid for crying, and that makes me cry even harder, which makes me feel stupider! I can't win!
I guess, like all feelings, I could just turn this one over to the Lord, and let it be what it is. I can't change who I am. I can accept this weakness and take it to Him. Instead of hating how I react, I can react, and turn to Him, or better yet, just turn to Him without all that reacting! I guess the point is that whether I respond poorly or excellently, He is fully available. I know how He will respond to me. With absolute and utter love.
Thanks, Lord. I love you, too.
But why can't I just get angry, slam things around and drop it? I just cry and fret and cry some more. I really like this job. I can't let these few instances ruin it for me. I feel so stupid for crying, and that makes me cry even harder, which makes me feel stupider! I can't win!
I guess, like all feelings, I could just turn this one over to the Lord, and let it be what it is. I can't change who I am. I can accept this weakness and take it to Him. Instead of hating how I react, I can react, and turn to Him, or better yet, just turn to Him without all that reacting! I guess the point is that whether I respond poorly or excellently, He is fully available. I know how He will respond to me. With absolute and utter love.
Thanks, Lord. I love you, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)