I Read Too Much

You know, I really have to admire a guy like Job.  I mean here was a man who lost everything...EVERYTHING and still didn't blame it on the Lord and still maintained his strength of faith and rebuked those who told him to admonish the Lord. No, I'm not reading in Job right now, I'm in Numbers. So, why am I going down this path of thought?   Well, here's the thing.  Sometimes being an adult isn't all it is cracked up to be.  In fact, there are days when it is the worst thing.  Honestly to be able to go back to having someone else take care of everything would be super awesome.  BUT.... That isn't the way of life.  In fact, life is all about moving forward even in the face of adversity and Job-like moments.  I've been MIA lately due to some things that have occurred in our life that have resulted in the Mr. and I having to buck up and become the responsible parties for someone elses' poor decisions and life skills.  Let me tell you, I enj...

Yesterday I shared about how my devotional was spot on with what I'm dealing with, and well, I'm still going back over the ones I've left unread for the past couple months.  I shouldn't have, left them unread that is, but I can honestly tell you I wouldn't have really read them anyhow.  I had turned my listening ears off because I had turned my way of doing things on.  There are a lot of things that happened this summer.  A lot of beautiful things and a lot of not so beautiful things.  I have a lot of memories that I will cherish forever and some lessons that I wish I would have never learned.  I think the hardest lesson, and this will be a post later on, is about the amount of people who will let you go, as a friend, acquaintance, etc because they only want to view one side of a story.  Again, we will revisit that later. Back to a bit from today's devotional, which was actually from July 14th.  "And your sin isn’t any better!...

I run.  I run miles and miles and miles.  I'd like to say that I do it because I want to be a contender for the Boston Marathon, but I don't.  I run because when I am overwhelmed it is the one way I release that pent up energy.  This energy I speak of isn't always from having it to burn, but from an over abundance of feeling that I cannot get through.  Some people, like the one that I love, work with their hands, brute physical force, it is what they use to get through the feelings.  They can channel all that emotion and make beautiful things.  Me, I run. I'd like to say I'm making a beautiful thing.  Perhaps changing my shape could become that thing, but right now, it is a way to let go of the emotion that controls my life.  And it does.  I have been taken over by my emotions.  I had these in those early days and months.  Those days where I started to channel the energy into working out and getting healthier.  The healt...

I think I'm losing the battle here.   I pray that I don't lose the war.  I hate to admit that I am not as strong as other people think I am.  I feel like I am failing you.  You have this crazy thought that I'm making it, that I'm succeeding, that I'm being true to all that God has to offer and has designed for me.  I'm not.  I'm failing.  I'm faltering.  My walk is starting to look jagged.  It isn't what it should be.  I'm embarrassed.  I'm full of anger - with myself.  How did I get here?  How did I lose sight of the prize?  How did I take my eyes off of the best thing that God had for me?  HOW?  It was slow.  Isn't it always?  Isn't it always that first glimpse of a shiny butterfly that flitters across your field of vision that piques your curiosity?  Then you find that you want to see it again, so you start searching for it.  You take steps in the direction you last saw it flutt...

This has been a super hard week for me.  I mean really, really hard.  I've cried, I've been sick, I've cried some more, ok, let's just leave it with - I've cried.  Well, crying may be a bit too calm of an emotion.  What I've really done is sobbed - gut wrenching deep, soul crushing, heart-breaking sobs.  After all, it isn't every day you find out the worst about the one you love the most.  I've gotten some texts, some instant messages, some phone calls, and some wall posts all telling me it's going to be ok; that this too shall pass; that what doesn't kill me will make me stronger; that God will never give me more than I can handle; that I'm strong enough to get through this; etc, etc.  Here's the thing - I don't want to just get through this.  I don't want to just over come this.   I want to win this.  I want my husband back.   But I fear he isn't coming back.  Today was the day he told me he was signing the lease ...

I have had this post on my mind for days, many days actually, but haven't quite put together how to write it.  Then today, as we were taking the movies back to the Redbox, my girls were watching Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief on the DVD player in the van and it all came to me.  Often they wear the headphones, but every once in a while we just let the move play over the van speakers.  (It helps when it is a movie that I really like too, this was one of them!)  Anyway, the scene that came on, as we were driving, was the one where they enter the Lotus Den in Las Vegas.  I'm hoping you have seen it, because I'm going to spell it out here.  In other words, this is a spoiler alert! Percy and his companions enter The Lotus, a casino, and at first they keep their eyes on the prize, in this case the pearl they need to get back from the underworld.  However, they are constantly bombarded by the "workers" to try this and th...

Have you ever struggled with doing the right thing?  Sure you have, you are human, right?  I sit here tonight tapping away at my keyboard pondering the results of doing, saying, and honoring the right things.  In fact, the right thing for me, and truth be told, my family too, may not always be the best thing for another, especially if that destroys a longtime relationship.  Perhaps that is going a bit too far, too fast.  So here, let me break it down.  Life is full of situations.  In fact, each and everyday starts with one.  You have the option to wake up or sleep in, put a smile on or a frown, be kind or be a jerk.  I know, you are probably thinking something like, "wait, these are choices, not situations."  I, in return, would capitulate and agree, BUT have you ever thought about the result of that choice?  That result is the situation.  So, I go back to my original question, have you ever struggled with...

I don't know the first thing about golf and truth be told I really don't want to.  However, today I feel like calling a mulligan.  Not because I want to redo any portion of this day, but more so because I want to redo my life, or at least certain portions of it.  I'm finding that on this quest to trust others and to love others that there are huge moments of reflection involved.  Reflection, regrettably, brings about guilt;  guilt brings about sorrow; and sorrow brings about the desire to undo that thing which caused it in the first place.  I have a lot of that - guilt.  I look at my life and wonder how on Earth I got to the place I am in now.  Certainly I should not be here and not because the here is bad, but that the here actually has a lot of good.  I know, sounds strange doesn't it?  That's the thing, I don't deserve any of this.  Yet, despite what I deserve I have so much more; truly so much to be thankful for. ...

Have you ever had deja vu?  Or perhaps had a conversation on the same main topic a couple different times with different people and in those cases you were not the initiator of the conversation?  Well, that has been the case for me this past week, especially in the past few days. I have heard a time or two where the Lord will give you direction through other people, now I am a firm believer in it.  The topic, you ask?  Simply, loving other people.  Before you misunderstand, it isn't that mushy love that couples have, it is that general love that one should have for their fellow man. You see, and I am just going to throw this out there, I have a really hard time loving other people.  Some see this as me being mean, pretentious, arrogant, strong-willed, and any other word that describes a person who isn't soft around the edges.  However, it isn't that I don't have the capacity, it is that I simply don't trust people and loving ...

I realize that my title is by far childish, in fact it is down right rediculous, but it was the nicest thing I could say to express the way I feel.  When a child is small, typically around toddlerhood, grown-ups think it is great fun to teach them car sounds.  Perhaps it is more because saying vrroom, vrroom and beep beep are fun to say and the child presents an excuse.  Regardless, it happens.  So there we adults are, training generations on the first basics of car vernacular.  Why is this so significant?  Well, there comes a time, roughly 14-15 years after those first utterings that said child will get behind the wheel of a car; heaven forbid!  Honestly, I now fully realize how my parents felt X number of years ago when I first started to drive.  However, that is another topic for another time.  I'm making a different point tonight. Now enter this scenario:  It is raining, heavily.  There are 2 lanes on the exit ramp w...

Have you ever been disappointed?  I mean truly, unequivocally, disappointed? When this happens is it the result of another person?  Or perhaps it was due to some preconceived notion or plan you had developed that didn't pan out the way you thought it would?  Sure you have.  In fact, I knew the answer to this even before I made the words come together on this page.  You know what I don't know though, is how you get through it.  That is the million dollar question today.  It isn't so much that I am looking to write a book and I am seeking ways to fill it, but that I wonder if there are others who suffer from the wrong way to process the disappointment. You see, when disappointed the first thing I want to do, yes even as a thirty-something I still do this, is throw a temper tantrum.  For some reason, the inner toddler in me wants to come out and be heard.  After all, there is something that is not right in my environment and I do not know how ...

By starting over, I don't me with my life, per se.  I can't rightly become an infant again anymore than I can redo yesterday.  In fact I can't even undo any of my past choices.  However, what I can do it chose today as a day to start over in a key area of my life; a life that was created and wanted before it came to be.  What I mean by this is my walk with Christ.  In case you haven't picked up on all the subtlety in the past few posts I have been noticing a great divide in my life, a chasm that needs filled and I know that the only substance that has the power to fill my Grand Canyon-esque valley is the living water, the truth of life.  I'm not trying to be poetic or flowery, I'm trying to put it into words the only way that I know how to. I often wonder if God has you do a few certain things in life, against your knowledge, that will redirect your path.  Here is why I ask that.  I shared yesterday the three book series that I just finished....

This past week I have been strangely disappointed.  Disappointed in a lot of things, but mainly in myself.  How many people look for, search for, yearn for their place in the world and actually find it?  How many have found their true identity and are pleased with what it looks like?  Well, those two questions are why I am strangely disappointed in myself.  What is my place?  Where is my place?  What will I look like when I get there?  Have I already seen myself and scoffed at the reflection because I was looking for more?  That is truly the answer isn't it?  More.  There is never enough.  More.  This constant quest for more is what leads to the circular reasoning of never getting to the place I have already been yet cannot find again. What drives this?  Why am I so afraid to be who I really am?  Do I really know who I am?  There are so many hats that I want to wear, so many that really do fit and so ...