mud

Megan said the most profound thing to me this weekend as she held me. "Mom, it's ok to sit in the mud."  I instantly started bawling again because the reality of that statement just blew me away.  I have felt like i have been wading and trudging along in that mud for awhile now. Sometimes i get so tired.  I just never thought of just sitting down and resting.  Sunday during the main service i shut myself up in the prayer room for a bit hoping for some clarity.  Psalm 46:1-3 & 10, really the whole Psalm but what struck me when i opened up to it was verse 10, "Be still..."  Sit in the mud.  Dear James and the beginning of  his 4th chapter as well as more from the Psalms quenched my soul.  Sit in the mud.  Thank you Meg for letting me cry.  I know i will have to get back up and walk on but i think you might just be right.  how can i gain clarity and hear Daddy whisper in my soul if i am always huffing and puffing through life's swampy areas.  There is a time for everything, even resting & recuperating.  I have slipped up on all the reading i used to be doing.  It is a symptom or byproduct of frustration that has become now become the disease of not moving forward.  Attitudes can't change if i don't exercise them with healthy input. So i rest.  breathe deep.  i will move forward with cooling mud covering me & protecting me from stinging bugs of life (hopefully) for a bit.  This isn't going to change anything but i will help me move forward.  Life is just a series of landscapes, not sure what is ahead of the swamp but it's alright.  We will never have to go through these places alone.

questions with tea

When is it too old to realize your dreams?  Should there be a time where you say " this is enough, pass here i have to give up."? Or do we never stop?  If we are always evolving and changing, do the dreams constantly evolve & flow with us, thus allowing us to never stop dreaming?  Not to mean we are never satisfied, but that we are always striving to a goals out in front of us.

I don't have these answers.  I just wonder if i should realize some things are just not in the cards for me.

Maybe i should just get my hormones checked instead.

i have had my tea now so it is time to turn my brain off and get some sleep.
       Life's heavy questions can be much easily answered tomorrow.
                       Always tomorrow....

Tinsle Time

I heard a commentary on WNPR coming home tonight that really made me stop and think.  Am I the Chief Celebrator? Are you?  If you or I weren’t in the house would they go to the same crazy lengths to celebrate a holiday?  If not, then you are a Chief Celebrator and I think I am too.  Why do we bother if it only means this much to us?  I think, it is because we realize somewhere deep within ourselves just how profoundly important celebrating and memory making is, what it will mean to someone later on.  Holidays are not just happy sugar sweet & snow covered bliss.  Holidays are bitter-sweet, shadow haunted alleyways as well.  From our earliest memories we have glimpses packed with childhood innocents and Christmas glee, but the older we get those memories are shadowed.  There are empty chairs at gatherings…dear family gone; some have broken homes to complicate what should be a festive time & older folk alone and nearly forgotten.  As much as it might annoy some that we Chief Celebrators go to such ridiculous lengths to make merry, don’t you think it is our duty to do so.  See we remind them why we celebrate even in the mists of penny-pinching times or plenty-to-share times.  If we don’t take the time to reflect what we have come through as families or individuals, and how much we all mean to each other; I think we will just drift apart.  Family and friends anchor each other through all life brings. 


   I remember years Ed and I had so little to supply under the tree and yet it was almost always full.  I remember a few years of plenty and the giggling fun we had racing through the malls buying for everyone we could think of.  I remember living rooms lit only with Christmas lights secretly stuffing stockings only to realize someone had been there before me.  I remember Grams having 2 punch bowls of eggnog and that we kids were NOT allowed to drink from one of them!  I remember childhood Christmas’s in Indiana that are filled people now gone or now distant.  We need to remind each other of not just the reason for the season we are in but the journey that brought us to another one to enjoy it.  


Nichols (not the Saint btw) reminded me a few weeks ago that if we are not homeless, if we have something for dinner, & if we are not cold; we have much to celebrate and be thankful for & the rest is fluff.  Ya know he right. Some years have lots of packaging and some not so much, but that’s alright.  Celebrating is what is needed, holiday happiness is needed, and memories of all kinds are needed.  They help shape us and anchor us to the ones we hold most dear. 

Jacob wrestling with the easy button

i was flipping though the radio channels this morning and tripped over The Light's broadcast of Dr. David Jeremiah.  He was talking about giving everything over to Him.  He was talking about getting under His Yoke and that yoke isn't the oxen kind we might think is it. I didn't hear the whole sermon but i heard enough to hear him go on about how stress free life could be if we hand it all over to Him. It really can't be that easy to walk around stress free & flip it around if i have stress am i guilty of not submitting my will to His?

i should know better, but i guess i don't.  I don't think i am phony, maybe my Buddhist dad's visit is messing with me, but i don't think so.  This has been slowly simmering.  It might be a mix of doubt and a mix of maturity that life is not that black and white.  So what now?  What do i do with complex troubles and doubts?  Or do i just simply let them go?  Sounds too easy...and yet IF my faith were strong enough is it simply this easy? 

If i were to runaway and hide from the world, i think i would find a nice Mennonite community to take me in and shelter me.  Grass really looks bright green from this side but I know that's only an illusion.  So I think for now I will shake off dust and resume older habits and see if this diminishes the shadows.  I am going to pray more than I have been, work on my bible studies again and be more honest with Him about the Thomas-thoughts and issues I have.  Sometimes I feel wrong to have them, I should know better, I do but still.  How do you get back stuff lost?  Not just faith-life stuff but emotional-life stuff?

Is the bible really my "easy button", Cecelia?  I know, i can't believe i am airing these doubts, it's just i don't understand how things could be the way they are sometimes.  Of course this could be just one of those mid-life crisis things i've always joked about. 

I know it is the Advent season and not the Lenten season, but in Sunday School this week we were discussing the crucifixion.  A line from one of my favorite songs won't quit running through my head.  Natalie Grant's song "Held"..."Can we not wait one hour waiting for our Savior? This is what it means to be held..."  I guess i hold on, sit tight and wait, but i will not be sitting still.  I am going to wrestle this thing like Jacob.  There is an answer and i refuse to give up without finding it.