Today has been interesting. My day started around 5:30 when I heard some puking. It’s like my body has an involuntary reflex now to respond to this distinct sound and rouse me immediately in my sleep. It is this sound and ONLY this sound that literally holds with it the power to hurl my body out of bed and up an entire flight of stairs within seconds…..no cross-training or preparation could ever improve my running time like the sound of obscure vomiting in the the middle of the night…perhaps I should put these sounds in my ipod for my 5k next weekend…(ha!jk!)…..Time I hit the stairs I realized it was Chris. Poor guy… you work with the sickest of children you are BOUND to sooner or later catch something, right? Well…. he was the sucker this time. He’s been throwing up all day….we will probably all enjoy his final Christmas gift ….I’m trying to pray up…..claiming Psalm 3….”Lord you are a shield about me…”
I say today has been interesting because it’s really been a normal boring day…but God was given glory today…unlike the ones preceding. I decided to stay up instead this morning and spend some time in the word. Things have been hard lately… I’ve been down..really down. I suppose in a funk to say the least. I opened to where my bookmark lie. I’ve been reading through Deuteronomy…..Chapter 6 this morning.
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you rise up………..You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to give your father, by driving out all of your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken.” Duet. 6:4-7, 18-19
Ah… a flood of comfort filled my heart. Though I had forgotten… this was the passage read at our wedding. This was what Chris and I desired for our life…. for our family. I was filled with emotion. The reminder could not have come at a more opportune time….. Our marriage… our family… our dream wasn’t for peace (although that’s nice)…wasn’t for wealth (although that makes things easier)…wasn’t for the word’s view of happiness and perfection…..it was for THE LORD to be our GOD….. I love the Lord..I feel like I do in my heart… and I do feel like I do in my soul…. but with all my might? This is the might part. This is the season where I put on my armor and I go to battle everyday… it just is and I’m learning to realize that. I continue to get blindsided by exhaustion and selfishness and wanting “My Time”. I want to love the Lord with all my might. Am I fighting with all my might for Him? Are you? What is causing you not to care? My self-centeredness is mine.
I’m going to make myself very vulnerable right now and tell you that last night Josh wanted to pray that “God would help Mommy not yell at me and Will.” That is where my heart has been. Ugh…I get teary-eyed typing that sentence…but it’s true. So many blogs I read are filled with all the “happy pictures”……I have those too… but I have these moments as well… and I have always promised to present my WHOLE picture.. not just the “great shots”….but I share all this to say that last night I felt like I was done… it was over.. I’d blown it….but this is NOT the whole picture. When Christ died…everyone thought it was done… it was over….but Sunday morning came…..and all things were new. And because of Christ.. I’ve not blown it.
“these words…shall be on your heart…”
I wish I knew how to research this original language to truly understand what God was saying… but this morning, it said “no matter how far you go….my words will be on your heart…..you will not forget them…I will remind you…..you will not be able to abandon me…because I won’t let you. I have gone ahead and “driven out all of your enemies before you.”…..you are mine…. forever.”
I sat in the stillness of my house……it was so quiet…you know the kind of quiet when all you hear is the hum of your fridge?….and prayed. I haven’t done that in a long time… nor had I had the desire. I thought of all of the things that discourage me…the detrimental self-image thoughts…..the conveting thoughts….the lonely feelings….the fears.. the worries…all of the things that keep me from this place where I was right then and I prayed that the Lord would go before me and drive out those very thoughts and feelings like he had driven out the Isrealites’ enemies….before I had time to think them. And He did. We went to church…we came home…I read with my kids…I played games with them…I made dinner.. all the while Chris was upstairs in our guest room resting ….but it was ok. Presently, I am sitting in my dirty kitchen…the griddle still out from our pancake supper….crumbs all over the floor… there are blocks strewn on the floor in our den… a rocking chair is on our coffee table because I was vacuuming up a squished goldfish…..it’s not trash…it’s not clutter…it’s life. And I can get to that later. I am learning Christianity is about extending oneself past the “life” stuff. When we fill ourselves with “life” we truly miss out on the “love”…. on HIS love.. and His joy.
..do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to give…..
I don’t believe now all of my troubles will be over….but serving the Lord first…with all my heart and soul and MIGHT….this feels good….assurance of His love for me… forever forgiveness….grace that surpasses all my sin–ALL my sin….THIS is the good land….He is still bringing all of us there and back again. Once again, I have made a journey and have returned refined.