May 2007

No title, no real sense of direction, just sort of a rambling rose...

Here again you find me blogging a wee bit late. Late, I guess the deadline is created by me so "late" is up to my own self. I am tired. No, exhausted. I finally got the desperate sleep last nite that my body/mind has been craving. As a mother of two boys under the age of Four, I can see why interrogators choose sleep deprivation to get into the minds of people. I'd give away the Colonel's secret recipe for a good nites sleep!

However, in these moments of bleak desperation I find my heart and head is really ready to listen to God's voice. My heart seeks Him, my soul is enraptured with worshiping him in song (mostly in my head and sometimes right out loud). I become more acute with life and the really important things. The sort of things that have nothing to do with what I don't have or who I should be or look like. Watching my kids breathing whilst sleeping and reliving the miracle of their births. Looking into my husbands eyes and seeing that he has suffered just as much hurt as I have and rejoicing in how God is healing us and our marriage. Stopping to ask someone if they need/want help and then doing what I can.

I find God's earth to be very therapeutic. The soil here in Southeast Texas is very cool. The layers are much like this; top soil, soil/sand mix, sand/clay. I have been planting a ton of flowers and plants in our back and front yard. The work has been invigorating (also contributing much to my recent spell of exhaustion), difficult (with the sun beating down on my back/face), a cleansing time to think/meditate on the things God is teaching my heart and a great opportunity to share about God's thoughtful creation in each petal, leaf pattern, soil, mulch and water to my sons. I am finding that every moment is a teachable one, which I now realize means that each moment I am "teaching" I am also learning from my sons. As I strive to patiently answer the question, "why?" over and over again to my oldest son, I catch myself daydreaming if Jesus felt the same when his disciples asked so many questions about things that seemed simple to him. Yet, as I answer these repetitious "why's" I begin to understand the need for understanding a particular thing/concept at all levels and even some "what if's".

Many of the people we read about in the Bible went through some incredibly desperate situations/times and through them they were able to release their grasp on the unimportant and cleave to the important. May I live for those important things. I want to worship God all the time, with my every breath, with all my hands do and with the very way I speak to my children when I am annoyed and tired. My heart's desire is to love more. "Out judgmental heart, out!" (a play on Shakespeare) I want my mind and heart to be drenched with God's word - not parched from my sporadic reading.

I guess this turned into more of a confessional than anything else. God be praised!

8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (I John 1:8-10)

1 Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.

(Psalm 29:1-3)

In Christ,

Elizabeth