Yesterday we awoke to 3 inches of snow. This morning, it promises to be a balmy 51 degrees and the snow is all but gone. I found no time with hubby working from home and three kids under foot to blog about it yesterday.
But today, things are feeling a little more normal and nothing is going up in flames if I don't attend to it. The calm started to settle in last night around 9 o'clock, and I started thinking...
Thinking for the first time in many, many days. It seems like I have just been doing and reacting, but not really taking in anything around me lately. Last night, I sort of woke up and became conscious to the fact that I have been holding God at arm's length...trying desperately to avoid him. In fact, I think I was feeling a strong urge to avoid everyone....to just find some black hole and pull it in over myself. Do you know that feeling? I know you do.
I think it's because I've heard so many sad stories lately. So much bad news. I feel real fear for those I love. I feel real sadness for people I don't even know. It feels like heartache is everywhere. I guess it's my reading the Psalms, but I found myself asking, "Just what kind of God are you anyway?" I've wrestled with the problem of pain theologically before and I know my way through that labyrinth. But maybe my real question, the real cry in my heart is "Couldn't you please do something this time?" Fix this marriage. Save this cancer patient. Deliver this family from financial ruin. Protect the children. Ease the pain of the elderly. It's too much.
God says no and wait a lot.
I guess that makes me feel a little better about how often I say that to my own children. Sometimes, knowing how uncomfortable and painful the world is for so many, I get offended by my own kids' yammering for more toys, more sweets, more fun. Literally, offended. And then I feel all superior and wise and knowing because I know more than my children. And pride creeps in under the fear I already feel. And what a horrid combination that makes...a prideful, fearful person.
Yes, I am waking up to the fact that my soul is in worse shape than my bathroom floor.
ugh.
2 comments:
Pain is a strong element in our growth in Christ. It is also the element I would avoid altogether if possible. This must be why it isn't possible.
You know what carries me through? Sometimes when you least expect it, He does save the marriage, he does heal the cancer, he does rescue them financially, and then I'm forced to remember that when I gave my life to Him, I also agreed to trust Him. Trust His understanding of the circumstances.... and His decisions about intervention. Thanks for the thought provoking blog.... I'm going to go check my bathroom floor.
Sometimes when I am feeling depressed and the Bible is not helping, I head for the New Testament for a while.
Just a thought.
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