rushed

I’m a rush of nothing and everything.  educate, wash the laundry, hang the laundry, dust, vacuum, read, get distracted online, spend too much time online, remember to plan dinner, forget to plan dinner, I hate making dinner. Take down the laundry, “clean up the room”, I need to vacuum the floor, “pick up your toys so I can vacuum the floor”, wash my hair, it’s too late to wash my hair.

Why do I feel like life is passing me by and I am totally missing it?  Will my kids look back and see an absent mom?  I didn’t play enough.  I didn’t laugh enough.  I wanted to change the world too much.  Is everything I pursue in vain?  I want to help with this and that.  I want to focus completely on my family and nothing else.  Because the other things take me from them.  But I feel a driving force behind me, pushing me to speak, to truth, to change, to hope, to despair, to words that seem to go unheeded.

Put down the phone.

Turn off the computer.

Make lists and get to them when I get to them.

Light a candle.

Play some music.

Go for a walk.

Breathe.

Read.  Really read. 

Smile.

Laugh.

Breathe.

Make a dang meal.  It won’t kill you.

Enjoy the cardboard village that invades these walls.

Accept that the world is falling apart.  Yes, God knows about it.  No, I won’t save it all by myself.  But I can do what is right for me, for my family, according to the truth of God’s word.

Relax.  It’s all in His plan.  

Do not turn to the right or the left, but hear that voice behind me that says, “this is the way; walk in it.”  And have peace.

Pause.

Breathe.

Search Him.

Yield.

Obey.

Love deep and full and for real...no matter what.

Yesterday evening, I worked at my clothesline quietly, praying that my mind, heart, life wouldn’t be such a jumble.    Crying for a break.  I am so driven to inform people of truth and so exhausted of it.  I wonder so often if I am just shouting into the streets to deaf, annoyed ears.  I love facebook.  I hate facebook.  It drains the life out of me, distracts me terribly because I am so darn distractable, wears me out.  I hate it more than I like it.  I am addicted to it.  I prayed last night that if the Lord told me to walk away, I just would.  I want to yield, always yield.

This morning, my CWA director called to ask me if I would take over her job as CWA Area Director for Southern California.  I am a magnet for stuff like this.  She told me that I came to mind easily because I’m basically already doing the job since I am so politically vocal on facebook and such.  In addition, I would need to spend about an hour a month collecting monthly reports and passing them along to the Field Office and that’s basically it.  I, of course, can lobby, add more Prayer Action Leaders, plan events, etc., but only if I want to.  A perk is that CWA pays my way to their every-other-year training conferences usually in D.C.

I was listening to Gregg Harris on my iPod yesterday talk about his “Seasons of Life” philosophy.  Statesmen are those in the latter phase of life.  How old was Deborah?  How old was David?  I don’t know, but it’s worth finding out.  This, according to his ideas, is my homemaking time of life...and boy isn’t it?  I have enough on my plate raising two boys, and trying and failing to be attentive to my husband.

I mentioned it to Jamie and he seems to think the CWA thing is a good fit for me.  And thinks it’s an answer to yesterday’s facebook prayer.  And that if my biggest issue is that I’m frustrated that no one is listening to me, then so what?  It’s not like I’m truly suffering.

True.

“Do not grow weary in doing good.”

My heart is in setting this country right side up.  And I do not want half-hearted no-one-else-will-do-it obligations to take me from that unless God ordains it.  

So, I’m praying.  And hoping I can get my life together.  I’ve been so tired and such a homebody.  Unmotivated to move and be out and about.  Odd for me.  I’m hoping it is just a passing phase.  And trying not to succumb to the “a body at rest stays at rest” science.

Activating my mind toward U.S. history & politics makes me alive.  So crazy and geeky, I know.  Who would ever have imagined? 

I/We also need to come to some sort of decision about Expo and whether or not we will continue to help as Exhibitor Coordinators.  I just don’t know.   

Duty, Obedience

Life is not about me.  But I don’t live like that.  I live selfishly and vainly.  I want a nap.  I want my time. I want my will.

I am scatterbrained and unorganized and I don’t often use my time well.

I am tired and I want to do what I want to do.

I want to write.  I want to speak about the injustices of planet earth.  I want to expose the dangers in America.  I want truth.  I want to dance.  I want to educate my children well.  I want to read.

But I’m needed to plan events, to serve, to fulfill my role as this or that.  

George Washington.  

Today, I felt/feel so unsettled in life.  I love my life, but I don’t think I embrace it as I should.  I don’t think I enjoy it as I should.  I fear that I will look back on it and think it wasn’t a happy life, but instead a life full of people-need-me-to-do-this-and-that.  And then I thought, well, George Washington wanted to farm and live cozy at Mount Vernon, but he was hardly able to.  Duty called.  He obeyed.  But there is a rest forever in heaven for him and for all who enter His rest.  So what if this life isn’t all about what my ambitions and desires are?  Obey and do right.

I don’t often do right, I think.  I get consumed with the affairs of this world - with politics, with government.  I feel off-balance.  I want to turn off Facebook forever.  I want someone else to take on the affairs of this world, so I can read and have fun with my kids and keep my house clean and be fluffy and bubbly and fun.  But I am compelled by something deeper to speak, to shout, to expose truth.  

Gregg Harris has been sharing his message “Seasons of Life.”  I ought not to comment on it since I haven’t actually heard it in its entirety.  But what I have heard, I often think about.  As the church body, we all ought to be using our gifts to serve one another.  But many are not serving at all.  And those who are are trying to fill every need the church has.  Gregg Harris says that our life is about seasons: 1. the disciple/student phase, 2. the raising a family/homemaking phase, 3. the grandparent phase, 4. the pastoral phase, 5. the statesman phase.  But it seems that most are reaching the grandparent/retirement years, shirking all responsibility, RV-ing and golfing and leaving the world to be run and solved by those who ought to be focusing on their families.  But since they don’t lead in their churches or in government, the Sarah Palins of the world are having to step up and step in.  I have been asked 4 times to run for the local school board.  I don’t want to.  But if no other common sense person will do it, must I?  Where are the leaders?  Where is duty?  If people of sanity don’t fill these roles, this nation will not improve but will only follow its path over the edge.

It is no wonder New Jersey legalized assisted suicide yesterday.  We reach retirement age, we check out of life and all that matters, and we wonder why we’re not worth anything at the end of it.  It’s no wonder the value of the lives of the elderly is beginning to be looked at as nothing and disposable.  But God knows the number of our days.  He has a plan and purpose for each one.  We ought to live like it.  

This world exhausts me

Tornadoes, the compromising/borderline heretical church, illegals that are given privilege, good and decent families deported for no reason, government scams and cover-ups and lies, the killing of a million unborn and innocent babies every year (3000 today)...

Oh, this world is not my home.

When I am overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.

For the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us.

Jesus, Abba - I love Your Word.  It is life and peace and truth.  An anchor for my anxious heart.

Jamie’s Great-Aunt Ann and her son-in-law, Tommy, died in the Granbury, TX tornado last week.  Ann’s daughter and Tommy’s wife, Betsy, remains severely injured in the hospital.  6 people died in total.  

Praying for Moore, OK, today.  The devastation from its tornado is challenging to comprehend.  But I love seeing the stories of miracles and kind-hearted Americans and Christians and churches who are desperate to help.  I want to help and I want to raise helpers.  To be people that run into danger when everyone is running out - all for the sake of one who might be saved.  To be people who swiftly and tirelessly move and dig and uncover so that a frightened one can see light, can have hope, can live.