I am either a very slow learner or very stubborn.  I'm not sure which is preferable.  I woke up this morning with that ever so familiar gnaw of indecisiveness.  The very thing I wrote about yesterday.  So, I prayed.  I loosely settled on a 'plan for the day.'  The monkey wrench came, as is not uncommon. Indecisiveness returned.

You know, I have this character defect of being much attached to what I want.  I tend toward inflexibility.  This is bad enough in itself.  It leads to stress and seeds of selfishness being sown, rather than seeds of love and service.  It's compounded by the fact that I don't actually know what I want.  I just seem to want something else a lot.  Something other than what's presented me.  This is a problem.

I was sort-of ruminating on this this morning and I realized that of course, this all goes deeper, as character defects often do. Often these flaws sprouted in childhood in self-defense and we have fed them for so long that they can not be easily extracted.  And I'm an over-analyzer.  I like to know cause.  Which can be tricky.  See, I think if I know the why, then I can deal with the what.  But really, I can't deal with the what at all.  Awareness and knowledge are necessary and should be sought after but the only way to actually shed any troublesome character defect is to pray it away.  Sometimes God is more than happy to oblige.  Other times, He lets us struggle so in our weakness He can be made strong.

And sometimes analyzing can be a tool we use to postpone giving something over.  At least, in my case. And then, sometimes, analyzing leads to realizations that aren't exactly settling.  This was the case this morning.  I realized that my indecisiveness over the small things is a cover-up for the big things.

There is unrest in my soul because I am living my life in a way that is incongruous with how I desire to live my life.  How I know I am called to live.  And so it manifests in unease with small decisions. I am avoiding big change so resisting small change.  Oooh, how painful it is to write this.  But I feel that if I don't acknowledge to myself the truth, I will stay stuck in the wavering.  Which is an unpleasant way to live.  So, I have to give all of myself over.  I have to allow God to lead my life in the weighty matters as well as the seemingly inconsequential ones.  Only then, will I have peace.

"...sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand."

-Madeline L'Engle

Submitting to a Knowledge of a Certain Nothingness

She believed that she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was becoming necessary for her. – Jane Austen

For  Wordless Wednesdays

I Might Become A Nun

"And when we can say to God, 'O, You my joy!' or when you can say, 'O you the pain of my life, O you who are standing in the midst of it as a torment, as a problem, as a stumbling block!' or when we can address Him with violence, then we have established a relationship of prayer."

- From Beginning to Pray but Anthony Bloom

I read this as good news.

In many ways, it's difficult to understand speaking in such a manner to He from whom all blessings flow....and then again, there are times when ranting is our only language with a God we cannot understand.  Far better to rant than to ignore.  I believe that these crying out times are healing times as well as times of purification.  To be honest and raw means we care, that we have not given up the search.  That we recognize that there is meaning to life and we want in on it.

I got off the floor this last week.  I decided my tantrum had gone on quite long enough.  But this does not mean, I've felt no disturbance toward God.  And yes, it's been toward God.

I think that when much has been stripped from us, we come to a place with God where we say, "Fine...but now what?"  And then there's often silence.  "O, You the pain of my life!  Can't you give me a little glimpse of how it's going to be all right?"

My faith tells me that it will be.  My mind grows anxious wondering how it can be.

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.-Philippians 4:6-7

A lot of Christians jokingly say that they're afraid if they give over their entire life to God, He'll send them to Africa.  Confession:  I'm afraid He'll call me into nunhood.  I probably get a little ahead of myself in my worry.  Rather than staying in today I obsess over the Teresa's.  I remember saying when I was twenty that I wanted to be like Mother Teresa, dedicate my life to helping those in need.  And then I worry that God was recording that wacky statement to use against me later.  And now, reading bits of Teresa of Avila's story, I'm hoping God is not calling me to anything similar.

And, oh yeah....I'm not Catholic and I have children.  

But this is how my brain works.  It likes to take things to the extreme.  It has me plotting a premeditated resentment toward God for causing me to be single for the rest of my ever living life. O, You the pain of my life!  That's what you want for me?  That's what I do- take my fear and escalate it to the nth degree. 

But another confession is that I've always been drawn to the idea of complete devotion to God.  Which is ultimately a good thing.  And so I relate this week when, for class, I read,A New England Nun  and Long Day's Journey into Night. 

But how much of this comes from true reliance on my Maker rather than frustration with and fear of man? 

 In a way the whole thought process is somewhat silly and humorous but in another way it seems to prove how very small my speculations might be in comparison to what all God really has planned for me.

Therefore Lord, not only are you that than which a greater cannot be thought but you are also something greater than can be thought.
-Anselm of Canterbury

And yet still, it's proof that in my very heart of hearts, I know Jesus is the one for me.  This very longing for Him even pitted against fleshy fears shows me how deeply in love with Him I have always been.  That ultimately I am His.  And whether He truly calls me sometime in the future to sacrifice the notion of marital love or bestows upon me an earthly man equally in love with God, today I know that God's love is sufficient.  Today I will rest on the image of Christ as bridegroom.

Source: flickr.com via Nicole on Pinterest

Like a best friend

Having  a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of.  You know whatever you do, they'll still be there.- Amy Li

shadow shot sunday

Scallop shell of quiet

"Go your way step by step.  Now is the appointed time to do your part: and your part, as you know well, cannot be done with righteous and breathless rectitude, but by being receptive so that you can be used as a channel, which is part of being a temple of the Spirit.  It is the antithesis of noise and dubious fame; be the silent ones, anointed, with rod and staff and the scallop shell of quiet and the promise of truth."

Unnecessary

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.

Carl Reiner

I'm okay with that

"The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages." - Virginia Woolf




House cleaners came yesterday. Only because we rent and the owners are coming today.  And my housekeeping skills lack a bit.

I'm a stay at home mom. I home school.  But Molly Homemaker I am not.  And I was so grateful that we were able to hire these women for this one day but as soon as they arrived, the tapes started playing.  Those tapes saying that I'm not good enough. That there's no reason I should hire help when I'm a stay at home mom. That the house cleaners were judging me because the kid's rooms were so messy.  And on and on and on. And I had the yuckiest feeling. Until I got mad.  And told the voices to shut up.  But it bothered me enough to prompt me to come here today and write it out.  My indignation.

Indignation at the pressure that I've felt to be superwoman.  

The myth of superwoman has hung on long after the media stopped airing fantasy-based commercials about working women's lives: Here she comes, home from the office after 12 hours of high-powered negotiations in the executive suite. Her designer suit is still fresh and unwrinkled, her face radiant and unlined as she opens her arms to greet her two adorable children—and sends a seductive glance toward her handsome husband, beaming proudly in the background. Watch her as, with one smooth motion, she slips off her jacket and into a dainty apron as she glides toward the spotless kitchen to create a three-course meal for her beloved family. After dinner she will check the children's French homework and read them a chapter of Jane Eyre before tucking the little cherubs into bed. While her husband watches the late-night news, she will disappear into the den to make an overseas call that will clinch a multinational deal for her company.
-Deborah J. Swiss

Yes, I'm a stay at home mom.  Yes, I home school. No, I do not love to cook and clean. (Gasp).  Now, I do those things. Because I feel that it creates a healthy and loving environment for my family. I believe that as a stay-at-home mom, my job is to keep the house up.  But....

First, I am a child of God.  Then, I am a wife and mother.  Then, I am a daughter, a writer, a student, an artist, any number of things.  And I got to thinking in that discomfort yesterday.  If I simply woke up every day, taught the children and then cleaned until bedtime....wouldn't that constitute as a waste of my talents?  

If we confine ourselves to one life role, no matter how pleasant it seems at first, we starve emotionally and psychologically. We need a change and balance in our daily lives. We need sometimes to dress up and sometimes to lie around in torn jeans. . . . Even a grimy factory can afford some relief from a grimy kitchen and vice versa.” – Faye J. Crosby

I think it would.  So, I gave myself a break.  And I'm going to continue to do so.  Because we don't live in a pig sty.  It's just that when I clean, things don't look quite so shiny.  I don't fold the toilet paper into a little triangle. There are streaks on my windows after I clean them. And yeah, it had been a while since I'd cleaned the ceiling fans.  I came to the conclusion that housecleaning is an art.  No, I don't want to learn it.  But I appreciate it as such, and so every once in a while, I'm willing to pay for it.  And, this is not a sin.  It doesn't make me a bad mother, or a bad wife or a hypocrite.  It just makes me a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, with an averagely cleaned house most of the time.  I'm okay with that.  

And just as an end note.  The kids promptly did their best to destroy the place, moments after the house cleaners left.  I think the super clean made them nervous. 

submitting at A Pause on the Path

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.-Anne Bradstreet

submitting at PhotoSunday

Exploring the world

"Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them."- The Audubon Nature Preschool








submission at shadow shot sunday

An Active Mind

Like swift water, an active mind never stagnates.-Anonymous

submitting at Watery Wednesday

Now and Within

"Each one of us makes his own choice; it is either the way of negation, a materialistic philosophy, or the way of the creative spirit, the Way of Life.  'But one thing is needful,' he said, and 'now is the appointed time.' One has said that 'two of the greatest words in our language are now and within.'"- Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood

wordless wednesday

Lipstick

Submission for Ruby Tuesday

Source: femailcreations.com via Nicole on Pinterest

I think I'll try it!

Something Waits...

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.  ~Andrew Wyeth

I don't so much prefer winter.  And this winter has not come in well. But there is grace. I am at least not in cold country anymore. 

I need to hold on desperately to that last line in Wyeth's quote.  Spring will come.  And I don't know what waits.  But I know that winter is not forever. 

So I focus on today.  

Who

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Mark Twain

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

I couldn't resist.  December 1st, today and in so many ways, I'm glad November is behind me. I've been away from here for a while because I participated in NaNoWriMo. And I 'won'!  The experience is one I'm so grateful for and one which will take me who knows how long to process.  

Going in, I almost thought of it all as a joke- for me.  How would I write a novel, a brand new novel with all else in my daily life? But God, in His amazing way, found fit to bring to me an idea, to give me time off from my school, to come every day to where I wrote, and to teach me of Him, further and deeper.  It was all a gift. Whether anything happens ever with my story, I know that it was an avenue He used to strengthen my relationship with Him.

And in the midst of that beautiful gift, my home life went haywire. Thankfully, not due to all my time writing. But circumstances, hidden, God chose to reveal last month and here, there are not words to describe the feelings behind the happenings. And I don't understand the timing anymore than I understand the circumstance,but I know that as I wrote about a girl seeking Jesus, Jesus sought me.  

And so I don't know what the future holds. But I know Who holds my future. 

wonderland

Always something beautiful

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.
Albert Schweitzer




Tina's PicStory

The way that I should go

This weekend I met with a bit of unexpected freedom.  I was too busy to blog.  And I was okay with that.

"You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry. Don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way." - Walter Hagen

I know that sounds silly but because of my somewhat obsessive nature, I had placed this regulation upon myself months ago that I would blog every day.   I make up imaginary rules for myself, sewing patterns of  pointless, restrictive routine.  Taking the fun and the good out of it all.

I haven't figured out what all prompts me into these sort of actions but I'm guessing it has to do with some need for control.  And perfection.  And that perfection drive was dealt with these last couple days as well.  Trying to calculate my final grade for the class I'm in, I realized that I'd forgotten to turn in two homework assignments two weeks ago.  I had completed the assignments but never submitted them.  Fifteen points in the class gone.  My 4.0 wiped out.  And, yeah, that's a bummer.  But I think there's a lesson there.  Striving for perfection is just plain stupid.  I'm not perfect.  And why do I need to be?  What is a 4.0 going to matter in Heaven?  Or even in life for that matter?  Why do I add worries and requirements and rules to my life that God doesn't?

At times (many times) by brain seems to feed off chaotic, flitting and compulsive thoughts.

My soul and my body do not.

And so I'm choosing to take heed what God taught me this weekend.  To slow down, to take off all that hinders, to let the Spirit rather than the flesh lead.

And this means my blogging may be spotty.  So what.  Nothing depends on it.  I will come here but only as the Spirit leads.


"Let me know the way that I should go,
   because I long for you...Teach me to do your will, because you are my God.
May your good Spirit lead me on level ground.." Psalm 143: 8,10


"...let us throw off everything that hinders..." Hebrew 12:1






playdates with God, the creative exchange, capturing beauty my perspective

Of the quarrel with ourselves

“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry” - W. B. Yeats 




This is the direction I feel my words headed.  I could be wrong.  But as I face more and more those night shadows, those questions which can only be directed to God, I find myself craving the safety of the symbolic. Rather than stark outright statements, I'm exploring slowly and roundabout.

This is ok.  For now.


submitting at skywatch Friday

Questions and Knowledge

The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you "come to terms with" only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will." -Ingrid Bengis 

I can suffocate under these mind vibrating questions.  And often I feel like that is the exact what's happening.


  I trend toward obsessiveness, wear it quite well.   My mind can picks up a thought and then cling. 


 The latest mania (and this is a recurring one) is with knowing something.  Figuring something out.  Identifying.  Picking apart, studying, making a specimen out of that which is not a species.


What I'm essentially doing is clamoring for God's job.  Committing that first ever sin.  And because I am not God, I'm becoming frustrated and fatigued. 


 I'm forgetting to trust.   No, rather,  I'm telling God, "I don't trust You.  I'll figure it out". 


 Except I can't.  And so I feel nutty.  And off-kilter and cluttered.  My mind won't shut up. 


 The bottom line is, some things are not for me to know. 


 Maybe I wouldn't be able to handle the knowledge.  Maybe I'd abuse it if I had it.  I don't know what I'd do but I have to believe there's a reason that God is allowing me to be in the dark on this one.  

Following the Rules

"I say this because there is an uneasiness in things just now. Waiting for something to be over before you are forced to notice it. The pollarded trees scarcely bucking the wind and yet it's keen, it make you fall over. Clabbered sky. Seasons that pass with a rush." -John Ashbery

Glad to be in a new week.

Contented, even, to be in a new season, though the shift of seasons can be rough.

Seasons, so metaphorical for a reason.

As the air, the leaves turn, so we do and our children.

We skipped church yesterday.  That is, we passed on the hoopla that can sometimes surround worshiping in a church building.  We stayed in and did church at home.  We read about the Ten Commandments and we played a Bible board game.

And we learned.  A lot.  Mostly about sin nature and how it always fights against rules.  The game was played and the game was won. It's all fun and games till someone loses.

 And one of the children could not handle the fact that they were not the winner.  The names, 'Cheater' and 'Liar' were thrown out against the winner. And I was faced with this child asserting an attitude I had not yet noticed in his years here.  I was faced with a problem which required wise parenting.  Really, I could just not believe that this anger was coming out of my son...over losing a game.   And so.... a discussion ensued.

We talked about truth and winning and losing and making up rules to suit our own desires.  There were tears but it was an important lesson we all learned.  I feel like God knew something needed to be addressed in this growing boy.  Something needed to be tamed.  So we fought that battle.  But the war wages in us all continually, only to be won by prayer.


Counting:


lessons learned (even the hard way)
church where you're at
tears that change you
revelation

Let Me Be Myself

"I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage." -Anne Frank

Sometimes I know all this.  Sometimes I don't.  Lately, I have been rocked by confusion.  Hearing those lies of the enemy telling me I'm right on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  The mad woman in the attic.  

Yesterday, I used a quote for a picture I posted.  There's much to contemplate in those six words.  I'm contemplating here today.  

Submission for Scenic Sunday