The One Where God Knows My Shoe Size

She Reads Truth... these girls bring it every time.  Every.Time.  And I'm forced to look at the mess around me and I don't want to.

This is just where I am and where I am not.  Needing to repent of my repentance.  Wanted to be washed and yet soaking in a tub of my own striving and pride.  I see the ruins but don't acknowledge them as such.  I see it how I want it to be.  Living in the fiction or fantasy section of my heart. 

Yet the ruins are all around me.  I sit atop the rubble and......  I quit my job because of the toxic environment.....just in time for my teenagers depressed meltdown....just in time to not really want to deal with anything or anyone.   I've wanted to run away more as an adult than I ever did as a child and well, there are books and medication for my childhood.

So I sit here app in hand, coffee in hand, rending.... What I don't really know. 

Amanda. She's my soul sister. I see me...In her writing.  Yesterday she talked about avoiding.

I do that.   I avoid.

Because going through is too hard. And there are a lot of "what ifs" about getting to the other side.

And I take FDR literally when he says, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself' 

So I'm even afraid of fear.    

I don't want to go through. I just want to be on the other side.   I don't want to repent, I just want to be cleansed. I just want Calgon to take me away.   Oops did I really say it out loud?  Did you hear that? I thought it was just in my head. 

I don't want to look at the rubble around me, I want to see what was or what could be. Not what is. 

And so I lament. Wait? I lament? Nooooo.... This is where God takes a cue from Tom Jones and says, 'Act your age, not your shoe size' and I'm pretty sure He's familiar with my shoe size.

To lament means, to mourn, to grieve, to weep or wail, to express sorrow. 

I'm not lamenting.  I'm soooo totally not lamenting. 

I'm not mourning or even weeping.  I'm complaining.  

Why God Why? 

When God When? 

Woe is me 

Why is all of this so hard and when are You gonna fix things (to my standards) and make it a little more comfortable? A little more? Ha! I meant cushy and care-free.  You know the one... right the kind where Hello, My Name Is Child Of The One True King.  Where I sit on the throne and ask God to serve me.  I wear my tiara, the one I gave myself through works and order God around.

Not the one where I sit on the pile of rubble with Godly Grief. 

If I'm honest and when have you known me not to be I don't have Godly Grief. 

I have 'good grief'. 

As in 'good grief Charlie Brown' 

#SheReadsTruth - The Things Of This World

Oh how this speaks to my heart today.

For years (and I won't tell you it's not a struggle some days) I was scared of heaven. I think for me, it meant judgment (in my mind I compete with Paul for the chief sinner claim) It wasn't, isn't a love for the world so much as a distrust of heaven. Of my Heavenly Father. His goodness, plans, love, will, did I mention goodness? Or perhaps that His goodness isn't for me. It's for everyone else. 

Heaven is for everyone else. I'll sit in the corner with the dunce hat on. Love the world? I can't say no. Because I have a lot of fear of separation from it. Mostly from my family. My kids. My husband. (Who I won't be married to in heaven) 

As a bible snob, a Greek Freak, it's crazy (to me) that I've been really digging The Message (a challenge from my pastor) Nothing scholarly about it. I admit. But I'm seeing this precious word with new eyes. 

1 John 2: 15-17 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. 

Love the worlds ways? No. Right? That's the answer. I do not. Love the worlds goods? No? Not quite so steady, sure. Love of the world? 

But when you say.... Want my own way... Want everything for myself (not everything, right, I can really see the semantics in this and thus be off the proverbial or prepositional hook). Wanting to appear important.... (Read: mans approval) ouuuuch! I certainly have fear of rejection and a longing for approval. 

How about this: 

Love of My ways. Love of My things/people/goods? Love of My world? I can't help but be pierced and indeed isolated. 

All of that is fading away, and I need to fade away with it. And run to Jesus. Because of the previous verses. 

12-13 I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name. You veterans were in on the ground floor, and know the One who started all this; you newcomers have won a big victory over the Evil One. 

My sins are forgiven. I KNOW the ONE who started all this.

I can let go of these ways, things, and world to cling to Jesus. Then wash rinse and repeat. Daily, or ya know hourly.  The clock keeps on ticking; and I have choices to make, today, right now, and the next moment, and hour, and day and week.  It's not a one time thought, but a (romans 12) renewing of the mind.  A metamorphosis that takes place.  Eventually the caterpillar becomes a butterfly.  Let's be honest though, some days I'd settle for a moth!