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The following is a writing I did at a particularly difficult time in my life several years ago. I remember feeling so overwhelmed by what God showed me that day...
Cold and yet pleasantly crisp, the air surrounds my being as I stroll in deep concentration. The day is nearing the noon hour and already a million concerns have crossed my troubled mind. Longing to do better, to be better, I question my current course, wondering will the path veer toward sunnier ventures. I am not discouraged. I am not ill content…just wishing I’d made a few different choices through the past years…wanting desperately to end up where God initially directed my path before I chose another one, the wrong one. Why can’t I listen, or rather couldn’t I? Now all I do is listen, hoping He will be gracious in our plight. I am for the most part, really happy, content, and settled. But not knowing what tomorrow holds is as disturbing as it is exhilarating. I know my calling, His commission for me, for us, and yet, the enemy battles ferociously to bring it all to a halt. Whether a mood of sour grapes or such an attack of illness, at times I literally scream, “Enough! Back Off! Could You just give me a break?!” So, He does…graciously. Although when I reach that point, I imagine Him in all His fatherly wisdom softly smiling, looking down and shaking His head slowly and thinking, “We’ll try it again tomorrow.” I just want to cry, because yet again, I just didn’t get it. He was trying to teach me, trying to mold me and I gave up. I failed and yet still He loves me more than I deserve. He has sent encouragement thru the most surprising sources. People I didn’t think even contemplated my existence have come out of left field to speak powerfully into my life, to reassure me of His promises, and to implore my acceptance of them. I did accept them. I make a public confession of that acceptance, and then those dark, ominous clouds begin to creep across the azure expanse, large and foreboding. They crawl slowly, as if to taunt me, “What promises has He ever kept?” My reply? “Oh! I don’t know…ALL OF THEM!” So, in light of my sarcasm, the enemy mounts forces to defeat me by attacking that which is most precious to me in all the earth, save God…my family…unexplained exhaustion, illness, fear, literal fire from hell, confusion, heartache, irritation, aches and pains, tears, listlessness, financial grief. Just the mere revelation of all the enemy is attempting raises within me a spiritual indignation that wishes to plant the heal of my boot firmly in the temple of his evil being. I know he will not win, so I remind him of his final plight…eternal damnation. He smirks and yet I feel stronger and imagine him staggering a bit. Then deep inside me whispers a chorus that reminds me of God’s great power:
You made it all, said let there be
And there was all that we see.
The sound of Your voice,
The works of Your hands,
You do all things well!
That song grows in strength until it thunders across my heart and tumbles across my lips with such conviction that I am certain Heaven is cheering and Hell is trembling. God doesn’t do some things well, or even a lot of things well, but ALL things well. I am his masterpiece. Now I am reminded of God’s prophecy two weeks prior to our wedding day…”The man you are about to marry is as surely the man I have chosen for you as if I had reached into a field of wild flowers and picked just one.” I’m not off course in that sense. I suppose I was somewhat restored to my original path. Life is good. He still has a great work to do within me, but I have much for which to be thankful. He is polishing me, and He will keep true to that which He has promised. We will be used, and He will continue to work through us. His ministry will rise and come forth.
Now, the sun erupts from behind those dark clouds as if to say, “His light permeates even the darkest of life’s sorrows”, but, just as quickly, that glorious orb ducks behind another billowing grey cloud. From this I hear within my soul, “Even when the dark clouds overshadow your life, THE SUN IS STILL THERE!” The clouds will come and go, but the son, S-O-N, will never leave. He will always be there to guide, to comfort, and to strengthen. That’s just so powerful to me. I cannot operate out of a discouraged heart, or a sorrowful spirit, but rather I must operate with the assurance that I am His and He is mine and from that, gather the confidence to endure all things through Him who provides my strength. I have no fantastic circumstance that is any greater than the next wife, or mother, or daughter. We all endure many wonderful AND terrible things. It is just that if I as an honorable Christian woman acknowledge the promises of God and have faith within those promises, I have a divine advantage in this never-ending race toward my enlightenment, toward my blessed eternity, and toward the privilege of worshiping at the feet of my Lord and Savior. Now, from that revelation these songs can rise from the deepest recesses of my heart and across my lips to declare:
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh! What a foretaste of glory divine!
As well as,
I love you! I love you!! I love you!
And my heart will follow wholly after you!
And at long last,
I sing because I’m happy!
I sing because I’m free!
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches over me!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Cell phones, Spiders & Crazed Ninjas
Have you ever noticed that there are just some things that should never be put together...I'm not referring to clothing, although there are some pretty poorly put together people wandering the streets of the world. This weekend taught me a few things. 1. 6 year olds have no business playing with cell phones in the bathroom. 2. Car batteries are entirely too fragile for my taste, and 3. Chivalry is not dead, but Wal-Mart is still an evil place!!
Talk about a doozie of a day...one would think the vast knowledge I gained would have come from two or three days of experiences, but NO...everything happened within 24 hours of one another. Okay, so on Saturday Chad takes Jonathan fishing...lovely picture isn't it...father and son bonding over a backdrop of a flowing river...trees encompassing the scene...the breeze blowing softly to cool them...the stench of dead fish...AWW!! Isn't it beautiful? Anyway, later in the afternoon, Chad calls and says, why don't you and the other three come out and we'll eat sandwiches and enjoy nature together. Sounded good, so an hour later, armed with 21 bottles of water and $40 worth of sandwich fixin's, all the components of s'mores, a basket of wood for the fire pit, two marshmallow sticks, a portable DVD player, and a stack of magazines, we ran out to the fishin' spot. When we get there, my daughter Brenna, who fully believes she is the reincarnation of some European princess who behaved poorly enough to be reborn into a blue collar family in Comanche, Oklahoma, USA, decided that nature was not her friend that day. She preferred to watch a movie. Now, I had NO IDEA that a simple portable DVD player used SO MUCH STINKIN'JUICE from a car battery. As I am certain you have already figured out, at 10:00pm when we were ready to leave, as I turned the key in the ignition, ....click, click, click, click, click.....nothing. DEAD...the stupid thing was DEAD!!! Suddenly, the beautiful nature surrounding us didn't seem so beautiful...it had transformed, if you will...into this looming black forest where axe murders prowled looking for an unsuspecting young family with four children and a dog named Jac. Pretty specific prrofiling, don't you think? Chad had to leave all of us to find help. Hot...the van was sweltering. I could have opened the doors, but the spiders that I dodged whilst reloading the van were most assuredly inching their way to an unlikely, but all together satisfying feast, not to mention, if an axe murder was going to take me and my wonderful children, he was gonna have to swing that axe to break the window and drag me out kicking and screaming like a crazed ninja on crack. So, we waited....HEADLIGHTS!!! Alex jumped out of the car and sprinted to catch the car...it was Chad. He had gone maybe 300 yards away and found a lake volunteer with jumper cables. The axe murderer had been thwarted for the time being... We made it home without incident, collapsing into bed, exhausted.
Cue the chirping birds and the sun peeking over the horizon while classical music twitters in the background...I open my eyes slowly to a pair of blue eyeballs mere centimeters from my face...HEART ATTACK!!! WHEN will those children LEARN? Anyway, we are awake and getting ready for church and I walk to the front of the house only to discover a near hysterical Brenna...the princess, remember....hiding beneath her "rabbit blanket", crying uncontrollably. "What is wrong with you?" I asked. "I don't want to tell you, because I'll get in trouble!" she wailed. She proceeded to tell me that she had been playing with her daddy's cell phone the day before and it had slipped out of her hand and had fallen into the toilet. Not a big deal, right? WRONG! Someone (we still don't know who), unaware of the drowned cell phone in the toilet, apparently had eaten Mexican food that disagreed with them and took it out on the back bathroom toilet, the resting place of the phone. Chad had spent a half and hour fiercely trying to PUSH whatever was clogging the toilet further down the pipes and into the sewer. He gave up once the offending stink bombs disappeared...he'd work on it tomorrow....which was now today. I will suffice it to say, my response was not one of Mary Poppins or June Clever.
Chad awoke to an even more difficult task than originally expected. It was decided that he would stay home to figure out the best approach to this newest development. The children headed for the van to drive to church. All ready running about five minutes late, I turned the key in the ignition...click, click, click, click, click.....nothing. DEAD...the stupid thing was DEAD!!! Apparently the portable DVD player had completely drained our battery, because there we sat in disbelief. After we were able to locate jumper cables, we were a good 20-25 minutes late for church....I simply refused to walk in that late, so we left the van running, changed clothes, and headed to town to pick up supplies for Chad's smelly project...Did you know that ACE Hardware doesn't open until NOON on Sundays? I didn't. We got there at 11:30. Half an hour to fill...I had a headache by this time, so I decided to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some Aleve liquigels... great stuff. Remembering a few other things we needed, we headed north...as I pulled into my parking space, I reached for the ignition, and the children became those weird slow motion people from the movies....."NNNNOOOOOO, MMMMMOOOOMMMMM, DOOOOON'T TUUUURN IIIIT OOOOOOOFFF!!!!" "What?" I asked as I turned the ignition off. "AAAAAGGGGGHHHH" they all screamed. "Oh good grief," I said, "It will start again...see?" click, click, click, click, click.....nothing. DEAD...the stupid thing was DEAD!!! ...Add "new battery" to the list. Man! That DVD player must be a parasite!! Picture it...an hour later...the boys found clothes on sale and HAD to spend some of their hard earned money on it...okay, so we are outside in what must have been 150 degrees trying to loosen the bolts on the battery connectors with a $2.22 crescent wrench...high quality tools, right? ...when I hear, "Well, hi there, BUUDROE! How the heck are ya?!" Apparently this man knew my 12 year old son, Jonathan. I was completely clueless. I found out later that he had fished for a while with Chad and Jonathan the day before amidst the beautiful father/son bonding scene. Jim, that was his name, proceeded to take over the battery changing operation, which was completely fine with me. I was about to melt away into nothing, and felt somewhat entitled to a little male intervention.
I tried to call my friend, Kurt, to tell him he didn't have to bother coming to help, just as he pulled into the next parking place. Nice Timing! Kurt, who I have to point out is one of the nicest people you will ever meet on the face of this big blue planet, proceeded to carry on a conversation with Jim while I frantically searched for the receipt I had gotten thirty minutes before so I could get the stupid battery core charge back...WHAT IN THE WORLD is that stupid core charge about anyway? Do we have some muscle bound men dressed in toxic waste suits that cost 4 BILLION dollars each staying in wait to throw my battery into a special 20 Billion dollar "Battery Waste Receptacle"? $9.00... that's stupid... I need to write a letter to someone... but I digress... Finally, after 15 minutes of looking, and a 10 pound lighter purse, I found the receipt and proceeded to wait for another half hour to get my money back. Apparently when you return a battery, you are supposed to return it in the automotive department, but I think the little lady behind the counter saw that psychotically crazed ninja on crack rearing her ugly head again...maybe just a glimpse of her in my eyes, so she refunded my $9.00 right then and there and asked Christopher if he would push the battery in a shopping cart back to automotives. I smiled ever-so-sweetly, and said, "Thank you so much." We loaded up and left.
ACE hardware was a simple trip...it went off without a hitch. We made it home with everyone intact, at least physically... I'm not sure but that I didn't leave my sanity somewhere along highway 81 between Duncan and Comanche, because the kids were arguing over which Skillet song to listen to on the way home…"#3"..."No, #10" ..."I wanna listen to #4"...so I put it on #5--Comatose, and head banged all the way home!!
Moral of the story? There isn't one. Such is the daily ongoing insanity of my life...I just love it! So, in closing, thank you, Mr. Tillman and Kurt...without you, I'd still be trying to change a battery. Whatever you do, people, don't let your six-year-old take a cell phone into the bathroom...don't let a three-year-old take a purple marble egg in there either, but that's another story all in itself! Never use a portable DVD player out in the woods while it is hooked up to your vehicle...it's some kind of battery vampire... and for goodness sake, the father/son bonding thing is overrated!!! Look at the chain of events that followed that scene! Perhaps a movie would accurately portray the horror!!
Talk about a doozie of a day...one would think the vast knowledge I gained would have come from two or three days of experiences, but NO...everything happened within 24 hours of one another. Okay, so on Saturday Chad takes Jonathan fishing...lovely picture isn't it...father and son bonding over a backdrop of a flowing river...trees encompassing the scene...the breeze blowing softly to cool them...the stench of dead fish...AWW!! Isn't it beautiful? Anyway, later in the afternoon, Chad calls and says, why don't you and the other three come out and we'll eat sandwiches and enjoy nature together. Sounded good, so an hour later, armed with 21 bottles of water and $40 worth of sandwich fixin's, all the components of s'mores, a basket of wood for the fire pit, two marshmallow sticks, a portable DVD player, and a stack of magazines, we ran out to the fishin' spot. When we get there, my daughter Brenna, who fully believes she is the reincarnation of some European princess who behaved poorly enough to be reborn into a blue collar family in Comanche, Oklahoma, USA, decided that nature was not her friend that day. She preferred to watch a movie. Now, I had NO IDEA that a simple portable DVD player used SO MUCH STINKIN'JUICE from a car battery. As I am certain you have already figured out, at 10:00pm when we were ready to leave, as I turned the key in the ignition, ....click, click, click, click, click.....nothing. DEAD...the stupid thing was DEAD!!! Suddenly, the beautiful nature surrounding us didn't seem so beautiful...it had transformed, if you will...into this looming black forest where axe murders prowled looking for an unsuspecting young family with four children and a dog named Jac. Pretty specific prrofiling, don't you think? Chad had to leave all of us to find help. Hot...the van was sweltering. I could have opened the doors, but the spiders that I dodged whilst reloading the van were most assuredly inching their way to an unlikely, but all together satisfying feast, not to mention, if an axe murder was going to take me and my wonderful children, he was gonna have to swing that axe to break the window and drag me out kicking and screaming like a crazed ninja on crack. So, we waited....HEADLIGHTS!!! Alex jumped out of the car and sprinted to catch the car...it was Chad. He had gone maybe 300 yards away and found a lake volunteer with jumper cables. The axe murderer had been thwarted for the time being... We made it home without incident, collapsing into bed, exhausted.
Cue the chirping birds and the sun peeking over the horizon while classical music twitters in the background...I open my eyes slowly to a pair of blue eyeballs mere centimeters from my face...HEART ATTACK!!! WHEN will those children LEARN? Anyway, we are awake and getting ready for church and I walk to the front of the house only to discover a near hysterical Brenna...the princess, remember....hiding beneath her "rabbit blanket", crying uncontrollably. "What is wrong with you?" I asked. "I don't want to tell you, because I'll get in trouble!" she wailed. She proceeded to tell me that she had been playing with her daddy's cell phone the day before and it had slipped out of her hand and had fallen into the toilet. Not a big deal, right? WRONG! Someone (we still don't know who), unaware of the drowned cell phone in the toilet, apparently had eaten Mexican food that disagreed with them and took it out on the back bathroom toilet, the resting place of the phone. Chad had spent a half and hour fiercely trying to PUSH whatever was clogging the toilet further down the pipes and into the sewer. He gave up once the offending stink bombs disappeared...he'd work on it tomorrow....which was now today. I will suffice it to say, my response was not one of Mary Poppins or June Clever.
Chad awoke to an even more difficult task than originally expected. It was decided that he would stay home to figure out the best approach to this newest development. The children headed for the van to drive to church. All ready running about five minutes late, I turned the key in the ignition...click, click, click, click, click.....nothing. DEAD...the stupid thing was DEAD!!! Apparently the portable DVD player had completely drained our battery, because there we sat in disbelief. After we were able to locate jumper cables, we were a good 20-25 minutes late for church....I simply refused to walk in that late, so we left the van running, changed clothes, and headed to town to pick up supplies for Chad's smelly project...Did you know that ACE Hardware doesn't open until NOON on Sundays? I didn't. We got there at 11:30. Half an hour to fill...I had a headache by this time, so I decided to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some Aleve liquigels... great stuff. Remembering a few other things we needed, we headed north...as I pulled into my parking space, I reached for the ignition, and the children became those weird slow motion people from the movies....."NNNNOOOOOO, MMMMMOOOOMMMMM, DOOOOON'T TUUUURN IIIIT OOOOOOOFFF!!!!" "What?" I asked as I turned the ignition off. "AAAAAGGGGGHHHH" they all screamed. "Oh good grief," I said, "It will start again...see?" click, click, click, click, click.....nothing. DEAD...the stupid thing was DEAD!!! ...Add "new battery" to the list. Man! That DVD player must be a parasite!! Picture it...an hour later...the boys found clothes on sale and HAD to spend some of their hard earned money on it...okay, so we are outside in what must have been 150 degrees trying to loosen the bolts on the battery connectors with a $2.22 crescent wrench...high quality tools, right? ...when I hear, "Well, hi there, BUUDROE! How the heck are ya?!" Apparently this man knew my 12 year old son, Jonathan. I was completely clueless. I found out later that he had fished for a while with Chad and Jonathan the day before amidst the beautiful father/son bonding scene. Jim, that was his name, proceeded to take over the battery changing operation, which was completely fine with me. I was about to melt away into nothing, and felt somewhat entitled to a little male intervention.
I tried to call my friend, Kurt, to tell him he didn't have to bother coming to help, just as he pulled into the next parking place. Nice Timing! Kurt, who I have to point out is one of the nicest people you will ever meet on the face of this big blue planet, proceeded to carry on a conversation with Jim while I frantically searched for the receipt I had gotten thirty minutes before so I could get the stupid battery core charge back...WHAT IN THE WORLD is that stupid core charge about anyway? Do we have some muscle bound men dressed in toxic waste suits that cost 4 BILLION dollars each staying in wait to throw my battery into a special 20 Billion dollar "Battery Waste Receptacle"? $9.00... that's stupid... I need to write a letter to someone... but I digress... Finally, after 15 minutes of looking, and a 10 pound lighter purse, I found the receipt and proceeded to wait for another half hour to get my money back. Apparently when you return a battery, you are supposed to return it in the automotive department, but I think the little lady behind the counter saw that psychotically crazed ninja on crack rearing her ugly head again...maybe just a glimpse of her in my eyes, so she refunded my $9.00 right then and there and asked Christopher if he would push the battery in a shopping cart back to automotives. I smiled ever-so-sweetly, and said, "Thank you so much." We loaded up and left.
ACE hardware was a simple trip...it went off without a hitch. We made it home with everyone intact, at least physically... I'm not sure but that I didn't leave my sanity somewhere along highway 81 between Duncan and Comanche, because the kids were arguing over which Skillet song to listen to on the way home…"#3"..."No, #10" ..."I wanna listen to #4"...so I put it on #5--Comatose, and head banged all the way home!!
Moral of the story? There isn't one. Such is the daily ongoing insanity of my life...I just love it! So, in closing, thank you, Mr. Tillman and Kurt...without you, I'd still be trying to change a battery. Whatever you do, people, don't let your six-year-old take a cell phone into the bathroom...don't let a three-year-old take a purple marble egg in there either, but that's another story all in itself! Never use a portable DVD player out in the woods while it is hooked up to your vehicle...it's some kind of battery vampire... and for goodness sake, the father/son bonding thing is overrated!!! Look at the chain of events that followed that scene! Perhaps a movie would accurately portray the horror!!
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