Monday, November 13, 2006

anxious

I'm anxious. I'm breaking out like mad--those great huge volcanic kind. Anxious about:

- having to go to Kelowna
- eBay nonpayments
- doing stuff wrong
- pending expenses
- Kev's temperament (more easily angered)
- my weight

Lord, help me to look at these things and see not truly anxiety causing circumstances, but as opportunities to run to You. I can take every thought captive to Your obedience if I just remember to. THANK YOU that these are not truly big things. Thank You that they are the biggest things in my life right now. I know it won't always be this way, but I won't future trip. I want to stay in the Now-here... it's the only place I experience You, and it's the absolute best place in the universe. XO

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Monday, November 06, 2006

the vertical factor

A friend of mine just had her myspace page hacked. Her picture & name were changed, and so many of her friends were deleted. I deleted her myself. Some friends expressed disappointment in her. She's fighting back tears trying to get her friends back and slogging through this mess created by some wicked jerk.

That happens in life. You're minding your own business, doing what you do, then WHACK!!! Someone t-bones you. You didn't make a mistake, you didn't ask for it, but there it is--a mangled, mixed-up mess caused by someone else. You're a victim of someone's attempt to lie, steal, and destroy.

That sounds familiar.

While it's a common occurrence to have bad things happen to us that aren't our fault, the common reaction is to fix our eyes horizontally on the offender or the circumstances. That's where we leap off the path and start doing it all wrong. Tit for tat, eye for an eye--reactions of the flesh. Few of us have acquired the godly habit of seeing with supernatural focus--the vertical factor.

The vertical factor is seeing things as having been allowed for our benefit. It's believing that they happen not in spite of His love for us, but
because of it. Absolutely everything that happens in our lives is either caused by God or allowed. That's a BA chunk o' truth to swallow if you've never considered it before, and it's thrown even committed believers into tailspins.

The Psalmist says, "All things are Thy servants."  I read that years ago and I'm still working my li'l brain around it.

So Lord, You're telling me that it was OKAY with You that I was victimized? it was OKAY with You that this guy got away with that? it was OKAY with You that my life's a wreck now? That's OKAY with You...?!

[... pause ...]

My Son was victimized. You're my child too...
He didn't get away. I know exactly what to do with him.
You only think your life is a wreck. I'm in the renewal business.
This is not only okay with Me, I'm going to use it in such a grand way that it'll blow your mind!

We have conversations like this all the time. He is verrrry patient with me.

Okay, let's review:

I'm a victim on the horizontal scale. I'm in a grand design on the vertical.
I'm not okay under the circumstances horizontally. I'm a player in a grand design on the vertical.
He's clearly getting away with this on the horizontal. He is soooo not getting away with this on the vertical.
See horizontally, see the earth flat. See vertically, see Heaven on earth.




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Friday, November 03, 2006

mine not the gift of criticism

It's one of the most difficult things to do, to tell someone what you don't like about her. It's not like criticism is my spiritual gift and I should go around exercising it.

But there's a girl on this Christian station who's announcing the news now, and she's just not very good. I start my day with this station, but when I hear her come on, I change the channel. She sounds like someone off the street trying to read a script, mispronouncing names, struggling with the rhythm of the sentence. And it's very distracting. I don't know if it's just me, but I can't hear the content if it's colored by that amateur of degree.

So I'm moved to tell the station that I regard her work as substandard and less than the professional quality I'm used to AND still maintain a sense of saying it in love. I want my words to be void of arrogance. Easy for some--for for me, not so much. Having been on the receiving end of criticism makes a sensible person less prone to invoking the scepter of criticism.

Lord, pleeease let me be
truthful but gentle...


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Thursday, November 02, 2006

some habits need lipo

Most days my habits are rather irrelevant. They're like the paint on the walls--I don't notice them until a streak or a blotch catches my attention. Then I'm like, "Where'd THAT come from?!"

One of the best ways to find out what your habits are is to have a kid. They imitate like apes, and when you see yourself in that particular habit you find annoying in your child, it's like a fist to the feet. (Have you ever been hit on your feet? It REALLY hurts, and you never forget the circumstances of it, like EVER.)

"I hate that!" That's the first bad habit I picked up on when I heard it coming out of my daughter's mouth. She wasn't even two, and she was blurting out this comment a LOT. Being less like Sherlock and more like Watson, I didn't realize it was MY common statement until days later when I blurted it out. *WHAP!*

Another one was cutting people off, not letting them finish what they're saying because I'm so anxious for them to hear my profound, so very important thoughts. I picked up on this by its very absence in a close friend. I realized that she never, never, EVER interrupted people, but always let them finish their words, no matter how long it took or how very unimportant it seemed to be. Her kindness and patience were like colored flowers in a black and white picture. My interruptions, on the other hand, were like old dried out weeds--nothin' but death and noxious seeds.

While some habits aren't bad, like leaving your keys in the same place or saying thank you and please, others lack the life and encouragement I long to pour into others' lives. I'm thankful for eyes to see and ears to hear. I pray for the courage to bite the bullet when it's appropriate and allow the scalpel to lipo the excess that's unhealthy and unbeautiful for both me and the precious soul next soul I connect with...