10-20-30

Tell me you see the heart-shaped cloud. It was a gift to me as I drove home last week.


Where I was 10 years ago:

1998: (38) Lived in a big house 40 minutes from here. The kids were 11, 9, & 4. Kev worked in a school district we'd only dreamed about when we first heard it was being built. I'd found some incredible friends I truly clicked with, and church was a happy place.

20 years ago:

1988: (28) Lived in a tiny, rented house in Tonasket, and we had a one-year-old. Worked with Young Life and their discipleship program. Missed Spokane with its family, friends, and good shopping, but forged friendships we have maintained, been inspired by, and enjoyed to this day.

30 years ago:

1978: (18) Graduated with honors from high school (big deal). Visited the Philippines with my mom for six weeks. Supposed to be two months, but she missed my dad too much. She bawled when we left Spokane; I bawled when we left Manila. The gift with the most lasting impact on my life I think. Indelible images, permanent memories, impacting experiences. International travel has incredible influence on a person's memory. I was young, impressionable, easily influenced, and my gray matter was still soft. It's never like that again.


A dear friend reminded me that life is lived one moment at a time. We are given Time as a way to work out our salvation down here with fear and trembling, with like-minded friends, with all our hopes and failures and stumblings to address. It's in the righthererightnow that we receive the tremendous, mind-blowing gift of Grace. All these moments, all these memories, all this grace... we are soooo blessed. How many of us know, understand, and receive it.....

Jesus loves me, this I know.

change

Change is inevitable.

I don't have any thrill issues. None. I don't have an adventurous spirit. I'm only slightly spontaneous, and then only if it's my idea. Too many changes too quickly make me snarky. It's ugly. And you only see the outside of it. I have a pretty cushy life, so I have no room to complain, and yet here I am. So be it. I'll give myself a deadline to snap out of it. I miss Normal.

• Kev has slowed w-a-a-ay down because of his injured ankle bone, and I hate seeing him in such terrible pain.
• Jylle is going to a different school, which always brings new challenges.
• Ryan has moved out to go to college in another state; new challenges again.
• We're facing a year of big debt and trying to make ends meet.
• My mom seems to be going downhill mentally and physically. Suicide is lookin' good to her again.
  
• Brett is bearing a huge workload this year, academically and jobwise. This is his toughest year yet.

I'm the woman in the commercial who hits the Easy button, only I tend to mentally skitter all over the place trying to find alternate routes to Easy when that doesn't work. This can complicate things.

I'm going to go have a popsicle now. When all other routes fail, there's always a popsicle on the front porch swing.

mememe

There's a talk show I watch, and the host is into what I'd consider New Age thinking for the most part--what good you do for yourself and others improves yourself and the world. I was listening to a couple of recent guests who promote this topic, and I lost count of the number of references to I, I, I and then you, you, you. One is an author who wrote a book about quantum changes--what you do for yourself affects others and the world at large. I am not a quick thinker and an even worse analyzer, but even I noticed the constant references to self. The consistent thread with these guests is all these admonitions to be a kinder person, to do random acts of kindness, statements to the effect of "showing kindness is not something you do--it's something you are," and "when you show even the smallest kindness toward someone, it makes you feel better about yourself." In the end, eating healthy, being kind, exercising, being positive, all these betterment techniques--the focus is on self. If I do something for you, it'll make me feel better, and it'll make the world a better place, which will make me feel better about myself because I contributed to that, which makes me a better person.

So really, what you're saying is that it really IS all about me!

It all fell so flat for me and was so utterly empty. I felt sad for them, which reminded me of a line from a song, "Break my heart for what breaks Yours," (Hillsong United). No matter WHAT I do, if it originates from my flesh, it is of no lasting value. The world does not acknowledge knowing and enjoying the God of Jesus Christ as the chief end of man and will always strive to fill that God-shaped hole with anything that promises to make it feel better, and they set self on a throne of sand and mist.

I pray for this talk show host, but now I pray with a greater sense of urgency in light of world events (my new most-used phrase).