Hello today

It's 10 til 2 and I just got out of the bath tub. Often I can't believe the sequence of my days. Did I really ever wear pantyhose (actually no, I despise them) so - heels, rather, and go to a big girl job everyday by 7am? Have I really ever experienced conversation at the water cooler? Now my conversations are so much more meaningful but so less verbose with the little guy around. Anyway, today is a good day and one I hope to savor. I wheeled Brooks into his room in his stroller because he fell asleep finally after a long morning without a nap. Like any sane mother would do I turned on his sound machine, shut the door and acted like he was in his crib taking a real nap. It has taken me 3+ months to learn that Brooks should nap at home and that is when I either A) Nap too or B) Get stuff done. For the first trimester of the kiddos life I had him out in the car all day and I thought that him sleeping when I was out was a blessing but when you come home from all those errands and you are exhausted from lugging the car seat in and out of the car, all you want to do is crash, and, unfortunately, not babble with your sweet little baby. Can I get an "Amen?" So, I have finally learned and I try to atleast have Brooks in his fancy crib full of fancy crib bedding that I just had to have - for atleast one nap a day. We'll see how long this lasts but please try to hold me to it!

I tell you all of this because I can honestly say that right now I feel like I am catching my breath for the first time since May. I am in a bath robe and it is 2pm. No t.v, no visitors, no lunch dates with friends, nothing to do, and a sleeping baby in his stroller. And because of all of the above factors - I will only blog to you for a moment because when I am riding to and fro around the city finding things that must be done my heart is slowly deteriorating.

This time, it isn't over the fact that we will soon be making a new home for ourselves. No, this underlying feeling of my heart slowly being suffocated is do to my busyness....uh um (clearing my throat)...my EXTREME NEED for busyness seemingly ALL THE TIME (please read with drama).

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I CONFESSED THIS RATHER ON PAPER (well, virtual paper) or in my head or to you in a long conversation????? I truly pray that part of this move is about finding margin and some idle time in my daily schedule. How can my heart follow hard after a God that I make little time to know? I am not saying that I have to sit down with a bible open for hours on end in order to connect with my Father (though that would be paradise right now). Simply, I know that we all just need to listen a little to our hearts and allow the Lord to really talk to us. I confess, I am always running to point A but thinking about how I am going to get to point B and if I brought the present I meant to bring, all the while calling point "C" to make sure about something...and so on and so on. But I can truly say that even while I am running in circles throughout my day - my heart is not my own. My heart stirs and tugs and beckons me to go home and to sit still and to do nothing and to read and to pray and to get to know myself again, the woman that God created me to be. Only when I know myself better, and know my inadequacies and allow them to penetrate my heart can I truly recognize my need for grace and thus my need for a Savior. I have become like the woman I never wanted to be - I think that more discipline will lead to more fruit in my life. But the opposite is so true, more of my utter helplessness before God will produce those good fruits of patience and kindness and self-control (oh, I crave that one!) and joy....yes, more of me falling on my knees and confessing my helplessness will bring out that perfect joy that my heart so desires.

So I tell you all this because my heart is heavy and it isn't supposed to be that way. Before I got in my bubble bath (by the way, the bubbles were from baby shampoo - what a treat! Kids are worth any trouble just to be able to have baby shampoo around) I read a blog that I tend to read every so often. Sweet Darby doesn't know me at all though I feel like we'd like each other very much. Her words today were very powerful to me and seemed to be so fitting for what my heart has been aching over. Would you read them, too, and enjoy and maybe slow down a little bit today with me? Thank you cyber-friend, Darby.


Now, I’m going to make a very drastic subject change to prayer. From house renovating to PRAYER… just like that. Our Associate Pastor is teaching our Sunday school class and going through a book called A Praying Life . I don’t have the book {yet} but his lesson this morning was on “Learning to Be Helpless”. Basically Paul Miller {the author} says that prayer is taking our helplessness to Jesus, admitting that we cannot fix things on our own. I know my prayer life suffers because so often I am not weak before the Father. Instead of coming to him in weakness and helplessness I either don’t come to him at all or ask for “help to keep it all together” when in reality I have nothing together at all. He says that strong Christians pray more not because they’re more disciplined but because they more aware of and recognize their own weakness. Weakness is the channel that allows them to access grace. Edith Schaeffer {author and wife of Frances Schaeffer} was asked, “Who is the greatest Christian woman alive today?” She replied, “We don’t know her name. She is dying of cancer somewhere in a hospital in India.” Miller says, “I’m talking about that woman. Underneath her obedient life is a sense of helplessness. It has become part of her very nature… almost like breathing. Why? Because she is weak. She can feel her restless heart, her tendancy to compare herself to others. She is shocked at how jealousy can well up in her. She notices how easily the world gets its hooks into her. In short, she distrusts herself. When she looks at other people, she sees the same struggles. The world, the flesh and the devil are too much for her. The result? Her heart cries out to God in prayer. She needs Jesus.”

I need what this woman has, not the cancer and hospital bed in India. I want her sense of helplessness, I taste of it regularly but I don’t breathe it. Too often I trust myself. The lesson this morning was about praying, not blogging but I couldn’t help but think about what is my purpose in all of this? I think about it a lot. What makes me think that any of you actually care that I took my handrail down out front of my house or that I painted my brick because it didn’t match. In general, blogging does not provoke a poor spirit or a spirit of helplessness. I just want to be completely honest with you all that I struggle with this on a regular basis. I sit down to type a post and think is this for His glory or my own? And sometimes I can’t tell. But if I daily came here and told you how rotten I am, how I walk around in the world look at people, compare myself to others, judge others, get frustrated with my children and husband {and yell at them} it would be a very different blog. I guess, I always want to be clear that I am a big sinner, that my hope is in Christ, that in my own strength I can do nothing but I have a Savior who is bigger than my sinful self. I share my interests and hobbies with you and it is my prayer that my conversations will always be seasoned with salt…. that you can taste of the goodness of Christ and be encouraged.