find rest, my soul

I've been spending so much of my me time reading other peoples blogs that I have not been taking time to write in my own. One thing I've been noticing of late is that on a whole lot of blogs I've been reading there have been questions and comments and thoughts relating to GRACE. About four times today I wanted to comment on someone's blog and say "I just read something about that in this amazing book I'm reading!" I just want to shout it out to the world that "Grace: the Power to Change" by James B Richards is the most amazing book!! Nearly every book, on the back credits, says "it's a must read"...but this one I actually agree with. I whole heartedly recommend it to everyone. There...that's done now.

Another thing I'm learning is that I don't rest very well. I am easily bored. Not that I don't physically rest well, I can be a couch potato along with the best of them, I can lay for hours out in the sun, I can procrastinate my work exceptionally well (in fact, that's what I'm doing right now!) Also, I think I rest OK in the spiritual sense. I truly believe that Jesus yoke is easy and his burden light. I'm pretty quick to recognize that anything that feels heavy is not from Jesus and I might as well drop it. But I don't rest very well in my mind. I say that I think about things all the time, but I'm not a thinker like some thinkers that can't turn it off at night, that can't sleep for days thinking about random things that don't mean anything. I don't feel like I obsess about stuff. If it feels like something that I NEED to know in order to take the next step, or to be fully functional, or to properly explain my position on a certain subject, or to help someone else who is struggling with a not-so-light burden, then I think and I study and I talk and now lately, I write. My learning style seems to be that I learn best by talking things through. I talk until I'm painted into a corner, or can't explain something clearly enough and then I know it's time to do some more thinking.

Some of you who know me know that I've been on somewhat of a quest to learn about physical healing. What I've been learning is fascinating to me, in that the principals of healing are the exact same principals of all the other principals of salvation, righteousness, freedom, grace, deliverance, provision and everything else that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. His work is a finished work, it accomplished everything He set out to do. It is past tense. It becomes present tense when I believe that it is past tense. There is NO aspect of my life that this finished work of Christ will not affect, if I believe. All of my posts thus far are coming from this angle of pursuit.

This subject puts up red flags in many people's minds...including mine. There are many, many people who just spout off things they've heard quoted, many "formula's for success", many "friends of Job" who do not speak accurately on behalf of God. There are also many genuine people who are just simply misunderstood because people don't take the time to get to know the heart and the depth of where their faith is, and who their faith is in. They want an easy answer to the enormous complexity that is faith, that is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.

Anyway, I can get into quite a knot about these things at times. I find that there are way toomanywhatifs, way toomanyquestions, way toomanyfears.

On such occasions a Psalm of David sings along in my mind. It goes like this. "My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." He's saying to me "Just relax, don't sweat it...you've learned enough for now, take a break!" But my heart is proud. I want to know! I resist the rest... Like a child who fights sleep and is rocked firmly and gently, eventually into the bliss of slumber.... but I don't like it... "find rest, my soul, in God alone...."

more UV's

I went to a tanning salon yesterday for the first time in my life. Possibly seven of the wierdest minutes of my life. Good though. I'll be back. Apparently 7 minutes of UV is not enough to restore my sanity. How long till the sun shines again??

PS to my Calgary friends...I know, I know....it's been sunny for days over there...probably have tulips coming up and everything. I don't want to hear it.

blessed UV rays!

Can I say that I've had it up to here with clouds and fog and snow and cold wind and brown trees and no tulips and slushy roads? The answer to that question should be a resounding YES, you can say that. You can say anything you want. Can YOU say, "Oh now, whatif girl...it's a small price to pay for the beautiful winter we've had."? Absolutely not. I've also had it up to here with people telling me not to gripe about the weather. "Oh the farmers will be loving it." Balony....we could get an inch and a half of RAIN over two days AFTER the ground is thawed and everybody'd be happy.

I NEED UV rays!!! We ran out of firewood last week (except for a few armfulls, which I, in my bizarre personal pshychy, can't use, because I need to save it for a "rainy day"--which we have not had....cloudy, snowy, foggy, humid, cold, Yes, but not "rainy"), so not only am I deprived of my precious UV, but also of my "radiant heat" therapy from a fire, which I've discovered is necessary for my sanity. (Possibly the longest sentence ever recorded by me, without any "......'s" , a new personal best, as it were!) (Dohh, there are "....'s" in that sentence!) (Sigh...) Can you just see the sanity slipping???

...always thinking???

My goodness it's been a long time since I sat down and wrote anything. Except for the other day when I wrote a bunch of stuff and then accidentally deleted the whole thing.

Apparently the part in my profile about me always thinking is not really true.... Well ya, actually it is...but I'm not always thinking in a straight line. I think about too many things at once and then get my thoughts all balled up. Or I have background thoughts that are hopelessly drowned out by the moment by moment stuff going on around me.

It seems like I've been chaotically busy, but only busy by my standards. I still have time for American Idol & Survivor & Jeopardy. Truly busy people don't have time for TV. Sometimes me being "too busy" means that I have something looming over my head that I don't want to do. ie. tax preparation. Every day the clock ticks louder. I finally got one of those collapsible file folders so I can empty out the '05 stuff in the file cabinet to make room for the '06 stuff. I liked it better before I had the folder thingy, 'cause then I had an excuse...now I don't, except that I'm "too busy". Seriously...I have no excuse for not doing that job right now....except that another "me being too busy" has to do with me not having enough alone time, and when I get alone time, I'm sure as heck not gonna spend it doing taxes!! Or filing, or making back-ups, or general tidying of the office... No, no...I'm gonna spend it blogging in front of a computer by candle-light (sort-of... if you don't count the light from the computer screen). Some people soak in the tub...., I blog. What can I say?

My erroneously (big word, I know...) deleted post wasn't about anything important. It was about shopping, which I did on Sunday. I went to a wedding on Saturday night and saw a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen in six or seven years. It was great to see them again. The not so great thing was that (because I nearly never get dressed up ...weddings and funerals are about it) I'm sure I was wearing the same heels and little (well, not so little) black dress I was wearing the last time I saw them. The only difference being the extra 30 pounds I had to squeeze into that "little" black dress, and the addition of a "shrug" which I borrowed from my daughter, instead of the "bolero" I've had for at least 10 years. Anyway...I am determined that I will not wear those shoes or that dress to another formal occasion. Thus, the shopping trip, which was hopeless unsuccessful for me, but wonderful for my girls. Better luck next time, I hope. My deleted post was quite a bit longer and a lot more rantish, but I think a person can only really rant once. Any attempt to re-rant feels a lot like lukewarm leftovers.

My Dad has been here a bit the last little while working on my kitchen cabinets. We renovated (added on to) our house two years ago and got another 40sq ft. in the kitchen. It soon became very apparent that we could not afford to completely redo all the kitchen cabinets, so my dad graciously offered to construct the additional new cabinets to match the original '50's style cabinets we already had. Anyway, he's been here a few times this month to work on them and got them done. He built me a solid pine counter top to finish it off and it looks great! So now I've added sanding, staining, and varnishing to my daily routine. One more bout with the sandpaper and another coat of varnish should finish it off. Then I need to prime and paint the framework and the doors. Painting is such a pain, it's one of those projects that looms. If I knew how to make "looms" look scary on paper, with spooky music and dark lighting, I would, or a vibrato in my voice and spooky hand gestures would work too. It's one of those things that I'm "too busy" to do. I'm glad to be able to spend some time with my Dad...I don't do near enough of that.

I sat down and asked him some pointed questions about his life history the other day, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I found out that he had originally wanted to be a doctor. I had no idea! He got a temporary teaching certificate (which was surprisingly easy to do back then…just a summer course) so he could earn some money to go to University to become a doctor. He discovered that year that he really, really liked teaching… He’s been a teacher (or a pastor) pretty much ever since. I also found out that he and my mom moved about twenty times before they moved here, and he was my age when he moved here. Sometimes they only stayed in a place for 3 months before they were on the move again. Twice they “lived” at a summer camp that my dad would direct in between moves. One time I actually remember. It was the summer before we moved here. I was 10. I’ve moved twice since I’ve been married. From the farm into town, then back to the farm. I can’t even fathom moving 20 times in the same span. Actually it was 20 times in 13 years, or thereabouts, cause dad got married when he was 27 and settled here when he was 39 or 40.

I was thinking “Yikes mom, how did you cope???” and she got this wistful look in her eyes and said “It was exciting! You never knew where you’d end up next!” They never went anywhere exotic though, except for Saskatchewan…who wouldn’t want to live there??

I went to a grad parents meeting. Hopelessly boring…a nice little letter sent home with my kid would have done a much nicer job, but hey…I have nothing else to do, right?? It was so embarrassing. Hubby and I were upstairs watching the news. The graduate was off at work. The youngest was meant to be babysitting, but the guy never came to pick her up. I wasn’t really paying attention when she grabbed the phone and a nights worth of snacks and headed downstairs to her room. As time went by my front brain forgot that she hadn’t left…that Hubby and I were not alone. When it was time to leave for the meeting we just got up off the couch and left. We never called out good-bye, or for that matter even told her where we were going…(she wasn’t meant to be home, you know). About a half an hour into the most boring meeting, the cell phone is ringing. It’s our kid. I excuse myself and wind my way through the crowded class room (of course we were in the farthest back corner) to find my youngest on the phone. “Where the heck are you?? “ is the question posed to me from the other end of the phone. Immediate shame…, “Uhhh…ummm…we’re at a grad meeting…..!? Uhhh, sorry….are you OK??” “Yeah, I just came upstairs to see if I could get a ride into town to see my friends and there was no one here…” “Uhhh…, ya…., sorry” “Well, if I can get a ride into town, can I go???” “Uhhh…, ya…, just make sure you leave a note…so we know where you are” Laughter on the other end…, “Ahhh, the irony”, she says. I just shake my head….what can you say??

apparently...

I did it again....I deleted my whole long post with one wrong stroke of a key. I should know better by now....
I'm tired...I'm going to bed.

out with the old, in with the new

Just a random thought...

I think we still tend to live under old covenant rules..don't touch, don't eat, don't associate... The old covenant stuff taught that if I touched something dirty I became dirty. I'd have to cermonially become clean before I could come into the presence of God. Jesus continually flew in the face of that, he continually touched things that were "unclean" and made them "clean". Any Jew knew that if you touched a leper you'd be "unclean" yourself, you'd have to go through all this hassle and stuff to become clean again. Jesus knew that if he touched the leper, the opposite would happen. Jesus would not become unclean...the leper would become clean.

I think (because we don't fully understand our identity in Christ or don't fully believe it) we still sort of (on some level) think that "unclean" people will make us dirty. I wonder if that's why we're so quick to judge...cause if I associate with someone "unclean", I'll become unclean? Or if Jesus associates with the "unclean" he'll become unclean, or if the church associates with the "unclean" it will become unclean?? We have to protect our reputations, the reputation of the church, the reputation of Jesus himself, after all. We wouldn't want it said of us that we "eat with tax collectors and sinners!" What if someone actually mistook us for a "drunkard and a glutton". What if someone thought I was "unclean" based on the crowd I hung out with, the clothes I wear, the food I eat? The world couldn't go on!!

When Jesus wrote the new covenant it was in with the new, out with the old. Out with cerimonial "cleanliness" and in with the touch, the life, the Spirit of Jesus. Out with ritual, in with relationships. Out with dirty, in with clean. Out with man looking at the outward appearance, and in with God looking at the heart! Out with guilty by association and in with "Go into all the world!!"

If we believed that we have the life of Christ in us and that what we "touch" becomes clean we'd "touch" as many people as possible. Christ in me brings LIFE to all that I/he comes into contact with....

We're not under old covenant anymore...but we still hang on to it sometimes, to our loss, and the world's.