What Do You Think?

Someone else wrote something pretty close to what's been rattling around in my lil ole brain lately

I Lost My Temper New Years Eve

Going out of the old year with a bang, eh?

Not what I had planned or what I wanted.

But.

One (large) part of what I lost my temper over

(notice that I didn't say "what made me lose my temper"? That's important)

was this way I have of playing victim to my circumstances.

I hate it when people play victim. 

It nauseates me. 

It makes me want to shake them til their teeth chatter.

It guarantees that I have no pity at all to offer them.

...

Have you ever noticed that when there is something that other people do that especially infuriates you,

it's something you're guilty of yourself?

(I think I hear an echo... 

something about a beam...

and a splinter...

in someone's eye!!??

Hm.)

How AWANA and Children's Songs Are Misleading Our Children

In similar vein with my post on the Bible, here is a good article by a lady who is working through developing faith "out loud".
I appreciated the post as well as several of the comments afterward.
I also recommend clicking the link in the post and reading that too :0)
For the record, my children have never been to AWANA, & have only attended VBS once. I have some very mixed feelings about them having gone, and am working to remedy in other ways the things that led us to try it out this time.
http://joyinthisjourney.com/2012/10/how-some-churches-are-misleading-our-children/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JoyInThisJourney+%28Joy+in+This+Journey%29

Thoughts on The Bible

I wrestle with wanting to somehow document, meticulously & chronologically, my faith-journey here. 

But it's just not going to happen. Especially not as precisely as I want it to. For a while I felt guilty, frustrated, & like-a-failure about that. Then I realized why. 

It's because other things rightfully have higher priority & claim on my time.

So I'll just drop here what comes, when it comes while I have a bit of time to scribble here, and eventually the blanks will get filled in, and, well, as for the chronology of it, I'll just have to grit my teeth & deal with it, & enjoy the crazy-quilt patchwork effect of my growth, learning & maturity NOT lining up linearly with the timeline I manage to cobble together :0)

One thing that has been hugely transformative for me has been my perspective of the Bible. 

Do All My Efforts Actually Make A Difference? (not my title)

I shared this with a friend today, over at  http://tooverflowing.com, an thought I'd share it with you too! I really recommend going over there and reading her post, and then go back again tomorrow and read that one, and the next day... She's a really sweet gal with her eyes on the prize, and shares so clearly the path before her feet in such a "walk along with me" kind of way. :0)
Here's what I had to say in response to her post:
"It's always so uplifting and encouraging to remember that changing diapers, trimming nails, wiping sticky hands and faces, and yes - wiping up pee splatters DOES have eternal repercussions... I am teaching by example how to obey joyfully, how to "walk and not faint"... Oswald Chambers talks about the discipline of drudgery, about how the mountaintops and obviously "spiritual" moments/events in our lives don't express our true life with God as the simple everyday "dull" *walk* does. It's the walking without fainting that shows the glory of His power in us, more than the spectacular sprints"

This quote has been running through my mind today

It's a concept I've grasped in the last year or so.
Often in a specific concept (marriage, housekeeping, child training, school...), but I am broadening my scope to realize that it really applies to all of life.
Understanding this,
accepting this,
realizing that this is true
is setting me free in so many ways.
To discover just what my life really is, instead of being disappointed in what it isn't.
To have courage to "just do it", without being crippled by the fear of how it might not turn out.
To give my children the same freedoms.
To extend grace to others who are on the same journey, making the same discoveries. Or not.

"Sometimes, what messes our life up most -
is the expectation of what life is supposed to look like."

Thanks, Ann Voskamp, for putting it into those concise words. 

Amen, Come Lord Jesus... for when you're discouraged by his bride

This has long been a favorite song of mine,
there is so much that resonates with me, that is expressed so much more clearly than my muddled thoughts can manage.
Andrew Peterson has a powerful grasp of language and expression that is so beautiful and so clear, not to mention a style of music that is just comfortable.

Is This Seeing In A Mirror Dimly?

(play this song while you read) 

"In the image of God, look into that darkness and speak"
Speak beauty.
Speak Joy.
Speak Thankfulness.
Speak Peace.
(you can't entertain two emotions at once, drive one away with another!)
May I grow this way and walk on what I am beginning to  understand while there is still so much I don't?

Are "The Promises" REALLY Promises?

I was thinking over "my will or his will", as I was asked which of these I'm really wanting. The question was a good one for me, I've thought it over before, in different times and circumstances, but not for a long time.
I had to really check myself for a while.
I think I can accept his.
I know there is a Creator, and that he is Good and that he is Truth, and even though I don't know him like I thought I did, I'm good with letting him have control. I don't know best.
But what I'm NOT good with is being told authoritatively what his will is when people really can't do that.
I started thinking about when Jesus was here, the Word become Flesh.
He healed.
The sick, the lame, the demon possessed, the blind...
Zoom in on just the blind for a minute. Even just there, in healing the very same malady, he didn't even do it the same way each time. Sometimes he just spoke. Sometimes he touched the person. Sometimes he needed to do it twice. Sometimes he made mud with spit...
and...
sometimes...

He
didn't
heal
them
at
all.

For When You Feel Discouraged…Or Have Answers for Those Who Are

via inspiredtoaction.com

Please, click on over from the link under the video. The video itself is inspiring, but coupled with Kat's words... Well, she made me cry, and I'm not a cry-er.
I do have some questions though. After I cried, and thought about how I'd either never read those verses with that understanding, or else I'd forgotten that Truth, then I remembered...
I've watched someone cry out to God for YEARS.
Sincerely.
Heart-wrenchingly.
Desperately.

Faith Crisis/Shakedown/Chaff Winnowing...

The last several months I've been going through one of the above. You can choose which you like to call it. I have my preferences, and they aren't for the first one, but I no longer enjoy getting caught up in semantics.
I'm still a word nerd, and vocabulary is always fun for me, the more sesquipedalian, the better. But arguing a point over choice of words, when, like it or not, definitions ARE fluid and given to personal inflection, is just wasteful quibbling.
I've had several "shakedowns" (my personal choice) over the years I've known Jesus. The first few felt devastating to me, like I was committing some sort of betrayal, or declaring him untrustworthy. I now know that some (not all) of that was because I had espoused a culture and a system rather than *him*, and that was something that needed to be winnowed away.

Still chewing on Abram... & being humbled

Told you I'm embarrassed about going so slow! But I'm getting more out of it for all this chewing time, that I am :0)
This morning I had a lot of "Ooo! Ooo!" moments (you know the sound- when you're in 2nd grade or so and the teacher asks a question you know the answer to and it's all you can do to keep your bottom connected to your seat while you wave your hand wildly in the air... Yeah, *that* sound!)

Troubled by Abram this morning...

I'm s-l-o-w-l-y reading chronologically through the Bible these days. I thought of tweetng or blogging a thumbnail of what I've read, but my pride kind of keeps me from it. (I know, ugh!) I don't want to advertise just how slowly... but I'm getting over that as the slowness is giving me opportunity to absorb and chew on what I'm reading more than I would if I followed the one-year schedule laid out for me by the plan.