Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Birth Pains and Hope

It is said that people should live more in the moment.

I don't think I'm one of those people. I think I live too much in the moment.

The sky is drizzly and cold grey like the scarf I'm knitting. My muscles are tight and knotted with tension of a soul that cannot find it's Jesus. Can not find it's peace.

Perhaps it really is the illusion that they say it is. That contentment is never really found. That mostly you get out of the creaky bed in the cold grey half-hour late morning and you put one foot gingerly on the creaky cold hard wood and you take another step...and another... take a shower, sing a little... let the hot water work out your knotted muscles and your sore, world weary back.

And you breathe and you laugh and pray and breathe and wander and waffle and you wonder about the point. You wonder if you are doing "it" right... whatever "it" is. I have never quite felt that I am doing "it" right. I think sometimes I wrongly live for what other people want, at other times I think I'm only living for myself. I am so terrified of not being perfect.

Ladies, let me be frank, is it so abnormal for a woman not to want to be a CEO? Check that... knowing ME is it weird that I don't want to be a CEO? I am not built for it. In my young life, by the worlds standards I am highly sucessful. Especially considering that if you have a roof over your head you are considered among the richest people in the world. I have a roof AND a basement. Granted it's a basement that has crushed pipes and drippy valves and a furnace that sounds like an old man, but still it is real estate nonetheless...

I'm built for knitting and cleaning and smiling. Giving grace and hanging pictures and making art and writing and mourning and dancing. I want hot glue guns and a garden, a swiffer vacuum and mini-muffins.

I do live in the moment, oh yes. So much so that those close to me think me a bit fickle...crying one minute, laughing at a commercial the next.

I feel my pains, I feel joys, I feel things that remind me that I'm, indeed, alive. But I am still in a prison of sorts. I give it different names, but it's bars are made of shame. Shame for not being ambitious enough. Shame for having an attitude that says "I just don't WANNA". But I will because I hafta! I think the elders are all right. About most things, really.

I do not like being told what to do. The times in my life where I show the least grace to people does not have to do with substance abuse, sexual immorality, abortions, homelessness, rage, greed, or wrath... to those sins I find my heart tender and compassionate.. my hate wells up and boils when I am condescended on. When people tell me what to do and how to do it like there is no other option I do not like it. Because I am certain that no human is ever right all the time... Not even me. I don't know why it irks me so, but it irks me like nothing else.

Proverbs 29:23
A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor...

there seemes to be no sin in the bible that is more punished than pride...

I have enough of it...

Jeremiah 49:16
The terror you inspire and the pride of your heart have deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks, who occupy the heights of the hill. Though you build your nest as high as the eagle's, from there I will bring you down," declares the LORD.


I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

I tremble.. who can stand?

Can I go where He went?

2 comments:

angela said...

amen sista. glad you wrote.

testing123 said...

That was AWESOME!!! I feel what you describe... All except for being a woman...Ehhm...