A Good Measure

In Luke 6:38, Christ says, "Give and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap."  In its original context, it refers to dry goods being meted out at the marketplace.  I love this analogy, though, not because I buy in bulk very often, but because I cook.  And any cook, I think, can get a really good idea of what God is talking about here.

I cook like I live:  sloppy and a little all over the place.  I usually follow a recipe but it is a suggestion at best.  I tend to use a lot of substitutions.  Once I am finished, the kitchen looks like a war zone.  I have found flour in places that defy explanation.  The result, however, is pretty darn good if I do say so myself.  If you doubt me, come over some time and I'll cook you a chicken fried steak that will knock your socks off.

Despite this unorthodox cooking method, I am a fan of the measuring cup.  Unlike Rachel Ray, I do not often eyeball it.  I also am a fan of brown sugar.  Full stop.  On or in anything or even just by the spoonful.  When the Bible says "pressed down," I always think of recipes that call for brown sugar, firmly packed.  Sorry, I drooled a little when I typed that, excuse me.  If you bake, you know.  A fourth of a cup of brown sugar, firmly packed, is a heck of a lot more than a fourth of a cup of brown sugar.  If you press hard enough, you can fit half a package in that cup.

So this is what God is going to do with our blessings.  He's going to take them, compact them down to where more and more and more fit, then He's going to even take it a step or two further.  He's going to shake the cup, so cracks show around the edges and it settles a little on top.  Then He's going to add more.  He's going to add so many blessings that they overflow over the top of our little measuring cup, spill over into our laps, and we have to gather up the edges of our shirt to even carry them all.  Wow!

That is what happened to me this week.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Phillip is very recently between jobs and I am a stay at home mom.  Needless to say, things were getting a little scary around here.  I trust in God's provision, I know he is Jehovah-Jireh, Our Provider.  It is very difficult to keep anxiety at bay when you watch the number in your bank account and the items in your pantry dwindle, though.  Then friends started arriving.  They came with smiles and love and STUFF.  They stocked our pantry, filled our freezer, and put gas in our cars.  They sent encouraging emails, made thoughtful phone calls, and held us up in their prayers.  Pressed down, shaken together, running over.

Give and it will be given to you.  It doesn't have to be money.  Give smiles; give encouragement, kindness, and hospitality.  A listening ear, a comforting hug.  If you have an extra coat, give it to someone cold.  Let people know that you care about them, that you are with them in their trials, and pray for them.  It will be payed back to you in spades, I promise and so does God.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the family and friends God has placed in my life.  Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart and thank you, Lord God, for that good measure.

May You Be Blessed

The only reason I have been able to be rather diligent in my posting this week is because my husband is currently between jobs.  In addition to that, he has been under the weather and therefore hanging around the house.  When he is well, he is invariably off working on some handyman project for family or friends.  I don't mind this at all.  It keeps him busy and happy and it is a great way to give back to those people who always help us out in a pinch.  So this morning he is better and it is back to a variation on life as usual.

Life as usual for me means that when I sat down to check my email this morning, a two year old little girl climbed up in my lap, sat on my desk, put her hands on my cheeks, and shook my head violently from side to side while screaming, "I LOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOUUUUU!!!"  Meanwhile, a three year old little boy was scaling the washing machine to sort through our pantry items and see if he could score some candy for breakfast.  Needless to say, I haven't gotten much accomplished.

I have talked to people who think stay-at-home parents have nothing to do.  This attitude astounds and amazes me.  I serve with the preschool ministry at my church (because I'm a glutton for punishment).  One day I was serving with a young woman who I do not normally volunteer with.  She had just graduated from college and therefore knew everything.  She found out I was a lawyer and that was very exciting.  Then she found out I had given up my practice in order to raise a family.  It was like I just told her that I had voluntarily had a medically unnecessary lobotomy.  She told me that she and her husband planned to have children in a few years but that she would never be a stay-at-home mom.  She would be so bored.

I learned a nifty trick from a friend of mine in recovery for times when you encounter a person like this.  Instead of saying something that you are later going to need to make an amends for in order to maintain your spiritual health or biting your tongue bloody, just mentally repeat the phrase "May you be blessed."  It is at times a bit like the "SERENITY NOW!" episode of Seinfeld, but it really does help.  If you say it to yourself long enough, your temper will abate and you might even start meaning it.  I started feeling a little sorry for her.  After all, I said I would never be a Baptist or a blogger and look at me now.  I can see into that young woman's future and it might just involve mornings where she too says things like "That's the cat's breakfast.  Yours is on the table."

So today's blog is going to be short, sweet, and not in anyway related to the meaning of life.  I just wanted to say to all my stay-at-home peeps and to the rest of you as well, may you be blessed.  May God bless you and keep you and may you have some time for yourself today to rest in His presence.  Without it resulting in gum in anyone's hair...

 

Quarter-sized Faith

I have been a Christian for most of my life.  I was raised in a Christian home, the third daughter of a Methodist preacher.  It's part of my family's lore that after my older sister had asked Jesus into her heart she began talking to me about doing the same.  I staunchly refused.  When pressed on the topic, my reply was simply:  "I'm not done being bad yet."  I was four at the time.  It was a prophetic statement.

I did finally get on the bandwagon some time later, but I am still not sure I really got it.  Like many people raised in the church, it was all more form than content.  I believed in God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  I went to Sunday School, memorized scripture and sat through boring sermon after boring sermon, doodling in my bulletin with the short, stumpy pencils provided in the pews.

There is one time I remember a message really "getting me" in my childhood.  We were visiting another church, a pastor my dad knew.  I don't know what denomination it was, but it was held in a huge auditorium and had a primarily black congregation.  Everyone was so joyful and energetic and the preacher was so passionate (and repetitive) that I remember his sermon until this day.  He preached about prayer, about being a kid in the South and about kids back then being able to buy a "penny bag" of candy.  His family was so poor that he did not even have a penny to spare.  So he would walk along praying, "Please God, let me find a penny."  Over and over he would pray.  And every day he prayed it, he would find one.

It got my attention in a big way.  I started trying it out in my life, although with inflation and all my prayer was for a quarter.  Time after time, I would find a quarter.  It was awesome!  Like God was my own personal piggy bank.  This is not sound theology, by the way, but keep in mind I was seven.  I think God answered my prayer then for the same reasons he answered that pastor's childhood prayers.  For one, to let us know He really was there.  He wasn't Santa Claus or the Easter bunny.  He is GOD and He exists.  Secondly, because He likes to give His children good gifts, regardless of their age.  Finally, because we had the faith of a child.

It's easy to have child-like faith when you are, in fact, a child.  Jesus talked about kids a lot.  One of my favorite examples is in Matthew 11:25 when He said:  "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children."  I believe kids are born with an innate sense of who God is and the nature of His all-encompassing love.  Little kids don't get bogged down in doctrinal disputes, they don't struggle with the mystery of the Trinity or whether the tithe should be based on net or gross earnings.  They give and receive the love of God easily.

In many Eastern traditions, parents acknowledge that they have much more to learn from their children than they will ever be able to teach them.  They know so much more of the important stuff because they aren't convinced that they know everything already.  I think in this scripture Jesus is saying the same thing.  We should approach the throne of God with an open and vulnerable heart, not relying on our knowledge but on His.  I did not have the easiest childhood.  My father was a better preacher than he was a dad.  But even with a less-than-perfect past, my seven year old self had enough faith to score a quarter.  As I grew up and became "wise and learned," I lost touch with that faith.

The good news is that we can get it back.  I got so stinking wise and learned, what with my law degree and all, that I am lucky that I even had sight of Christ at all.  When my first baby was born sick, when they told me he would probably not live another week, all of that became dung, as the apostle Paul would put it.  I was a child before my God, stripped of all artifice of control, humble, vulnerable, and powerless.  I asked him for time; just a few more moments with my Eddie.  Just a quarter's worth.  He gave to me in abundance.  I asked for days, He gave me weeks, for weeks and He gave me months.  Just to be able to hold him and He let me take him home.  How great is Our God?

To clarify:  God is not my piggy bank.  For a few weeks, we attended a church whose congregants believed that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, God is going to do everything your way.  That if you are sick or poor or have some other challenge in your life, you are not praying the right prayer or your faith is in some way lacking.  Those people are crazy.  Ahem, I mean misled.  The Bible is full of stories of suffering and death.  The apostles were tortured and martyred and I think they probably had plenty of faith.  Thinking that through prayer you can control the will of God is whacked out theology at best and really dangerous at worst.  It puts people in need in a position of shame and that in and of itself is shameful.

What I do mean is, you can approach the throne of grace as a child and God will give you good gifts.  They may not be the gifts you thought you wanted or what you expected, but continue to have child-like faith and trust and you will see that they are good.  I prayed like crazy for Eddie to be restored to perfect health, for him to live a full, adult life.  That did not happen and it's not because I did not have enough faith.  It is because it was God's will that I be here, right now, sharing my experience with you.  That I would be able to stand up and say that, in this flawed and difficult world, we can have hope, peace, and joy, overflowing and abundant, no matter what.  So that maybe you don't have to suffer years of addiction and the sickness and death of a child to figure out how to have child-like faith yourself.  That maybe you could read these words and find it in you to humble yourself before God, let go of your own illusions of control, and just say, "Please God, can I have a quarter?"      

Life, Death, and Jazz

Eddie loved the song "Midnight in Moscow" by Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.  It's an awesome jazz tune and when I hear it I feel really happy and really sad, all rolled into one big ball.  It has a rhythm that is the pace of  life or what the pace should be if you do it right.  (If you are a jazz fan you will get this.  If you are not, look this song up on iTunes or YouTube and become one.)  Eddie would listen and open up his palms into perfect "jazz hands," waving them along to the music.    

As you might have guessed, I'm a bit of a music geek.  My taste is all over the place.  I own everything from The Flaming Lips to Flemish Romantic Music.  It runs in the family and the iPod I had borrowed from my sis when Ed was in PICU was a source of entertainment and great joy.  I remember discussing childhood heartthrobs with nurses much younger than me while introducing them to the wonder that is NKOTB and, in response to an older nurse's contribution, cranking up Andy Gibb's "I Just Want to Be Your Everything."  It was like a party in our little cubicle, even when Ed was not doing well and even more so once he had miraculously rallied and could show everyone his jazz hands.  I wish that this was the end of the story, that we went home a few days later and lived happily ever after.  There was so much more drama to come.

Eddie had to be on TPN which is nutrition administered through the bloodstream.  Like I said before, he had short bowel syndrome which means he was basically gutless.  Prior to his birth, I really had not given any thought to how important one's small intestine is and did not even know about the existence of this little thing called the ileocecal valve but, trust me, they are both very, very important.  Eddie had to have a central venous line, or CVL, which is a little rubber tube that went from a major vein in his body to the outside of his body, kind of a semi-permanent IV, so we could hook him up to the TPN.  The whole system kept him going, but it also unfortunately made him really sick sometimes.  CVLs get infected and blocked and TPN has to be processed through the liver and eventually the liver just can't take it anymore.

So, during the time he was unconscious, his CVL had stopped working for some reason and had to be replaced.  For most "normal" families this would seem like a major, scary surgery but Eddie had gone through this procedure so many times it had become almost routine for us.  Sailing on the high of his miraculous recovery, the last thing Phillip and I were worried about was his CVL replacement.  He was in the hands of a surgeon who had known Eddie since birth and who we loved like family.  We sat in the waiting room, playing gin rummy and suffering a minimum of anxiety.  As the usual thirty minutes stretched on to an hour, though, our game slowed and our anxieties rose.  Finally, they came to get us and told us to come to the recovery room.

As we approached Eddie's gurney, we saw that the anesthesiologist was still using a hand-held breathing bag to help him breath.  They explained that, while Eddie's surgery had gone well, he still was not breathing on his own and should be by now.  Since Eddie was a hospice baby, they needed our permission to hook him back up to the respirator.  I looked Eddie in the eyes and his expression spoke volumes.  My baby had been fighting for so long and he was so tired.  

Let me explain something before I continue.  Eddie was only thirteen months and had already been through more surgeries and procedures than most people have in a lifetime.  He was a warrior and a survivor, but he was also a human being and my beloved child.  Even at one year old, he had an ability to communicate with those of us close to him that was way beyond his years.  His heart was speaking to my heart in that moment and I knew he wanted to quit.  So I tried to let him.

It was awful.  Phillip and I said it was okay to stop helping him breathe and they handed him to me.  I had thought that he would rally.  He always had before.  Within seconds, though, he was limp in my arms.  I freaked.  I wanted to respect him, to give him the dignity to die if that was what he wanted, but I had no peace.  I cried out to God.  I cried:  "Lord!  If this is Your will, I accept it, but PLEASE conform my will to Yours!"  I felt nothing.  The doctor on call, a man I had met only a few minutes before, put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes.  It was now or never.  I looked at Phillip and saw my agony reflected in my husband.  "I can't do this without him," I yelled.  I still don't know what exactly I meant, if I couldn't do life without Eddie or let Eddie's life end without God.  Anyway, I handed him to Phillip who shuffle-passed him to the doctor like a little football.

I don't really remember what happened next.  I know there was a "CODE BLUE" and a flurry of activity but I don't remember the details.  In my next clear memory, I'm in the arms of the hospital chaplain, facing away from where the doctors are working on Eddie and screaming "That's my baby!" at the top of my lungs.  The chaplain was shushing me in a soothing way and said, "Hup!  They've got a heartbeat."  In a little while, the excitement was over and I was standing next to my smiling baby again.

Eddie smiled a lot, but this time it was different.  This time, he was smiling while he was hooked to a respirator.  He had been intubated so many times in his life I've lost count and he had never been happy about it.  As glad as I was that he was still alive, I was also afraid he had suffered terrible brain damage.  Eddie was one smart cookie so that was going to be a real shame.

While Phillip and I were standing there, numb and a little brain damaged ourselves, the doctor approached us.  He put a hand on each of our shoulders and told us we had changed his life.  That he had never seen faith like ours.  That he had been an atheist his entire life, but that witnessing our faith had made him come to believe in the God of Jesus Christ.  I wish that I could tell you that I said "praise the Lord," sat him down and told him the good news of the gospel.  That we prayed together that Jesus would enter his heart and be Lord and Savior of his life.  But, give me a break, okay?  I'm only human.  I did manage a weak smile and an even weaker, "That's great."  My hope and prayer is that he went to church or the chaplain and they took care of the rest of it for him.  At that moment, I felt weak, shaky and out of control and Phillip was so out of it he excused himself to smoke a cigarette.

As time passes, though, this has become one of my greatest memories.  It proves what I have known all along; that Eddie came for an amazing purpose.  He was always going to come just as he was, flawed and fragile.  Through his fragility he taught incredible strength.  Through his flaws he exemplified God's perfection.  Through his life at least one person came to salvation.  He witnessed more to people in thirteen months of life than I had in nearly thirty years.  

Incidentally, Eddie's brain had not been damaged.  We went home a little over twenty-four hours later on Christmas Eve.  He still showed an uncanny intelligence and wisdom far beyond his years (or year, rather) until his death in August 2007.  He was a lot happier, though.  I think it is because, in those moments that his heart was stopped, he spent a little time with Jesus.  He knew what lie ahead of him and that he did not have to be afraid anymore.  Right now, listening to "Midnight in Moscow" and feeling more happy than sad, I know I don't have to be afraid either.  Life goes on at its wonderful, laid back pace (if you'll let it) and when it's over I get to be with my Savior.  And my wonderful, magical little Jazzman.        

The Sprinter

Eddie died in the summer of 2007, almost eight months after our trip to the PICU when he had RSV and I had Boudin.  If you had told me on that cold December morning when we were rushing him to the hospital, begging him to breathe for me and watching him turn a dusky grey, that we would have that much longer together I would have wept with joy.  As it was, no one really thought he was going to make it.  No one except me and Phillip, that is, and we were running on blind faith.

After ten days or so on the respirator, we had a physician's conference one morning.  The topic was whether or not it was time to pull the plug.  It was put much more delicately than that, of course, but that was the bottom line.  Ed was not responding to the breathing treatments and they were out of options from a practical medical point of view.

Eddie was on a breathing machine called an oscillator.  It's like a respirator, but it shakes it's victim like a leaf.  It serves a good purpose, I know.  Something about opening up the lungs.  But you have to know my baby Eddie. He had a temper that would put Yosemite Sam to shame and a tolerance for sedatives and pain killers that rivaled Sid Vicious.  He was neither as out of it as everybody thought he was nor as relaxed as they assumed.  And he was really, really pissed.  Phillip and I knew this with the kind of deep down knowledge that comes only from God.

Armed with this knowledge and a conviction from the Holy Spirit that it was correct, I pled Eddie's case.  I told them he was mad about the oscillator and holding his breath against it.  I begged the doctor to put him on a normal respirator and promised he would breathe on his own soon after.  I looked like a desperate parent, grasping at straws.  My argument finally boiled down to "what would it hurt to try?"  The doctor was very sweet and tactful, but her bottom line was that it was a waste of time and resources.  I finally won out, though.  All those years of law school did not go to waste, I guess, or I was just pathetic enough for her to have pity on me.

The atmosphere among the respiratory therapists and nurses was like the two minute warning of the final quarter of the big game when your team is down by a touchdown and they have first and ten on the fifty yard line.  Over the past week and a half, the PICU staff had really become our biggest fans.  They had never heard Eddie utter a word or seen his amazing smile, but they loved him and they were rooting for us.  He was switched to a normal respirator and soon they started doing what they call "sprints," changing the settings so he was doing more and more on his own for longer and longer periods.  Eddie was a champ.  Halfway through the day, the RT that had brought me my Boudin sausage earlier in the week put a post-it note on our glass wall facing the nurses' station that said "Eddie da sprinter."  I still have it.

Eddie was breathing on his own by the end of the day, sitting up in his bed smiling at everyone and drinking popsicles melted into Pedialyte.  His gastroenterologist came to see him, stared at him for a moment before saying just one word and leaving:  "Amazing."  The next day there was another physician's conference, this time with a very different tone.  The doctor was gracious, happy that we were right.  We made plans for Eddie to have a central venous line replacement surgery the next day with discharge soon to follow if all went well.

Before we left, the social worker in attendance asked us simply, "How did you know?"  I smiled and gave the only answer I had.  "God told me," I said.  It's the kind of thing I never could have imagined myself saying before Eddie.  The kind of thing crazy people and cult leaders said, if you'll excuse the redundancy.  It was the truth, though, and it was backed up with some good, solid evidence.  I wish I could always have that kind of boldness now.  Now that life is less dramatic and more normal.  It's harder to be a Jesus freak when you are talking about finances or your kid's latest chest cold than it is when God just brought your baby back from the dead.  It's easier to talk hope when people say there is none than when everything is just kind of lukewarm and neutral.  It's harder when you are running the marathon instead of the sprint.  I learned a lot from Eddie da Sprinter, though, and so it is with boldness that "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Phillipians 3:14)

The Prodigal Daughter

I have a confession to make.  I am not a very nice person.  There are some of you who are mildly shocked or in denial about this.  There are others of you who, unfortunately, know it to be true.  I was once described by someone who knows me probably better than anyone else in the world as self-centered, hedonistic, and careless with myself and others.  For the lion's share of my teenaged and adult years, that was an accurate description.  I was usually pleasant and fun to be around, I think, but scratch the surface and I could bring on a world of hurt.

Not incidentally I drank in those days.  A LOT.  I started guessing that I might be an alcoholic around the age of seventeen.  By twenty-five, I was convinced.  I was also unwilling to do anything about it.  I made a joke out of it.  I resigned myself to the fact that I would never love anyone more than I loved alcohol and if there was never anyone who was 100% cool with this then I would just be happily single for the rest of my life.  My heroes were people like Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde:  witty, pithy drinkers who had fabulous lives, if you ignored the occasional suicide attempt.  I was sure they could have been described as self-centered, hedonistic, and careless with themselves and others.  I was in good company.

That was on the surface, though.  As any alcoholic will tell you (and I'm sure Dorothy and Oscar would agree) there is an underbelly that is real, undeniable, and terribly, terribly ugly.  I spent more than my share of nights swathed in guilt and steeped in shame, remembering things that I had done, people I had hurt, decisions I had made that had ended... let's just say badly.  There are terrific gaps in my memory.  Whole evenings and even people who have fallen into the abyss of my blackouts.  It's an eerie feeling when you are approached by someone you presumably met, partied with, and parted as good friends and you don't remember anything about them.

I want to make something clear.  During most of this time I was a Christian.  I believed Jesus had died for my sins and I really did love Him.  I apologized to him at least once a day, usually dozens of times.  I vowed never to drink again.  Sometimes I bargained that if He would just let me keep alcohol, my golden calf of choice, I would make other sacrifices or do other really cool things in His name.  He was not convinced.  Still, during this time, Jesus really did love me.  He was not willing to leave me in the grips of a disease that I did not understand and could not control.

So he sent me Eddie.  I was willing to drink even though it hurt other people, even people I loved.  I was willing to drink even though I was killing myself.  Then, suddenly, there was someone I loved, someone residing in my body, that I was not willing to hurt.  God gave me someone to love more than I loved alcohol.  So I quit, white-knuckling it at first, then seeking the help of loving, wonderful, flawed people who taught me how to let go and let God.

If you have never been a prodigal son or daughter, good for you.  I mean that sincerely.  If you have never wandered so far away from the will of God in your life that when you return to Him you are broken and filthy and ashamed, then you are very lucky.  But in other ways, we prodigals are blessed.  We know from experience how high, how long, how deep, and how wide is the love of Christ.  It defies description.  I came before Him with a past that made me unworthy to be anything but punished.  I was willing to just be a servant in His household and He welcomed me as a daughter, bathed me in grace, clothed me in righteousness, and put a ring on my finger so that I would no longer feel ashamed.

I don't regret my past.  It helps me relate to others and keeps me humble and grateful before my God.  I still like Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, but I don't want to be them when I grow up.  And, somehow, I've become a pretty good person.  I've heard people describe me as nice, kind, generous, and faithful.  I like who I am in Christ.  I'm active in my church and crazy in love with Jesus, but I hope I'm not self-righteous, am still pleasant and fun to be around.  The really important thing is, though, that God loved me just as much when I was out there partying like it was 1999 (oh, wait, it was) as He does now when I am raising my hands and singing a song of praise.  His love is unchanging, unshakeable, and true.  He was waiting for me, a patient and loving Father, waiting for His beloved daughter to return.  And He loves you too.          

A New Thing

For the past few months, God keeps pressing the same scripture on my heart.  I don't remember reading it until a friend of mine posted it in her status on Facebook.  Once I saw it, it grabbed me and just wouldn't let go.  It's Isaiah 43:18-19 and it goes a little something like this:  "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

I love this verse.  What an awesome message from God.  Forget the past...we're going to do something different.  Something awesome, something great.  I love the question in the middle: "do you not perceive it?"  It's like God is looking at us in our doubt and our frustration and saying, "Seriously?"  Somedays I read this verse and feel giddy with excitement over the big and wonderful things that God is going to do in my life.

Today has not been one of those days.  Today I have had the most mundane, depressing, bourgeois thoughts possible.  Today's thoughts have centered around things like unpaid bills and coupon clipping.  Now I am convinced that there are people of greater faith out there that can look at the equation "my electric bill > my bank statement," utter a sincere "Hallelujah," and wait with joyful anticipation for God's provision in their life.  There are those who clip coupons with a praise song on their lips and joy, joy, joy, joy down in their hearts.  I find it difficult to look at those things, however, and also keep my eyes on God.  I look at those things and start looking into my self, searching for solutions...and the best deal on toilet paper.  And looking into my self is never a good idea.  It's a mess in there.

I love those moments when it is so easy to see God.  Standing on a huge pile of driftwood, staring out across the Pacific Ocean.  Flying over mountain peaks, driving through rainbows.  Watching the sun set from the top of a mesa.  Holding your baby for the very first time.  I have been fortunate enough to have so many of those experiences I couldn't possibly name them all.  Sitting at my kitchen table today, mired in anxiety and scraps of the SuperSaver, however, they seemed very far away.  I mean, I love the morning glories in my backyard and the blue Texas sky above me, but it's not exactly the Grand Canyon for awe and majesty.

I know if I will turn my eyes to God, I will see Him.  Maybe not as a pillar of fire or a burning bush or anything, but He will lift my head up out of my circumstances and allow me to focus on His glory.  So I sat down with my prayer journal and my Bible, determined to write it out, pray it out, and wait for Him to speak to me.  And, of course, He did.  I realized all those "mountaintop" experiences are right here with me, every moment of every day.  I don't have to abandon my husband and children and run screaming to the coast; I can close my eyes and the ocean is there.  I don't have to agonize over the loss of my oldest child; I can close my eyes and hold him in my arms again.  Because God is faithful and good and I am only as far away from His love as I put myself.  Maybe looking into my self isn't such a bad idea after all.