Painting Pictures Of Egypt

I stumbled back upon this Sara Groves song this morning, and it really speaks to where I was for the first 4 months of our life in Brenham. I am thankful that I am beginning to settle into our new life here and finding a deeper community than I have had in a long time. Listen or read the lyrics; I imagine everyone can relate to these truths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSXciv06218

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I've learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I"ve learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know

If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?

Overlooked

Do you ever feel overlooked? Here you are in the middle of a story about something you did, said, or experienced, and something you said apparently triggered a story for your supposed listeners and there you are suddenly drowned out by another's more important thoughts or feelings.
And something in you wants to rise up when they are finished and say something totally obnoxious..."so...ANYWAY...back to what I was saying..." But the proprietary nature you were brought up to embrace with such intensity begs to differ with your egocentric thought processes. And so you sit quietly honoring those in your midst.

I have felt this way many times in life. But as of late, it seems to be coming with more frequency. I am beginning to retreat in some settings into a safe shell of not speaking until spoken to. And when spoken to, I speak with clarity, brevity and fact. No time for emotion, just get the facts out so as to not face the awkwardness of interruption.

I question my pride in it all. Is it pride that wants to fight back for my place in the conversation, like the nine year old who can't wait to get to the grown up table at Thanksgiving dinner. Or a longing to belong? To be noticed? And if it is the latter, it is healthy? Or could it simply be the desire to be respected? Just honor the fact that I am speaking and don't be rude and interrupt. Enjoy my company enough to be interested in what I have to say.

I'm sure everyone has faced this irritation at one time or another. I am certain I have been the interrupter on many occasions. So I'm not really sure why I'm writing about except that it was heavy in my spirit and I needed to get it out. Thanks for bearing with me in love.

Factual Feelings

I feel so restless tonight. Dave is out at guys night, and I have to be on the road at 430 in the morning to Houston to serve coffee. Mind you, my OWN Starbucks won't be available for ME to get coffee that early, but I will be serving it to OTHERS. Good thing I have that whole Jesus heart thing going, righto?!

In any event, I digress -- you would think I would be happy to curl up in my bed, effectively stealing the man's pillow, turn the ceiling fan on high (because there is an endless debate in our home that it is hot, no cold, no hot, no COLD...it's COLD dang it And I like it that way!), and just go to sleep. After all, I am 6 hours from being on the road.

But nope. Here I sit.

I am in a position in which I don't know whether to laugh and shrug off the cares of my work world, or embrace them as a needed change. I wish for the life of me I could be a man these days. Albeit, not literally...that would definitely cause some problems in our little gossip hungry town and the hubs would be all too unhappy about the sudden change (HEY! Maybe then I could go to guys night, drink all the caloric beer I wanted, and still stay at 145lbs. HA! My luck? I would be the beer gut guy...)

Why do I wish I was a male at this point in my career? Because men seem to have the uncanny ability to separate. SEP-AR-ATE. <--see that's what they do.

They seem to look at a situation and are able to extrapolate the fact from the feeling. Whereas I, a daughter of Eve, am not. I look at the staff and think: "Hhmmm..she must be emotionally struggling if she just threw that Frappuccino in the face of an elderly lady with a cane and one of those shoes that has one sole fatter than the other." Rather than: " YOU ARE FIRED." <--man speak ... uuuuugghhh! (Maybe if I grunt, would that help? Tim Taylor type mannerisms?!)

In addition, I am also a bonafide (BON-A-FIDE) pessimist. I am learning to embrace this part of me as reality and yet cast it off as an awfully poopy way to view the world. Regardless (...or irregardless...) of my personal nature, shouldn't I be able to be definitive and factual? Indeed I can, but mentally expecting myself to just walk in and remove that part of me would be like cutting off my right hand. If I had no right hand, I would be ineffectual in writing down all the pessimistic stuff I have to say.

Alas, Lord, give me optimism. And give me the capability to SEP-AR-ATE the factual from the feeling.

Dancing in the Distance

Why do I feel so distant from the Lord today? I've felt this way over multiple days, and its frustrating. For a while, I felt so close to him, His presence was obvious. And now, I feel like I'm in a desert again. These desert times seem to come without warning and I am left to wander around until I find His presence again. Yet, I know the Lord is near to all who call on him. I'm calling. Why the block?

• Am I calling with wrong motive?
• Am I forgetting some sin that I have not yet repented for? (Do I even believe that I have to repent for every sin before God will answer?)
• Am I simply unable to turn off the "coffee brain"? (This is how I now unaffectionately refer to what feels like a separate brain I have that is just allocated for work. for the visual at heart, I've found a little doll who can sympathize with me)

• 

• Should I develop some different method of reading the word?
  
• Should I relocate to somewhere out side my home so my brain engages that we are now "doing something." Get on the ball brain! We are workin' here!
• Do I need a business coach to help me organize all the responsibilities I now carry.
• How about a lobotomy?

Last week was a week full of challenges for me, emotional, spiritual, marital - scanning all realms of my life from home, to work, to friends. I fought my demons as best I could. Though some may say I could have done things differently or better, it was my best effort through the exhaustion I feel. Perhaps I am wrestling with some guilt over not being able to "fight better."

I have been "fighting the enemy" for some time now. Learning the correct manner, mantra, and mode of how to fight a faceless enemy and emerge victorious. Last week, I did not follow my tutelage. In my temptation I did not sin, but I suppose somewhere in my legalism I am bound up in believing I did not succeed either simply because "I did not do it right." But in the midst of "my not doing it right" come heaps of condemnation, guilt, fear, and shame. And I recognize this as not being the Lord, but aren't our feelings deceptive?!

I choose this morning to lean on the words of Paul Tillich (The Shaking of the Foundations): "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted. If that happens to us, we experience grace."

I look on the horizon of these strange days and I see dancing. Dancing that will come. I feel it rising in my spirit. The dancing one I see will be me, dancing in a freedom that calls for nothing less than feet that can't help but bounce in the spirit of embracing a relentless love. I'm not there yet, but it is indeed on the horizon, and I am running for it.