Crazy Bucket

         You have a bucket. I have a bucket. Let’s call it the bucket of crazy. It is the pail of circumstances, frustrations, and worries that begin to fill your mind and heart drop by drop; and every once in awhile your bucket bottoms out.
         I am referring to the days of course that you go a little looney tunes per say. These are the days where you are already in the hole emotionally and it gets worse from there. Your jeans are too tight so you have extra cereal because you’re sad. A project comes up at work that must be completed stat when you’re already behind. Your eyes are drooping despite the 8 hours of sleep you received the night before. A small headache forms at your temple and eases its way across your forehead like a blob of honey running down a jar. And someone asks you if you are feeling alright because you are sans makeup. I’m well thank you, just pale and haggard-looking. People always need you too; a friend or family member and you just don’t have it to give. But you’re not sure how to voice that so you just end up looking careless and out of it.
          Life’s big questions seem to appear too; What am I doing in life? What are my passions? Do I have passions? Does everyone just think I’m crazy because I take medicine? Why can’t I get it together today? I would handle this better if I’d just had my devotion, quiet time, starbucks visit or whatever we’re calling it these days. But honestly, you don’t feel close to Christ so it’s difficult to see him clearly to even run to. He isn’t up ahead of course, he is right beside you but we’re too full to notice. The bucket is teetering back and forth now and begins to spill over the edges as the bottom gives way. Definition=no rationalization, tears, desire to scream perhaps, and most likely a lashing out before lying still in bed …and its only 2:30pm.
        Listen, we’ve all been there. You’re not unstable. You’re not a bad Christian. You don’t need to Google your symptoms and I promise you’re still a good mom, wife, daughter, and sister. Your bucket just filled up a little quicker today. Figure out whatever it is you need to do to walk beside still waters with God and do that. Just that. And also, hang in there my fellow crazies.

You Matter

Thank you Dot for showing me the following truths:
I recently read a devotional email from my Bible Study teacher, Dot Bowen, about the story of Sarah, Abram, and Hagar. The story is usually focused on Abram and Sarah and a promise kept that ensured generations of God’s people to be born. It’s a great story and it reminds us that God always keeps his promises even when we mess up or attempt to take things into our own hands. Hello, Sarah asking her husband to sleep with the help because she wanted a baby?! Duh, of course she was going to despise her husband, maid, and ultimately herself with a decision like that. BUT… in the end she still got to be a mom. I think the part that really amazed me though was Hagar’s story that Dot pointed out. She had to flee because Sarah hated her and the baby she carried. She was just a young slave that had obeyed her mistress and now she was alone in the desert. And the Bible says God found her and told her what to do in the midst of her crisis. Her response is what struck me; she called out to God and named Him, “the God that sees me.”

It’s all right there in scripture. No fancy language, just simple truth. God will find you because he sees you. Can you imagine sitting in your own circumstance and God, whether you believe in Him or not, comes to your side and says, “Hey, I see You and its going to be ok.” I think we can have the tendency as humans to feel small and be one of trillions with problems. Why would my story or your story matter? And yet a girl, who slept with a very important married man, mattered. We don’t know if Hagar was a believer, all we know is that she was a slave from Egypt. But what we do know is that she recognized that God saw her and I have to believe that changed things for her. Because at the core existence of us all we just want to know we matter despite our sin and ugliness.

Bottom line: We are broken. We make crappy decisions. We get ourselves in messes. And right smack in the middle of the desert we are still noticed. Believer or not, God sees you, because you matter.

Resolutions

And it’s upon us. The. New. Year.




So it’s time to make resolutions my friends. Some I will keep and some I will add again to 2014’s list. Let’s begin with the regulars…

1) Go to gym. Like actually go. As of now LA Fitness has a sweet deal with me; I pay them annnnd they do nothing.

2) Read my Bible. Jeff bought me an awesome large print Bible for Christmas. Its pages soft, crispy, and ready.

3) Vow to complain less, gossip less, and learn silence when it would be easy to pipe up and say something negative.

4) Journal more. Hello, the first year of marriage in record will be a jewel one day. We’ve already endured blindness in the first quarter!

5) Say no, a little more, to sweets. Sugar is perfect and kind but we MUST see each other less.



And for the Newbies…

6) Take some sort of writing class or workshop. Gotta hone those skillz

7) Take a trip to somewhere I have never been. 

8) Start looking into mission trips. I’ve never been on one. Never.

9) Become more fervent in prayer.

10) See more plays with Jeff. I love theater. Maybe I’ll get to see Jeff in a play this year.



Make some for yourself too. And no worries if they do not come to fruition. It’s kind of the nature of these lists. ;)