Monday, October 22, 2007

Soup


There is a battle that I can not see
Of course there is a battle,
Laid out for me
That I am walking through
Emotions flair and do I dare
to see reality?
God's reality
Not my own
It is so hard to care for something
more than the other person cares for it,
or to care more that it feels the other person cares.
Have you ever wanted Christ to be formed in someone more than they wanted Him for themselves?
Have you ever felt alone
mocked, sitting there with your cup of inadequate soup?
"No, I'll get my own food, make my own way,
and thanks for praying, but I'm fine the way I am
and I know no other fountain
no other place of relief
no other hope except myself
on whom I rely.
But I do not hold inadequate soup
It's not thin broth with a tiny slice of mushroom
in a tin cup
cold and weak, though you may think that it is.
It is the living and breathing and totally adequate WORD of LIFE
that I prayed for you
that you may know Him completely
so that you would no longer be alone
or relying on your own way.
You see broth and I have life.
Oh God, Oh God
the problem is that I am such a little baby
and I am the inadequate one who is personified as a cup of rejected cold broth
and I have emotional problems.
In my enthusiasm I jump and shout and think 18 miles ahead.
Oh, the nature of dreams
The nature of human love
and of God's love
and of hopes and prayers and dreams and life.
And I am poured out because I have not considered this life as necessary to hold dear to myself.
What is my life anyway?
Is it not a vapor,
a mist over the old sea
a weed sprouting forth in a desert?
What is my life but nothing except that Christ has chosen me
And so though I know not what He is doing today,
all I know is Whom I have known
and who is with me today.
And there is a battle and it is draped in words and images that I do not know
and I am confused
and I butt up against a fortress of a thousand years of daily thoughts of corruptible things that rectify itself as being adequate to qwell the storms of life.
I come up to that wall and dare to speak to it, to the person behind it and ask if that person would like to come out
and "yes" is said,
but "no" is there also and
"I don't know," and
"Go on, I'm okay."
And I am hurting too and that hurt is worse than anything that is going on right now and that hurt is ill-timed becuase I am one ill-timed of birth and fortune.
And so I sit at the corner with my soup and I am the soup and I am left along side the road and it is nothing that I have not ever known before because it is all that I have ever known. And though I have made friends and have friends, I am alone everytime there is the feeling again. And there is the feeling again. And when I have the feeling again, I hurt and sit there and remember God who is my life.
He is my Healer and Helper and Holder of my right hand. He is the one who comforts me in all of my distress.
Dear Father,
Thank You for hearing me and my prayer. Today I come to You and sit here and ask that You would please meet me and help me through this day. I need you to help meet my obligations. I need You to comfort me in my distresses. I had hopes that are not coming to pass this day, though I do think that they will come to pass in the future and I need to wait and demonstrate that I am able to stand here in this cold spot and act like I am not dying inside, because other people are not dying and it is not the time to cry out and moan. But Jesus, You do know that I am broken. I am so very deeply ashamed and little and I do have poverty of spirit. I am so ashamed that I love and have loved and have hoped and have dreampt. I do not like the fact that I need. I have needs. Those needs are currently aroused beccause I have loved and hoped and desired and wanted and dreamed and now I sit here with my cold soup and I am the soup.
"Love not this world nor the things in the world." God has overcome the world. This world is not my home. "Your life is hid in Christ, and when Christ comes your life shall be revealed in Him."

posted by An Ordinary Christian | 10:30 AM | 1 comments

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Homerun!


"Where then is boasting? It is excluded." I think that is from Romans.

I feel like I hit a homerun out of the ballpark this weekend and over this past month or so. There was so much on my plate, but God held me through it all. I had such a pleasant weekend at school and learning. What an absolutely blessed opportunity. I got back home to my husband exchanging laundry loads and my daughter completing her college applications.

I couldn't make this happen if I tried.

"Thanks be to God who leads us into triuphant procession of Christ." I think that (pretty close quote) is from one of the letters of Paul.

Tomorrow is Bible Study! Last week was so blessed. May it be again.

When things are going well it is a time to be careful.

"Be careful if any of you think that you stand, that you may fall." "Pride cometh before the fall."

Dear God,

Hold me in Your arms. You are all I need to know. You are reality. Thank you for Your many blessings. Hold those things that can lead to falling. Everything will fall before Your throne one day, so I lay them at Your feet today. Please be with the Bible Study students, that they would know the power of Your Holy Spirit today and tomorrow. May Your Spirit be in them even in greater power than in myself, and also to my family members and to the believers at Your hospitals, specifically the two I have in mind, but to all of them."

posted by An Ordinary Christian | 10:55 PM | 1 comments