Begin Again

Spring arrived before I felt winter. Winter must have happened or maybe it was just cold rain, day after day after day. I wonder if life can go by even faster than it does now. I could meet myself leaving an appointment before I arrive. My life is full and focused on meeting needs, anticipating future needs, lost in an overwhelming array of data. There are people who organize well. Prioritize well. See the big picture well. I am not one of those people. The requirements on my time, need to focus, plan, prioritize require an incredible amount of mental energy for me. I am a smart woman. I can do many things well. Yet I am at a point in my life where I am avoiding the thinking parts and living in the reactive parts of daily events. Oddly enough, to me, at least, I have a calm that arrived recently, on the heels of what appeared to be an impending nervous breakdown. God works in my life twenty-four hours a day. He worked out this calm thing. He has not, as yet, given me the organizational part. I am calm despite the chaos and sneaking suspicion I have that important things are going undone. They go undone while I look for my keys, my purse, a shirt to wear, shoes, that bottle of ketch-up I know I bought at the store. The list is long. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the past two years. Stress exacerbates the symptoms of ADHD. I can bear witness to that sentence.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I celebrate the Risen Christ. Easter Sunday is special because it has always been special. When I met Jesus Christ as a living God and knew Him as a reality in my current life; not an idea or a concept but a real, living Jesus, Easter became a remembrance opportunity. The reality that Christ is risen is an every day reality for me. He is as much a part of me as my DNA. He is risen, made manifest, living now, at this moment, in me and around me and for me. When I met Jesus in this reality I became alive. I became resurrected in the sense that I died to myself and became a bond servant of my Lord Jesus Christ. Easter is a remembrance. Maybe more of a birthday of Jesus than Christmas is for me. When Christ chose to die and was resurrected He became the Christ I serve today. My life in and with Him is far from a cake walk. I am challenged, unsettled, often straining to be full of my own will over my surrendered will. Life with Christ is vibrant, breath-taking, life more abundant than I could ever imagine. Abundant with the love and surrender of my will to His. Come Lord Jesus! Happy Easter, friends!

Flotsam and Jetsome

Why does this font look so little? I have chosen "large" and saved it at least six times. Yet I persist with a degree of determination that would be better spent on cleaning my poor home. But that is of little value to me except to use as a battering ram when I begin to like myself a wee bit.

"Oh sure, how can you feel good about yourself when you pay no attention to your home. You abandon it for any whim that comes along so don't think you are all that, girl!"

So I take the obligatory guilt and shame trip and even organize a completely  irrelevant drawer or two before distraction takes over and I am blowing bubbles for the cats or playing a game on the ipad. 

I do have plans, mind you. I plan to paint and pull up carpet and rid the house of clutter and scrub the deck and buy things in matching colors. That is what I need. I need a color scheme. Then I realize that I could give a fig about a color scheme and the front tires on my car are nearly bald and I return to other , more intriguing ventures that are, for the most part void of value. I spend an inordinate amount of time remembering dates and times of appointments or looking for my glasses or my phone. I lose the memory of where I place items the moment I let go of them. I am either quite smart or the village idiot and I'll be darned if I know which one I am or if I care for that matter.

Another day...

Standing at a high point looking out over the ocean all the way to the horizon, straining to see a little further reminds me of the place in me that only God can fill. There is always a tension of being away from home, watching to get a glimpse of home's distant shore with a delicate homesickness pulling at my heart. It permeates every breath I take though I do not find it intrusive. Rather, I find it hopeful. I am gone from home for a time such as this and I long for home with sweet abandon yet I know this is where I am meant to be for now. At the most poignant of those moments when I feel the joy of a future reunion I think I cannot bear the wait but my Father comforts me. He comforts me and sends me back into this world to live this life He gave me. Sometimes this home, the here and now, feels pulled by an aggressive gravity bearing down heavily. I wonder if I can stand or fully breathe. The mystery that lightens the burden is for me to stop trying to stand or fully breathe. At the exact moment I choose to abandon the effort and stop trying to save myself the gravity releases me. I find myself free