From Blessing to Curse

I had some extra time this morning, so I started reflecting on this past weekend.
A quiet thought came to me... Ever notice how blessings appear as curses when you are in hardship? Umm...huh?
Take a look. The house we are in was such a blessing when we first moved. Oh it's a beautiful house and now we have the room we need. But lately...there's not enough room! This house is plagued with spiders! The dishwasher doesn't even get the dishes clean! We can't open the windows because the screens don't fit! Our electric bill keeps going up and we aren't doing anything different...must be the slow leak in the AC. And so on and so forth.
So you see, what once was seen as a blessing is now being looked at as a curse or problem. We are talking of moving, but we are in a lease. Oh, but the lanlord mentioned a few months ago he was thinking of selling...hmmm. Yet another thought to weigh us down.
There are other things in our life currently that has sufferred the same transformation, but I don't have time to go into it right now. I have an eye doctor appointment. Maybe they could help be get my "blessed" sight back...

Which Way is Up?

One of the most irritating things a person can say to me is, "Someone else has it worse than you.". I know they are trying to make me feel better about a situation, but the last thing I want to hear is that my problems and struggles don't matter! Don't dismiss my pain as unimportant. God cares about me and what's going on in my life just as much as that person who's house just blew away in a tornado or something! My dad used to say that stupid phrase all the time...."Someone else has it worse than you." or "You don't have it so bad...at my age I....". That's another thing... don't make me listen to how bad you had it when you were my age!  Grrr....ok, this wasn't meant to be an angry blog.

I never knew I had so much pride until this last week. Times are rough for a lot of people with the economy these days. We haven't felt it too terribly bad until recently. Yes, Michael has been unable to find a job that pays enough in over a year, but we've survived during that time financially. Now, I'm a little...well, a lot worried. The pride comes in with me not wanting to ask people for help, though we are coming to a point that we need it. I've always been the one to give to others whether I much or little to give. How in the world do I allow myself to be on the receiving end???

Thinking of Moses

I know I posted this on my Facebook page, but I wanted to post it here to start with...

Though I read in my Bible yesterday in John 8:21 ->, I started thinking of Moses....Below are my thoughts/ramblings.

Think of Moses….

He was born a Hebrew…born into slavery and marked to die. But he was taught and raised as someone else. He was raised as a prince. He thought he was high and mighty and at the time, what he says goes.

He later comes into truth. He realizes he was born a slave; someone lesser than he thought he was. But he chooses….

Moses chooses truth! But why? Why would he choose to live as a Hebrew slave when he could SEE all that he would lose? I couldn’t imagine he saw any gain in this choice. He ended up stomping in mud, being whipped and underfed! How is it that he is willing to give up what he has as royalty in exchange for something as simple as… truth?

He comes to find out later all the mighty things he does in his lifetime. But it’s not him…it’s God working through him. And look at all that he goes through BEFORE God gets the glory! Serpents, whiny ungrateful slaves heading for freedom, climbing huge mountains to get heavy stone tablets that couldn’t possibly be easy to carry back down the mountain. He had pharaoh on his back and his own people wanting to turn their backs on him!

Did Moses ever wonder ‘what if’? What if I’d stayed a prince of Egypt instead? He wouldn’t have had to go through all those trials and irritants. Did he feel he’d seen any kind of reward while still alive here on earth? Or did it all come to him after death? And why is it that we as humans always want to be rewarded anyway?

What did he really trade? Was it a good trade? Would I be willing to trade what I have in exchange for absolute truth? And would I be able to hold to that truth no matter what it took me through? I know I don’t feel satisfied just “getting my feet wet” in Christ. But can I trust Him enough to DIVE IN?

Whew...a lot on my mind!

     Well, as you can tell the longer drive into work since we moved gives me lots of time to think and I have a lot on my mind right now.  I wish I had a machine that would record my thoughts when I'm driving and spit them out in like a Word document or something when I'm done.

     There are days I think, "Lord just take me now! The human race is so exhausting! I don't like it down here anymore!". But maybe I need to remember that the earth is not my home, but I need to try to bring as many "home" with me as I can before I die.....

Friends and Neighbors...Foreign Words in the USA

    I've moved around a lot since graduating high school.  I've had what I considered a good friend or two. But why are people not willing to take the extra effort to keep in touch with their "friends" once one moves away? My grandma had friends back in Ohio she grew up with that she was in constant contact with up till the day she died. She moved to Iowa in her 20's. Why aren't people like that anymore?

    Now that I'm on facebook, I've found people I went to high school with, but I don't know them anymore. We'd gone separate ways and I'd like to think they've all changed. It would be pretty sad to be the same person you were in high school 15 years later.

   Even "friends" I'd thought I made at church...none of them even know where I am now. I tried to get in touch with several of them to no avail. You'd think at least church "families" and friends would keep in touch. Do I expect too much from the human race? I guess it is true that it's all be in it for yourself mentality these days. It's like nobody really cares. Nobody has the guts to get involved with another person's life or family. The fake "hi, how are you's" are thrown around everywhere...church, work, occasionally a store you walk into, but they are just words not meant to be taken seriously.

     I can remember when communities had "welcome wagons". It wasn't all that long ago. We had a group greet us when we moved to Audubon, Iowa. We received a basket of fruit and information on the town and some coupons to local businesses. Now, most don't even know the name of their neighbors. My husband and I are no different. In fact, we just started talking to one of our neighbors at our old place only a month before we moved! How sad is that!

     I guess instead of trying to strive to be different and unique, I'll work hard from now on to make people actually feel cared about and mean it. None of this fly by night I'll forget about you in the morning even though I pretend I care now.

Different than Most Girls

     I always tried so hard to be unlike "most girls/women". I grew up hearing about how women nag too much, shop too much, gossip too much, cry too much and try to run a guy's life. So, I didn't want to be like that because I didn't want to end up making a man I may fall in love with miserable. I was "one of the guys" most of my life. But now I can't be. I don't feel comfortable hanging out with the guys now that I'm married because there was always at least one or two of my guys buddies that wanted to make it into something else.

     I came across a photo and a quote a few weeks back that really made me think about what I'd worked all my life to "be", or not be like. It's a photo of a row of forks and one fork is all bent and twisted. ( I'll attach the photo if I can.) The saying is..."Just because you are unique does not mean you are useful."   Wow...ouch. So I'm not useful with this philosophy I've engraved into my head. But I have a dilemma.

    You see, I've found it to be true about what I mentioned above about several women. They can't be trusted or be true friends...at least not a lot of those I'd found in the past. I've come across a lot of flaky women in my lifetime. I've found that several don't wise up till  they are in their 50's or older.  I like hanging out with the older crowd most of the time. So how do I find a balance? And where are the Godly women that are true to their word and won't toss you aside for something else that they "feel" is better or whatever it is that they are thinking?

    What ever happened to true friendship and neighbors? Yet another topic...

Where's My Identity?

     I never realized that getting married meant leaving so much of my identity behind. Let's see....I moved to my husband's location, I'm farther from my family (which doesn't really matter because even when I was only a days drive away for almost 5 years they never bothered to visit me.), I left my church behind, I go to my husband's church now, I'm using his bank and I hang out with his friends...which are usually the guys from the band. The only thing I had left that was me and really identified me and represented my personality was my truck. And now I don't have my truck. I have a bloated Jeep whose engine sucks...it's get up and go got up and went before it even got off the assembly line.

     So where is me? And does it really matter? The only thing that I have right now that is mine is my job, and I hate it, so that doesn't help. It doesn't even depict who I am...or was. I sit at a computer all day and see the same people every day. I don't get to meet new people or mingle. I don't have any physical labor to do. I feel like that bag of salad that sits in your refrigerator for a month and gets all watery and brown and stagnant.

     I guess I want to be doing something that will make an impact. The only thing I have right now to really do that with is raising my son. And I don't feel I can do that properly because I am at work all week. Luckily I have an awesome husband that takes care of little Ryan, but I know he feels very overwhelmed at times. This role reversal thing just isn't working for us.

    I always tried so hard to be different from "most girls". But that is my next topic....

Just Because You Are Unique...

I found something online today that really made me think. It was a picture of 8 forks lined up in a row and one of them was all bent out of shape. The caption below was this: "Just Because You Are Unique Does Not Mean You Are Useful."

Hmmm...what a blow to my pride. For most of my life I prided myself on being "unique" and "not like most women". Yes, I guess I helped give women a bad name. Comes from the experiences of the gossiping, the back stabbing and the flakiness. I was always "one of the guys".

Now that I see this picture, it makes me rethink what I've prided myself on all these years. I guess it's ok to be unique because everyone is...just don't strive to be so unique and different than others that you end up causing yourself to be almost handicapped.

Well, I got interrupted while writing this and kind of lost my train of thought. If it comes back, I'll do a part 2.

Switch the concept?

I was reading in Mark chapter 7:36-37 and it states after Jesus had healed a deaf man with a speech impediment....

     (36) Jesus told the crowd not to spread the news, but the more he forbade them, the more they made it known, (37) for they were overcome with utter amazement. Again and again they said, "Everything he does is wonderful; he even corrects deafness and stammering!" (The Living Bible)

Now here's my thought... we as christians and also ministers tell christians to go and tell all the world about Jesus...be a witness. They are quoting the Bible in that is what we are to do in fact. But what if they took the approach Jesus did in Mark? What if it was supposed to be kept a secret and pastors told us to hush and not tell anyone about the message? Would we as human beings be so incredibly unable to keep a secret of such grandeur? Let's face it, as human beings, we are all inclined to whisper and gossip...I see it everywhere I go. So maybe....this different concept or approach might work on some people to get them out there and really make a difference for Christ! But how twisted that they did so while in the process of not keeping a "secret".