Monday Musings

* We are watching Tropical Storm Debby closely. Her exact landfall point is currently changing with each new update. This is our first storm since moving to the Gulf Coast. It has been a very enlightening experience. She's been slow, moody, and unpredictable.

* We had a communion service at church yesterday. God revealed a lot to me during this time. My depression has been crippling my relationship with Him, and I've been letting it. I miss the closeness I once had with Him. I miss being so in love with Him that every thought centered on Him. I want to find that place again. I'm tired of being sad, insecure, lonely, and angry. I keep searching for Him, but I can't seem to quite find Him. But He found me yesterday. I've had such peace and overwhelming emotion since that moment. 

* Money is really tight. Bills are past due. Work has been slow. This is NOT what we moved to Florida for. This is not what I uprooted my life and my family's lives for. But, God assured me yesterday that He's got this. And that He will supply all of my NEEDS. Including those life-sustaining supplies and meds I'm getting low on. Just gotta keep trusting HIM, not Brooke. I'm bad about that, being the control freak that I am.

* What happens to us that we are so CLOSE to God one day, comletely focused on Him and having Him consume our every thought, and the next we are searching for Him and unable to find Him? I mean, when you never stop looking for Him, but wake up one day and realize that there is an entire mountain range standing between you and your Beloved. How does that happen? 

* VBS was last week. The youth helped out, so both boys were there all week. JRay helped in the kitchen, and Nate was placed with the K-2 age group. I'm thinking he wasn't quite ready for that group yet since he only just turned 5 less than a month ago, but he still had a blast the entire week. He couldn't ever tell me what they learned, but he knew they were chasing the Light! He made himself center stage during the show on Friday night. Rolling around on the stage, creating a mosh pit with the wall, etc. He just makes me so proud. 

* We cleaned house after church yesterday. I've not felt well for several weeks now. Probably more like several months. I've had zero energy and have really struggled with keeping things done. So the house was really getting to an unbearable point. Momma went on a rampage after we got home, and needless to say, we all worked together and I am able to rest with the boys in a CLEAN house today. It's such a great feeling. I miss feeling like myself. 

* I got a porch swing off of Freecycle. It just needs cushions. Those aren't as easy to find as I expected, but I'm determined. So many precious memories with my Momma were made on her porch swing. Right now it's sitting in the front driveway next to the house waiting to be used. It may turn out to be my new counselor ;)

* I love my husband ;) He is so good to me, so understanding, compassionate, and loving. He gets that I'm not myself these days, and really goes out of his way to shoulder more of my load, on top of his own already heavy burdens. I couldn't ask for a better man to share my life with. I don't share that with him enough. I need to work on that.

* I'm so sick of religion. It's been on my heart for so long now. I'm disgusted with what "the church" has become. We spend so much time arguing denomination, that we miss the people staring us in the face that just need to be loved. We spend so much time looking for that perfect church, with perfect worship, the right message, that we totally miss the point of it all. It's not about what the church does inside those walls on Sunday morning. It's about what we do OUTSIDE those walls the rest of the week. We are called to LOVE one another. We spend so much time judging one another we forget how to love. I'm not saying that we should ignore the rest of the Word, but at the heart of it all is LOVE (1 Cor. 13). When we let His love work through us, the rest falls into place. There's no room in it all for religion. Religion is for the Pharisees.

Seeking Peace

I had the privilege of taking a vacation with my little family along with my Dad and Stepmom this week.  Nothing special, just a few unscheduled, unencumbered days at the beach with those closest to me. Since moving 325 miles away from "home" a year ago, I just don't get to see my Daddy often. And I miss him. A lot. My Daddy is like the older male version of me. I have always been and always will be a Daddy's Girl. This vacation couldn't have come at a better time. I've been struggling so hard with anger and resentment. Not towards anyone specific, but, needless to say, my precious husband has caught the brunt of it. He works hard to provide for our family, but is sinfully underpaid and under appreciated. So our finances have been in a real pickle since work slowed down and overtime all but disappeared. We rely on that overtime to survive in this expensive Florida economy. So all of that, combined with my severe loneliness and longing for a close friend, have created some serious turmoil inside of my fragile heart. I have been questioning and pulling away from God. I knew I was doing it, and I didn't want to do it, but somehow couldn't stop it. I've felt Ike Paul, in Romans 7:14-25.

"So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin." (Romans 7:14-25 NLT)

I am constantly at war with myself. But this week, while getting away from the Internet, Facebook, and all of the other distractions in my life to spend some quiet time with family, I found a glimpse of that peace that goes beyond understanding again. I found a quiet place within my soul that I can retreat to when the every day becomes too much. I found my real Daddy again. The One who still wants me to crawl up in His lap, cry on His shoulder, and just rest in His strong arms. I've missed Him. I'm so thankful that even when we are struggling with our love for Him, His love for us only grows stronger. His desire to hold us only intensifies. 

And I'm thankful for my earthly Daddy. I'm thankful that his wife provided this vacation for us, I'm thankful that even when I have been critical and unfair to her out of my own grief that she chose to love me, and I'm thankful that through the years, my Daddy has always loved me and been there for me. I'm thankful that after losing my Momma after nearly 37 years of marriage that OUR Daddy has given him happiness again. I miss sharing a driveway with him, but am thankful that we still share an even stronger bond of love.