A Declaration of a Saint

I found this in my journal, written on November 9th, 2011.  I don't know who this woman is, but I want to be like her.

I will arm myself with the lessons learned from the past.
but I will not dwell there.


I will not look up the steep mountainside of the future,
for it is too daunting to search the unknown.


I will trust in Him who created all that is me,
all that is around me.


I will live with what God places in my hands: the present.


He has redeemed the past and plan the future;
His purchase is permanent,
and plans never changing.


Whatever is to come,
I will not "brace for impact."
I will live for Him in the now,
doing what I can to serve and love.


I will trust Him with what He has taught me.
I will trust Him with what He's given me.
I will trust Him with what He has told me.
I will trust Him with the uncertain and unrevealed.


"Whom have I in heaven but you? 
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you." --Psalm 73:25

The Marathon, One Crawling Step at a Time

I've been laid out for a few days because of a stomach bug.  I didn't have any meals going the wrong way up my esophagus, but I did feel all my available energy diverted to the defense systems.


Yes, I totally just alluded to Star Trek.


and LOL-ed.

Anyway, I have been sleeping a lot.  And in my profession, that means nothing got done.


I take it back. The kids are still alive, school got done, and the house didn't burn down.


But other than that, nothing got done.


Hence, the latest Facebook status:

"Stand in the middle of life and feel overwhelmed. Check.
Play piano in worship. and procrastination. Check.
Stand in the middle of life and struggle not to burst into tears. Check.
Moving on because crying is not your thing. Check."

It's not just because of the multiple children that have overrun my house.  

Ok, maybe it is.

But there is also the husband.

And, the laundry. And the dishes.  And the taxi-service, the meal preparation, the practicing piano, the anxiously waiting for all the tax forms, the laundry room that smells like garf, the dog that needs to go to the vet, the super-spiritual-mandatory-to-be-a-good-Christian quiet times, the disastrously messy master bedroom, the gross toilets, the quickly emptying gas tank, the low bank balance, the hubby working 8 graveyard shifts in a row, the early and freezing runs, the other runs (TMI?),  the lying bathroom scale, the annoying dawdling pre-teen daughter...

and soo much more.  

But I've run out of clever adjectives for clever phrasing of my daily duties.  Or whatever they're grammatically called.

So here's the point:

Stay with me here. . .

The above picture has captured three pairs of legs of three marathoners.  Notice they look pretty decent.  You know, all buff and what-not.

And I've said before that life itself is a marathon.  One that I am painstakingly running/training for.  

Taking the metaphor even further, I'm fairly certain, almost positive, I don't look like the above picture. In fact, today I looked more like this:

and felt like doing this:

I know as a SuperMom I'm supposed to be like this guy:

only trendy and pretty and whatever.

But truth be told, I am not SuperMom and today I hit a wall.

So what did I do?

First, I took a deep breath.

In with the Holy Spirit, out with the lies and feelings of failure.

And then I took about one hundred more breaths.  While my children ran amuck and I was cooking lemon chicken and my 2-yo dumped all of the pattern blocks onto the kitchen floor.

In, out.  In, out.  About a hundred times.  Sometimes I yelled in between: also therapeutic.

So on my way to my bathroom, I kicked some of the blankets and dirty clothes into one pile next to the laundry room.  Before I washed my hands after finishing my business, I cleaned the bathroom floor a bit.  On my way out of my bathroom, I picked up three bags of hand-me-down clothes and put them in the boys' closet.  Back in the kitchen, I cleared my counters, did the dishes, and drank green tea.

I didn't plan it out.  I didn't put those things on a to-do list. I was just walking to the bathroom.  I was just walking back from the bathroom.  I was just waiting for the chicken to finish baking.  

When I ran 10 miles last week, I didn't plan every mile.  First, I just made myself get to one mile.  Then 2.  I fixed my form.  I took a few deeper breaths to relax.  I made adjustments to my stride.  I fixed my shoe laces.  I stopped to stretch.  I re-fueled.  And a couple of hours later, I was at the end. 

One step at a time.  One thing at a time.  

Thinking of the 10 miles as a whole, I was definitely overwhelmed.  Looking at my life in general, I was frantically overwhelmed.  

But somehow, in my total weakness and desperation, the kitchen got cleaned.  The kids' teeth got brushed and kisses and hugs given and bedtime over-with.  Math assignments were finished, laundry was done and the master bedroom bed made.  A small bowl full of Whoppers was consumed while still remaining under caloric budget.  

And a great and inspiring blogpost was written.  

Ok, maybe not that last part.

But if you find yourself, as I did earlier, at the end of your rope and wanting to weep and gnash teeth and all that junk, just be real with yourself.  You're life is overwhelming.

Just do one thing at a time.

Run one step at a time, no matter how slow and painful.

And then post it on Facebook so people know that you are a real person, not SuperMom.

Just sayin'.

Undesirable.

Undesirable.

In India's caste system, the people of lowest social class are called "Undesirables."  They are the poorest people, living in slums.  In the Hindu religion, there is not much help offered to these people because of the belief that the Undesirables were reincarnated to this life for a reason.

I think in this world there is a tendency, especially among women, to place ourselves in a similar spiritual "class."

 Undesirable.

Every time I say it, it's just too comfortable.

As a believer and follower of Christ, I live in the hope that my life here is just the beginning.  I live in hope that God cares for and loves me.  Someday, when I am permitted to abandon this shell, I will be with Him in a place that needs no sun. . .where there will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more shame. This life I live now is only the beginning.

Temporary. Meaning I don't belong here.

A stranger in a strange land.

And yet, hampered by this body with all its flaws and fragility, tainted by the sin nature that continuously tries to overcome me, I find myself thinking the way this world does.  I have begun thinking in terms of instant gratification, the pursuit of happiness, the acquirement of possession, the need for entertainment, and the coveting of a beautiful image.

My hope slips a little. I don't measure up.  I don't have enough.  I am a failure. I am not pretty/skinny/striking enough.

Undesirable.

But then I remember what God had created:


This is the God that loves me.  He counts the very hairs on my head.  He knew my name before I was even knit in my mother's womb.

This God that created the heavens and the earth regards me as Desirable.  Beloved.  His o
wn.


And if God is for us, who can be against us?