for when you feel thwarted

Tonight I felt absolutely thwarted.  I simply could not get our little blue USB Internet plug-in set-up to work (I can’t get on my blog via our dial-up connection; for some Central Asian reason, Blogger is blocked in our country of residence… don’t ask.)  I haven’t blogged in about a month, although I conscientiously have 3 solid posts including pictures waiting in the line-up… and I’m really desiring to get on a roll more with my blog, write more intentionally, hone my skills, link more, etc… 

On top of all this, I couldn’t even get dial-up to download the 80+ emails waiting for me after a week away… ::big sigh::

Thwarted.  Another part of the sadness-root.  Feeling thwarted in the areas I most want to be growing: music (especially writing and recording), and writing (especially my blog).  Why would God call me to further these things and hone my skills, and then thwart my efforts?  Why does everything have to be an uphill battle?  

I stormed to the kitchen and began sloshing things around, slamming greasy dishes in the sink, resenting the fact that I had to clean up dinner as well as cook it.  Then I remembered phrases from a post Lisa-Jo wrote, about her best prayer time happening while washing dishes… so in desperation I grabbed my Colossians-in-a-Year verse cards and stuck them in front of my nose while I scrubbed chicken fat out of my baking pan.

“They have lost connection with the head, 

from whom the whole body, 

supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, 

grows as God causes it to grow.”

Colossians 2:19

“lost connection with the Head,”  Yep, that would be me….  Definitely not practicing the presence of God today; that explains a few things.

“grows as God causes it to grow.”  I paused and mulled that one over a while, scrubbing silverware under the hot water… could it be that God is actually growing me?  Even though it feels like I’m sliding backwards instead of stepping forwards?  Even when I feel like I’m constantly revisiting the same besetting sins and never growing more thankful, or patient, or gracious, or self-controlled, or joyful?  Could he actually be growing me?  

And then that middle part: “the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews...”  Am I trying to do this growing thing on my own?  Am I being vulnerable with the bits of the Body closest to me?  My wonderful patient husband, for example - am I shutting him out?  And what about my workmates here?  I have a chance tomorrow morning at my weekly prayer time with the mom closest to me geographically - a chance to be vulnerable and honest, or to put on a mask and pretend everything’s fine.  What would “support and hold us together like ligaments and sinews”?  What will I choose to do? 

What would you do?

how to keep your stem in the Water

{written over two weeks ago... one of several posts I have ready but haven't been able to post because of home internet issues and a ten-day trip out of the country with no internet... thankful for grace!}


Beep, beep, beep.  I wake achy, grouchy, groggy.  Stayed up too late last night starting a project… I grope foggily for my alarm.  Rise with a headache to write my three pages, the threads that pull me up out of dream cobwebs into what lies ahead today, and then through the day’s plans on deeper down to the Important: what I can’t afford not to do.   My hand comes to the end of forming the three pages worth of words, my letters tired and sloppy.  Today it seems the Important is to write this post, write an update before leaving Saturday for our 10-day retreat in a neighboring country… but something feels missing.  

I get in the shower.  Mechanically, I wash my hair, vaguely aware of the hot water.  I massage my neck, trying to ease my tight muscles, not really enjoying anything, not really awake… 

Not until I get to the kitchen table.  There’s my pancake, all ready for me by my wonderful husband, there’s my cup of coffee (also his doing), and there is the kids’ verse calendar, still set to June 7.  I flip the page.  I see this:

And I think, as I cut my pancake absentmindedly, why don’t I feel this more?  Why do I mostly feel all glazed and befuddled, as though I were living in a dream (apart from staying up too late)?  Why do I not feel alive, in the most heavenly sense?

A new life has begun.  Do I feel this birthed in me?  I take a sip of coffee, a bite of pancake, try to ingest this truth.  I am not the same anymore.  Well, then, why am I so sinful still?  

I go grab my camera, thinking this might be significant later, and it’s not until I’m snapping pictures that I see it.  Right next to “a new life has begun”.

Stems in water.  To sustain a life, we must have water.  And to sustain New Life after being cut off from our old one, we must keep our stems in the Water.  

Keeping our stems in Water all day long keeps New Life flowing up through heart veins, keeps fruitful flowers fresh, cleanses out toxins, opens us up a little more beautifully each day.  

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Col. 3:3

-Snip- went Christ’s scissors, gloriously, and my life was cut off from its old sin-source and plunged deliciously into a New Source of Living Water: Christ, in God.  And the only way to stay straight and strong is to keep my stem in the Water.  

How?

• By giving thanks.  Keeping my gratitude list on the fridge always before my eyes, adding a line or two every time I come into the kitchen.  Speaking gratitude aloud to my children, eliciting thanks-things from them, writing theirs down too.  Singing my thanks aloud.

• By putting life-giving, renewing Scripture up around my house.  [Even just on post-it notes - who says everything has to be beautifully cross-stitched, even if that’s how I’d like it?  Better to get it up there before my eyes, in a simple form, than to procrastinate until the non-existent day when tracts of time for cross-stitching will magically open up…]

• By pausing at morning tea-time, lunch-time, nap-time, afternoon tea-time, dinner-time, to ponder Jesus.  To take a long refreshing drink of His presence.  To turn my eyes on Him and look Him full in the face.  To bring my children with me, let Him gather them (and me) up like lambs in His arms and feel Him holding us for a long, slow minute or two.

Give thanks.

Make Scripture visible.

Pause to ponder Jesus.  

Keeping our stems in Water.  

And then, Lord willing, my flower-blooms will stay bright regardless of diarrhea, unexpected guests, bloody ankles, burnt rolls, squabbling whining children, power-outtages, dirty bathrooms… 

“‘Tis only the abiding 

that can really satisfy the thirsty soul, 

and give to drink 

of the rivers of pleasure 

that are at His right hand.”

~Andrew Murray, Abide In Christ

Something to ponder...

Has your “stem” (like mine) come out of the Water recently?  

What happened?  What did you do?