tissue-thin

there is a veil...

tissue-thin....

between the realm of all we see touch and feel..and sometimes despair and the realm of God's spirit, breathing life.

i feel {felt?}  ok still feeling, though with a whisper of hope...

i feel battered, exhausted, worried {concerned} stressed over too many things this morning.....

too many gas-guzzling trips in the suburban this week {and it's only Tuesday} and wondering if i'll have enough gas money.

too many {things} needing money from me and too little money to peanut-butter across

email notifications that my bank balance has hit that low threshold mark that i set an alert for, so i could do something about it, but there are too many days left in the week and weekend until pay day...

living too thin....

too many items on my to do list without quick easy solutions....

too much clutter in my house, and messes to clean and stains to wash and brokenness to fix....

too many issues to figure out..and problems to solve, and assistance to give...when i am tapped out....

and stress over school picture money written on paper checks

and stress over bills paid and unpaid...

and stress over how to help my son do fundraisers for school...when truly he should be doing fundraisers for us

and stress over trying to focus on work deliverables, and meetings and tasks and attention...when my whole life is clamoring...

and stress over church, the one thing i would hope would NOT be stressful...and feeling unsettled and unhomed and unknowing what to do.... 

and i sit at my desk, in this mood, tissue-thin layers of stress upon stress, trying to look deep for the blessings hidden between......

i am exhausted...

i put my face in my hands, in my little cube at work,  and my heart cries, O Lord, help me...

and i read Ann's words: 

"When did I start expecting successful Christian living to be smooth sailing instead of stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm? ...When did I start thinking Christianity was about putting on accessories instead of putting on armor? Life’s not hard because you’re doing anything wrong: Life is a battle. Put on your armor."

and i realize, even in this thin day....there is life, and there is breath and there is joy and there is blessing and there is encouragement.

i soak Ann's words in.

i soak God's presence in.  he has not forsaken me.  He will not let this stress be the end up me.

He will help me take the snarly ends of this ball of yarn, and untangle the knots and knit it back together.....

and the simple words of a of a kind soul typed out in facebook, makes my heart tears spill: 

"You are in the middle of very important work....children "

and yes...I am...and God is here....

and then I look at these four faces...dressed up for "clique" day at school:  a jock, a rapper, a nerd and a hipster...

look at them.   each so full of personality, and life and character and the spirit of the living God dwells in each of them!   How could I let anything get me down, when I can look at them...and see the faithfulness of my God?   

and i know..the veil between the seen and the unseen is so thin....and all i feel and see, and struggle with, wet with tears, makes it even more transparent so I can see God.  I can feel God.  I can take his love into my thin places....

and that is the blessing in the stress...the thinness helps me see God.   and see the four blessings out my door every morning  and back in again each night.

something's broken

A year or more ago, I read a line by Ann Voskamp that echoed me so much, that for a long time I had it on my side bar.   It read: "I am a broken momma, of broken children".

I knew I was broken.  {still am}   I was struggling so with the impact of my brokenness.  At the time, though, it was a new thought to consider my children broken.  After all, they all had backgrounds that could easily cause brokenness, and they all had me for a momma, that could easily cause brokenness..and together with me, we are all living after THE FALL, which is a world of brokenness.


and God loves us.   brokenness and all.


from time to time i forget that we are all broken.


i get judgemental of this person's choices, or life style or ways.  i think, they are a christian, they are a leader....they SHOULD NOT do this or that....

last night, my son and i were discussing a perceived misbehavior of someone we both knew....and after i complained about it, my son said: "Mom, he's just human."

ah...yes..he is.  human broken...just like me...

and our brokenness is being tended by Christ, for those who accept his loving balm.  the wounds, the cracks, filled in with grace and love.    but still broken.

and some times we try really hard to look like we aren't broken.  maybe we did not realize that we are still broken people, in a broken world.   and expect the rescue saving of Christ to presto, instantly mend the brokenness.

but it just ain't so.

he does instantly give us his life..but the brokenness of our soul and body is mended slowly, over time,  and not fully, this side of heaven.

so earlier today, I read Ann again, and her new worlds helped me resolve some judgement I was carrying around about a couple other folks.  Ann said:

"if the broken would just love the broken — this might free us all from the chains of rejection."



yes..we are all broken.  and let's just love the broken, realizing it is all of us.  it is letting ourselves and everyone else off the hook of perfection expectations.   Ann goes on to say:

 "God’s putting together all the pieces of the puzzle and He’ll fill what’s still missing with His peace."

yes.  he fills in our brokenness with himself.  he gives peace in the middle of brokenness. 

another friend shared a short passage from a novel she is reading by Beverly Lewis that said:

{{{What if we simply made it our heart's work to pray more and judge less?"}}}

and I thought..yes...yes.  how about that.  pray about those things I was judge and disliking...rather then complaining about them.

our brokenness needs prayers....not complaints

Read Anns wonderful thoughts here: Because  we all have these days: when we are just hanging on by a string.