perspective

Lord, have mercy. I'm so forgetful. I'm so unable to keep perspective, and not just in trials but in the mundane. Ann Voskamp calls it soul amnesia, the inability to remember all the good, the God. Perhaps there is a pill that can cure me; a corrective soul surgery that forever corrects all that's skewed? Help, I need a doctor! I need the Healer.

Are any irritations ever truly valid? I mean, really? Any demand made on my time, does that not mean I posses time? Any demand on my body, does that not mean I have health and lungs full of air? Any demands for grace/forgiveness/mercy, am I not positioned to receive more than I deserve, anyhow?

1000 Gifts has been calling me again. No, actually, whispering to me because gratitude, thankfulness, thoughtfulness...they don't make a scene. They simply make a statement. Beautiful, humble, simple statements that require a settled heart, a cleared mind, a heavenly perspective. And quite frankly, most of the time I would rather just hurry this thing along. Does my day have a place setting for thanks? For Eucharisteo? For the making, taking and breaking of eternal bread? Some days my soul goes hungry and when I'm hungry, I'm grouchy!

I was looking for an email address this past week and in my search, some unopened emails from my recently deceased grandmother came up. Unopened. She sent me a lot of forwards, with videos and glittery graphics and silly jokes. Most of the time I felt I didn't have to time to indulge in them. But a memory came to mind of years ago when my inbox was being flooded by 'junk' mail and I actually turned on a filter that caught and tucked away all of the fwds to multiple recipients, sent out by my beloved grandma. I opened that unopened email the other night and it was indeed a silly joke. Found another one, read it as well. Wanted to find more, just to see her name, just to enjoy her personality, even if it was sent to dozens of her friends and not just to me. It's different now because she's not here but her emails remain in my inbox. Every junk mail now precious, pieces of her that she forwarded to me. I wept. How ridiculous am I? It was email. Just lots and lots of them and what would it have hurt anyone to have my inbox fill up, only to empty it out? My chest hurt I cried so hard. Why must I learn on THIS side of the lesson? Why can't I see this when it's before me, not just behind me? Kudos to the one who coined, 'hindsight is 20/20.'

The demands of life whip me, drive me like a race horse. Go faster, push harder, do more. In fact, what was once simple has become complex; more factors, more players, more twists and turns. But the Spirit within me says no such things. It says stop, pause, rest, wait...trust me.

'The fast have spiritually slow hearts.' - 1000 Gifts

I'm really getting nowhere then, aren't I, at this rapid pace? And my haste makes so much waste in that I forfeit the grace that could be mine; grace that could turn irritation into celebration, into enrichment, into Christ likeness. God, I thought I knew this! I thought I had an angle on this! Darn you soul amnesia! How quickly these lessons leave me.

'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps.' - 1000 Gifts

My heart confession/petition to God:

When my children seem determined to cause a blood vessel to explode in my brain, Lord grant me perspective. I would rather have them nipping at me than not. I would rather a million irritated moments with them than none. I would rather a million tears with them than a life of dry eyes. They are SO MUCH WORK but they are the best work that's ever been entrusted to me, the greatest gift You have given me. And when I lose perspective and forget all that your hand has provided, HELP ME LORD, to remember, to choose to pause and recall your goodness, your faithfulness, even while I have been unfaithful. Help me to recount your tender mercies to me, your endless graces given to me, that I would choose thanks over irritation, that I might choose bread over a stone. Because no matter what, no matter how bad it may get, no matter how maddening it may be, no matter how 'valid' the trial, pain, loss YOU SAID I can choose joy, thanks, praise, and quiet trust.

Most of us will never know the level of betrayal you experienced, the rejection, despising, scourging, beatings and duh, death! And you gave thanks. You saw and see perfectly. I want to see better than I see right now. I am skewed, my perspective jaded by pain, disappointment, irritation, entitlements and so forth. How can one whose eyes have been touched by the Healer, still see so poorly at times? Oh, I am a mere vapor, God, like the grass in the field, how I fade and with me, heaven's perspective.

I have felt that I have been lost and found many times in my journey. I guess I was never really lost to the One who has kept me but I have felt lost in the frenzy of life, felt lost in that I've been grasping for heaven's truth. And then I find it, yet again, because He is faithful to come to me in the small, foolish things like unopened email, and then I'm ashamed at myself and thankful all at once. And I'm so happy to be found, to have found yet again, this beautiful thing/One called Truth. It's always a warm welcome, hot tears and all, fully embracing me when my mind and heart have gone wretched. Perhaps that is part of the beauty of it all, losing and finding over and over again. I am forever reintroduced to redemption, no matter where I am or what I'm dealing with. And it's sweet every time. It's peace every time. It's joy, every single time.

True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God. Joy is God and God is joy and joy doesn't negate all other emotions - joy transcends all other emotions. though my marriage tree may not bud and though my crop of children may fail and my work produce little yield, though there is no money in the bank and no dream left in the heart, thought others may chose different ways to live their one life, till my last heaving breath, I will fight to the death for this: "I will take joy" (Habakkuk 3:18) - 1000 Gifts