where has all the time gone?

I am overwhelmed with lists.

There is a list for things that need to be done on my phone: messages checked, emails responded to, figure out how to get the cloud to stop telling me my phone can't back up... A list for homework, additional promises, future plans, insurance, food prep...All of it to attempt to make sense of time spinning faster than my hands can catch.

I am learning that I don't pray the way I ought.  We've been going through Daniel and the man fell on his face three times a day to talk to the God he knew was holy, and I think to Him.  I cast my stray thoughts to Him in moments, but I do not know how to bow in prayer for more than ten minutes at a time.  And they're sporadic minutes.  Not that I need a prayer schedule, but something needs to change because Daniel was a man of God and people knew it and I want people to know it about me, too.

The days are shorter and colder.  Some days it feels like my friends are shorter and colder, too.  This isn't bitterness, because I see the sweet moments we have.  I mean that they are tired, and worn, and this world seems so heavy for all the young Christians around me.  They are world weary, when I think we are meant to be heavenly.  Why do the cares of this life mean so much to all of us? 

October is a hard month for me.  The second hardest is February.  They're claustrophobic months that creep into my sense like snakes looking for an extra skin.  These are the months that I need to remember God is sovereign.  Over my feelings.  Over my worries.  Over my cares.  And over all of the feelings and worries and cares carried by the world around me.  And God is love.  Love is defined by Him.  I am learning that love flows through me best when I am not focused on sharing how I am worried today.  Love is better expressed in sharing the joyful mess of who God has made me for today.  Like, there is only triumph for us now that we are in Christ and I don't understand why we so quickly forget that.

October is a hard month for me.  But I am learning it can be easier.

praying this morning

Abba, Father God,
it hasn't been that long since we've talked
but there's a burden
lingering on my back as if I've
been ignoring You.
Can we please talk, God?
Just the two of us in the quiet,
us in the garden,
working through how this old, heavy weight
behind my eyes grew
to the point, oh God,
where I keep cracking my face into
crumbling concrete and
that's a metaphor for forgetting
everything You do.
Like how my life, God,
would be nothing (no, really, nothing;
like in a trash can,
like no recycling, just straight refuse)
if not, God, for You.
Abba, Father God,
my Security,  my Foundation,
my Resurrection,
replace this weight with holy freedom
to wholly worship You.

Reassessment In Progress

Today's message came out of Numbers 11.  In that passage, Israel is complaining about the lack of fresh food even though God gives them fresh manna every day.  They crave meat and Egypt despite all God has brought them through.  Moses has had enough.  God is full out irritated with his chosen people. Not because they want some meat, but because they're rejecting their savior.  As always happens, God has to teach them a lesson.  The saddest part is that the same situation happens again in John 6, except this time they reject Christ himself, not just a picture foretelling Christ.

All this past week I've been craving spinach. It sounds so trite, but the craving has turned me into an absolute bear. God is filling my belly with perfectly decent food and I'm sitting here whining about my greens. Talk about a slap in the face.

Naturally, this conviction and the ensuing conversations/observations turned slightly introspective.  A close look at my social media showed me a girl, not so much focused on Christ, but on societal opinions.  At least, that's what my shy, self-consciousness is allowing me to share.  The reality is, if I want this insane love for my savior to shine through, it can't just be in my heart or my daily life. This love needs to bleed over into Instagram, blogs, journals, and prayers.  I can't afford to be self-conscious at this stage in the game.  God-consciousness, not Vivian-consciousness, is necessary at all times on every platform. 

It's all or nothing now.

Ready.

Set.

Go!

Get the Hint

I know I can be a space cadet sometimes.  If my picture had to be placed by a single word in the dictionary, it would be next to "oblivious".  That's okay.  It just takes me a little longer to get the hint sometimes.

That is my preface.  Now, to the story.

When I moved to the Midwest, one of my friends gave me a canvas with a verse painted on it.  The canvas, I'm sorry to admit, sat in a box of yarn for a year until I moved again.  Once in the second apartment, the canvas managed to find itself hung above the kitchen sink, because there were two random nails protruding from the wall.  There it remained until I moved again.

Unfortunately, the third move left the canvas in yet another box in an attic. (Sorry, Nicole.)  But really, who brings a canvas across the Pacific when she's trying to fit her entire life into one bag? Call me a minimalist, but no one will be complaining when I bring  an extra duffel  of gifts home. 

So this Christmas, I opened my Christmas package from home and amongst the sprinkles and candy canes, was a brand spanking new canvas with a verse painted on it.  Any bets that it was the same verse? Of course it was.  I don't even think Mom knows I have a double of it in her attic.

So, after a few weeks of contemplation, I think I'm finally getting the hint.  The verse reads, "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in You." (That's Isaiah 23:6, for anyone who was wondering.)  Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm willing to bet if a verse follows you via canvas across the world, whether or not you leave it behind, you should probably meditate on that sucker. Like a lot.  So I am.

In other news, while I was writing this post, I was called outside to witness some coconut harvesting.  Naturally, I forgot to take pictures.  Suffice it to say, I drank fresh coconut water, ate the spongy seed pod from inside a browned coconut, and ate enough coconut meat for a small army.

Life is good.  A life of peace is fantastic.