i have lots to say but my refrigerator is smelling up the room right now....

Brandon's home for lunch. I was gonna try to get a post in while he's here.  He opened the fridge. whatever is in there is stinking it up. gag.  nothing old is in there, so i have no idea what it could be. i don't know if i can handle it.  sick sick sick.

Icko.

Okay, moving right along.  If my enter key will work.

My college girlfriends and myself are reading a book together right now.  Or I think most of us are reading it anyway.  Anyways, my pal Weird Emily sent us all a copy.  And I'm delayed because of our last hospital stay, but even though I'm behind some of them in  my reading, this book is just great.  It's by Jane Rubietta, and it's called "Come Closer."  Lots and lots and lots of good stuff in it.  Last night, while I was actually getting to enjoy a bath, sans a three year old with a raisin up his nose, and sans an almost one year old splashing around from the sidelines, I read the next chapter.

I'd just shared a few things with Bdawg, and this chapter was perfect for those issues, as well as all the junk we're facing/we've faced the last year.



stupid enter key. i guess we need a new keyboard. anyone got one for an imac that they are ready to get rid of?  it doesn't have to be wireless, ours right now isn't. 

maybe the problem is with blogger, not the keyboard. idk.

Anyway, so last night I was reading a chapter entitled "Come for relief."  Let me just share the good stuff, or the stuff that was the "goodest" to me.

"some days are like [this]: plowing uphill hauling a watermelon of fear, sin, regrets, and other leftovers.  I'm not much fun on those days."

"Heavy-laden.  Everyone is, and it reaches far deeper than tiredness or too much to do.  With all the weights we carry about, we should be professional body builders competing in the Ms. Olympia contest.  We feel it in burning shoulders, stiff necks, aching backs, breaking hearts, and thundering sighs.  The weight wedges itself between us and our loved ones as we wonder, "How can I possibly give adequate love and care to these people right now?  I haven't an ounce of emotional energy for them."  So we avert our gaze, pick up our packs, and keep trucking."

"What do you gain by hauling around those weeds?  Colitis.  Migraines.  Fear of intimacy. Loneliness and isolation. Unhappy children.  A disgruntled spouse."

" [God sent his Son] to show us how to live, really live, in the midst of a world that demands perfection and performance."


From the Message Bible, which I'm not a huge fan of, but is interesting to read sometimes: "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me.  Get away with me and you'll recover your life.  I'll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me-- watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."  Matthew 11:28-30

So I'm reading that, and I'm wondering, if Jesus won't lay anything ill fitting or heavy on us...on me....where the heck does it come from?  He's willing to take our burdens.  He WANTS us to give them to him.  I found great despair and great hope at the same time in this thought.  I know God didn't GIVE us these hard times, but he ALLOWS us to go through them.  yeah yeah yeah, consider it pure joy....these trials are a testing of your faith....I know.  It's a hard pill to swallow that God won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on me.  I know, the Message isn't a translation, it's a paraphrase, so they might have gotten it wrong there, I don't know, I haven't done the original language word study with my Zondervan concordance and I probably won't.  Anyway, God won't lay it on me?  Well it's there.  And it's heavy. And I promise it's ill-fitting.  So while those words tasted bitter in my mouth, truth was sweeter- God DIDN'T lay that on me.  I don't know why under heaven he has allowed us to walk through such fire without totally taking it away, bc that's what I want, I want it to just go away.  But someone else created this ill-fitting circumstance.  This thorn of the flesh.  All I can do is try to cast my burdens onto the Lord, though, bc He is strong enough to carry them, and I promise you I am not.  Jane Rubietta paints a picture of hefting all of your concerns onto a bowling ball and then throwing it down a giant hill with a huge thrust of energy.  How relieving that would be.  That's how we are to cast these concerns on to God.  But as I was reading that, I kept thinking, I can't.  I CAN'T.  I don't know how to give it to him.  So I'm reading a little poem at the end of the chapter.  It states :"Give it up. Give it over. Everything.  Whatever binds you, whatever stops you, whatever weights you haul around with you.  Pass me the ball and chain and let me carry them for you while you breathe deeply." Later she quotes Galatians 5:1 "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject AGAIN to a yoke of slavery" (emphasis mine).  And then she asks us to imagine casting all the junk we're carrying onto the bowling ball and hefting it over the edge....and I note, in my book, "I don't know how to let it go."  So then I read further, where she has written a prayer...I'm kind of mumbling along, trying to mean it, but not really feeling it.  Then I get to this: "My bag overflow, and the bottom is ripping, and I long to set it down.  But I am afraid to let go, and I am afraid I am too weary, too discouraged, to even come to you, [God].  Could you, please, come to me? Amen." 

So that is what I asked.

Are you weary?  So much so that you just don't even know how to relinquish those worries?  Me too.  So I hope this was comforting, uplifting, whatever to you. because it was to me.