Messages from the Mush Pot

So here I am God, back again today writing about my offenses toward you.  How arrogant that sounds, perhaps I should revise that to say I have issues with my life.  Or let’s just get down to the heart of it.  I feel like a kicking, angry two year old who, after sincerely praying for your will, hasn’t gotten what she thought would’ve been the most profitable of short term solutions.  Problem is, I only see short term, and you, ‘ol Wise One, see through to a much grander future than I can even conceive of.  One that, oh my gosh, might not even have “yours truly” at the center of it all.  So this pouting two year old is left with a choice to trust you or not. 

 

That’s what it really comes down to, God, do I trust you?  Will I be satisfied with your responses to my prayers regardless?  Do I really want to follow you -- your not so popular, not so sparkly, follow me no matter what, will?

I can say I’ll be content, Lord, whatever you put or don’t put before me.  But logging on to Facebook, the site where all good things are displayed, I tend to feel less thankful and more jealous.  Summers are the worst God, and if I’m not careful I fall into the dangerous game of comparison. That deadly game always brings me down, making me feel less than the best and brightest, always lacking in the consumable blessings department.  I lose perspective of my intangible, obscure, less glitzy blessings that I know are truly priceless.

And writing Lord, back to the business of honoring you through words, I have some “issues” about this that I need to discuss too.

I’ve tried to be brave.  Really I have tried to keep getting back up to face life or back on my knees to beg for your courage and strength.  I’ve tried to record those things that would be uplifting to others, as a testimony to your grace and mercy.  Although, we both know you’ve sat alongside me as I’ve privately recorded things that will forever remain just that.  Because publishing words, only after the grit and grime have been wrung out is much more presentable and palatable.  Plus it keeps me looking cleaner to write after the burn of shame has worn off enough for me to proclaim a higher message. 

 

I just want to be pleasing to you Father, but I’m still such a work in progress.  The more you reveal to me about the “issues” that need adjusting, the more I feel as if I’m in the perpetual Mush Pot…that place where I go to develop character that rarely comes without your admonishment and my sacrifice. The Mush Pot, not designed to be fun, but a place of…let’s just say revealing, exfoliating, and sometimes excruciating exposure of the most tarnished parts of me.

That’s it God.  I want so badly to shine untarnished, reflecting only you…and then write about it.  But, ask me to write while I’m in the Mush Pot?  Like yesterday’s writing, it’s not a pretty sight to behold. And it’s humbling. Don’t ask me to keep sharing what it feels like to be pruned down to a bare, vulnerable stalk with weeping wounds.

Unless...I’m wondering if ‘being in the trenches’ with my nephews, with other wounded, beaten-down souls, doesn’t involve me recording grit and grime in the middle of my own battles. Maybe you’ve called me to the less pleasant role of recording my Mush Pot transformation. And just maybe you’ll fashion a sling-shot worthy, Goliath flattening weapon, suited to launch my own not so smooth, in the middle of being refined, stones.

  

I love you, Lord, and just ask that no matter what you place in my life, you’ll use it to bring honor to you.

There, now how’s that for a happy ending for today:)   

I’ll see what tomorrow brings…

The Empty Sling

My dear Father, the One that I long to touch and hold, the One that has brought me through death to life…my God…I love you.  I’ve not written in so long.  I feel nothing but dread at the thought of sitting down to face the mess in my head, the accusations of being a hypocrite with a lot of empty words that never made it off a 2D page.  Something at the core of me just died right along with Brandt -- motivation, hope, courage, belief really, that "God living in me" was ever going to matter on a real battlefield.

My heart is ripping right now as the awful, awful comes streaming down my face.  I don’t want to feel this Lord!  I don’t want to cry or deal with the stuff that’s suffocated any desire to write about You.  The other night I was crying out to touch you, to know your will for me, to hear your voice and sense a firm direction.  I asked you when you were going to quit being silent to me and I heard, “When are you going to start writing to me?”

I just keep thinking, 'I can’t, God.' I have nothing to say, no hope to offer anyone since Brandt’s death.  Aaron and Brandt were family, precious little boys that I shared my faith with at different points over 30 years.  But somehow I think, God,  that they needed so much more than words.  They needed rescuing by You.  They needed me in the trenches with them bringing a physical manifestation of You, not words spoken,  or worse, printed out on a pretty blog, available only if you’ve got a computer and a handy dandy Facebook account.  I tried to tell them about you, many times, I did!   Andrew and Tommy tried to tell them there was a better way, a way that would lead them to peace, hope, and true love.  Looking back I feel like those attempts were minuscule compared to the wars that raged in their lives.  Where was their David with a stone that could show the power of the Living God?  Where were you God?  Where in the hell was I?

If you and I can’t make a difference in my own family’s lives, then I feel like a farce.  I sit in my safe home in my suburban neighborhood with a husband that provides for our three Christian children and me.  I’m surrounded with love and encouragement from your Body…from You.  Yes, it’s easy to write about hope, love, and grace.  But all the words I’ve written or said over the years didn’t touch them!  It didn’t bring You any closer to flattening their Goliath.  My words don’t fit into David’s sling, God.  They just don't…words from a distance, without action…they’re empty.

Kim suggested maybe I had an offense against you.  I don’t really feel like self-analysis right now, but it made me tear up…like she hit a raw nerve. Maybe that’s why I’ve not been able to put anything on paper.  I don’t know, but I’ve prayed about it, even had Charity pray for me Sunday ‘cause I thought that’s what you wanted.  I still don’t feel inspired though.  I’m only writing ‘cause you and Kim told me to.