Of Monday Nights

Life disappoints.

Sometimes in the biggest of ways that scatters your life pieces across a dark forest and you can't see how to pick them up.

Sometimes life disappoints in the smallest of ways.

Why are the smallest disappointments the most bitter? You tell yourself this is silly. get over it. All it was just a looked forward to moment. Surely there will be another one.

Your girlfriends spontaneously decide to go out for ice cream. They leave in such a hurry of excitement and giddiness that they forget that maybe someone else wanted in on the party. And your trying not to feel left out and disappointed.

Rushing to the store you get there 2 minutes before closing and the lights are off and the door soundly locked. Why in the world? You needed that item and you wanted it now.

You wait for the phone call that never comes and the text you sent never gets answered.

Just so many little things, but when your feeling alone the littlest things are the biggest things.

I'm writing this on a Monday night. People do not feel alone on Monday nights. Maybe on a Friday night (check for me )

 maybe on a Saturday night ( oh yes ),

 maybe on a Sunday night (very true),

 but never on a Monday.

 

Mondays are for celebrating the fact you survived a Monday. Collapsing on the couch in sweet relief that you didn't make too many blunders and only needed 5 1/2 cups of coffee to get through the day. Ahem.

This Monday I looked forward to fellowship around the Word. Weeknight fellowship I hadn't had for so long and I craved desperately. Then someone who probably wanted to be very helpful locked up the office tight so that no one could go in and steal our keys to the office and car keys so we could go home.

Needless to say here I am alone in this dark house writing on my blog about loneliness and thinking. I know what a rare thing for me right? :)

Somewhere in a room someone sits in a room day after day. Able to do a few things but only if they are within reach. hardly doing much independently.

And they wait for someone to come and remember that they are there. Still very much a person, but so unable to participate in a "normal life".

 Its the story of many.

Tonight I write this post to anyone who has felt alone. Tasted the pain of disappointment. The one who is surrounded by so many, but is alone.

We are not alone. Only one of the thousands who feel alone and someone out there would love to trade our disappointment with their own.

Moments of disappointment are perhaps the greatest gift, because it is then we find the gift of knowing God provides for our needs.

 Finding God's grace sufficient is the most beautiful thing and the greatest hope in disappointment. Never for one moment will our God disappoint.

 

Never.  

Yes I did want to cry tonight. Yes I'm thankful to be writing all by myself.

Happy Monday night everyone and congrats on surviving the day.

I ramble

Writer's block.

Apparently I must have it because I can't think of one important thing to say on this blog. Well I can think of lots of things to say, but I'm not sure if its the story I want to tell. Oh I'm being vague aren't I ? Elusive, because its so easy to be that way.

I am the person with five thousand words behind every one word I write. I am the person who is too scared to admit I'm a bad girl.

Is admitting failure admitting that redeeming love is vast and great?

 

When is God most glorified? Weakness or glorification of one's gifts?

(Somewhere I read a quote to this effect but I have no remembrance of the source) .

Do I want to be seen as the person who had it all together, so I may be remembered as the shinning example of holiness?

Perhaps I would rather that grace would be seen in my life pointing straight back to God.

And then you write about grace, but when it comes down to it you say the grace is for someone else and work very hard to earn it yourself.

Preaching with words what grace should be. Letting actions show it to be what should not be.

Mixing the two doesn't work.

Grace is a concept so simply, but is twisted and tangled by my own cruel mind. Making a person almost guilty for such a failure to understand grace. A oxymoron eh?

Grace is not for the perfect, but it is for the imperfect who need it so badly.

I think I'm one of those people who when they write suddenly things are made clear and understandable. Writing words heals the damage done by an overly destructive mind.

Because right now its as if the light bulb has come on, so I bid my blog good bye. And thanks for reading the ramblings of someone who just really needed to get something off her chest. Be warned the tip of the ice burg has only been written about.

Just a piece of my day.

Coffee with ice cubs floating in my cup is sitting on the table ready for me to drink it away. Because I am one of those people who loves their coffee cold. Recently I’ve decided that the blacker the iced coffee the better. Hold the sugar and chocolate it gives me nothing but a headache and the need to buy new trousers to accommodate my ever growing lower half. Ahem. 

When I look out the window I see the old brick buildings that decorate our town, but I wish I was seeing sandstone glistening in the sun, so tall and erect. (oh town I miss you)

 People are coming out of the doughnut shop across the street at an alarming rate. Maybe I crave ice cream like its going out of style, but never do I crave doughnuts and would rather eat greasy fried mozzarella sticks 

than greasy fried bread.

Call me miss ridiculous and you won’t be telling a falsehood.

Random bits of conversation are floating around me. Words of intensity and then some words of light heartiness and then some words of just really nothing in particular value, but it certainly of course makes a person feel better to say them. 

                I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop at the table right next to the stage where they will have live music tonight. My distracted personality is having a hard time focusing on my own tasks rather then just observing the activity around me.

I’ve come here to write, because that is what all the vogue writers do you know.  Probably to be really in style I should have brought a typewriter since vintage is such the fad these days, but umm a typewriter doesn’t work very well for blogging. For obvious reasons.

Since the subject of writing has come up I should apologize for not writing. My absence is inexcusable and at the same time unexplainable.  My journal also has been sadly neglected and well I suppose these last few weeks have been a season of not writing. Nothing really terrible is going on that I could blame but maybe its just the all the change of life that makes not write.

All this to say that I miss writing like Oreo cookies miss their milk and I do hope you won’t find me not writing so much any time soon.

Like anything in this life you have to be intentional to write. Time with friends,  to do lists, and writing is all left undone when your not intentional. 

Maybe its time for me to do less face book stalking and more texting and messaging to see how people really are. Time for a bit less pinteresting and more writing down pieces of my life.

Sitting in this coffee shop has been balm to my soul to remind me to stop and look around at life instead of always looking at the computer. Strangely there is a life outside of the computer. You just have to find it.

If you will excuse me I think I will go and do more looking and less hiding. Even though hiding from life seems to be the convenient and easy thing to do, but looking without fail will always bring adventure.

Tell me about those adventures you have. No adventure is too small to proclaim adventure.

5 minutes of life

It's not 5 minute Friday, but 5 minutes is all I have to write this post.

I need to clean up my mess in the kitchen. Coconut, green yogurt smoothie is currently decorating the kitchen. Ahem. I need to do a thousand other things, but I can't remember  what so I suppose I don't really have to do them.

Life has been starting a new job and then another new job and tomorrow another new job. Did you know you could have 3 different jobs and still be working for the same company? Very handy eh?

I've been thinking of so much I want to write down, but then at the same time I'm not really sure how to say it. One day very soon when I'm not working hours and hours on end and running from one department to the next I'm going to go to a coffee shop.

 Because of course words just ooze from your brain when you write in a coffee shop.


This morning our very brand new pastor preached a stellar sermon on his first Sunday. He ended with these verses. (or at least I think it was this verse it might have been another)

 

Revelation 5:12 

¹² saying with a loud voice,

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

 

And so this week as I work and spend time with my aunt, and just live life with those around me may my actions in no way bring glory to myself, but may God be glorified in me. Maybe I won't do it all right, but will God's grace be seen in me?

 

Oh dear let stop writing before and epistle comes out.

This thing called confidence

I haven't clocked in for a job in over two years. Don't call me lazy. I've been working... oh have I worked, but no where with a ruthless time clock and happily no where that requires drug testing.

Expenses loom in the back of my mind and so for two months I hunted for a job. In a whirl of confusion one afternoon I had not one job but two jobs.

Suddenly I remembered just how terrifying it is to start a new job.

Walking on a tight rope seems to be more calming then starting a new job. Fearful of making the slightest mistake that could surely lead to your end. Wondering what those new coworkers are thinking of you. Nervous of the rolled eyes behind your back of not doing the simplest  of things right.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm remembering my big brother. The one who taught me public skills like a ninja. The one whose claim to fame is international public speaking. The one who is passionate about endeavoring people to succeed in this life. The one who ever since I was little didn't do things for me, but pushed me to do what I would not do.

He says.

Act confident. Show the face of confidence you don't have and focus on your task.

So I straighten my back and pretend that I've been doing this for years.

I still don't know what I'm doing, but I stop thinking about the fear and start thinking about the job. Just like that I found the key and let myself out of the prison of fear.

My co workers and I laugh together. We banter back and forth and I realize their people too. Not monsters with beady eyes ready to pounce on any mistake.

Confidence I discover is not a feeling, but an action. Acting on how you do not feel and yes being courageous even though you feel nothing like a super hero from Hollywood. Super hero's tend where odd articles of clothing anyway.

I'm going to get this job. Maybe not the first week, but I'm going to try. I'll ask the stupid questions rather then making the stupid mistake.

However I'm still wondering if this new job may require a better antiperspirant because it may be awhile before the nervous sweats stop.