Signs of the Times

You know when you think you’ve been really working hard at something and you are just making a lot of progress and feeling like you are the Queen of that thing in the future and you totally own that thing and everyone should probably come to you to ask how to get that thing because you? You know.

Then it turns out, no. You are not the Queen of that thing. In fact, that thing may just own you. And frankly, you should probably come down off that high horse and just chill the heck out.

I think that may be what the past month of my life has been. God repeating the same story in several ways, weaving the fact that my britches are too big and my pride will lead to falls.

Cases in point:

1. I like to think that I’m pretty good at making friends and that all of those struggles from years ago with keeping the friends I made were behind me, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. I’m still really bad at building relationships after they’ve initially begun. I’d like to blame the military for moving the fam around and thus not allowing me the time to build skills like keeping friends, but they left us in the same city for six years and I couldn’t do it then either, so I’m pretty sure it’s my malfunction. Anyway, it’s nothing super drastic or anything, not like the crazy-middle-school-blowout-friendship-ending-garbage that used to plague me every few years and encouraged my mom to buy me a book called “Friendships with Women” one year for Christmas. It’s more of the adult world, hectic life kind of stuff, but either way I’ve done a bad job of making time for people because of a million excuses that all boil down to nothing and just reveal my own personal lack of depth. Or, I also have that little voice, left over from said middle school garbage, that makes me think the people I’ve tried building friendships with are very much annoyed with the person they now know more about and are no longer interested in pursuing her. Not that I want to believe that’s the case or that it probably is, but some things are just hard to shake.

2. If you are just reading this blog for the first time because you are flipping through the “Next Blog” tabs up top, then you do not know that I am a perfectionist. If you’ve spent maybe twenty minutes with me, then you already knew this. I thought I’d mastered this thing a few years back….that my total inability to control the universe itself had been carefully and religiously melted into a desire for perfection that only reminded me that I am longing for heaven, but I didn’t keep that thought at work. At work I was just humming along and getting stuff done and then some of the stuff I did wasn’t right and it’s not a big deal to anyone else (aka no one is talking to me about it or even remembers but me) but two separate people on two separate occasions had to undo the stuff I did and I can’t let it go. They’ve most likely put it completely out of their minds whereas my heart beats faster every time their name pops up in my email inbox.

3. We’ve been saving for a club chair. You remember, right? Today we could have purchased two or three of them for the money we spent putting new tires on my car. There’s no doubt that this was the right thing to do (especially since Jud is going to be driving my car about ten hours north of here next Friday) but it’s just another dagger in the gut to my “we-are-totally-awesome-money-managers” theory. “Our money management skills could roundhouse Dave Ramsey’s money management skills in the face.” No? Yeah, okay. Maybe not.

4. This dang church situation. We went to the one church with the head-coverings and the different service structure for about a month. Great preaching and not so great music…mostly we have to sit uncomfortably through about twelve men exegeting Scripture and making uncomfortable points in order to worship through song and it was so difficult to worship during their little sermonettes, that we ultimately decided not to hear those and that meant only going to the sermon part of the service which meant one hymn up front, a prayer, a sermon and out the door. We like worshiping through song and also Adult Bible Classes, so we moved on. We went to the church we always said would be our back up. The one where the people remind us of our CBC family but the preaching is only milk with a slight touch of that stuff they put into it for commercials because milk on television looks blue without it and I think the teaching pastor might really wish he had a camera on him (Do you see why people are not drawn to me after a few months? It’s all that judgmentalism and sarcasm. Dang it!). So, at this point, we both just want to stop looking and settle down and make some friends and share the Gospel and our lives with people.

So, I am not in control. I have very little sorted out and I, in general, just feel kind of tired of worrying about friends and money and church. They’re probably good things to think about but at some point you’ve got to lay your burdens downs. I’ve got to remember that His yoke is light. I’ve just got to remember that I’m not the only one who knows it’s hard out here….one thorny crown, three nails and a spear.