Clearly not Clear

Whenever I start thinking about faith, it takes my lotto brain syndrome and puts it on overdrive.  Seriously spastic, so many thoughts at once.  I read THIS article, about stupid church cliches, with my morning coffee and giggled but kept saying YES, exactly!  Everyone of this author's 5 noted annoyances, were spot on.  "Loved on" is TOTALLY creepy, and nailing down things the Bible CLEARLY states is not my strong suit.

I mean it took me close to 30 years, and some days the voices in my head still wonder, which side of the coin I fall on... Heaven or Hell.  Friends don't freak out, we are much closer to 99% of the time being certain of that answer.  Quoting the Bible, and understanding it clearly, are too TOTALLY different things.

I think we all agree Jesus, His life, His work, His birth, death... so on and so forth.... are ALL amazing, super natural, and its why we all keep at trying to figure this thing called our life out.   However, I don't think any of us would hold Jesus in as high of a regard if throughout the Bible, while teaching everyone, we read over and over again "Well MY Dad said this.....".   Not like He couldn't have done that, it still would have been right, but hello arrogance.... prolly why He kept teaching humility.   

I like the "It is written...." statements, they're more my kind of flow.  I tend to bristle at, "It is written in this book, on this page, in this verse", I get that there is a time/place for it, some people honestly don't know that what you just said was in the Bible.  They think you're some kind of wise sage or something, and pointing them back to the source is key, but how do you toe that line carefully?   

As the author of the article noted, we respond better to the humble Pastor, "This is where study and prayer have led me, but I could be wrong", and yet we also CRAVE leaders.  We are constantly looking for people to lead us confidently, that will stand up and say, THIS way.  Then we get mad at them when they do, because how dare they.  It really is a no win situation.  

One of the biggest tenants of the Christian faith is that when we accept Jesus as our savior He takes up residence within us.  To me, this makes for a rather problematic situation, talk about too many cooks in the kitchen.  Great, now we got Jesus in us, but mine says I should be going this way, and your's says I should be going that way, and like 95%+ of our world population has serious trust issues anyway, soooooo.......  Yeah.

Thankfully actions speak louder than words, and God told us not to assess by the words someone says, but by their actions..... Then He also said we're all gonna screw up and fall short, which is why we needed Jesus in the first place.    Riiiiiiight..... Then the whole grace and forgiveness thing get's practiced, but lands us back in the trust issues.  See.  Spastic brain.  

I really like the actions based Gospel though... we are supposed to be doing, not just talking.  If I'm being honest, I liked it a little more before I became a mom.  The idea of great adventures, doing huge things like fostering, adopting, building safe houses, providing basic needs to those living without. Healing. Freeing.  Saving.... Staying totally honest, being a mom feels a little selfish to me at times.  I know its a totally oxymoronic statement, cause mom's by their very nature get to do very little for themselves while taking care of the needs of their family.  However this is what I wanted.  I wanted the family, so taking care of their needs is just part of it, and since it literally consumes ALL of my time, I feel selfish.  Don't worry, (or do) because the sheer number of voices in my head remind me I'm not being selfish, raising kids IS an adventure, and it is a HUGE thing. (I go back and forth between accepting the voices in my head, and worrying that I'm one voice away from a straight jacket).  However, I still get panicky because God's wired me in a way that I feel called to both be with and raise my kids AND still do those big things, so then I'm all on edge asking "when".... now, should I be doing that now, with them, am I missing it???  He'll calm me down for a bit, with reminders that my life is a journey not a race, and there will be time when kids are not this young and demanding (I've taken to calling this my sheep season), until I get spun up again next week and He has to convince me all over again :) 

So thankful that writing can take the spaz out of my brain and get it out on 'paper' so I can return to being a normally functioning adult..... I just feel bad for any of you reading it, cause I'm never entirely convinced you can follow my train of thought :)

Lotto Ball Brain

A very random blog post, because that is where my brain exists these days in a state of perpetual chaos.

Last week I left my house for a total of three hours.  Three.  No one was sick, there was no reason, other than the simple fact, that I never left.  Everyone else managed to get out everyday.  Kevin went to work, the boys went to parks, museums, adventures around the neighborhood with Hannah, I simply forgot to prioritize leaving. Who knew that was actually something that needed to be done.
 
Before baby and home school, my slow times at work meant I could volunteer at the church, grab coffee in the morning, or lunch in the afternoon with some girl friends.  Now, I'm either nursing lil' man, or working through school stuff with Cub.  My brain has turned into a lottery machine, out of thousands of combinations of things that could be done in a day, we never know what the winning combination is going to be.

Logan serenaded us with the following alphabet song this weekend: "ABC3EFGHIKJ"ELMO"PQXTY&Z, now my know my ABC's next time won't you sing with me", I thought maybe I'd work him into some of the lesson rotations so we could work out the kinks and get the alphabet down.  
I almost stabbed myself in the eye with a pencil today.  I knew subconsciously he would be a different kind of beast when it came to teaching, but after a half hour, and going from trying to do the ABC's through to the end, to just trying to do A, B, and C.... and STILL failing.  Riddle me this batman.... When you hold up a flash card and say "This is A, what is this?".... am I the only one that thinks hearing "A" repeated back makes sense?  Not, Logan.... he's my 'creative' child.... the sky is not blue with him, and crocodiles swim in the ocean waiting to flick you in the eye.  No, when I say "This is A, what is this?" to him, I get the following varying responses, "B", "H", "8", "O", and "I don't know tell me again mama".  A half hour was all the torture I could handle.  I started looking into theater classes for him after bed tonight.  Is three and a half to early to decide college might be a lofty goal?  I'll let you know in a year, when I decide to try the alphabet again.

I hate hashtags.  Seriously hate them, to such an irrational degree, that I've started linking the overall crisis that appears to be our nation to the development of hashtags.  Its really not that far of a leap if you think about it.  What once served a purpose to categorize statements within a 'cloud' of information, has been wholly corrupted to now draft entire paragraphs of garbled boldface run-on word sentences.  People that once had fully intelligible conversations, have been reduced to a literal punchline.  What's worse, its so pandemic that your brain can now automatically conjure the perfect hashtag for just about any instance.  The perfect example, when I finally did make it out of my house on Saturday, and realized for the first time I hadn't left but for 3 hours on Tuesday, my brain said "#momslife"......   Depressing.  Its contagious.  No matter the level of hatred, you read enough of them and you start thinking in Hashtag sentences.  My line in the sand is drawn though, I may not be able to control my brain, but outside of that example above, I can control my fingers and will not let them near that ridiculous sign.  The only caveat to that is if I finally get cool enough to use them for their intended purpose and categorize my blogs to different topics.  Using things for their intended purpose is o.k., telling me about your entire life in the boldface, run-on word/sentence, is not.

Kevin and I enjoyed a mini get-away to the Shenandoah wineries with some friends last weekend.  It was GORGEOUS.  Perfect fall colors.  We stopped in Sperryville first, and wandered through this antique shop while we waited for our friends to join us and I discovered a piece of heaven on earth.  The most beautiful, perfectly antiqued/distressed door, that has ever existed.  Yes, I know the picture door has been done.  My older sister likely invented it and its ALL over the boards of Pinterest, but imitation is the highest form of flattery they say, and as noted above there is simply NO room in my brain to try and develop creative ideas on my own.  So, thank-you to all you innovators that have gone before me, cause this beauty now absolutely COMPLETES my living room (well not really, seeing as how there is still plenty of other trinkets I'm looking for to make the space cozy, but this bad boy went a LONG way in helping us get there!)  Getting it home was an adventure unto itself, since despite my endless optimism it certainly was not going to fit in our car.  Thankfully our friends came to the rescue with a slightly bigger automobile that JUST managed to fit my beauty.  Kevin bowed in shame at my totally shame-LESS pleading to somehow, someway, make this work.... and they DID!!! Thanks Jade and Kevin!!!

 Can't wait to get my pictures developed that are going in the spaces, its gonna be awesome!

 Taken at Ducard winery, just at the base of Old Rag mountain on the fringes of Shenandoah National Park

We grabbed Dinner at "Its About Thyme" in Culpepper, and found this fun sign on the corner of their Main Street, of course we had to snag a picture!

Time to pick the next ball out of the lottery machine to see what I'm supposed to be doing next!