A Strained Week

I could have written a fail blog this week. Everything I touched turned to dust: bread, granola, more bread, crazy sewing project for DH that I abandoned in disgust and found $75 in the budget to buy the Timbuktu bag he wanted and my release from sewing interment camp. It's discouraging.

That's no excuse for not writing.

I have a lot on my heart at the moment. Not all is appropriate for public broadcast. The parts that are: the decline of my grandparents, the exhaustion of my parents, the impotence of living 9 hours away, the relentless rebellion from small one who just learned, "NO!" and how to run and how to climb the stove and how to remove her diaper when it's full. This phase weighs heavy in my chest.

Earlier in the year, I studied: We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Romans 5:3-4 I cling to that promise: endurance, character, hope. Rewards of suffering well.

Faith that has suffered learns to cling. Grab hold of hope on the glory of God and hang for dear life because everything else is pitfall.

Busy about morning chores, I feel my anxieties and fears press hard against that shield of faith, threatening to crush in on me. Another passage comes to mind: Take up the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, praying at all times. Ephesians 6:17-18 Don't just stand there while the enemy bears down upon you. Pick up the word and fight back.

So I sit, open to my regular reading. The very first passage, Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of deep darkness, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.


My grandmother's favorite Psalm that she taught me as a child. God is so good.