If you read my first post, you know that one of the goals of
this blog is to be an outlet for focusing my thoughts and purging my
overflowing inbox of the brain. It has been challenging to do that this week.
So many things have been on my mind and every time I think I have found
something to focus in on or dig into I get distracted by a completely new
thought that I never thought of before. If you have ever seen the Disney movie “UP” I feel an awful lot like the dog
Doug. “I really think that I would like to focus my thoughts on the topic of… Squirrel!” This happens to me
far too often and not always at the most appropriate of times.
Even as I sit and type this I am glad there is not a timer
to show how long it is actually taking me to type *cough, cough, days, ahem,
ahem.* To be fair, it’s not all that my brain is skipping around on its own.
Many times it is being dragged from one situation to another by the other
people in my house. Perhaps this has happened so many times that my thought
process has been damaged and can no longer function at a normal level on a
daily basis. I am expected to process many requests, reminders of activities,
inquiries of minimal importance, and inquiries of serious importance often all
at the same time.
“Mommy, can you get, do we have, are we going, did you do,
what’s wrong with, does this thing, where’s my, I need to ask, can I, why did,
who did, are you going to solve world hunger or at least fix me dinner?” actually
sounds like a perfectly normal question in my neck of the West Virginia woods.
And this is just the line of fire from two of the small people in my house. I
have not even thrown in the sharing of the day’s activities with my husband or
the fact that our 19 month old is learning a new word every two minutes and wants
us to make sure we hear him. With all of this going on just on the inside of the
house on a daily basis it’s not a mystery why I struggle at times to keep my
focus. I am bombarded with words and thoughts from every person in my home
including myself.
Lest you think I am complaining, I am most definitely not. I
quite enjoy my noisy life most of the time. The silence, when I am alone on
those rare occasions, is often deafening. I have become accustomed to the rapid
fire line of questioning and fun that comes with jumping from one activity to
another with my littlest or from one topic to another as I talk with my family.
I truly and deeply love that we have the ability to talk to one another about
whatever in this home. No, not complaining just pondering.
I am pondering the effects of this on my ability to focus in
when it really matters. I am considering carefully what implications this holds
when it comes to my spiritual life. I really am wondering, if my conversation
and thoughts are jumbled sometimes because of all of the stuff of life what does
this mean when I am trying to have thoughtful communication with God? Can He
find His way through my mess of a mind and understand my disjointed ramblings?
When I jump from one request to another can He keep up? When I pray one second
that my sweet babies sleep well and in the middle of the sentence remember to
pray for a friend with a deeper need and I just can’t seem to find the words to
express the love, need, want, thankfulness that is rolling around in my heart,
can He understand?
Romans 8:9-11
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in
fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of
Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is
dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit
of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus
from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who
dwells in you.”
Romans 8:26-28
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not
know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the
mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work
together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Yes. Yes, my Heavenly Father can find His way through my
mess of a mind and understand my disjointed ramblings. Yes, He can keep up. Yes,
He can understand when I cannot find words for my love, need, want,
thankfulness. He can because He is not a distant unknown God. His Spirit is
dwelling in me giving me life that will last far beyond this muddled one here
on earth. His Spirit is helping me in my weakness searching and knowing my
heart and interceding for me that God’s will be done in my life. Even in my
times of light hearted fun, hurried craziness, or desperate need, I can be
assured that all things will work out according to His purpose and it will be
for the good even if I cannot see it in the moment.
Because I am a part of Christ's body and through baptism I am clothed in Him (Galatians 3:27) even with what may seem like the smallest of struggles I can
take great comfort in the fact that He is with me helping to make sense of it
all even when I don’t make sense. I may not completely understand all the ways
that He is working in me but I know that He is.
Amen
ReplyDelete