31 Days

As I look at this blank screen to begin writing I feel the little inkling of terror a writer faces when they look at another blank page. Yes, the page is fresh and ready for creative prose, poems, stories, or whatever, but it can also hold that tad of intimidation. The wide open white speaks of something yet to come, a creation yet to be seen or invented, oh, and therein lays all the fun! It’s sort of like being young, for many, at least. There is the energy, the idealism, the possibilities. The thought that I could possibly do something with my life that really matters, that really affects history, that matters to real people’s everyday lives.

For lots of people (many? most?) I am sad to report, those dreams get lost in life. Lost in disappointment; lost in pain; lost in disillusionment; lost in plain ol’ doldrums. And I understand how that can happen. I know what it is like to receive one blow after another. I know what it is to be painfully betrayed, to visit the grave, to lose the job, to watch the dream literally fall apart right as you thought it was being realized, to be shut down by those who actually do love you. And I have been devastated by my own ability to do the same to those I love. Right now, I know what it is to feel like survival from one moment to the next is the best hope for my day.

As I have written before, there is a season for everything. Not all seasons are for world-changing just as not all seasons are for only menial tasks. In the midst of my current state-of-survival I am searching for something more. Something, well, a bit more live-giving. Something more God-like. I have allowed my survival state to snuff out joy and this disposition has blinded me to beauty, and ultimately, to God. Basically,

It has got to stop!

I am reminded of the Scripture verse is Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus is talking about worry. Here is an excerpt Matthew chapter 6:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin, Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you- you of little faith? So do not worry, saying "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Now this is not an admonition to stop working and forget about real life, but an encouragement to set our hearts on something different than the daily grind…and the future daily grind that we may worry about. Jesus was not out-of-touch here; the last thing quoted here is him saying “each day has enough trouble of its own.” Boy, do I know that! But the part that strikes me most here is from verse 25:

“Is not life more important…”

I certainly have not being living as if this is true. I can get stuck in the rut of making life work is more important. This essentially equals me working hard to be sure all of life doesn’t fall apart. So my life becomes about survival, eating, cleaning, serving, etc. I have it upside down. The eating, the cleaning, the “making it all work”…these things are supposed to serve my life, my life is not supposed to be just about these things. I spend much of my time worrying about how it all will come together and miss life in the midst of it all.

And I am just plain sick of it. … Is not life more important?

Of course my days will still have food prep, laundry, bed-making, toilet scrubbing, but may they also have a life that is not bereft of gratitude and joy, missing the Source of all good things.

In order to help me do this I am joining in Ann Voskamp’s 31 Days to Crazy Joy. I have never done anything like this before but I have put links here for you to join if you would like. Or at least read about it and follow us who are seeking True Life in the midst of our days. This will go through all of October. My hope is to post each day the gifts I have found in my everyday life. This is stretch for me right now, so please pray with me and for me in this. Because really, is not life more important?

Here is the link to Ann's blog and the 31 Days to Crazy Joy, once I figure out how to make this more pretty, I will do so :)