What Am I Doing?

This question is frequently accompanied by a self-inflicted smack on the forehead.  I should have a dent there, but I don’t…yet… that I’m aware of.   So this is going to be somewhat discombobulated, train of thought, miscellaneous stuff.

• I’m starting a Connect Group.  I’ll still be part of the one that I’m “in”; I’m just starting another one that I’ll lead.  Ish.  Lead-ish.  I’m not sure I’ll lead it forever or all by myself, or what it will morph into.  Word to the wise, and/or listening, don’t ever sit and say think, “Someone should (whatever).”  That someone will end up being you.  I completely think God snickers at this.  I believe that He plants that idea in our mind, lets it root around a bit, waits until we’ve bellyached enough that someone should do it,  then puts us in charge of it.  (Hence the reason I say nothing at all about children’s ministry stuff.)  So I’ve been feeling that someone should do a connect group for people that just don’t fit in another group.  I’ve said a few times that if someone doesn’t do a study about (whatever) that I would.  Heh.  I am.  Starting this Wednesday at The Nest at 8pm.  I have no idea who is coming, except one person.  I have no idea what I’m supposed to talk about.  I’m overwhelmed.  If God doesn’t get involved in this, I’m gonna look like an idiot.  I suppose that’s a good thing.
• Some guy is coming to this blog and linking to others in my linky list and leaving argumentative comments challenging their beliefs and what they say about God.  A couple of people have asked him to engage in further conversation, but it appears he is uninterested in anything other than heckling.  It appears that this person’s path originates with my blog, this blog.  Which brings me to my thought.  Who is this person, and why does he do this?  If you truly believe something different from another person, why would you not be willing to engage them in a discussion about it?  Then I wonder, why has this person not commented here?  Is nothing I say challenging them?  Am I whitebread? 
• What am I doing in my day to day job that matters?  For eternity?  For God?  Am I wasting time?  Should I be doing something else? Why do I feel drawn to other things – things that seem impossible, too far out there, and did I mention impossible?  I have no answers on this one, I’m still praying it out. 

This could be classified as the world’s longest Twitter.

When The Edges Touch

I have a friend who does not like her food to touch.  She even has plates with those separator things in them.  Needless to say, we tease her a lot about it and pose lots of questions about, “What if its potatoes and meatloaf?  Cereal and milk? Sausage and eggs?  Casseroles?”  Admittedly though, I’m not a fan of everything running together either.  Food or otherwise. 

When I think about it, I compartmentalize a lot.  I have mental file folders and boxes for things.  This person is a co-worker and they go in the work box.  This person is a neighbor and they go in that box.  This one is a friend, so she goes in that box, but not the work box.  This behavior is a home behavior and does not go in the work box. 

This may be the reason that I’m not good at keeping in touch with people.  The friends I had in Florida that were in the friend box were sort of renamed into the FLORIDA friends box when I moved to Georgia, which is different and separate from the Georgia friends box.  My husband andI had lunch one day with some of my Florida friends that was travelling near here.  It was really weird, but only for me.  When someone crosses from one box to another, or somehow ends up in more than one box, it makes me itch.

My aunt works at the same company I do.  It works, because we don’t work exactly together.  If we did, it would be all kinds of weird for me.  It’s not that I have anything to hide; I’m pretty open.  I’m basically the same person no matter what the box is, it is just one of my weird idiosyncracies. 

So the people are in file folders which are in boxes that are associated with relationships.  They are on shelves that are locations, in rows based on past, way way past and present.  I know.  I know.  I am so OCD.  Look on this as transparent self-revelation, people. 

Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking that keeping things so separated is not how things are supposed to be.  If I have nothing to hide, and if I am who I am all the time, why should there be these boxes and this separation?  I’m stewing on this, getting it all twisted in my head, wringing it around and I’m not much further along this road. 

It seems though that there is a lesson for me hidden in this somewhere.  I’ve had some close calls lately where the edges are starting to touch.  My gut reaction is uh uhh oohhh it’s gonna touch!!!  As if I’m waiting for a bomb to deploy, some awful chemical reaction or something.  Makes very little sense, I admit.  It makes me itchy, uncomfortable, as if I have to check all the connections and plugs and monitor the safety of all appendages. 

This is really ignorant, and at this point, I’m hovering over my delete key.  I’ve rolled my eyes exactly 11 times since I started typing this post; its that ridiculous.  So why is it so itchy when I think of my ex, when a friend from a long time ago emails, when I invite a neighbor to the church box, when a family member moves in on the work box? 

But I think what I’m supposed to see is that we are all connected, and that all of the edges are of my own creation.  You see, God is not a God of fences and separations.  He is not a God of exclusion, but of inclusion.  He is not a God particular areas or people, but of everything.  So what if this… what if God was to gather up all my edges in His hand and hold them in a bunch?  What if instead of keeping those edges safe He chose to use those edges to touch, heal, clean, and soothe every other edge that there is? 

What if instead of focusing on those edges and where He puts them I could focus on the fact that it’s His hand that has them all gathered up to start with?  Wouldn’t be half as itchy then.

Being Green

For those diehard readers blog visitors, you may notice that I’ve changed the theme.  Yes, I know that I’m not branching out to things terribly original, but instead am using the new WordPress “Spring” theme.  Well… I like it.  I like the green, the grass, but there’s more.

Obviously.  Or I wouldn’t feel the need to blog about it… since I haven’t blogged in months on end anyway.

Bobby and I just returned from our very first camping trip.  It was divine to be able to get away and spend time just doing nothing.  We had hours on end to read, to pray, to talk about and to God, to listen to Him.  We discussed Francis Chan’s book “Crazy Love” that we’ve been reading in our Connect Group. 

I love that my husband appreciates different shades of green in nature as much as I do.  I love that we spent inordinate amounts of time discussing and counting and comparing the different greens of the trees and grasses, wondering what they would feel like to touch.  He knows the exact shade of grass that makes me want to be barefoot.  I know the exact bright green of trees that he loves.  Green is refreshing in nature, new life, spring and all that is symbolized there.

Green firewood = bad.  Not so great for campfires. 

But then I got to thinking about green wood.  How it bends but doesn’t break.  It’s pliable.  It is not easily destroyed by pressure or fire.  It’s alive.  Life and water flow through it to the leaves and it grows.  When wood isn’t green, sure, it is harder and some may say stronger.  But it becomes more brittle, easier to burn, and it doesn’t produce leaves.  Hardening happens though.  A whole tree doesn’t stay green.  The parts that are green are the new parts – the parts that have been pruned, cut back.

My prayer today is that God keeps me green. I want to be pliable and usable in His hands.  It’s the newness, the greenness of us that produces life, that God can use, not when we’ve become hardwood and aged.  The tough stuff is that it means He is going to have to keep pruning me, shaping me, cutting out the hardened crap to keep me producing for Him. 

How spiritually “green” are you?  Are you willing to let God prune you and cut out the stuff He needs to so that you can be green for Him?  Pray that God shows you what parts aren’t green anymore; then pray that He cuts them off so that new can grow.