Being Churlish and Ungrateful

    I love Rosamunde Pilcher. She is one of my favourite authors and her books are stories that I read when I need to read something familiar and enjoyable. She is a Scottish author who has a gift for creating characters that you would like to meet and have a coffee with. She has offered some insights for living that come to mind every now and again. Things like the fact that even when you have much turmoil and heartache going on, getting busy and doing chores can really help to fill the time and when you are done, you have a clean house or a tidy garden in spite of your pain. (This is also good advice when you are angry!). So, for the past 2 days, I have been working on menial chores and asking God for help to keep on keeping on. I'm not sure I'm any further ahead emotionally, but I have trimmed and chopped a huge clematis in my garden, swept up and tidied my backyard and it looks much better. There is much to be said for work. It is a gift sometimes.
   I am very unhappy with myself. I am feeling so discouraged about just not knowing what I should be doing, feeling or thinking. The past few months have been full of unexpected twists and turns and I feel unsure of myself. I was describing my daughter's cancer as an atomic bomb that was thrown into her life and the rest of us have been hit with the shrapnel and our lives will never be the same. I have no desire to claim that her pain is my pain. Her pain has been of a magnitude that I have not experienced, but because she is my daughter, I have felt much pain to a lesser degree. I am trying to find a balance in our relationship and life back at home and it has been a struggle. I want to encourage her, but not enable her. I want to love her and not smother her. I want to be empathetic, but not be a drama queen. I want to love her well, love her like Jesus loves her. That is hard, takes the wisdom of Solomon and I am clearly, not Solomon!!! I am struggling to find my calling, to find my place again. I am Mom, I am a wife and I am still me. What does that look like? Working outside the home to help our finances, but doing what? Or continuing to be quiet and wait for some direction? If I follow my heart, I deeply desire to read, write and listen to those hearts that I am privileged to care about. Where is God in this? Does boredom mean activity? Or does it mean, be quiet, be still? Wait? For what?
    I said that I am ashamed, and I am. In the midst of all of this everyday life, I have been given gifts that are beyond priceless. The gifts of friends who love, who call, who pray and who give in so many ways. I am loved by my husband and we have the treasure of a marriage that has been through a raging inferno and we made it and we are best friends. I still get to be "Mom" and each of my kids are such an amazing blessing in my life. I get to have heart to hearts, pray for them, laugh with them and make memories with them. I have my own health to thank God for. The ability to read, to write, to clean and cook and walk and listen to music and talk and laugh and even to think! Yesterday, I was in church with my family and had several very special encounters to remind me that I am not alone and I am loved. Yes, Lord I am grateful. You and You alone have given me this life, this life that is mine and unique and I thank You. You have put special people in my life and deep hope and joy in my heart. I think of my husband, the mechanic who would say I was recallibrated!
    I have wept that I am tired. Tired of swimming upstream against the currents of what I "should" think, feel or do and the currents of others' expectations. Expectations for myself and for those I love. Now, though I still swim upstream, I am grateful. I am grateful for being called to swim, struggle and see all those who are with me. For my God who has not ever let me out of His sight.
"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
 Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.
 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
 I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him." "  Lam. 3:21-24
The rest of the chapter in Lamentations goes on to say that the Lord is good and that it is good to wait.
    I have been churlish and ungrateful. I am forgiven and loved. I have some thank you cards to write and some people to love on. Thank you Lord that you forgive and that you are sovereign.
Just thinking.