The bigger, better deal

Many people I know are looking for the bigger, better deal. I am not sure what gives one contentment in life, I haven't completely found it yet myself. I am content with many things, my children, my husband, my stay-at-homeness (finally!), homeschooling...I've come to terms with the fact that my house will not be clean as I want it or organized as I want it, and am trying not to let that drive me insane. Who I am is not who I ever daydreamed I would be....

....I'm ok with that.

It's gotten to the point where I wonder what I should be thinking about the future. I start to lean toward contentment, rather than things new and supposedly exciting, which are also risky and alter what I have now. I don't think God wants us to look at what we have each morning and daydream the afternoon away thinking about what we could have. There aren't many could haves that remain lucrative to me. They aren't worth it, they don't necessarily lead to contentment, to the terrible and merciful God who is ever more evident in my sight. Is this some feeling that comes with age, but I've hit it early? That sounds arrogant and absurd, but, there it is.

Maybe it's a spiritual issue. I am realizing I don't have to be at 100% to be a Christian. In fact, I'm still a Christian when I'm at -0 because God is who he says he is. He is I AM. He forgives and as the Creator He sees that negative before I see it, before I even imagine it, and already He waits for my repentance. I wait for mercy, mostly, but sometimes even for judgement. I feel particularly strong, as if I am saying, "Come what may." (knock on wood!) I don't plan on abandoning ship. Even if the big modern picture of Christianity looks like a sinking ship.

A blog I read now and then says, "Go, warn your children of the terrible speed of mercy." It is a quote from a novel by Flannery O'Connor, referencing Revelations 8 (correct me if I'm wrong) where the altar, traditionally the place of God's mercy, ironically becomes the very source of divine judgment. This is very intriguing to me, and I think about it a lot.

I don't know where this post is going. Makes my blog into a journal?

Goodnight.

from here

"We are living through another week in which natural disaster provokes many to say, “Where is God?” Of course, many who will now ask, “Where is God?” said nothing the week before when Haitian children were dying of a hosts of curable and treatable illnesses and circumstances."

Exactly my thoughts.

I don't think this needs a caption. I cannot think of another instance where my child imitated me that I am more in love with. She didn't take the scarf off for an hour.

Fr. Stephen Freeman has posted another wisdom-filled blog...below is an excerpt that particularly struck me. As follows...

Our modern culture, driven by varying market models, tends to teach us that everyone must have a job or a career in order to be “fulfilled.” Human beings are all too easily defined by their place within the economy. The same psychology is often carried over into the Church with people thinking of their place within the Church as defined by “what they do.” In such a context, “my ministry,” is an important question to people. The weakness of this question is its tendency to transform the Church from the “Ark of Salvation” to the “Spiritual Manufacturing Center.”

The past decade...and the future one.

In this recently passed decade, many memorable and life changing event occurred in my life.

I left home, started working, bought a car, had my first beer. 2003
I got married to a wonderful man, my beloved husband and the unreplacable father of my children. 2005
I became a stepmother, and that word is too empty to describe the joy. 2005
I started homeschooling. Never learned more in my life. 2005-?
My son and daughter were born. They are most precious to me. 2007 and 2009.

I don't have any real regrets. Some fleeting ones, but nothing lasting.

Bring it on, 2010. What will the New Year bring? Another child? Going back to college? Who knows....

Glory to God in all things!