33...and beyond

I'm a mess. It's been coming on all summer. It's not something that I could make better through sheer grit, determination or will power. I keep trying to fix it and I keep finding myself drowning. Leasing up to Joni and friends, the load had been heavy. Since then...it is like I am waiting for a breath or a calm in the storm, but there is not even a glimmer of it on the horizon. It is not that ridiculously tragedy has befallen me. In my world that is relative. But the big things, my family, my close friends, the things I hold the dearest are all safe and sound. At Joni and friends a very strong woman in the Lord shared a vision the Lord had given her for me. It was me, riding on the back of a fire engine. I wasn't the one putting out the fires, I was simply along for the ride. Yesterday some friends who sensed that I was at the end of myself asked me how I was. I told one of them, I feel like I am standing in front of a burning house, there is no fire engine...

Clearly I have struggling at life lately. Since Joni and Friends, I have not stopped. I returned home and went straight to work. I worked long days and went straight to Milwaukee with my cousin Laura for her bone marrow donation surgery. When I got home from that, at 11:30 pm on Sunday night, I got up and went straight to work by 8 am Monday morning. After working all week, that weekend, it became evident Laura wasn't healing properly and the next week every free moment was spent trying to help her through her pain, helping her to the bathroom at night while she sobbed and the even sleeping in a chair at the hospital while the doctors tried to help her and figure out what the issue was. Then music and drama camp happened and I spent the week with 35 kiddos who challenged me at every end. From camp, I went straight to work at the mission each day until midnight.  Suffice it to say, I am exhausted, and my goals and obedience have been nonexistent. My life has just piled ...

I'm here. I'm writing. I'm showing up today because I am DESPERATELY trying to regain this discipline.  Today wasn't perfect.  I didn't check all the boxes I wanted, but I know that I was where I needed to be.  Tonight where I need to be is on a couch, trying to listen for my phone or a familiar voice calling my name. It may happen periodically all night long. I may need to assist getting water, meds, getting up to the bathroom, all kinds of other useful things for someone who finds themselves a bit of an invalid.  My cousin, Laura, donated her bone marrow to a total and has had a difficult time since. Something is wrong in her hip and she is struggling to walk.  So that's where I need to be today.  Did I eat perfectly? Nope. Did I accomplish everything else I hoped to accomplish? Nope. But I am ok with that. This is greater. This is better. This is good. This is the kind of person I want to be.  I want to be th...

Well, I’ll be real…I have been sucking. I have been struggling so hard to get back on track with all my goals. It is ALWAYS something. I too busy. I’m too tired. Life is too much right now. I know its warfare. Particularly on the writing front. A while back, I wrote about how I “knew” what this was all about. I wrote about a clarity that I had gained about where I was heading and what the some of the “end game” of all of this is. I was reminded this weekend about that. I had the chance to speak in a church. When I teach about Christ, when I write, when I share my heart with others in this way…it feels like home. I know that this is the direction I am supposed to be moving and I know this journey is about the discipline I need to have to get there. Since that moment of clarity…It has been a fight. Its been a wild and intense struggle to accomplish what I am supposed to accomplish each day. So today, I am starting over. I am going back to my check...