The Washing of the Water

So this past week I haven't been feeling especially well but all was pretty good up until today.  What happened today?  Today I woke up grouchy and I've been trying to wrangle in that little monster ever since.  It didn't help that I've been in and out of the house on the road with what I can only say are especially bad holiday drivers. So after having two separate cars pull out directly in front of me, so close that I had to slam hard on my breaks, I finally decided I would stop for gas and a car wash.  Let me just say that I don't normally pay for car washes.  After all, I can wash my own car, right?  However, this car wash was more for me than the car.  I just needed some "rain," some water coming down with the pitter-patter, the sound of nature, something to sooth and wash away the irritation of the day.  It's kind of cozy in a car wash.  The lights are dim, the radio's playing, and I can hear the waves...I mean water.  

While I was in there I was thinking about life.  I bought the $8.00 car wash so I had a good five or six minutes to think.  Life is kind of like a car wash.  Things are always changing through the many cycles - wet, wash, rinse, wax...birth, childhood, adulthood, death.  Sometimes the rain beats down and the brushes buffet against you loud and hard and you can feel the whole of everything shake, sometimes there's a beautiful spattering of sudsy colors and bubbles of laughter, but I think my favorite is the rinsing...when the water comes down light like air, tickling the eardrums with its ethereal sound, washing away the dirt and grime, leaving things shiny and new again.  Thank God that Jesus is my rinse cycle.  I can bring all my shortcomings, all my failures, all my messiness to Him, and if I surrender He can always make me sparkle.

"Humble yourselves, then, under God's mighty hand, so that He will lift you up in His own good time. Leave all your worries with Him, because He cares for you." (GNT)  So this is my thanks, that He cares for me - and with my heartfelt thanks grouchiness is displaced, driven from within me, as the washing of the water.

Until next time ~ L.

Depression. Bipolar. Grief. Abuse. Hope by Anne Marie Miller

Such an important writing on grief and depression from Anne Marie Miller.  I do not know Anne but found this piece wonderfully shared.  It is vital for us to realize that unrecognized grief wreaks havoc on us.  In our society it is often not acceptable to grieve in an open manner, but we must be brave enough to do so anyway.  This is a must read:

Please use this link to connect to her blog:
Depression. Bipolar. Grief. Abuse. Hope.

Finger Painting with Jesus

Life is messy. It's not a paint by numbers, where pastel colors are carefully dabbed inside lines, kept neatly separated and completed in numerical order. No, life is big paper and finger painting.  Vibrant blue, grassy green, and the reddest of red - all splotched in and smeared together. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes just yucky brown. As I've traveled on my journey since Bill died I've come to love this painted mess, the unexpectedness, the excitement, the roller coaster, the journey. If I want to be green today, then I'm green. If I want to be blue, then blue, but honestly, most days I want to be red - vibrant, alive, blood-pumping red, so much more than just breathing. Grief is brown and black and gray and dark.  It's when all those colors get so immersed that there's no longer a picture, just darkness, and once those colors get smeared there's no way for me to undo that.  So do I live with the dark forever? Am I stuck with the brown and black and gray and dark? What do I do? Well, just wait.  In perfect timing Jesus comes and says, "New day - are you ready for new paper?"  For a long time I wasn't ready for the clean, the crisp, the white, the new.  I needed to stare at the black and brown and gray and dark, to figure out what it was, how it was, to learn from it and let it change me for the better. God's word says, "The Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise." Lamentations 3:22-23 (GNT).  As sure as the sunrise, his mercy is new everyday.  As sure as the sunrise, He's coming with the paper - the clean, the crisp, the white, and today I'm going to be red, covered by his sacrifice, by his blood on the cross - forgiven and free to start anew every day.