It is quite easy, much easier to think about the bad. The bad comes easy, sticky happens, and from that place of brokenness, it seems to get even more broken, and more sticky.
Our youngest son, Charlie, is four. He is a fascinating little guy. We met him when he was just three months old. He was injured. I held him that first night, all night. I remember praying big prayers, crying ugly cries, and wondering, how do things get so bad… so fast?
Things got better, harder, easier, harder, and better again.
He is fully our son, and yet, fully someone else’s son. I see things in him that are foreign to our DNA. At his birth family’s birthday party for him, my daughter noted he has the exact same shaped head as his brothers, and the same laugh, and an identical cry.
Part of me wished I could confirm that story, I do like burritos.
Another part of me knows he has to know the truth of his past in order to face his future. And isn’t that the way of things, the old creates the new? Dwelling on the past or wishing it was different, regret, remorse, and all the ick that either drags us down or makes us… better.
He loves that tune, and we have been singing it a lot.
Four-year-olds are easier to sway with happy songs.
A message from the Lord!
I pulled over and googled Exodus 20:8.
How is that the key to solving my problems, and how did this earn a spot on the back of a car? Why is this message relevant in any form or fashion??
Alas, I couldn’t catch the sedan. I drove home and chastised myself further.
Such hard words, so easy to speak, easier to believe.
I drudged through to bedtime, uncertain of what awful thing might happen next, fully believing I was the worst, and basking in self-hate, stinking thinking, and the all the habits I need to break but love to loathe.
Humming that familiar and icky song.
I could hear the message faintly, I rushed through my face washing, and bolted to the living room to catch the rest of the message… alas, it was over.
But I know, it was for me… and you.
Yes, sometimes I rehash my past, it has brought me to this place. In this place I still struggle, things are utterly the worst… but I do not rejoice in the situation or condition of my life, I rejoice in Jesus.
I have read and re-read this post twice now. Here is the thing, it isn’t the best and it isn’t the worst, but it is the truth. What good does it do for me to write a message of hope as if hope is my constant companion? For if that were true of me, I would be nothing but another resounding gong that would distract you from the one who died for you.
I am so glad I didn’t make it out to see who preached the message on the television. Just as I am glad, I didn’t catch up with the black sedan. Here among the humans, we are easily distracted by shiny things. Further discouraged by the prison cell and the fascinating creatures that praise Him from behind bars.
I confess things are the pits.
I rejoice, He wants me to focus on Him.
If you are reading this… He wants you to focus on Him too.
Speak Lord, your servant is listening. We are listening, and we are waiting. Perhaps a “Christian” blog post should always dictate the wonder of my walk. My walk right now is less than wonderful, but I am proud to show my whole bum… for I am not the hope.
I am not the last straw, the weakest link, or the prototypical for your walk.
I am here, walking wounded, who halfway through this post was lead to confess, I am losing it… and He is for me, with me, and all about a future that He has paved the way for.
In spite of a good word that traveled from some random preacher under my bathroom door, I am still all Jami, all the time. And I am focused and diligently looking up and believing Jesus.
My song has to be all about the good in Him and what that creates in me.
I admit this is my goal – not my triumph.
This is my struggle, basking in self-hate, stinking thinking, and the all the habits I need to break but love to loathe.
This is my hope, Jesus.
Keep on friends, I believe.