over my head and under my feet

Todd & Scott, originally uploaded by ephesians3kh2.

Psalm 106:1 “Give thanks to the Lord for HE IS GOOD, his love endures forever.”

I have been nothing short of miserable to be around this week. Our house is still under the nightmare that is actually called remodeling and my exhausted mom asked me to help clean and arrange things. Those of you, who know me, know that I am obsessed with cleaning. I am compulsive and fully aware that my behavior is probably symptomatic of some deeper heart issue to be discussed at a later time. I think it is the immediate satisfaction and results you get from cleaning. It is visibly messy and you can clean until it is perfectly spotless, pat yourself on the back and enjoy the work of your hands. All of that superfluous information was to explain why my attitude was unnecessary and surprising. I was picking things up and moving from room to room getting more frustrated and sincerely angry with every passing moment and wipe of a counter. I did what I said I would do and even more but I missed the whole point. I was giving my mom much UNNEEDED attitude and at the end of the day when I laid my head down on my pillow all I could think about was how sad the day had been. I am sad. Thanksgiving was fine. Fine and different. We had our dinner on Wednesday instead of Thursday and then my mom and I went to the Cowboy’s game with the Flemings (love you Flemings) and the boys went on to the deer lease. A beautiful distraction, which only prolonged and wrote out how my life is not the same as it was last year. I was sifting through the millions of thoughts that quickly spun a web that I got stuck in. As little tears spilt onto my pillow I finally saw the day for what it could have been. It could have been a day to bless my mom and to be a joy and place of sweet relief from the millions of things that have been plaguing her of late. I could have acknowledged that maybe SHE was having a difficult time this week. She cleaned out my dad’s closet and I couldn’t bring myself to see what she kept and what she decided to give to good will. Not yet. It is all just so seemingly final and permanent. So the short of the really long is that I all to often can’t see outside of myself to make the switch from burden to blessing. I know the importance of allowing myself to feel whatever honest emotion creeps in at that exact moment but sometimes those emotions are crippling and hard to do life with. I am sure there is some perfect balance, not an either or but rather both, feeling lots and living lots. At the end of the day I just had to tell the Lord that I wasn’t enough and that I trust that his grace is sufficient for my mom, just like it is for me. I prayed that he would carry her and bless her because I knew I hadn’t. I am not saying that it is my job or that I am even capable of healing my mom’s heart, I know that I am not. I am saying that I was disobedient to the Lord today and befriended my selfish flesh instead of my selfless spirit. I just feel so broken and lost in it all. I have felt this way before and I reminded and comforted in how our God knows nothing but faithfulness and goodness. He is constant and his perfect love will sustain me and drive out my every fear. I just need him tonight. I am restless and can’t sleep. I am driving back to school in the morning and will be spending time with my good friend…..45 south. Our time together often looks like me crying and it remains silent. It doesn’t have a voice but it manages to push all of my buttons. I want to hurt this road, like stomp on it or something, but I would only get more frustrated at how unaffected and unconcerned it is with my fragile heart and exposed weakness. The road wouldn’t respond to my rage and this would only frustrate me more. Have you ever known someone that speaks to non-living objects? Well if not, hi my name is Kim. Now you have. And in some twisted way this feels good, to scream at the cement beneath me. Make sense of it….and let me know.

The boys are doing well. Scott shot a huge deer this week and Todd sat last Tuesday for the first part of his CPA. They enjoyed their time away from the office. I am so proud of you two and I love you this much (I just stretched my arms out, no I really did.) I love you little family, blessed to do life with you each and undeserving of your sweet love that covers me like a blanket. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOOXXOXOXO

Loving Loss

Loving Loss
Caleb Carruth

"too good for me
our conversations weren't enough
shallow smile painted words and my selfish motives
passed my flawed defenses
a trial by fire

someday I will be free
and I know that this pain won't last forever
for it all will be a memory

I used to think I was deep
while staring into my shallow ends
the ends that justified my means
but I know I'm just like the others
falling when near the water

here I come to your feet and as I am my God save me

enter season's change another love is lost
and with the leaving of the weather's wind
another fragrance gone when will it end

but alas I love the loss"

What can I say? I look all around me and I am quickly sobered. A pastor dieing in the middle of a baptism in front of 800 people, an aunt in ICU, a little boy who is battling a “tummy bug” that we call cancer (http://www.connorcruse.com) and the list goes on…Right now as you read this, there is probably a running list that is forming in your own mind of all the ‘stuff’ and people that you know of who are in hospitals and valleys. And yet we claim our God is good? Why? How? Because HE IS. I was running this morning and the Lord and I were talking. I was telling him that it doesn’t feel like eight months since my dad went to be with him. Eight months is still just an arms length away and the reality that eight months and five days ago I was sitting in a hospital room doing a cross word puzzle and watching a movie curled up in his bed with him is ever so real. Are we really that mortal? One second I am here and have a pulse and the next I could be returning to the dust that I ultimately came from. And still, he makes my life of value and significance IN HIM. With him I have the privilege of being apart of something bigger than myself, bigger than death. And he also brought It to my attention today that if I hadn’t tasted pain on this earth then I wouldn’t long for my eternal home like I do now, just like if I hadn’t come to grips with my inadequacies then I wouldn’t find myself begging him to do a work in my heart. I can’t but HE can (AND IS), I am nothing and he is more than enough. My cup is empty, not a drop to be found, but HIS overflows and fills mine. Everyday the depraved and wayward human I am, needs to be reminded of how disposable and futile my day will be if it isn’t spent investing in eternal things, things unseen, if it isn’t spent seeking Him. O God, save me from myself.

MORE THAN CONQUERORS (if you have some extra time today read Romans 8 but here is just a small exert, this spoke much needed truth into this week for me….)

Romans 8: 28-38
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called, those he called he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justified. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-MORE THAN THAT, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” NO IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. FOR I AM CONVINCED THAT NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE, NEITHER ANGELS NOR DEMONS, NEITHER THE PRESENT NOR THE FUTURE, NOR ANY POWERS, NEITHER HEIGHT NOR DEPTH, NOR ANYTHING ELSE IN ALL CREATION, WILL BE ABLE TO SERPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.”