I almost never do this.
I got it from a Facebook friend named Mona, who got it from a friend named Christine...and that's as near as I get to its original source--hardly the stuff of a sanctioned bibliography. Still, I wanted to share it. I needed this like a deep breath of fresh air.
As I look over these old journal entries, I realize that I need more strength to do this thing--run the whole course of reviewing them. It will require a mental and spiritual discipline I didn't expect to need. Deep thoughts (deep enough to warrant journaling anyway) originally came to me at a pace of a few a month; but reviewing them this way--taken up on a daily basis--is proving to be entirely different. The journals came like potpourri, a few of drops of essential oil infusing a bed of flower petals and bulk material; but this--this is like pouring that oil on my hands and rubbing it all over my face. Delightful, but so strong and so unrelenting. I pray I have the discipline to glean all You'd have me learn from them. Send me to school, God!
November 15
Funny, the myriads I've written and read about the need for silence and solitude, and even now as I determine to sit down and write again, I hear the baby waking up. [Our youngest was born Feb. of 2001]
Three pages in my devotional, two sentences in my prayer journal and BAM--the interruptions begin. In fact, my devotional reading addresses the need for 'alone' time with You. How do I do this, God? How does it work for me? I know there are areas of wastefulness in my time. There are thoughts that could be disciplined toward You, but even as I try, distraction and interruption come unavoidably. Like now. I did manage to get that stewardship sermon written and delivered, and the coffeehouse worship hour is going well, but I still feel like I'm just maintaining, God, not growing.
Am I afraid?
The devotional I read talked about Jesus feeding the 5000 and how the disciples saw such a feeding as impossible. But they looked at it as if they were asked to MAKE the food. You only asked that they DISTRIBUTE it. Somehow this seems very large. What question do I hear from You, Lord? Do I hear You ask me to secure the food for people or just to deliver it? The questions could get markedly different answers from me.
Help me to remember I'm a distributor of Your loaves and fishes. I am not asked to be a creator of them.
How do I share what strikes me about these thoughts? Much of it depends on your knowing things that won't hit this historic journal for years to come--dreams of holy bread and its symbolic role in my life...super dreams as my children call them, for they have them sometimes, too. For now, I'll just share this most recent one.
I dreamed I was working on a building project with other saints. After the workday was finished, we were all invited back to an appreciation dinner. I arrived along with an older man. When we pulled back the curtain to the banquet room, we saw tables draped in white cloth, with people sitting waiting to eat. We were the last two to arrive, and I saw two places left empty. Each place setting held a gift for the diner. One place was at a table of older people--friends of the man beside me--who were very much engaged in lively conversation. At that place, a loaf of bread waited as a gift. The other table had an empty seat alongside my own husband, and its gift was a mystery, all wrapped and ribboned for opening. I considered both places, then turned to the man beside me. "Why don't you take this one here. I can make bread in my bread machine; and I don't know any of these people. You can sit with them since they're in your group. I'll take the other place." I treated it like a concession to what would most bless him.
So I went to be with the mystery gift and my husband. But he, standing behind his chair, acted surprised when he turned and saw me there. Immediately I knew I'd disappointed him...and myself. I looked at the gift in my hands and was suddenly crushed in my spirit. I had wanted this seat for the gift, for the more familiar companionship and for a place next to my husband--all of which would have been acceptable reasons, except that I hadn't been honest about what I wanted. I made the case that I was choosing this place based on what would be good for another, but in truth I'd done nothing of the kind. I'd chosen based on what I wanted for myself. Suddenly, the gift meant nothing, and my husband's disappointment as he turned his back on me to visit anew with the others at our table--this was a great chastening.
I woke knowing every part of this dream was deeply symbolic, and I prayed that I might be alert to learn from the dream itself rather than to have to walk such a sad path, all for the sake of the learning his truth. The bread He offers is not a bread I can make for myself. It is a gift. The people he sends to be my table companions should suffice, whether I sit at His right hand of honor or not.
I am the server, not the chef in this story. And as for wanting to sit beside You--
Well, if I'm a Mary and not a Martha, even in a world that only wants Marthas, I must still own who I am, and let You defend my choice.
Help me, Lord. I hate pride and fear when they come to call hand in hand.
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