May 22, 2012
I am so comforted in the presence of the Lord. I woke up this morning, made coffee, my grandma called, we had our usual hour-long conversation, and started quilting. Periodically I stop and just know something would make me happier and I hear the Lord's voice tell me it's time for us to be together and I am so grateful for somewhere to go. So I just crawl into the corner of the couch and start reading.
I want to enter into a season where I am giving to people and to the Lord. It's been 5 months into this beautiful and life-giving journey and I feel love coming out of me now, and it's so much that I want to give my selfish desires to the Lord so I don't have them in the way. The particular desires I am giving are intrusive and I don't need them anyway. I want to be focused, i want to work, I want to love, and I want to be useful. And there is no rush or anxiety associated with these wants, there is only the comfort and assurance that I will have those things, with time.
Really in the meantime I couldn't be happier. I wish my sister would leave her husband, I wish my grandmother didn't worry so much and work so hard, I wish my parents would stop everything and start looking out for me and Julie and Matthew more instead of drinking and being selfish and depressed, and I wish I had a way to get around better.
But I mean my life is finally belonging to the Lord. I have no idea what my carer life is supposed to look like, but I believe when the Lord wants to help me get paid to do something, he will. Basically I want to get paid to work for the Kingdom, in some kind of way. I have just enough money to eat, pay rent and pay for my telephone. I can't pay any debt down, or have insurance or save up for a car. But the Lord will help me pay for those things. It's hard because I don't know what to do about having a second job, which would help with the other things I need to pay. And I agree that it's probably time to start praying about what direction to take in that area, which is why I'm so grateful for comfort in the presence of the Lord.
This time last year, in contrast, I was drunk as can be almost every night, hungover every morning, convinced that I could stop whatever I was doing at anytime and that I was a lot closer than I actually was to "doing the best I can." I don't really even think about that phrase anymore. I'm either thinking about my life intentionally and listening for the Lord's voice or I'm simply not. I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to work for everybody. It's for sure how it's become for me, it's how my life has become. I think it became that way after I just kept thinking I was doing my best but then every time I fell I would wonder what happened. What happened is my ears and heart chose to stop listening. So I'm listening more, which has completely eliminated this part of the process where I depend on any of my "best" efforts and are often subsequently let down by them.
