I have spent the last hour and a half sitting on the couch listening to 2 different PBS Great Performance, Celtic Woman and Andrea Bocelli. Yes, I love PBS programs and I love Christmas music.
Music to my ears.
Could this evening get better? I (re)discovered John Piper's online, completely free,
library. So I have been reading bits and pieces of three books I downloaded since I couldn't decide on which one to start with first.
Words that fill my soul.
When looking for books on marriage, that is one of my criteria, how long has the author been married, well Mr. Piper made the list! Here are two of the many poems John wrote to his wife, Noel, sometime over the last 42+ years of their marriage.
Nature and your face
Since mountains are the weight
and seas the depths
and sky the breadth
of what I feel for you,
may I be never long
apart from Nature or your face.
//
Pity Millionaires
Sun falls and God sets out his flares.
Come now, and sit with me, my wife,
And let us pity millionaires,
And savor every breath of life
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
I have had a bad case of the "ups and downs" lately. I am so filled with life and my outlook of the future is wonderful, beyond my imagination, and then not even but minutes later I can be down in the depths of my own pity party. God has been whispering to me but I have been so busy shouting at him my sorrows, pains, fears, desires, hopes, and longings that I haven't heard him.
The Way to Joy
"The way of a man lies not within himself"
And what then can he do but plan his way
And watch the Lord with all his knowing love--
for me...and you,
And for the priceless sons that he foreknew.
So let us be at peace within our lot,
God knows the way to joy when we do not
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
I have been finding myself unsatisfied with life at a time when my life has been most satisfying. Strange. I know. Wanting to switch churches, start over with a new set of friends, meet more frequently with good friends, have this unending desire to study study study so I don't freak out when I start working as a RN in the next few days (yes I got a job!), to be the best for Doug and those around me, to "move on" in this tiring and dizzying grief process.
See? I am up and then I am down.
I have the most wonderful fiance a girl could want, I got a job offer that will start soon, and I am generally at peace. Yet I am fearful, still a little girl crying for a father she never will have in human form, facing the ugly and imperfect me in the mirror, I doubt my abilities at the one thing I just poured four years of my life into and I just can't find whatever I need to get myself off this roller-coaster of emotions.
Sigh.
I think that is exactly what life is. A roller-coaster. And there is no getting off. God is so good to give us those exhilarating highs, the slower parts, the low parts, the twisty turny parts, the upside down parts... I worked on a roller-coaster for the entire summer of 2006 so I could go on and on with my illustrations...but I will spare you. I guess what I am blabbing on about incoherently is that the very thing I am struggling with lately...is life! Ha! Life, with all its difficulties and all its beauty. This life with all its troubles and all its joy.
I pause to thank my God for the life he has gifted to me. Not only my own life but the life of his son. His son, whom this very Sunday morning I had my super church kids read about his birth, who came to earth to give up his life so that I might have the life I am posting a complaint about. I find it wonderful that God takes over my fingers sometimes and writes out exactly what I need. Indeed, I needed to be reminded of life. Just not my life but his son's. God you are so good to me. I love you.
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| For your viewing pleasure: 20 year old me in the ever fashionable 1800's bathing suit (required attire for employment on Thunderation roller-coaster where I was the ride operator and joke teller for the summer of 2006) |
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