Boxing With God

Since it is not my time to update my goals...I need not feel guilty about my struggles I am about to post.

Yes...struggles.

This past week, actually the past several weeks have taken their toll on me and I am weary. Perhaps it is just being away from home for eight weeks...perhaps it is just the stress of what I hope to accomplish over the next year with my life.

Perhaps it is a lot of things...but here it is just wee bit past the middle of March...and I am burned up....burned out, hanging on by a thread.

I have found myself thinking more and more on Job. This man who had so much and who lost so much. This is a man who not just rich...but uber-rich...like Bill Gates kind of rich. He had 10 kids, seven boys and three girls. They were so rich that none of the kids ever worked...they just went from house to house and partied every single day. Job just worried that they sinned..so he stayed home with all of his money and prayed for them.

Then one day, he looses his cattle, he looses his 7,000 sheep, he looses his 3,000 camels (they smell anyway...might have been a godsend) and all his children are killed in a freak accident.

All because God decideds to let Satan have a little fun. To poke at Job, as it were. Then, as if it can't get any worse, Satan says..."Hey, the only reason he isn't cursing you is because he is in a healthy body." God says..."Go...mess with him some more."

Ahh, to be Satan's play thing. So Job gets boils. Everywhere...and it isn't just boils...they are painful, pus filled, oozing, smelly boils. Nice.

Finally, his wife suggest he just get it over with...look...it is obvious that you have done something to make God angry...so just curse him...die and get it over with...right?


And everyone likes to believe that Job praises God. Well..no.

Or that his three crappy friends come over and dump on him, tell him he is sinful...and then God dumps on them. Right? No.


Yes, his three friends come over. Yes, they sit there and tell him he is sinful for having incurred the wrath of God to this magnatude, so obiously he should just repent and be done with it.

And what does Job do? What does this righteous man, who has always been faithful to God, lost his family and all his posessions and is now covered in smelly boils...what does he do?

He argues with God.

He basically tells God, "Look...I have praised you...I have been righteous, I have done what you asked...and this...THIS...is how I am rewarded...really???"

It was a throwdown. God takes off his gloves for a while and dressed down Job. Job sort of realizes he has overstepped his bounds a bit and says his mea culpas and moves on.

Right? Well...no the story ends with Job being blessed beyond what he had before. Now he has 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels (not so sure that was a blessing) and he is again blessed with children; seven boys and three girls (although he had to go through those teen aged years all over again) and he is SO wealthy this time he even gives the girls part of the inheirtenance.

It is the ever popular story of overcoming the ultimate loss. The ultimate bad day. And I have been having a lot of them lately. It seems like I have had a string of little bad day soldiers all just waiting with their artillary to click off days.

I thought maybe I needed some encouragement so I went to a large book store and I stood in the self-help section for about a half an hour looking at titles of books waiting for the one that said "Your life sucks right now, here are some practical things you can do to make it through the sucki-ness of it all and aim toward making it better"

Newsflash: That book hasn't been published yet.

And the sad part about the self-help books? I stood there looking at them and thought, "you know there is not a single one of these books that I would pay money for and could force myself to read." I was more drawn to books on dog training, growing herb gardens, cooking, painting, embroidery and a handful of other things. I was more interested in DOING something...going out and being part of creating something, being part of something, than I was in sitting around navel gazing.

I have poured out to my heart to God recently. I am a faithful person. I am a person who, for some odd reason, believes without doubt....it just never enters into my brain housing group. I aim toward righteousness. I rarely hit it...but I do desire it...I have learned to allow God to work in his time and to accept his will.


But right now I am angry with him. I still trust him. I still am faithful. And, as prideful as this may sound, I don't feel like I am acting in a sinful manner. I know I will get over it....eventually. But right now I feel like I was betrayed.

I feel like I was lead along and given false hope, when it wasn't really necessary. I prayed and asked God that if this was the path for me to please open the doors, but if it wasn't to please close them. They were being closed, gently, and I was being let down....then at the last minute, I had them fly wide open with information that changed everything...I was elated, flying high...probably much higher than I should have...and so very hopeful.

I ended up crashing so hard that the bruises and marks are painful wounds right now. God could have left that door shut, let me continue along that route. It would not have been as painful as having my hopes raised beyond anything they had been before.

And so I am boxing with God. I am arguing with him right now. In the long run I am imaging it will make me a better Christian...I know he knows what is best...but right now all I feel is very hurt.

In the end, this is what is called working out your faith in fear and trembling.

It is work, make no mistake of that.

That which we aim to do....

Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying, "By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail." In all truth, at this time of year, we heartily set goals for ourselves that we, with the greatest intent, breating in the first fumes of a freshly birthed new year, hope to accomplish. Lose weight! Stop smoking! Exercise! Save money!

And yet what people have found is that as these goals are spouted, usually in a somewhat marinated stated, is that by the end of January 31 most have been given up on. Siting reasons like, "It's winter...you have to eat hearty in the winter and it is too cold to exercise." or "I am too poor after Christmas to save money." And on it goes...we justify the reasons we cannot do that which we want to do, but cannot bring ourselves to do.

The question is, why? Why do we fail? Worse yet...why does it lead us into a tailspin of resolving never to make resolutions again?

I have thought about this for a long time...I believe that the answer lies in the inner workings our gray matter. We do not think things through long before, nor do we plan things out. We do not believe we can fail, and worse yet, we do not forgive ourselves if we do, walking away from that which we desire because it was hard...it was actually going to require something of us...a struggle.

Thus this year, I have not only made resolutions, but I have made them with the idea that, they will be hard. That I will not only stumble, fall...but I will have to find something inside myself to pick myself back up and start over again.

I have made plans, I have made goals. I have the idea that with small baby steps to start, reviewed each month, and then possibly tracked to the next step, I may, indeed be successful. Yogi Berra, the great prophet, once said, "You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." We fail to reach our goals because of lack of aim. If you have no direct aim, no bullseye, you will never reach your goal.


So here are my goals for the year of 2011:

1. Lose weight
2. Find a better job
3. Travel
4. Move with little or no drama
5. Fight less/stress less
6. Be more positive

And here are the actions I plan to take for each of those goals...for January 2011:

1. Lose 10 pounds. Begin walking 3 times a week.
2. Commit to spending 5 hours a week looking for a better job.
3. Save $25 a week from paycheck toward a trip.
4. Begin packing boxes now, purging items not needed or wanted now.
5. Choose my battles, do not give into fights with the kids.
6. List 4 things every day that are positive....things that you can be happy about.

At the end of January, I plan to revist the list and hopefully, I can say that I am moving forward. It is my plan to see each of these things become successfully integrate into my life. It is not my plan to become the Dali Lama, a supermodel, Heloise, and the CEO of Intel in a year. The Bible tells us that without a vision the people perish. This is my vision of 2011.

My goals are this: on December 31, 2011, I would like to be able to look back at the year and say that, I have accomplished my goals. I would like to weigh less than I do at this very moment. I would like to be in a job I do not abhore from my waking moments. I would like to be settled into another house with fewer things, more organized and not divorced over the situation. I would like to go somewhere on a vacation...anywhere would be fine. I would also like my relationship with those that matter most in my life to have improved. If, at the end of this year, I can say that those things are done...then I will be able to say that I have accomplished my 2011 New Years Resolutions.


And that, in itself, will be an amazing feat.

Christmas Traditions

I grew up in a family that had tradition out the wazoo. We had a tradition for just about everything. From Thanksgiving day, and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, football and just being with family, to the day after Christmas...we had traditions that followed us all throughout the month.

But I will never forget when I first got married. I wanted to make sure that my husband's family was well represented. That he did not feel like there were only my traditions and none of his...although, of course my family traditions were better.

So our discussion went something like this:

Me: "Hon...I want to make sure we do things that your family has always done too...what are your family traditions."

**long pause**

Him: "uh well, I am not sure."

Me: "Well...I mean, how can you not be sure? There has to be things you did every single year. What were those things? We can do those things."

Him: "Well, see that is just it...we really never had any."

Me: "Any what?"

Him: "Traditions"

Me: "How is that possible?"

Him: "Uhm...Well, we just never did."

Me: "Never did what?"

Him: "Anything traditional."

Me: "Nothing?"

Him: "Not that I recall."

Me: "No tree decorating? No Stockings? No caroling? No cookie baking? No....nothing???"

Him: "We watched my sister decorate the tree sometimes."

Me: "No Charlie Brown Christmas? No wrapping presents? No Christmas cards? No looking at lights in the neighborhood? Really?"

Him: "Really...nothing."

About this time he would remind me that I needed to blink and close my mouth as I stood with it agape. It wasn't that his family didn't have a tree, stockings, presents, turkey dinners, and so on...it was just that certain people had certain jobs and the family was not involved. I was gobsmacked.

Twenty-two years and five children have past since that conversation. We have invested ourselves into many family traditions. And I think everyone is the richer for them. At some point I have heard some moans...and some groans...but everyone usually laughs and participates. Typically they will even remind me if a tradition has been forgotten, which means that while they tease and moan and groan, deep inside, they love that we have things that they can count on.

And I think those are the things that, as we grow up, move away and start our own families are what we pull to ourselves to comfort us and make us feel as if we are with our loved ones once again.

My son is now serving in the United States Army as a combat medic. I am so very proud of him. I spoke with him on Thanksgiving Day and it warmed my heart to hear him say that he had a nice Thanksgiving meal, but it wasn't the meal that I always made....the food he was use to and he missed his apple pie. You see, we have a tradition in our family that every single person chooses their favorite dessert and I

make it for them. I have made up to fifteen desserts, but this

year I only made seven. And an apple pie was not among the dishes. That is Joseph's chosen dessert every single year. And

he missed it this Thanksgiving. He also said that he woke up and watched Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade....I knew deep inside that he, even by himself, was carrying on a tradition that was part of our family.

And that is what these traditions do...they start off small, step by step and become the seams of a family quilt. They are part of a larger picture, part of what it means to be a family. Part of what it means to belong.

And belonging is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.

Sin

Most who know me know that I am a religious person. I am not the type of person who claims their religion to attend only on Christmas and Easter and then have no one know me in the church. I am an active member of my church and attend most Sundays. Many would say that attending church does not make you religious, and they are right. However, I am not one to say I am a religious person and then spend my Sundays cleaning my house and doing laundry.
To that end, I am also a sinner. Many years ago I use to belong to a church that was non-denominational in belief. It encouraged you to constantly perfect yourself. Sermons were based on, "This is your sin, and here are the three steps to rid yourself of it." Morality was the measured by peers and watched by everyone. It was a constant, almost contest of who could one-up the next person. "I don't listen to secular music."
"Oh, well I don't listen to secular music, and I don't watch TV."
"I stopped doing that years ago, now I pray for an hour every day, and I no longer wear jewelry, makeup."
"Yes, I know how close that brings you to God! When I did that I also started to only wear skirts and began homeschooling my children."
"Homeschooling my children has changed my relationship with God, and since that time I have also started canning all my own food and grinding my own wheatberries to make bread....."

And on it went. It was insanity. It may seem as though I am mocking, but I actually did sit in on conversations with women like this....and I admired them...and worse, I envied them.

Here is the truth. I am a sinner. A flawed individual. I am loud, I talk too much. I tend to focus on myself too much. I am disorganized in my thoughts and many times in my actions. I get nervous very easily. I am argumentative. I swear like a sailor. I have never met a carb I didn't like...nor, for that matter a sweet. I am a procrastinator and I am not always very good at self motivation.

Now don't get me wrong...I have a lot of very good things about me too...but, above is me, laid out and truthful....you could probably find more, if you asked my family. But in the end we are all, every last one of us like this. Flawed, imperfect creatures.

Use to be I tried from the get go to fix all of those problems right here...right now. Be good, be perfect! It wasn't until I truly understood St. Paul that I truly understood sin. He bemoaned his desire to be rid of sin, to try to be perfect for God. God basically said, "That's nice son, that you want to do this, be all perfect and such...but, ah...no. Keep your sin for a while...it is what keeps you humble."

What? God wants us to sin? Get out? No, of course God does not want us to sin. He never desires for us to sin. But God also has a timeline...it is his timeline and not our timeline. We are like impatient 4 year olds wanting to go to the park, we want what we want and we want it now. On the other hand God, has goals in mind. We find that as we grow older, we grow closer to him, and those sins seem to fall away in their own time. We are being perfected in Christ. It is not a past tense sort of thing. It is a past/present/future sort of thing. I have been perfected in Christ. I am being perfected in Christ. I will be perfected in Christ.

So I wear my sin like an ugly dress. I hate it, I know what it is, and I wish it gone. I attempt to quell it and restrain it and to become more diligent day by day. But you know what? It is no longer something I use as a measuring stick with others, I need not strip my life down to a monastic existence to become more holy. God works with what he has.

He works with me...flawed as I am.