All is Well

Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

When I Struggle……Praying Scripture

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May I be honest with my readers tonight?  I am struggling tonight.  Very much so.   It’s just one of those nights where it is taking more energy than usual to climb up and out of this heavy darkness that threatens to undo me at times.

I despise nights like this…nights when I am anxiety-ridden, nights when I can’t seem to settle down.  Nights when the night ahead seems eternally long, and the ironic fear is that it will be terminally short on sleep.

A friend wrote an encouraging and very interesting  blog post today about praying the gospel and how that can create two things essential to real evangelism–humility and confidence.  Both of which I have little of, but that is not the point I wish to make here tonight.  Instead, I want to capitalize upon his suggestion of praying the gospel in such a way that I hope it will settle my soul.  And maybe help yours as well.

His suggestion is that we “take a familiar passage and make it personal”, and by doing so there is a greater chance that the life-giving words will work on your soul and mind so as to produce the qualities mentioned above-humility and confidence. (an idea based on Tim Keller’s words that can be read here on J.D. Greear’s blog) But it also, I believe, can not only cultivate humility and confidence, but–I hope–I pray–will also create an awareness of peace in the midst of a storm, whether that storm is visible or hidden in the depths of your soul and mind.

This can often be done with the Psalms (though admittedly not evangelistic per se), without even having to change many of the pronouns.  For example, I need Psalm 4 to be truth for me:

1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! 2 O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah 3 But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him. 4 Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah 5 Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord. 6 There are many who say, “Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” 7 You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. 8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;  for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

 There is so much in this Psalm that is applicable:  I need to ponder in my own heart on my bed, and be silent.  Silence is hard for me.
Tomorrow on Sacrifice Sunday I need to “Offer right sacrifices and put my trust in the Lord”.
And tonight, well, honestly tonight I need to know verse 8 as truth:  In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
John 3:16:  For God so loved me, that He gave his only son that if I believe in Him I will not perish, but have eternal life.
Hard to believe this oft-repeated and most memorized verse is truth for me, that God loved me that much, but also so grateful that it is truth for me, for you, and for those that we pray will also believe some day.

My Broken Leg

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So, so funny!  I googled my name to see if Google would come up with my blog.  I then scrolled through all of the returns that mention me.  In doing so, I found my long forgotten blog that I wrote while recovering from a broken leg.  Cracked me up.

My blog is here posted at BrokenLeg.com

The Strange Act of Writing, or, in other words, Erasing my Previous Writing

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I love to write.


I could spend hours writing.  I do spend hours writing.

It’s when I am writing that I best express my thoughts.  Sometimes that is a good thing.  Sometimes it is a great thing.  And sometimes, not so much.

This morning was one of those times.  I wrote a piece comparing working at a Christian Bookstore with working at Baskin Robins.  While I received all positive feedback from it, I kicked myself all day for writing it.  Why?  Because I wrote it when I was experiencing much un-gratitude for something that I should feel and do feel, generally, much gratitude for.  A job.  A job where I get the chance to have interesting conversations with people.  Like the Catholic customer who asked me questions last night, affording me the opportunity to look up in Logos on my phone, the answers to her questions.  And the couple who, for the first time in their lives, were searching for Bibles to purchase and read.  I am grateful.

I am also grateful for my sense of humor.  I agree with Bill Cosby that “You can turn painful situations around through laughter.  If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.”  There is much to laugh about in life.  There is much to laugh about me—I produce enough fodder for jokes and the ridiculous to keep any stand-up comic in business.

However, sometimes my sense of humor takes on the edge of circumstances.  This morning was one of those mornings, that after a short night, my sense of humor “got the best of me”.   And thus, born out of that, was a writing that was both, at once, humorous (to me anyway) and ungrateful.

Being the overthinker that I am, I have stewed about my writing the entire day while substitute teaching.  Thus here I am, writing once again.  But this time I’m writing my way through my “stewedupness”, trying to make heads or tails out of my love of writing and the way it presents at times.

Of course, I realize none of this may make sense to anyone except for myself. But then, what really is a blog for?  It’s pretty self-indulgent actually.  Thus I think I’ll be able to go off to work in the next hour now to the Christian Bookstore somewhat assuaged and relieved.

What an odd duck I am.
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