Wondering Wanderings

I have mentioned in the past I have felt like a Supreme Waffler in matters of faith.  One moment I’m fine with saying, “You know what?  I have faith for XYZ, and that’s okay.  It’s cool.”  But then I’m in a room with people with big, move-entire-mountain-ranges-into-the-sea faith, and I wonder . . . I ponder . . . I (dare I say it?) . . . I doubt.  Not so much in God’s Word or His provisions.  I mean, He’s God – He doesn’t mess things up!  No, it’s more a question of what I’m missing that is keeping mountains from moving (Matthew 17:20) and trees from uprooting (Luke 17:6).

Too often I forget the following:

I realize how kind God has been to me, and so I tell each of you not to think

 you are better than you really are.  Use good sense and measure yourself by

 the amount of faith that God has given you.

~ Romans 12:3 (CEV)

It could very well be, then, that God has given me a measure of faith not the same as the mountain-movers and tree-uprooters.  And there isn’t anything wrong with that.  I’m not bad or evil because I have questions, either.  The thing is to acknowledge them, to look for answers, and to be okay when I’m not finding the sought-for answers.  (At least not yet.  Because I believe one day I’ll see the whole picture and it will make sense.)  My faith will only grow when I move out of my comfortable, having-answers zone, as I hope for and believe for those things that are not yet here in a tangible form.

So it was with thoughts like this in mind that I picked up the book O Me of Little Faith: True Confessions of a Spiritual Weakling by Jason Boyett.  I read it in the days after my mom’s heart surgery when I was filled with ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’, and found a great deal of hope and comfort in reading of someone else’s struggles and questions as he tries to wrap his finite mind around an infinite God.  And I highlighted things like “Faith is . . . believing God will arrive, even if you can barely hear his song right now” and “Jesus doesn’t show up where he’s expected . . . He appears in places we hadn’t thought to look before” and held in my heart the encouragement to keep on keeping on even when my ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ are left hanging in the air.  Now Boyett doesn’t’ say “Hey, everyone!  Doubt!  You’ll be more spiritual!”  That would be crazy talk.  But he does write openly and honestly (with some very funny footnotes) about his own journey.  And through his honesty, I found an answer or two along with a great deal of hope for this journey we’re all on.

I have questions.  I don’t have all the answers.  And sometimes it feels as though the One who does have the answers is silent.  But I’m learning that’s okay.  It doesn’t mean I stop moving.  It means I light another candle of hope and keep moving towards the One who promises that while I may stumble and falter He will never lose His grip on me (Psalm 37:24).

Vain Repetitions

It has been almost 13 hours since I crossed the finish line for 2010’s National Novel Writing Month with a tidy word cushion thanks to more days than not of meeting or exceeding a daily 1700 word count goal.  And I almost hate to say this as many people have cheered me on, but it all feels, even after a good night’s rest, rather anti-climactic.

Seriously -- what's the big deal?  And I don't think I'm subconsciously looking for pats on the back or a 'well done' or 'but you wrote 50,000 words in a month whereas I'm lucky to write a haiku in an hour' or other such things.  At least I don't think I am, but I've been wrong before in regards to what motivates me, so I may very well be wrong again.

Honestly, though -- there is something not sitting right in regards to this whole endeavor and it's frustrating that I cannot put my finger on it.  This isn't exactly the post-NaNoWriMo post I was expecting to make, but it's where I find myself at this point in time.

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher;

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

- Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NKJ)

And maybe therein lies the rub, to loosely quote Shakespeare.  Were the the past 28 days merely an exercise in vanity for me, a big old "look at what I can do" moment?

Only by bringing this to God, I believe, can my questions truly be sorted out.  But I do hope I'll be more careful/mindful of my motives for taking on projects in the future because this 'meh' feeling after neglecting, really, so many things makes me wonder if what I gained in the end was worth it.

Less Than I Was Meant to Be

And if I had to tell you the truth
I'm afraid I'd have to say
That after all I've done and failed to do
I feel like less than I was meant to be
-- “What Life Would be Like” by Big Daddy Weave

I don’t always handle criticism or stress or correction well, which is too bad as it seems to have been a year full of those things. From sickness to seemingly unanswered prayers (until one looks back, even a bit, and sees God’s provision) to questions about faith to job changes to just, well, life I find myself longing at times for something ordinary. Something right in the middle of my comfort zone, if you will.

I honestly thought I was praying with real, working faith for my husband during the ‘please get this checked out’ in October ’07 all the way through to the doctor’s blunt ‘it’s cancer’ in early March ‘08. Really, I thought I was. I thought I was thinking right, believing right, confessing right . . . doing what I needed to do so the hand of God would move, so His healing provision would be seen and manifested in my husband’s body. As I later called my family to tell them the news, I can still remember tearfully telling my mom as she encouraged me to pray and have faith “But I thought I did have faith.” Right then I wasn’t so sure. And there have been times since then where I wonder if I do or did or ever will. I don’t want to doubt. I don’t want to be faithless. But I struggle with knowing if I’m truly praying with a faith that is going to do something. How can I tell? How do I know before something ‘big’ happens?

My husband did share with me shortly after the report we did not want to hear a word from God our pastor shared with him. The situation we were in was not because of something we had done. And my husband, knowing how I can be, encouraged me to be encouraged as well by that word. So I clung to it. At times, I think my grasp slipped. Then I would find myself reaching for it again like a life preserver in the stormy sea we found ourselves in and holding on all the more.

We were done with the chemotherapy in June. My husband returned to work part-time and then full-time. And just before we were set to go on summer holidays, just when I thought the rest of the year would be smoother, I found out the place I work at was being shut down at the end of September.

Time to look for a new job. And there, God provided again. But there is still the stress of trying to finish up a job that is going on longer than planned so I can start a new one. And I know I have not been faithful or the most diligent in my prayer life, Bible study, ministry, housework, writing and many other things I could list if there was the space and the time. Even as I try to be and to do what God has made me to be and to do, I still feel as if I’m missing the mark. And it’s hard. I’m trying to see the positive, to see where there’s fruit and not get bogged down by dead branches and weeds.

In short, I need to get my focus off of me and more firmly onto Jesus so He can work in me. So I can be what He meant for me to be. It’s a life-long process if I understand it correctly.

I pray for the strength to make it through to the end.

P.S. I just skimmed my last entry. I realize I may be whining and contradicting myself or something . . . but this is where I find myself at this moment. >_<