I've got a lumpy rug.

I'm a happy person- generally speaking.  I like people and I love to be social.  I love having authentic relationships with people. I love so much about being with and around other people.  Love it! Do you know what I don't like?

Being vulnerable.  But I've learned that authentic relationships require vulnerability.  They require being humble, being bold, being thoughtful and being truthful and much much more.

They require being able to set aside our knee jerk reactions, our own sense of entitlement, and think in "We" instead of "me."  I feel blessed to have deep, authentic relationships with people.  But I don't do it right all the time.  There are times I sweep things under the rug and lately I realized my rug is getting lumpy.

So now I am doing the hard work required of authentic relationships (that I sometimes become complacent about doing.)  I have to pray for God's wisdom, I have to admit to wrongful doing and request forgiveness.  I have to have the hard conversations.   With God, with myself, with my friends.

Life is full of lumps and bumps, highs and lows, and the good and the bad.  The truth is the rug of life will always be bumpy and lumpy and messy.  Jesus tells us “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

It's my saving grace that He is in all of my mess, all of my lumps and bumps.  He can show me the way to walk, the way to talk, the way to be in every circumstance I find myself in and enduring.

The key is that I have to reach out to Him and let Him lead me.  I have to stop and breathe and remind myself that the first place I should run to when I am in trouble, or hurt, or have put my foot (ok-both feet) into my own mouth is to Him.  Jesus loves us with an all encompassing love.  He will put on us the path we need to be on.  It's rarely easy, but it's always right.

In my own journey of faith, I am finally figuring out that the issue of feeling like I'll never get it, is in fact, Faith in all of it's various stages.  God created me to feel that tension and I'm normal.  WHAT?
YES!  HOORAY!

I have a God size hole that only He can fill.  And He will fill it even when I miss the boat, or make a mess.  He fills me in my mess, He fills me in my glory, when I get it mostly all right.  He's just there.  Always.  Waiting for us to invite him into the minute details of our lives, to come into our living rooms and walk across our lumpy rugs.

I once bought a China cabinet on Craigslist.  I got it home and reached into a drawer and there was a verse written on it, one I find apt today:

The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.  Psalm 145:13

I can practice those things.  I'm just so thankful He does all of that perfectly and still comes to my messy house and loves me despite my lumpy rug.

Tired Trish, Crankypants

As I sit down to write this, I am so crabby. It happens so rarely, and I hate it.   I can feel it pumping off my body in waves.  Anger.  Irritation.  Annoyance.  Me- the ever so social, people needing person that I am, just wants to be left alone.

It's probably safer for everyone if they just did. 

I've given myself the "it's a choice you can choose a better mood" conversation and it didn't help.

I'm sure a lot of it is hormonal, a lot is just adrenaline/stress let down from Jason's accident ,  and probably a lot from the lack of sleep. 

Life.

Good days, bad days, scary days, awesome days, they're all there.  What do I take away from each day?  Am I learning anything?  Or am I just making it through? 

The days when I feel down or superbly cranky always make me think more philosophically.  I'm not sure why.  But they do. 

Our pastor at church always talks about how you can't give away what you don't have.  And you do give away what you do have.  So today, I feel like a failure, cause I've given away nothing good.  Just crabby, irritable thoughts.  On days like these, I am careful to watch what  I say and I spend a majority of the time being quiet (so rare for me) because I also know you can't take back words once spoken. 

This isn't a pity party or a plug for "there there's" just putting it out of my head.  Some days are just sucky.  Sometimes my optimism takes a rest, some days- I'm just not me.  And today is one of those days.

But the one thing I do know is that it will pass.  It always does.  In the middle of major trauma, I hold onto the hope that it will pass, on sad days, I know it will pass, crabby days- it will pass.  The world keeps spinning, life keeps happening and grace, oh, grace has been extended. 

If only it were later than 6:10 pm and I could just go to bed.  I'm tired of my own self.

All of that aside, today has made me think, in general (i.e. not on a crabby day) what do I give out? 

What do I harbor in my mind and heart that I give out each day?  I've made a promise to my very cranky self and I will ponder it and share the answer I come up with someday soon. 

Writing is usually an outlet for me and it almost always makes me feel better.  I'm still cranky, but I know that it will pass, I won't be Tired Trish, Crankypants for long.