Down but not out.

It's been a rough couple of weeks and each time I have these hopes that the next week will be better but it doesn't quite seem to work out that way. And it's not even those bad days that you can laugh at later - the ones where the toddler spills the entire jar of milk and the preschooler helps you move laundry to the dryer which means you somehow miss your sweater and it ends up the size of a baby sock. No, those bads days I just get through knowing they'll be memories for when I'm rocking on my front porch telling stories to my grandkids.

These few weeks have just been an unveiling of the world's wrongs coming at me from all sides. Beloved babies I've been praying for going to be with Jesus. Other parent's not only completely failing to protect their children but inflicting the damage themselves. I'm having arguments with people over issues that to me seem so obvious I can't even come up with an argument at first - like is being a mother something that is exclusive to women? (It's a looonng story and I'm sure it will be told eventually but for now its too raw and I'm still entrenched in the fight). Or do principles matter if they don't effect you, can't you just "help" people and put away your values that are getting in the way? No people! Don't you understand what morals are? If I could just leave them at the door, they wouldn't be morals!

 I just want to walk away from it all and it some ways, I'm working on it, but I also know I can't. I'm in this world. This horrible awful sinful world.

But is that such a bad thing? Yes. And No. The sin is bad. It always is. But my response is not. Right now I'm feeling like I just want to wash all this evilness off of me. Like it's tainting me. Or to bring in another C.S. Lewis work, I need Aslan to scratch the scales off for me. But he already has. I am protected from it, He is the ruler and I'm glad I'm re-seeing the world as I should. I don't know if all Christians feel this way or maybe it's just a weakness of mine but 99% of the time I am aware of the fact that I am nothing without God and my life would be nothing without him but every once in a while I'll have a moments of jealously, when I see people in the world and it looks like they are having their cake and eating it too. But then I realize, that's not cake. That's crap. And I don't want part of it or the consequences that will inevitable result.

So I'm glad he gives me these moments that cause me to turn and run back to him, back to his shelter. Because I'm not alone. God's here. And he knows I'm struggling and has set in place plans to protect me. After I memorized James, He put 2 Peter in my mind. At first, I wasn't a fan. 2 Peter is really hard! And I'm not making very good progress. It's not a big book but its confusing and the sentences are long and complicated and while it certainly is inspirED, it hasn't always been very insprirING, at least to me. But NOW. Now, I see exactly why God has me working on it. It's like a balm to my soul. I've have the C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy in my to read pile for years now but this all happens right as I pick up "That Hideous Strength." While I won't pretend to understand everything he's saying in it, I do find it quite encouraging at the moment. As is the hymn I "just happened" to pick out for this month last fall.

This is my Father's world.

O Let me ne'er forget

that though the wrong seems oft so strong, 

God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father's world:

why should my heart be sad?

The Lord is Kind; let the heavens ring!

God reigns; let the earth be glad!