Musings

My life seems to be filled with frustration of late. So much to do, so little time.

Just when I determine to be more task-oriented, I get phone calls or run into people and have conversations that are undoubtedly divine appointments, but nevertheless sidetrack me from “important” things I have to do. But just about the time I decide that people and relationships are most important, some really big mess occurs or I look around and see three dozen tasks screaming for my attention. (Totally insignificant stuff, of course, like laundry and meals and grading school papers …)

Thanksgiving is this week, and I haven’t yet begun to cook. Discovered today that I need to make another trip to the commissary tomorrow to buy a bigger turkey. (Explain to me how fewer guests makes for needing more meat …) After that comes preparation for the Christmas and other holidays (our family also celebrates Hanukkah), and I must get started on the next batch of ballet costumes (to be done by January).

Oh, and the toe is definitely broken. My chiropractor did x-rays at the 2-week mark, then I waited another week before seeing an orthopedic doctor, who gave me tape and a boot. (After showing me how to tape it properly, of course.) It was getting better, but I seem to have re-injured it over the weekend, which means not only soreness in the toe itself, but aches and cramping in the ankle and calf if I don’t sit and put my feet up often enough. Even less getting done …

A nagging little voice from a well-meaning writing friend chatters in the back of my head, reminding me that if I don’t keep up my writing, I’ll stagnate or lose my edge. So I try to collect my thoughts enough to compose at least a blog post—sometimes I even finish one, or nearly so—but when I go back to reread what I’ve written, it’s nothing but drivel to me. (I have two such posts-in-waiting on historical musings, and neither says what I want them to.)

And research is going more slowly than ever. At this rate, I won’t even have twenty-five pages written in time for the Genesis contest.

I keep asking the Lord when and how He intends me to fulfill my calling as a writer and still not shirk my duty as a wife and mother … I keep hearing, just be obedient.

I’m trying. Really. But it’s sooo frustrating to feel that nothing—ever—quite—gets finished.

And yet I see His hand everywhere. Full-scale revival broke out at my church last night, in response to the need for immediate prayer for one of our members having a family crisis—and in the midst of my own prayers for the situation, the Lord gave me a word of consolation for where I’m at in both my mothering and writing. This was doubled—no, more than that—when after church I took my oldest daughter to a concert featuring her favorite Christian band, BarlowGirl. One of the numbers was this worship song:

All of You is more than enough for
All of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You
Is more than enough

(Words by Chris Tomlin)

It’s nothing that I don’t already know. But that reminder once again, as His Spirit breathed into mine, that for any need I possibly have—and my thirsts and needs seem endless—that He truly is enough. Sometimes He meets those needs through another—in an encouraging word or deed by a fellow believer—and sometimes He meets it directly, with Himself, in an intangible outpouring of love. Ultimately, all blessings come from His hand.

I wish I could stay there, in those moments of complete surrender and worship last night, where I laid down my struggles and poured out my heart to the Lord. But the journey requires going on into the next moments, the next days, the next task.

Lord, keep making me strong enough to stay the course. I know You are enough. Help me rest in that.