When I wake up in the morning, I don't like to get in a hurry about it. I like to lay in bed until my eyes can accept light and my brain can stay somewhat in focus...not for long, but enough to get a cup of coffee, take a couple of daily pills and get me to my computer. Even at that point, I am limited in brain power. I slowly warm up as I scan through the e-mail and sip the coffee and assess my upcoming day.
Recently, I finished a women's bible study that lasted 8 weeks and it will be until February before the next one starts, so my friend and I agreed to hold each other's feet to the fire and do a Bible study with each other via e-mail. We agreed that we would read the same information and then make comments on our thoughts and send it to each other. However, we cannot open the other one's e-mail until we have posted our own. Well, every morning, by the time I wake up, she has already posted her thoughts....and I'm still waking up...oh, talk about pressure. So, for three days, I diligently went immediately to the source, read the Bible passage and posted my thoughts. Hey...this isn't bad...I like this. It gets me started with some food for thought for the day. This is me....stepping out of my pattern, but, it's ok.
The grocery stores have been next to impossible for parking and shopping lately, so my DH suggested that if I did as he does when he does his Sam's shopping trip at 7 AM, that I would all but have the store to myself and I can safely park my new car a little closer than the end of the parking lot (far enough away that no one else would park next to me unless it was the only parking space left in the whole lot...not that I mind the extra steps...Lord knows, I need the exercise.) So, I thought...ok...I woke up at 7 AM this morning. Thought #1: "Oh, no! I'm already behind schedule." So I found my way to the closet, threw on some clothes (now this I don't normally do until I am wide awake and have at least 3 cups of coffee) and found my way to the kitchen. I figure I should at least eat a little breakfast and have "some" coffee. I got to the store..good parking place...short list...however, it two things on there that I wasn't sure where they were in the store - this is a "deal breaker" for a fast trip...it usually requires an "ask someone who might know." I did pretty well shopping and then ran into a dear friend...well, you know you have to stop and chat for a while...got my groceries and headed for home.
Since Wednesday is the day I usually take my mother-in-law shopping, I know there is a second trip to the store in my future. Plan is to pick her up after I run to the dentist office to have a couple of stitches removed. DH tells me that we have a "high wind" possibility for about the time I would be picking her up....now we imagine the wind grabbing the door of the new car and picking up my mother-in-law and flying her off to Kansas or something. Not me...I carry this extra weight for a reason. It keeps me grounded in high wind situations. I considered seeing if she would be interested in going earlier, but that would run us into the lunch hour, so I opted instead to do a few things here, like empty the dishwasher, and check my e-mail, post my rating on the book I just finished on Goodreads, and perhaps do my Bible study. You know, some of my "usual" morning routine things. Blogging has been on the back of my mind, but I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure, if I had anything significant to write about.
Briana's blog the other day, talked about remembering smells, and when I was finishing reading my book...somewhere near the end, was the following: "The aroma of fresh outdoors clung to him, reminding her of when she used to consider the scent of him equal to what integrity would smell like if it carried a fragrance, and in spite of herself, she took a deep breath. 'I can't figure out how to connect with forgiveness sometimes. I understand that when we forgive, we're saying what was done to us is not more powerful than God's ability to redeem us from it, and sometimes I'm able, and sometimes I just wish no one asked, no one made me face what's inside"
Forgiveness is a difficult thing for me to do. How do you forgive someone for scaring your memory with hurtful things? I find this concept a very helpful idea. How do you erase the scars even when you think you have forgiven someone? What is it that sparks the memory of those things?
Yesterday's study has food for thought on this:
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (New International Version, ©2010)
Praise to the God of All Comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
I hear you Cindy. I like to wake up s-l-o-w-l-y too. But I also like to read His word first thing so that it can roll around my heart and mind all day. I know that if I don't get crack'in (the bible open) first thing that it probably won't happen, in any meaningful sort of way anyway. Then, like yesterday when I got up too late to fill up before I had to rush off to work, the gears of life , like a bicycle in need of a tune up, just grind. The chain sort of skips off, and the tire is low. I'll get where I am going but it is just so much harder.
ReplyDeleteMy goal will continue to be: Get up, and fill up, with His word first thing so that when the wind blows, and I know it will, that bicycle will be tuned and ready to roll. Being in the word doesn't change my circumstances but it sure changes my attitude!