It’s Time…Storing Up Treasures Part One

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.  ~Matthew 6:19

Where my treasure is…there will my heart be also.

And where my heart is, THAT is where my attention lies. This makes perfect sense.

There is something stirring in my soul. I haven’t been able to pin it down until this morning. I am near tears as I write. It has been a succession of little happenings this morning.

First, I read Alison May’s Brocante Home post in which she speaks of her woes and I felt so small. Alison relates, “Today my little one is at home. It’s an odd day. One tinged with the mild resentment of the working Mummy…” I am a working Mummy filled and overflowing with resentment and for months and especially recently I have several times made the statement at work “I just really don’t want to be here”. And I meant it.

But I am very grateful for my job. I LOVE my job. I bless my job and all my very weird co-workers. I do want to be here. But I’d rather be at home with my family homeschooling Little Miss ASIJ. Fixing my house just so so in the early day hours when I have so much energy. I want Adventure. Magic. Awesome. And I want it the way I want it!

I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a stay at home Mom. I envy those who are afforded the luxury of that dream. But my envy has become something of a heaviness lately that I just can’t seem to shake.  I’ve always had to work. (Except for 2 short years when I stayed home with Little Miss ASIJ. Those were the happiest days of my life.) I’ve always set my dream aside to make sure everybody else got what they wanted or needed. Yes, I’d like a little cheese with that whine. Oh waaah waaaah waaaah. Enough already.

And then the sentence of Alison’s that broke my heart “It has been a year and one day since my world fell apart.” Oh Alison, I am hugging you in my heart sweet lady. My life is SO good, how can I ever whine?

This morning in the truck on the way to work, I reminded myself of what I say to people all the time, “You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

I AM EXACTLY WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE.  ~ME

Then a little while ago I saw a picture on another of my favorite places on the internet  (in)courage

I have so much stuff. I’m embarrassed and ashamed that I live with so much and some live with so little.

Now I know it’s time to get busy. It’s time to make a difference. It’s time to start changing ME so that I create a little butterfly effect which can and will ripple in places and in ways that I can’t even begin to imagine.

It’s time.

It’s time for me to create space in my home.

It’s time for me to create space in my heart.

So how can I tie all this together? How can I be exactly where I’m supposed to be but so NOT doing what I’m supposed to be doing? Gosh, can you see why I feel like such a failure? Sometimes I feel like such a fake. I know there’s a purpose to this life. I know there’s so much more I’m supposed to be doing. And yet I do nothing. One day just fades into the next.

It’s been going on for some time now…this stirring in my soul. I think I have been preparing, so I can’t really fault myself. Maybe I really am right where I’m supposed to be so that my heart and soul are ready.

For so long now I have been so confused about spiritual matters. The jury’s still out on that – I am letting God just work on my heart and see what develops. I’m not pushing it. But is it time that I finally let God heal up my broken heart and walk back into the life I grew up knowing and always loved until I let MANKIND mess it up for me? Is it time I finally say “enough is enough”? Maybe so.

Maybe this is part of the preparing. Part of the purifying.

Good grief it’s taken long enough.

Friendship

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

~Thomas Jefferson

Saturday Morning Joy

These are the days to remember. Each ordinary day. Even the most mundane routine laden day has some kind of JOY and WONDER in it! Sometimes we just have to dig a little to find it.

In August, I participated, ever so lightly, in Hanna Marcotti’s Joy Up.

Oh what a blessing Hannah is. Joy oozes from Hannah. Everything she writes is wondrous to me. Can you tell I love Hannah just a little bit? Now I am organizing all the precious emails from Hannah and starting over. Another month of Joy. Each day something new.

Actually I plan to live the rest of my life with Joy as my intention.

Love as my motivation.

Peace as my resting place.

I have used every excuse in the book not to follow my heart. I want to write…but find my words lacking. I don’t have a good enough camera for blogging – all I have is my cell phone camera. And on and on the excuses go. But I’m setting the excuses aside. I’m just letting go. Simple as that. Now on to finding JOY wherever my heart may lead. Just letting it happen. Treading lightly as I go.

My words aren’t lofty. I ramble, sometimes I don’t make sense. My pictures aren’t high quality (or really much quality at all.) And I am the most amateur of photographers.

But you get the idea – the wonder is still there!

Besides, is there even anyone here but me? I’m ok with me…so all is well.

Hannah and all the Joy Uppers comprise the tribe that I want to belong to. These women are beautiful. Gorgeous really. Words can’t describe how they’ve make me feel. Since their intention (and mine) has been JOY, then it’s ever so easy to find joy in their faces, in their smiles. in each and every word they write. They constantly uplift, encourage, whatever it takes to get you out of your slump and on to living life as it is meant to be lived. This miraculous, wonderous, joyous life

~

It’s so much easier to find Joy all around me now. Just this morning I basked in the wonder of the birds singing in my own backyard. A beautiful sound of nature right outside my door. Backyard Joy.

I found evidence of summer hanging on in my neighbor’s yard. Summer flowery Joy.

Fall is just around the corner. My absolute favorite season. Fall Joy.

Welcome to my home. My world. My JOY!

I Don’t Know How To Pray

I mean, I REALLY don’t know how to pray. I am intimidated before God.

I was a preacher’s wife for 10 years. I should know how to pray. If ever called on to pray out loud IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, I shut down even worse.  I start to shake, my eyelids start jumping uncontrollably, I start to sweat. I swear I almost faint.

When I tell people I will pray for them…I really do. Just not out loud. I pray silently to myself in my heart or in my head. Anywhere but out loud.

To help me learn to pray, I am writing down my prayers in a prayer journal and reading them OUTLOUD. But when I am alone. Outside on the patio. Just me and God. That should be good enough, shouldn’t it?

I’m only starting today so we’ll see how this goes.

And I was reminded this morning that I had a dream after asking God “How can I improve my memory and keep my mind young and active?” In the dream God had told me a good way to do this was to memorize scripture.

So my prayer journal will be my Prayer and Bible Memory Journal.

Why does something so simple seem so hard for me? Praying should come as natural to me as talking to my best friend.

Help me Father to learn to pray.