Monday

I had a completely different sentiment to write about.  When I have an idea for a post, I usually write a draft.  I keep the draft and look at it to see which draft is more fitting for the day.  Some of the drafts talk about what will happen tomorrow or yesterday.  These drafts take precedence over other drafts.  I had been thinking about this particular Monday. Today is the first real Monday of my decompression week.  Yes, there are things that I need to do.  I was planning on doing none of them.  My plan was to pick up a book that calls to my heart, The Overdue Life of Amy Byler.  It is at this moment, overdue so I thought it apropos to read it right away.  I have another book waiting in the wings and then maybe I will be ready to finish the Darkest Minds series.  My plan was to pay bills when I get around to it and make a shopping list.  I was going to wash clothes and then look to see what I really need to do.  I wanted to lay in bed and just lay there. 

Well, I was wrong.  Today turns out to have a lot of things calling.  I need to go to work to drop off a Birthday Present for Esther as well as pick up some things from the office.  Today I need to look at some research and see what other things I need to do before next week's Summer Arts Festival Total Take Over.  One week each June, my church has a Summer Art Festival which is more like Vacation Bible School.  I have been volunteering for SAF for every year I have been attending Trinity Bible Church with the exception of last year.  My son is a youth volunteer and this is my daughter's last year to attend before she herself is in Youth.  I wish I had the time to mourn my children's transition into adolescence.  For those of you who are moms of little ones, it goes by fast and I find it painful to look around and there are no more little ones in the house.  Maybe I'm a softie who is over sentimental but WARNING there is some pain there, at least there is for me. 

Back to today, SAF is exhausting and it will take the whole week out of the month.  My true rest Monday will be the Monday after this June 17th.  I will lay in bed and not get out until it is time for Bible Study.  It is a busy month and today I woke up understanding that I am already behind schedule.  I tell myself, "Don't take out any more books to read.  Don't make any more plans to meet up with people.  You have a lot of stuff to do."  I hear a little voice.  It is so small but it is all I hear.  Yes, I'm crazy, just go with it!!! 

The voice asks me what I wanted to do when I was younger.  I have always wanted to write.  Even when I was busy wishing to be a princess, I wanted to write.  In eighth grade, I wanted to be a child psychologist.  In high school, I wanted to be an English teacher to at risk youth.  In college, I wanted to be an accountant, a writer, and a professor.  I have been almost every single thing I have ever wanted.  I have one or two things that I have yet to try.  I think about the possibilities.  Today, I am allowing myself to dream of being and doing more, even today when I'm tired and cranky that I need to do stuff I didn't want to do.  Don't laugh but I recently discovered that I like airports.  I do!  I need to understand why I like them.  I would like to travel and see places.  I met this man from Montana and I didn't even really know where it was on the map.  It is a cold place I hear.  It is up north and there is a famous national park there.  I look at the pictures and I think that I would like to go there.  I have a friend that has me wondering what Alaska is like.  Have I forgotten what it was like to dream?

Today I am meditating on James 4.  I can't even say anything because there is a lot going on in that chapter and the whole thing is interconnected.  But, maybe I need to ask God where He wants me to go... and maybe this is the Monday to do it. 

James 4 New King James Version (NKJV)

Pride Promotes Strife

4 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

Humility Cures Worldliness

7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Do Not Judge a Brother

11 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

Do Not Boast About Tomorrow

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin