I woke up this morning after a night's sleep of coughing, choking, and runny nose from allergies. As you can see from my blog title, I'm not from around here. North Carolinians have dubbed me a "yankee", but in fact I am from the midwest, not a true northerner.
My little sinuses apparently haven't grown accustomed to the pollen saturation that spring brings in the south. In my state of loathing, I've been considering other things that have plagued my mind...my lack of friends in my new life....the ever-struggling relationship with God. I keep trying to get back to "that place" or accept that I won't ever be at that place again and that that's okay. I try to start new with God and relate to Him as my new, more predictable, stable, and boring self in lieu of my old, unpredictable, soaring on waves, God's victim self. I have not learned how to live the Christian life when nothing exciting is going on, when I'm not "sacrificing" for God through missions work or desperately dependent on him to supply my needs when I had no husband to take care of me. Now that I have everything that I need, the eyes of my mind are clouded and I can't see God anymore. I think my husband has become my God...decorating the house...thinking about finishing the house....food....
I was actually reading my Bible this morning-the book of Philippians. This is blasphemous, but I've never really enjoyed the book of Philippians because it is so happy and I just can't grasp it. It is almost annoying to me. The only reason that I did read it is because it was part of my homework for the "Created to be His Help Meet" book that I'm going through. I'm in the chapter on being joyful-practicing being joyful. I don't know if any of you have ever felt this way, but I don't like feeling like I have to brainwash myself to do this whole Christian thing. This is one of my struggles with Christianity-sounds weak and lame-but it's so hard! I've come to the conclusion that my flesh is so beyond control, that the only way to fight it is to beat it into submission by fasting, to make my spirit easier to hear the things of God and my eyes more clear to see the spiritual realm of things. Oh, my old, dear friend the fast. You helped me so.
My revelation today was not about fasting though. I was reading my ever-joyful friend Philippians, and came across the old, cliche scripture that reads, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." And it hit me. When I read this scripture in times past, I immediately associated it with weakness, like, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength in this time when my dad died"....or, if you get sick, lose your job, are having issues in marriage, etc...I never thought about it the other way around. This scripture is apparently saying that He can give me the strength as a rich, blind, deaf, and spoiled brat to know Him. I have no physical need; I cannot get out of this worldly rut that I am in. I never thought that I would be where I am now. I thought I would be God's little victim forever, always in want, always able to relate to Him as my Savior in that sense. Now I find it nearly impossible, finding that I don't need Him anymore. But, I guess I do need Him. It's empty inside. I need Him to give me the faith to believe because I cannot muster it up on my own.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me-be a Christian in the midst of living an absolutely ordinary life.
