But lately I've been thinking a lot about who I am - not just the roles I play - and more importantly, who I want to become... and expert spider killer is not it. :) I came across Jeremiah 17:5-8 the other day - not sure what pointed me to that passage - maybe it was referenced in a book? Anyways, I won't write it out here, as people who write long passages of Scripture out in blogs drive me crazy. :) Look it up.
The picture Jeremiah paints is of two trees - one - stunted, shriveled in a desert - the man who trusts in human strength and turns away from the Lord. The other, a tree tall, strong, with deep roots - the man whose trust is in the Lord - not worrying about long months of drought, still bearing fruit. I want to become that second tree - a beautiful, strong woman who has deep roots of trust in the Lord and doesn't get worried about the crazy circumstances of life (and you have your share of craziness when you're both a missionary and a mommy to little boys!)
But my faith is stunted when I look at the crazy circumstances around me and try to work out solutions on my own - failing to trust in the Lord but trusting my own failed, drunken logic.
- We found out Wednesday that the car we have been borrowing for the last 5 months is being sold - this weekend! If we can come up $5000 we can keep it... IF being the operative word. Have spent a lot of time worrying about this one. We have a good 10 supply orders plus a cross-town move this month - definitely will be needing a car.
- I'm worrying about putting Elijah in kindergarten this fall... because he already is reading. They learn the ABC's in kindergarten... will he bored? Will it be a waste of money? Will he turn out to be a more creative, inquisitive, stronger charactered kid if I home school him or will he just be a weird home schooled kid? Will people think ill of me - I teach at the school but won't put my own kid in it? Will I have more ministry options with him at school - one less kid to take care of for a few hours each morning?
- I'm worried about our house payments - what if we don't get a renter and can't pay the mortgage? What if we use all our savings and then a huge disaster comes and we don't have any savings left? ...We don't even own a house yet and I'm still worried about this!!! (But, we are under contract for a great little house in Texas... another story for another time.)
- Caleb has gotten a nasty cold this week... not a huge deal, except that with it he's started showing symptoms of the amoeba he was dealing with a month ago... meaning that it was not totally taken care of with the medicine and has come back with his immune system down. Do we give him more powerful medicine that has really bad side effects?
I could go on and on... thoughts that fill my mind, keep me up at night, stunting my faith and turning my more into a shrub than a beautiful oak tree (passage doesn't say oak tree, but that's what I picture in my mind.) :)
I found this other verse the other day - Psalm 119:55 "I reflect at night on who you are, O Lord; therefore I obey your instructions." ...so to obey the Lord - to turn my worries over to him and trust Him, I shouldn't try harder or make a list of my worries or alleviate my fears with little "What's the worst thing that could happen?" exercises... I need to meditate on Christ. In studying His life, character, words, my mind will become more like His - my fears will rest on Him and my faith - and roots - will be deepened.
