Crying out for wisdom

   Sometimes life seems to get a bit messy.  It seems I am constantly pushing to be more organized with the "stuff" of life.  Honestly, I don't know where to put everything.  And I don't know what to hold on to and what to let go of.  

   Sometimes "things" overwhelm me.  Sometimes I want to put all tiny plastic objects (i.e. Legos) under lock and key!  I regularly purge the house and fill a plastic bag with things that are no longer being used.  What do we really need?!  I long to simplify, to put everything in it's proper place.  But what if you just don't have all the "proper places"?  My home never looks like the pictures in the magazines!  Sadly, sometimes decluttering means piling things up in my bedroom until I can find a place for them.  

   I look for solutions, for ideas to help me to manage.  I rearrange some things and experience the joy of finding the answer to the problem.  But then something in life changes and I find that I am right back where I started, struggling to make things work well again.

   

   When it comes to being a wife to my husband and a mother to my children, I also long for everything to be as I think it should be.  Is everything in its "proper place"?  Am I doing all I should be?  Am I praying like I should be?  What do I need to do more?  What do I need to do less? 

   And there are things I just don't have solutions for right now.  There are teen concerns and toddler concerns and everything in between. 

 And my heart begs for an answer "How should I handle this God?!"

"I've been trying to solve this on my own and I haven't even asked you what I should do about it."

  And admittedly, my faith feels a little weak.  I almost feel as though I'm reaching out my weak hand of faith to God and asking him for solutions to problems that I've been spending so much time trying to figure out how to handle.  And in the back of my mind, maybe there is this small part of me that thinks this is too simple.  Too easy to just ask and receive wisdom.  At the same time I wonder why I waited so long to ask and I also wonder when the answer will come.  And I cling to the promise that he will give me the wisdom I am asking for.  I cling, though the winds of uncertainty are blowing hard.  I have to believe he is able to help me.  These things are hard for me, but they are not hard for him.

If any of you lacks wisdom,

 let him ask God, 

who gives generously to all without reproach,

 and it will be given him.  

But let him ask in faith, 

with no doubting, 

for the one who doubts

is like a wave of the sea 

that is driven and tossed by the wind.

For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from

the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

James 1:5-8

  The magnitude of responsibility of being a parent overwhelms me sometimes.  And every parent has their strengths and weaknesses.  And it's the weaknesses that can be downright frightening. 

   It really hit me hard Sunday morning.  Since I was feeling ill, I would not be getting back to church as I had planned.  All of our family went except for Isabel and I.  I sat on the couch holding her and crying out all the frustrations of my heart to God.  Things I've been holding in.  Things I should have given to the One who knows all of the solutions.  I am so glad that I can just be utterly honest with him.  I don't have to say just the right spiritual things in just the right way.  Why do I sometimes feel like I have pull myself together before I approach him?  He knows where I'm at.  He knows there are parts of me that just feel like they are falling apart sometimes.  I can just pour my heart out to him.  All of my mess that I'm just not sure how to clean up.  All of it.  

He hears and he is able to help.  How can I ever doubt him?

"Hear my cry, O God,

listen to my prayer;

from the end of the earth I call to you

when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, 

for you have been my refuge..."

Psalm 61:1-3a