Collection of thoughts

My mind has been filing up like the rain gauge hanging on our fencepost out front….Both are getting fuller and fuller!  I decided a few minutes ago to dump out my brain on paper, much like how I dump out the rain gauge after a hard rain to make sure it is ready for the next downpour, so here goes…

First of all, I have had glue on my mind.  I feel like I need a big bottle Elmer’s to keep my family together.  We go in different directions each morning and that trend can even continue on throughout the afternoon and evening hours.  Sometimes it makes me sad and I want the preschool days back.  I liked tents in the living room and Legos on the on the floor.  Those were the good old days, even though a Lego left unnoticed sure could cause some serious pain when stepped on with bare feet. 

I do not need glue just to hold us together physically in the same room or under the same roof, but to hold us together as something that resembles a family who loves, enjoys, and supports each other.  Maybe it is just the rainy weather and all of the extra togetherness we have had, but I feel like there is a dark cloud hanging over my home. After a day or two of doubt and wondering what is up, I recalled a truth.  I do have THE glue necessary to keep us all together….it is prayer.  The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing.  Fussing, criticizing, worrying, and planning will not change things or hold us together.  Prayer will.  It is glue!

My next thought of the week is a flashback.  One of my boys was an excellent climber.  He often crawled to the kitchen chair and used his upper body strength to hoist himself up.  Before I could say GET down, he was up on the table.   It was a toddler pull-up.

I vividly remember the day he climbed up to the tippy top of the playground at Chick-Fil-A in Dallas and freaked out because all he could see was net and plastic.  I tried to coax him down from the bottom. It did not work. I gracefully climbed on up to the next platform and had no luck.  I ended up at the top of the playground, exhausted, worn out, and totally grossed out.  Trust me, there are things up in the top of indoor playgrounds that adults are not meant to see and smell.

I had to retrieve him on several occasions and gladly will do it again, because the Lord has pulled me down and pulled me up on numerous occasions too.  He has never left me stranded or alone.  I love Psalms 139.  Verse 8 says “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

My last thought of the week is actually a phrase that flashed through my mind one morning over and over again.  I was praying for my family, my purpose, my home, my life, and all of that good junk.  It was like all of my pleading and petitioning merged into one desire, like how lanes on a busy highway merge into one. 

My one desire is this:  I just want to get it right, Lord.  Help me to get it right!  I want a life that is intentional.  I do not want to look up one day and think…I missed it, so my prayer is “Lord, help me get it right.” The idea here of “right” is different for us all, but it does begin the same…with Jesus.