Anne Blathers About Her Life and God as Usual

There's a big dark grey cloud threatening me as I sit here, catching up on a pile of email and trying to think through my week. The children, who cleaned the house so well on Saturday, have now completely dismantled it, Matt has lost his wallet, and I have lost a precious and important piece of paper. While looking for the wallet I found my hair cutting sissors, and a sock I really love, but that was all, tragically. Being tired of the search, Matt is about to start digging up a new portion of the lawn. I don't like where my little table is settled and so, like a clever man, he going to make a new place for it. All the stones from one place, hopefully, will be carefully gathered and moved to another place, and then I will be really happy.

Just kidding, moving the table won't really fill the gaping hole in my soul that should only be filled by God, but maybe it will distract me into thinking I'm happy for a few minutes.

As usual the weekend was extremely busy. Meetings, church, a child who is trying to convince us all the time that she is unwell, but then, when she thinks your eyes are averted, can be caught eating buckets of chocolate or running around without any trouble at all. “Does your heart hurt?” I ask, “or your tummy?” She considers for a long time, trying to measure up what she can get either way, calculating, narrowing her eyes before answering. “If its your tummy,” I say, “then you should lie real quiet in your bed and certainly not play minecraft or anything. If its your heart, then you should pray.” Turns out neither her heart nor her tummy are really ailing her. She just doesn't want to do any work or eat any food or do anything at all that doesn't suit her at just that moment. Plus, she's jealous that her older sister really has been sick and allowed to lie around not eating. Its all about the birthweight–my new unified theory of mankind. The children that generally sicken were all born a pound and a half lighter than the ones who never catch anything. Life is so unfair.

Anway, busyness not withstanding, its possible that God's own going activity in our lives and in the church is really a good thing. As we quietly toil away on things that don't seem like they matter, God shows himself to be active and faithful. I buzz around making coffee and sweeping the floor, shouting at my children to stop shouting, making lists of ways that I can definitely fail, and God brings various people in to study, worship and be together. As I cry, 'O God, won't you just do something' he does a bunch of things, and then I am forced to feel sorry for doubting and having such dismal expectations.

Matt aimed his whole sermon at me, from what I can gather, reducing me to a tearful mass of hope and guilt. And then later he made a really delicious pork dinner which was exactly the right thing because some other people, not just me in other words, needed a glass of wine and a plate of pork, and then coffee afterwards. If you wanted to pray, like if you had a few minutes or anything, after praying for the important stuff like all the families of those that died in the recent airline catastrophe, and all the Christians who are being pushed out of Iraq, and all the missionaries who are exhausted and in need of encouragement and help, and a lot of other really important and pressing worries, then you could also pray for Good Shepherd's on going music search and discernment, and that my children will learn to close the back door without being screamed at.

{Matt explaining the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.}

So, there you are. The weekend is far gone. Who knows what disasters may befall us in the week ahead. Who besides God. He knows, of course, and has some kind of solution, and probably if we wait and keep busy with the moving of our stones, he will let us see what it is.