7 QT’s The 40th Friday of Lent

1.

I haven’t really ever considered how different writing for Patheos is from just writing on my own little unknown blog. People who read my writing when I first started blogging knew what my posts were going to be like since my blog’s name was Ramblings of a Crazy Face. I changed that name when I came over to Patheos and I guess that means that now people expect me to make “cogent arguments”. Well, I hate to break it to ya’ll, but I am still rambling like a crazy face because that is how I roll. If you want a cogent argument, then I will be happy to email copies of my Philosophy papers. Here though, my cogent argument is that all human beings have dignity. I know that is difficult to face at times, I really do. I have a hard time with it myself when I hear Trump’s voice, but there is nothing I can do about it. God made him in His Image, just like everyone else.

2.

I don’t know if I have whined enough about how much I suck at Lent. Today is Friday and it’s Lent. These are my struggles today: get caught up on homework (which has been needing to get done all week and why I am writing, because I am procrastinating doing my homework. It all makes sense now huh?), not watch Grey’s Anatomy On Demand without my husband and kids and not eat meat. I will likely fail at one of these things. I have already failed at Lent. We are halfway through and I have not worked out once, gone to confession and I’m glued to Social Media. Not only that, but I am now addicted to Snapchat. Fail.

3.

I am pretty sure that God is teaching me something though. I have had this idea that I had to be perfect before ever claiming to be in a relationship with God. If I had failed at Lent a few years ago, I wouldn’t even try to pray because I was sure that God was sitting there going “Oh, now you want to talk to me? Why don’t you just be a perfect saint first?” but now I know that isn’t how God works. He loves us no matter how much we fail. I am almost convinced that He loves me even more because I am such a failure, not because He doesn’t care that I fail, but because my failings make me pretty damn aware of how much I need Him. On my own I will land my butt in hell. I don’t know much, but I know for sure that I do not ever want to be separated from God. That’s why I go to confession even when I doubt most things, because I do not ever doubt God exists.

4.

I had a Kanye West sized meltdown on Sunday. It was a very emotional weekend with the birth of my second grandchild and by Sunday I was exhausted, behind on work, my car needs a new motor, and everything just seems so hard. In the middle of my meltdown I wondered if I really believed that God was on my side and I knew that I did, but for a few minutes I wished that I didn’t know. If I didn’t know then I could just walk away. I could quit this ridiculous war with evil and just go with the flow. It’s much easier than going upstream. Then I thought about Jesus in the desert and how He was tempted to walk away too. When the devil said “If you worship me, I will give you all this” (Matthew 4:9), what he was saying is “walk away from what God has called You to do, it will be so much easier”.  Lent is our desert and the evil one knows it. He tempts us over and over to walk away, to deny the dignity of the human person and to worship him. The only thing that I can bring myself to do is to hold on to Jesus with everything that I have and beg Him to not let me go.

5.

I am getting better at suffering. I know it seems like I am not because I complain a lot, but hey! I said I was getting better about suffering, not that I am getting better at complaining. At the beginning of this Lent I told someone that I felt like I should really get a pass on all this suffering. I was raped and molested when I was 5 years old, call me crazy but I think that is enough suffering for one lifetime. I have been talking (and by “talking”, I really mean, complaining) to God about it and I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that I can do is accept it. Accept it and be joyful about it. I often worry about what people will think about me if I complain, if I talk about it, if I express myself or if I am representing Jesus well. The truth is that I can’t really worry about all that. There is no way ever that I can write or speak in a way that will make everyone happy. The one thing that I’ve learned from blogging is that someone will always have something to say about everything. Everyone has an opinion and WiFi and a keyboard gives them the power to let everyone know about it. Hell, that is basically what blogging is. So, I can only accept what life throws at me and be happy about it because whatever happens, God has seen fit to teach me something from it.

6.

My new grand-baby is adorable. My oldest grand-daughter is a great big sister and is so in love it’s the most amazing thing to watch. I wish I could share a picture with ya’ll, but I haven’t figured out how to make sure people can’t steal my pictures yet. I don’t want my grandchildren plastered on memes all over the world wide web. I would have to cut someone.

7.

This post was a bit more depressing that I expected it to be, but guys, it’s Lent. It’s not really a time of parties and streamers. But here’s a cat video for you to lift your spirits anyway.

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