Dash It All

I've been on a pretty good kick about quietness and being still, trying to recover from years of living the fast paced stressful life, {at least this was my excuse}and I am gaining ground on this front too... but then I go to Sunday School last Sunday and Jesus pretty much shot down my whole quietness issues with His resurrection. See, when he rose from the dead, the earth could not be silent. It was loud and extreme and sudden; all things that make me think I have PTSD. However, Jesus being resurrected should make some noise in my life. I do believe finding quietness is a thing Jesus did and it is a good and healing and needed thing to do, but maybe I was taking it a bit too far?

 I don't know. But I do feel I am ready to stop preaching about quietness so much, at least to others. I guess what I am really saying is, yes, there are times a body needs quietness. But I am now a little more open to the fact that not everyone needs the same amounts of it and rarely at the same time. So if you need to be noisy and say a lot, I aim to do better at listening and not judge you for having to talk so much. Just maybe you noisy, loud, obnoxious to me people have a clearer understanding of the resurrection in your life. Also, hopefully soon I can join you. Or not. God might keep me here quietly recovering.

My thoughts have been dashed at many angles. Which is a good thing I think. Nothing like re reading material for your book project written at least four years ago to humble you down. And so I'm thinking if I have to fall back and regroup on all my material that's good for everybody right? Just think what strong opinions you have been saved from... and if I wait another four years to get it in print I might be out of wisdom to share at all after being brought low even more. So should I even finish the book? I will press on but much needs changing.

I have thoughts on 'women's  rights' and 'racism' and 'the news' but every time I go to share those thoughts, I feel so overwhelmed with the injustice of it all that my reaction is to say, "dash it all!" I do think that it is safe to say that on all counts of these subjects, much more prayer could be applied before I attempt to understand or break apart my assumptions. SO, I will wait and pray over these things in the meantime.

I've been thinking too about the educated, knowledgeable person. The one who is trained and good at a certain field but life's circumstances and responsibilities got in the way and now you have disappeared silently into the night, while the aggressive, go-getter's in life have taken over. You could've been their co-worker or employer who is taking a lot of credit, yet you humbly remain obscure for the sake of love and of friendship. Admirable. Not fair. I hope you don't get bitter while the 'bulldozers' around you praise themselves. If you love Jesus you can afford to stay out of the fray and remain unnoticed. Maybe that's what you want. It's life. There will always be Poohs and Tiggers. Sorry, I can't be more specific. But it does make me sad because maybe you have been Pooh Bear and never got your chance to bounce like Tigger.

Submission is another thing I can't explain well. I know that I have baggage associated with this word from people in my past abusing it. Or I did it myself. Anyway, its a kind of byword to me. I don't like it. It makes my skin crawl. Until I read Bible verses where it is used and they are beautiful verses with deep meaning about our loyalty to Christ. Ephesians 5:21, James 4:7, and Romans 10:3. Submission is a tool used in getting along with all those people you dub 'controlling' and 'narcissistic'. I know this to be true but am having a very hard time explaining how. To be perfectly clear, if you are living in submission to God's righteousness, controlling and narcissistic persons cannot touch you...and this is not the context I understood ever before.

Basically, I'll leave you with all I don't know and claim this as a very good spot. People that do all the things and know all the things and say all the things don't seem very humble or teachable to me. So I'll just bail out on this note. Dash it all if I know anything!