A time for… Wallowing?

Is is just me, or is that a really weird-looking word? I seriously had to go double-check it on dictionary.com just to make sure I wasn’t making it up.

So I’m done with the wallowing in self-pity thing. For the moment anyway. No guarantees on my mood, say, tomorrow. Or even later tonight for that matter. I’m a woman of many moods – or as I like to say, “spontaneous and unpredictable”. But it did help just to write down all the stuff rattling in my head and to get some sympathy and empathy from my blog friends. Thanks for that; you guys rock, by the way. Also, it helped to get a good night’s sleep. Or as good as I can get when my alarm is set for 6:13am. But probably the biggest help was Bible study. It’s hard to be all “poor poor me” when you’re reading like ten verses on the sovereignty of God and the focus verse for the week is Psalm 25:4-5:

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

And then as I was driving home from Bible study I was listening to Laura Ingraham on the radio. She had Scott Hamilton (the Olympic skater) on and they were talking about their personal experiences with cancer. And this thought enters my head – “What if this IS the good part?” What if this is as good as life gets… I mean seriously, I have a loving husband and four great kids – all of us healthy. What if next year something happened? What if cancer happened? For that matter, what if nothing happens… but just the normal ups and downs of life and I’m sitting there 10-15 years from now when my kids are grown and moved out and I look back and think “We had it really good then.” You know how it is, over time most of the bad stuff fades away and we tend to romanticize the past. But is that so bad? Because really, as bummed and frustrated as I am about some things, all in all we’re doing okay. Yes I want my girls to make some good friends and feel at home here; yes I’d like us to feel financially secure. But regardless, we have each other and even more than that, we have God. So if this is the “good” part then I shouldn’t waste it wallowing in self-pity. Or, as the Psalmist says, “Why so downcast O my soul?” (or in more modern terms: “Woman, get over yourself!!”) “Put your trust in God”.

And that was my own little epiphany. Not very new or original, but enough to get me out of my funk anyway. As my friend Amy said just the other day, it doesn’t really matter at this point if God led us here or not; We’re here and God isn’t going to abandon us now. I mean, we’re just minutes from the political center of the country, but even this place isn’t God-forsaken. (joke! I kid. I am a kidder.)

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On a completely different topic… I spent most of my day tinkering with my friend Rhonda’s blog. She’s living with her husband and ten kids in Cambodia so she doesn’t get much time to deal with blog administration, so I’m helping out. Anyway, now it’s chock full of photos and links and even a button! So if you are at all interested in Cambodia, or missionaries, or mothers of ten kids, or just want to see my awesome work (LOL) click on over and check it out, K?

Tags: epiphanies, God