Spiritual PMS

Is there such a thing? If there is I think I might have it. Somehow I don't think the pharmacy sells an over-the-counter pill for it...

I'm going through a dry spell spiritually. God doesn't feel all that close and it seems like a far hike to get back. I'm having a hard time wanting to pray and when I do, my prayers seem to hit the ceiling and fall right back into my lap. Lately I've been involved in lots of meetings where I am forced to pray out loud. I used to not mind that so much. Now I loathe it. I can't think of anything to say and everything feels so disjointed. Even my body feels weird...my eyes are closed but I feel like everything is spinning. I don't like it.

One of my goals this year was to read through the Bible. I did really well for january and february. I haven't touched my Bible much since then and I know it is a root cause of the spiritual desert I find myself in. But now I'm so far behind I feel like I can't catch up.

This just leaves me so frustrated. I'm working in a church for goodness sake...I'm technically a pastor right now! Pastors aren't supposed to be in a spiritual desert. The mountain just looks so steep...






I am just so grouchy today.

Mmm, ironic?

So God has funny timing. You know how I just posted about how Manitoba has become home? Well last weekend my parents resigned at the church in Selkirk. I don't know where they're going (neither do they) but there is of course the possibility that they won't stay in Manitoba. This place is home, but will it still be home when I'm the only one left here?

Feels Like Home to Me

I've lived in Manitoba for nearly nine years now (including the two years I spent at CBC). Before that I lived in Alberta for fifteen years; thirteen of the those years were spent on the very farm my father grew up on. The last two years were spent living in the house my grandma lived in for as long as I can remember...it was my second home in a variety of ways.

Moving to Manitoba wasn't easy. I wanted to stay in Coaldale, I wanted to keep my friends, I wanted to graduate from the same high school that my dad, sister and brother all graduated from. I wanted to stay at home. For these reasons and more, I refused to allow Manitoba to become home. I bided my time, knowing that I had to endure three years of high school before I could move to BC for Bible college and I had no intentions of returning to this "waste land" as I called it. Alas, financial pressures being what they are in life, and the economy being what it is in the west, I did return to Manitoba after Bible school. And still, Manitoba did not feel like home to me.

It's four years later, and just now am I beginning to be able to call Winnipeg "home." It's not that I think I will stay here forever, because I highly doubt I will, but I have a life here now. I have a church home where I am involved, appreciated and nurtured. I have extremely close friends in a variety of networks, many of whom I can't bear to be separated from for any length of time. I have a house (well, sort of). I finally have allowed myself to feel at home here.

So how come whenever I travel to Alberta my eyes fill with tears as soon as I enter the province? Why am I instantly enveloped in this comforting sense of really being home when I cross the border? Why do I still instinctively know that there is nothing like the Alberta sky? Why is west my favorite direction? Why do I have this hard knot in my stomach, like I'm going the wrong direction, that I'm leaving something extremely important behind that gets farther and farther away with each passing mile road as we head back to Manitoba?

I guess I'll always be an Alberta girl.

Hrmmm

I have three exams this week (for which I have just started studying today...) One exam is on preaching. Another is on my spirituality. The third is on counseling.

Is it just me or are these three of the least testable subjects around?

Self Soothing

Parents have to teach their babies to self-soothe at some point. The ones who don't learn to self-soothe usually cause their parents all kinds of grief, ie. waking them up multiple times in the night for comfort. They also generally grow up to become less well-adjusted adults. Self-soothing is an important life skill.

I think God has given us copious self-soothing tools in Scripture. I have forgotten this lately and have simply allowed myself to feel increasingly oppressed by the amount of anger and hurt there remains to be healed.

" But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of the anguish in my soul.

Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live.

Surely it was for my benfit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.

For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down in the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living - they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers and mothers tell their children about your faithfulness."

~ Isaiah 38:15-19

Sometimes I forget that I have the ability to self-soothe.

Punk'd

Props to the Meadowood boys. Triple props in fact.


Six months ago we Mapleridge girls decided it was time to bring back the old-school business of pranking. None of us had pranked since Bible school days and we were feeling the urge. The Meadowood house is a group of four of our closest male friends. They made for easy targets.


We knew they would be out of town one weekend. We convinced dear sweet Ben that we wanted to pull a prank on Garry only (this was not a lie at the time). So dear sweet Ben left us his house key. When we got inside we realized our original prank was not going to work so we had to come with plan B. So we turned their kitchen into a beach. Complete with an inflatable palm tree. And gold fish in a blow up pool. And in their kitchen sink. And we took a picture of us three on the beach and saved it as the desktop picture on every computer we could find. Oh and we had the Beach Boys CD blaring for when they got home. It was classic. This is what it looked like.







We have waited nervously for six months. I had visions of dead goldfish turning up in random places.


Tonight at 10:03 our doorbell rang. Alicia opened the door, quickly slammed it shut and said, "There are chickens at our door."



What?! Uh huh. Three chickens between our screen door and inside door. Alive. Wearing diapers. Pecking at the door. Pooping. Chickens.







Thankfully the culprits were still hanging around, watching and laughing at us as all three of us jumped off our balcony to get outside, because there was no way we were opening the door from the inside. They took the chickens away for us (I don't even want to think about what's going to happen to the poor things). But they left the poopy diapers. And a basket full of decorated eggs. And a CD of the Chicken Dance song.



Apparently Barbara foiled their original plan. We were all supposed to be gone this afternoon and the boys were going to break into our house, put poly down in our kitchen and leave the chickens in there. Which would have been extra hilarious. Alas, Barbara was home and thus saved us a different sort of mess.



Hilarious, cute prank. The kind we like. Good for more than a few laughs.

Disjointed conversations

This is a conversation I had tonight with Janessa. This is a mere sample of what happened over the course of the evening. If I had a gong, I would ring it.

Janessa: (trying to get comfortable on the couch, eventually wedging her foot between cushions which are now haphazardly strewn on the couch) "Ah, finally."

Me: (with one eye on the Calgary Flames game in the background) "Yeah, this....couch....sometimes is a...little.... "(trailing off)

Janessa: (long pause) Uh....

Me: "Yeah, that was the end of the sentance."

Janessa: (without missing a beat) "I kind of wish I was dating Joelle!"

Consider the gong rung.