Unbreakable, High Maintenance Me

Sorry I have gotten off the blogger track the last couple of weeks. I don't know if I just didn't know how to follow up a good droppin' a deuce story or if I was totally bogged down between sinus congestion and VBS over the last week, but here we are blogless two weeks later. So, I have a story and two thoughts for you.

As mentioned above, we did Outrigger Island for VBS last week at our church. It was really so much fun. I helped out with the music, which means that Tina, Judy, and I got to learn tons of sign language and hula moves to go with all of the songs. It is the closest we Baptists get to interpretive dance. We had over 100 kids every night, and I really did just think it was way fun. There was a song we did, the tear-jerker if you will, called The Word. It was the slow song meant to bring tears to every parents eyes on Family night. There is a line in the song that says "Unbreakable, unshakable Word of God." Now, Abigail has been practicing the songs with me over the last few weeks, and although her preschool class learned much simpler songs, she kind of took a liking to the "big kid" songs more. And she has been walking around the house the last few days singing, "I'm breakable, I'm shakable. I'm breakable, I'm shakable." I thought it was pretty cute at first that she had mixed up the "un" with an "I'm." Then today it hit me, as I do like to find deep spiritual truths in the ditties my kid sings around the house. I am breakable. I am shakable. The song was pertaining to God's word, but when we reverse that truth, we have an equal truth that by ourselves, we are breakable, shakable, feeble sorts of people. It is only when we realize how shaky our own ground really is that we need to stand on the firm Rock of our God. There are days when I am just flat-out shaky. When I am broken, I am in my best place to trust and lean on God. When we find ourselves admitting "I'm breakable. I'm shakable" then I think God looks at us and says, "Good. Now you can learn that I am not." See? You can learn a lot from a VBS song re-worded into toddler-speak. Guess I need to be a little more like a child in that sense.

Now onto High Maintenance Me. My other lesson that smacked me in the face was when I was looking in the mirror yesterday. I have to put up a couple of scriptures on my mirror, where I tend to spend some of my most self-scrutinizing moments. One of the scriptures is:

I Peter 3:3-4 (NLT)
3 Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. 4 You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.

Over the last week, I have really been...how do you say "pffffffftttt", like the sound a balloon makes when it is letting out its air slowly....when it comes to my quiet time with God. I usually try to have my time while Abigail takes her nap in the afternoon. Yes, I can hear the comments of my sweet friends who I have shared my 8 a.m. desires with, to rise with the Lord and slowly sip coffee and meditate on His blessings for my day...hasn't happened yet. So for now, I am sticking with Abigail's nap time in the afternoon. The problem with that last week was that I was really not feeling well and had a head stuffed full of cotton or gak or some other cool toy you can buy at WalMart. And I was facing an evening of putting on my most enthusiastic face for the 100-some kids who were coming to "Wiki Wiki" with me. So in my best efforts to pull through the week, I napped in the afternoons. The problem is, I am no longer at a point where I can nap guilt-free. I always feel like I could be doing at least 10 other very responsible things, and even feeling sick does not seem to be my best excuse. Oh, but don't feel too bad for me as I can see you all getting ready to post your comments about how it is okay to let your body rest when you are sick. Because I had two different times last week of going shopping for a dress for my brother's wedding, which is still two months away. I gathered up my stuffy self, and found dire need for some reason to shop for a dress last week. Oh, and I found one, too, a pretty little dress for 20 bucks on clearance. But I digress...

The point is, as I was getting ready for bed yesterday and looked at the verse on my mirror, I realized that I spent more time in my two shopping trips combined to find that dress than I did in God's word. In making my spirit gentle and quiet. In making myself more beautiful inside. Yes, I do realize that I can scratch last week off my list as an err on the side of grace and move forward. But I do hope that my daily wish, even when I mess up here and there, is to work on the hidden person, the one that God sees more than His concern over me finding that dress. See why I keep that scripture there? Because even when I put it up there, I thought, well, it's still important to care about how you look. And it is. But not at the expense of that time being taken from God. It is more than just how I use my time, though that is usually my issue of the day. It is about caring about my spirit as much as my skin, hair, nails, and special occasion dresses (even at 70% off).

So, I am taking this breakable, shakable me to sit on the couch and spend time with God.