This man

I traveled to Southern California to go to a symposium for my job. What an excellent time of learning and reshaping my ideas on how to help the students and the host parents in their separate but similar journeys.  The fly in this ointment was that I traveled by plane and for me, that is my specific and annoying fear. I can do, snakes, heights, tight places and overcrowded elevators...but flying...I become stupid. This man knows me well, took a week off of work and accompanied me to this symposium just so I had a rock in the storm of my fear. I am ashamed and frustrated that this is my reality and for the life of me have to figure this out but I am so thankful for his man who does not seem to be afraid of anything...well, maybe spiders but he kills them.
The flights were calm, uneventful but you would never know this by looking at me. On one portion, landing in Portland the weather channel told me we were going to fly right into storms. A half hour before landing, I was gripping Scott's legs and doing my breathing exercises. There was no turbulence at the time, I was just preparing.
 How sad is that...because the reality was that it was really the smoothest landing of all the landings...and there were 6 of them.
I think I live in a lot anticipatory anxiety. Wait...isn't that what worry is...an anticipation of what may happen but usually does not. We are preparing for turbulence when it is smooth sailing...as if my death grip on Scott's leg would alleviate the fear or even the turbulence.
We are not to worry...fear not fear not fear not fear not fear not....
Now when the reality of the storm is at hand...ie: Sandy, accident, bad news....we can in reality do things to make a difference when it is real not imagined.
 It all comes...we should enjoy the ride when its turbulence free...bumpy comes.

Useless purpose

Remember how short my life is. You have created all people for such a useless purpose. Psalm 89:47

We are like the grass of the field, here today and gone tomorrow...

Are you discouraged yet?  I can imagine the verse from Psalm 89 isn't used for many sermons or picture captions. I am sure if this verse was someones favorite life verse we would wonder at the mental health of this tortured soul.  This Psalm is a strange one, it is so full of the power of God, His faithfulness, His strenght, His goodness, His Might, His Rightness and near the end...it seems that Ethan the Ezrahite. after extolling the wonders of God and virtues of David looks at his own life and wonders quickly...who am I anyway?  I love that about scripture...it speaks what not only is true about God, but what is true about us. I can't be the only one who has wondered in the grand scheme of life how short it is...and how useless it seems.  What is amazing about these 10 words is that the blame for it all is on God. You have created all people for such a useless purpose..You, mighty God.  Not some, all people...all of us are created for such a useless purpose. I wonder what Ethan was thinking that one purpose was. 

I am going to chew on this verse for awhile...not because it is encouraging but maybe because it seems to be spot on in the babble of all the wonders of who we think we are or have been told we are.  A cold shower of reality...I wonder what joy God gets from these broken vessels that try so hard to carry around any bits of glory.
 It seems He does....I just wonder why when the truth is from our viewpoint is that we are useless.  Our view, though, isn't always the one that matters.

Canning Hotness

So...we have tomatoes all producing at the same time so Scott and I decide to make salsa and can it all.  All goes well until our last batch. Scott loves it spicy so we make two batches, one with hot and one mild.  We did not grow the necessary peppers so Scott went and purchased the add-ins and I just chopped and put in the mix, chopped and chopped and chopped. During the milieu of throwing whatever Scott purchased into the batch...something sinister was happening. I got a whiff of it when I tasted a bit and my  tongue burned.

"Scott, what king of peppers did you buy?"
"You, know...the normal non-hot kind you like."
" Really, because something tastes really hot."
"No, you are just sensitive."

So we continued and interestingly after washing everything and putting all the pots away, my hands began to burn. When I took my contacts out, I burned my eyes and 2 hours after I fell asleep I was awakened to burning, aching hands. I quickly put some coconut oil on my burning hands and was able to fall asleep.
I am a little afraid of what we have concocted in those recent salsas. I will not try them...I will watch Scott closely and see how flushed he becomes because we  have made something powerful.

My Niece says it well...

Eliminate From Your Routine

1. Any book, web site or television show that gets you thinking you’d be a lot happier if you could just have ____________;
2. Any food or drink that makes you feel sick after you consume it;
3. Any way of thinking that promotes you to favor ideas over people;
4. Any belief that causes you to see yourself as fundamentally worse or fundamentally better than anyone else.

Kara vanderBijl