Yesterday I stayed home except for a trip to Aunt Tod to take her two additional fans and to go to Wal-Mart to buy some larger fans for my condo. I gave Tod my two smaller fans because she doesn’t have any room for larger fans. While I was there, she told me she lost her purse at dialysis the day before, so I drove over there. They had it, so I brought it back and asked her to go through it and be sure everything was still in it. I also asked the ladies at Maple Creek not to let her take her purse to dialysis anymore… She doesn't need it, she’s getting forgetful, and the next time she leaves it, there may be more dire consequences – like theft!
I had planned to go see Della Pittman at Kings Manor for lunch (where I was Activity Director for a time three years ago), because they had a Fourth of July barbecue and she invited me to come over and reconnect. I decided to back out on it belatedly because of the delay in getting home after finding and returning Tod's missing purse, so will have to make it up to Della this coming Saturday or Sunday.
I was beating myself up yesterday because I was frustrated (surreptitiously, I hope!) when I visited and worked (too fast) with Aunt Tod. I am seldom that way with her or anyone else, but truly didn’t want to stay long there, as I was expecting to go have lunch with Della -- until the absence of Tod’s purse became known to me and the lunch idea went out the window.
Della called at 12:30 wondering where I was, saying the barbecue was half over and she wondered why I hadn't stopped by as I had said I would. I told her I had just gotten back inside the condo after tracking down Tod’s purse and that a Californian friend who had lost her husband a few months back had called saying she was in town and hoped to meet with me that afternoon and would call back to set a time if she could meet with me, so I didn’t feel good about leaving the phone to drive over for the last few minutes of the barbecue.
So, in a nutshell, I frustrated both of the people I had planned to bless on the 4th of July and now I will need to make it up to Della on the day I planned to fast and pray (7/7/07 between 7:07 a.m. and 7:07 p.m.)
I felt lousy about the way the day went except for watching TBN and 1776 while I waited for a phone call that never came in. I made too many commitments and ended up pretty much blowing all of them in some way by getting out of sorts and out of time because of a missing purse. (A missing purse is a Big Deal, or probably all of the rest of the day's scheduled events would have fallen right into place as planned, but I was hot and late and upset by the time I found and returned the purse, so elected to lie low rather than go to Kings Manor in an agitated frame of mind. The big new fan was just what I needed and desired most at that moment.)
It’s when stuff like this happens that I get down on myself. My heart wants to bless – my spirit wants to bless – but the slightest bump in the road, combined with hot temperatures, makes all my good intentions evaporate like water on a hot griddle. I just want to isolate when I feel this way. I feel good-for-nothing.
But I was right to cancel for the reasons I did and to re-schedule with Della. I was wrong to make Aunt Tod feel (if she did) that she needed extraordinary help in any way. It was not a big deal to drive across the street to inquire after her purse and return it to her care. I didn’t intend to make her think she was inconveniencing me (if I did). I just didn’t stay and bless her afterward – I just placed two fans, went on a quest for her purse, brought it to her, and then left, with a peck on the cheek, knowing I was late for the next engagement. That wasn’t right; I gave a perfunctory blessing. I was hot and wanted to go home and bless me with a huge fan and a cool cleansing shower by that time! I was miserable physically and emotionally by that time.
This has taught me that I need to be in the present from now on and not rush. I need to slow down and keep firmly in my mind that NOW is the only time I have in which to be a blessing. This may all be over tomorrow. I have to forgive myself and remember not to do it again…
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I’m putting off the convention appearance practice, except for some editing of the presentation. I don’t know if that’s wise or dumb, but I just don’t want to worry it like a bone, as I have in the past. I know what I want to say… I will say it and read some excerpts and be done. Then I will enjoy the rest of the weekend without stress, just being with people who want to be with me. This convention is about blessing, not stressing…
The temperature will be breaking records in the West today. I am NOT looking forward to August in Las Vegas, let me tell you. If the power grid goes down, we will fry – or live in the bathtubs, naked!
Here I am borrowing trouble already. How stupid is that?!
What is causing this negative mood in me the past couple of days? Heat? (Likely, yes!) I’m sitting outside myself observing it and trying to figure out what it is that has me so snarled. I’m NOT depressed, I’m NOT angry, I’m not overly stressed. It’s just the weirdest thing ever!
Pastor Braaten was talking about how God looks down on us from above and sees where we were, are and will be all at once. Perhaps that idea has placed me “above” myself (via the Holy Spirit) so that I can witness the effects that my choices make on other people. I have always been so self-contained (I’ve called myself at times a functional autistic, and may not be far off) and self-absorbed/directed– not in the way a narcissist is, but in the way young children are totally absorbed in what they are doing. Their “play” is real to them… they really live the lives of the princesses and horses and cowboys and Indians they are imagining…
In the present world where I live (which is fallen and dangeous) I'm shy and reticent (fearful); but in the ideal (God's Kingdom) world (which is where I feel I serve as an employee, writer, presenter and Christian) -- I'm functional and fabulous because He adopted me and I take great delight in pulling out every stop I can think of to make Him grin and not rue the day that He invited me into His family and blessed me with His eternal, fabulous inheritance!
The bottom line is this: We are all loved by God
beyond our present abilities to compehend it
and should be out dancing like David danced
(but I pray with our clothes on, unlike dear King David)!
(See what you are missing
by not being familiar with the Bible?
You think the Bible is boring? HAH!)
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I got Joel Siegel's book for a dollar at Amazon, used. It's terrific. It's called Lessons for Dylan, from Father to Son. Every father and mother ought to write a book like it to their children, but alas, not every parent has the enormous talent with a pen as did Joel Siegel. I am thoroughly enjoying it... which is why I took me so long this evening to get to this otherwise-depressing blog!
Parents, write that book! You don't have to be Joel Siegel. Your book will be a bestseller on your family. MAKE IT SO!
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