Dark Places

I went to a very dark place this weekend.  I hesitated to talk about it because, well, I suspect everyone goes there, but no one really wants to think/talk about it.  Anyway, sometimes I wonder why I'm here.  I mean why are any of us here?  What difference does it make if we're here or not?  What purpose do we serve?  Sometimes, it feels like I'm just going through the motions, working towards (or pretending to work towards) some future that never comes.  What difference does any of it all make?  Why bother?

I can't say that I have a good solution.  Most of the times, this feeling is the 800 lb gorilla that I shove in the corner until it goes away.  But at some level, it's always there.  Sometimes life seems quite pointless (I should digress and say this isn't a hey, I'm going out and shoot myself thing, just a  ... *shrugs* demotivational thing?).  I try to go back to G-d's word to see what the purpose is.  Do justice ... love mercy ... walk humbly with your G-d.  But really, do justice?  How?  My little part of the world is too little make much of a difference.  Love mercy?  Ok, fine, but again, to what end?  Walk humbly with G-d?  I wish I could say that this was enough, but I'm not even sure why He would want to.  I mean really, He's fully complete in and of Himself.  Why bother with us, who can do nothing but disappoint?  *shrugs*  I'm not realy that down, but sometimes nothing seems to make much sense.

Abundant Hope

OK, I'm going to warn you ahead of time that I came to this one in a really weird way (you are entering a scary place ... my mind).  As I was walking down the hallway at work, I looked over at a coworker that has struggled with her weight for years.  Since it always seems to circle back to me, I thought about my own frustrations with weight loss and kinda hoped to go into a coma for awhile and wake up skinny again.  (I warned you this was weird.)  Interestingly enough, though, my mind immediately dumped the idea - I would miss so much of my kids lives if were out of it (again, why I was mentally treating a coma as an actual option or potentially good idea, I'll never know).  That lead to some of the stress thoughts of yesterday, my kids being a major source of stress. 

And THAT lead to a realization that the flip side of stress is hope.  No matter how many times I've disappointed with something in life, there is always hope that the next time will be different ... better.  Like most people who struggle with their weight, I've been up and down, on diets, on exercise, etc. for years.  Yet I've never permanently reached the point where I say that's it, no more.  Oh sure, I have moments of giving up, but there's always that flicker of hope in the back of my mind that nudges me forward.  It's the same way with the kids.  One of the big stressors with my older girl is that despite being incredibly gifted intellectually, she simply forgets to record her homework, or she forgets to do it, or she does it and forgets to turn it in.  Needless to say, her grades have taken a beating because of this.  Yet each week starts with the hope that this is the week she'll figure it out.  It never seems to be an option for me to believe that she won't.  I read a passage that said "Hope is faith in the future tense."  I like that.  Here's to future tense faith!

Abundant Stress?

Somehow that wasn't what I had in mind.  But it does seem like the one area of my life I excel at.  I can create worries out of nothing.  It's almost like I'm afraid to let my guard down, that if I start relaxing and enjoying that things will turn to crap.  Kinda warped, huh?  I'm not sure, but I'm not thinking abudant stress is on the list.  Most of my stress comes from needless worrying.  On the plus side, I usually have several backup plans if things go wrong, but I spend so much time waiting for them to go wrong that I forget about enjoying the here and now.  I think one of the keys of the abundant life is living in the here and now.  Let today's worries be sufficient for today ..hmm, think I'm a bit of an overachiever on this one.  I mean I understand that worrying can't change the situation and that if the worst does happen, I'll deal with it.  Why can't I just enjoy today for today, though.  What am I really gaining by all this contingency planning?  Does it make me expect the worst, trying to plan for the worst?  Is there a happy medium between overplanning and stressing and thumbing your nose at tomorrow?  What is the proper amount of worry?  Does worry have any place in the abundant life?  I think it does but certainly not the seat of honor I seem to give it.  Yeah, yay me, I'm prepared ... too bad I forgot to enjoy the now worrying about the might be.

I think the abundant life is living in the now.  That doesn't mean there's no place for worry, but it should be twisted a bit into planning ahead.  Worry expects the worst.  Planning says bad things happen, but you can mitigate it somewhat (not avoid, mitigate).  You don't have to plan for EVERY eventuality - in fact you can't.  Trying to do the impossible is not part of the abundant life.  The abundant life has to be achievable, otherwise why would it be mentioned as one of G-d's promises?    If it's an impossible dream, it isn't much of a promise.

Happy 2012 - The Secret Word Is ...

I just went over to Jynx's blog and she spoke of a focus word or theme for the year.  It sounded like a pretty cool idea, and as I read through her list of possible words, one simple word popped into my mind:  abundant.  One of G-d's basic promises is that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.  But what does that mean?  How does abundant life differ from the life we live every day?  How can I experience His abundance?  How can this become a way of life, independent from circumstances?  What does abudant family life mean?  What would an abundant work life be like?  How about abundant physical life?  There are so many aspects to abundance - what would my life be like if I fully claimed the abundant life promised?