Allowing God to Be God

Today's sermon at church was about the "portraits of God". What does he reveal to us about himself, his character. We discussed his holiness, his love and his sacrifice. What I took away from it for me personally is that God is so much bigger than all my perceived petty problems. If I would quit fighting change, quit trying to manipulate my circumstances, and let God be God and let him work out his purposes for me (trust him, even though I don't know why all this at work is happening to me), then maybe I could have a sense of peace and calm. I need to have God's peace and calm come over me. As it is right now, I'm hanging on too tightly to my burdens and I'm not allowing God to have them. He's bigger than any of the problems at my work. I don't need to worry, I can trust him with everything. When I feel overwhelmed at work, I have to trust God , take my time, and know he will help me do my best to get the work done. When, I ignore God, and kick him off his throne, I just make a mess of things, and I make myself an emotional mess too.

What's In Your Suitcase?

I don't recall that I've ever forgotten anything on a trip, in fact, I usually pack way more than I need. Oh my gosh, I'm such a control freak! I don't allow myself to be open to any surprises. Maybe that's why I'm struggling with everything at work right now. So much extra work is being thrown at me, but it's all new and so much of it I don't know how to do. Do you know anyone who says they love change? They're liars. I hate change. I cope with it by wrestling it, until it becomes routine. Then when it changes again I cry and moan and complain until I wrestle it again into a routine. Back to what's in your suitcase, I'm actually guilty of the other crime, and that is packing more stuff than I need. Being a control freak, I want to be ready for anything. I always pack my blue platypus for overseas trips. Don't ask me why, it's just something I have always done. He goes in my suitcase when I go on a plane. I don't need to take him on car trips however. Along with blue platypus, I'll pack too much underwear, too many socks, a lot of aspirin, dramamine, CD's clothes. Okay, maybe there was one time when I spent a week in Rome and I packed only three pairs of pants. Seemed like plenty until I went for a ride on a scooter with my friend on a rainy night. My buff colored pants got splattered with all manner of Roman mud and dirt. That left me with only two pairs of pants that were also ready to dance around by themselves, but their color hid the dirt better. On that trip I wished that I had at least one more pair of pants with me. What's the moral? Rome is a dirty city? No. More importantly, how did I react? Well, I wore my other "not so clean" pants home. I was only there a week. No big deal. I could deal with it for that short amount of time. What's the big picture with my job? I've been there eight years. It's been a likeable job up until now. Do have the stamina to stick it out until things change again? Will things get any better? Can I be patient enough to see things through? Certainly I'm not the only one experiencing highly unpleasant conditions and more work than I can do. My boss said, I have to be patient. At the first sign of hardship, I want to give up and run. Maybe that's not the wisest idea. I can't control what is happening at work. I can only control me and my reactions and attitudes. (Ugh, so sorry for the cliche, but it's true, right?). It's easy to write on paper, and it's easy to say. How to implement it into my brain? Control freak and negative attitude be gone!

Why Is it so Hard to De-Clutter?

I go in fits and spurts. I go through phases where I hang on to everything, grocery receipts, church bulletins, junk mail, empty tooth paste tubes, empty lotion bottles, tiny slivers of soap, socks with holes, dead batteries, (maybe they'll come back to life?), plastic bags, old jewelry, old perfume bottles, empty cleaning supplies, jelly jars, a plethora of house hold stuff. I'll accumulate until I'm bursting at the seams. Then as the clutter overtakes my house, so it overtakes my mind to the point where I feel messy, dirty, not organized, I can't think straight. When my urge to purge hits me, there's no stopping me until I throw everything out, or at least put it in its place. Generally, I like being neat. But for some reason I do have a problem accumulating books, notebooks, papers, journals, drawing journals and sketch pads, newspapers, magazines, buckets of drawing utensils, etc. There's no way I want to throw that stuff out. I want to have it near me so I can refer to it at any time. Those things are my comfort and my friends. Still, I need a bigger house for all this stuff. What's really the problem in not throwing out the household items? Fear of no income, fear of job loss, fear that I won't be able to buy more of these tiems so I hoard the empties hoping to salvage whatever is left. I have cut open toothpaste tubes and scraped my toothbrush on the inside, just to get the last tiny bit of paste. Is my extreme hoarding a result of the bad economy? I'm not so sure. I think I've been this way for a long time. But then I get a paycheck and voila! I can go out and buy what I need. When I come home I go into a cleaning fit and throw out all the empties. Then store them all up, until the cycle needs to start again.