And It's Friday

Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday. Fatigue. Full of tea.

That about sums me up right now.

I want to dive in, want to write something lovely, give myself a pep talk and end in my prayer but I'm foggy. I hurt my calf muscle a while back and it hurts. My head is on the verge of a headache. I'm frustrated with my boss and I can't seem to get thoughts of her out of my head - thoughts and evil plots.

I do want to rise above it all. I want to want to. This is my holy place after all. My quiet morning sanctuary where I take everything off and sit here with my God. Well. At least I try to. This morning remains to be seen.

My Bible Project reading took me to the book of Numbers. The children of Israel and all of their complaining. God's anger. Moses's plea to God to remember his promise, his faithfulness and God does. But the people? Either they missed the memo or weren't invited to the meeting, which I totally understand. In any case they just keep on. Keep complaining, keep disobeying, keep doing their thing in spite of God's commands. Their disobedience is difficult to watch.

How can they not possibly get this? Didn't they just walk through the Red Sea? A wall of water would be convincing to me. At least I think so. Were they asleep in Egypt when the frogs, the locusts, the darkness, and the Egyptian firstborn went down? Haven't they seen a lot of God's power?

Perhaps the authors want us to be uncomfortable with their disobedience. It's so obvious it hurts. Takes one back to the Garden of Eden doesn't it? The choice? The first telling of a story where the disobedience is hard to watch. Adam and Eve had it all and yet they chose to go their own way.

I'm not sure how my musings about Numbers connects to my Friday fatigue and foggy frustration. My boss's obsessive perfectionism and how it makes me feel like an imbecile are still lurking. Nothing has changed in the last few minutes so where am I going?

"Send me your light and your faithful care,

let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy mountain,

to the place where you dwell." (Psalm 43)

Light and faithful care. Being in the place where you dwell.

Yes Lord. Yes.

"Then I will go to the altar of God,

to God, my joy and my delight.

I will praise you with the lyre,

O God, My God." (Psalm 43)

God. My joy. My delight. My God. May it be so today.

LORD. It's Valentine's Day.

BE MINE.

Remind me you are. You always are.

"Why my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise Him,

my Saviour and my God." (Psalm 43)

Numbers uses the word, 'grumbles', quite often. The people grumbled about manna, they grumbled about not having meat, they grumbled about the size of the people in the land God promised to give them. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

I get grumble. I'm very good at it and lately I've gotten in a lot of practice with it as I listen to the news surrounding the person who leads the country I live in. Grumbling leads nowhere good. Not to joy, not to solutions, not to peace. It does lead to downcast and disturbed - can confirm.

I am not a person who puts a shine on something not shiny. If it looks like, smells like, it must be ...., you know the phrase. What's the point of trying to turn something common, into something lovely? Talk about a road going nowhere. Truth is truth.

Yet.

Friday fatigue, fog and frustration can be what it is AND God can be faithful, can be my joy, my delight. Be Mine. He can also be worthy of my hope and my trust. Both can be true and so they are. And so I pray.

LORD,

May I live in the AND today? Can I know and feel one truth but walk and trust in the other? Of course I have no idea how this will come together, especially at work today, but for now can you please help me to believe it will? You seem to have enough light for my next step so I'm asking you for that just enough light. Lead on. Here's my hand. Take it. I'll take yours.

I do love you. My God. My Joy. My Delight.

Amen.

P.S. Shower my precious ones with love. Lead them deeper and deeper into you.