Brain Dump...

(WARNING: Rebecca is not her usual upbeat self in this posting... You were warned...)

My bloggy friend Julie occasionally does what she calls a brain dump... I think I need one today... I don't know that this will be a post so much as a page from an online journal, but I've got a ton of stuff weighing me down right now... Here goes...

First, I want to say I let the sin of being too busy take over again... I seem to fight this one a lot. The last three weeks have been absolutely full to the brim with activity and illness (on my part) and Sunday as I was standing in church watching these kids who I love so much worship in such a real and vulnerable way I realised I was just singing... I felt like the Lord was a million miles away. Where did he go? Oh, wait, it was once again me who moved... Aghhh... I was standing there and realised I had been putting serving him above him in my life. I had actually made an idol out of service... and if that wasn't bad enough... I have to add an again to that! I had spent very little time in prayer with him... I spent even less time in the word... And in my free time I was either on here or watching TV... All of these are a recipe for distance in my life. Monday night I was reading Ecclesiastes and the first few verses brought me to my knees... "“Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? " (Ecc 1:2-3 NIV) Without Christ as the central focus all I was doing was meaningless... I am not saying I wasn't doing good things and the kids and others weren't blessed by my labors... I am saying it was meaningless for me because I allowed these labors to distance me from the Lord. All I could do is sink to my knees and pray... I felt that amazing warmth flow through me as I prayed and confessed that you feel when you re-enter the presence of the Lord... That warm embrace that reminds you why we "toil" at all.

Wow, that last one was heavy... The next area my brain is heavy with is wedding stuff... I am having a blast planning this wedding with my girlies. Cate is extremely busy with work and such so, Sparky and I are doing most of the leg work. I am blessed that Cate trusts us completely to make her vision come to fruition, and so far we have had a lot of luck doing just that. The part that is freaking me out is the budget. We don't do debt... That is a dark road we have been down before, one we won't revisit. That sounds all kinds of noble until you take into account the fact that my husband's job is teaching at a small Christian High School... Maybe I didn't say that clearly enough... a small Christian high school... I think they have eleven students this year. We are grateful for this job and his pay, but if I told you how little he makes you would not believe me. This job has been a blessing and the Lord has stretched that tiny amount like loves and fishes so many times... We always say we are by far the richest poor people we know! (To clarify, my parents also get money from their insurance to offset the cost of having us live here, because it is in their interests to keep them at home as long as possible... That being said, they control that money and long story about "control issues" and my mother short, we do not have access to those funds.) So we are living off almost nothing and now paying for a wedding on it too... What we need right now is a miracle... We are asking for prayer that the Lord will open doors to odd jobs, etc to cover the costs of the the wedding. We know the Lord has plans to prosper each of us. We don't for a minute think the only ways he prospers us is financially but that is the area we need a miracle in right now. If you feel led, please pray for us in this.

That it... What is weighing my brain right now...



Thanks for listening,