Hungry?

Here are a few more tidbits from Chef Elliot:

"All of the past, I believe, is a part of God's story of each child of His -- a mystery of love and sovereignty . . . never a hindrance to the task He has designed for us, but rather the very preparation. . . ."

The very parts I'd highlighted and underlined a decade ago are still the ones that strike me hardest today. This shows me I'm learning the same lessons again {sigh}. Is it true that ALL OUR PAST -- all the trials we've been through? -- will not HINDER us in the ministry He has planned for us?

Is it true that all those trials are our preparation?

Sometimes that feels true. And sometimes it feels as if those trials are weights on our feet, and black marks on our faces, that they hinder us.

Another little hymn in this book:

"Be quiet, why this anxious heed
About thy tangled ways?
God knows them all, He giveth speed,
And He allows delays."

He allows delays. We have occasionally seen Him give GREAT speed. We often see the delaying tactic also.

We are winding down our school year. My seniors are all done, exams and papers and all. My other students have a handful of days left. I'm taking things off my classroom walls, tidying up for the year's end. Stacking textbooks, finalizing grades. I'm organized at work.

Home is a different matter. Next Saturday a realtor will come look at the house. I know he will tell us to de-clutter. We have stacks of: books, papers, clothes, among other things.

This is the effect of work on me. I do my teaching work very well; I throw my energies into it. And my home-work suffers. The kitchen is messy, the house is cluttered, the cleaning is behind, the laundry climbs.

And those priorities are wrong. I know that my paycheck is helpful. Helpful to what? Having a home -- but the home is the first priority, or else the work wouldn't be needed. And somebody needs to tend to the home.

This is one of many reasons that I submitted my resignation when Adam lost his job. It was difficult enough, as a homemaker and woman, to be one of 2 of us working, but neither Adam nor I wanted for me to be the only one working. It's one thing to have your family priorities a bit askew. It's a different thing to have them totally out of whack.

I don't know, but I wonder if this is one area of my life that God wants me to ponder now. It doesn't mean that working is wrong for me; I may do it again. But this particular job had certainly become almost all-consuming.

Time to let go.