I've been doin some thinkin'

but not too much... don't worry.

My dear friend Jessica, who has been through everything. we exchange a notebook. we write to each other and mail it back and forth. kinda like a "bff notebook" from middle school. we are both bad at calling each other (and both of us always end up crying by the end of each phone conversation) so this is better. when we get the chance we write an update, a word of encouragement, a scripture, etc. and pass it along. It's really great and fun, and keeps me from crying so much. Good plan.
I received the package in the mail (at first I just thought it was more Oscar winners for Adam's thesis) but then I realized it was addressed to me! Horray! I L-O-V-E mail! Sometimes in my head (but hardly ever aloud) I sing the Blues Clues mail song while I'm walking to the mailbox.
At the end of her note Jessica shared something she was learning about in her discipleship or bible study. "Be still, and know that I am God." She couldn't remember the reference (I didn't either but found out it's Psalm 46:10) but I thought about it in terms of her life and mine for a fleeting moment, laughed out loud, and said to myself "yeah, maybe someday I'll be still." But as it goes, God has other things in mind for me most of the time. The phrase keeps coming up in my head (normally in the form of a song I seem to recall having this phrase as a lyric. Of course I can't remember the rest of the song). So I thought... let's take a looksie at this. So I take a little time over at Biblegateway to look at a couple of different translations to see what I can find out. Sure enough NIV "Be still, and know that I am God" is right there. Ok God, I'm going to stop moving, maybe even try to clear my head of the bazillion things I have to do (note to self: laundry HAS to be done tonight) and know, realize, acknowledge Your presence. I don't know about you but I constantly fail at this (among other things as well). But then in NASB I found this particularly intersting "Cease striving and know that I am God." Hmmmm, very intersting. Cease is to stop and striving can mean struggling. For my purposes, I will use this definition. I know it's a bad bad idea to just use the definition you want.... You can ream me later for it. So in my head God is saying this, "hey silly, stop your struggling, know that I am who I say I am, I am bigger than all this crud you go through here on earth, just chill out." That of course would be some kind of hippy God, but hopefully you understand what I'm saying. We forget how B-I-G and H-O-L-Y and R-I-G-H-T-E-O-U-S God is sometimes. I know I do. He is bigger than anything I could ever imagine. If He's bigger than I can imagine, why can't he be big enough to take care of me and my husband, our finances, our future, and all the rest that give me stomach ulcers.
I'm normally not a big fan at all of The Message, but just for giggles I looked it up as I looked up the others, and I'll let it close my discussion because I actually enjoyed it.

"Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything." (The Message)