10.18.2010

What am I doing here?

There's a constant discontentment in my spirit.
At first I didn’t realize the importance of it.
I just chalked it up to more of the "crazy jesusfreak" in me and figured it would pass.

Years ago I tried to cry through it. The way I could cry through a bad break up, or a falling out with my Dad.
The ache stood.
I tried to balance. 
Everyone says we should balance.

And I gained skill in walking the wire in that tension.

With a standing aching heart hidden under piles of ironed clothes, behind menu plans on the backs of cupboard doors, inside a stemmed glass of a mama drink with a side of chocolate, I balanced wife, mom, homeschooler, friend, housekeeper with an A-type edge, God lover, Christ follower...
I'd work that balancing act until He'd tip the scales again and again.
And the ache would become a pounding, resounding discontentment and demand that I couldn’t deny weighed more than anything I could pile on the other side of the scale. 

And then 
she wrote, and I read: 
...when someone takes me out for dinner on a riverboat at dusk. I look up at stars. And think of stars over Xiomara, the dump. I’ve lost my appetite. What am I doing here? When one day I’ll stand before Jesus... 
And about what shaun told her: 
“The world, your community.. even your family — they are going to try to push you back to the middle. North America feels pretty comfortable in the middle. Balance, everyone says. I don’t know what Jesus is going to say to you.. How He might direct your life now…  just don’t assume He wants you to live in the middle. Be open to the possibility of something radically different.” 

...and this all goes back to my beginning with Him. Hand in hand for the first time grown, almost 10 years ago. 

And now, where am I different from just weeks ago? The morning in the kitchen corner with "Jose and Sarah" and the biggest pot. 
The pot that fills the space He told me I could shine my ache into, empty.
The drawers are full and I am brimming with ache. 

There are NO pots missing from my life. 
Only questions, guilt, and second guessing.

And my list? 
My priorities? 
My concerns?
homeschooling additions. friendship upkeep. favorite season relishing. photo editing. base board cleaning. healing my stomach. cleaning my car. getting to my windows. leaf maintenance. turning the yard in for snow....

What am I doing here?

We need less and we keep obtaining more.

I’m looking. Searching so hard for what He’s trying to say.
And everything keeps reminding me that He’s not worried like I am that I’ll miss it. I just have to stay in the water.
Hear the call.
When I look around and ask why He brought us here to this home with five bedrooms and one kid... when I start to waver in wonder why He would give us such excess right before asking us not to grow, and ripening our hearts to the widow and the orphan, I have to consider: 

I've most clearly reacted to the aching of my longing spirit when given the option of living in the contentment of abundance. 

And I can't help but ask, just like Ann has, who is really the poor one here?