I don't want to waste my life.

I know…it’s been a week since I’ve written anything here. I promise I am alive and well it has just been a CRAZY busy week, as you can well imagine.  God is so funny and smart because He throws everything at us at once so we will get on our faces and cry out to Him.  This post is not about that but let’s just say last week Monday drove to Portland and signed docs on our house at 7am, Jeff then went to work and I did our final walk through at 9am, Jeff worked a full day (our new Youth Pastor’s first day), then we got our keys (tada!!) and got to get into our new house at 4pm, then I finished packing, showered, got pizzas, delivered the kids to my parents, then got to church at 6pm and taught Bible study at 7 (during this time Jeff had the moving team moving us into the new house), got home at 8:30pm. The next morning got up at 6am, discovered none of my clothes had gotten moved and I didn’t have my apartment key, so I tore open boxes and found a winter sweater to pair with the pants I’d worn the night before, got to church at 8am for worship practice (Heidi in tow), played worship, taught Bible study at 9am, got home a little before noon just as Mom and Dad brought Dutch back home, and then began the weeklong unpacking.

Now, just to be sure this is clear–I am overwhelmed with how amazing our house is. I don’t want to say I love it because I’m being careful about how I use that word these days.  But I ENJOY our house beyond measure.  It is like God built it just for us (he did). It’s been fun unpacking things I haven’t seen for almost 2 1/2 years and finding that they match and fit in perfectly to this house.  It’s also been a blast for Dutch unpacking books and toys he hasn’t seen for ages; it’s like Christmas!  It’s also a HUGE blessing having a yard! My boy finally has a yard!  And, the cool part is that it’s not landscaped so it’s just dirt/mud and straw, which means I can put him in his grubbies and boots and set him free to dig, build, drive his dump trucks, and just get filthy without worrying about messing anything up.  My outdoor boy can finally be outdoors! So that’s wonderful.  It’s been hectic because you forget that a new house needs about a thousand little things–dryer vent, fridge hose, WINDOW COVERINGS (yikes! sheets and tacks right now).  And I feel like my unpacking is at a snail’s pace because I have these two wonderful little crazy munchkins who leave me with about 5 or 6 free minutes a day (ok, exaggeration–that’s how it feels).  Anyway, it’s been a gloriously crazy week.

But by Friday, even though the week was filled with wonderful things, I was TIRED.  The kind of tired that’s not just physical, but where I felt so completely emotionally and spiritually and physically SPENT.  Everything seemed to take extra effort–the kids haven’t been sleeping all that well (back to the window coverings), and when I get that tired, my default isn’t to slow down, it is to just keep chugging forward…but without love.

And I found myself SO frustrated with Dutch.  I tell you–that boy.  That boy that boy that boy.  I love him to pieces, I do. But do any other moms just have those days that they think (ok this sounds horrible), “I can’t stand this crazy kid!  Will he EVER STOP TALKING?  Will he EVER stop contradicting everything I say? Does EVERYTHING have to be a battle?  How does he KNOW exactly how to do the thing I don’t want him to do?”  I admitted to Jeff, “Ok this sounds horrible.  But is it bad that I just wish our kids would sleep all day long, just for one day, so I could have some time to myself?”

So last night I get to church, and Joel preaches on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, and even though I’d been reading that passage all week long for women’s Bible study, the way he taught it hit me so hard.  Basically, we can be successful teachers, leading people, we have have stuff, we can be influential, we can be mighty for God, and yet if we don’t have LOVE, if it’s not from a heart of LOVE, if we don’t simply just have love, then it’s a WASTED LIFE.  Ouch.

And this is what ouched me.  I realized that I can train our children to be perfectly obedient, and never train them to love.  I can train them to obey every time, and can still have WASTED every ounce of my parenting energy.  I have to LOVE them. I have to train them to LOVE.  And my tearful cry to God was basically how I get to tired because I feel like everyone (exaggeration again–describing feeligns here) draws from my love stores.  My kids draw all day long, Jeff draws, people in ministry draw, I just feel like I have a million pinpricks in me where love is supposed to be flowing out all day long all the time and I just get so tired and EMPTY and so instead of giving love anymore I decide to just keep going forward but without giving true love.  And that, is a WASTE.  That will give me a wasted life.

And how arrogant of me to think that I am supposed to be the source of anyone’s love!  And if I’m empty it’s no one’s fault but me because I am connected to the OCEAN of love, THE source of love and if I’m empty then it’s because I’m not drawing from the source!  It’s no one’s fault but my own. Yes, there are many things that draw from my love stores, but what a privilege to be a sponge wrung out (to use Joel’s illustration) for God’s glory.  Oh that we would be sponges wrung out!  But my pride and stubborness insists on just wringing and wringing and wringing and then complaining that I’m being wrung out–somethings wrong. I need to turn on the faucet, sit at His feet, receive His love, and then allow Him to wring me out as He pleases.

I hear Dutch stirring, so although I don’t have a neat little way to tie up this post with a bow–I need to go love my son. 🙂  My son, who — and this is part of this week’s story — has already TWICE managed to smear poop all over the carpet and walls of his new room. 😉  What a perfect reminder that stuff is just stuff.  So I’m off to love, by GOd’s grace. I pray we won’t waste our lives, but will love. If that’s all we do, let’s love.