The merits of my worrying

I'm pretty good at worrying. I worry for myself and on (unrequested) behalf of my family. Health, plans, virtues, love, work, faith, tomorrow, next month, next year. I don't discriminate too much. I seriously wish that I didn't worry. It accomplishes little except discouragement for me and those around me. This week has its own set of worries that I find to mull over in my head.

But if there is one thing to be said for all that worrying, it is this - it actually sends me running to God. I talked a little with my sister while she visited about a type of meditation, about dealing with stress and wrongs and worries, letting them go and finding them replaced with love. On the one hand, tapping all that love inside of me sounds wonderful. But on the other hand, my biggest hangup is that it sounds hopelessly impossible. Something in me cries out for a bigger Someone than me to step in, knowing that I fall short over and over. It is almost exhausting to think of all the work that it would take to let go of all my worries, not to mention faults.

And so in my worrying, I turn my thoughts upward instead of inward or outward. The fact that my worrying makes me desperate for the help of another is probably its only merit. The words below are stuck on my refrigerator door. (Sometimes, I'll stick a list of worries directly next to it, just in case I forget what to worry/ask about!) I find that praying becomes easy when I just take the worry words and send them upward. In giving my worries up, I find God's peace almost immediately as I'm reminded that there is Someone big enough to pray to.

"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness (peace), everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life." Philippians 4:7-8

Go ahead, give it a try too.

Laments are OK - or dare I say - "When cursing at God is OK"

Beside my bed this week are four half-finished books - The Africa Cookbook, Read Aloud Handbook, and The Bible Jesus Read (Philip Yancey), and the one-year Bible. I'm in a rut of starting books and not finishing them lately. These all happen to be decent, depending on my mood, so I don't know what to do!

So, about "laments". I feel like in the past year or so, I've had more questions and frustrations and confusions over Christian faith than peace, worship, and joy. A lot of Christians don't talk about that question stuff a whole lot though. Leading me to wonder - is something wrong with me, or Christianity?

Turns out, maybe neither. I finally found some justification for my discomforts in Yancey's book, as he discusses how 70% of the Psalms, the Bible's prayer book, are "laments" - a.k.a. the cursing psalms! OK, so I'm not the only frustrated person around! The old testament of the Bible, more than the new stuff we read more of today, is actually full of lots of confusion, disappointment, paradoxes.

So what is a "lament"? "We whine about what we have little control over, we lament what we believe ought to be changed. ...The psalmists clung to a belief in God's ultimate goodness, no matter how things appeared at the present, and cried out for justice."

To find God or even his scriptures less than comfortable or clear doesn't mean that I have to discount God or his goodness. But it also doesn't mean I have to sit quietly in confusion.

"To whom do you vocalize the most intense, irrational (inarticulate) anger? Would you do so with someone who could fire you or cast you out of a cherished position or relationship? Not likely, you don't trust them - ...that they would endure the depths of your disappointment, confusion... The person who hears your lament and far more bears your lament against them, paradoxically, is someone you deeply, wildly trust. The language of lament is oddly the shadow side of faith."

I hope that you have laments to offer to God like I do. And for me, I will continue to offer my "angry" prayers up, with confidence that doing so is often the best expression of trust and faith that I can offer to a God who is beyond figuring out.

The road that goes nowhere

No, not "the bridge to nowhere" that Sarah Palin kept and then rejected. Not going to get political (today at least!).

I was talking with John last night about his current research project going nowhere. Since our world pretty much consists of "good research" = "getting a PhD finally", it is always very discouraging when work doesn't go well for him (you can guess why, after many years of school!). I wanted to pray, wanted to ask God to help him, but what do you say??? "C'mon God, take care of us!" (Abby said the other day that it wouldn't be very nice to yell at God, I told her, well, I think it's OK, lots of us do it sometimes!).

More often than not, I find my own words in the words of someone else - a song, a book, a quote, a comic. This was no exception. I read this this morning, with cartoons blaring the background:

"Barricade the road that goes Nowhere;
Grace me with your clear revelation." Psalm 119:29

Ha - there's the words I can use to pray (and maybe you too). So I'm with Gov. Palin on this, we don't want that bridge/road that goes to nowhere... God, keep us from spinning our wheels, spending years going down a wrong path. You know the feeling, the frustration and wondering if this is the right road, right?

Maybe God doesn't always give us a yellow brick road to follow, but I'll take a "Bridge out" or "Road closed sign" instead - even if it's initially discouraging.

God, for John, just turn that direction of research into a barricaded dead end if it's going Nowhere, and then show him where to go instead. And for all the others, who are pursuing promotions, new babies, new friends in a brand new city, wisdom from doctors, a meaningful life, barricade what's NOT going to go anywhere, so they find your path with a lightening bolt of revelation.