I was really shocked to discover a link to this site from my husband’s blogsite.  I thought this was basically a completely private place…

I haven’t written here in a while, but I have thought of it.  I would like to write all the things I have learned about my relationship with my parents, but wouldn’t necessarily want them to know.

      Father I pray that I will not fall into temptation, that I will be preserved from doing wrong, that my hand will be kept from evil, that my tongue will be bound by the law of kindness.  Make me aware of my sin and come between me and temptation- help me to choose the right, strengthen me to choose right behavior.
     Lord I confess to you that I have been a shrill, angry, out-lashing disciplinarian to my children.  And I pray that you would make me aware of my faults and break the cycle of venting, that you would make me aware of my tone and speeech, and that I could begin to bless my children even as I correct them.  Father please be in my mouth and my understanding.  Help me to seek to understand what they’re doing and not just explode because they’re not doing what I wanted.
      God help me not explode because people are not doing what I wanted.    Help me to die to that.  I die to that in Jesus’ name.  I confess exploding at my family and blaming them for doing what I didn’t want as sin, I submit it to the cross, I nail that part of my personality to the cross and I pray that Christ’s suffering would be sufficient to cover that sin and wash it white as snow.  I confess that selfishness and pray that you would lead me out of that temptation and release me from doing that evil before the eyes of my children.  God please forgive me, change me, heal me, cleanse me & lead & guide me to a better way to deal with my children’s and husband’s behaviour.  In Jesus name I pray- Amen.

 A prayer from Psalm 31

1. In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness.
2. Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.
3. Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
4. Free me from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge.
5. Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth.
6. I hate those worthless idols I have clung to; I trust instead in Yahweh, my beloved father and god.
7. I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul.
8. You have not handed me over to the enemy of my soul, but have set my feet in a spacious place.
9. Be merciful to me, O Lord, in my distress; don’t let my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.
10. Don’t let My life be consumed by anguish or my years by groaning; don’t let my strength fails because of my affliction, or my bones grow weak.
11. Give me favor in the sight of my enemies, grace in the sight of my neighbors; mercy towards my friends– let those who see me on the street know You in me.
12. Let me be remebered by those who knew me as your child, your special posession, a vessel for your spirit, filled and overflowing with you.
13. I trust in you, O Yahweh; I say, “You are my God.”
14. My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue and torment me.
15. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.
16. Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, for I have cried out to you; but let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in the grave.
17. Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous.
18. How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you.
19. In the shelter of your presence you hide them from the intrigues of men; in your dwelling you keep them safe from accusing tongues.
20. Praise be to the Lord, for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was a besieged city.
21. In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from your sight!” Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.
22. I Love the Lord, with all his saints! Yahweh preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full.
23. I am strong and take heart, for I hope in the Lord!

For the sake of your name, Lead and guide me.  Into your hands I commit my spirit, deliver me, for my times are in your hands.

     I’m really torn up down & sideways.  Some days I think I ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE more children.  I hate myself because I chickened out of more pregnancies.  I want another baby.  I want to be pregnant so badly.  I want another child.
     What is this urge to adopt?  Is it selfishness?  Am I just greedy for kids when I should be satisfied with my four beautiful ones?  Do I think that having six or seven kids will make me more godly, more admirable, more whatever than I am now?
     Maybe it’s guilt.  I have all this guilt for having a wonderful life, for living with plenty of food and clothes and movies and TV and computer and books and pets and my husband and my piano….  I just can’t imagine settling down to be a writer.  YES!  It’s what I want to do.  I want to sit and write and write and write.  (I’m actually sick right now because I sent out my first bit of my novel and no one commented at all.  The silence was deafening.)  But how can I excuse living in the lap of luxury doing exactly what I want to do and having a fine old time when people are suffering and dying all around me?  And will writing another book really do anything to alleviate that?
       Is guilt really a good reason to take on three physically and emotionally damaged children that may strain my marriage and harm my children?
       People say that God directs our steps and gives us our dreams and desires.  I wish I could be sure this is a good dream, a good desire.  How can I dare to do it without a word from Him?  I guess I can’t.  I can’t take “wanting to” as a good enough reason.  I can’t say, ”Well, he’d stop me if he didnt’ want me to do it.”  I really, really have to wait until he says something. 
       I’m not very good at waiting. 

Deleriously, no place to go to be private, and yet within the public view, I wanted to open another page.  A secret page, unopened by any hand of man.  A private place…

Once, I upeneded a sofa and crawled underneath into a cave.  What is there so satisfying about being contained?  About being hidden?  Even when my roomate came home and thought I had been burglarized and left for dead under the furniture I didn’t crawl out. 

I like to be around people who don’t know I’m there.  I like to have the social contact without the pressure of expectations I can’t meet.  Verbally, I am inclined to trip over my own feet.  When I try to speak, all the words I wanted to say run to the back of my mind and huddle in fear.  My language has stage fright.  Perhaps I really speak English as a second language, and in moment of intense emotion my ability to translate fails me.
       If that were so, what language would I speak as my first?  Some tongue angelic, or born of star dust, the speech of another branch of humanity, residents of some place untouched by the hand of sin… perhaps when I approach the throne in Heaven, it will be the language He speaks in.  The original tongue of Babylon, the tongue of men and of angels, in which the host sings before the throne.   “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty, who was and is and is to come,” says the English translation.  How glorious would it be in the original?

      Perhaps I speak the tongue of the world as it is- the wordless communication that is between all living things.  The plants grow towards the light, butterflies pollinate them, the fruit is bourne and eaten all without speaking.  I spent so much of my childhood watching and wandering and waiting… perhaps I am more at home in the language of the wood things.  The water rushes and wanders and falls over things, the trees fall and lay supine on the forest floor hatching beetles and growing moss.  There is a stillness in things that is palpable.  They MEAN without ever having language to speak the meaning.  And yet, they are not less because they can’t say it.

There is a big argument in scientific circles about language.  What is it?  What is the threshold of language- at what point can a creature like a gorilla or a dolphin be said to be “communicating”.   As anyone who has owned a dog knows they are already communicating.  They learn and have language.  They know and recognize many things.  They speak with their actions, with their bodies, with their emotions, with their silences.  They speak in posture and gesture and instinct.
      The scientists who are arguing are trying to locate evidences of evolution in various animal’s brains and developing intelligences.  I find nothing to argue about.  Each of the creatures of the earth is made of and by the living, thinking, creating God, who put part of his own divine nature and purpose in each of his creations.  They share in his life, they live with the instinct and intelligence he gave them.  They give and recieve affection.  They communicate, each in its own unique way, each with its perfectly designed intelligences.

And I, too, created by God, speak.  I speak his purposes.  He dwells in my thoughts.  I gather in impressions of the world he made.  I love the people around me, as he loves me.  And to make up for the hesitant, tripping tongue He gave me, he has also given me the ability to type nearly faster than I can think!

I have hidden Him in my heart, and He has hidden me under His wing!