Sleepless Nights

The worst things: To be in bed and sleep not, to want for one who comes not, to try to please and please not.   —Egyptian proverb

I am occassionally stubborn.  My mind takes after me.  Tonight it is refusing to listen to my body which is screaming "I’m TIRED".  Instead, my mind has dedicated itself to the often fruitless task of processing and analyzing.  I wish mental processing burned calories. If that were the case, I would be able to eat everything in sight and still have people wondering if I were anorexic.  I’ve learned to just get out of bed and do stuff until my mind waves the white flag.  So tonight (or this morning I should say) I’m going to blog until my mind can’t take it any longer.  Blog this, brain.

Vacation update: My house looks freakin’ awesome right now.  Why?  Because I was in the zone today. In the words of Garden State, I was so "in it" today.  When I bought my house almost five years ago, I had new siding, gutters and souffets put on.  I had not washed them since that time so needless to say they were looking pretty dingy.  So today, with grand weather to boot, was the day committed to cleaning the gutters out and scrubbing down everything until it glistened like a Orbitz gum commercial.  Without expertise in such matters and wearing my "army" shirt for inspiration, I grabbed the weapon of choice (a wet, soapy rag), climbed the ladder to abnormal heights and began scrubbing the "charles"  (charles "dickens") out of my siding.  Although I was seeing some progress and had not lost heart yet, it was going rather slow.  Then, a knight in shining armor rode up on his white stallion . . . okay, actually my neighbors a few doors down who attend First Baptist drove by, laughed at my turn-of-the-century methods and then told me about the goose that lays a golden egg.  It seems that you can simply put Clorex bleach in a garden sprayer, attach it to your garden hose and then spray . . . and wait.  Repeat.  Then rinse.  They graciously lent me the supplies, told me that I shouldn’t be on a ladder and wished me luck.  A couple hours later – my siding looked brand new and my arms were no worse for the wear.  Fantastic.  So with extra hours to spare, I went to Lowe’s and bought me some "Impatiens" flowers (name seemed appropriate) and a bunch of mulch.  Mulch is like grace.  It covers a multitude of sins.  So now I have a yard with some carefully planted impatiens and some haphazard grace.  I’m quite pleased.   But the neighborhood watch program didn’t end here.  My neighbor saw my work and was pleased.  So he said "Let there be more home improvement" and he produced for me a power-washer.  The ironic thing here is that I’ve been taking measures to replace my deck thinking that it was to that stage.  But Terry, my neighbor, said it just needed a good cleaning and his power washer would do the trick.  We sprayed part of it and to my amazement, there was beauty and life underneath all that grey wood.  So tomorrow morning I will finish power-washing the deck at no cost, buy some deck stain at a low, low price and save lots of money by not replacing my deck just yet.  Fantastic.

So you can see why my body is tired and why it is a little "put-out" with my mind right now. 

But my mind knows.  My body doesn’t catch it but my mind does.  I’m out of soul-step.  I have been for awhile.  Most of the time for me, chaos on the inside doesn’t result in chaos on the outside except to the few who know me really well.  They can sense it and I think it effects them too.  I’m not sure exactly why.  I’ve been processing why I’m out of soul-step.  It takes awhile sometimes to weed through the "effects" and get to the root cause but I usually get there.  And without fail it leads me to God.  This time I’m aware of this very honest and simple fact – I miss God.   We’ve been having casual conversation lately.  Like the husband who leaves early and comes home late or the wife who condescendingly dismisses a husband’s needs, I have taken my relationship for granted and have forgotten that it takes intentional work to keep this relationship deep and nurtured and intimate.  Its been too long since God and I have sat down to a meal together or shared pillow talk.  It is my fault.  I’ve been distracted and neglectful and my life has been full of noise.  I’m sorry and I miss You deeply. Forgive me for not truly seeing You lately and for leaving you out.

Signing out in favor of pillow talks – Melissa