Ponderings

It's been a really hard week emotionally. I won't go into the details, but I'll tell you the areas of my life that it "hit"...friendships, parenting, identity, and I got my period! Of course, everything happens at once. It has led to these thoughts.

When I was sick, I was looking at Philippians 4:8 and couldn't wrap my head around how I could view the cancer and chemo as true, lovely, pure,... I talked with Bob about this as I was totally stumped. What he said really hit home. He said, "Maybe this verse is talking about meditating on (keeping my thoughts on) God. He is true, pure, lovely, praiseworthy." Boy, isn't that the truth! As I've tried to trudge through this really emotionally challenging week (it's been a real humdinger!), I'm challenged to keep my thoughts on God and not all these other things that are rocking my world. An e-mail from my sister-in-law also helped as she reminded me of the Israelites and God's tough love information for them in Deuteronomy. I wondered where she was going with this...until I continued reading what she wrote! She shared that the verses made her think about how God wants us to see Him in all things and not be so wrapped up in the details of the situation and what the reasons for them might be. I don't think that we're not supposed to think about what God is doing and what He is trying to teach us, but I think it's more about what my primary focus is. Isn't it just like me to be self-focused in thinking about the "why's"? It's not all about me.

Now you might be thinking, "Oh, Sarah, you're being too hard on yourself" or "We do need to learn from what is going on". What I'm trying to share is what I've been thinking about my primary focus, not the only focus. (As a woman, I can do that, right?! Ha! HA!) Actually, as I'm typing this, another thing I read recently is coming to mind. It was an article challenging me not to lose the celebration of Jesus this Christmas season. This is a common "message", but it caught my attention in that it was focused on many of the things that I value - Christmas decorations and atmosphere, making the Holiday special for the kids, preparations for gift giving. The article challenged me to consider if celebrating Jesus is truly at the center of all of this. (If you want to read the article, you can go to http://sharonjaynes.com/blog/ and look for the entry "1 Corinthians 13 Christmas Style".)

Hmmm....I think I see a theme here. 8)