Faith and Worry, Worry and Faith

The last few days have not been good. I've allowed myself to be pulled in to someone else's issue. It's hard - I love my daughter, my family, my friends, my fiance - and it took me a long time to learn that people sometimes have to go through their own stuff.

When finally, after a long, ugly path, I allowed myself to surrender to the love of God, I would often think about how hard it must be for Him to watch us and not intervene. I know He could. And sometimes we wonder why He doesn't. It's hard to be a parent, I think of what God must experience as He watches us flounder around and make the same stupid mistakes over and over again. I imagine that He spent a lot of time doing a "face-palm" when it came to me. And I'm sure He still does from time to time. But I'm starting to learn that I don't have to know the outcome of everything and I don't need to manipulate and orchestrate events. I also don't need to get involved in other people's stuff. Yet, I still sometimes do.

Watching someone you care about struggle to make sense of what the right things to do or say are is painful. The struggle is real, y'all! They say that we often lost patience with people when their floundering about reminds us of our own. This is certainly true in this situation. I remember many years ago, when I was in a relationship that was not good for me, I would talk to my friends about what I should do. Every single one of them said, "You know what you need to do, you need to end this relationship." But I wasn't ready. What I wanted them to tell me was one more thing that I hadn't tried yet. A dear friend would say to me, "Life is too short to spend it wanting to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you." I would think to myself, "What is he talking about?" I laugh about it now - but I had no idea how those words applied to my situation at all! Another friend would say, "I guess you just haven't had enough yet." I must have been an extremely frustrating person to be around.

So, I pray for patience and discernment. I pray for their heart and their peace. And most of all, I pray that whatever the outcome of this situation, that it will lead them closer to the God who loves them unconditionally. I am a very poor substitute for the unconditional love and grace of God.

Ridiculous Curiosity

It's been awhile since I wrote a blog post. It's certainly an easier forum for sharing my opinions than commenting on Facebook but for some reason I enjoy the back and forth there. And I have to admit that for the last couple of years my desire to comment on current events has been largely about politics or things that I don't necessarily think relate to the spirit of My Beach House. Soooo, we come somewhat full circle back to a desire to comment on other interests of mine: the spiritual, books, creativity, art, clean eating, motherhood, and more. Just not politics! And so, if you're in fear that I am indeed as one-dimensional as you have suspected, I promise no politics.

Really.
Pinky-swear.

There really are a lot of things to explore. Because I do have a ridiculous curiosity for things. Lots of things. They don't even connect sometimes. The state of education means a lot to me. But so does music. And that I am drawn to older music lately through Spotify and Pandora channels that I've discovered. How I try to stagger my reading: fiction, non-fiction, fiction, etc. Or that for the last six months, other than a movie here and there, my television viewing has been exclusively Gilmore Girl reruns and sports. Go figure.

I think I have some things to say. It's okay if very few people are interested. Writing is sort of like navel-gazing. It's a drawn out selfie in some ways - one wants to please their audience but realizes that authenticity has its own magnetism.