Ponderings

Today I am wearing a shirt that is missing a button. There was a time in my life when that would not have happened. I wouldn't wear anything with the slightest flaw on it.
I also discovered that I wore a pair of jeans all day on Saturday, at a conference in the Cities, that had chocolate in three places on the butt. Not pretty.

So, what has happened to me?

Chocolate on the butt...button missing...what's next? Going out without a bra?!?! Gosh, that's sad to think about.

I do think it speaks to the larger points of life, however. I'm not as anal retentive as I used to be, which, in most aspects, is a good thing. I could use a little self-driven purpose in life, though.

I seem to have lost that along the way. Well, I can actually pin-point the time when it happened. I was a freshman in college. I had made it into the top ensemble - the Wind Symphony - I was also playing in the orchestra for the choir's trip to San Diego, and I had done marching band in the fall, and was doing the opera in the spring. Needless to say, I burnt out, and to be honest, I've never gotten it back. Well, I take that back. There was a year in there, 2001, after my divorce, when I had just moved to the Twin Cities, and everything was going my way (for the most part) and I was a little spitfire. But, I burned out then, too, and limped my way thru the rest of grad school, just like I had limped thru my undergrad degree.

Something just occurred to me, though. I've been trying to do my life on my own energy and my own volition for all of my 29 years, even the last 11 years that I've been a Christian. I think that speaks volumes. I know in my head that I can't do my life on my own, that I need God to give me the strength and the fortitude. But, now that I'm typing these words on the screen in front of me, it's more real than it has been before. I really can't do my own life.

How does the rest of the world do it?

Ah. As I typed that I realize what I do to make it thru - coffee and sugar. I guess everybody else uses those as well as alcohol and drugs, I suppose. Believe me, over the past year, I understand now why people drink and get drunk. I've said several times that if I were a drinker, I'd be at the bar. Not a good thought.

So, I guess it comes down to surrender. When I surrender over my responsibilities and obligations, Christ steps in to take them on and help me do them. I don't know how it works, but I'm believing it. I'm at the end of me. I've heard that's where He begins. I suppose that takes some faith and some trusting. Two areas I need to exercise. Hmmm...exercise...another area....