Because I Should Have Done it Hours Ago

This has been a particularly rough day, and I ignored the warning signs and bottomed out physically, emotionally and spiritually again tonight.

I ignored the prompting all day to shift my thought patterns, to do the things that can usually shift the mood a bit. I ignored the internal prompting to make a smile list - a list of things I'm thankful for. So much for self-care.

I should have done this hours ago, but I didn't, and now, because of the low I'm at, it's a harder thing to do. But it needs to be done. And then, then, I hope I'll sleep. We'll try this "i have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly" thing again tomorrow.

Without further ado... my current smile list (the list of things that make me smile - things I'm thankful for):

• that tomorrow is another day that, to quote Anne of Green Gables "has no mistakes in it yet"
• that it's a long weekend and I have three days away from the mess that is currently my job
  
• a tiny silver Saint Clare medal that I've been wearing around my neck all week
• a friend who loves me even in the moments when I'm completely unable to fully believe it, or to love myself
• music from Karla Adolphe and Jacob and Lily
• music from Misty Edwards
• TLC (the television station - I needed the mindless background while I was in the midst of a rather intense conversation tonight)
• tickets to go to the symphony at the beginning of October with my roommates and my brother
• 2 dozen red roses in a vase on my dressing table
• comfy sweat pants to wear to bed
• Nelly (a favorite teddy bear - a friend since birth - she still lives on my bed, and she gives great hugs when you cry)
• a photo beside my bed from a really special moment in my favorite meadow on top of a mountain earlier this summer
• that I get to see my best friend one last time before she leaves
• gmail chat - lets me keep in touch with a dear friend across the country, and will hopefully aid in staying close to my best friend when she's on the other side of the planet
• Psalm 51
• LUSH bath and shower products
• freezies
• kit-kat bars
• tea lights
• clean hair
• long hot showers
  

Struggling, waiting, praying

This has been an oddly full week. And not necessarily full in the best sense of that word.

I'm in the midst of saying some goodbyes. Literal and otherwise.

I'm tired.

My facebook status for the last few days has generally read something like "Lisa is waiting, praying and remembering to breathe."

It's all I can manage right now. Just waiting. And talking with Jesus. Sometimes in a very angry tone. Sometimes in quiet desperation. Sometimes just waiting and hoping he'll simply hold me. And remembering to breathe. That's it's okay to go slowly. To cut myself some slack. To stick to those thoughts I shared a week or so ago about self-care.

So it might be quieter around here for a few days again. I'm processing away from this public space. With good friends. Alone. and with Jesus.

Celebrity or Saint?

I liked this post at ysmarko today.

you can find it here.

Come

I read this prayer from St. Augustine in a little book called "Devotions to the Holy Spirit" while I was on the bus this morning.

It spoke of the places my heart has occupied lately, and to the things I'm praying for today.

Come,
You who best console the lonely heart,
Refuge in danger, Protector in distress.
Come,
You who cleanse the soul of every stain,
and heal all its wounds.
Come,
Strength of the weak,
Support of those on the verge of falling.
Come,
Teacher of those who are humble of heart,
who humbles the proud-hearted.
Come,
Father of the fatherless, Hope of the poor,
Treasure of those in need.
Come,
guiding Star of every pilgrim,
Harbor for those in danger of shipwreck.
Come,
Strength of the living,
Salvation of those about to die.
Come,
Holy Spirit,
and have mercy on me.

Voices

Some quotes and thoughts that have been collecting in my email inbox the last while...

The job of the peacemaker is to stop war, to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches, to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those who have not yet found God, to create joy and beauty wherever you go, to find God in everything and in everyone.
- Muriel Lester
(1884-1968)

Christianity ... is always in need of re-simplifying, going back to its origins, ridding itself of the excessive superstructure it has acquired through history. - José Comblin, Catholic theologian in Brazil Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.
- Corrie Ten Boom

Holy Spirit, we love to pray when we are filled with an awareness of your presence, sometimes excited and joyful, sometimes silent and hopeful. During those other times when we are barely able to believe, thank you for hearing the unspoken prayers of our hearts and minds. Breathe on us, breath of God. Amen.
(Moravian Prayer for the Day, August 15, 2008)

Conversion pulls us out of our hiding places and takes us, "where we would rather not go" in following Christ.
-Segundo Galilea
Pastoral worker in Santiago, Chile

God sets out upon the humiliating path of reconciliation and thereby pronounces the world free. God wills to be guilty of our sin, and takes over the punishment and suffering sin has brought upon us. God answers for godlessness, love for hatred, the saint for the sinner. Now there is no godlessness, no hatred, no sin which God has not carried, suffered, and atoned. Now there is no reality, no world that is not reconciled and in peace with God. God did this in the beloved son Jesus Christ.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Meditations on the Cross

Social sin is the crystallization ... of individuals’ sins into permanent structures that keeps sin in being and makes its force to be felt by the majority of people.
- Oscar Romero
Salvadoran archbishop, assassinated in 1980

Prayer is not a pious instrument by which we move God to baptize our enterprises; it is entering the strength of him who moves history and binds the powers that be.
- Melba Maggay
Filipina theologian

The cross is a symbol reminding the world that God is at God’s strongest when God seems to be at God’s weakest.
- Choan-Seng Song
Taiwanese theologian

We can move in the direction of justice, but if our personal relationships don’t become more human, we haven’t moved in the direction of the reign of God and, in the long run, we will discover that our point of arrival is just another form of tyranny.
- Arturo Paoli

There can be no evangelization without incarnation.
- Alvaro Barreiro
Brazilian Catholic theologian