Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 155

Today's Daily 5:

1. the gift of a song on itunes from a sweet friend
2. taking the first shower in a freshly cleaned bathroom
3. 1 year, 155 days of making these lists
4. belgian chocolate seashells
5. working on a scrapbook page
6. coconut body butter
7. crossing things off my list
8. a sunny day
9. doing a simple "good deed" this afternoon
10. mango juice
11. cozy and cute new mittens
12. loving the university bookstore - it's like stationary and book geek heaven!
13. finding a seat in class where I could plug my laptop in
14. class ending 40 minutes early on a day when my evening plans were tight
15. a beautiful full moon through the bus window
16. a giant mug of rooibos tea
17. the arrival of a package I'd been expecting
18. doing a bit of cleaning
19. trading honest (and sometimes snarky) emails with a few friends
20. escapist television watching

Lot's Wife

This morning as part of my chronological trip through scripture in 2011, I read Genesis 19 - the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  And while the story had it's usual vivid images attached to it, what really stood out to me was Lot's wife.

I relate to Lot's wife.

The relevant passages are these: 

This one, where they are commanded to get out and not look back:

Genesis 19:17 (The Message)

When they had them outside, Lot was told, “Now run for your life! Don’t look back! Don’t stop anywhere on the plain—run for the hills or you’ll be swept away.”

And this one, where destruction rains down, and Lot's wife looks back, with rather disastrous consequences:

Genesis 19:24-26 (The Message)

Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah—a river of lava from God out of the sky!— and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.

 I think most of the time, we read that, and we think, "What was she stupid?  She'd been clearly warned not to look back.  Maybe she deserved what she got."

But this morning I read that, and thought "I get it."  Her life is in destruction behind her, and only uncertainty stretches ahead.  And yeah, based on the Biblical descriptions, it doesn't sound like Sodom and Gomorrah were all that great as places to make a life, they probably weren't the healthiest places to be, but they were what she knew, and now that life was quite literally in flames.

I feel like Lot's wife sometimes lately.  Eternally frozen in place.  Turned to a pillar of salt.  

Salt.  Have you ever thought of that?  Salt.  Not something lasting like stone.  She didn't become some sort of monument.  Salt.  Easily eroded by wind and rain.  Soon weathered into nothingness.

All because she looked back at a life that probably wasn't even all that healthy or good.

I'm tired, lately, on this journey of healing, and I feel like looking back.

Yeah, it's not that much to look at.  It wasn't healthy, really.  But it was what I knew.  There was a comfort in that.  A comfort in staying in the places that weren't healthy, simply because they seemed less risky than moving into the unknown ahead of me.

I don't want to turn into that pillar of salt, frozen in place, at the mercy of the elements, weathering away slowly to nothing.  

And so this morning, as I read, I felt that slight whisper of resolve.  "Stop looking back.  Look forward.  Trust me."

Yep.  Trust.  Trust Him with the great unknown ahead.

Not an easy next step on this journey of healing, that one word that's mine for 2011. To reorient, away from what's behind me, and towards the new things.  To face forward continually, acknowledging the past, but not being immobilized by it.

But perhaps a necessary step, and one I'm going to throw my being into attempting again, starting today.

Do You Finish?

A lot of blog authors include books that they're currently reading, but haven't completed in their reading lists.  You'll notice I don't do that on mine.

Why?  Well, I have this problem with finishing.  I pick up a book, I'm enthralled for a couple of chapters, and then the newest and latest appears.  That book I've been on the waiting list for at the library forever arrives, and I have a limited time span before it has to be returned.  I see one that catches my eye at the bookstore, or even on my own shelves, and I pick it up, and set down the one that had been temporarily enthralling me.  I own probably close to a thousand or more books (my library is easily my largest possession,) and I would be willing to wager that a very high percentage of those are books that I've started and not finished.

So, I'm currently reading:

• Tea with Hezbollah (Ted Dekker & Carl Medearis)

• Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson) - I'm actually listening to the unabridged audio book version of this one.

• Crazy Love (Francis Chan) - this one our house church is reading and studying together

• and an assortment of text books for school

My goal is to actually finish these ones!

But my question is this - do you finish?  Are you the type of reader that picks up a title and doesn't start another one until you've finished?  Do you read multiple titles at once?  Are you easily distracted and fail to finish?  What sort of reader are you?  (And have you read any great titles lately to recommend to us?)