rambling rosemarie

One foot in front of the other.... one foot.... in front.... of .... the .... other. Ever wish there was someone directing you in the the day to day aspects of life? Ever said "just tell me what you want me to do!" and thought you meant it? I am absolutely miserable right now. I am angry, I am resentful, I am annoyed and I am fooling myself by thinking if God would just tell me what to do to get out of this funk, I would do it. How do I know I am delusional? Because He has and I haven't. I have a niece who has the wonderful ability to accidentally use the wrong word in precisely the right way. Two of my favorites have been "obstacle illusion" (optical illusion) and "everything is Hokey Poky" (hunky dory). You'll have to trust me that the situations in which she almost used the well known idioms were enriched exponentially by her using the slightly altered version. We all knew what she meant when she said what she did and we ...

The hard times of life. The times when your are bruised and raw. When it hurts to breathe and each beat of your heart feels like it is sending glass shards through your soul. That's when it happens and you know. Your circumstances are horrible. You cannot imagine why everything has gone so horribly wrong all at once and in a nanosecond you are transported from the abject poverty of puny faith and hopelessness to knowing that you are safely tucked under God's wing. You know that all of your doubts to the contrary cannot keep you from His grace and mercy when He chooses to bestow it upon you. I have had some of the hardest months of my life thus far come crashing down on me like waves, forming a tsunami of circumstances. Circumstances way beyond of my control, threatening to take my feet out from under me. The last three days have been full of anguish for me. My sister called and through her sobs and heartbreak all I could understand were the words, "Daddy is dying....

I think too much about things of little importance and spend too little time meditating on things that matter. Like most folks in our culture, the end of the year turns my thoughts to past events, both good and bad, and wonder at what the next year may bring. I know that I have lived more years than I have left to live. I am 52 and cannot even claim middle-age. I have no intention of being 104 years old. In my current state of health, I will be lucky to reach 54, but then I don't believe in luck. It's providence that I believe in. God ordained events, meted out to me in perfect parcels, containing exactly what I need for my sanctification. I know that but it doesn't keep me from wanting to negotiate with God like He's Monty Hall and ask for what's behind door number two. The road less traveled. The greener grass. The love that belongs to someone else. Those are the places my mind wanders when no one is looking. Opinions about the state of the economy, how to live ...

The best way to have to deal with something in your life is to tell people who love you, I mean really love you what that secret something you're dealing with might be. If you blog about being afraid to trust God and if you tell your pastor you're in a bit of a snit over the circumstances in your life, you can pretty much be guaranteed that you will have to face things that you would rather not and do it a whole lot sooner than you figured you were going to have to anyway. Confession is a catalyst for stuff to happen, good stuff and the not so good stuff. One of the first thing that happened was my heat went out. Did I face that problem by remembering God's goodness and provision? Sigh. No. I added it to the lengthening list of things that I am unhappy about. Neck injury, poor health, no job, no money being paid by the disability insurance, car needs maintenance, can't afford Christmas and now with the temperature is dropping my central heat is making sounds that resem...

There is a fierce wind blowing outside today and it reminded me to read Ecclesiastes. This caught my eye: Eccl 1:17-18 17 And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind. 18 Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge {results in} increasing pain. Today my emotions are as tumbled as the leaves flying past my window and like the wind they howl at me, twisting one way and then another in a confused carousel. Sometimes I long to be the young Christian I used to be- was it really better to have faith without understanding or does it just seem that way?

Ever feel as if God is not going to cut you any slack? I do. I think that right now He is making things very uncomfortable for me in just about every area of my life. I have been off work since the end of August because I tripped in my own home, wrenched my back and hurt my neck. I flunked 3 MRI's because of being claustrophobic. I finally got through one and then it took 3 weeks for my doctor to be able to read the report. I have some severe damage going on in my cervical spine and I have been referred to a neurosurgeon. I have an infection in my eye. I have two different dental insurance benefits and neither one of them will pay for the cleaning I had six months ago. I had my teeth cleaned today and found out that I need a crown and not one, not two, but four fillings. I haven't had a filling in 10 years and suddenly I need four. They are so small that the dentist says we could watch them. Watch them what? Turn into big cavities that hurt? My short term disability insura...

My life is in need more than new material by Aaron Sorkin. I wish that a little cleverness and some great one-liners could make the sort of difference that might matter in my life. Imagine if sarcasm and wry humor could cure what ails me! I am really good at sarcasm. I know it's not that easy. I delude myself into thinking that there is some quick fix available for me if only I had the money to buy it or the ingenuity to create it. Perhaps what I need is the right person to care enough about me or the right doctor to prescribe the chemical balancing medication. While I am wishing, why not a fairy godmother to wave her magic wand and fix me or a lover to hold my hand in just the right manner. . . Anything but getting off my well cushioned backside and disciplining myself to change- especially if that discipline involves confessing that I am hopelessly unable and begging God to change me. I know it's the only efficacious way to change but I just can't want to do it. I am wan...

I found this gem at my friend Turretinfan's blog . It is well worth the time to watch it and it is exactly what I need to hear given my current state of mind. Our God is so economical. He weaves everything together so perfectly. What a 'coincidence' that I should find this clip now. The man speaking is Voddie Baucham and you can find out more about him here .

My home health nurse came to check on me today and she didn't like the looks of my wound so she called my doctor's office. My doctor wanted to see me immediately. Today it rained for the first time in a long time. This was my first adventure driving since my surgery. Ever diligent about safety, I got into my car and while still on my driveway I made certain I could stomp on the brakes and turn my steering wheel sharply before I would drive the 8-10 miles to the hospital where my doctor's office is located. But this story isn't so much about going to the doctor or the state of my wound. It is more about the state of my heart and emotions. The doctor repacked my open wounds and redressed them. He also put me on antibiotics and then sent me home with instructions to see him in a week unless of course I had any trouble or the nurse wanted me seen earlier. Somewhat relieved that he didn't want to throw me back in the hospital, I filled the new prescription and headed hom...

I had an adventure with my sister today. We spent the day doing some normal sisterly things. We shopped. We had lunch in a restaurant. We laughed and made fun of ourselves while we tried on hats. It was good to spend time with her. It always is. It also contained an element that could have been awkward. My sister's father has dementia and on our list of places to go was a care facility for folks like her dad. It's an odd situation to have a sister whose father is not your father and not your step-father either. It's sort of like having family once removed. My little sister was placed for adoption when she was born and we were reunited about 14 years ago. I am glad we get to be sisters now but I am sad that she has this situation to go through. There is no good outcome when someone you love has Alzheimer's or dementia. The best you can do is manage grief and limit hazards. My sister inherited the "do the right thing" and the "analysis paralysis" g...

God always equips those He calls with whatever they will need to accomplish the tasks He has assigned to them. He will stop at nothing to make certain whatever he wants will come to pass. He parted the Red Sea. He held the sun still in the sky for Joshua. He gave a donkey language. He opened the jailhouse doors. So why do fear that I will be unable to pass the licensing exam for my new job? I tell myself it's because this license and this job aren't comparable to the directives God gave Joshua or Jonah or Moses. It's easy to for me to think that what I do is insignificant to the Kingdom, but in thinking that way, what am I saying about our God and His economy? Surely we believers are not indispensable but we are not without significance. I think we can't see the forest from the trees when we're standing at timberline. At least I seem to have that trouble. Ever notice that your vision improves when you look outside your own circumstances. I have. I recogniz...

There are certain hymns that make me cry from somewhere deep within my soul. It's not the melody nor the association with hearing them at someone's funeral that triggers the tears. It's the words. I can scarcely hold myself together when it comes to certain stanzas. We sang one at church today. In Christ Alone . It's an amazing hymn, and I get all choked up right from the start, but it is this verse that undoes me: No guilt in life, no fear in death— This is the pow'r of Christ in me; From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand; Till He returns or calls me home— Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand . It's a new er hymn, but it's a good one. Augustus Toplady would certainly approve of the hymns Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend are writing. They are full of the meat of the gospel. Another one that renders me speechless is Come Thou Fount . O to g...

I saw a program on the National Geographic channel called Dogs with Jobs. In this particular episode, a dog that was being trained for an elite defense team in Austria was being tested to see if she would make the grade. She was a young Belgian Shepard who obviously loved her work. She watched her master's every signal and command and obeyed him, doing all he asked with all she had. She located bad guys who were hiding, disarmed one gunman and cornered another. She scaled walls and crawled on her belly under barbed wire. All of these things were perfectly executed but her final test would be the deciding factor. She and her master went up in a helicopter- way up-and parachuted out together. The dog and her master were clipped to an expert skydiver, whose job it was to guide them to the earth as if they were going in on a mission. If the dog balked, became disoriented, sick or frightened, she would be disqualified. The dog so trusted her master that she didn't seem to notice ...

I am an adrenaline junkie. I have been described by people who thought they knew me as "fearless." Truth be told, I have always enjoyed a smidgen of fear to make my heart race and senses tingle. I think that's why I enjoyed my public safety career. I like earthquakes and thunderstorms and am at my best in a crisis. Joseph Wambaugh nailed it when he said police work was "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." I couldn't agree more, public safety is like that. Some fear is addictive. I like anticipatory fear. The best part of riding a roller coaster is that long, slow, why-in-the-world-did-I-think-this-was-a-good-idea climb to the apex of the ride with that teeny tiny bit of time you are suspended just before you fall. Yowza! I have had the great pleasure of swimming on the Great Barrier Reef. To say that it was incredible is an understatement. The colors, the beauty, the wildlife, it was all breathtaking. And then the person heading ou...