Tuesday Report

At 5:30 yesterday evening when I was asking, "what now?" I distinctly heard in my head - "why don't you go get cleaned up and move on." So, Tuesday was officially over at 6:00 pm. Good thing because I couldn't stand it any longer. I was beginning to go stir crazy. Although it was a perfectly lovely day and I did come out of the day with one sentence. I'll share that at the end. I did go 25 hours without the computer even turned on and that is something for me. The draw of this contraption is really strong. I like to think it's all the relationships I've been blessed by on here. Yeah, let's just say that. I also skipped the coffee. Now that was huge, too.

Here's the lowdown on the day. I woke up at 6:40 after a very fitful night of sleep and immediately asked God what we were doing first. "Take a walk." Ok, so I got dressed and headed with my camera to the park. I couldn't very well go there without taking some pictures of Bev's Fred, now could I? Here he is:

Dancing!!


and terrorizing his friends

He really is very beautiful.




After the photo shoot (which you will see much more of as time goes by )I asked God what we were doing next and I distinctly understood that we were on our way to The Buffalo Gap Cemetery. (insert photo here if blogger would let me)

It was completely apparent that He brought me here to die to self one more time. This place holds a special significance for me. A few years ago I came to this place with the sole purpose of doing just that - die to self. I was with my Alanon sponsor and I was working the third step. For those of you who are not familiar with the 12 Steps, the third step is all about giving your will up and over to God. There's a prayer that goes along with this step and I was in this place to pray this prayer. It goes like this: "God, I offer myself to You to build with me and do with me as You will. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Your will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your love and Your way of life. May I do Your will always." I had worked very hard memorizing it and now was the time. There we sat at the little rock wall, talking about God and how I understood Him then and how I understand Him now and it was time to pray. We knelt down on the ground and I was ready - only nothing came. I couldn't remember past, "God, I". I knew the next word was an "o" word, but the only one that came to mind was "object"; and I knew it wasn't "God, I object...", so I just knelt there. My sponsor asked me if I remembered it and I said no but it would come to me. Finally I asked her to give me a prompt and she said "I've been waiting for you to ask." She gave me the first 3 words or so and it all came back to me and I said it and we hugged and it was over. In the car on the way back to Abilene, I told her what was going on in my mind, that I could only come up with "God, I object...". She began laughing - could hardly drive the car she was laughing so hard - and I was crying. You see, it was the first inkling I'd had of my incredibly strong self-will and I knew right then and there it was going to be a hard fight to overcome it. As you can see, several years later I'm still working on it. I probably will all my life. Laying self down to pick up the cross. Laying self down to pick up His yoke, which I might add is much easier than the one I choose to carry on my own. At least He helps with His yoke, because, well, then we are yoked!

Anyway, that's my story. All that to say that by the time the day was over I had received this: "When you die to self you are set free to love." A lot of other things added to this conclusion including a couple of times of soaking in His presence and a book a friend brought me on Monday, but mostly a trip to a cemetery where I saw so many visual reminders of how we love and are loved. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

(This has been miserable posting today. It wouldn't let me post many pictures I wanted to share. Maybe I'll add them later when blogger is being more cooperative.)