Daily News for Purpose Driven Blog

I've gotten caught up on a lot of things today. A great feeling. Went to visit my in-laws...watched KY Wilcats get beat...not a fun thing around these parts.

My Mr. Wonderful and I did spring yardwork. Always great to find stuff growing...the earliest Spring we can ever remember. I've always wanted lots of jonquils...and this house has enough I could move them around some this year to new spots. I already can't wait until next year when they come up on their own, hopefully! Also lots of purple blooming mosses I divided and moved. I know it's not the best time to move stuff...but if you wait until Summer, the dirt is too hot and hard, and if until fall, everythings dead looking and it's hard to find and move...so I vote for now. I can see where holes need to be filled. Sure, it may shorten the life of the blooms. But, hey...I got it done!

Lots of leaves burned and weeks weeded. Always just great to get your hands dirty and make things look better. I love it when he can be home to help me get Spring started.

It's late. I don't want to go to church tomorrow. I'm not sure why. I think just a feeling of ministry overload that hits all of us now and then. I don't want to get up at 7:30 and see if the set "works", if all the practice pays off, decide if I should wear slacks or jeans or a skirt, or what's appropriate or what I'm in the mood for, or whatever. I just don't want it. I dont' want to go. I want to lay here with my husband, have more of his flat watered-down pancakes with generic mix (just buy Bisquick...it's best) and too many chocolate chips. I want to exhale some more.

I don't want to go to bed. I just want to rest.

I think I'm giving in to worry. A lot of new things starting...responsibilities, pressures, tasks. And, it gets tiring. A lot of "stuff". You wonder if the work pays off, if anybody is touches or blessed or if it's all just another self imposed busy work. I know the sacrifices give Him joy. It's just a lot of work.

MasterLife is heavy on evangelism this month. I think it starts giving you this itch to refine...free up time...focus...prioritize. And...even ministry can keep us too busy to be about doing what we are most called to do.

I think I'm supposed to be doing everything I'm doing right now. There is joy in it. But, nobody said it's easy.

Wednesday I broke down. I said, "Lord, that's it. I've poured everything out I have for as long as I can these last four days. I'm literally exhausted. Today, I'm resting, taking joy in the mundane. You're just going to have to encourage me and fill me today."

I had such sweet conversations with people, calls, contacts, and out of the blue, a friend from my MasterLife class brought me this beautiful mohagany carved grand piano. They think they gave it to me...it was really from my Lord. He was encouraging me. You don't get gifts like that every day. It touched me.

I guess some would say it is selfish to pray for encouragement from the Lord after all He's already done for us. But, I think He wants us to seek our daily manna, and just enough for that day. And to seek it the next day, whatever our need is, whatever energy we need for our tasks, whatever food we need, whatever teaching or inspiriation...and to seek how we can serve and bless and share and pour it all back out and see the miracle of the jar of flour that never goes empty.

Tonight in my Bible reading, I read several scriptures of Jesus in his last days. Interesting timing leading up until Easter. I saw in Jesus an intensity I have been critiqued for. A heaviness in his teaching, a drivenness to obey and do the will of the Father so that the Father would be glorified in him. I had forgotten what Jesus looked like. In criticizing myself, I criticized him for who he was at times.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Time for bed. I'm ready for church tomorrow now.