This Pilgrim's Regress

An early Easter ... good
news for candy lovers!

First of all, I’d like to say, how weird is it that Easter is so early this year? My Lenten sacrifice blog followed right on the heels of my New Year’s Resolution blog, which I admit I was super late in posting.

Since I sort of felt like I was not “doing my good deeds in secret” I vowed that I would make sure to tell you about my miserable failures as well! So… here goes!

Here's what I have to look
forward to... nice. At least 
I'll have a ready excuse!

As far as my New Year’s resolution, which was to “engage conflict,”… well, a big part of it was that it was not about picking fights, but about going deeper. In order to do this right, I knew that I would have to exercise complete patience and kindness. Well, that didn’t happen. At the first sign of trouble, what did I do? I yelled at my husband. I was harsh in the extreme. I think it scared him.

I know it’s lame, but I’m going to blame it on the menopause. Now, I’m not IN menopause. Lordy, no – not yet. But I HAVE noticed some of the symptoms they ascribe to onset of menopause… specifically: "increased irritability, anxiety, fatigue, and blue moods"… not to mention, a good deal of “brain fog.” It’s not that I’m not going to try to control this aspect of “the change” as it happens, but I am going to be blaming all my stuff on it for a while.

I apologized, and all, and things seemed to get back to normal, but really, my husband is a sensitive dude… It really hurt him. So that’s how THAT one is going. It reminded me of the time that Jonathan Inman,my pastor in Asheville, told me that marriage was best lived in a state of constant repentance. He couldn’t have been more right, in my case.

One of Bill's creations... he 
says it's a "monkey temple."

Now, about Lent… You may recall that I’m trying to give up “my own agenda” – that is, to pay attention when my son is talking and come look when he says, “Look!” Well, this past Monday was President’s Day, which meant a day off from school for him. Often, Bill is pretty good at entertaining himself… he’ll watch a Harry Potter movie or an episode of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones… or he’ll make crazy things out of Legos, rubber bands, paper clips, tape and carboard boxes… or he’ll run back and forth making up stories in his mind, being, what he calls, “in his own world.” This day, however, he couldn’t seem to stop talking. To me. While I was trying to work. About things that happened at camp two years ago. It is in no way an exaggeration when I say that he talked for 6 hours straight. I documented it on Facebook. Commenters were calling it a “Billibuster.”

Van Morrison – he 
knows about crazy love.

And I am here to tell you that it tried my patience. In fact, I didn’t even TRY to have patience. “STOP TALKING!” I kept saying. More than once I made the classic gun-to-head shooting motion that universally signifies, “You’re making me want to kill myself.” So much for Lenten vows, right?

Yeh, I failed on both counts. Yeh, I’m super lame. But every day’s a new day, am I right? I just gotta keep going. And every time I fail, I remember the One whose love never fails. The One who makes me righteous and whole. He gives me love, love, love, crazy love… Oh wait… that’s a Van Morrison song… but no less appropriate!

So that’s my progress report. No matter how many steps I take backward, Jesus takes me all the way forward!