Too much

I find myself unable to keep up the blog with everything that's going on. Which makes me a little sad, since this is my record of all this. Well, in an attempt to catch up:

Here's a pic of the cozy little cabin my Mom lives in. Her view is of the woods, and the smells are of good cooking and the house is filled with love. My children are staying with her until tomorrow. They'll be coming home on the bus and train. There's a whole situation around that, which took hours to resolve and at least one trip to Kinko's and an extra drive into town, but I don't have all the details on it, yet. We really did have a nice visit. Too bad Xena stayed in the Bay Area and worked the entire weekend.

I needed to come back and deal with the home inspection and appraisal. I got up at 4:30AM to start the 4 hour drive home, and discovered it had snowed during the night! I knew the children would be thrilled. I also knew the townsfolk wouldn't be pleased, but it was only a couple of inches and the sun did melt it all in a few hours. My camera's batteries were dying, but I did get this shot of the trees and a bit of my van covered with snow.


Here's a big clue that I'm beyond my limits: as I tried to back out of the drive, I overcompensated for the icy conditions and shot across the road and into the forest. I took out a manzanita bush, I think, and put a nice new dent in the back of the van. I also smelled gasoline, but it turned out to be nothing more than a little flooding of the engine. Still, let me tell you, I was praying really hard that I hadn't punctured the gas tank or a fuel line with my little bit of off-roading!

Huh. This leads me to today's contemplation: I enjoy a pretty rich prayer life. I pray all the time. I invite Spirit to walk with me and am mindful of God's presence nearly unceasingly. Yet there's a real complacency, a comfortableness, to it all. When I stretch out into an overwhelmingly difficult task, I get to pray with an intensity and fervor that I cannot conjure during "normal" days.

I think that's why I want to do this project so much. I like praying hard. I like being in God's hands, and discovering truths about my life such as my fear to appear foolish holds me back from taking risks.

And while I am sincerely grateful for things like indoor plumbing, I simply cannot escape the sense that I'm called to a much larger experience than thanking God for indoor plumbing.