Friday, February 22, 2008

((Fingers in my ears))

Remember when you were a kid and you didn't want to hear something? It didn't really work, you could still hear what your parent/teacher/used-to-be-best-friend was saying, but you could pretend you didn't hear.

Sometimes I feel that way about my attitude towards God. About a year and a week ago, we were at a church membership class, and one of the women had a vision for me of God taking something in my life that was too big for me, like a pair of pants, and putting it in the dryer and shrinking until it fit right.

I was wearing Patrick's pants that day--I was 8-9 weeks pregnant with twins. It was a week before the first ultra sound when we found out things didn't look good, and a month before I had a D&C.

The person who saw it said she thought it was about our role at church, and didn't think it had to do with our family size. But given that our church says prophecy is never to be applied to marriage or babies (which I'm not sure I agree with--why wouldn't God speak about topics as big as those?) as well as occurances of the year, what else could it be? I'm still really struggling with the "why"...Guess I need to go back to Job. Why not?

Our church is having a "Learning to Listen like Jesus" mini-conference tomorrow, and I think I have my fingers in my ears. I'm MAKING myself go--I'm ready for my spiritual life to be less a willful obedience and something that I desire to do, but right now it's lots of "little engine that could", making myself do the right thing. And in general, it's been fruitful...

Take the fingers out of my ears, Lord, and make me ready to listen to whatever you have for me...even bad news is good when it comes from you.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great post! You have a gift with words. Thanks for writing this...I needed to hear it today.

Misty said...

If I heard this story via a small group or church event, I would just give you a genuine hug. Maybe because I understand as best I can, or maybe because you might need one. I don't know, but that is all that I could think of...

Unknown said...

Ann, I also want to reach out and give you a hug. Just the fact that you are praying about having your fingers in your ears in a good thing. I pray that this weekend is an eye(and ear) opening experience for you.

Remember that God has good plans for you, plans to give you hope. Hold onto that hope, my friend.