RTT: Confessions (aka Day 1)

What time is it: 1020P

Where am I: kitchen table, sitting across from LK as he works on a video for work

Listening to: LK intermittently singing lines from I and Love and You

Last ate: Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Chic-fil-a (yum!)

Thoughts: I didn't make it through my 40 days of prayer.  I feel I need to confess that.  One night, around day 30, I just fell asleep before having the quiet time.  I could have picked right back up the next day but I think I was too disappointed in myself for having fallen asleep without really even thinking about it (in other words, I was pouting a little).

Now, the good Puritan in me, the one that comes out every now and again, screams in fear "What hast thou done!" (she's Puritan, you know, so of course she speaketh in the King James)  "Surely the Lord will smite you now!"  And yes, I am fighting the thought that the "something" I had coming towards me at the end of my 40 days has now been removed because I failed.

I really think I have that pity party under control now.

But I am picking the 40 days back up.  Back at day one.  And not because I fear that I won't receive what that "something" was.  But more because I keep hearing "make your vow to the Lord and stick with it." (KHV)  and not out of fear but more out of the simple following through with what I told God I would do.

So Wednesday was day one and, unlike my first day one, it was not a monversation of me outlining to God my way of how he should do it.  Instead I read Psalms 1-5 and sat still, mentally saying to myself Psalm 1:3:

like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season

Now, I won't promise that I'm going to discuss with you every thought I have during this time mainly because I feel some of this might get a bit too personal to throw out in a place that Google will eventually come along and index.  But I do feel these two thoughts are worthy of indexing.

1. Just because my tree is planted by the streams of water, doesn't mean my roots are seeking the water.  And if my roots aren't seeking the water, than my tree's not really going to get anywhere.  In other words, my loving and wonderful parents raised me in the church and I am so grateful to them for my heritage of faith.  From birth my tree was planted by the water.  But if I'm not in this all together, full-open-handed-surrender to God, than I'm just living near life, but not living in life.  I'm just by what can fill my soul in a way that nothing in this world can, but that doesn't mean I'm drinking in all it has to offer.

2. Trees will only yield fruit in their season.  When we move, I'll be leaving behind the wonderful plum tree we found in our yard this past spring.  ISH had so much fun searching for plum every morning and we enjoyed all the fresh fruit the has to offer (I will surely miss it).  But as much as we loved the fruit from that tree, I keep having to explain to my dear sweet boy that it's not plum season now, there is no new fruit to pick from the tree.  As with me, even if my roots are reaching deep deep into the water, I can't make fruit come.  I can't force a plum tree to bring fruit in September and I can't force the production of something God is doing within me.  A plum tree needs all the seasons to allow the conditions to be right so that plums will form- in their season.  And for me, all things have to be experienced, the time has to pass, all things working together for the fruit to come.

Looking forward to the next 39 days and beyond.