Tag Archives: when you’re down in the dump

 

I saw the writing on the wall this morning.......or on the guitar rather.

It was written in blue crayon. The strokes mimicked the disorder that is looming large in our house this week. The messy letters were written a couple of years ago, but stuck out to me today like a sore thumb.

guitar

Just take yesterday morning for example.

Jason had somewhere to be at 6:00 AM. I had an appointment at 7:30. Throw in the teenager's missing car keys. Then there was that tooth that was supposed to be missing from underneath the nine year old's pillow, but was still there. Yesterday morning was filled with appointments and frazzled disappointments. 

Now copy and paste the like into Monday morning and afternoon.  The events may not have been exactly the same, but Monday was a messy challenge too.

Go back and there was weekend vomiting. There was saying goodbye to the second family member within a couple of weeks. Bad news from friends.  We're dealing with grades again already and the six weeks has just begun. Yesterday there was time spent trying to help a college two hours away track down a misplaced school transcript that we've already found for them once.  There was also the lost prescription for medicine that called for a trip to the pharmacy then the doctor's office and then back to the pharmacy.  This week has held forgotten lunch boxes and tests we're unprepared for. We have more appointments this week than we know what to do with. Even my website keeps "burping" whatever that means.... It's as if all nature around me has a bad case of indigestion.

The writing on the wall, or uh the pink guitar on Rylie's untidy floor was a reminder of the messy. The cold, wet dripping outside the window like my mood is slightly soggy.

Two moldy pieces of bread with life stuck right in the middle.

Sometimes that's just how we feel.

Sometimes we're face to face with the writing on the wall.

 The book of Daniel recounts the origin of the phrase "the writing on the wall".  The words "Mene, mene tekel upharsin" which appeared on a palace wall foretold of the destruction of Belshazzar and his kingdom. It spoke of impending doom.

Now look. I really have no place speaking of impending doom. My troubles are real, but they're small in the right light.  It's just that my human condition views through a magnifying glass.

I guess it's fair to say sometimes I'm swept up in impending gloom.

I looked up the exact meaning of mene, mene tekel..... Mene basically means your days are numbered. It was the meaning of the word tekel that caught my eye.

TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

There's nothing that could be closer to the truth.

My circumstances and certainly my attitude, being weighed, is found wanting. Faced with frustration and disappointment, my vision becomes nearsighted. It's rather dark on the inside of that sandwich I find myself in.

Incomplete on my own.......I'm lacking.

Things outside my control have me grasping;........I'm found wanting......

It's times like these that we need to remember the words written on our hearts that outshine anything "written on the wall"

2 Corinthians 4-

6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.

16 ....our inner person is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary light affliction[c] is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.

18 So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Jesus answered, "Man (and this moody woman) shall not live on (moldy) bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4