prison

Once again, I was up by 6:30 this morning. I actually was in the mode, of 'forcing oneself' to sleep longer, and the best I could muster up was 6:30. I'm beginning to wonder if it I had *too* much sleep. Is this even possible?

I haven't done much sharing lately, here or even in my small group. I've been disappointed lately with some of the things I hoped for but which didn't materialize and as a result I've been pretty closed up aside from sharing about my basement struggles.

Of course, whenever I'm down God teaches me a lesson. Yesterday I read a chapter in Traveling Light dealing with the burden of disappointment. Lucado says: A disappointment is a missed appointment. What we hoped would happen, didn't. We wanted health; we got disease. We wanted retirement; we got reassignment. Divorce instead of family. Dismissal instead of promotion. We wanted a girlfriend; we got a wife. (Haha.. just kidding!)

Then he goes on to talk about how Paul wanted to go to Spain for missions, but instead ended up in prison, where he wrote four important letters.

Exerpt: When we come to God, we make requests; we don't make demands. We come with high hopes and a humble heart. We state what we want, but we pray for what is right. And if God gives us the prison of Rome instead of the mission of Spain, we accept it because we know "God will always give what is right to his people who cry to him night and day, and he will not be slow to answer them" (Luke 18:7).

We go to him. We bow before him, and we trust in him. (p. 130, pp. 4, Traveling Light by Max Lucado)

I think so far, I've gotten a little bit of both but recently I've been in the depths of the prison. First, I was in the prison. Then, it flooded. Then, everyone else in the prison left me all alone down here. They fixed the flooding, but I'm still down here. So now I just sit here, in this cold (and newly renovated) prison. I'm happy.. but what am I supposed to do down here?!