Old McLaura had a Farm

RE: Spider Webs (If this link doesn't work for you, please let me know.)

I think I've spent my adult life searching for infinite time to do nothing. My goal in my weeks is time to do nothing. Yes, I realize how screwed up this is. I think it stems from the fact that growing up we have so much time for nothingness. Summer breaks, holidays, weekends, etc. for children are just excuses to run rampant or to sit on your bum and stare at the wall (which we know really means staring at the TV). We had no responsibilities, no jobs to be concerned about, no bills to pay. I held on to that for as long as I could. When I was in high school, I didn't get a job like other people, because I knew once I got out of school I would have a job for the rest of my life!

I miss running around barefoot, making up stupid games, playing practically from sun-up to way past sun-down, catching lightning bugs. I miss the freedom to run around and not have somebody needing to know where I was all the time (I was essentially a latch-key kid and had I been given the choice to do childhood over again, I wouldn't have it any other way.) I miss not being crucial to the operation of something, not having somebody needing to know what I know at any given hour of the day. 

As I sit in my windowless office (that by tomorrow will be switched to a gray cubicle) with disgusting fluorescent light beating down on me, 26 to 62 seems like a reallllllllllly loooooooooong time. Of course I knew long ago that it would - remember me not working in high school? I totally anticipated this feeling. I sit and think about jobs. What a weird concept! We were put on this earth to take care of the earth. In the beginning, people grew food and they hunted and they maintained the land that they lived on and that God created. These days we maintain the information that MAN has created. Think about that for a minute! All of the millions and billions of jobs there are in the world and the majority of them are merely keeping up with information that we have generated - shuffling it around and moving it from one place to another and protecting it from other people. Good grief! It's no wonder why people struggle to find the meaning of their existence and the purpose of their lives - all they do is keep up with the things of MAN. 

I guess this is why I find the thought of being a stay at home mom so appealing. It's like stepping back into another time - a simpler and seemingly slower time. Don't get me wrong - I know that maintaining a household is not an easy task but I also know that family and home are more important than maintaining information. I could bear with the hard work of family life with knowing that in its most simple form it is what God intended. Time to take care of a family, to raise children to appreciate what God has created, to see the earth in all its glory. 

Also in the past year or so, I've found the thought of having a farm increasingly appealing. I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT HAVING A FARM. What I do know is that having my hands to the plow, so to speak, just seems right. Having a farm is also hard work and unpredictable and quite a struggle for most families, but I can almost guarantee that those families end each day with a feeling of accomplishment and purpose, satisfaction and joy, even in the midst of wondering how they'll make it through the winter (or whatever the worries might be.) I'm sure they have a better feeling than say I have about working on files, documents, and the internet all day!

I long to have a simpler life where things are not 0 to 60 in under 20 seconds, where I can sit on the porch and watch the sun go down, or walk down a country road without knowing I have to be somewhere in 30 minutes. 

God can bring purpose to what seems to be a purposeless life, but somehow I know that He will give me the desires of my heart. As ridiculous as it seems, we need people in this world to shuffle the information around, and there are actually people in the world that enjoy doing it. So someday I hope God sees fit to let them do what they enjoy doing and let me ride my tractor!  

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

The Thread of My Personality

If I look at my strengths and weaknesses, I generally end up seeing how they are woven together. I can see how my pitfalls have come into play and how my victories have been achieved.

One such thread of my personality is a little hateful thing called perfectionism. Most people probably have no idea what I'm talking about and probably scoff to think that I am a perfectionist. I try to keep a tight lid on my weaknesses and then again this makes the fabric of my personality, a symptom itself of my perfectionism. Why on earth, as a perfectionist, would I want people to know my weaknesses? Even as I write this blog, I struggle with the thought of posting it and people knowing my struggles. My mind wrestles with the thought of someone using knowledge about my weakness against me. COOL OUT, Laura, COOL OUT! (*with my best Will Ferrell impersonation (which isn't that good)) LOL

I struggle with procrastination and being idle. Now these things you probably have observed in me. However, they are only the leaves of this tree of perfectionism. Ever since I was a child, if I couldn't devote hours to a task or do it just the way I thought it should be done, I just wouldn't do it at all. Perfectionism has been the thief of good ideas and accomplishments. If my room was a mess, but I couldn't devote the time to dust it down to the very last kitschy item, then I simply wouldn't do it at all, and my room would become a disaster area. Sometimes, particularly with my job, if I can't see to the end of the steps or the details, I become completely overwhelmed and abandon the project altogether!

Perfectionism goes hand in hand with detail. Now I know people who are detailed. People who can talk and talk and talk and talk and detail a subject to death. As most of you know though, I am not a talker, so you wouldn't straight out know that I am a detailed person. I am a closet "detailler", so to speak.

I am very keen on comfort zones, which I am now realizing is a result of my perfectionism. Once I start a new chapter of life, it may take me a matter of months or years to develop my system for accomplishing things. I map them down to the details. So if a new chapter to life is introduced, I am not overly thrilled because this means I must map out a whole new way of completing tasks and getting through each day.

It is hard for me to delegate, because, as I've already mentioned, I have developed a system to accomplish a task and to watch or teach someone how to do it the way I do it is simply frustrating.

Frankly on the outside I come off as a pretty laid-back person but on the inside I am tightly wound. I find that I am quite good at allaying other people's stresses, while inside my own stresses/details/tasks are getting the better of me.

I expect a lot from myself and can in turn expect much from those around me. This leads me to my relationship with God.

While God is faithful to forgive my sins and weaknesses, I am not so easy on myself. I hold my flaws and bad deeds against myself, and while I know in my spirit that God has forgiven me so I should forgive myself, my  soul tells me that there is a long list ever before God's face of my misdemeanors. My spirit wants to live by grace, but my soul struggles to live by the Law. I know that if I live by the Law, I will be judged by the Law. Something about my perfectionist nature is drawn to this legalism; I can see in black and white where I have gone off track. Yet my spirit cries out for grace and mercy and to be released from this bondage, but my perfectionism views such a thing like a free-fall... completely out of my control.

Perfectionism is a prison that keeps you from the grace of God. Allow yourself to get lost in the deep of His waterfalls and allow His waves and breakers to wash over you. Lose control of yourself because that's the only way you'll be safe in Him. *Laura says to herself!

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

I was once compared to Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I loved it! To some people that comparison would be an insult. However, my mother raised me, so to speak, on The Sound of Music. If I complained of being bored and having no one to play with, my mother knew of six children that would entertain me and in would go the VHS. Of course in my teen years I hated the thought of this movie, but that was probably just a rebellion against my mom at the time. (Simple and stupid rebellion, but rebellion none the less. I did have some hateful rebellious moments, but that's another story.)

Now to some people, looking at me and knowing me, that analogy would be a stretch, but I think at the core of who I am I am a Maria Von Trapp. I enjoy nature and the simple things in life. I love songs and stories. I long for adventure and hope to be someone who rises to the occasion. I think a lot of us at our hearts are just like that. However, the daring in my heart does not always surface to be the daring in my life. I have had occasion where I have pushed past my fear and stormed in the face of the enemy and known just what was coming my way and that I would take it as it came. My first instinct is to say that this was not me but instead it was God, but the truth of the matter is God has put that in each and every one of us. It would be a disservice to Him and His design to say, I am a weakling and I can do nothing. NO! I can do anything, because He fashioned me in His likeness and He created me with a purpose. Whether or not I choose to tap into this nature that He has created is up to me, and when I do choose to tap into it He promises to come up right along side of me and to see me through! Yes "I am weak and He is strong" but that weakness is from the Fall; it is not what God intended. He  made us in his image with the purpose of fellowship with Him. He made us to look like Him; he gave us purpose - to have dominion in the earth. That is not the task of a weakling, but the task of the Sons and Daughters of God!

So often in the struggles of life and in the chaos of society we forget what makes us tick. We forget those things that God has created in us that make us who we are. We are not all  meant to have the same personality, to enjoy doing the same things, to have the same purpose. We are unique. God is a creative God, He wouldn't be much of a God if He had created the same person over and over from the beginning until now. God created us for fellowship with Him and with each other because we all have something different to bring to the table. (1 Corinthians 12:12, Romans 12:4-5, Ephesians 4:16). Most of the time we forget that we are meant to be different and we STRIVE to be like someone else, whether in the church or in society, because we think that's what is expected of us. We forget who we are, what we like, what motivates us, what brings us to compassion, what makes us tick. Those little things in our hearts that bring us joy are the brushstrokes to the paintings of our lives. They indicate what we are meant to do and what our life is meant to be.

Today remember who you are. Remember those little things that make you tick, that make you do a little happy dance in your head. God loves those things about us and I suspect that He does a little happy dance for us when we get to enjoy them. Don't pass up the small things and overwhelm yourself in the "big" things that essentially end up being totally unimportant. God created you to be unique and when we go to Him He wants to see us, not the person that we are mimicking!

And if you think I'm a nerd for being Maria Von Trapp, then that's exactly what I am and God loves me for it! So :P