Simplicity

We live in the 21st century... the age of technology, fast cars, loud music, smartphones, and every device you could possibly imagine to make things a little more convenient. Noise and distractions everywhere you turn. And it seems like everyone's eating it up so eagerly. It makes me sad. But I fall into the snare of technology, too. I don't go anywhere without my phone, I'm almost always listening to music, and if I didn't have a car and had to walk everywhere, I'd probably get really fat because I just wouldn't go anywhere....Just kidding. Kindof. :) But in all seriousness, occasionally when I ponder why my heart feels so restless, I come to the realization that it's mostly because I just spend way too much time on my phone or facebook, or listening to the radio, or driving every which-way and being fed distractions from the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes for the night... and at the end of the day when I'm lying in bed waiting to fall asleep, there's God in my head, simply asking why I didn't make time for Him...

The point is, now more than ever in my life, I can see clearly that the devil loves to work through the technology of today to capture our attention-spans that seem to be growing ever shorter. In the 21st century, cell phones, facebook, internet and TV are the golden calves that people are worshipping....

I think about things like this when I get a healthy dose of God's beauty in nature. Anything from a walk in the metroparks to seeing pictures I took of Myrtle Beach at sunrise set my mind reeling and tonight, I decided to turn it into this blog post.

 Yeah, It would be too easy to put ALL the blame on the idols and gods we've made for ourselves in this day and age. It would be effortless to say that "the devil made me do it"... but it takes two to tango. For every temptation to be distracted by something, you DO have a choice: will you let your phone take you away from a moment where you could be praising God by praying, or singing, or simply thinking about Him, or will you stop and say, "God, have mercy. This is for You. This is for me. This is for us."?

 There's a quote that goes something like this: "Every moment spent unhappy is a moment wasted, one that you will never get back..." That quote relates perfectly. Every moment you spend in a day consumed by the world....is a moment wasted. We are not of this world. I personally DO NOT want to be part of this world. I don't belong here. But I'm human, just like we all are. I am weak. And I fall to all the distractions of the world that we all do. When I'm lying in bed at night, realizing that I wasted every moment of the day because my attention was held by things so foolish, instead of my attention, my heart and my soul being captured by my Beloved.......I almost feel sick to my stomach. But the amazing thing about God is that He loves me the exact same those times as when I'm in Adoration pouring my everything out to Him. He still loves me. And that's enough to end every night on a good note and to resolve to make the next day better. Even 5 minutes spent enveloped in My Jesus' arms at night is enough to get me through the next day.

God's good like that. But even still, sometimes I wish I didn't have my phone, or internet access, or a facebook, or even a car, just so that the lure of every technological distraction would be drastically reduced and I could focus on God more... 

Sometimes I wish I was like Pocahontas and lived in the forest, or a hermit who lived on a mountain, or a cloistered nun who lives every day as the Bride of Christ, or even a beach-dweller who spent nearly all her life carefree and barefoot with windswept hair. When I'm surrounded by God's artwork, also known as nature, I long for simplicity. I ponder what it would've been like to live in a time when nature and my loved ones was all that was around me. And I wish for it. 

Yes, I do realize that if I lived like Pocahontas I'd probably be a human dart board for killer mosquitos and eventually eaten by a bear. And if I was a hermit, yeah I'd probably get pneumonia and die a slow, painful death because there was no cure for it...

Every age has its problems. All things considered, we have it easy living in the world today. And even though sometimes I swear I should've been born in a different century, I know that God gave me this life for a reason- the most perfect reason there could be. I trust Him in that. So although I can't have the life of a farm girl in the breath-taking Swiss Alps, without the pain of technology and such, God has given me the chance to experience His beauty and His simplicity......... 

.....All I have to do is turn my phone off, get down on my knees in front of a Crucifix, and rest in Him for awhile...... 

Simplicity.

I Am Here

Tonight, God ever so simply reminded me that He is here....

I had a rough night at work. There was a long line of hungry, impatient customers, I was feeling tired and sluggish from the heat, so I wasn't moving as quickly, and then their unhappy faces and remarks made me unhappy and it all kept piling on. Gradually, it all became too much for me to handle, and I got very stressed out. Then I had to hold back tears. Then I had to force myself to keep going instead of leaving the rest of my team to run the line by themselves and escaping to the bathroom to cry.

In weak moments, sometimes I forget to remember that God is there to pull me through. And sometimes I know He's there, but I doubt that He'll help me because He feels so far away. As I was struggling to hold on, I suddenly had the urge to pray: "God help me." 

...No, there was no flash of light and wave of peace and happiness. The line of people kept growing longer, I was still stressed as ever and the tears were about to start rolling faster than I was rolling burritos....

But then my manager saw me, saw that I was struggling, and told me to take a break. She pulled me into the office and gave me the chance to breathe, to cry if I wanted, to talk about anything that was on my mind, and she reassured me that I was doing a good job. I calmed down, we talked, and I was struck by the kindness she and the rest of my team showed to me in my moment of weakness. My co-workers that I've barely known for 3 weeks took the time to build me back up. They thought I was worth it. They needed my smile back.

I got a bit of food and sat down, pulled out my phone and opened the text from my best friend in response to the angry text I sent him earlier about my work day. He told me that he just spent the last hour at Adoration praying for me....

Boom. There was my blinking, neon sign from God saying "HELLO! I'M HERE!". He loved me so much, that He sent my best friend in the whole world to pray for me for an hour, not even knowing that I was having the work day from hell. If that wasn't enough to get me back on my feet, my friend continued to build me back up with his love and reminders that he and God believe in me, and I can do it. Such a simple example of the pure love that Christ has for each of us... I'm amazed. 

It's been an hour or so since I got off work, and thanks to my other half and the Big Man upstairs, I'm ending tonight on a fantastic note.

God bless, and good night :)