Come to Me.

I (Jenna) am keeping this one relatively short.  This is a feat where my verbose writing mind is concerned.  But it is important this time.  I am simultaneously inspired to write and to heed the words laid upon my heart.

We are preparing for a conference this weekend - we're returning to lead worship for a group of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship students in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.  Just the two of us, no extra musicians along for the jam this time.  And it will be so good when we get there.  The week leading up to such things, though, is always a looming mountain to me.  I look upon each hour as a fractional piece, placing expectations upon us of practice in every spare moment to try to get even remotely close to the whole of "Prepared," because that is what we should always be and never are and we are SO behind and when will it happen if not now and how can we be professionals and what is wrong with us.

This inner monologue guilt trip is never once what God has said to me.  But heavens, I've recited it over and over again maniacally and tried to beat Chris over the head with it, too, in moments of desperation.  I will let you take about two seconds to surmise how effective this is.

So tonight, we cackled through the downhill spiral of Once Upon a Time over Mexican pie (unrelated: new obsession = savory pie), wrote to this precious face (the Compassion child we sponsor), watched the new Avengers movie trailer (and after he sopped up his drool, Chris explained all of it to me so I can pretend I know what's going on and be just as pumped), and at last sat down to practice.

I mean, LOOK AT HIM.  His future hopes include

becoming an evangelist and meeting us. *dies*

And as we sat down, Chris said, "Is it too late to add another song?"

I stared silently back and willed the giant YES back down and the eye-daggers back into their sheaths.  In my head, I looked quite receptive.  I won't ask him, just in case.

He said he just felt like it was a really appropriate response song, and it would be simple, and we didn't have to, but it was really poignant and maybe we could try it?  "Okay.  Try it."  Which translates to "Of course, my dearest love," and not "Sure. Go. I dare you," if you were wondering.

So then he sat down at the piano and played and sang the song.  

Come to me

Walk with me

Learn the rhythms of my grace

And I thought, well, maybe, harumph, okay.

Come to me

I have all you need

Learn to rest even while you are awake 

And then we pulled it up on Bandcamp to listen through to get it correct. 

Are you tired?

Are you worried?

Worn out from the day?

Have you been in a hurry?

I will slow the pace.

Hmm.  Umm.  Well.  Let's try it.  Key of Bb.  Jenna sings.

Come to-

And I was done.

I could sing no more words.

In a child's lullaby, the Voice of ages cut through my noise.
The floodgate was shattered.

One tear turned to three.

A trickle down my cheek turned to a river.

And I was small.  frail.  present.  listening.  

And He was Great.  Strong.  Present.  Speaking.

Come to me.  Come to me.  Come to me.

"Yeah, me too," said Chris.

Here I am.

And there I go.

The end.

Lyrics from "Come to Me" featuring Sandra McCracken from the Rain for Roots project album The Kingdom of Heaven is Like This. listen and purchase.  it will be worth it.

Mess.

Here's a little insight to my [Jenna's] past month or so.

I am now 30.  And with that has come an ever-increasing desire to live well.  In the physical realm, this looks like integrating main ideas of healthy eating into our grocery shopping and diet.  Like starting to run (read: jog/power walk/wheeze) in the mornings before work.  Like gradually exchanging chemical products in our home for natural solutions.  Like learning cleaning techniques our mothers and grandmothers knew like the backs of their hands, but for some reason didn't quite bridge the generation gap.  Like trying to get a handle on a schedule of keeping our apartment less of a wreck despite our crazy days.

This is a great image to illustrate my recent cleaning efforts, and also how I look and feel never.

The more I am trying to do these things, the more I am foiled in my efforts.  Shocking, right?

Specifically, I'm looking at you, cleanliness.  In the past couple of weeks, we have:

• knocked an entire container of bright yellow mustard barbecue sauce onto the carpet
• kicked a full glass of red wine over onto the carpet (beside the mustard stain)
• gotten home to discover a gallon of milk leaked into the backseat of my car (a mere week after DIY-shampooing the seats, because Pinterest! and cleanliness!)
• discovered the health benefits of turmeric and its part in creating delicious Indian-style food like lamb sloppy joes... as well as its apparent dying properties of counters, clothes, and anything ever
• had coconut oil-laden bulletproof coffee (healthy! let's do it!) leak into the depths of our Magic Bullet and all over the counter (incidentally, when you google 'hot liquid in M.B.,' disregard the half of people who say they've been doing it for years and heed the other half who say the pressure will make it shoot through the blade)
• discovered my old sneakers are now tracking black footprints everywhere, notably on freshly mopped floors
• and probably at least 29 other things.

 Thank you, universe.  Thank you, klutziness.  Thank you, thank you, irony.  (This would be my current version of that Alanis Morisette song.  Which, really, I could just say 'that Alanis song.'  Because who else is named that?!  I digress.)

And it INFURIATES ME.  To NO END.

 
It feels like such a waste of time.  I could be doing Big Things and Important Things and instead I am locked into a distasteful thing I hate for the next 25 minutes as I blot, scrub, press, shake. 

In a fit of rage and drama normalcy, I finally cried out, "I am DONE.  Get rid of it.  All of it.  Hire a dumpster.  Have a yard sale.  I don't care.  I am done owning things if all I am going to do is spend my time trying to fix them.  I don't want to own anything anymore."

Chris basically did a bell-kick in the air and gleefully asked when we can buy the RV and hit the road.

This would be fun for .4 days for me. 
Chris would be happy as a pup with two tails for life.

We have not sold all the things yet.  But truly, I have struggled.  I am attempting to become more responsible and care for what God has given us.  And it just feels like it keeps blowing up in my face.  I have not understood it.  And my frustration has grown.

And now, finally tonight, God has spoken.

I was at a prayer gathering - part of IF : Pray - and women were offering up sweet, honest prayers of hope, confession, desperation, life.  And one woman uttered, "I need You every moment, Lord.  Your mercies are new every morning because I need them."

And I heard: "This is why."

Clarity.  Undone. 

"Abide.  Need me.  Come to me."

Do I need God to get a stain out of a rug?  Well, working in my own strength sure isn't working out great, for me or for Chris.  Some of the messes have been cleaned up (praise the Lord - the spoiled-milk-dead-animal-soul-sucking-dementor smell in the car lingered for a good week, and I was getting ready to hitchhike to work); others stubbornly remain and I'm still fighting them.  I sourly, bitterly, selfishly fight.  Maybe the stain lifts, maybe it doesn't, but my mood is terrible and Chris wants to be nowhere near me.  I am anything but lovely.

Each new spill and drop and waste is an opportunity to lean on God.  Each is a tiny picture of the Mess I create in my life when I try to do it apart from Him.  That as I try to wrestle for control of my days, the Mess just gets bigger.  That as I push and scrub harder and harder through my gritted teeth, I grind the stains of my life in deeper and deeper and solidify the evidence of my mistakes and my foolishness.  But oh, how I try.

"I know You are there, catching, carrying this beautiful mess." - Sixpence NTR

So.  Deep breath.

When the next thing spills, I will pause and breathe and thank God for his presence and his reminder that I. need. Him.  I need him every hour.  Every moment.  Every second.  That trying to do life without him is futile and just messier and messier.  I was a Mess before he got a hold of me, and I revert to Mess each time I act in my own strength and not his.

I need You, God.  Thanks for putting me - literally - on my hands and knees.  This was an unusual lesson for me.  But I got it, eventually.  I need You.

"I need Thee, oh I need Thee, every hour I need Thee."

Time

I do not often have the discipline I should.

Time is something that, every few weeks or so, causes me to despair at how little I have of it.  There are not enough hours in the day to practice, to see the people I want to see, to get some quality date time, to keep our apartment clean, to write new songs, to write poetry and prose like I used to, to exercise...

I am a planner, and sometimes this can be a fault of mine.  I get stressed out when I don't know what's going on and frustrated when plans get foiled.  It is something I am gradually learning to loosen up about, definitely with Chris's help (he's the type that often does not plan the way I think he should, and yet things miraculously always work out for him!).

But with the planner in me, if I don't think ahead about un-scheduled time, life can flip on its head and go from having "not enough time" to piles of wasted time.  It's spring break, and I have so many high hopes for it!  Chris roused me on his way to work at 8 am this morning, telling me he left the freezer door open and I'd better get up to close it (perfect trick, it actually got me out of bed - not an easy task!!)  After a few minutes I stumbled to the kitchen (he closed it after all) and then to the living room, where I picked up the laptop "just to check email."  It is now an hour and a half later, and what have I done?  I sent one band marketing inquiry... am now writing a blog post... and spend the whole rest of that time changing Facebook pictures, looking through Twitter, browsing a few blogs, and generally a whole lot of nothing.

Both Chris and I run into days/nights like this, where we get into a funk at how poorly we spent the hours we had.  There are so many worthwhile things to do, and yet we gravitate toward those that will not feed our souls or benefit others.

I think there is a fine line here that I need to walk... I often err on the side of having a “Martha heart,” bustling around trying to accomplish things and fretting about To Do lists. And it's true that I need to not have many mornings like this one where I sit on a couch in the face of everything else I could do. But getting off these cushions and spending the next few hours doing laundry and cleaning is not going to bless my heart, either. I have a wonderful mother who has worked so hard to take care of our family for my whole life. I am in awe of all she has done! And yet, often when we talk, she is frustrated with a day, and says that she “didn't get enough things done.” Indeed, I remember BALKING at hearing that phrase in my teenage years - “Jenna, it's time to get some things done!”  I think I hated the word "things" in the phrase, as if there were these looming tasks that would never be complete no matter what I accomplished (and thus precluded me from getting started at all at times!).  And for all the joy my mom has brought us and others, it makes me sad when her perception of her life is tied to how many chores and tasks she got done in a day.

The Gospel writers tell of Mary, who got it exactly right when she sat at Jesus' feet, soaking in his presence and every word he had to say.  And this is the very thing I am prone to shy away from, wanting to complete something tangible and being tempted to do something else first (which almost always results in me not spending time with Him at all).  I hate this about myself, and hate that I recognize it every few months and slip right back into the same pattern anyway.

So, I am getting off of the couch to first go read and talk to God.  It's not on my To Do list... but really, maybe it should be.  Maybe it should be the first thing, written at the top in all caps in bold Sharpie.  Maybe then I wouldn't begin days and nights with aimless meandering on the internet.  I don't think God's desire for my life is for me to put Him on a To-Do list.  But if that's how my brain operates, maybe it's a least a place to start falling more in love with Him.