Its just like that….
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| Could I safely say this is how I feel right now? |
Isn’t that how I always do?
Even sub-consciously.
I haven’t been writing lately because I happened, before Thanksgiving, to come up on this rather difficult
section in the last scene I was working on.
Keeping close in the shadows of the more-solid buildings, I made my way slowly towards the stone fortress of Hold…but not for obvious reasons.
Realizing the extent of the danger we were so suddenly in…a precipitate fear…violent and possessing…had gripped me…such as I had never felt before….
Fear….
Or an energy….
I could not label it….
But it was beyond my reason to move without its force…. My mind dominated by only one thing, it pushed me on…slowly…cautiously…but ever forward…towards the dark, morbid walls of that stone prison-house….
And…I was in no wise over-zealous for my goal….
As I reached Hold the screeching, green door was being pulled open before me.
I jumped over the drunken guard – who still lay, serenely oblivious to every danger, before the narrow doorway – and pulled myself through the opening door not two seconds too soon….
A scream pierced the night-blacked room…glass shattered…and I found a grasp on her wrist….
“You’re not taking one step from here, lass,” I silenced her… my eyes were slowly adjusting to the dim light…I could see her…tense…panting….
“You nearly scared me half to death!” she wrung her arm from my grasp, and tried to step round me to see out the door.
I stepped before her and blocked her way….
“You’re not taking one step from here, lass,” I repeated…my voice hoarse…
This scene has more to it, but this is all I felt comfortable with sharing…since it is very rough
and further on only gets rougher.
I’ve had no inspiration to dive in and work so hard to iron all this out.
I’ve been busy about the house, with my family, with Thanksgiving, with the farm….
But now things aren’t looking quite so cheery or nice around here….
With work looming over us,
and the realization that in a few days or weeks we will be back to that routine….
up at 5, to chores at 6, (if you notice that give you one hour to make up your bed and room, dress, read your Bible and study, write in your diary, and write – or either fb or blog, you have to choose which is more important; story or social – and it also puts you down at the barn in the near-dark….it was dark before day light savings ended; wonderful way to check out the goats, isn’t it?) work at 8 (commute is almost an hour, and you have to give time to pack lunch and grab breakfast), work ’till between 1 or 3 when we stop for lunch (supper), then back to work ’till between 5 and 7 depending on how much we’ve gotten done and how much we have left to do, home at last, chores in the dark, to bed by 9 if we can manage to get the van unpacked, lunch ready for the next day, dishes and laundry in, and our showers done before then, and try to go to sleep before 11 so you can get up again at 5…..
Oh boy….
I’m not mentioning the other problems in between all this.
Family troubles and the neighborhoods we work in….
I’m glad to work with my family.
I love working together.
And I love the freedom of having our own business.
If I feel bad one day I just say so….
No one expects you to be a feel-good-every-day-work-machine.
But I am not happy with how hectic this work makes our lives –
nor how, when we are not working everything seems to be about bids, getting up bids,
calling subs, talking to city officials, organizing meetings with home owners….
It just never seems to stop.
There’s no “I’m not bringing work to home with me.”
Its always here…Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday – and even Sunday!
I just want a quiet life at home.
I just want a happy family where we’re all focused on serving the Lord Jesus –
not on making money.
I know in order to live we have to make money – we can’t pay bills, buy things etc. etc. etc. without money.
The world runs on money.
But we don’t have to run on money!
Can’t making money to pay our bills be part of our lives instead of being our lives?
I’ve been able to survive the past few weeks since we left the job at Gatewood
because I don’t think about it.
That’s one way I’ve taught myself to handle things….
I ignore problems, and just don’t think about them until I just have to.
Like now.
We spent the entire day yesterday riding through very bad areas of town
looking at houses to bid on
when we already have low-bid on two houses in the last package and haven’t even
begun work on them yet!
The plan is to spend this morning (i.e. today) looking at the rest of them.
All total; 15 houses.
And to bid on them on Thursday.
And we haven’t even begun the other jobs yet!
Faced with this sort of frustration I pray and pray and pray….
I know the Lord Jesus will answer me, He will hear me, He will guide our lives according to His will.
“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.”
But I know man’s actions, behavior, and decisions can sometimes hinder His will –
and cause those involved a great deal of heartache and pain while the mess must be cleaned up
so His will can take IT’s rightful place.
He always is my Comfort.
But my flesh is so great an obstacle.
Sometimes
– like now, my friends –
I can’t seem to shake my worries and frustration enough….
But still He provides.
He has created me to feel I have two choices.
Three really.
Argue about these problems.
(Which usually will not get anyone anywhere….)
Run away and cry.
(Have I done this before!)
Or…
Write.
Frustrated, burdened, and against a brick wall in my mind,
I’m going to do like often I find myself doing
– whether I want to or not –
completely submerge myself into another world where I can momentarily escape all
my troubles.
Another place where – though dark, difficult, and troublesome it might’ve seemed only a couple weeks ago –
I now find a quiet haven.
Where I can be myself again.
Where I don’t have to cry….
“Did the really, really bad trouble hurt you, Papa?” he asked, in almost a whisper.
I nodded…, “It still does,” my throat ached….
Those memories….
The past….
My entire life….
I closed my eyes for just a moment…just long enough to try to reorder my thoughts…but it was useless…utterly useless….
I was not myself….
Not the man I wanted…or I thought I had…to be….
The guilt….
The pain…..
It hurt….
“How Papa?” he looked up at my face, his head lying on my shoulder, “How does it still hurt you if it happened so long ago?”
“Because it was my fault, Michael,” I swallowed the sharp pain in my throat as best I could…but it would not go away, “Sometimes it takes time for a man to live down the mistakes he makes in his youth, lad,” I tried to explain it as simply as I could, “I just never have lived mine down,” never…would I ever? “The outcome was too awful for me to get over it quickly,” I added quietly, “I still can’t get over it.”
The young boy was silent, his small, thin hand toying with a disengaged, bone button of my shirt, “I love you, Papa.”
An Unlikely Love
My Life in Him 