Howdy

I'm still here! Not asleep. (ha)

Last week, the little S had been fussing with her hair for awhile when she turned to me and said (headband askew, hair sticking up), "I look crazy. . . (pause) . . . but not dang crazy."

Splutter. Choke. Run from the room.

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Q starts Occupational Therapy November 20 at 8am sharp. This will add a new wrinkle to our schedule. Perhaps he'll begin to sleep more so when I have to get up in the dark in order to get everything rolling for the day I won't feel like a zombie? Too much to hope for? Nah. Sooner or later it has to happen.

He has seven teeth. This could account for some of the crankiness he had, but I don't know about the crankiness of the last two days. His neck feels like he has a fever, but I'm not getting anything to register. Hmmm.

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Have I mentioned that I love having a Sabbath? An honest to goodness time off from the world? This is what I read this last Sabbath:

We would never judge any of God's other children with the savage condemnation with which we crush ourselves. Indeed, self-hatred becomes bigger than life itself, growing until it is seen as the beginning and the end. The image of the childhood story about Chicken Little comes to mind. In our self-hatred, we feel that the sky is falling.

Understandably, then, we hide our true selves from God in prayer. We simply do not trust that he can handle all that goes on in our minds and hearts. Can he accept our hateful thoughts, our cruel fantasies, and our bizarre dreams? we wonder. Can he cope with our primitive images, our inflated illusions, and our exotic mental castles? We conclude that he cannot and thus withhold from Jesus what is most in need of his healing touch.

In order to grow in trust, we must allow God to see us and love us precisely as we are. The best way to do this is through prayer. As we pray, the unrestricted love of God gradually transforms us. We open ourselves to receive our own truth in the light of God's truth. The Spirit opens our eyes to see what really is, to pierce through illusions so that we can discover that we are seen by God with a gaze of love.

Brennan Manning, in Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God

(Thanks to T for the book rec--it has truly been balm for my soul.)