Good morning…
Last week, I heard myself tell a friend, “I just feel kinda muddled.” Complex. Confused. Snarled. Struggling. Dazed. Discombobulated. Muddled is not a word I use very often.
“Sounds like you are sorta betwixt and between,” my loving friend replied.
Finding myself in a foggy funk, I prayerfully dumped out the separate items cluttering my inner junk drawer.
- Leaving behind the looseness of summer and not yet into the swing of fall.
- Still grieving the loss of Tate, I wonder, “Should we welcome a new dog?”
- Hard to be many hours away from my aging parents as they face lingering health concerns.
- Saying goodbye to our pop-up camper, a beloved symbol of our fun adventures as a growing-up family of six.
- For over 30 years, at least one child has lived in our home, next month our youngest moves out to live with his friends.
- Will we eventually move to a different home, if so, when and where?
- Will more weddings and some grandkids be part of our budding future?
The next day, I went to a gathering of our Thursday morning class. Without knowing my plight, one woman read aloud Kate Bowler’s devotional entitled “for when you feel stuck.” Then she shared an Oswald Chambers quote. “You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear.”
Muddle. Strangely, there was that odd word again. Muddle. Lord, what might it mean for me to obey my muddle clear?
Coincidently, Kate Bowler’s final words gave insight. “Let your heart seek the one good step. And the next. Movement. That is the way.” And Anne Lamott’s quote on the same page also helped. “I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”
Just as you’ll never understand the mystery of life forming in a pregnant woman, so you’ll never understand the mystery at work in all that God does (Ecclesiastes 11:5, MSG). Might God be mysteriously at work in my muddled-ness?
One good step at a time, with the grace of God, I will gradually obey my muddle clear.
…Sue…
P.S. If you prayerfully dumped out your inner junk drawer, what things might be muddling you right now?
