For once I am up to date with the my Bible readings - I have caught up! There was a moment there when I thought I would just have to throw in the towel. I Chronicles was was almost my downfall - in that it contained unappealing lists of things, but was also what what caught me up - no interesting little side lines to loose myself in! That is my problem - I like to stop and look at the view, examine the flowers as I walk, but in doing do I get left behind! I Chronicles is chronically short on distractions!
John 9 proved a good distraction. It's about seeing and not seeing and thinking you see when you don't and knowing you don't see and wanting to. I was reading through it thinking about Shona - about being blind to the resources that God makes available. Then God quietly pointed out that I was just as blind - not seeing the resources he has made available to me. I have been reading the New Living Translation and it has a way of putting things in a much more poetic way thatn the new International version - it appeals to the writer in me!
The first step in seeing is in wanting to see. I visited Shona this afternoon. I wasn't sure that I wanted to, but I am aware that I see her for such a short time, and lately always with the children. I haven't had time to talk properly with her for a while. You see what you want to see - if you have come to the conclusion that someone is taking advantage, then everything you see is looked at through that lens - and you "see" things in a particular light. I think that the enmey was kind of hoping I would just see what he wants me to see and not look for what was really there. Being with Shona today, I erased my notions and theories about what she was or wasn't doing. She is stuck somewhere inside herself and moslty unable to do anything about it. There is also a little bit of unwillingness too. For Shona the fear of the pain and discomfort of the cure outwieghs the familiar current pain she is experiencing. The cure - facing up to the past and all its horrors - is far worse than now - the not eating, the children taken out of her care. I just pray that God leads her to the way out of it.
Knowing that she wouldn't allow me to pray for her, I asked if she would pray for me! Tomorrow is the new timetable and new classes. I am not looking forward to it and feel unprepared. She stressed that it was an "emergency" and allowed herself to do it! On the whole though, she is keeping her distance with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment