Holy Vision in the Mess

This weekend was the weekend of attack.

From a dream that was so real I couldn't shake it on Saturday morning
to the parenting attacks of doubt and wrapping up with the attack on my joy for my life,
the weekend rocked me.I sent a tweet out into cyberspace wondering early Saturday morning if my cleaning rampage was that of a nesting mother or one of a woman who was venting her life frustrations with Clorox & Endust.
The answer was quickly revealed: I was venting.

I had been robbed and I didn't know how to reclaim what I seemingly handed off willingly to the enemy: my joy.

.......

I'm reading a book that has been challenging me.
The diction and syntax make me read like a first grader--slow and steady--but I got to a chapter this weekend that made sense!
Pages littered in pink highlighter and a journal filled with things I wanted to remember, I had been heart struck.

In the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, she asks one of many big questions but one hit home:

"How do I have the holy vision in the mess?"My husband has a saying that is polar opposite from how I think:
"Circumstances stink, but life is simple."
His statement constantly hits me upside the head and I internally react with,
"What life are you living? This is NOT simple!"
Ann's question seemed to reiterate the very statement I hold hands with, sleep beside, and kiss every day yet battle because it's not how I feel inside.

So I went through my other highlighted portions and I summarized the answer to the question:

"How do I have the holy vision in the mess?"

1. I need to "transfigure the mess into joy with thanks." p. 125
2. I need to "speak the unseen into seeing." p. 128
3. I need to "look to the Largeness behind all the smallness." p. 128
4. I need to "give thanks to keep the gaze on heaven." p. 128
5. In order to "see the glory," I need to "name the graces." p. 129
   

Damn, that all sounds hard but as Ann says, "When I choose--and it is a choice--to crush joy with bitterness [I am] purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness. Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective--more expedient--than giving thanks."

I must say, I hate (and simultaneously love as well as appreciate) the growing pains of seeing myself and knowing that I am the problem in my own life.
It hurts-it sucks-it's frustrating and ultimately the resolution resides with me and my choice to wrestle it out with God.
Just because I feel like I'm an incompetent parent, unappreciated & easily replaceable member of society, unloved, or forgotten person does not make it real. "Feelings work faster than thoughts...[and] the only way to fight a feeling is with a feeling...Feel thanks and it's absolutely impossible to feel angry."

......

I think I'll be pondering all of this for awhile.
I'll be wrestling with this deeply.