I was struck and humbled the other day as the Lord revealed to me how illogical and messed up my thinking can be.  I would like to share with you the revelation that I came away with.  I was out in the country visiting friends and was voicing my opinion that living in the country is just so wonderful.  It is so peaceful and so laid back.  I have this desire to live there and hope that my life will just be perfect once I get out there.  Later that day as I read my devotions I was reading the fruit of the Spirit.  I began praying through each one, trying to guage where I was at in displaying each fruit.  I got to “peace.”  Peace made me think of contenment and also what I had said before.  I suddenly realized that what I am truly desiring is not a life in the country, but a life that is centered on God.  A life that is ordered and peaceful and yet laid back.  That does not depend on where I am physically, but where I am spiritually.  I felt so silly that I felt I had to wait to live that life until we move.  I can hope and strive for that right here where I am.

Another thing the Lord has been teaching me lately concerns how I remember Emma.  When Emma was alive she consumed most of my waking thoughts.  I had a hard time thinking about or making decisions about anything else.  I could justify that then, but have realized that even now that she is gone, I am struggling with that same problem off and on.  Though I know I need those times of reflection, I must not allow Emma to steal from my husband and Elise the time and attention they need.  While reading a book on helping children through grief (Take my Hand by Sharon Marshall), I came across the instruction to be honest in your memories of the deceased.  Don’t make them into something that they’re not.  I found that I do that sometimes.  It is easy to make Emma out to be a saint.  Though she is very special, I must guard against ever acting or believing that she is more special than Elise.  How damaging could that be to her if she began to think that way.  Any credit that goes to the power that Emma’s life and death have goes to God, not Emma.  Though I think in the back of my head I knew this, I hadn’t been living and remembering Emma as if that were true.