My Reality.

The thick backs of my steel-toed shoes are biting another set of blisters into my heels as I walk, but I really only feel it when I first squeeze them on every morning at 4, and when I squeeze them off at 2:30 every afternoon. My feet, my body, my mind just kind of numbs the rest of the time, every muscle tense and focused on enduring and finishing the work as quickly as my ten-hour shift allows.

The green lines painted on the hard concrete designate my pedestrian path across the warehouse and keep me safe from the loud PIV forklifts that go whizzing by me this way and that. "Q module, that means at least a minute and a half of walking before I make it to S module." my mind automatically calculates the journey as my eyes glance down at the screen of the scanner gun strapped tightly around my arm, "to S module then." I mumble and try not to think about how many more 50 pound boxes of jeans wait for me there.

I send my eyes in desperation to the sky, but only see the roof of the building. Letting my gaze drift a little lower I scan across the busy PIV path to the dock doors of the receiving area, and the big white "building" where the supervisor offices are. It's not very busy today, I can tell because the receiving team are all standing at one of the long conveyors and replacing price tags on new merchandise. No heavy lifting, no productivity expectations, I feel a pang of jealousy as I watch them... "Ticketing" is my favourite job in the building, but rarely am I assigned to it.

"G module" I'm half-way down the path now. I glance behind me and calculating quickly, I figure the distance from Q to S can't be less than the length of the street I live on. I glance up to the ceiling again, "but if I was on my street.... I could see the sky."

An urge to close my eyes hits me, and I indulge, holding them for just a moment. I open them, and let wonder fill my face, let imagination transform the dusty warehouse air to mountain purity as my lungs inhale.
Suddenly, it's not bright yellow lines painted on concrete pillars I see, not clanking conveyors 30 feet off the ground, or endless racking filled with endless brown boxes, suddenly these things fade and my heart expands with rapture for the distant gaze I send holds amber sunset skies; their brilliance cradled in the stately embrace of my mountains whose dark complexion stands in perfect contrast to the pure and saintly clouds of white with whom the skies above are flirting. I see this all in one glimpse, and feel and taste and smell a California breeze, and I hear the furious wind attacking the palm branches above me.

I'm not in a warehouse, I'm on my adventure. I feel a pang of joy, a thrill of rapture, and a return of hope! Memories and dreams are two things circumstances can never steal from me.

But 10 seconds isn't very long a space of time. And they end. And my mind is dragged back to reality as someone shouts my name from the stairs above me and I wave hello and dropping my eyes back down, I turn into the close and dark aisles of S module, my rickety blue push-cart squeaking ahead of me and these eyes leave-off their mountain gazing to look for that 50 pound box of jeans at location S00-45 that has 18 pairs of jeans for me restock a certain shelf with so I can go back and find 20, 30, 40 more similar boxes and fill as many similar shelves, so stores can be stocked, and customers can buy, and I can put another pay check in my bank account come weekend.

Focus.

"Focus."

The chilly evening air bit at our fingers as we walked, for sake of escape from the world for a moment, for sake of conversation that seemed always to put it all in perspective. My brother pulled out the book that had become to mean so much to him and passionately explained his favourite chapter. "If there is one word that has changed my whole life, Renae. It's the word focus. It was Hudson Taylor's spiritual secret, and it is mine now."

He told me how Hudson Taylor used to strive so hard to do all he could for Christ, to accomplish all he could, to be all he could. But always seemed to fall short. Until he realized it wasn't for him to accomplish, it was for him to let go and allow God to accomplish. It wasn't for Him to focus on what He could do for Christ, it was for him to focus on what Christ had done for him. To rest in Christ and let Him be all. 
"And that is where the difference is made. What are you looking at? What are you allowing to preoccupy your mind? When life gets hard, really really hard, I just remember this simple word; focus. I focus on Christ and who He is and what He has done. And it makes all the difference."

I knew the words were true, I marvelled at the wisdom, I read the chapter. But just hearing something true means nothing until that truth by circumstances wrought becomes a vital part of your heart. Life had not yet brought me to a place where such head knowledge needed to be translated into heart knowledge.

-------------------

The words spill from my lips in dull tones as I walk the noisy warehouse floor from one pallet of boxes to the next.

"Please God! Anything else. Can't I work somewhere else? Can't I just be somewhere else? Couldn't you give me something new, something different?" Discontent, dissatisfied, my whole being thrills with hatred for my circumstances. This I tell God for the millionth time, as I rebelliously ignore the fact that I know this is where He wants me. Perhaps that's why I hadn't prayed for a couple days, because I knew prayer meant surrender. And I did not want to surrender to this.

It just seemed so wrong somehow, so confusing. Why would God ask me to be here? Why would God put those I love through pain? Why doesn't God just hear our prayers and make everything okay? Why do we even pray if God only answers some prayers? The Bible is so full of promises of peace and help and blessing from God... and yet, life is so hard and unpleasant. It just doesn't make sense.

Until finally God brought me humbly to my knees and in broken surrender He taught my heart a lesson my brain already knew. God does promise peace, help, and blessing. And these are not empty promises either! Nor are they meaningless words written on the pages of my Bible for the sake of something nice to read. These are promises with real, living, active manifestation in my daily life!

But here's the problem; I was searching in the wrong place!

"Focus."
My eyes were on my job. My eyes were on my location. My eyes were on my emotions. My eyes were on me. In these places, where I was focusing... I sought for a reason to continue, contentment to stay, joy to be. But found none, because DUH.

These vital precious treasures exist in one place, and one place only; Christ. My God. My King. My Lord. My Father.
I wasn't even sending a fleeting glance His way, let alone adjusting my whole focus hence!
Oh what a fool I am! God is for me everything I need. The toils and cares of my daily circumstances can but take their toll on my body, while my spirit soars free from such things as long as my spirit is in Christ. He carries me, He strengthens me, He give me joy, He gives me peace, He gives me reason, He is my life. But only when I focus on Him can He be that for me.

"Focus."

It all comes back, that conversation vanished with the golden California sunset.
"When life gets hard, really really hard, I just remember this simple word; focus."
My heart bounds as the words flood my heart with a meaning a hunderered-fold deeper and greater and better than I ever found before. Yes, life still does not satisfy, circumstances are still bad. But that doesn't matter anymore. Because God gives us the freedom to not be under the circumstances of our life. God gives us the freedom to continue through the pain, to not quit, and to be fully satisfied, content, joyful, and strong as He floods our hearts with His spirit and feeds our minds with His word and fills our mouths with His praises.

God Is Using Me?

"Can't you tell? You are a light to those around you! You're like a tower of strength around here."

I hear her words above the clamour of the warehouse.
"But if you only knew how weak I am though. I have my moments! My life would be such a mess if I didn't have God though, honestly. God is the light in my life, and if I in turn shine any light it is only God using me!"
All I can say.

"But surely you can see that God is using you?"

I mumble something. I'm not sure if I can see it...
I'm forever afraid my smiling and kind front might be something like the "whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." which Jesus talks about in Matthew 23. Too often I struggle to consistently pray or read my Bible. Too often my own desires become the priority in my heart. Too often I fail God... Too often to be used, surely.

But her words give me hope. Her words make me glad. To have made some difference, any difference for good?

I am so glad.

I know it is God who has given me this job, it is He who has given me the strength to do well at this job, it is He who has given me the opportunity to make so many friends of my coworkers, it is He who worked out the confusing mess of my schedules (because I wouldn't work on Sundays) and allowed me to be hired full-time now and at the location five minutes from my house.

God is good. All I can say.

Humbled. All I can be.

God Gives A Song

Christmas lights outside and all over this world sparkle, glisten, sing their own song. And I like to light my little peppermint candle sometimes to remind myself that I too have a song. I like to pause and stare at the snowflakes outside the windows here and there because I too have a song. I like to smile big and laugh and love because I too have a song.

My song is a song of a wretched turn of events and a life going far different than I wished it would and more hurt than I ever hoped to feel... But a song, yes, is what I find in all this. For my hurt, my confusion, my wretchedness is here from God and working for my benefit continually in spite of my 38,359,472+ failures. My song is a song of God. Of lessons taught me, of lessons I'm learning, and will learn.

I thank God for the light He brings, because I am finally feeling it this Christmas. I have a song. Not because everything in life is going my way. Or I will ever get exactly what I seem to want right now. But because, no matter what happens, regardless of all my petty, human wishes.... God is good, life is good. As long as He blesses, life is good. I just need to learn to recognize and bask in the blessings of God instead of focusing and looking for this world's stupid counterfeits.

I will seek God's pleasure. and from this moment forward, as long as God is pleased with me and who I am and what I do... the rest of everybody's opinions and judgments don't matter a mite. not even a tiny bit.

I know I'll be judged.... I'll always be judged. And that can hurt, and that's why I must look away and live a confident and happy life of seeking the only approval that matters at all.

My God, my Father, my Saviour loves me! 
Hang human opinions!

"Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me. In God will I praise his word: in the Lord will I praise his word. In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me."
Psalm 56:8-11

"Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me."
Psalm 86:17

A Poem That Doesn't Rhyme About Imperfection.

Why strive we so?
Why make we perfection our aim?

In a world of inevitable
mitigation to every joy
Perfection endlessly sacrificed
at the altar of reality

Never light
unless in it's embrace
darkness will cower

Never joy
but after the laughter
tears find cause for
realization

Never silence
but sounds clinging
to the air
from somewhere
sometime

Never love
but hate coiled
growing from the hurt
the very love produced

Inconsequential Circumstances.

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Mark 8:36-37

"Problems don't hinder the will of God, they are the will of God."

I won't be able to attend college this year, and that hurts a lot.

But if I was at college right now I would loose my soul. I would loose God. I "wouldn't need Him". 

The only reason college was ever good to me was because I sought Christ there. So if He was the reason college life was good, He will be the reason home life will be good. Wherever I find Him, that is the place to be. 

Renae, if you've told yourself this once, you've told yourself a million times;

Joy is not found in circumstances! It's your heart in spite of circumstances! 

It is having God in spite of circumstances! 

If you loose this truth, you've lost your life. 

It's time to live again what you have always believed. 

Happiness.

There's a sort of happiness that just comes. A brilliant sunshine that shines and shines and stays of it's own accord. You needn't try, you needn't strive, you don't even have to think about it. Every thought is simply happy, every heart beat the rhythm of a song almost spilling out of you. (Which outbursts you only pacify by contenting yourself with smiling.)

There's a sort of happiness that is well-earned. Worked-for and well-earned. When life seems dull or it's sort of easy to fall under the spell of mediocrity and a boring disposition. This happiness is the flower that blooms in spite of such things. blossoming out of the chosen smile, the happy things you make out of life and the stars your own hands embroider above your path.

I find neither of these now. Only a fickle happiness that finds me and looses me as it will. I am at the mercy of it's whims. Laughter and fun my companions for one moment, maybe an hour. Heart ache and tears my companions the next. I cannot predict. I cannot understand. I only know when you, my friend happiness, let go a moment... I fall with no power to pick myself up. My capricious saviour from my empty life; when you leave my heart I have nothing left.

Joy is a better thing than happiness, granted. But joy cannot replace the levity which happiness brings.

Happiness, perhaps someday you will bring back your consistent sunshine.

I miss you.