I Am A Woman

I'm pretending to be sitting in my room folding this pile of laundry.

The laundry is a good ploy. It keeps people from bothering me - they don't want to take the risk of getting put to work, see. Rather clever of me.

What I'm really doing in here, is trying to decide whether I should bother with a blog post this week. And, if I do, should I take the easy route and grab some pictures and some chatter and call it an update? Or should I try to come up with some insight into something that would encourage and inspire? I wonder, is there something somewhere between the two of those? Because neither one of them is really grabbing me.

If you are ever near Cambridge, Ohio during the Christmas season, check it out. It's worth it.

I am an odd woman.

Some days my husband looks at me, with humor in his eyes, and says, "Are you sure you're really a woman?" I mean, what real woman never had big dreams for her wedding day, has to be told to spend money when she shops, has zero bottles of perfume (I was going to lie and say 'has one old bottle of perfume' but I felt convicted), and likes to pack as little as possible for trips?

Finding boxes of old pictures 

is so entertaining!

Other days he looks at me and rolls his eyes and says, "You're a woman."

Those are the days when I am in an impossible funk. The days when everything weighs me down and there's not even a good reason. When I hold my husband at arms length and snap at my children and I'm tired and probably I'm depressed. What if I am? What if, really, I need help? What if I'm going off the deep end and I never even realize it but just keep plodding along in this hopeless, everlasting, pointless life? Probably, after all, it's because I should pray more. People who read their Bible every day probably don't ever feel this way and really, I wonder if I am even a Christian and, oh my goodness, what IS wrong with me? Probably it's some deep, dark, something from my past that I've never dealt with. Supposing it is?

On just such a day as this, when I felt sure that my marriage needed fixing (although three days prior I was sure I had the best marriage in the world) and I couldn't think of anything to make for supper (again) and I didn't even feel like going out to eat with my husband (sure sign of deep problems). On just such a day as that, I got told what my problem was.

This picture makes me smile,

every time.

Have you ever had someone shoot straight with you and tell you what your problem is? I wonder if you liked it? Did you say sweetly, "Why yes Dear, you are right! Thank you so much for telling me."?

I confess, I did not. I confess that I said instead, "I don't think I want to go out to eat with you."

But then a funny thing happened. After some thought I realized something, and this is what I said, "I'm actually relieved to be told my problem. I was sure it was something much more complicated and hard to understand. I think I might actually be able to deal with this 😉" You wanna know what my problem was - according to my straight shooter? 

"Focusing on Bethany Eicher."

And he (It was Chris. You had no idea, right?) added to that this nugget: "It's impossible to be cranky if you are actively trying to make others happy."

Ouch.

I think God was actively trying to make me happy this morning with His

beautiful handiwork!

So, here's the deal. This next week I'm going to focus on actively trying to make others happy. Next Friday I'm going to report back how it went. Anybody else have my problem and want to work on this with me? It's always better to work on things together.

And now, the laundry.

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Excuse the over use of parenthesis in this post. And please, don't get all concerned that I really might be going off the deep end, because I'm quite sure I'm not (today, anyway). (I mean, today I'm quite sure.) Bother. Also, you do know you are responsible to keep me accountable this next week, correct?

That is all.