sweet relief.

i just need to say, you will not believe how much better i felt today.

it's cyclical... life, finances, this biological machine, the earth's orbit, the whole thing. i've been working for 8 hours so far (i'm typing from my cubicle at the church right now) and i have a few more to go, but i can't even begin to say how much brighter the world looks when it's through the clear lens of no migraine headache.

plus, i told a few people what a bad day i'd had yesterday. and such good friends- they said, "why didn't you call yesterday?" i admitted, "i'm scared. i haven't always had the best experiences letting others into my messy-ness." but if you can't do that, why have friends?

anyway, Jesus is walking through this, with me. my headaches are surely not gone forever, and i have not won the lottery or gotten a promotion (although i commented to the receptionist at the church that when she delivered my brand new stapler it sort of felt like a promotion), so i'm still feeling low-octane, for sure. but my vision's clearer.

throwing paint

i made a list today of all the reasons my life is falling apart.

if you are in the midst of a horrible pity party/crying fit/hormonal migraine fest, it might sound like the least healthy thing in the world (which is what the rational part of my brain kept telling me as i wrote), but it was very cathartic.

the optimist in me (fighter, she is) wanted to write antidotes to every statement. but i wouldn't let myself. i insisted that the list could only be bad. this is a list of bad, awful things.

what i wanted to do was paint. i wanted a canvas and i wanted to throw paintballs at Jesus. i'm frustrated, i'm confused, and when i start to feel this way, the darkness of my past creeps up to whisper that i might have been forgotten about. the ever expanding list that i have is overwhelming. i feel like the number of problems i have is ridiculous, and every one of them seems like something nobody's ever been through, and if i were to share my problems with anyone, i'd just be talking about myself, forever. and i just love Jesus because i know He wants me to throw sponges full of paint at a canvas and pretend it's Him, every one an item from my list, a prayer, a plea.

(i'm thinking, when i say that, of the white witch again - who threw that busted up wrought iron lamppost at Aslan's face, trying to kill him. you remember that what happened next is that it bounced off Aslan's forehead, fell into the Narnian snow, and grew into a far more beautiful lamppost than it had been before. that's a perfect picture of God's redemptive power.)

i realize that this list belongs to God, and that He cares about every single thing on it, and that He has a plan of how to work it all out - from how i'm going to make sure i'm getting enough nutrients from a plant-based diet (a serious concern, considering my migraine medication causes me to forget to eat for much of the day) to how i'm supposed to balance my work schedules, since i'm trying to earn serious credibility at one workplace while hanging by my teeth, running from job to job in order to keep gas in the car and groceries in the fridge.

so, thinking of my list - each item a sponge full of paint - like a lamppost- i want to throw it in Jesus' face and see what His redemption can turn it into. take my migraines, Lord. what can you grow that into? my financial brokenness?

i know He's up to something, and i'm really trusting in Him in the midst of this. for me, trusting involves throwing paint.