Escaping isn't the Answer

Yesterday I read a painful blog. We had some of Glenn's friends from Christian Medical Fellowship over for dinner and while they were here Glenn had me check out his friend's Nook that he'd hacked as a tablet. They told me to use it for a little bit and see what I thought. The only thing I could think to look up was A Holy Experience because I hadn't read it for the day and.... ouch. I thought, "OK, maybe I shouldn't have read that. That was painful."

Around our house it is often chaos. Someone is getting hurt, someone can't find something, someones have a question on their school work, someone is touching someone else, someone is not on task, someone is hungry... There are squabbles about chairs and squabbles about pencils and squabbles about toys, squabbles about EVERYTHING.... and so often I just want to escape. Too often I do... to the bathroom to pee and read a few pages in a magazine or in a book or to the internet where everyone else a happy life, or a crappy life, or at least a different life than I'm living here and there are great ideas about how to save money, organize your house, get deals, cook food, or (very rarely) to my room where I just pull the pillow over my head.

I think that Ann had been having one of those days when she wrote this blog and said "Anyone know the escape route to the big flashing exit sign? But I have to feed them all first."

She discusses pressure cookers with her son and explains, “Oh, a pressure cooker’s just a pot with a lid that doesn’t let the steam escape. And if the steam doesn’t escape, whatever’s in the pot cooks faster.”

She confronted me with the fact that when I escape I may be missing out on what God is trying to do and He is not going to be able to do it as quickly or as efficiently when I let the steam out  by running away from the pressure.

My word for the year is "present" and if I escape I am not living out that word that God has called me to.

I long to escape but I have been convicted that it is not God's best for me. We often say, "No es-ca-pe" around here when someone is trying to get away. We love Dory and how she says, "Es-ca-pe. Hey, that's spelled just like escape." I just grabbed the Dory sticker that we got in the mail last week with the Disney try to get you to buy DVDs thing. It has Dory and Marlin together and says, "Thank You" on it. I am not sure where I am going to put it but I want to use it to remind me, "No es-ca-pe!" It's fitting that it says, "Thank You" on it because I am striving to be more thankful. Another Dory phrase running through my head is, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." God wants me to stay here, in the present, in the pressure, because that is where He is refining me, making me more like Him. 

Thank You God for this confrontation that escaping isn't the answer. Please give me the strength and the grace to stay in the present and to grow as You desire me to and not to escape.