Your Soul Been Tried Lately?

“THESE are the times that try men's souls."   --- Thomas Paine

 ---Ain't that the truth. Eegads. The news, the division out there just worsens and--even if you're not a huge news-watcher--there's still a palpable tension, stress, amongst the folks in our lives, maybe even ourselves.

Well, along those lines --

Every Autumn, Tom and I have a huge argument over you-never-know-what. No, really. Always it happens, but last week I recall thinking, "This year's been so calm for Tom and me. Maybe we'll be able to skip the dreadful Autumn verbal fireworks."

Huh. Big-time Pollyanna dreamer, me.

Yesterday Tom stepped down into our basement (something he averages once yearly) to search for weights and I specifically told him, "Just don't get mad because of what it looks like. I've spent hours clearing out that basement, but I'm not finished."

Yet twenty minutes later, what does he do? He climbs back up, complaining specifically that I'd not opened enough windows (I thought I had), things were moldy, and within five minutes insulted my ability to keep house (and the yard) and what I write in this blog.

Oh. My. Goodness. Those tasks are what I do. Hugely who I am and how I spend my life! And wow, all my insecurities wildly flung their heads--and I saw red.

I yelled. I even threw a book on the floor and Tom remarked about the immaturity of that and said, "Be sure to write down in your blog that you threw a book."

So there you go. I did.

And ha! I don't even get extra points because not for a nanosecond did I consider throwing the book at him. 😏  Men--they're so clueless.

Anyway, these are certainly the times which try ol' Debra's soul. 

They make her want to dive deep (deep!) within herself and never swim back up to Normal. They make her hold the hurt tight against her chest (and feel the dark heaviness attached to that), to cry with the pain of a broken heart, to shut her mouth and slam various doors to her heart. And lock them.

They make me feel like this song and oh, Honey. I've been so tempted to be bad. 

But what keeps coming to me? That still, calming voice of God. The one which reminds me that if I don't forgive, neither will He. And how much effort He's put into changing me, to making me more like Him, He who remains strong when I feel so very weak. He who'll hold me up--but only if I receive Grace, not resentment.

He reminds me that I have choices. I can sulk like a baby and lose ground I'd gained (and take these tests, again, some future day)--or--I can walk forward, in love, and grow. Today.

God loves us too much to leave us alone. He has plenty of babies whining in the nursery--but what He'd really appreciate? Friends. Real-live, grown-up, stepped-through-the-fire-and-came-out-stronger Friends.

Real friends who eagerly wait for Him to walk through the garden in the cool of the day--with hearts that have forgiven much.

"And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”   ... Mark 11:25

"My flesh & my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."  -Psalms 73:26

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day..."  ... Genesis 3:8

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"What I'm finding is that when I'm hungry, lots of times what I really want more than food is an external voice to say, "You've done enough. It's ok to be tired. You can take a break. I'll take care of you. I see how hard you're trying." There is, though, no voice that can say that except the voice of God. The work I'm doing now is to let those words fall deeply on me, to give myself permission to be tired, to be weak, to need."

--- Shauna Niequist, from her book, Bread and Wine



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Here's the rest of Thomas Paine's famous quote. Interesting, indeed--

"THESE are the times that try mens' souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

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