Brown-bagging it Through Life

I came up with this clever saying yesterday while talking to my mom on the phone. I'm sure this blog will end up being more negative with not a lot of answers in it as I am literally writing from the top of my head or heart as it were.

My parents continue to seek God on where and how they are to proceed through their own valleys. Talk of towing cars or driving cars is accented by the wonderings of money to pay for the trip. Questions about hurts and why they had to endure seem to cloud them right now. It seems like when you are right in the middle of a storm the tendency is to look back over your shoulder and see the pattern of storms that seem to make a b-line right for your life. "Breathe into a small brown bag," I told my mom. My sister had gotten the advice when she was at the doctor recently.

Tennis elbow plagues my sister as she is now forced to give up a passion for sewing. She sews such beautiful purses. Between the 4 active children and the active military duty husband she has, the doctor says the sewing must go. And for the chest pain? A brown paper bag.

I've needed my own brown paper bags lately. Between a much anticipated trip gone wrong and a pregnancy gone wrong to boot, the paper bag seems like a good option. The questions of why of course go unanswered now. The cliched advice from well-meaning people rings in my ears. "God is faithful." I know it in my head. I've said it to myself even in the midst of my own turmoil. But today I asked myself if I really believed it in my heart? I find myself back at the beginning with God. The children's song, Jesus Loves Me, echoes in my mind. But do I really believe it when it counts? Do I have that love to offer to my neighbor who struggles to pay her bills and whose lonliness haunts her daily? Why is it that sometimes it feels like the whole system is flawed?

My daughter's devotional had a craft in it a few nights ago. The instructions were to cut a small paper bag around the bottom to make a small crown. My daughter was to wear it and pretend that she was a princess. Brown bags are for princesses when we are small and they become sanity for us when we are grown. That's not the picture that I want to pass on to my daughter. What if, just for a moment, I cut out my own crown from my brown bag? What if I walked around and pretended that I was a princess? To God, it really would not be that silly for that is how He sees me.

So how does one get from the brown bag-breathing existance to the brown bag royal living? The only thing I can figure is that it comes through faith. Today, I know, my faith is all but lost. My body is tired and weak. I've cried out from the depths of who I am. All I can do and all I know how to do is hang on with one bag cut into a crown for my head and one in my hand to breathe into slowly. My king, rescue your daughter. I am desperate for you. Overwhelm me with your love right in the midst of my tribulation. Teach me, God, how to live like a princess in the middle of the mire.