Fighting the Blahs

One of the things I like about blogging is the connections you make with other people. Since starting this blog in March and through my connection with John Dobbs (see links on the sidebar) I have made acquaintances with a number of bloggers (most of whom I’ve never met outside cyberspace butI have come to regard them as friends)

Some I visit regularly and some less frequently – but the great thing is that they will so often say something in their blog that may seem incidental to them but for some reason is just what I needed to hear at that time. I choose to think that God has a hand in that but in any case it happens. This gives me hope that some of my meanderings and musings may be helpful to others. – and once in while I get a comment from someone that suggests this is true.

I say all that because my friend Dee writes in her November 1st posting

“Any of you ever get the blahs?
If so, what do you do about them? What do you advise? I need help.
I've got the blahs. Big time.
….
Actually, I do have the blahs and nothing seems quite right. I'm not my usual perky self. It started on the weekend, which wasn't up to it's usual two days of riotous laughs, and has now settled in in earnest. Everyone at church noticed it Sunday. They all kept asking me what was wrong and how was I feeling.
I'm feeling okay, I'm just out of sorts a bit and bored. BLAH!! “

Well Dee doesn’t know this (yet) but her honest admission that she was experiencing the BLAHS was sufficient to keep me from falling into that black hole of discouragement this weekend.

If you had the patience to go back through my postings you would find a frequent theme is the battle I have with “slumps’ (see for example my post for Friday May 26 ) most often brought on because I have become overcommitted and have made the matter worse by frittering away my time on things other than the stuff I’ve promised to do.

This past week (see yesterday’s post) was one were I just couldn’t seem to get the things on my list done. Towards the end of the week – it started to snow signaling a long winter ahead and every where I looked there was a bunch of “unfinished clutter” – all this was was starting to depress me. And then I read about Dee’s BLAHS and somehow the candor (and humor) – the humanity -- that showed in that post gave me a jolt – and instead of “slumping” I just buckled down and got to work.

Things aren’t perfect –I have a ”back breaking” list of things to complete Monday & Tuesday so I can leave Wednesday to go to Aurora (Chicago) but the feeling of “what’s the use – I might as well just let it all go because I’ll never get it done” has gone. So- weird as it may seem and with my apologies to Dee for profiting from her “misery” – Thank you Dee for having the BLAHS and sharing it –I hope that writing it and the comments you got helped you because you have helped me.

Linda arrived at Chris & Tammye’s yesterday p.m. She is pretty wiped out from the traveling and the time change. When I talked to her this p.m. she was really looking forward to tomorrow (Monday) when the kids would be in school and she could crash for a day. Only 2 more days and our month-long separation will be over. I think I’ve mentioned this before but I can’t help but thinking how blessed we have been – this is the longest separation we have experienced in 40 years of marriage.

Ted Miller from Thessalon spoke for us at Pinehill this morning. Our friendship with Ted & Laura goes back to high school. (I did a recent post talking about celebrating our 40th anniversaries this year (Click HERE to find out more about them and our longstanding friendship).

Ted’s lesson was on the need to put priority on the Great Commandment (Love God) and the “Golden rule” (love others) and to have our actions as Christians flow from love as opposed to what he called a ”check list system” –we have a list of do’s and don’t’s and we think we are doing OK if we can check these things off the list. This “system” or ”performance” based Christianity is “dead” (useless) in the absence of love and faith in God’s promises.

Normally, we have small group studies Sunday afternoon in place of an evening service. However, the first Sunday of the month we all meet for a common study time followed by a period of social fellowship to celebrate any birthday’s or anniversaries that are coming up.

It was my turn to provide the lesson for that session this week. I borrowed some material from Bobby’s Valentine's study of Deuteronomy showing that God’s covenant with the Israelites was a covenant of ”Love & Grace” –that the commands were given to the Israelites as way for them to show an obedient love response to God’s love and that there were 7 “unchanging” principles in those commands that applied to God’s people today as much as they applied to the Israelites.

Well – time for bed – To-morrow will be a full day. I’ll be traveling Wednesday and we won’t get home until the 13th—so I may not be posting again until after we are back.

God Bless
Charlie