UNcomfortable

 (When asked what he, as a pastor, did for a living he responded) Every Sunday I stand in front of everyone and tell them they are beautiful, and God loves them exactly the way they are , and they really don't have to worry because they all have each other. But then by Tuesday they forget this, and so on Sunday I go back to my church and I tell them they are beautiful, and God loves them just the way they are, and they don't have to worry because they all have each other."

2 - 3 times a day I take Mo on a walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes we go solo. Other times various assortments of my people join us. I've learned that playing in the back yard tired is not the same as walk tired, and to get anything done I need the puppy to be walk tired.

About 3/4 of a mile into our walk we hit an elderly neighbor's yard. It's lovely. She tends her yard every single day year round. Her people must know it's important to her because they come by and they help. They cut the grass. They prune the trees. They do the big things she can no longer do on her own.

When we hit this yard, Mo curls up in this same spot by her mailbox every single time.

He's tired. He's done. He knows lovely when he sees it. It's here he picks to rest.

As I stood there looking at him thinking "COME ON ALREADY" I got to thinking.

I"d like to pull up a chair and rest in her yard. Where someone else has already done the hard. Where the view is lovely. Where there is no more walking the hard path.

But alas her yard is not mine, and so every walk, I convince Mo Trouble that there is more to go. That soon we will arrive in our own yard. Though not as lovely as hers, or as well tended, it is ours. When we hit our driveway, I will give the command "Home" and he will go running for our back yard, for our fence. He will accept that here is where we live.

I spent all day yesterday battling a gastro flare. 6 pounds lighter this morning I'm nervous.

I haven't had a good weight loss flare in some time (thank you Jesus) but a little bump I hit two weeks ago caused me to have to adjust my meds and I lost my security blanket. All bets have been off these last two weeks as I work to find the right balance again.

Yesterday the scale tipped and not in my favor.

In the sermon I listened to this morning, the preacher said :

"God uses that which is UNcomfortable to bring about disruption so we can produce what we are made for."

There is fruit on the fig tree without the disruption.

We are as a people generally not motivated by comfort. We don't CHOSE hard paths.

But yet, we often find ourselves fig trees planted amongst a vineyard.

Odd and out of place.

We can see the neighbor's houses with the lovely yards and we just want to pull up a chair and reside there. With the pretty vines. We want to be grapes that become wine and bring joy.

All too often, I find I'm the fig tree. An eye sore in an otherwise lovely field. Struggling to produce something and what I'm making, isn't what the neighborhood was expecting.

2 My brothers and sisters, you will have many kinds of trouble. But this gives you a reason to be very happy. 3 You know that when your faith is tested, you learn to be patient in suffering. 4 If you let that patience work in you, the end result will be good. You will be mature and complete. You will be all that God wants you to be.

James 1:2 - 4

There are a few passages in the Bible that convict me every single time I read them.

This is one of them.

"Let perseverance finish its work " is the NIV version.

I don't know about you but I haven't found many people more persistent than God. (these people I birthed are close.......)

I want to sit in my neighbor's yard and soak up her lovely view.

I don't want to finish the hard walk home.

Fortunately for me, my Jesus is a persistent fellow. He's willing to do whatever it takes to motivate me to get off the grass and walk the pavement.

It is His desire for me to produce figs in a place where only grapes grow.

I love those funny memes that say something along the lines of "Mr. Rogers didn't prepare me adequately for the people in my neighborhood."

Maybe, He's preparing the people in your neighborhood for YOU.

Maybe you are a fig tree that will produce the ripest figs and that's what your neighborhood needs.

Not more grapes.

Mama Warriors, maybe you, like me, are UNcomfortable today.

Maybe it's time we stop yelling at God for making us fig trees and start asking God how we, as the fig tree, can produce amongst the vines?

Maybe it's time we quit stopping on the hard walk in the beautiful lawn and finish the walk home.