When Life Gives You Lemons… Pucker Up Buttercup

When Life Gives You Lemons… Pucker Up Buttercup

Oh, my stars.

I don’t think I can make lemonade or lemon pie, or lemon… anything but fresh tears.

It can’t get any messier.  Actually, if that is a challenge to the universe, what I meant to say was, UNCLE!

White flag.

Tap out.

Remember the Alamo…

It has been one thing after another… after another.

Also, another.

And I could list the madness, but it starts with my husband has been gone for two weeks and four days, continues with… I am run ragged, trying to finish a book, getting ready to launch another book, running all over the greater Houston area trying to get a teenage daughter, and vandal sons, ready for another school year, and pinnacles with, recent blood test results confirm, I am allergic to dairy, and chocolate. 

Dear Jesus, come back now okay?

I confess I sat in my car and cried, like the cry of a toddler who lost their woobie.  Complete with gagging and the hiccups.  Also, I dropped the kids off with my mom and told her I had to go to a PTA meeting, but I really went and had chips and salsa and a Margarita… well, three.  But no Queso, because I AM ALLERGIC TO CHEESE!?!?!?

What the frizzle?  If I am being tested, I would like to go ahead and take the lowest grade option, please.  Is there a curve where the worst test grade is forgiven?

Because I will sign… just show me where. 

Friend, I know, we can get in the comparative, husbands lost, children estranged, I am not asking you to pity me or tell me how much worse you have it… I promise.  But FOR THE LOVE OF CHEESE WHIZ!  And for a moment, there was this glimmer of hope.  A house, I had my eye on it for the last 8 months.  All the stars were in alignment… the price had dropped a whopping $50K, and my beloved said, “Make an appointment, I will be there Saturday, we will put an offer in and get it in escrow.”

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Angels hummed, I made a wish list on Wayfair… I summoned my Chip and Jo-Jo… and then, my real estate agent called to tell me, it sold 22 minutes before she called for the showing.

I am the sequel to Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

And last night I did get to talk to the Marine Baby…

Then we were up all night with a stomach bug… Jesus please.

While many of these things may seem first world, they are my world.  And you know, I am weary.  I feel sad.  And what I don’t need is to feel guilty for feeling sad.  My reality right now is less than fun.  And yet, I feel… good.  I feel… hopeful.  I think, no matter what, it is going to be okay.

Hear me out.

I am not being some Polly-Anna, sugar plum fairy. And I haven’t been free-basing St.John’s Wort, although I did chew three whole tablets for breakfast.  Seriously, I ate them like skittles, chased them with some Dandelion and Milk Thistle… which I don’t recommend, but it got me through the morning drop offline and straight on to Starbucks.  The point is I am okay, and I want you to know, you are okay.

You got this friend.

Hear me out… you got this.  I am not sure I have ever written a post like this, I may regret it in the morning, but I will say it now, and pray it reaches whoever, where ever, and why.

You are not in trouble.  You are not a lost cause.  All is not gone.

No harm, no foul.

At the very bottom of the pit, you are held and adored.

And yes, I am talking to me too.

If you need to have a Xanax for lunch, or your dose of Prozac isn’t cutting it, Jesus loves you.

It is okay love… I know it is okay.  It is okay to be broken, hopeless, helpless, and at rock bottom.  Jesus is big enough for you to drop an F-bomb, kick a puppy (a stuffed one of course), or eat Cheezits and cry in your closet.

You can come to the end of your rope, have the last straw, and throw in the towel… it is not a reflection of your faith or your salvation… it is just life.  Life on the edge, believing and barely getting by.

At some point in the evolution of the Christian Contraption woman was taught she needed to be the 31 or she was the zero.

I believe this is a lie from the enemy, for when we are weak, He is most strong.

Here at the foot of the cross, I believe He delights in comforting me.  He doesn’t condemn my brokenness.  I am His darling, and He came to bind the brokenhearted and give hope to the weary.  Furthermore, He knows my name, every hair on my head, and that I live in America and that I delight in whip cream on my skinny vanilla latte… well, I mean before the no dairy diagnosis.

He knows us, His girls.

He is not shocked or undone by my needs or complaints.  Certainly, there are many atrocities He attends to, and yes, if I am broken, how can I be His hands and feet?  To believe my issues too small is to assume He is not big enough to help me… so that I can help others.

Among the lies, I have bought? The idea He thinks I am not worthy of His help because I am a middle-class American. He put me here… I am part of His grand design.  And I fully believe, He adores me.

He adores you.

Granted, we can lose it over things like dance recitals and soccer games, and yeah, I would like to be better… but when I can’t?

He is still fully Jesus.

And the blood worked.

Of all the things we have to worry about, no matter their magnitude, the last thing we need concern ourselves with is how Jesus feels about us.   He said it all when He breathed His last, “It is finished.”

Finish worrying about the state of your heart.

For your butt might be big, your bank account empty, your kid may have just been form tackled on your front lawn by a state trooper, your husband unemployed, and your cat pregnant… but the state of your soul is adored.

The story ends perfectly… and in that – let us rest.

For in heaven there will be cheese… and chocolate.

May your floors be sticky and your calling ordained.  Love, Jami

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5:8

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