The last couple days have been not my better ones. Probably the best part of them was the hour I spent on the floor smiling and making funny noises with 1 year olds in the church nursery. It’s the most smiling I’ve done in the last 48 hours.
Some days are hard. And I get discouraged too easily.
I was thinking today about how I’ve probably read just about every Christian-marriage book on the shelf. And how one common theme bothers me: they all seem to say if you do what they’re suggesting, your marriage will be great! I’ve yet to find a book that says, “Even if you do these things for your marriage it may not get better. But Jesus is worth it.” Maybe I should write one.
The second best thing that happened in the past 48 hours is my visit at my grandmother’s this afternoon. Having the recent diagnosis of lung cancer metastasis to her brain and spinal cord, many family members that I haven’t seen since I was a little girl have been coming to visit. Today I got to see two of my great Aunts: Velma and Sandra, both from Arkansas. The last time I saw them I was 10. I remember being at my great grandma’s rock house in Arkansas and the sound of their voices as well as the chocolate gravy with homemade buiscuits great-grandma Emma made us. Seeing the 33 year older version of them today was a blessing. Connor and Ryland also got to meet them. We exchanged mini-life updates and laughs about our families tenacious tendency to be competitive, exaggerate and be loud. There were four generations in that small apartment and it was good.
Driving home I thought about how the goodness of that family time was just a redeemed taste of what my Creator has always meant for me. He made me for a family. His family. With laugher and roles and helping one another and love.
This verse really struck me in my #IsaiahChristmas reading today:
‘In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made… ‘ Isaiah 17:7-8
One day I will look on the One who made me literally. But something wonderful has happened in me in that I believe on the One I have never seen. And I find I “look” to him more and more and recognize how stupid I have been when I catch myself looking to the things I’ve made. As though they could save me. As though they could help me. As though they could make me to know love.
Only my Maker can do that.
Sheila Dougal 
Yes right one… I have more to say. But maybe in a more private conversation…. Amen