The Captivity of Activity

Beth Moore describes it briefly in her "Breaking Free" video series. It's the "Captivity of Activity". Since i love a good play- on- words, i am a little miffed with Beth for thinking of this before I did. I guess other people ARE as smart as me (just another humbling as the Lord brings me down from the mountain of importance that i continually try to hike up, taking different trails each time, yet winding up in the same spot). SMARTER, even! 

Activity...my life is a constant conundrum in this regard. I am attacked on one side by the feeling of laziness and sluggishness, mainly due to health difficulties, but there is always that nagging thought that i am just doing it to get out of things and that it is all mental. And the other side attacks me with my endless lists of things to accomplish, as i rush from one to the other, not spending enough time in each spot to actually "accomplish" it, therefore, creating yet another "thing" to fix and "accomplish". (Do i use these """" too much? i will look into that, cuz that could get annoying). I get comments from others that i am running myself ragged. "How do you do all of this in one day? I would go crazy!". Then i get the comments, "What do you do all day? You don't have a job, right? So what occupies your time?", which reads to my sensitive self, "GET A LIFE YOU LAZY BUM!". 

So which is it? Darned if i know. The jury is no longer out on the purpose of my existence. I have learned after years of captivity in activity that my will is to do the will of the One Who sent me and called me as His own. Yet this question of my purpose is a constant leach to my everyday thoughts. I'm doing too much. I'm not doing enough. Well...which is it?

my backyard Mimosa tree! favorite tree ever. ever.

For my groom's wedding gift, I searched through 20 plus journals of my scribblings from the past fifteen years. I then typed up everything i deemed worthy of mention to my groom, things i wanted him to know about me and that would pertain to him understanding me better and creating a healthy start to our marriage. it was 70 pages. Single- spaced. Poor guy, having to read all that. I thought it would take him a few weeks to get through, but he actually finished it all in the first few days of our honeymoon! What??!! i told him he obviously had not labored over the intricacies of my journaling, grasping at the meaning of my innermost thoughts. Right:). But going through those entries, I didn't realize how much I would PERSONALLY get out of it. Reading through your life is quite unexplainable. It's overwhelming, really. You see patterns. You see things you never saw before about yourself. You cringe at some things you wrote, cry at others, and laugh hysterically at even more. You come across issues you dealt with ten years ago that you STILL haven't resolved. But you also come across issues that seemed like such a big deal at the time, and you wish you could go back and tell your teenage self (or 22 year old self!) that it would all be okay, and this seeming mountain was actually just a molehill, or a bump in the road. Upon reading, i saw quite a pattern with myself. It was the struggle with purpose. How i spent my time. What i accomplished during the day/week/year. I set tons of "goal lists", "aspirations", and "dreams". I started out wishing that life's goals could be checked off and i could move onto the next goal, and ended up begging God to assure me that that was not how life worked. And He did. and still does. 

i am still in the captivity of activity. I have met few who aren't. I realize that this time in my life is a perfect time for me to completely, painfully, utterly surrender my will to my Father, for every future second of my life to be HIS and HIS ONLY. I am a married homemaker, settling in right now and soon starting up, once again, a jewelry business. I am already craving to be a mother. But i know once motherhood occurs, I must be armed with weapons so as not to be caught in the "Captivity of Activity". To fight diligently for my God in this dark world, and yet find rest and peace in Him as well. That balance, i know, will never be achieved here on earth, but that does not mean i give up.