It’s amazing the things you’ll tell people if they care enough to ask. I was recently asked for a list of things I couldn’t live without, and I came up with lots of superficial, sort of cursory, things. Nature, my computer, Diet Mountain Dew, my car…the list of “THINGS” could go on and on. And that was the intention of the question, about things rather than people. I found myself thinking about what I should put on the list as I formed it, and that’s exactly what came out of me: things I thought might be funny, items I use frequently, or things I think should be important to me. I had this mini-revelation about what is really important to me at the moment as I was thinking about times in my day that I look forward to. The thing I have been dwelling on with anticipation lately is praying with my roommate. We have been talking to Jesus together on a semi-regular basis. And it’s been really wonderful for me. I find myself more naturally leaning toward that as a response to what’s going on, as opposed to just trying to find a solution (which is definitely my natural tendency). I don’t know why I didn’t add that to my list of things I can’t live without because that is the true case, and I feel it more and more acutely each day. It’s just good. It makes me feel like my life is changing a pinch from a slightly minor tendency to major, from a slightly gray tendency to bright, from foggy to clear.
amyrenee said,
December 22, 2007 at 6:37 am
i like it too, chris. i couldn’t have made it through the past month without it.
sherri said,
December 22, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I agree Christie! Once a lot of years ago, someone said to Mike and I “Do you two spend as much time praying about this situation as you do talking about?”
We realized that we didn’t even come close……and decided that day to change how we responded. It’s made a huge difference in our lives.
Recently I realized that I’m so quick to pray with others when I’m talking with them about struggles and things, but that I’m so slow about praying with my family about their struggles. It made me feel really sad and I want to change that. I will change that. I think there is something like ‘family peer pressure’ too and we separate who we really are too much.
Thanks for sharing!
jer.harder said,
December 22, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I am sad that in all of the talk of things that you can not live without, coffee was not mentioned. I mean not even a polite acknowledgment. How are we even friends. Oh and I would say something really encouraging about the Jesus stuff, but I must admit that I work rather hard at trying to fix things on my own. I’ll deal with that some day.
amyrenee said,
December 23, 2007 at 2:36 am
sherri. are you implying that christie and i are a couple? family even?
heterosexual life partners, is what we call it. haha.
sherri said,
December 23, 2007 at 4:21 am
I don’t know what you’re talking about amy. Mike was my mailman at the time of the above story!