rainy days and mondays

"Talkin to myself and feeling old,
Sometimes I would like to quit,
nothin ever seems to fit.
Hangin around,
nothing to do but frown.
Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down"

My iPod was on shuffle, and this gloomy old song by The Carpenters came on. At first I wanted to skip over it, then I decided that I haven't heard it in a long time so why not. First off let me say that I am having a pretty good day, nothing spectacular... but pretty OK. I have had good meetings, got a lot of stuff taken care of, planned for my next three weeks, cleaned my office, all of it good stuff.

Then I listened to the song and specifically the lyrics I typed earlier above. I sank hard. I realized things may not be as good as they seem. I may have been getting all of these things done, and feeling good just to mask the pain of something else going on. Just hearing the lyrics made me sad almost immediately.

I have been learning about emotions the last month or so, and one thing I have learned is that if I feel it, I need to admit it, and if I admit it, I can then find out what is really going on. It didn't take long to realize what I was sad about, and yes something else was going on.

I let a good friend down this weekend. I feel sad about it, I also feel a little shame about not stepping up and being a friend. I can't reverse anything that has happened, but I am sad and wish I could change things.

"Hangin around, nothin to do but frown"

I am hoping for his forgiveness. I am hoping for reconciliation.

While I wrote that I just thought about how many people "hope for forgiveness", even from God? Do you hope. . . . or believe? I do have to admit that through all of this I have let God down too. I should have . . . the points are too many to list here. I am at a loss.

God doesn't call us to do anything for him, but He calls us into a relationship with Him and that through that love relationship we will care about the things He cares about. Like it says in James that we should care for the widows and orphans, not as an agenda item on our long list of items to get done, but simply because through the Holy Spirit, God in us, we see from a new perspective and we do everything out of love for Him. In this I failed badly!

"God does not set us here first of all to preach or to do work for Him. The first thing for which He sets us here is to create in others a hunger for Himself. That is, after all, what prepares the soil for the preaching" - Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life

I would like to feel very differently right now, but I think the song just fits today.