I took the Lord's name in vain

Yesterday as I was showering Emma came in the bathroom and turned on the cold water in the sink. It wasn't the extra hot water that turned my temperature up but rather the pile of towels innocently lounging about in the sink. There are many choice explicatives that I could have chosen in that moment, I'll refrain from listing them out since most of you are Christian and would never use those words, hehe, but I chose God dammit. Ill get to the significance of that shortly.

     My last post was a call to arms for Christians, and before that, well I don't really remember off hand, and then there was my journaling through the book of Mark. All good Christian stuff buuut, every Christian (like myself), contains within himself the God side, wherein is the lifelong process of becoming like Christ, and the dark side, or sin nature, which is why we need to engage in a lifelong process of becoming more Christlike.

     My choice of colorful language was not merely an accident but rather a colorful release of something inside desperately needing to get out. God has trusted me with this little 'angel' who seems designed specifically to find and repeatedly target my buttons. But why? Why am I chosen for this most dangerous mission? Quite certainly I never prayed for patience. I'm already mostly insane. It is a simple thing to open the lid and examine those characteristics and trainings which lend me to service of the King, but in this case, in my little Emma, I find not reason. The sense of it, the logic escape me. I see but one thing. I was willing.

     And there it is. Use me Lord. Even yesterday I did pray that time and again, in between my cries of why me. And He's using me to save the life of this little girl. Per chance one piece of this puzzle that is Emma pinpoints my overabundance of me. Me me me. I like me. I like me way too much. If I have a larger fault I know not what it is. Maybe this little girl is God's missile aimed straight at the me of me. I know that isn't the larger picture, at least I don't think so. I think the bigger picture is that this little girl needed saving and we were in the right place at the right time to say yes, Lord.

     She pushes my buttons. Man does she ever. But she has also wrapped my heart around her little self. Try as I might, I just can't seem to grasp the impact she has on my life each day. I try to imagine if she were suddenly gone, how would I feel. I can't seem to do it. Maybe somewhere deep inside is a self protection mechanism protecting me from myself. From ever projecting a life without her. There isn't one. No more than there is without Chris, or Tony, or Josh, or Ashtin. God is love and He is using me to love this little girl.

     So I will keep on loving her. And I will keep on arguing with God when I don't feel up to the task. And that's the journey isn't it.? More steps forward than back.