Retelling the Story

Can I just say that this whole Reading Through the Bible in 90 Days thing is amazing and crazy at the same time?? Some days, I really don’t. like. it. For instance, I don’t like reading 24 Psalms in one day. I LOVE the Psalms and I like to savor each one as I read them. (On the up side of that, I actually learned to somewhat distinguish writing styles. It was crazy. I could tell when we switched back to David’s writing before I even looked it up! So that was a bonus.)

But other days, I really love it. The whole perspective is different. I’ve read through the Bible in a year at least 6 times before but this is SO much more that the picture changes. You get a broader view of what’s going on and how God is working.

When I was reading in Deuteronomy, I initially was a little frustrated. Which, unfortunately, is normal because it always feels redundant to me. I mean, I feel like Moses LITERALLY just told the Israelites all of this in the two previous books and now I’m reading it again almost word for word. Whhhyyyy?? I get the point! Let’s move on!

But this time, as I read it, two phrases stuck out because they came up over and over again. The first is:

Take Care.

Moses knew that obedience to God’s commandments wouldn’t just happen. He told the Israelites to be careful, to take care to follow God’s law. This is actually a theme all throughout Scripture, not just something from Moses. Psalms talks about guarding your heart and being careful. Ephesians says to look carefully how you walk. God’s jealous, you know. He needs to be first and won’t let anything else take that place. It was a reminder to me to watch my thoughts and actions and to be more faithful to my Lord.

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.” Deut. 4:7

Which brings me to the next word:

Remember.

Moses was desperate for the people to remember what God had done for them! He was retelling their own history for them. He understood the importance of recounting God’s acts and what he expects from his people. He knew that as humans, we forget.

And you know what? Sometimes I need that. And you do too. Sometimes we need a friend to sit across from us and say, “Look! Don’t you remember what God did for you here? See how he’s working right now??! Isn’t he amazing?!”

We need to do for each other what Moses was doing for his people. We need to retell that amazing story of God’s work! We need to take care, keep our souls diligently, and not forget.

 

The Art of Being an Old Lady

I love old people. I mean, I pretty much have to, considering the age my Dad is getting to be. Ha! I can’t wait till he reads this!

But seriously, old people are the cutest. Plus, they have a huge advantage over most of the population. Let me explain. Have you ever noticed that old people can pretty much say whatever they want (which is sometimes what everyone is thinking but doesn’t think it’s socially acceptable to say) and they get away with it?? For example, an old person that you may never have met can (and will) outright ask your relationship status in front of a group of people AND proceed to give you all sorts of advice OR set you up with a family member of theirs. Your initial thought will probably be that it’s not really any of their business but then something will click in the back of your head and whether consciously or not, your brain will tell you, “Oh don’t worry about it; it’s an old person and they can say whatever they want.”

What??! Why? And how do I get that status?? I can’t wait to be old. I’m sneakily storing up all sorts of embarrassing things to say and do- does anyone know the official “old” age?? I want to be extra prepared when I reach it.

I’ve been thinking about old people recently because I’ve been feeling old (but without the perks because I don’t think I’ve reached that magical age yet.) I’ve been tired a lot but that’s not what makes me feel old. I really feel like I’m losing my memory and it’s actually pretty sad for me. If you ask anyone, I used to have the best memory in the world. At my old job, I remembered everything. From long and strange passwords, to people’s names and faces, to things that I never should have known but somehow it got stuck in my head. People were always asking me if I knew such and such or if I knew where something of theirs was, even though there was no way I should know. And most times, I did.

But not now. A few weeks ago at work, I was learning how to make all the food for the hot lunch we offer. I had about 9 pans in the oven at once so it was a lot of multi-tasking. At one point, the lady teaching me had a pan of meat and I watched as she put a little bit of water in the bottom and then she was showing me how to put the sauce on the meat. By the time she had finished, I looked in the pan and said, “Now did you put water in there or is that just grease from the meat?” She looked at me kind of funny and that’s when I realized I had literally watched her put that water in less than 2 minutes before.

I’ve found that now I have to keep track of things a lot more whereas before I could just rely on my memory for everything. For instance, I rarely used to put things on my calendar because I just always remembered my schedule. NOPE. Doesn’t work that way now. EVERYTHING must go in my phone because I can’t trust my memory. I used to know the birthdays of my family members AND all the kids I babysat and now I have to sit and calculate my Mom and Dad’s ages (good thing I still remember what years they were born!) I used to keep my shopping list in my memory- bahahahahaha! That seems like a joke. I could be getting 2 things from the store and I would still need to put them in my phone to remember them.

Do you know how frustrating and sad this is?? I guess I didn’t really think that the memory loss part of epilepsy would happen to me. What I mean to say is, I pretty much FORGOT about it! I have so much more respect and patience for old people now! You need to ask me the same question 3 times because you can’t remember? You go right ahead! At the same time, once again, people expect that from an old person and they give a little bit of extra grace. But they don’t expect it from me. I started to notice how bad it was when my best friend would call me at night and ask how my day was, and I really couldn’t remember what I had done. So I would give a general answer and when she wanted specifics, I would have to really really think. It’s like my brain used to be a nice filing system and someone has gone in and dumped out all the folders and now I have to sift through them to find what I’m looking for.

So if you ask me how my week has been and I look confused and like I’m searching for an answer, I probably am. I’m trying to remember, literally, what happened this week.

Please give some patience while I try to figure it out.

And maybe a hint or two would be nice.