Wendy Ripaldi's blog

I was thinking of how funny life is and how you never know where you are going to end up. I have been in a rut for awhile now and just like when the rain cleared out today, so did my mind. Like I had personally just cleared out every cloud from the horizon. All the things that have plagued my spirit were just gone. I began to think that I truly can do anything I want to each day and I have no one to answer to but myself, all the things from the past really do not matter except what I had to learn from them. My friend Lane asked me what I kept grinning about during dinner and I had to just say that I had no idea. I think about it now and I realize that it is pure joy. The feeling of being completely free of any weight or guilt, perfect contentment not related to anything but newness in spirit. I have no idea where it all has come from but it is very exciting! I can say for the first time in a very long time that I am truly happy without some form of external force affecting me. Now what to do with it....:)

As a group we were talking yesterday and I made a reference to the book of Job and how I felt like him with the struggles I have had over the last three years. It prompted me to rekindle my relationship with this story and I have been reading the book of Job again today. This particular passage stood out to me and really is a reflection on how I feel about my life and why I feel like I have so much in common with Job's struggle with the circumstances he was placed in, Job 9:21-35.

21Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul; I would despise my life.
22This is all one thing. Therefore I said it: `He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.'
23If the scourge slay suddenly, He will laugh at the trial of the innocent.
24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covereth the faces of the judges thereof. If not,
where and who is He?
25"Now my days are swifter than a runner; they flee away, they see no good.
26They are passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that hasteneth to the prey.
27If I say, `I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness and comfort myself,'
28I am afraid of all my sorrows; I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent.
29If I be wicked, why then labor I in vain?
30If I wash myself with snow water and make my hands never so clean,
31yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.
32For He is not a man as I am, that I should answer Him and we should come together in judgment.
33Neither is there any mediator between us who might lay his hand upon us both.
34Let Him take His rod away from me, and let not fear of Him terrify me.
35Then would I speak and not fear Him, but it is not so with me.

It seems like I struggle with the evil that lays deep within me and lashes out at the world around me. This passage is like a reminder that the evil is there and that it keeps me seperate from God, I have no favor with Him.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of time and what it equates to in our daily life. I have never felt its pull or weight until recently. We are all given the same amount, 24 hours a day yet it seems that some use it better than others. It is so easy to get caught up in the bits of everyday life and watch the time escape from us like a wisp of smoke. I think of what I use my time for and often forget the things of true importance I was granted to do with that time. Dishes, laundry, work, places to go, errands and so many little unimportant things steal the time away from my relationships, community and sharing God's grace with others. With all the distraction or preoccupation with the things in life that keep me "busy" am I missing the things that God places in front of me? My body is a decaying and rotting vessel that will eventually return to the dust, it may be tomorrow or it may be fifty years from now. Have I done the things that God has wanted from me, have I loved and cherished those God entrusted me with and have I taken every blessing God has given to me? What will I miss that is right in front of me? I am not getting any younger and life sometimes seems so very busy and still seems to pass right by me.

I had lunch with a dear friend today. He is silly, funny and I always find him endearing to talk to. A spiritual person who does not know God or His grace, he always respects and listens to what I tell him about our great God's enduring love and plan for our lives. We were discussing relationships and the interaction between people. He said something he has never said that made my heart break for him. He has a girlfriend that he has been dating for six years and he is comfortable because he can be complacent and not have to put effort into this relationship. He further explained that he loves his work and that the relationship allows him to focus on that work and not give up anything emotionally to this relationship. He said something profound next, "I hate seafood, particularly salmon and that after six years she did not know me enough to not make that for Christmas dinner. We go out to lunch and as my friend you remind the person not to put pickles on my plate because you know I dislike them so much. Why is that?" It was on the tip of my tongue to say that it was his own fault that it was like that and you get out a relationship what you put into it. Then I began to realize that was not it. The trick here was not the relationship or lack of but the complacent nature that ruled over it. It steals the joy and discovery from it all, the interaction that God desires for us to have with each other. I began to search for the right thing to say and it would not come. I asked if he did not desire to find love and companionship, to start a family or to share his life with someone to which he answered that he has never wanted those things because they have never been presented to him in such a way that would make him desire that life. I began to think tonight is complacency is more prevalent than we think. How often are we complacent in our relationships, particularly our relationship with God? It is easy to be dependant upon God when things are going wrong or we need Him but so easy to push Him to the back of our mind when everything is easy or going the way we would like. We do this with all kinds of relationships, when someone is difficult or has too many problems, when situations are complicated or messy, when someone gets on our nerves or even if we find life to be to busy to bother. How often does God desire for our complacency to evaporate and be truly dependant on His will for our lives? How often do we miss the things or people He puts in our lives because of this?

The house is quiet without the kids here, strange even. God is so good! I have had so many things thrown at me in the last week but I feel good because I have prayed about it, been given my direction and have made the right choices. I am so free right right now. Free to see what God wants, free to stand by myself and free to move toward the future. It is incredible, God gave me strength to walk away from someone I did not think I could have and the best part is He put me in a position to be a person of faith in this person's life as a good friend.
When I was leaving church on Saturday night I made the mistake of blowing through the stop sign coming out on the main road. As luck would have it a very nice and courteous highway patrolman was there in the median. As we chatted about what I had done and he gave me a warning he said something that stuck with me. "As much as God put you at that church tonight, God also put that stop sign there to keep you from crashing into someone else." It got me to thinking, God puts stop signs all over the place yet He often allows us to "crash" into people for His plans to unfold. Often these relationships that we become involved in evolve over time, they are not what we intially think they will be. Often you meet someone and it is different in the beginning and then it becomes something else that you never thought it would become. Sometimes these relationships are messy, painful, difficult and a struggle from the beginning. The dynamics drive you crazy and yet the person becomes endearing over time. Some of my best friends in life frustrate me and make me the angriest and likewise I make them feel the same but those difficulties forge a strong bond and enduring love. We have such a limited scope of what God is doing through these relationships and how much He intends for us to learn, love and grow through them. We cannot see the way we impact these people, showing them God's infinte love and compassion. My friend said to me last night as we watched the football game together that what he missed the most about being around me was my friendship and because of that relationship he could believe that God was really there and cared about him regardless of what was going on in his life. I was floored at this, I always viewed him until recently as someone I had had a romantic relationship with. I lost the ability to see the big picture, what God was doing. Even after all my human emotions of romantic love were gone and the difficulties of it falling apart abated, I was never able to see until then that God was still working on this person, even using me (chief of all sinners and a utter and complete failure, lol) to show my friend His love and grace. I have not felt that ashamed in such a longtime. Here I was worried about myself and how I felt and what choice I was going to make and God just had something else planned for this person that had nothing to do with what I thought or felt. I have so much to learn and so far to go, I pray that God will keep showing me how to "crash" into people, how to not avoid difficulties with others, how to keep seeking His will instead of mine, not be afraid of loving on others, to not be selfish with my time and energy and most importantly to never give up or turn my back on people because they do not fit into the neat little package of my expectations.
I enjoy having peace and quiet, but I miss my boys. Wednesday just cannot get here fast enough, I just want to gather them up and wrap my arms around them. Hopefully their travels will be smooth instead of the hours of delays we experienced yesterday at the airport.