You Are Grace To The Brokenhearted

My life has theme songs. That's all there is to it.

Presently, I hate the inside of my house. It's old, it's been jacked up, it needs to be painted and "finished" and there is cream carpet in the dining room. I have four kids. Cream carpet plus four kids equals "what smells like pee/spoiled milk/wet dog?" (We don't have a dog.) So the house is incessantly below my standards. Not to mention the normal large-family stuff of laundry and toys and school papers and what-have-you cluttering up the world. It's like quicksand--the quicker I move to get out of this pit, the worse it seems to get!!! And the thing is, I thought my job as a wife and SAHM (stay-at-home-mom for those of you who don't subscribe to such blogrings), which I have been happy to embrace, was to keep everything in order...and a bunch of other details that I'll save for my resume...which means, in every direction I look, I'm a failure. I'm hard-pressed to find a success on my long list of expectations for myself...except that my kids are cute, happy, smart and haven't managed to kill themselves yet, although Z gives a daily go of it. "...Times are tough, the goin' rough, like there never was a Master Plan."

This crisis sits patiently next to the recent one I've gone through in my marriage, reminding me that there is hope within brokenness, a light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.

This is the song that encourages me today, in view of my struggles in my JOB and crisis in general. Thank you, Lost Dogs, for preachin' it to me again and again...God speaks to me in Rockabilly.

Blessing in Disguise-- Lost Dogs

How often do you spot the angels

Or feel the unseen hand?

Most times are tough, the goin’ rough

Like there never was a master plan

Those steadfast doors don’t open

And you pray but you don’t understand

You’ve got to...

Hold fast the hope that’s in you

Don’t always trust your eyes

Sometimes it takes a long time to see it as a

Blessing in disguise

We live upon this dark surface

And God, He moves upon the deep

What is concealed will be revealed

There is no promise He won’t keep

Some are confused by the shadows

We’re awake now but we’re half asleep

Hold fast the hope that’s in you

Don’t always trust your eyes

Sometimes it takes a long time to see it as a

Blessing in disguise

Sometimes the dark can move our hearts

To lean for the light of the Son

And our ways don’t become His ways

Until we are undone

Hold fast the hope that’s in you

Don’t always trust your eyes

Sometimes it takes a long time to see it as a

Blessing in disguise

And after you’ve been broken

You may not realize

That you are grace to the broken hearted

And a blessing—a blessing in disguise

Thank you, LORD, that you bind the brokenhearted, that you are renaming me an oak of righteousness, a planting of YOU, for the display of your splendor. This is the year of the Lord's favor.