The allure of the tar pit

I woke last night in another of my mind filled frenzies.  I was sleeping well, which hasn't occurred in several nights due to my fierce head cold.  I was panicking and letting my old insecurities get the better of my mind rather than trusting God.  As I lay there my fears subsided and I thought about tar pits...yes tar pits!  Living creatures would be attracted by the shiny appearance of tar pits (apparently they had no sense of smell because tar stinks!) and they would find themselves being sucked into them and the more they struggled the faster the tar would suck them down.  Other creatures seeing a struggling creature would think they had an easy meal and they too would get trapped by the ooze.  Move swiftly ahead a few million years and today those same tar pits are spitting up the bones of all of their victims.

It is a good analogy of our lives when you think about it.  We get attracted to the shiny things this world has to offer such as beauty, power, money, lust and we get ensnared in it and it eats us alive.  If we are lucky or better yet wise, we can escape our tar pits through God's Grace and we avoid having our bones spit up millions of years later. 

Do you realize that the shiniest of shiny places in all of the world has the most famous tar pits of all.  Can you guess where that is?  Hollywood!  Yes gentle readers, Hollywood, Cal-ee-forn-eye-a!  The La Brea Tar Pits!  Seems to me that is God's sense of humor, doncha think?

Honestly there has been a time or two in my life when I was attracted by the lure of the shiny things.  It never seemed to last long as God always had a way of humbling me and returning my mind to sanity.  It hasn't been but 4 years since he pulled me back from the precipice of the cliff.  It was New Years Day and I was flipping thru the channels and I happened to pause on a channel where a nice looking young minister was talking about God and I swear that he was talking directly to me.  I had tears streaming down my face and what he was saying was like a salve to my soul.  In my hour of need God spoke to me through Joel Osteen. 

Most of us have such busy lives that we cannot see, let alone hear, God as He goes about his timeless promise of being here for us.  He talks to each of in different ways, He speaks very quietly to me and to my dear friend Marilyn, He is loud and proud.  He speaks to each of us in the way He knows will grab our attention.  Be still for a few and you may hear Him.  He may speak in grandiose ways such as a sunset or an earthquake.  He may speak in a quiet way as thru the smile of a stranger or the shape of a cloud.  You must be open for His words. Our lives are so cluttered with static that a lot of times it isn't until we reach a crisis point in our lives that we do hear Him!  When we do finally hear Him, we look back at our lives and we see how His works have been there all along, we were just too busy struggling in the tar pit that is our life to hear Him.  Don't let the tar pit spit your bones out in a million years from now, it will be too late then.

I had thought about blathering about creativity but that I shall leave for another day.  I did start a small project.  It is a free design but I can't find who the designer is.  It is the words "I love you" in the shape of a free form heart.  The person I am making it for, his favorite color is Navy Blue, not blue, Navy Blue.  Well I had a wonderful piece of fabric in 28 count lugana and I am stitching with Crescent Colours "Cupid".  I am wild about the contrast of the 2 colors.  I know you can't see it but that is my sick self behind the fabric of the web cam pic.  There is NO cute hair this week!  I am just blessed I feel half way human!

I really like this Glendon Place design "Eggs a la Round".  I don't think I will buy it although I can't predict the future.  I just have SO much stash and I really need to comb through it and seriously get rid of a lot of it. 

I hope that for today you will feel the grace of God, if not for just one brief moment, and let that feeling fill every cell of your body.  God Bless Us Everyone!