Chasing the Wind - A Guest Post by MaryEllen Schlusser

After feeling like I was chasing the wind for a couple of years, I stopped dead in my tracks. Each day after the kids went to school, I finished my last cup of coffee, curled up on the coach and went back to sleep. I would get up by around one in the afternoon, get dressed quickly and run to the store before they got home. I would spend most of the afternoon and evening trying to get a million things done, that I could have done when all five kids were in school. Next day, repeat…again and again and again.

It was a year of loss. Not one loss in particular, but I’d experience  a small loss here, a big one over there, a betrayal, a rejection, another pain, and another and another and another. It almost didn’t even matter what the circumstances were. I always found myself paralyzed and unable to move.

At times, I felt like a petulant brat who was constantly whining about something or another. After all no one died, my kids were healthy,  and my marriage was strong. Still, with each new loss came the renewed sense that LOSER was stamped on my heart.

Jesus is and always was the Rock of my salvation. But it felt like there was this gigantic rug that practically swallowed me, keeping me from the Rock I desperately  loved. Not to mention all the other muck and mire, I felt at every turn. I was at a loss.

I began to read, pray and soak in God’s Word. The book of James says that we are to always be ready with an answer for why we believe what we believe. I just kept reading, determined to find something to get me out of this funk and I did. I found wisdom!

While wisdom didn’t completely cure me from sleeping half the day away, it did lead me to seek out sound teaching, wise counsel and it got me to get off my bum and get to bible study! While this sounds like I was definitely “doing” more, in reality I really wasn’t, at least not at home. So, I prayed: ”God, please don’t leave me here, on the couch.”

My answered prayer came through unconventional means:  a Pinterest invite from a friend.  If you haven’t been, go, go, go!!

I started looking at this idea and that idea. One morning after my time with the Lord, I took a part a frame, painted it and made a chalk board. The next day, I spackled a wall, cleaned out a drawer, fixed a broken tea cup. I repaired an old mirror. I crackle painted a frame to make a calender (okay, so I gave it seven days and seven weeks so it still needs some tweaking) and painted the kitchen. I got my resume completed and sent it out as well. Yesterday, I went to work, just to fill in for a few hours, but oh, it felt so good. Look at me, blogging. Haven’t done it in months on end.

I knew I could be transformed by the renewal of my mind, if I kept at it. His Word told me so. Even though I didn’t believe in me, He still did–and always does.  I figure if He can speak through an ass, He can grab this heart of mine with a Pinterest invite, a can of paint and a stable gun. Who knew?