Lenten Update and the Perils of Red Suburbans

I'm back again, reporting on my Lenten media fast.  Not so much reporting on the mechanics of the thing, but just on how I've been feeling, and the things I think about.  Mostly I've been feeling like crap.  I'm irritable, and resentful, and horribly ungrateful.  I know my life is full of glorious things.  Instead I choose to focus on the things that irritate me.  I irritate myself.  

I'm tired all the time.  Yes, I'm physically tired, and there are perfectly reasonable reasons for that.  But I'm emotionally and spiritually tired as well.  Like a cranky overtired child, I'm writhing around fretfully, doing nothing to fix it.  I doubt I can fix it.

I have created small pockets of silence in my life with this media fast.  God whispers into those silences.  I don't always like what is being said.

I want change, but I don't want to have to do anything that will change me.  I want to lose weight, but I don't want to exercise or change any of my eating habits.  OK.  I don't technically need to lose weight.  It's an illustration.

I need a jumpstart.  I'm like my old tired Suburban standing in the driveway.  It's trying to start.  It's braying like a donkey, but in the end it just gives up.  Outside intervention is needed.  Careful coaxing will not cause the huge diesel engine to roar to life with a puff of noxious smoke.

God whispers that He is willing to jumpstart me, but unless I then drive straight to the service station for some much needed upkeep, as soon as I park, I will be dead again.  I don't want to drive to the service station.  That mechanic hates me.  He will look under the hood and find a whole host of expensive repairs that needed attention months ago.  He'll look at me with those eyes that say, "You really don't understand cars, do you?  You are killing this car."

And I really do love my Suburban.  I don't want to abuse it.  It's cavernous, and red, and loud.  It hauls my whole family, and a month's worth of groceries, and an occasional goat.

I really do love my life.  It's huge, and messy, and fun.  It holds everything I ever dreamed of having and more.  But I am killing it sometimes, by the things I do, and the things I leave undone.  It could use a jumpstart, a tuneup, some serious service.  But I get up every day, turn the key, and hope for the best.