My People

My People
My matched set of grandchildren - Oliver and Cosette

Friday, February 13, 2009

thankful Thursday, a day late

It's Friday the 13th! Would you believe I've never seen any of the Friday the 13th movies? I don't do scary stuff. Or stressful movies. Or anything that's not pretty much a happily ever after or a chick flick...real life is scary enough without bombarding my mind with someone else's imagination.

It's the first Friday in a long time when my focus has been on looking forward instead of counting back. I hear your cautions... trust me when I say that I'm extremely aware of unhealthy patterns in my life and am committed to breaking those chains. I'm blessed that THIS happened right in the middle of my Breaking Free bible study! It definitely helps me keep perspective. We are talking it through every step of the way. Nobody is in a hurry... life is a marathon, not a sprint. I am not the same person I was five months ago... but I am also not who I will be five months from now, by the Grace of God! I am glad to have someone to hang out with on occasion... but still have many obligations between work, parenting, church, drama team at church (which starts Sunday afternoon!) and hopefully some new and exciting projects with my friend Robert.

And... btw... I think it confused some people... my friend Robert is not the Robert that I was once married to. They are polar opposites, trust me! Robert is someone who I once spent a good bit of time with... and he's been back in my life lately... he is a great friend for me. The bible says that "iron sharpens iron"... and although Robert and I have some drastically different perspectives on all the "hot button topics" (religion, politics, etc)... we have always had a special ability to hear one another's opinions with respect and, at least for me, admiration. I can tolerate different opinions as long as the one who espouses those views can articulate with some intellect. It's not enough to tell me what you think, tell me WHY you think that.

Although, admittedly, so many of the fundamental things about me are based on emotion and spirit as opposed to logic. Faith defies logic. How do I know that God is real? How do I know that God is good? How can I believe in Jesus? Because of the evidence of supernatural power and intervention in my life. Because I have chosen to believe. Faith is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1) There is enough accumulated evidence over thousands of years that proves what I believe and if I were a scholar, I might cite such evidence. That is not my relationship with God... I am not one who has been called to explain the scientific things that are written about in the Old Testament in a time before such knowledge existed (the circle of the earth is one such passage that comes to mind - Isaiah 40:22). I am one who is called to model a life of faith that comes through testing and trial... I am called to speak my heart and be transparent to others so that they can see the hand of God in my life. I'm more of a David than a Solomon.

My friend Michelle found out yesterday that her sixth child is a girl! This evens up the score... she has Isaac, Luke and Eli... Emma and Elizabeth... I posted pictures of some of her kids a few weeks ago. They're all gorgeous, so is she... new baby girl is due early July!

I haven't done much blog reading over the past two weeks and I think that's how I'll spend "Singles Awareness Day" - catching up on blogs and sending out love to all my blogger babes. I got a few (very few) cards in the mail this week... as many as I had stamps for... I have been spending so much time online and on the phone and so forth... although, I have missed my BFF Dean for the past two days...

I offered (begged?) to keep Sarabeth and Jamie so Jim and Angie can have a Valentines Day date. Their life has been so chaotic with the water damage at their house since they are staying with friends from church. They are comfortable but it's just not home. I have lots of little treasures for little girls - dolls and teddy bears and books - and need to make brownies for church for Sunday as we are having a Relay for Life event. Actually... Saturday needs to be a Betty Crocker day for me as we have a chili lunch after church Sunday morning and our usual potluck dinner after bible study Sunday night. Love to have little hands to help in the kitchen...

Time to do my Thankful Thursday post:

1. Looking forward instead of back and losing count of weeks!
2. Almost no ear/jaw pain this week!
3. Chickfila, time with Robert Drake, more upcoming time with RWD and intelligent discussions
4. Girl Scout cookies... my three boxes of samoas came in on Wednesday night and I have forgotten about them! They are still in the back of the car!
5. New floors go in at the office tonight - the last phase of our construction!
6. Loving my job - some personal issues but feeling so blessed to do what I do
7. Facebook friends... being in contact with people from my past! It's great fun!
8. Coffee- this morning it was really good
9. Payday today! My hours were down a bit because of the doctor visits last week but I had a good bonus to attach which helped... right on time
10. Crunch-n-munch - who is known at my office as "lunch"... because I relate people to events and when Miss Shirley took a call from Marvin she said, "which one is this?" and I said, "lunch" and so now that's his name. It could be worse. I've dated people who were called much worse things by my friends!
11. Casual Friday! Loving the blue jeans!

Hope you all have a great Friday and a great weekend! Love and hugs, y'all!

5 comments:

Tina of Moon Shine said...

enjoy your weekend!

Anonymous said...

Have a great Friday and a great Saturday! Being single and happy is way better than being married and miserable ~ look how far you've come! The kids got their card yesterday ~ thank you!

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

You do have a great list to be thankful for this week. So glad to hear the pain is going away.
'On Ya'-ma

Anonymous said...

From the 'We Are the Non Sequitur Society...But we Do Like Pizza!' Department, a series of random thoughts.

THE THOUGHT: Love is worth it. I say this knowing you're entitled to some harsh skepticism and that the anguish of a love betrayed is awful.

Still, it is possible that the pinnacle of human experience is shared accomplishment through love.

To need to give up on that is to face true despair. Don't wear pink glass going in to the relationship, but do walk through the door back into it. Solomon would want you to.
---
I am very happy to be back in your life. To be among people who you like, trust, and admire is to be blessed; if not divinely then by the comfort of the friends themselves.
---
You mentioned that faith defies logic... From a linguistic point of view, it has to. Faith, be definition, is a belief in something in absence of or contrary to evidence. If there were a syllogistic proof for God, then faith would be unneeded. [btw, one of the best, but most sarcastic versions of the faith v. proof v. man argument is in the 'Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy', but read it at your own peril.]
---
As for you here, now, reading this after nourishing yourself with crunch and munch, versus you say 2 years ago, and say, you five months from now, you have tough choices to make.

You have to decide what parts of your thinking and what parts of your life you'll actively embrace, and which you'll cut away.

Sometimes, quitting is both the hardest and most liberating part.

Fear of what you've decided to embrace is both reasonable but easier to manage as you're going toward it. Fear of what you've cut out is easy to forget about and so things from your past can be more dangerous as they can come from nowhere to haunt you.

All of that sounds very maudlin and general, however, given the decisions you'll be making, for eahc point you decide to hurl yourself toward, there will be 215 others [Austin will recognize that I actually did the math] that you need to watch for.

Fools rush in. Smart people walk purposefully forward and comfort the angels in fear. You'll be doing a lot of that.

2nd Cup of Coffee said...

Hey, I enjoyed your list. Love the Scout cookies, too. I haven't had any in a long time. Have a great weekend.