Is Facebook a "Friend?"

I didn't post yesterday, and I'm committed to writing 500 words a day.  I don't know how to get a good count on how many words a post is.  But, I sense the Lord saying that it doesn't really matter.  I have a rough idea of how many lines of type here make up 500 words.  Part of the reason that I want to write every day is to kind of "find my voice," as they say.  I'm not exactly sure what that means, except perhaps it would make me more comfortable in my own skin, when I try to sit down and write.  As it is now, I'm always second-guessing how things should be said.  Today, want to write about "friendship."  I think that a lot of people do what I do and use things like facebook and Sunday School as a way to get sort of a feeling of being close to people, and yet a way to actually keep people at a distance.  I've done this to others, and had them do it to me.  It's really frustrating.  One thing, though, is that I can see that I'm not the only one of my "friends" who is afraid of intimacy.  I'm going to suggest to my pastor that he preach on friendship. I think that we can only be as close to the Lord as we are willing to be with people.  Didn't Jesus say something like, "How can you love me, when you will not love your brother?"  I have noticed that I am not the only Christian who uses the context of good discipleship as a way to keep the Lord at a comfortable place in our lives.  When He wants to grow closer to us, we relegate our relationship with Him to our "Quiet Time."  And we search for formulas to insure us that this quiet time with Jesus comes up to the standard for such a thing.

When it comes to friendship with people, Facebook is a study in the fear of intimacy.  We come into it with high expectations, seeing people with hundreds of people that they call friends.  But, we learn fairly quickly not to expect too much from these hundreds of "friends."  We learn that it is easier to ignore our "Facebook Friends" who seem to be getting too close or asking for too much friendship. And we think that this keeping people in their place is good.  And it is, if we never want to get any closer to people than the rigid structure of Facebook allows.

Comforted

I don't know if this is 500 words, but it was the story of a moment that sort of just wrote itself.  I've been wondering lately how I will manage to get through life without my momma.  I guess this is the story of how.

I've gotten out my taboo cards. What little I remember of surrealism, is an idea that there is something inside me, some message, that wants to come out. I simply need to give it the opportunity to burst onto the scene. Say there are ten things on a tray, and I have to tell a story with them. A glove, a pony, a few coins, a singer, water, mayonnaise, something king-size, speeding, summer, and green. Let's see. The singer wears a glove, but why only one? Perhaps she can't find both, or maybe she is a Michael Jackson fan. I picture a woman sitting by a fence, singing her way through a hymnal. Perhaps a pony in the next field comes over and nuzzles her. A highway is maybe ten feet from her. It is the well-traveled way. Every now and then, another car comes speeding down the road, shaking the whole world to the sound of the music it's playing. But Micah's songs come from a very different place. Once upon a time, her mom used to sing to her. Momma sang about “The Birth of the Blues.”

Micah's frail heart wishes it had a tune, all she has is this hymnbook. She pages through it, looking for an elusive something, something to pour her paper heart into, something to make her feel like a real person. A soft breeze plays with the pages as she turns them. “I am weak but thou art strong; Jesus, keep me from all wrong. I'll be satisfied as long, as I walk, let me walk close to thee.” Could anything be close? Tears begin to roll down her young cheeks. “Just a closer walk with thee.” Her soul cuddles up with the familiar words. “Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,” Her voice sounds so small. Trying again, a little louder, a little stronger. “Thro' this world of toil and snares, if I falter, Lord, who cares? Who with me my burden shares? None but thee, dear Lord, none but thee.” Tears are falling more rapidly now, unbidden. Momma would like that song. “Just a closer walk with thee.” Back in the house, everyone expected her to be so spiritual. Everyone was talking about heaven. Back there, she was expected to smile, and play the hostess to relatives and friends gathered to mourn. She thought about the service, they had just come from. All those songs that she and her mother had loved together. Momma's voice had become less certain as she grew older. Somehow, when they were together, though, the old voice would ring out the soprano, while Micah found a alto notes snuggling up next to momma's strong melody. Now, all the tears that she couldn't cry at church dripped one by one down her face. Paging through the tattered hymnbook, she sings, “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock That shadows a dry, thirsty land; He hideth my life in the depths of his love, and covers me there with his hand.” Dry and thirsty, yes, that's how the world felt today. The bright sunshine hides for a moment behind a cloud. The sun holds itself aloof from this little worship service. The woman feels like a young girl again, as she carefully avoids the barbs that will tear at her clothes if she gets too close. Soon, she would need to get back. People would wonder what had happened to her. Everybody seemed so quietly worried about her. Their worry was another weight to carry, as though losing her mother wasn't enough. She had to exhibit the right mix of mourning and psychological strength to reassure everyone. But, all she wanted was to hear momma singing beside her. “Because He Lives” was one of momma's favorite songs. “Because He lives I can face tomorrow; because he lives all fear is gone; because I know he holds the future, life is worth the living just because he lives.” Tomorrow, what a dry, colorless thought. She would make it through tomorrow, though. After all, there was no longer anyone to help if she fell apart. I need your strength today, Lord. What is the verse? “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” I need a portion of that divine power, today, Father. I know you will give it. Thank You. “Every good and perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no shifting shadow.” Is the loss of momma a gift, Lord? She lived so many years with constant pain in so many of her joints. I'm glad to know that she is in heaven with You. Thank You for this moment. Thank You for the bright sunshine, and the quiet grass. I guess I better get going. People will miss me. Thank You for being here with me. Someday, momma, I will meet you in heaven; and we will sing and sing and sing for a million glorious days. But, I better be going . . .  

Almost 500 Words

Oh, gosh, I don't know what to write about.  I started to write about a favorite hymn, but I don't know that anyone would be interested in hearing that.  There's a little note on my desk here that says, "You Are a Masterpiece."  I was thinking about that earlier.  I don't feel much like a masterpiece, but emotions are deceptive.  It is my nature (ever since my training in medical vocabulary and career as a transcriptionist) to break down words.  What does it mean to say that I (perish the thought) am a Masterpiece.  "Masterpiece" sounds like a very big word, but I think it only means "a piece made by a Master."  I can accept that.  What little I know about this body I'm in leaves me pretty awestruck.  For many years, I didn't have any insurance coverage.  That was back in my 20's.  I was amazed at how well my body took care of itself.  Back before that time, I had every year been taken to the doctor with bronchitis.  When I had to take care of myself, though, I found that my body just overcame its bronchitis troubles.  At that time, I didn't have a car.  I found that walking everywhere, in just any kind of weather, made me stronger.  I no longer had a lot of the difficulties that I had grown up with.  I have often wished that I could share this "secret" with the people that I see dashing around in their cars day after day.  If you walk places, it forces you to prioritize.  You only have time to go to a few places, so it's important to pick the best.  Walking is calming.  So many of our ailments these days are caused by stress.  Walking gives you time to really think about things.  I feel like many people these days are kinda running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  They don't think that they have time to do things like memorize and meditate on scripture.  They have no idea what they are missing out on.  Oh, goodness, that's only about 289 words.  One of the things that counselors have taught me is to go outside and really appreciate all the things that I see.  Really looking at trees and grass and sidewalks gets me out of my head.  Once, way back when, I made up a little story about the trees I saw as I was walking along.  Each tree became a character in my story.  I saw a little evergreen surrounded by taller trees.  I thought how all those taller trees were always reaching up to the sky, trying to catch the sun as it passed them by.  The magnificent oaks and lovely maples didn't understand what was wrong with the little evergreen.  Fall came.  Leaves were falling all over the forest, but the little evergreen stood quietly, patient as always.  It's leaves didn't fall.  It had become the only bright spot in the forest.  It couldn't reach up and catch the sun, but it had caught as much sunlight as it needed to stay green all through the winter.
Well, back to being God's masterpiece.  Walking through the world, there are so many extraordinary things to see, so many masterpieces.

I need to balance my days.  I need to do some studying, some praying, and some cleaning.

Salt Water

I am not a sophisticate.  You probably noticed that.  Well, recently I had to do something that made me feel like a little kid.  I had advised others who had infections to gargle with salt water.  I've done that before and found it to be remarkably restorative.  So, this morning when my sore throat seemed persistent and out to give me an earache as well, I took my own advice.  Yuck!!!  There's only one thing that I hate salt on and that's water.  Ick!  Of course, I'll gargle more of the offensive salt water if it doesn't help pretty quickly.  But, I will not enjoy it.  Yuck!

The Biggest Loser

I have not been a fan of "The Biggest Loser."  I weight about 350 pounds.  At every weigh-in, they would always say how big the person was when he or she started out.  Usually, I was/am 25 to 50 pounds bigger than all the girls on that show were when they started out.  I look in the mirror, and it's really depressing.  I'm five feet and six or seven inches.  I remember when I was hovering around 230 pounds for many years.  I saw my sister and brother gaining more weight than I, and I swore that I would never get up to 300 pounds.  Well, now, I am post-menopausal.  I am also on disability, not because of my weight.  I have always fought some personality disorders.  I have borderline personality disorder.  While fighting the infernal borderline thing, I began to act in a way that is bipolar.  So now, I have not only the one personality disorder that was so hard to fight.  Now, I am borderline AND bipolar, and I also have ADD.  I take so many meds, and some of them have the side effect of making me gain weight.  I don't believe that the meds are why I have gained weight, though.  Depression is one of my biggest foes.  Depression and the abandonments that the devil throws at me whenever I start to get ahead.  I have shown that I CAN overcome borderline personality disorder to a great degree.  It's a matter of being vigilant and watching myself for borderline ways of thinking that try to sneak back into my life.  I have obsessive-compulsive habits and patterns that can be my allies as I fight these disorders, and as I fight my weight.  THE KEY IS HOPE.  I am now 46 years old.  I was watching The Biggest Loser finale this evening.  I went to get up off the couch that I had been dozing on.  At first, I thought that I was going to be too fat and too weak to get up off the couch.  I thought that was really pitiful.  Then, as I was watching the show, there was this girl (She turned out to be the one who won one of the prizes.) who reminded me of myself.  At the beginning, she was asked to run 25 flights of stairs.  She came back and announced that she had run 30-something flights.  I always make great beginnings.  And, I'm not against stairs.  It's the long haul that has always done me in.  I started thinking about myself and what I would have done to lose weight like those people on the show had.  I started picturing myself on some of the workout equipment at my church, saying, "I can do this.  Yes, Lord, I can do this.  I can.  I can.  I can.  Thank you, Lord, for helping me do this."  I believe that I can.  I think that the bipolar disorder and depressions and menopause and other things have decreased my (oh, I can't remember the word, it's an M-word.) ability to get up and go.  But, I think I can do it.  It's just so much easier to let myself be a victim.  If I don't get control of my body, it will dominate the rest of my life.  My lower legs are so swollen.  Every time I see my doctor, he nearly has a cow about how swollen they are.  I have talked to my sister and my mom (nurses both) about this.  I think that my legs will develop open, running sores that run the risk of getting infected and causing me to lose one or both legs if I don't get a handle on things.  I don't have a car, and I have had to walk anywhere I wanted to go for many years.  I walked when I was 200 pounds, and I walked even up to 300 pounds.  At 350, though, walking around town is becoming much harder.  My parents are willing to give me rides places when they can, but they are getting older.  They are both in their 70's now.  I don't want to be dependent on them anymore.  They love me a lot, but I want to be healthy.  I am not a good cook.  Cooking has always seemed like a waste of time.  And the money to buy healthy food has always seemed overwhelming.  I can live on macaroni and cheese for many years.  That's what I have been living on.  I have gone from mac and cheese and tuna, to mac and cheese and boneless chicken white meat.  I like the chicken.  It's just different, not quite as good, but healthier maybe.  Well, I could go on and on, but it's almost 10 at night.

What to write?

I was thinking that it would be good to write about superheroes.  There seems to be a lot of superhero movies out and about these days.  Iron Man, Captain America, X-men, Wolverine, etc.  How would a truly Christian superhero reconcile a mutation with his understanding of God?  How would a conservative president deal with the emergence of superheroes?  If you don't believe in evolution, mutations happen, but they will usually be unhelpful.  I don't know.  There are other things to write, as well.  The clash between Catholic, Protestant, Baptist could be explored as terrorism started to become the norm in Baptist churches. When Hollywood rights Christian, they usually write Catholic.  I don't dislike Catholics, but I don't really connect with most of them.  I think I need to study Revelation.  Mr. LaHaye wrote about the end of the world very successfully.  I wouldn't have to write through the whole book of Revelation.  I could just write about the beginning.  I don't know.

Oh, it's 2:00, better get ready to go over to JoAnn's.

Superheroes

I just watched The Incredibles.  As the story was ending, I thought how nice it would be if all of our societies ills were so easily solved.  I looked at this big, black monster that the incredible superhero family had just saved the world from.  I thought how nice it would be if the big problems that our society is facing were so clear cut.  What if MR. ECONOMY just sort of appeared and saved us from inflation and all the other effects of a bad economy?  All of the problems that our nation has seem so all-encompassing and interwoven with each other.  I don't think things are hopeless.  I think that I/we need to turn back, repent.  I think we need to stop looking for things that "aren't the worst" and "aren't really so terrible," and setting our aim at those things.  I think, as a society, we need to change our aim and start doing things that are the best we could do.  As individuals, we each have three enemies:  the world, the flesh, and the devil.  I think that we can each overcome these with God's help.  It's just a matter of making right choices.  Maybe at every moment we need to consider what road we want to take.  "There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof is death".  Or something like that.  If we ask God for wisdom and follow the path that seems like the one that God would have us follow, we can, slowly but surely, get out of the hole that we have dug for ourselves.  God, please help us.  God, please help me.

A Writer? Me?

I play with the idea of writing a book.

Over the years I have often looked into roleplaying.  Honestly, I roleplayed very little, but my sister and brother and many of the my friends have been very into Dungeons and Dragons and other roleplaying games. Whenever I look at their books, I am fascinated with the lengths they go in rolling up a character.  To me, characters that you love and identify with should be the basis of any good fiction.  I have always loved rolling up roleplaying characters.  This idea of turning characters into stories is something I have played with for many years.  Before I was classified as disabled, I had several characters that were settling into an interesting story.  Since I became disabled, though, it seems like my whole life, most everything I do in a day is all about assuaging my guilt.  People have no idea how much guilt I carry because of being on disability.  If I could stop feeling all this guilt, my personality disorder could actually help me write fiction if I could work it right.  I won't go all into it, but the problem I have helps me to empathize with different people.  I specialize in thinking out of the box, in putting on different ideas and personalities like pairs of clothes.  This can be a problem when it comes to dealing with life, but it might be ideal in writing fiction.  An author I read once, Andrew Greeley, wrote some good books (Lord of the Dance was a favorite) taking on a new point-of-view in each chapter.  I've always kept that in mind and thought that if I ever wrote a book, I'd try to do it that way.

Anyway.  I have some ideas and my brother (the real writer in the family) introduced me to a website called TVTropes, which specializes in helping writers come up with good stories.  Strangely, events are seeming to conspire to push me toward writing.  Being toothless and having a problem develop at the place I was volunteering, and other things are making me want to stay at home.  Looking at the things that I crochet and realizing that I don't think I really crochet all that well also makes me want to find some other way to try and justify my existence.  (Does that sound like a strange idea?  Doing something to justify my breathing the air and eating food and taking up space on this planet?  I'm always working to make myself worth something.  I guess I should just accept the worthiness that God has given me.  I'm working on that.)  

I don't know whether to write fiction or nonfiction, though.  Like I said, I have some fiction ideas, but I also have some nonfiction ideas.  John Graham was encouraging me to write for a while.  He makes money writing magazine articles on gardening.  If I followed His advice, I'd write about what I know and feel driven to study.  I can see myself writing articles for Christian magazines about how to apply the Bible that I love so much.

This post is so long that it might be a book.  Chuckle.  Thanks, Michele and Penny for the encouragement to write.  I'm gonna work on that, and I think that I'm going to enjoy it.  I've heard that writing is two percent inspiration and ninety-eight percent perspiration.  I can do the perspiration part if I can just continue to see writing as a possibility.  In college, twenty eight years ago, I wasn't a bad writer.  I was getting some encouragement along that line from my English professor.  That was a long, long time ago, though.  Today is a new day.  If God will help with the inspiration, I will try to keep going on the perspiration necessary to develop some stories and articles and whatever.

Depression

Hopeless.  I hesitate to talk about how I feel.  So many people have worse circumstances in their lives.  I just sort of have what I guess you would call a predisposition to fall into this well of hopelessness.  Sometimes it seems like there is no light in the world.  Even when, objectively, I can see light all around me, my world seems grey and dark.  I have medications.  I have been taking antidepressants for many years.  And, my medications may soon be changing.  I've been on Luvox and Abilify for years, but I'm about to see a new psychiatrist.  It's humiliating to blame my feelings on a little pill I take, but I know that medications have something to do with my feelings.  I haven't been very compliant.  I haven't always taken my meds as prescribed, but these days I'm doing a lot better with this because . . . Well, in order to see my new counselor and new psychiatrist, I have to take my pills as prescribed.  It's a rule at Families, Inc.  I signed a little treatment plan that said I would take my medications.  So, for the last couple of weeks, I've been careful to try and take every single dose.  I keep forgetting one dose, though.  My old psychiatrist had me on one and a half Luvox twice a day.  I've only been taking one twice a day.  I'm never sure whether I want to take that half a pill twice a day, or just take another whole pill in the middle of the day.  As a result, I'm only taking 2/3 as much Luvox as I have prescribed.  Also, I have an Adderall (if that's how you spell it) that I'm supposed to take 1/4 of a pill twice a day.  I don't have any trouble swallowing these half pills and quarter pills.  They just don't get taken because I am reluctant to put partial pills in my med box.  I need to figure out some other way to work them in.

I slept through a lot of today.  I'm sleeping a whole lot these days.  When I woke up from one nap, I sensed God telling me to call New Life.  I did that, and waited about an hour for them to take my call.  I hung up when it seemed obvious that they weren't going to.  I don't blame them.  I have called them too often, and I didn't have a great question.  There's nothing exciting or new about simple depression.  If you're not suicidal then no one seems to really care.  And, let me make that clear, I'm not suicidal.  The hopelessness that I feel . . . well, how can I put this.  To attempt suicide, ya have to have some hope that suicide or at least a suicide attempt will produce something that you want, whether that is attention or an end to the interminable day-after-hopeless-day that life has become.  I know that attempting suicide would be a way to get some people's attention, but that attention isn't pleasant or good.  My family seems torn whenever I attempt suicide between being helpful and loving and madder than hell.  My sister, who seems to be the family matriarch now, gets mad at me.  I can't blame her for having some negative feelings, but I wish we could talk about her feelings and process through them.  She doesn't have time for that, though.  She's a good person, but we have not traveled the same paths.  She is a pull yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps kind of gal.  She has overcome a lot of obstacles in her life.  But, I don't want to make this about her.  We have a difficult relationship.  I don't know how to explain to my family why I get so hopeless and don't try to fight the depressions.  I do fight it.  I fight it every day, day after day.  I fight it by continuing to get out of bed and trying to be positive.  I rarely talk to anyone about how hopeless I feel.  If I continue to just keep on keeping on, denying the depression a foothold in my plans, then that keeps it at bay to some extent.  My sister is not the only fighter in our family.

Anyway, I have a new young counselor.  Going to see her isn't really helpful yet.  We have to get through some kind of honeymoon phase before we really start to connect.  For a while, all I want to do is tell her things that will impress her and make her think well of me.  The next time I see her, I will address this with her.  I won't see her for two weeks, though.  So, I just keep getting up, going through the motions.

I'm going to study my Bible this evening.  I have all these wonderful Bibles, and I was going to try and study them all at the same time.  I've discovered, though, that picking them up hurts a muscle in my arm that is very sore.  And sometimes having too much scriptural information and insights can perhaps be just as bad as having too little.  I just get frustrated and lost in the mound of material.  I've been thinking that maybe it's best to just study one book at a time, or at least to maybe give each Bible or commentary or whatever an hour before I go on to the next.

There is hope.  I know that.  I am a Christian and eventually I believe that I will go home to meet Jesus in heaven.  I don't believe that He will let me do that early.  I am not in control of some things about my life, and when my life ends is unfortunately not up to me.  That's probably a good thing.  I am a terrible coward.  Jesus deserves better from me.  All He asks is that I love Him, but love for Him brings a number of things with it, like perseverance and mercy.  I love my sister, and my mom and my whole family.  I love my dad, though he gets frustrated with me.  I love my brother, though I don't agree with him about some things.  They are all people just like me, all of us slogging our way through very different lives.  (sigh).  Onward and upward.

Notes on Genesis 7:1-2

Then the LORD said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.  Gen. 7:1

Scofield says:  "Here God's beckoning embraces the basic meaning of this gracious invitation occurring again and again in the Scriptures, even down to the last page (Rev. 22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come."  And let the one who hears say, "Come."  And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.).  This invitation (1) is extended by God to man:  (2) urges him to avail himself of the perfect provision God has made for his preservation; and (3) is given in a time of overwhelming judgment and doom."

"You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female:  and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female;  Gen. 7:2

Scofield says:  See Genesis 6:19, note.  Genesis 6:19 says "And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female."  In addition to two animals, etc., commanded her to be preserved for future increase (male and female), the further command was given to take of clean animals, i.e. animals acceptable for sacrifice, seven each.  Exodus gives ten such animals, or but seventy in all.  Modern ships carry hundreds of live animals, with their food, besides scores of human beings.

"You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female:  and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female;  Gen. 7:2

Quest asks the question "What makes some animals clean and some unclean?"  It then references notes on Lev. 5:2 and Lev. 11:4-41.  The referenced note on Lev. 5:2 asks "What did it mean to be ceremonially unclean?"  and then answers its own question.  "Defiled and impure, a religious distinction, not necessarily a measure of physical cleanliness.  Sinfulness automatically led to impurity, but impurity led to sinfulness only if not removed.  To be unclean was like being exposed and susceptible to a contagious disease; to be clean was to be immune.  God declared certain things unclean, though it's not always clear on what basis."

"You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female:  and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female;  Gen. 7:2

The Quest article on Lev. 11:4-41 asks and answers the question, "Why did God keep some meats off the menu?  It says that anyone who touched the meat of certain animals would become unclean -- offensive to the holy God (Lev. 11:43-44).  How could food separate someone from God?  Many believe God forbade these meats for hygienic reasons.  While it is true some meats have high potential for transmitting bacterial, not all are clearly harmful.  Others say these meats were banned because they were used in pagan rituals. Yet the bull was considered clean even though it was prominent in Canaanite and Egyptian religions.  Still others believe that God distinguished between edible and inedible animals as a "teaching tool."  God wanted Israel to remain holy and unadulterated as his people, not blended with other cultures or polluted by idolatry. To echo this important distinction in the Israelites' daily lives, God outlawed the mixed breeding of animals, mixed plantings, mixed threads (Lev. 19:19) -- and here, the eating of symbolically "mongrel" creatures.  The forbidden animals are those that in motion or diet don't fit neatly into the "purebred" categories of Genesis 1:  birds that fly, fish that swim and land animals that walk (primarily plant-eating).  Leviticus 11 bans many meat-eaters, as well as other apparent "mongrels" such as water dwellers without fins or scales.  Sheep and goats seem to set the standard for "purebred" land animals.  Those that walked or ate in a different manner were forbidden.  Though to us God's restrictions may seem overbearing, there is no indication that the Israelites felt that way.  They understood that they were God's distinct people and that God expected them to live like it.

Psalm 139

O LORD, You have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up, You understand my thought from afar.  You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD.  You know it all.  You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.  Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea.  Even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.  If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night."  Even the darkness is not drk to You, and the night is as bright as the day.  Darkness and light are alike to You.  For You formed my inward parts:  You wove me in my mother's womb.  I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought int he depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.  How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.  When I awake, I am still with You.  O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.  For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain.  Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD?  And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?  I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

As I type this, I am distressed with the condition of my heart.  My heart has become lazy.  It cares about very little.  Part of me wants to be the person God wants me to be, but that part seems to become littler and less as the days go by.  Something inside says, "Nobody loves me." and nothing else seems to matter.  Where do I go from there?  I know that God loves me, but God loves everybody.  Am I special to Him?  I don't know.

Saturday 1/11

I'm going to try to keep to some kind of schedule today.

I want to:

1. study my Bible
2. pray
3. clean my house
4. crochet
5. work on Believing God
6. work on a Kay Arthur book
7. play games with JoAnn

It's 8:43 now.  I have to be at JoAnn's by 2:30.  Then I'll probably stay there until 6 or 7.  

Why blog?

I often want to share (on facebook) a lot more than others really care about receiving.  Sometimes that's just personal talk.  Sometimes it's Bible studies or work through workbooks or whatever.  I decided to start blogging again, because I want a place to share my life, all the various parts of it.