Here I am.

I have been arguing with myself for a long time about starting a blog.
"I don't want to fit one more thing into my schedule. I will have to keep it up and be stressed out," I claim.
"But I enjoy writing," I respond to myself, "and then people know what's going on in my life."
I snort at that comment. "Assuredly, no one will read it."

But here I am today. Maybe I will just try it out. If nothing else, I can get some public venting and encouraging in, and if no one reads it then I will at least have some kind of permanent record of what's happening in my life these days.

I took my first bike ride today on my new bike. Just so happens today is the first and only day of cloudy, misty, chilly weather in the past week. My hands got cold. Also, I am extremely out of shape. Let me retrack, first I had to figure out the complex lock system that my sister Kelly insisted that I buy. The label says "consumer friendly" but I am not your average consumer. I can't even figure out touch-screens. But the ride was enjoyable and now I am in the library to warm up and check my email. When I arrived at the library there were several people waiting in the lobby. I always forget that the library doesn't open until 10 and there is a crowd waiting eagerly outside the doors. St. Paulites are avid book-readers and internet-users. Then there was the preoccupied mother who doesn't notice the other people waiting and herds her crew to the doors and attempts to open it. "Ten!" barked an elderly lady sitting on a bench, "it doesn't open til TEN!" The flustered mother glanced around and gave her kids graham crackers to occupy them for the the next 1 1/2 minutes.

Last night, I went with Jean to a beautiful Good Friday service. Jean's other attendant had taken over at 5, and we also picked up a few friends of hers on the way. What a crew we were. Jean and H, both in wheelchairs, Jean's elderly mother, and Jean's outspoken friend J, all of us tucked into Jean's big van. The service was entitled "A Walk to the Cross" it was called, and it was serene, sacred, and blessed. Thanks, Jesus, for suffering on the cross for us, and let us never forget the significance of your sacrifice. I know it was painful, humiliating, heartwrenching, brutal, and indescribably lonely, but you did it with a heart of pure LOVE.

Have I ever mentioned that Jean is the most gracious person in the world? I'm so honored to work with her. She has endless amounts of patience, kindness, humility, thankfulness, servitude, and sensitivity towards the Lord.  Thanks, God, for Jean.

Today I have off until 5, so I shall finish my bike ride, eat some lunch, make some food to take along to Jean's sisters house tomorrow for the Easter celebration, make dinner, and then I'll be on duty until Monday morning. Monday after work I will be getting ready for our English classes, which are before and after Zumba Tuesday evening. Monday and Tuesday I work overnight shifts.Wednesday is my day off, and I always get a little stressed out deciding how to relax and make the most of my free nights.

On a more personal note, I want to share something the Lord has been teaching me. He always teaches me in long processes. In retrospect, I look at the past and see how He has taught me very important, transformational things, and it always happens over a painfully lengthy period of time. I have been a part of this Leaders-in-Training group at my church, which is basically a group of people my age who love the Lord and want to serve, and the Pastors have come alongside us to train and counsel and teach. Its humbling to be around others who are so passionate for the Lord. "Look at her gifts," I say to God, "wouldn't You like me to be gifted in that, too? And look at him, he is so sensitive to Your Spirit, I want to be more like that. You have given others such insight, I should be more like that." But very softly, very slowly, but very deliberately He has told me, "Don't look at them. Look at ME."

We are forever in a stage of growth and refining. He is never finished teaching us. 


"I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile." Jeremiah 29:14