Chchchchanges...

Changes abound - butt loads of them -

On Friday I took Rebecca to the DMV to attempt her license and, in true Rebecca fashion, she passed it all on the first try.  Then she drove me back to work and drove herself to the store before picking me up to take me home - but we didn't come home we drove to the local Chevy dealership and looked at a car.  Now that she has her licence I have to make good on the bargain - that one that said I would give her my car and I would get a new one.  So I saw the cutest Cruze and they told me to take it home for the night and drive it, which I did.  Loved it of course. 

We get home and are chillin for a moment when I walk into the kitchen to see a black snake.  ARGH!  Joshua got home a few minutes later and wrangled the damn thing outside where he killed it.  He wasn't going to kill it but it kept moving back toward the house and we didn't want that to happen - so it died.

So today I drove the car back to the dealership and told them I wanted the car - they figured up a deal for me and we talked financing and now I have a new car.  I had to get a car - and it made sense to get this one (awesome gas mileage).

I don't handle change well so a part of me is slightly freaking out - it's gonna be ok though, right?

Out of the Blue

So funny to get a text out of the blue that someone from far away is coming close to home.  "Let me buy you a drink," he says.  Ok, but while we've know one another for a very long time we've never officially been in the same room at the same time.  It will be interesting.  I almost think it's easier to remain an enigma though - there is a lot of pressure in this whole meetup thing.  Not that it means anything really... just two friends having a drink.  What harm could that be?  Now I need to plan that trip to Canada :-)

I'm still walking... the hills and inclines are killing me but I am starting to notice some subtle differences in my physic.  My legs, which are normally muscular anyway, are hard as rocks.  My arms are feeling some changes too and my butt tends to always be sore the day after.  That's gotta mean something, right?  I think that's the shoes though - the toning shoes, they really do make ya' feel the burn.

The wedding is very close.  I need to address the invitations for the rehearsal dinner and get those out next week.  I am taking my dress and Rebecca's to the seamstress about getting them altered.  I'm bleeding money out the wazoo and it will be amazing to have all the celebrations come to an end if for no other reason than my wallet needs a break - oh and the ex contacted me - he wanted to know if I wanted him to chip in on the cost - sure hooka, I'll take your money!  I'll have to blog about our meeting... but I need lots of rest and focus for that...

Until then... that's all folks...

A Four Letter Word

I stumbled across this, as I'm apt to do, but I think that's how it works:

Romans 8:24-25

²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (NIV)

Or -

We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)(NLV)

I think I like the NLV translation the best but they say the same things, really.  I think though what draws me to the NLV translation is the word confidently.  And, perhaps, that's the word I find myself struggling with right now.  Hope, some days, is all that keeps me going - an idea, no, a belief, that at some point, at some time, my deep abiding desire for more will manifest itself into something felt - spiritually, emotionally, and concretely.  But I don't know, I really don't.  Why does it seem so difficult and dark sometimes? 

To hope confidently... wow, tall order.  Sometimes it's all one can do to keep that tiny little flicker of hope alive - but then, to add confidence to the mix... sheesh, almost like my walking buddy - we clip along our three mile course up an incline most of the way back and for fun she suggests that we now add that fourth mile - the one that goes up two, yes two, very steep hills.  Ugh.  Throw me a flippin' bone here lady... I'm doing the three miles, aren't I?  Talk about kicking a gal when she's down.  But I do it and afterwards feel great... but it takes me talking myself into it to get it accomplished... confidence? 

I think to myself sometimes - is this as good as it gets?  And really, it's not so bad.  Life is predictable and sane, mostly.  There is an ease to the way we live now at Casa de Belle and we've all come a very long way.  And yet... is this it?  I mean really?  Life really isn't a destination, it's a journey, and therefore we don't ever really arrive anyplace, do we?  We move along and pick up travelling companions as we go...  and we, as humans, we're not meant to be alone.  God didn't make us that way and yet, it seems, an awful lot of the time we do end up alone - at least some of us.  And it's not always a choice we make - it is just what it is.

But I go back to the therapist looking at me and saying, "Belle, you're wired to be in relatonship - God made you that way.  And God, havng made you that way, will not leave you unfulfilled."  I don't know.  I just don't know.  God has a plan and God has His own sense of timing.  It always ends up being perfect timing, of course, but it sure doesn't feel that way to us when we're waiting.  And hoping.  It's exhausting though.  I remind myself each morning I am one day closer - to what, I truly don't know - but whatever it is it's one day closer.  God, have mercy on me - help me to wait hopefully, with patience and confidence.  Amen.


G K Chesterton said:

Hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all...As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude. It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength."