it's been awhile.

many things have happened.

life caught up to me and in a very dramatic way.

as a result things have come into much sharper focus.

and the sun, green trees, and fresh, warm air help as well.

i felt like i was supposed to write an email--one of my mass random ones--last week. but life got in the way. so it didn't happen. i sat down once to write it and the draft still sits in my email. it just wasn't coming.

i have been struck by an overwhelming sense, deep down, that life is good. hope seems to be taking root. and when i say taking root, i mean, burying itself deep into the fiber of my soul and giving life, full life. it is deeper than i've ever believed anything before. i'm not capable of such belief. i know, it's not me believing, but Him believing for/within me that there is hope. it is drowned out easily. a still small Voice quickly overrun by the voices of others. doubt assails, screaming, clawing for my attention and it wins for awhile. before this last week or so, it triumphed because i was too busy listening to others. but somewhere in the chaos, somewhere in almost having my very own life ripped away from me, God has given me peace like a river. even though i am suffocated by my job, left with a relationship i had wished would go somewhere but has not, and witnessing a great deal of brokenness around me, there is hope.

i think it is a result of what i was originally going to write my email about. a devotional was given at work about 1 cor 15 and how the hope found in belief in Christ's resurrection and of our own resurrection shows we do not labor in vain. that without belief that there is a life to come, that there is something much bigger than ourselves, the vanity of our labors inevitably leads to despair. that the promise of a new heaven and a new earth puts in sharp contrast how temporary and fleeting our screwed up world is.

now let me tell you. i labor. i'm the empress of labor. i'm a get 'er done kinda person. i revel in a project completed, a child's life changed. but my current job is an endless list of mindless minute labors. i find it so hopeless. so utterly and completely in vain. but at least in that i know and have known from the beginning of taking this job that it is for a time and God has made it very clear, it is exactly where He wants me. though i scream on the inside sometimes because my patience wears thin.

but the one area of my life i have keenly felt that i labor in vain and have truly struggled to believe otherwise, is in relationships. most keenly, my desire to have that one person to share life with, i have declared vanity time and time again. and i have declared my previous painful experiences and humiliating emotions in search of that person vanity as well. i do not trust that God uses them though i've stared the progress He has made in my life quite often squarely in the eye. i have not been listening to Him so He had to wait until i was broken, weak from my struggling to run away.

Then God spoke truth into my self-proclaimed darkness.

He spoke light into the crevices of my soul.

And hope has begun to grow.

though i'll admit i still feel a little like a 4yr old looking at her daddy with a puckered lip saying but why? i know you love me but why? sigh.

He is not done with me yet. thank you Lord. and He has left me here on this earth for awhile longer so surely there must be more He wants to do through me as well. and for that i am very grateful--and hopeful.