September 21

Welcome to my humble corner of cyber-space. I've thought about joining the legions of distinguished (and undistinguished) bloggers for awhile, but it took the moving away of some very good friends to finally motivate me to action.

I must confess that I was rather intimidated by the BlogSpot's little "guided tour". They mention all of these journalists and politicians using the BlogSpot as a forum to share their ideas. I have nothing important or spectacular to say. If you've stumbled upon this site looking for genius, or even good laughs, go back to Google.

For those of you still with me (thanks), here's a little run down of my day and the recent troubling weeks...

My time in Alaska (highlights email still in the works, for those of you waiting) made me think a lot about life and God and what I really want and what He may or may not want of me. I used to think that God had a specific plan for my life: who to marry, where to live, what career to pursue, what to eat, and that if I could discover what that will was, then I could follow it and be assured of success. All hard things I encountered were due to my failings or lack of faith. This theology was a crutch for my decision-paralysis. I couldn't even decide what to make for dinner, and the thought of making "big" decisions was truly stressful and fightening to me.

Out in the wilderness, I was confronted with many choices, mostly mundane, but not unimportant: where to camp, what channel on the river to take, when to eat as much as I wanted and when to hold back (just in case). If I followed my theology to its practical conclusions, I'd have to discover God's "will" for all of those things. Somehow, out there, it began to feel ridiculous. Isn't God bigger than the sum of our daily choices? Does making a "wrong" choice somehow put me on a path to destruction and take me out of His "will"? I did make some bad decisions (one of which landed Kurt and I square in the middle of some rapids stuck on a boulder), but discovered that God was with me through them, and was able to redeem any situation.

God wants us to learn to walk, which includes learning to recover after running into obstacles.

God's will, I have begun to realize through reading Scripture, is to seek and save the lost. He wants to live and work through me to accomplish that end. He does not have a specific plan for MY life. A good friend helped me see what a self-centered way of thinking that is. I am not here to be happy, successful, and fulfill my dreams. I am here to know and serve Him, wherever He places me, to be a tool in His hands for His purposes. Sometimes I will be happy and successful, and sometimes quite the opposite. What matters is having a heart utterly submitted to His workings in and through me--THAT is His will for my life. We are presented with opportunities for work, love, etc., but they are not a matter of obedience to His will.

SO that brings you up to speed on my thinking. NOW here's the emotional turmoil I've been fighting: what now? I haven't started back to work yet (Toonacious Entertainment), and they keep calling me and saying they're not ready for me to start yet. Aside from delaying some much-needed income, it is making me feel more and more distant from a company that has been like family to me. While I was gone, the studio grew and changed a good deal, and I feel like I've been left behind. It's tempting to think I ought to move on. But now that I write about it, I think that would be foolish. Where do I expect to get a job that I'll love more or coworkers & bosses that are better to work with? And perhaps I'll find when I return to work that things have not changed so much as the reorganized office space suggests. Funny how a paragraph of Blog cleared up a few days' confusion.

But I can't help thinking about other ideas I have. I love being able to really take care of my home--keep it clean and orderly, make dinner each night and lunch for Kurt to take to work. I can stay on top of laundry and even put pictures into photo albums (gasp). I wish we could afford for me to play house, but I think I need to work as soon as I can. *oh well* And I'd love to write and illustrate children's books, but assuming I could even get one published it would be along time before it ever turned into income--or so I've been told. I'll just keep those ideas on the shelf till God opens a door.

I spent some time at the Zoo drawing today. I really enjoy that and I should go more often. I spent quite awhile drawing two Mouse Deer and a Burrowing Owl. Think I'll try and go again this week.

More tomorrow...