A George divided could probably still stand

Just in case you thought these posts were going to perk up soon....well, you were wrong in a sense. I'm sure there will be some that think they aren't, but I can feel slight shifts in the mood in my head...so it's progressing. It would help if I would stop getting like 10 messages in 10 minutes and 20 emails in 20 minutes at work *grumblegrumble*
So it was an eventful weekend. Deano's coming in T minus 11 days and counting woot! Deano, Tony and I are going to converge on my apartment and just chilax together. I'm so incredibly looking forward to it.
I had a worlds colliding conversation with Tony throughout the weekend, and a little with Deano. Because I met Deano through Tony and Tony doesn't like his separate worlds to collide. I'm trying to understand, but it's rough...my mind likes to come up with little scenarios that are untrue and then drive me crazy with them. Which, that process was actually quite enjoyable for me because I was able to note the leaps and bounds of growth that I've done in that aspect of my thought process. The crazy only lasted about 10 minutes instead on 10 days!
Saturday I dog sat and made more chocolate. I'm running so damn late on my secret santa and Katy gift....I'm hoping to send them out tomorrow....sigh.
Saturday night I went to church with Katie and Daryl. It was baptism night, which I always love baptism services. I sat next to this woman named Robin that kept glancing over at me during the service and then gave me an arm squeeze after and said the nicest thing...which I'm keeping to myself because it was just so timely and like a little present that I don't want to share.
I can't remember the title of the service of Saturday night. Only that I found the shortest sermon ever very moving. The pastor, who I think is named Steve but I don't really know, talked about what God wants from us.
God wants our short comings and failures. He never asked us to do life on our own.
Romans 12:1-2
1 -2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The pastor talked about this dirty, worn out, been there, done that feeling on the inside that can just consume us. He talked about how God just wants to carry that for us, help us let it go and move past it.
It was just amazing. I'm not sure that this grief in my heart is connected to a feeling like that. But I know I've felt that way before.
It's not anything that I didn't know....but it was lovely to hear all the same.
I got this terrible headache at dinner that I could barely make it home with. I just passed out.
I woke up for church on Sunday, the first regular Sunday I've been to at my church since 12/16. I was like home. I love my church....have I mentioned that before? Just seeing people that I love and being hugged and spoken to in such a way that made the grief dissipate.
I'm going to dinner with Bobbie on Wednesday (BTW Bobbie, when are you going to post a new blog hmmm?) and started out talking to her about that. But it turned into this amazing conversation about the recent entries here and how similarly we feel to one another sometimes. I can't even remember exactly what it was she said that encouraged me so much, but the whole conversation felt like one continuous hug. I love Bobbie : )
Big up to Justin for being the lucky son of a gun that is married to her! (and I'm totally going to beat you at Wii tennis this Wednesday!)
I went home and laid in bed. Feeling simultaneously bolstered and exhausted by the love and encouragement I found at church. I just laid there....staring into space petting Gertrude.
Then Tony started texting me and we ended up Goodwilling all afternoon. I love Goodwilling. Especially with Tony. I laugh so hard about what we find and the uses we think of for these things. We found all of this miniature furniture that may find it's way into a "cat house" for Gertrude and Agnes....a sassy knitted beret that I wore for a bit at the store like a Rastafarian (yeah, I don't know how to spell that). We also had this great conversation about the pigmentation of Jesus' skin with a woman in the aisle at one of the Goodwills. She asked me if I knew Moses married a dark skinned woman...and I had just so happened to have just listened to that on my OT bible experience so I talked with her about that for a bit. Tony told her I knew my stuff....which made me smile. (it really doesn't take much people!)
Then back to my house for some Family Feud on DVD. We played 2 games and I kicked his BUTT. I mean, the one round I had like 803 points and he had 300ish points...that's just embarrassing!
Bible study at 6 which was good too. It's our 2nd to last group meeting until we re-form life groups again. We talk about the sermon that morning and this one was about looking forward, how we're going to take bold steps in areas of our lives. My friend Amy said something that made everything around me stop and go whoa.
She was talking about this place between how is was and how it will be. Amy is nearing the end of Chemo treatments and was talking about friends of hers that are going through inexplicably devastating life events. She talks about this idea of who you are before you know something is about to happen and who you are after the change happens. For example: pre cancer diagnosis and post treatment. She said there's this type of limbo in between. After you've received the news, diagnosis whatever and the time that you're done dealing with it. What should you do in that limbo? How do you live in that waiting room until your "new normal" (thanks Don Piper) starts?
It got me thinking about what signifies a change, a devastating life altering change that picks you up out of your life as you dreamt it would be and plunks you down in a void so vast you have no idea how you'll make it to the other side. Cancer will do it, death, murder, I mean, there are so many things. I found Jesus in that void. In some ways I feel like I'm just now coming out of it. Taking steps on my own (well on my own w/ Jesus I suppose) without this second guessing and fear that defined the void and a lot of my life before it.
Seeing this weekend the places that I wanted to take the idea of worlds colliding, understanding some of those ideas are so ridiculously invalid and impossible and then moving away from them, it was a clarifying moment almost...in the silliest way but it meant something to me.

I woke up this morning still feeling pretty sad....still for no truly definable reason. Just this sadness that weighs on my heart. I laid in bed again, just staring into space....through all my alarm clocks, unable to muster up the strength of courage to get out and start the day.
I started, about 30 minutes later then I really needed to. But my little black thundercloud has turned gray, and soon enough it will dissipate again.
In the meantime, I keep thinking about that thorough hug in 11 days from Deano, I think about that comment, perhaps thoughtlessly thrown over a shoulder that makes my heart smile from this weekend. I think about so many good things, lovely things and people and the black to gray transformation of that thunder cloud seems like enough for now.

I hope that you all had weekends that reminded you how you were loved. I hope that when people tell you and show you they love you, that you believe them. I hope you know how much I love you all....even though I'm struggling to tell you and show you right now.