I know so many people and I love so many people... then there are people I think gee, I want to know you, how can I know you? How CAN I? There are only 24 hours in a day. How do we love the people we need to love well enough in that amount of time? Only by God's grace, that's for sure. I think about the conversations I have and realize that I need to be so much more present... conversations with friends, family, God... I'm so easily distracted and so often unaware of the needs of the people around me...while so selfishly aware of my own needs, desires, agendas. Again, like I said in a previous post... may I be more present in each moment.

This Sunday we sang "Fling wide the doors to my soul, open up the door to my heart have your way" to God... and yesterday I think He said alright then... here we go... yesterday I think God started asking me if I was willing to change my plans for vacation in the spring... To be continued...

What is it about sad songs that I love so much? I'm in love with the blues... because I can feel the song in my bones, in my inner core, practically. Some songs feel like a prayer to me... like the Yael Naim song "Lonely"... it literally rips me apart... it's such a slow moving song. I'm going to try to learn to sing it, but it's going to take a lot of restraint to sing it properly. But back to the point.. the blues... relating to someone else's pain, diving into it and saying, " I feel you" maybe? The groove of the music, definitely... and dancing to it... oh dancing to the blues is amazing to me... because you have to feel the music and the connection with your lead. I like to close my eyes and figure out how the music and the very slight movements of the lead are trying to to move me. Being moved by music...yeah, I love it.

My first inclination is not usually to pray. It's to do. To help. To fix. To listen. To discuss. To make you smile or laugh or anything... I have to fight my flesh and fight it and fight it. I know in my head that I can't fix anything... especially this, but I stew, and text, and write and cry and wonder... then I pray. So backwards.

I want to suck the pain out... like they tell you to do when a person gets a venomous snake bite... suck out the pain and spit it out...

I know the medicine doesn't always taste sweet right away... sometimes there is bitterness first. I know that masking the taste doesn't help... but I want to do something more.

I feel like I'm sitting behind a soundproof window screaming.

I know it is not for me to fix, because it has already been done. I know that the pain is being carried, the load lightened, the heart healed, the wounds cleansed... I'm thankful for that.

For now I'll pray, and hope and cry for you and wait for the day that things look brighter, taste better, and you feel that peace that is already within you.