shouts of joy

  This past week I learned a lot. Before I left the world behind me for my home away from home in the bliss of India I had a list of things I wanted to figure out, meditate on, tie up some knots and ship 'em out in the manner of prayer or however. But the list sat in my prayer journal, untouched, all week. Yes, I prayed. Probably more than I have in a long time. Last Sunday morning in India my students who were in class VI when I taught at the school there were preparing to travel home because they had just finished their class X metric exams Friday. They found me out on the porch of the guest house where WWU nursing students were soundly sleeping. I had been in the middle of my devotion thought at 6am but had wanted the girls to say goodbye to me before they left. They asked if I wanted to cross the river with them and the rest of the girls dorm, but in the middle of my devotions I told them I'd stay back, but would meet with them again someday soon.  It wasn't...

For those of you who write on a blog,  you understand when you write a blog, unfinished of course, and come back to finish it, read it, re-read it, then delete it. So thankful that you never posted it because it was an amateur's post. There are times when you post things out of impulse and wish you never had, but it's too late. Once somethings out there, it's out there, especially on this world wide web. This amateur posting happens to me all the time, it seems like I will take 2 steps forward then post something insubstantial and fall 5 steps back. I think about it, if this happens with blogging, how often do I do this in daily conversation. So many things I think I should muster together in my head and let sit for a while before I crack my lips and all this crazy stuff comes spewing forth and I start back at square one. I'd probably delete 50% of the stuff I say, if I'd just sit on it for a while. So now, since I'm analyzing all these posts, conversations, mus...

I remember a point in my earlier years of college when I realized I'm terrible at confronting conflict or expressing feelings which might make the other party feel offended, nervous, or guilty. It was then, that I would say to the other party something like this, "I have something I need to tell you, can you please remind me to tell you later?" Then there was absolutely no way out of it. I had set myself up for an inciting incident and I couldn't go back. Scary, but good. Like doing something for the first time. In Donald Miller's book, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, he refers to the inciting incident in a movie or book when the character is unexpectedly pushed through a doorway in which they can never return, when they ask themselves,  What have I gotten myself into? Isn't that the best part of a movie, when you close your eyes, cringing in fear and think, Wow, so glad that's not me ? It always makes me feel so much better for myself at the time...