June 1st

I was born on this day 31 years ago. My dad carved out a huge sign out of plywood and spray painted it pink. It said something like " Carmen Joy, it's a girl". They put it out in the yard long before those stork signs were the thing to do. My dad usually has to do things large amounts of energy and emotion behind them.

My birthday wasn't quite what I'd imagined in the sense that I picture a perfect day as one where I don't have to clean, where I can relax and enjoy the company of my family, and eat good food. ha ha! Today, I went to work, briefly came home and cleaned my kitchen some, and then headed back to work for a meeting.

I had a conversation with my friend, Joni, today about relationships. Some of my relationships, were formed online through websites and message boards. These friendships are not the surfacey acquaintances that people who don't have experiences with online relationships might picture them as. No, they're quite the opposite. We've gradually built things friendships and we've shared so much with each other. I "know" these ladies. It might sound silly or trivial to some but I get sad when I don't get to talk to them enough or when one of them goes quiet for a while. For these particular types of relationships, the internet and email are vital.

However, we talked about how our face to face, "IRL" relationships are a bit different. I shared with her how difficult I've often found it to build closer relationships with teenagers. We work with them at our church and they have grown up in the computer age and to them, email is old. They text or IM. They are used to being able to have 10 "conversations" going on at once and not really having to extend themselves truly in person.

This makes it extremely difficult for me to connect to them. I want to. I need to. I just need to figure out how they relate and then work at it. I feel stretched as a mom, a PT employee, a wife, etc and desire to know that what I'm doing is making a difference. That God is using me to accomplish something.

I need hope and so I turn to His word to encourage my soul.

Lamentations 3:

It's a Good Thing to Hope for Help from God

^19-21I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

^22-24God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

^25-27God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
to stick it out through the hard times.

^28-30When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The "worst" is never the worst.

^31-33Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
in throwing roadblocks in the way: