Catching me up

I'm not really liking this routine very much. I'm not liking how I blog for the two weeks at the end of a month and then stop. Mostly has to do with my work routine. I'm busy at the beginning of the month and not at the end of the month. Still I don't like it. My workload has lessened - at least for now - so maybe when March 1 comes around I'll keep typing. I should have done better this month and had actually intended to.

But work was not the only thing that stopped me from writing this time. If you follow this blog you know that I loaded some pictures in the last post, then took them out and now have put them back.

That process was due to some intense conversation I was having with a friend. It lasted maybe a week (?) but my brain was fried and I was tired when we finally came to resolution. I didn't lose any sleep but I did get a fever blister from the stress. We had to work through some issues surrounding those pictures. It was good for me in the over all because I had to step back and get into conversation with Father about things. Most wonderfully, I discovered that Father would protect the things he puts within me. Also wonderfully, I noted that he will at the same time bring me to the place of peace and freedom about those things. It's never about what I do it's about what I am. Out of the being will come the doing.

I'm not going into detail about the conversation because I don't want that to be the focus. Point is in relationships there are times when relationships are tested. Sometimes they don't survive the test.

This relationship survived and not only that, the two of us involved feel that it's stronger for having gone there. It's so much easier to just move away from someone when there is disagreement. It's so much harder to confront the issue. For one thing - you might find out that you're the one in the wrong. EEEEK But even if you end up feeling that you're in the right still, it's such an uncomfortable thing, to say the least, that we just don't want to do it.

And so we find community in the realm of people with whom it's easy to relate. And we pat ourselves on the back because we have so many people around us whom we love and we feel that they love us. But I feel that we somehow miss something of the essence of the heart of God when we are not willing to step into these murky, uncomfortable places. This brief conflict over my pictures was really a safe one all things considered. This was conflict with some one with whom I've been friends for several years and we've had a few ups and downs in the past just not quite like this. Always there is potential for the "end". But she and I are both people who walk very carefully through our difficult conversations. My husband thinks we're nuts but we find that if we do this by email it works better. We have time to read and ponder the others comments and then think about what we are going to say and how to say it.

Larry and I do this in our own way. We don't assume that one conversation is all it takes to settle an issue. We know that it takes several conversations. We might have one conversation where one is bringing their points and then that might be followed one or several days later with the other's side of things. That can go on for weeks. Some conversations actually can last years as the same issue comes up periodically. I daresay conversation between my friend and I will happen at some point in the future around some of the issues that came up in our initial photo conversation. It should happen. We don't have all the answers and until something happens we don't necessarily know what the questions are.

So - this is the explanation of why I did not write more this month already. I had intended to because my work was actually less of an issue this time. Still I've got to find the way to grow in the ability to overcome distraction and remain steady and true to this pursuit.