I’m so bad at this blogging thing.  It’s not that I don’t think about things to write about during my days, it’s just that I’m too much like my mother and I don’t sit down enough to write them down.  Too many distractions, too many things around the house to keep my hands occupied and too many urgent things taking the place of truly important things.  So as I sit to write tonight there are about a thousand things I could write about from the past month, but what would be most meaningful?  I guess since this blog is mostly for me I guess it’s time to do some real relfecting on my life and where I’m at (ooh, but that sounds painful…but it’s so necessary).  I’m having more and more moments where it feels like I’m close to falling off the edge of something.  I feel like I’m not the person I thought I was when I was in China just a year ago.  Some images that have come to mind to describe myself are these…

a piece of toast- dry and crumbling

a pig in mud- content to be in a mess and not do much to get out

a train skidding off the tracks- making all kinds of screeching sounds and awful noises as it tries to plug along as best as it knows how

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this for so long!  Boy this year being at home has been hard so far.  If I didn’t have my brothers and Carly and Tamara around for at least some social interactions and some unconditional acceptance I think I might have been a complete basket case by now.  Feelings of instability are so frequent (when I take the time to stop and think about it).  In fact when I think about my overall health and well being, there are moments when I can say that the only part of me that is really healthy is my physical aspect.  In that way I’m healthier than I’ve ever been and feeling physically better than ever (thanks to Body for Life), but my spiritual life is in the pits and it affects everything else.  EVERYTHING else.  My perspective, attitude, mental capacity, ability to handle stress, and socially I’m just not a nice person anymore.  At least it feels like I have no fruits of the Spirit at the moment, and I suppose it’s not hard to figure out why that would be.  The worst part about my distance from God is the apathy that I sometimes feel about it.  I just feel too tired to do much about it (this is where the pig in mud image comes in).  I must not have a clear understanding of His love and grace at the moment, and maybe if I were a parent myself I would understand better how He feels about me and that would motivate me to moving closer than I am now.  It’s hard to know the reason for my depressed state right now..is it because my faith is weak now that it is affecting everything else, or is it reverse culture shock that is having an effect on every part of my life and making things so tough.  I don’t know why and I don’t know if it matters that I figure it out.  I guess I knew this year would be tough in some ways, but I just didn’t realize how it would play itself out.  I’m not meaning to complain, just saying where I’m at…so I can keep moving.

 I guess I’ll end with a famous quote (but I forget who said it) that I’ll keep in mind for now:

 ”If you’re going through hell, keep going.”