Inching Forward

Our women's bible study went well this morning, happy for our time together.  My sister and I are waiting on our printed materials in order to fully launch our cake biz, which should be next week.  Hopefully, we will have all of the details nailed down regarding the commercial kitchen we anticipate baking out of by next week as well.  Looking forward to scheduling a Fall Open House to launch our product to our friends and neighbors as well in the next few weeks.  Trying to get proficient with Twitter and Facebook postings.  Self promotion is not in my comfort zone, but if you want a business, better have perfected the techno part of life to sing your song out there on the internet!   Even though I know God is present in our lives at this point, I don't have a tremendous sense of His presence.  I have a calm assurance that He is on this unchartered and uncertain journey with us, but I would really love a finite touch from heaven.  I could really use that about right now.  Still feeling sad for the reeling sense of loss over our business, especially for my previously always sweet husband.  He is having a very hard time, trying to determine what his place in life will be now.  He is starting BSF this coming Monday, so that will be a great way for him to connect with other men to study in a structured manner, and reduce some of his isolation.  This will be the first year we will ever have been in BSF together.  That will give us lots to talk about.   This is a good thing, rather than the doom and gloom of the obliterated economy, which I am really tired of talking/hearing about.  On a different note, this is the first anniversary of the passing of my precious gran.  I miss her alot.  She was so loved by my four sisters and myself for all of her 89 years (well deduct 38 because that is how old she was when my oldest sister was born!)  But we were crazy for her from jump, I am still so thankful that we had her as long as we did.  She was so cute, and marked my life forever.  In some ways, I am very glad that she is not here to see how much the country has deteriorated, even in one year, and how much some of her family members are struggling right now.  It would have worried her to death.  Even though she professed her Christian faith and was baptized, she fretted, A LOT!  I always told her "Gran, worrying is like being in a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but gets you  no were, Now Stop!  Plus, it is an absence of faith!  When I think of her, it still makes me tear up.  A few tears today, but a little progress as well.  Really living your life, actually being in it, in a cognitive, purposeful way is tough stuff.  But the hard parts make the good parts that much sweeter.  So the difficult life stuff ends up being so key and instrumental in the patchwork quilt of your life.  Think about it this way.  If all of our adventures and journeys in life only produced a breathtakingly beautiful patchwork square to add color to our lives, it would be lovely, but nowhere near as interesting as the patchwork areas that represent brokenness, loss, or areas of our lives that are flawed, or dark and ugly, or scarred.  For those areas are where we are most likely to meet Jesus on a deep, personal level.   All of the life pieces are needed to create that which is the masterpiece that Jesus is working out in all of us.  We would have no coping skills minus the tough stuff that shapes the development of our character.  From the words of a Rodgers and Hammerstein song "without a hurt, the heart is hollow".  It is all needed stuff as we sojourn along.  God is good, He's just quiet right now.  Good Night.