In my ugliness He wooed me

Subject line comes from something Debbie said in Alpha Tuesday. It hit home.

So this has been another week of an amazing Alpha session. The theme for the night was "how does God guide us?" and during discussion we were all asked how do we feel about God guiding us. It took a while to come to me, as everyone was there except for Richard this week, and Debbie gets like me. That is to say we'll go on an on, but it's okay. I like it when she shares as we've been down similar paths. Her's is a little more extreme than mine, but I can still identify with her to a point.

She's quite an inspiration in my Alpha group. Very very passionate, and it shows in how she carries herself and how she talks and all her expressions. It's really something else. But we started discussing how we can see the guidance and really listen to it in this day and age. How it's hard to be constantly confronted with casual sin (and by that I mean a casual attitude in regards to sins, minor or major. They're entertainment nowadays.) And how it's easy to get lost in the jumble and not be able to listen.

But anyways it gets to me and it takes me a bit to collect my thoughts and feelings. It's still a little hard to find the words to talk about what's been going on these past several weeks. I believe, if I remember correctly, it went a little something like this:

If I had been asked this question when I first started coming here, I would have had to say it scared me. That I couldn't just accept God's guidance, or anyone elses for that matter, without wanting to pick it over and analyze every little bit so that I could know without a doubt that it was a solid course of action. It's been very hard for me to be able to let go and trust that things are happening with good reason. Over the last several weeks there have been signs, where things just clicked into place. And I had to stop myself from picking them apart. Making sure they weren't just coincidence, I had to just let them happen and go with the flow. I needed to trust how it felt.

Looking at that question now, it brings comfort. Knowing that my backs always covered. Knowing that regardless of where I have been and what I have done that I'm loved. It's a great comfort, and that's a beautiful thing. And I can let myself know, because I've felt.

Because even in my ugliness, I was wooed.

(cross-posted from my livejournal)

Butterfly Trials

Ah, the endless juggling of social circles and schedules.

I've always been one to float between different groups, it happened in high school, it happened at the junior college, it happens in the Camarilla, and since I do still play in the Cam every once in a while it still is happening.

So I currently juggle the normal work/sleep/eat with time with the Boyfriend, my fabulous ladies, friends of the Boyfriend, our church group, my church group, various volunteer stuff, game friends A and game friends B (two different circles, that occasionaly intertwine, but not without cattiness behind others backs, which is getting more and more annoying as time goes on, because I'm finding my snark and cattiness is slowly going away.) And then there's occasional social time with people from work. Trying to make time for the little family I have left comes into play as well. Although it's pretty easy to make time for Mom as she lives not far away from the Boyfriend, although if I go to his house after hers I stink like ciggarettes and get sprayed with Fabreeze.

That only happened once, but it made me laugh a lot at the time.

Dad, sadly, is harder to get a hold of. So we don't get to see eachother that often. But he has the new wife and her kids... so he's pretty busy with the new family.

But I digress. With all that juggling I have very little time to myself, and I'm starting to feel the effects of it. But it's odd, when I DO take the time for myself, I find that I go a little nuts. Then I start calling people and finding something to go do.

I need to find a balance through these social butterfly trials. Burnouts are not fun and I can feel I'm heading towards one.

It's going to get worse for the holly-days too.

*deep breath*

Just two months of serious juggling action. I can do this.