Insecure Re-Inventions

Strange how when you are not living life with someone, only intermittently trying to connect through a breif phonecall - you assume their thoughts toward you are what you always secretly fear them becoming. You become defensive about something that has only been imagined- and because you know this to be true of yourself, you fear that they fear you in the same way! I find it just crazy how in silence our insecurity re-invents our friends and the ones we should trust most. For instance, I fear others viewing me as spiritually arrogant, judgemental, or indifferent toward them - and if I am not involved with them in life everyday, I read them through that mindset - and even look for signs that they actually feel this way. I think that is what could be termed as a "self-fulfilled prophecy". And so, if you are a friend that I am not in contact with everyday, whom by distance or circumstance I have become estranged, believe me now that my thoughts are nothing but charitable toward you : ) And as much as it depends on you, don't assume that I think one way or another toward you.

Well, the past few days we have been busy building a porch for my parents - okay, so I can't really help much, but I supervise Julie and Jed's work. It involved laying huge flagstones which I obviously cannot do. Today is the big packing up and getting everything absolutely sorted for the trip. We are going back to Austin tomorrow and will fly out on Saturday. I feel that sense of moving out of a place - you always leave little scraps and pieces of yourself behind. Of course I don't mean literal things, but so long as there are relational things without closure and the future yet to be opened, I will feel that I have forgotten something. It will all be fine I know.

Okay, enough today. I'll leave with a quote that struck me this morning.

"One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. "Because thou didst keep the word of My patience." God takes the saints like a bow which He stretches and at a certain point the saint says, "I can't take any more," but God does not heed, He goes on stretching because He is aiming at His mark, not ours, and the patience of the saints is that they 'hang in' until God lets the arrow fly...Don't jump to conclusions too quickly; one or two things lie unsolved, and the biggest test of all is that God looks as if he were totally indifferent."
- O.Chambers - Still Higher -April 27-