How Blue

Today was a day when I was really struggling with homesickness. It isn't anything I can explain, but I imagine it must be a lot like grief in that it is triggered by something usually unexplainable, and comes in waves, the ferocity of which you can't anticipate. I have been here for over a year now, and still feel that I do not have one really connected friendship. I am the kind of person who would die if banished to a deserted island. Remember John on the island of Patmos - my visions would have been even freakier!
This evening we were listening to the local Christian radio station and the DJ read these verses out of Matthew from the Message translation:

You are blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule. You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment when you find yourselves the proud owner of everything that can't be bought.

These words were so healing - because for a short while today - I was at the end of my rope. These precious words helped me to focus on my Father. Losing the community of friends in WV was a traumatic loss. Some days I manage with the grief, the feeling of space that is always with me. Other days like today - you hear there is a Teddy Bear birthday party that you are missing - and you know the friend that is having it didn't tell you because they didn't want you to hurt, and yet you hurt anyway because there is no win in this situation - you know you are watching their lives from a distance now. When they call or email or send you a letter that says they miss you, you know that something in their day made you cross their mind - but what they don't understand is the hole, their absence in your life is palpable in almost every moment of every day.
We ate dinner out tonight at CiCi's Pizza and I was snippy with Travis through the whole thing and when we were leaving I started to cry. He was pretty patient with me. It was later that I heard those words from Matthew - and it was like a hand reaching down to lift me out of a hole. I am so thankful to have such a loving and compassionate Father that He would cause them to read just the words I needed to hear - I am blessed, even in grief I am blessed.