Amazing...

is the difference a week can make. You can be blogging one week full of excitement about a new year, looking back fondly at the old, planning new things, reflecting, pondering, saying goodbye to 2009, hello to 2010... and suddenly an uncle dies unexpectedly, you get slammed with the flu, your cat has to have a surgery that's just enough expense that you're searching craigslist for a temporary p/t job, you look forward to getting back to "normal", which includes going back to work (I was really, for once, excited about going back to work!) and then even that suddenly becomes impossible due to the flu, then the uncle's funeral, and then, of all things, an arctic front closes work on the day I was finally able to start back, my online store is suffering from neglect but I haven't had the time or the energy to get it all together again - and yet another friend sees her prayer for a relationship answered while I sit here in my status quo of singleness and wonder all over again, is it me? do I need to find a different job, go to a different church, get out more, meet more people, do more things, pray more, fast more, beg God more, trust Him more?... and at the end of it all, at the close of an emotionally draining, financially-stricken, flu-filled, record-breaking cold weather week, you just have throw yourself on the mercy of God every morning and tell yourself over and over that he is sovereign over life and death, money, jobs, sickness, cold weather, singleness... and then cling to the joy that Christ - he in himself, in his being, in the very essence of who he is - offers to his children.