I know I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s that time of month again so I’m talking about it again. The timing is kind of interesting because Monday night a group of us were meeting and I brought up the subject of needing to know God’s promises and being disciplined about turning to Him in our need and the example I used was that time of the month when the voices start up in my head. It has taken me years to even recognize why it’s happening, much less show any kind of active defense to defuse them, identify the things the voices say as lies, and seek God’s assurance.

This morning started at 3:00 am when my pager went off. For various reasons (3 am being the primary one) I didn’t easily solve the technical issue for work. I finally decided to wait for more skilled folks to get online to do the real fix. By time I started getting ready for the real work day my mind was convinced that my failure to quickly and easily handle the problem this morning (which is something I only have to know how to do every 6 weeks when I’m on pager duty) was a reflection of how I do all my work. I started pounding back on that with the things I do very well in my job on a daily basis.

Then all of a sudden I realized I was rehashing a problem I had 12 years ago at a job I had in New York! Sheesh, if I wouldn’t give in to the voices’ accusations about my job today, the mind was willing to go all the way back there to find something to beat me with. I fought back and the day got better.

I thought about this some more today because I went to a funeral. Dad’s widow lost her sister Friday. She leaned on her sister a lot these past 14 months since Dad died and now she’s lost her rock. She’s hurt and angry and grieving. She’ll need to fight the despair and anger over the months and find a way to continue to seek God’s face. She’s well grounded so it will come, but she’ll need a lot of love along the way.

We’ve registered for our first bike ride of 2010. (That could be misleading, we may actually participate in a bike ride earlier in the year, but this is the first one that we’ve registered for this year.)

Last year I read an article about riding in the Five Boro Bike Tour and it sounded like a lot of fun. I signed up to be alerted when the 2010 ride registration was open and the email came yesterday. After a quick exchange, we agreed to do it! We will be riding in the Bike New York TD Bank Five Boro Bike Tour on May 2nd. It is 42 miles long, mostly flat except for the bridges, and it goes through all five boroughs. The best part, for me, is that there are no cars on the route! But there will be around 30,000 cyclists. That can get crowded.

We’ve lived in Brooklyn, worked in Manhattan, had friends in the Bronx and Queens, and currently have friends in Staten Island. The only plans to make now are where to stay. We do still have friends up there we may stay with, or there is a cool hostel with a neat deal for the bike ride.

Other possible rides for 2010:

Collier Lilly Ride4Life – June?

Lake Norman Excursion – July?

Tour de Tots – September?

MS 150 Breakaway to the Beach – Sept 25-26 – Anthony already signed up