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

We are already 10 days into the new year. And most of those days have been very cold. Here are some things we’ve been doing.

I have been reading Pilgrim’s Progress for our book club at the end of the month. I find the book easy to read, but plenty in each chapter to stop and meditate on.

I also read a book called The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. It’s a novel about the near future when there is a cure for autism. The main character is a man who had a lot of developmental help but was born a little too early for the complete cure. Now there is research that could cure adult autists. The decision for him is if he wants the treatment. The book is really good – we get to see the world through his eyes and see how he thinks, reacts to things, is affected by different situations. And we see a number of other characters who interact with him. Some prove that “normal” is pretty loosely applied and some are more broken than an autist when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Others show a wonderful acceptance and learning of how to be friends with him. I highly recommend this book.

After finishing the book, I came across this blog post with a fascinating video of a young man born with physical handicaps.

I have been trying to get my husband to do some sort of physical exercise for awhile, and he finally said he was interested in doing P90X from BeachBody, with Tony Horton. I hadn’t planned to do it, but I thought if we did it together maybe he’d be more likely to stick with it and do it every day. He built a platform for our home theater so we have a hardwood floor to stand on, and we started last Monday. It has been a great and painful week as we have worked all kinds of muscles. Only 12 more weeks to go!

In addition to reading, and working out, and just plain work, we have also been working on relationships. We have had or scheduled a few dinners, and started the process of scheduling others. We’ve seen family in Raleigh twice and local family a few times. It is quality and quantity and we’re trying to work on both. Each relationship is different and some things are harder or easier with each person. But it is worth it with every single one of them.

Still in keeping with the theme this week of truly loving the people around us, in particular the people we go to church with based on my blog post, I found another blog entry that hits the nail right on the head.

Head over to Pyromaniacs for 5 Ideas for 2010.

I agree with all 5 of these points. The one that will get many people, I think, is praying for the elders. Many expect very quick responses from God right along the lines of what they pray. But if they are truly praying in something even remotely like an attitude of submission to God, then they will be open to see His answers even when they don’t look like the “right” plan, and especially when it involves changing the one doing the praying more than the elder being prayed for.

Go check out the post, as usual, they have good things to say.

My chapter this morning in Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer was about forgiveness and love. Our relationships with our fellow man are important to the effectiveness of our prayer.

Then I found this quote over at Tony Woodlief’s blog.

“My heart only has entrances. It doesn’t have exits. Whoever enters remains there. Whatever he may do, I love him the same as I loved him when he first entered into my heart.” (Elder Epiphanios of Athens).

I like that. I want to have a heart like that and I want to be in hearts like that!

It has been a great Christmas, with time spent with so much of the family. I’ve been thinking about what it means to know these people. Family and friends. The pastor made a remark during the sermon yesterday about how hard “doing church” can be, because we know each other, we know all about each other. We all recognize what he’s saying, but I wanted to argue that if we truly knew ALL about each other church wouldn’t be that hard. I think it’s precisely because we don’t know all there is to know that we struggle so.

First, I know we don’t know all there is to know about ourselves. Each of us has some very serious denial and distortion going on, that keeps us from facing all the bare truth about our self. Sometimes it is the deep dark places that we hide, and sometimes we only see the dark and it is the good that we hide. But we are seldom completely honest about our own motives and desires.

Second, we don’t see everything about another person. That makes it much easier to take things personally and be offended by the words and actions (or lack of words or actions) on their part. Why didn’t they invite me? It must be that they don’t want me, it certainly can’t be that they simply missed my name and had too much on their plate as they go through this busy life. Why didn’t she stop to talk to me? She must not like me, it can’t be that she is intimidated by me or can’t think of something to say, or that someone else is hurting more and needed her attention today.

I had a conversation with my sister-in-law about her youngest son. He is a sensitive soul, with very strong emotions. But those of us with strong emotions learn that in times of danger (when our feelings might be misunderstood or abused) we should hide all emotions from everyone. He has a type A kindergarten teacher who is an in-your-face sort of person. When this small 5 year old learning how to made decisions makes the wrong one she calls him on it immediately and impersonally, and then wonders why he shows no remorse. Of course, she can’t see the agony going on inside or the tears shed at home. She thinks she knows all about him and has labeled his behavior. But, again I argue that if she truly knew all about him, she would love him too much to label him or to assume the worst about his motives.

We think we know people because we can predict their behavior and recognize their reactions. But we often don’t truly understand the reasons and motives behind all of that. It is easy to depersonalize it and attribute our own theories of motives to those behaviors – that is what makes church hard. We assume they aren’t really loving or aren’t growing or are insensitive to what others need.

Loving someone doesn’t always mean we understand them completely either, but it certainly changes the type of motives we attribute to them. We find good reasons they would do what they do, even when they make mistakes. I think those motives are more often closer to the truth.

I find sometimes that I want to tell someone that their actions are wrong or hurtful, but unless I am doing it out of a deep love for them, I can’t find good words to talk to them. I don’t like it when people try to give me constructive criticism that isn’t coming from a heart of love. I think that’s why a single word from my husband hold so much power over me. I know he is really searching for the best for me and from me – for my good. It’s why a kindergarten teacher can’t get the best behavior out of a precious little boy.

Friendship is a good thing. Friendship is a hard thing. It can be easy and shallow and wide and life is just always fun. But if you do it right, it gets messy and you don’t always say the right things or even have the right things to say.

Years ago Anthony and I started meeting with a few couples to have dinner, get to know each other better, discuss marriage, and build a foundation. The point was a long-term plan, so that if any of us ever ran into troubles, we’d have others we trusted and knew that we could turn to. Last week, the last couple of that group left our church. And as each couple has left the church, each relationship has become more distant. How did we lose touch? Sure, children came along and getting together seemed harder to do. But not impossible.

So, as I realized how these things had turned out, I asked myself why I’m not a better friend. Why don’t I do a better job of keeping the relationships going and sticking to people even when it’s not convenient or easy. This isn’t a guilt trip, but an honest desire to see where I can do better.

The quick questions: Am I trying to do this with too many people? For that original group of friends that was supposed to grow into an accountability group of close friends, did we not have enough in common? How do we meet with people we can share this stage of life in and prepare for the next stage of life? While also developing some relationship with people in other stages of life. What about all the people in church or in our community who feel left out? Some days it’s just easier to stay home.

Part of it is that I do best in very small groups, one-on-one is even better. I can sometimes do a beach trip type event and talk to several people in small conversations during the time, but then comes the effort to sustain something out of that. To build something.

I remember when we first moved to NC and praying that I would make a few friends. We were here for 2 years before I really felt I had made a friend. It was just one of those times when the people I worked with were in other states, weekends were spent with the nephews, neighbors were changing frequently. It just wasn’t easy to meet people and make good friends. At least not for me. Then slowly a few relationships started to grow. One or two years after that I could look at 3 really close friendships and a handful of others.

The harder questions: Where do I spend my time? How much time do I spend praying for my friends? Is the schedule too full of stuff that people get squeeze out? (Don’t ask me how many books I’ve managed to read this year.) Why don’t I pick up the phone more often? Am I ready to share more of my struggles with friends? Am I too afraid of not being liked to reach out to someone new?

This week I reconnected with an old friend I haven’t spoken to since junior high. We have had dinner with a young couple. I had a positive email exchange with a friend who needed someone to speak truth in the midst of a frustrating situation. While looking at pictures of Hawaii, the friend we traveled with called for a spur of the moment dinner with good conversation, then it turned into a movie night. We have had fun planning a Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends we don’t see enough of. I heard from a friend who needs to talk. Life is full, love is abundant, we grow and we learn.

And…

Tuesday night was the history/dinner cruise along the coast of Kona down to the Captain Cook memorial. The history was interesting, the food was ok, the weather was beautiful, and the sunset was fantastic!

All street lights in Kona are this weird yellow – we finally found out why – to reduce light pollution for the Observatories on the volcano. It is weird driving with yellow street lights.

Wednesday Val had a member meeting. I went over to check out the fitness center. It was decent, but I mainly used the mat and ball. Nice elliptical and bicycles. Wednesday afternoon we were picked up and taken to the Kahua Ranch where we learned about the history of beef ranches on the island, saw a large pig up close, ate a decent dinner (not their steak) with a good mac-nut pie, then tried some roping and banding before coming back home. It was chilly up there.

Thursday was our meeting in the morning. Then we headed north to Hawi and the beaches. We had a sushi recommendation in Hawi so we planned to do dinner there. We made it to Kawaihae and stopped at the Puukohola Heiau (hey-ow). Then we drove on up to Hawi and decided to stop at Sushi Rock for lunch instead. The food was great and got us going for the hike down to the black-sand beach at Pololu.We hiked down from about 500 ft above sea level to sea level. Then we wandered around on the beach and hiked back up. It was about the same as the hike down to the Kilauea Iki crater on Monday, but it was hotter.

We stopped at the Keokea Beach Park and then drove back to Hawi to have dinner at Sushi Rock again. The sushi was still great! And the mac-nut pie was perfect.

Friday was going to be our south day, but we realized it was our last day with the nice big lanai so we just hung around and read, ate, and enjoyed the breeze. It was a perfect day! That night we drove Anthony down to Keauhou for the Fair-Winds snorkel with the manta ray. He had a great time. Val and I wandered around Kailua and ate at the bar at Huggos.

Saturday we checked out of the Bay Club and checked in at the Hilton. Then we drove toward Kona for a coffee plantation tour at the Hula Daddy plantation (nice clock and good coffee). Next was a stop at the Kekaha Kai beach which was very crowded and windy. We got back to Waikoloa, picked up some sushi at the Island Gourmet Markets and relaxed at the Hilton.

Sunday we drove back to the Waikoloa Baptist Church, with our Operation Christmas Child box that we filled up at Walmart on Tuesday after the cruise. Then back to the Hilton to check out and lay around in the sun (or shade). Dinner at Macaroni Grill and then we returned the rental car and got on our plane. Many hours and a day later we got home with no delays or snags!

It’s chillier here (it was 43 this morning) so we’re trying to get acclimated to that, after 80+ days and 70+ nights for the past week.