...

and then I implode.

I'll expound more later.  Time to sleep.

thoughts, and God is cool.

So, I was in a really good mood today, and then had a lot of coffee, which put that good mood a little over the top.  Now my mind is reeling and processing and needing to write.  I think I'm really tired.  I know I'm really tired.  Also, though I've gotten to know these people some, some of them over the last year and some of them more recently, I don't know that many people in the group very well.  But I desperately want to know them well.  I am jealous of the years they have spent in community here while my life was in constant upheaval.  I know they primarily have MK backgrounds like me, but many of them have been back in this country and in this area for years.  They have roots that I'm only now beginning to plant.  I do feel like I'm beginning to belong, but I don't have years of friendship with any of them.  It's weird to remember that just a year ago I was only beginning to meet one or two people and that I didn't truly get connected with this group until maybe... April or May?  Like a few months ago?  I'm not even sure of the timeline.  What I know is, God is a great God and is in control of even the small details of life.  I clearly see his hand working as he brought me through trials, desert places, and downhill slopes and connected me slowly with the lifeline of a Christ-centered community of people who I just feel accepted by.  I saw his hand working as he led me into a living situation with other women who I could get to know not only as housemates, but also as friends, and into a job that would allow me to afford living in that place.  I saw his hand working as he led me to GIAL to take arts and trauma healing and then arts for a better future, and as he led me into a new position working at a church, the details of which only he could have arranged.  Once I saw this place as an in-between place on my way to some place clearly better, but he has taught me that there are no in-between places.  He has something for me here and is showing me the beauty of this place little by little.  He keeps showing me that life is process, not finished product.  I am an unfinished painting that the master works on slowly and carefully, adding each detail when the time is right.