Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 93

Today's Daily 5:

1. A long hot shower
2. a treatment appointment tonight that helped with my sore neck
3. a good 2nd day of work
4. good news on facebook - things like the fact that a relative who is quitting smoking has made it a full year without a cigarette
5. sipping a big mug of passion tea (the old version, not the new one that starbucks sells, that doesn't taste at all good anymore.  I still buy the old version at a local grocery store.)
6. having an iphone
7. my US social security card arrived today.  good timing, hope for some future plans came in the mail with that card.
8. being able to wear jeans to my new job, on a day that isn't a Friday.
9. laughing over funny moments that remind me that God has a sense of humor.  Things like waking to a terrible snow storm this morning, and thinking longingly of palm trees that grow outside, and then looking up from the blog post I was writing (via my iphone) on the bus, and seeing a life-size papier mache palm tree, and a smaller one besides, sitting in full glory in the back of a pickup truck bed!
10. escapist television while catching up on some online work

Snow

This was the view from my front door this morning.

Snow.

I'm sitting on the bus and watching as it slides sideways every time it brakes.

And I'm realizing that my first order of business in the next couple of days will need to be the purchase of a pair of winter boots. Last year's pair finally gave up, with holes in both soles that made for cold wet feet. And facing a winter of commuting on foot and by bus without boots doesn't seem plausible. So, boot shopping it will be.

At least it's a genuine excuse to buy shoes!

My Strength: Letting Hope Exist

I read this post the other day, on a blog I regularly read, and the last little bit struck me:

I think depriving myself of hope was the wrong idea too. I was trying to protect myself. Trying to save myself the hurt of another failed cycle.

But it’s not me.

And so, I am going to let myself hope. I am going to let myself believe in that pinch I felt today. Starting tomorrow, I am going to have faith when I pee on those sticks. I am going to lay my hands on my stomach and speak to those ice babies of mine. I am going to open my heart up to them, and let myself love them. Even before I know if they are real or not.

Knowing that the more I let myself hope, the more I could be setting myself up for hurt.

But that God will be my strength.

I am going to trust in God to be my strength, because clearly I don’t have it in me to do alone.

Clearly I’m not strong enough on my own.

God is my strength.

And we've got this. 

It was challenging to read this.  I've been realizing that there have been things where I haven't wanted to hope.  That I haven't wanted to admit that I long for.  Where I haven't wanted to trust that if they didn't go the way I long for deep within me, that I would still be okay.

God's been reminding me to long for things again.  To trust him even with the things I want so badly, I'd rather admit I don't want them, for fear of the pain if they don't happen. 

I  started to realize that I needed to be willing to trust, even with this, the last few weeks as I rode the bus every day, reading, thinking and praying.  That funny little routine began to dawn on me about a week in as I slowly noticed just which route I'd chosen.  The places the route circles through include at least four connected to things I'm dreaming about.  And I sat and prayed and began to allow myself to really long for those dreams.  To not downplay them the way I'd been doing.

And so, I'm letting hope exist.  And reminding myself again that God is my strength.