Looking for a little inspiration...

When I first moved back to Virginia, circa 1998, I was really bored and really lonely and sad. I made buddies with the sister missionaries, and soon on Fridays they would come to my house to do their laundry. For a while, the word was out on the missionary street that a missionary's experience here in the south had to include a trip to Mountain Lake, 30 minutes from here, the place where "Dirty Dancing" was mostly filmed and a trip to Dairy Queen for a "slaw dog". The Utah girls called it a slaw dawg, but I think we just call it a hot dog with cole slaw. So, I made several trips to Mountain Lake on p-days and a few trips to the DQ. Those were good times. I really got to understand what the missionaries went through. I was always convinced that I would go on a mission, but I got married when I was like 12 and didn't get to do it. Maybe someday when I'm old and I wear my elastic waisted skirts up to my chest, I'll go. Anyways, I lived vicariously through these girls for a while. I was roughly their age, but I was freshly divorced with a two year old.



One of the girls I got to know was so fun and had the greatest personality. I found her blog years after she served here and she is such a talented writer!! Anyways, I was surfing through blogs that I "lurk" on tonight, with a little bit of a hope that I'd stumble upon something inspirational, and so I went to her blog. Apparently, she recently lost her lap top, ipod, and other digital stuff. I think I felt half way sick for her, and as requested, I said a little prayer that God would direct all lost items back to "Ninny Beth's" life. But she said something that did inspire me related to her loss and to life. This is what she said :



I believe that we lose things so that we can make room for something new.



Think about that. Those of you who know me, you know that my life is completely different today than it was a year ago, but in some ways it's the same. But what if- just. what. if. - we do make room for something else when something is lost? I think this is absolutely true, but only if we choose to look at it this way. I am choosing to look at life this way. My life was put together, and going ok, and I made some choices that I felt completely sure of, and life ended up spiraling down, as if I was in a blender spiraling down toward the blade... but I'm that one chunck of ice that refuses to get crushed. Life keeps pushing the "blend" button, and I might get dinged, but I keep going back to the sides and to the top. I am truly grateful for a sister who picked me up at the airport that morning on August 27 and who has been there. Oh gosh, I can't start thinking about the little thing we like to call ALASKA!! (tears, please go away!) I'm grateful. I'm truly grateful.



I believe that we lose things so that we can make room for something new.



I believe.



I'm also grateful that I'm not a siamese twin, cause I might kind of look like this :