Thursday, November 22, 2007

I Vote We Start Celebrating the American Thanksgiving Too.

There's just something so awesome about having a holiday with a parade on a Thursday. And then getting the Friday off to shop.

I love the way those Uhmerikunns celebrate July 4 and Thanksgiving.

But we do Easter better, I think. And Boxing Day - we rock at Boxing Day.

Speaking of Christmas (well, we were sort of speaking about Christmas...) I'm not especially looking forward to it. Are you? It's that ol' Norman Rockwell thing that keeps getting stuck in my brain. Does any family really pull that off?

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So, tonight I took a GIANT leap outside my comfort zone. Huge. Life changing. Scary.
In addition to the other thing (my whole mom, dad situation) THIS thing has been on my mind for 3 weeks. That's when I was first invited. And that's when I first started worrying. But I went. Because I'm camping in a tent outside my comfort zone these days.

I met with 4 other women at 7:30 pm and we prayed.
We prayed out loud.
Did you hear me?
We prayed in voices loud enough for others to hear.
I did too.
Me. Me who doesn't pray out loud without hyperventilating chose to pray on TV night.
(Well, it wasn't really TV night. No more Office episodes til the writer's strike is over. And, hello? Remember? It's the American Thanksgiving tonight. So no new ER. So, the sacrifice really wasn't all that noteworthy.)

Anyways, we prayed for each other's burdens.
And did a fair bit of crying too. Natch.
Lots of hugging as well.
My eyes are sore. And my nose is tingly from all the blowing.
And my soul is burdened by all the pain out there.
Thank God we can pray. Thank God, He listens.

This morning I received another invitation to leap outside my comfort zone.
It came in the middle of an email where the writer (a friend) was talking about horses and kids. All of a sudden in the middle to the paragraph I read an invitation to go on a set up blind date. With a divorced man. Who has grown children and wears jeans. And may or may not be of the borscht-eating variety.
Hell no.
I won't go.


I just prayed out loud.
One big leap per season. That's my quota.
Sorry, guy.


Three things I'm thankful for:
1. The opportunity to pray with and for 4 outstanding women of faith.
2. Clear, frostly mornings.
3. The new, aggressive tires on my truck. Rahhh rahhh.

Shalom,

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But what if one day when you're eighty, you meet this blind date guy, and you fall in love with him because he looks like McDreamy and then you get married and in the middle of living happily ever after, you realize he was the guy, and you could have been with him years ago, and then they make a movie about it, and you get to pick who plays you, JLo or Cameron Diaz?
What then?
Did you even think about that Jane?

Sheesh.

And what did you decide on the Puerto Vall-art-a tickets?