I have been sifting things through my head in random fashon for the past few days and as I have been dealing with the pain while recovering from oral surgery (which I could not afford but had to have) of having a tooth removed, I have been trying to figure out exactly what is going on with my life. Or at least a clue.

First a heart attack followed by tripple heart bypass and the literal and figuritive hell I have gone through alone as I began to recover both physically and mentally and spiritually. Now an absessed broken tooth and lots of pain.

God allows nothing without a reason, even if we are just reaping the seeds of our own self-destruction, God uses everything to make us better people if we let him. So, why, what, how??? Queations that I can't seem to find answers for.

Why did all this happen - well my physical life was out of control with dibetes unchecked, bad eating choices, and smoking, etc... Having a heart attack is what happens when you make bad choices like that. My high school best friend died 2 years ago from a heart attack and her younger sister died yesterday from one as well. So, why did God arrange for me to live? And I really can't doubt that He did because it is all so "arranged". And not only that, He kept me from having ANY brain damage (which is actually what killed the younger sister). Yes, trama from hell, but 100% survivor rate.

I obviously changed my lifestyle eating habbits (although how easy it is to fall back into bad choices, especially when there is no one to be accountable to other than myself) Not perfect, but MUCH healthier eating choices, no more smoking, and walking some (need to walk more) :).

So, God intends me to live a while longer for some reason.

Then came the devestation of having everyone I know turn their back on me when I needed them the most including the "friends" I thought I would always be able to count on. That was almost worse than the attack. Circumstances and situations have always sought to isolate me from my friends and Christian contact and this was so far beyond anything that I had ever even imagined. In fact my baseline assumption that in life alternating situations people would be there to help me was totaly shattered and my self-worth plummeted far below anything I ever dreamed. Friends that I loved, LOVED, didn't care enough about weather I was living or dieing to call me in the hospital or come see me, even when they were in town. I was less than nothing.

In all that were a few tidbits of concern that allowed me to hold on enough to not completely fall away. A couple of gifts did not make up for the lack of visits but it did keep me from completely dieing inside.

So, What was that about God? I know there had to be a reason. For so long all I could possibly think was that I am such a broken wasted person that no one really wants anything to do with me but they are for the most part too nice to tell me to get lost. However, I have received a couple of words from people I trust that told me too, that I wasn't the one who FAILED here, but that God did speak to those around me and they didn't/refused/were just too BUSY to hear Him. that does make me feel better some, but I still feel like I must not be worth much to my "friends" if even God couldn't make them help me. On the other hand, I think God has established that He considers me to have worth enough to make sure I lived through the experience. Now the question is why? I feel like a failure. I don't feel that I do or assist or change anyone's lives for the Good of the Kingdom. Even the kids I love and try to assist, the defining description of my job prevents me from helping them to the extent that they could be helped because of a governemnt too concerned with reelections and no real concern for what is best for our kids (despite EVERYTHING they have said - actually you can prove it IN about everything they have said) so my sense of self-worth at school is low. My sense of self-worth as a friend is low, and my sense of being good enough for a husband is NON EXISTANT. The only worth I seem to have is in God's eyes and I don't know why.

I want to be a real part of the Kingdom of God. I want to be one of the movers and shakers. It is not like I have a family or love to hold me back, so why am I still stuck here in this little pig hole of a town? On every side I feel trapped; by circumstances, by physical disabilities, by emotional isolation, by distance, by money. It never seems to end. Everyone thought I would stay in England, I felt like God was done with that stage for me and I came home even though I didn't want to. But by the same token I have a friend who is trapped in a place where she hates it because she is convienced that God has here there for a reason even though she has done nothing for years to further the Kingdom in any of the ways she believed she was called to. I don't want to be trapped in nowhereville wasting away a gift of life God has given to me but I don't want to "force" and vision of what and where God wants me to go either just because "I" think it is the right choice.

What does all this mean. I try and try to get others to do bible studies with me. They don't have time. I beg people to come to my house and visit me, they don't have time. I no longer have the money to participate in so many things and if I don't pay my way there, no one else cares if I come or not. Still back to what other people think huh. God made me an incredably social person. I learn and grow by interacting and talking and good natured argueing and for so long, I have had nothing to sharpen my "wits" on. Everyone was too busy.

Well this is my letter to teh world who never wrote to me (thanks Emily LOL). The world and all the important critical things that you all HAVE to get done is comin to an end, and personally I think that end is going to be soon. This is a message for me as well. It is time to stop worrying about things that do not matter in light of the Kingdom and start spending more time in the word as well as reaching out to others to share. It is very hard to share the gospel with the people who know you and who live around you if you don't live a life worth sharing. Random sharing works well on strangers, but if you want to change those around you, you have to get out of your little nest and reach out across the worldly views and angers to actually do something for others otherwise your worlds are no more than a sounding gong.

I have heard a LOT of sounding gongs in the past year. I try not to be a hypocrite so I don't often offer to pray for others when I know I will not even pray for myself and because those in authority have said "if you don't believe, don't bother to pray" so I haven't. But something Benjamin said today in his blog made me rethink that philophsy - if you do it long enough you will either stop or you will begin to believe. Sometimes we keep praying even without hope, because we still have faith in a benelovant God and if we keep praying perhaps we will start to have a mustart seed of faith.

I have no idea where this is going really or why I wrote it, I am on pain killers and still hurt, but I jsut wanted to get it down on paper. Spread if before my God so that he sees where I see myself and will step in from there.