true randomness-please don't look for substance

There are some things in life that make me laugh. I laugh when I see someone get startled...which is so goofy because I HATE being startled! I laugh at 'the office.' Michael Scott is my favorite tv character. It's so uncomfortable, so funny. My husband Steve makes me laugh. Most people have no idea what a goofball he is. It's one of the things I love about him! My girls make me laugh. They inherited the goofball gene from Steve.

I had a bible study today. We talked about needing God. We talked about the times in our lives when we realized that we TRULY NEEDED God - not for some end-time salvation plan, but needed him - get through the day - needed him. I'll never forget when it first happened for me. It was not all that long ago. Bradenton, Florida...not a lot of laughing going on those days. We were adjusting to illness, a new home, new schools for the girls, money stress, loneliness, no church (building or otherwise). I came to a place of sheer desperation - the kind of desperation that can't be manufactured. It just emerges in waves.

And I'll never forget the unmistakable sense of 'someone-ness.' I knew God was there. Sometimes more clearly than others and always when I was at the end of my own means. I wonder why that is...that he is so clearly present in immense difficulty. I want to foster the 'need for God reality' each day. Can it be done?

I am beginning to learn things about following Christ that I never saw before. I grew up under the mantra of a "personal relationship" with Christ. Now I see it that it cannot survive if it is merely personal. And maybe it was never meant to be just me and God against the world. Then again, if I never have those times where I wouldn't make it through without him - if I always fill in the space with other people - will I learn that he meets my every need?

Random and not really going anywhere, I realize that. That's just where I am today.