Brand New Day.

Family Tree by Timothy Karpinski

I'm embracing retirement to the fullest and I am teaching myself to quilt. It started out as a favor for Francyne. She's letting me borrow her sewing machine, so I was going to finish her quilt for her as rental payment. But now, I'm seriously in love with it. I even had a dream last night and it was just a bunch of images of fabric designs and pictures that I could create on a quilt. I do not understand why my brain is so easily inspired, but I'm not complaining.
       Life as of late has been quite wonderful, as always. Jesus takes care of me and replenishes my joy faithfully. I had a really long cry session the other day because the idea of loss is driving me to a point of personal conservation, which is not something I am very used to. Since I'm going to be leaving soon, I'm keeping myself really guarded despite my want. I have a tendency to invest, heart and soul, into people. Because I was made to be a relational creature, finding joy in spending time with people, investing in friendship. But I'm seeing that my life cannot be about what I want. At all. It has to be about God's timing in everything I do.
      When I finally got all the crying out of my system, I was just fine. Because that's how we women work. Sometimes we just need to let our emotions take over for a bit. It's quite a chore really but, in the end, we're left feeling much more liberated. Isn't that just beautiful? How there is freedom in allowing yourself to feel lost? That pretty much sums up my life story. I was only found when I became too lost to help myself. Hmm... yeah. God is love.