Finishing the Beginning

A last couple of entries to note, and this little brocade journal returns to the shelf.  In its place, I'll take up a big, plain blue volume; but first to finish this little one:

March 12, 2005
I applied to teach at a Christian school and found out I had fibromyalgia both in the same week.  Funny the paradox there: learning I have this "weakness" to work around even as God is showing me not to put so much focus on my own character, to put my focus more toward presenting Redemption.  "Workers break down because their desire is for their own whiteness and not on God."  (Oswald Chambers, January 31 entry of My Utmost for His Highest.) I can't present myself as "fully white" in terms of strength and capability any more.  I must disclose this weakness now. Interesting this new twist in my path toward ministry.

Beyond that entry were a few pages of notes and sundry things:  a page of scriptures to use in prayer, ideas for computer screen savers based on names of God, images of God, etc.,  and on the last page-- info on a xanga blog account that I never ended up using.  I did start blogging shortly after that, but on blogger.

What a lot happened in that little volume!  Certainly, more than I remembered. 
Most interesting to me is how that last post foreshadowed the beginning of a far bigger life phase than I had any idea was beginning, one that only now is coming to some measure of satisfying closure.  Back in 2005, I recognized the synchronicity of the job--which I would get and would work for 4 years--and the personal weakness.  But, what I couldn't know then was how deeply the scalpel of that environment was going to cut into me.  The job was ideal for His purposes as He prodded me into exploring that balance between my own whiteness, my own strength and their relative significance to the larger story of my very reason to exist.  Personal whiteness and personal strength became things of great importance there, and I did much soul-searching before my time in that place was finished. 

Best that the story unfold naturally as the cyber pages unfurl, but let it suffice to say I had no clue of the nature of this path where I'd planted my foot, nor of the treasures I'd find there.  Had I known, I wouldn't have tossed the ideas in this last entry around so lightly.  Soon I would find that balloon was actually full of lead and would become increasingly difficult to handle deftly.  But everything works together for good if we just follow the trail far enough to find that next outpost.
Let's hit the next leg of the trail!