The Servant's Quarters

OK. Over the past 8 or 9 months one or two people have asked me why I am not blogging anymore. I don't know what's wrong with them, but they miss reading the sick, twisted details of my boring, sad life!

Well, here are two bits of news that anyone who may still visit this barren, lonely corner of cyberspace may want to hear:

#1 - I am back. I'm going to make another go of this because I truly do miss it. I've always like writing, but I've never had the ambition to sit down and try to concoct my attempt at the great American novel. Blogging gives me a fun outlet where I can creatively share news and tidbits about my life without too many people paying attention to me. (That way, if it really stinks, no one knows.)

#2 - I'm going to divulge the real, no holds barred reason why I temporarily gave up on my blog last year. Here it is - the unvarnished truth. (Well, it's a little varnished with some holds barred. For one thing, I'm withholding names to protect the guilty. This is my blog, and in this entry at least, I'm going to write about my perspective on things. I'm not going to descend to name calling or talking badly about other people.)

The truth of the matter is that last Spring, I was hurt really, really badly by someone close to me. This was (I thought) a deep, lasting friendship to which I invested a lot of my time, energy, emotion, etc. And then, one day, it very suddenly, very harshly ended in an unbelievable way at a time when I was going through some very difficult stress and turned to my friend for support. The response that I got was a request to go away and never come back.

I won't share any more than that. I'm sure my friend thought that there were valid reasons to suddenly say, "Never talk to me again. We are through." I don't know what they were. I probably will never know. I can't even imagine anything that would justify such behavior.

To say that I was hurt would be an understatement. I was crushed. Never in my life had I been so disposable in a relationship. Of course, friendships have come and gone, but nothing like this. This was pretty vicious and pretty shocking.

So, I haven't felt like blogging cute little funny stories about my family, my job, and my life. I've been dealing with my wound. Fighting infection. Changing the dressing. Struggling to heal. Doing a lot of thinking. Visiting the Great Physician. (Thank you, Lord. Thank you that You love me forever and will never reject me.) I've learned a lot about myself. About God. About my family and my (real) friends. There are days when I still hurt over what happened. I just can't fathom the type of rejection that I was dealt. But I think I'll come out of this a whole lot wiser than I was going in. I've hated the journey, but God always works things out to our benefit. He always walks with us through the bad times.

Bottom line - Don't worry about it. I am doing ok. Really. Stuff happens and we adapt, heal and move on. In fact, even the last few days have been good in terms of me coming to terms with this. I guess it takes me a while to get over things. But I made two resolutions going into 2009 that I intend to keep to the best of my ability: 1) Draw closer to God than I have ever in my life and 2) Don't let my former friend or anyone else associated with that sorry, hurtful episode steal any more of my joy. I've wasted enough time being hung up on a situation that I'm helpless to change.

Time to move on to a better place.