Here I am writing for the first time on my new blog. What to say? Well, I've been coming home to an empty apartment for the third week in a row and getting a little lonely. My roommate has been sick and back home for longer than expected. I love and miss her, but I honestly don't mind the solitude. It helps me think. To clear my head and re-focus on the things that the busyness of a day can distract. And just spilled soup on my clean pj's! darn!

Back to the re-focus jargon. I suppose I say that because I believe that if I do not spend special time aside to think about my life that I'm going to somehow miss the plan of God for my life! It seriously stresses me out! I find that I am a major "doubting Thomas"! I wonder if Thomas believed that Jesus was who he said he was in the first place...or...did he just get distracted, or perhaps focused on the wrong thing(s). He probably didn't want to get his hopes us too high just in case the Jesus he encountered was a liar. Harsh words, but the truth. He didn't want to be thought a fool. If Thomas was anything like me he probably got used to the idea that all of his hopes had been destroyed; and it hurt to bad to believe. It hurt so bad that he utters the words: "unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe" (John 20:25). Wow, Thomas, you're kind of a jerk! With all of the things surrounding him, it was a matter-of-fact sort of thing to Thomas; Jesus was dead, and he, one of the 12, was the one who followed this man for 3 years. He gave up everything. He was probably pretty fightin' mad at the outcome too. His anger rising from his hurt. So much so that he didn't even stop to consider the other 10 disciples' (minus Judas) statements and experience!

Well, I am Thomas at the moment and trying real hard to be the other 10 right now. Jesus says: "Peace to you" to me as he said to Thomas some 2 thousand years ago. Unbelief puts a person in a state of confusion and hardens the heart. Belief brings joy and peace and keeps the heart soft and open to the things of the Spirit. Why would anyone ever want to live confused and hardened and miserable?! That's not being truly alive! It's being a dead person living life day in day out with no hope or faith in God! God does things SO different than how we expect him to do things. It is biblical precedent! Why can't I figure that out already?! Proverbs 13:12 says "hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life." God knows what hope does to my heart, but he asks me to trust anyway.