Hmmm....

Hey everyone. How are you doing? I’m doing alright I suppose.

Something strange happened yesterday. Do you guys ever get those forwarded emails about a scam going on, or how we protect ourselves in our surroundings (especially women)? Like a few examples would be, when ever you’re dealing with a police officer you should make them show their badge or the one where if you come out to your car, start the car, look in the rearview mirror to back out and you see a piece of paper on the back window. The email tells you this is a scam and not to get out and get the paper until you get to a different place. Supposedly if you get out, a car thief comes out of nowhere and steals your car. Whatever. I read every single one of them, I never forward them on. The only reason I read them is because I’m paranoid about everything in my surroundings. So, I read them, and make a mental note, but I always thought it was a bunch of bull.

Until yesterday….I vividly remember the email a year or so ago about perfume. The email says that if you’re in a parking lot and approached by someone to come smell some designer perfume, not to go. According to the email, the people (usually men) will lure you to their car, and then cover your mouth and nose with some sort of chemical to make you pass out. The men then have their way with you. I know, that’s horrible! Yesterday, as I was filling up my car, I saw three guys. They were all dressed business casual, wearing backpacks, just walking around the gas station. As I was pumping gas at this very busy station, I was approached by one of them. Now, I’m thinking he needed some money. Nope, guess what he said to me: “How are you today ma’am? Some business associates and I were in the area selling some designer perfume. We are actually on our way back to Tucson right now. I was wondering if you would like to smell some of our perfume?” No lie, he seriously said that. And that email immediately popped into my head. I told him no and then said I wasn’t stupid. He walked away from me. I was like, huh? Did he seriously just do that? I would hope any woman who didn’t read the email would have enough sense not to fall for that.

So, when you get those….at least read them. Because if I would have been stupid enough to go with him, I don’t know what might have happened.

How was your Valentine’s Day? Mine was just another day, it always is, if you don’t have a Valentine. However God choose yesterday to put some stuff on my heart. Ah, at 31, I’m still experiencing “growing pains”. I started feeling uneasy when I got out of work yesterday, I knew something was brewing. When God grows me, it usually hurts, really bad. He picked yesterday to do it, right when I got out of Math class. I sat in my car for a good 30 minutes in the school parking lot and just cried, hard. There is this one thing in my life…I just can’t let go of. I’ve tried and simply can’t. I’m holding on to it so tight, my knuckles are white. It’s as easy as simply opening up my hands and letting go of it, letting it just fly away with the wind. This one thing has caused some serious grief in my life. When God is trying to show me something, I always say he slaps me around or gives me a good shaking. Last night, he shook me pretty good. This one thing consumes my thoughts, sometimes more than God does. I know it shouldn’t be that way, but I admit, it does. Way more than it should. Why is it so hard to let something go? Why? It could be a past hurt, a sin, a relationship, a person. It doesn’t matter, it’s never easy to let it go, never. Every time I try to let something go, it hurts even more. I know God is with me, I know he knows my hurts, feels my pain, he grieves with me. I need to change the way I think about this one thing, be cautious not to let it consume my thoughts. I need God to consume my thoughts, every thought I have.

Quote(s) of the day:

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." ~Anatole France

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." Victor Frankl