I decided to write my update a little early this week:>) Number 1, I have time today, and Number 2 My heart feels so heavy and writing is the only thing that releases some of the heaviness. I’ve been writing how I’ve been feeling distant from God the past two updates. Well, that distance has turned into a raging fire. Maybe it is because I started doing a new study and the spiritual heat has been turned up. All I know is I feel terrible anxiety, on top of illness and fear. Nothing in me feels still, everything in fact feels sick. I feel a longing for more realness in life. More realness with people I go to ch with every Sunday etc. I feel heartsick about Elle, the little orphan girl I so badly want to help but have no idea how to. I was looking at her picture the other day and started sobbing. I can’t get her eyes out of my mind. Yesterday Noah and I were eating lunch with friends and my delicious food started to lose its taste as I thought about the missing lady in Afghanistan and how long she has been missing. Her poor family is heartsick. What is she feeling? What is she thinking? I feel upset with the selfish way I love people. I love people who love me and get upset when they aren’t loving me the way I want them too. This morning I came out of my room and saw my niece who has cerebral palsy standing in her stander. She smiled at me and my eyes again filled with tears. How can someone who has such a broken body and is non verbal be so happy? I have been pr. that J. will give me more compassion and more of a broken spirit for the things that break his heart. Maybe that is what is happening…Maybe my heart is being expanded so I can feel deeper the things that J. feels on a daily basis. I can hardly deal with the few situations I feel heartsick over. How can J. bear the suffering and pain of the whole world? I went to grab a scrap piece of paper to write myself a note and turned it over….on the other side was the copied Hymn… Be Still, My Soul- “Be still, My soul! The LRD is on they side; Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain; Leave to thy God to order and provide; in every change He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul! Thy best, thy heav’nly friend Thro thorny ways leads to a joyful end!” I so often don’t understand what is going on inside me but I know when I start to fret and freak out and look inward I grow more despondent and discouraged. It is when I look to the truth that I can be still and trust that what God is doing in and through me is good, because He is good and every thorny way in and through Him leads to a joyful end! Be still my soul, Be still! In every change He faithful will remain!