What's in a Name

I haven't written in a long time, and that's been tough for me. I can feel everything pent up inside, begging me for an outlet. I just haven't slowed down long enough to get my thoughts in order. And a lot of people have suggested I get a part time job right now to help with finances. That would be great, if there were an extra me running around somewhere. But I have a hard time getting everything accomplished as it is. I can't imagine adding another unbreakable obligation to the schedule!

So maybe I will write about nothing of importance, but simply write to be back in the habit of writing. There was a time when I wrote every single day. I have a shelf full of journals to prove it. But now I work a full time job, and its amazing how time flies, and stress drives you to be someone you never thought you would face in the mirror every morning.

I have discovered this year that I am not who I thought I was, and capable of just about any evil known to man. I am a disappointment even to myself. But my name, Joanna, means "God is gracious" and I believe it. It is that grace that I cling to every time I awaken to curse my alarm clock, every time I lose my temper with a co-worker, every time I cry myself to sleep over unlived dreams and financial hardship and brokenhearted friends.

All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well...

This is a season of harvest, or is supposed to be. I love Autumn, and I have not yet immersed myself in the beauty of it, allowing myself to be refreshed by the mystery of the season. I have not gone on one hike, nor taken the time (and gas money) for my favorite drive through the mountains. On occasion, I grab a pumpkin spiced latte in the drive-thru before work, or burn an apple pie candle in the half-hour I am actually in my apartment before bed, but mostly I find I just keep pushing myself more and more, and now October is already coming to an end. And nearly every weekend in November is full already, in some manner or another, and then December, with all of its chaos.

But I have not given up on the promise of this season, or of new hope in the midst of the turmoil of my current state of living. God can do anything, His grace enough for my every mistake and even purposeful sinning. There is no end to it. His mercies are new every morning. I discovered them just today, when there was a system glitch at work and my production, which I had been so worried about, nearly doubled, which bought me time to work through some of the harder things that had been just sitting around, also stressing me out. Coincidence? When I had just prayed about it all this very morning? You tell me.

I don't really even know what to say, other than I have not yet given up. There is always, always, always hope. No matter how quickly life seems to be going by, or where I thought I would be when I was 26, or what's going to happen to this country I call home, God is gracious, and all will be well. In that I hold firm.

Tomorrow is a new day, and one I intend to live a little more consciously than today. If people see nothing else in my life, I hope that they see God's abundant grace to a sinner such as I.

And I'm finally going to get to bed early tonight! =]