rambling rosemarie

January 12, 2013 will be a significant day for me. Unless something radical changes in my life, it will mark the longest time I have ever lived in one place: seven years.  That may not sound very significant to some folks but to me it is huge. Most of my life I have been an urban Bedouin.  I went to two schools in kindergarten, two schools in second grade, a different school for third through sixth grades, a different school district for seventh grade, moved in ninth grade and spent four years going to a high school that was not in my neighborhood.  For every different school or school district I was in there were probably four or five moves. Now you live with your mom, dad and half of your siblings; now you live with your mother's mother; now you live with your father's mother; now you live with your father's friends; now you're back at your grandmother's; now you're back living with your father who has married your aunt.... it was very much like being a piece ...

I am not one of those people who will take their bible, open it randomly and read a verse being convinced the verse I pick is a direct message from God to me at that moment. The first and last time I tried that my bible opened to Leviticus and my finger landed on Leviticus 21:20 . However, I do think that our God sometimes uses a series of seemingly random things or coincidences to get our attention. I dragged myself to our Tuesday morning community bible study this morning. I almost talked myself out of it. After my last post I knew that I was grumpy, not feeling well and in no way going to be blessed by showing up with my attitude. Yeah, it's always good for me when God dumps me on my butt and shows me that I don't get to decide what He is and is not going to do. I was blessed. I was blessed by the women who were there in our small group. Their backgrounds are so diverse, their experiences so unlike mine and yet the common struggles of life our ours. I am blessed to be ...

Last night as I was going to bed, I walked into my bedroom, flipped on the light switch and not one but two of the three light bulbs in my bedroom light fixture blew out. My first reaction was to jump because it startled me. What came next were some unsanctified words and thoughts. I was thoroughly annoyed at what an inconvenience it will be for me to haul in a stepladder or chair, climb up and change light bulbs. I had sufficient light to postpone the ‘arduous’ task until the morning, so I continued with my bedtime routines and fell asleep. Today I woke up with bright sunlight streaming into my room. Yesterday had been gray and raining. Today it was crisp, cold and clear. Knowing I have plenty of time to change the light bulbs, I set about doing other things including reading my bible. Something I read reminded me of my Biblical Backgrounds class. I was remembering the class fondly; the professor is a godly man who has tremendous knowledge and a love of teaching. I began ...