Oh, life

I. Hate. Winter.  I suppose I shouldn't complain about it because many people I know have just endured a blizzard of epic proportions.  I just hate cold weather and how unmotivated it makes me.  I truly dread getting out of bed and usually find excuses to sleep in on days off.  Then, I hate myself for like 3 hours.  Oh, the tangled web...

I'm still dreaming vividly about the kids.  Last night, though, I had a dream that an old high school classmate told me that I was a pig.  It's the only part of last night's dreaming that I really remember.  When I awoke and got over the fact that I needed to get out of bed, I thought of that first thing.  It made me think of being a teenager and especially what it must be like to be a teenager or young adult in an institution that encourages such little growth and fosters oppression.  It's hard enough to be a girl in America being raised in an upper middle class family in (uh, near) a small town where there's a larger sense of community.  I have been priveledged in so many ways and I have taken it all for-granted.  I moan and complain constantly, I blab about myself incessantly, and I make every situation about me.  They say (who's the "they"?--inside joke) that when a person starts abusing substances, they remain the age they were at the time of descent into destruction.  Well, I was about 19.  I honestly think that is a huge reason why it's taken me so long to mature.  When I finally started coming up for air, I was inhibited by lack of experience, years of self-destruction in a very important life stage, and all of the lies you therefore believe as a result.  And, once again, it makes me think of these children we've met in Ukraine.  Their situation is quite different from mine (and, really, more devastating), but the spiritual and mental context- not so much.  They most likely believe they are unworthy of love for copious reasons; they have a distorted VIEW of love; they probably feel very hopeless and ambivalent much of the time .  I don't know what God has in mind and I don't know how much of a role someone like me could ever have, but I do know that if He can steadily reform my motivations and actions, He can do wonderful things for them.  It may be a slow process.  It may be hard to watch.  And, it may be overwhelmingly difficult to grasp the depth of their need.  But, if we just let Him live His life though us, it will all be accomplished as He has planned.  And, that's it.  And, that's all.