I spent so much time out of town last year caring for Grandma that I wondered if I had been unavailable for too long. I worried if opportunities to reach out to teens in our community would come about after my being mostly absent in 2011. I shouldn’t have wasted precious energy on such a needless concern; He has continued to open plenty of doors for me to walk through… More importantly, the desire to do something, to somehow make a difference, still burns deep inside… The exhaustion and emotional turmoil I feel after a long day of speaking are minor matters when considering the larger possibilities… At the end of almost every presentation, we ask students to fill out an anonymous survey so we can get honest feedback; nearly all of them make some sort of comment, which is extremely helpful in letting us know if anything we said made an impact. I’m trying to figure out how to be as successful in getting students to interact more easily, to speak up, especially at the end. I would like for them to be comfortable asking any questions they might have, because I’m sure there are some out there. On the one hand, I’m certain the kids don’t want to upset me or risk sounding insensitive; on the other, hearing about some part of this nightmare that I don’t discuss or say much about during my talk might be the one thing that someone needs to hear… There I go again… My retired alter-persona, Ms. Type A, the queen of micro-management, is trying to slip out of the closet. Why can’t I simply trust and believe that the way it happens is exactly how it is supposed to go? How is it possible to have faith on one front of my life and nothing but doubt in another? It isn’t; I just needed to step back and think it through. In my desire to prevent another mother from knowing what I know, I’ve managed to confuse the message with the messenger… If I do my part, He’ll do His… Wishing you sunshine and hope…tg Tammy will update her blog on Mondays and Thursdays
