Pressures

There was an interesting illustration done at church last night. Four people were given balloons, and it was explained that the balloons were under internal pressure, and there was something in them. To get the something out they either had to increase internal pressure or external pressure. So they all stepped on the balloons and it was found that three of them had moldy garlic and the other had a Campino. The point was that the pressures did not determine what was inside, it just brought out what was hidden.

I thought it was a great illustration, and it gave me a lot of peace. The last two years have been wonderful and hard at the same time. There are parts that just completely sucked, and parts that were absolutely wonderful. And through it all, I've changed.

Through these rough things Ben and I have had to make difficult decisions. We've had to act on things in ways that surprised people. We've had to make choices that people don't understand and have questioned. We've had to look at things, both internal and external, things we had never really questioned, and evaluate them with new eyes.

There is nothing we regret, tho we had hoped some situations would have turned out differently. We're both different people than we were when we moved out here. Stronger, more assured, with more faith and more hope and at the same time with less expectations. I hope that as new challenges rise up against us we'll still have some of those good things left.