crest!

"Autumn Rain" by Cynthia Herron on the Freed Gallery

So, today was a fantastic day for me! 1) A business called me this morning to set up an interview (Monday at 7:15). 2) Then, a manager from a tutoring business interviewed me by phone, and I got the job. 3) And, then after that news, I got an email from a school I applied to over a month ago to fill out a survey for the headmistress. THIS is the job I really want. It's a secretary, but it's good hours at a good school and would be good for also tutoring and teaching adjunct. 4) As if that wasn't enough, I went to the thrift shop and found a gorgeous coral sweater set for $6 and an old charcoal gray wool skirt (old= really good material, excellent construction and classic style) $7. 5) Had a fantastic time celebrating my brother's 24th birthday with him and my mom. It's a low key kind of a birthday, and he was okay with that. Both their pastors came by, and all three of us were drinking. (This is kind of bad in the South, the younger pastor actually said something (haha).)

But, my excellent day was the ying to my sister's yang day. The bottom fell out for her. But, she was a good sport and said that the ying went to me instead of some total stranger. We like to keep the highs and lows in the family.

My sister's heart break and my hopefulness are a microcosm of the world and reminded me of this Advent quotations:

"All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy." -Romans 8:22-5

"I've learned how much the Advent season holds, how it breaks into our lives with images of dark and light, first and last things, watchfulness and longing, origin and destiny." Kathleen Norris

I would say it confronts with the gloriousness and wretchedness of our humanness and ultimately our helplessness. And, it reframes it in the context of God's forever loving kindness. His withness. His compassion for us. We who can't help ourselves our made complete by the Creator of the universe.

I'm listening to a steady downpour of rain. It's lovely and relaxing. It's also a metaphor of God's blessing in the OT and in Charlotte, NC.