Random Dozen

Well it’s official. The ol’ laptop is dead! I am off today to buy a new hard drive that will hopefully revive it! I did manage to make it through the day yesterday without the earth spinning off it’s axis while my laptop did double duty as a large paper weight.

Bear with me as I get all my technical difficulties worked out and I will be back in the blogosphere as soon as everything is re formatted, re loaded, downloaded and updated and re-installed again….

So now on to more important things like Random Dozen.

1. Have you ever been so lost that you were really afraid?

I remember once when I was very young and in a search for my first job. I found myself on a bus in downtown Atlanta with a slip of paper with the address of my job interview held in my shaking tight little hand. That was back in the dark ages before cell phones, GPs or Google maps. I had placed my confidence in the hands of the gruff and unfriendly bus driver. I got on the bus and told him where I was going and double checked that this was in fact the bus I was supposed to be on. He looked at me tersely and with a limited vocabulary answers that yes I was on the right bus. My destination was just a few blocks up on the right. I settled in and then to my horror the bus drove down the street and began to make turn after turn and turn. This was very clearly (in my youthful trying to get to a job interview on time anxiety ridden head) not the right bus. I got up out of my seat and went up to the driver and questioned him.

“You said this was going to ……and that it was a few blocks down on the right!”  He looked at me like I was a stupid scared twenty-ish young woman and just returned to his driving. I returned to my seat all the while my hear pounding in a tizzy, where was this bus driver taking me and was I ever going to get to my destination. If memory serves I was over an hour late  to the interview and arrived in such a stat of anxiety that I was nearly in tears.

Needless to say I did not get the job, I don't think I ever went on another interview in downtown Atlanta, or if I did I made sure I left in plenty if time and I drove my own car.

2. Have you ever been to an island?

Some of my favorite vacations have been to the Bahamas and Jamaica and Puerto Rico! We spent our honeymoon on a small island of the coast of South Carolina, Kiawah Island it was great!

Our next island…Hawaii maybe for our next big anniversary! We are coming up on the big “30” in a few years.

3. Are you more of a thinker or feeler?

Feeler!

To quote Truvy, one of my favorite Steel Magnolia’s.

“No one cries alone in  my presence!”

4. Do you tend to see issues or situations in life as black and white or shades of gray?

That depends. The hard thing about that is that a sin is a sin, there is no distinction in God’s eyes between telling a white lie and committing murder. All sin is bad. In the human world however we are faced with the shifting lines of what passes for truth! It’s up to me to make sure I draw my line of truth in line with what God ‘s line of truth is. I daily pray for the ability to see the varying shades of gray as well as the discernment to know where the truth is and having the strength to stand on the side of right!

5. If you were stuck on an island, what book would you hope to have with you (Let's pretend the Bible is already there, so you can't say that.)

Anything by Dianna Gabaldon, Francine Rivers, Pat Conroy and Colleen McCullough to name just a few. I wish I had more time to read but sadly I feel that if I am reading  my time could be better served doing something more productive. When I get engrossed in a good book everything else goes out the door!

6. What are you most afraid of?

If I am honest I am very concerned about the state of our retirement years. It’s a good thing I have a mini-van because we may need to to live in in our golden years. 

Secondly I am not a real fan of suspension bridges.

7. Would you rather lose all of your old memories or never be able to make new ones?

How can we answer this one. I would not trade my memories for anything however the concept of never making any new ones is very sad!

8. Pretend I'm looking at a scrapbook page about you. There are three spaces for you to drop in individual pictures. What are those pictures of, and why did you select them?

First I would pick my wedding picture. My wedding day was the beginning of my entry into adulthood.

Second would be the birth of my first child. This pivotal moment was the beginning of a series of events that lead my to a relationship with Christ.

Lastly I would probably pick a picture of my two nearly grown children. For me this represents the transition of the life we have. We have made it through (almost) the turmoil of raising our children and the hubs and I are on the verge (four years and counting) of experiencing life in a whole new way.

9. If you were re-doing your wedding, what would you do differently? (If you're single, tell me one thing you would do if you were planning a wedding OR huge party.)

I’m not sure I would do anything differently, really. However at the time neither me or my future husband were not believers so the concept of having a Christ centered marriage was just not important. So looking back that would be the one thing I would change if I could.

10. Tell me one thing you know/believe about forgiveness.

Forgiveness and acceptance are totally different things.

I can forgive you but I do not have to accept you back into my life.

I can forgive you but if the behavior continues I do not have to accept further opportunities for you to treat me badly.

I can forgive you but I also must use discernment and wisdom in my dealing with you.

I can forgive you but I must also be able to trust that you will not repeat the behavior or action that cause the problem in the first place.

God calls us to forgive those who trespass against us but He also call us to be wise as a serpent and gentle as doves.

MT 10:16 I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

11. You're waiting in a doctor's office. What is your favorite way to pass that time?

If I have remembers to bring a book I read. If not I usually do a bit of people watching. It’s amazing what you see some times.

12. If there were a clone of you in a parallel universe what is one way you hope she/he would be the same as you and one way you hope she/he would be better?

I would hope she would have the same strong marriage and friendships as well as a relationship with Christ! However since I long for or have been brainwashed by the constant media perfectionism of what we as women should look like and the near constant focus of being thin and the fact that we have been brainwashed to feel inadequate or some how less if we don’t look like a magazine super model a svelte athletic body with a metabolism that would allow her to eat whatever she wanted without fear of gaining any weight.

I would also hope for a really nice beach front home with a Food Network kitchen or maybe I'd be living on a farm raising chicken, pigs, cows and goats and tending to her acres of planted veggies. Here’s a thought maybe my parallel universe person can have her own show in Food Network! That would ROCK!

Blessings

Robin

For more Random Dozen head over to 2nd Cup of Coffee for more!

I will try to pop over and visit some of y’all later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

I hope to be up and running with the laptop very soon!