in the annals of "eegads what was I thinking" I took out a personal ad last week. I'll probably end up deleting it...maybe before the evening is over.

Maybe it's just the time of life I'm in right now or the fact that I look around at all of my friends and their families and I realize if I don't take some steps to widen my circle of friends I will probably never meet anyone.

I might be okay with it. Singledom. Maybe that's what I'm meant to do so that I am free to serve others and just live. I enjoy life. I still go out on my own but there is a hope that someone will be on the other side of the table, or share a conversation at the end of a tough day, a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, a shared smile. I am a romantic and I miss that.

I know it just happens - that poof of attraction, the commonality of interests and the hope of not sounding so desperate for a date but where else do you find people who are over 30, employed and kind. (Yep, I have my sights set pretty high) Have all your teeth (or at least false ones)? Not married? Don't live with your mom and dad? Can you formulate sentences? Can you listen? Do you chew with your mouth shut? Just want to explore the twin cities and beyond? Do you know God and love him? Well then...what are you waiting for...give me a call.

That's what I wanted to write in my ad, but it sounded way too sarcastic. Ah well...

For some reason after church I had the song "I have the joy joy joy joy down in my heart." Probably appropriate because the sermon was taking joy in the fact that we have eternal life, not by anything that we do but because God did and does everything period. The thought that crossed my mind was how cool was it that Jesus didn't just pick the easy road as the "Son of God" and just did 'godly' things but lived among the common folk and learned to be a carpenter even though he could have just skated-by life as "the son of God". "I'm NOT doing THAT...don't you know I'm THE SON OF GOD?" Not very articulate about what I'm truly thinking but that's what's floating around up there.

Top Ten Things that bring me joy (in no particular order)

1. Creating something beautiful.
2. Listening to music.
3. Blogging or writing in general
4. Chocolate
5. Watching kids learn stuff...that spark of light that goes on when they "get it"
6. My family (as much as I complain, there's joy in knowing that someone out in this great wide world loves me as much as I love them)
7. Same thing is true about my friends.
8. Seaside Lighthouses
9. Crisp fall breeze
10. Helping others

And yes, I didn't list God. I'm sure I understand that of anything that should be the biggest joy, but to write that wouldn't be very truthful of me as I'm still not quite sure that I'm putting God in the right perspective in my life either. You carry around these ideas and you try and make them your own but until YOU believe...until you put a voice to what you believe in your own words...all those words are just joy in lower case instead of the JOY in uppercase that the JOY right now in my life needs some perspective.