the lump in my throat

Clam diggin this weekend with Harrison and Kaytlynn

and the cousins Chase and Molly

I'm not sure how to describe it but it seems I have this choked up feeling welling up inside again and it just won't go. I'm sure there are a few contributors. It seems like the farther I have come from my trip, my emotional side would lesson and my logic would kick in. Let's see, I returned at the end of July...I'm going into my 5th month. I was only there a week with very minimal exposure compared to most everyone else. Seems like heart and head should be in alignment by now.

The Facebook friends I have made and reading their blogs, watching their videos and seeing their pictures takes me in with out much warning. I feel compelled to read, to "listen in", to see how they are living out the opportunity to participate in what God is doing. Surely this is not enough to keep me in this state.

We are in the final sorting from the ET mansion move. (If you aren't up to speed, read November's "New to our Blog?") Tonight it was some old half filled photo albums from high school. I peeled a few pictures from the sticky pages with the hopes of scanning them in the near future and dumped the rest. There just isn't room for anything without purpose. I also found a manual I had written for managing all of the maintenance and day to day operations of my house. The combination really was strange...from high school misfit (athlete, band-o, wanna be smart girl) to successful business owner, followed by a successful surrender to the market crash, to my current state of ET mansion dweller really swirled my brain.

What's really important? What do I really want? Is it too much to ask of those who love me and live with me? After all, I have helped to contribute toward the creation of this life they love. How could I ask them to give it up?

For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Philippians 2:13

I guess even when I think about the albums and continuing to cleanse the "extra". There are parts of my life that in the past weren't in the way. The boxes stashed in the garage that weren't causing any problems. But now in this new stage I wonder, what needs to go and what can stay. What remnants do I need to save of my previous life's journey, what can be recycled, trashed, sold, shared and so on. What really has lasting value and importance.

Do I have to figure all of that out? Hasn't it all been written for me in the bible? Where are the directions to me regarding Ethiopia? I know there is plenty about orphans. Living amongst them or bringing one home? Honoring my family and their needs? Helping others to follow the dream?

What about the orphans? HIV, education, water, LOVE that only Jesus gives through us? How and when and how and when. The lump just sits there.