Time is on my side. For once.

I believe in miracles, but some are a little wackier than others. Like mud making a blind guy see, and walking on water, and fishes that never run out.

Some are a little easier. For instance, there's a story in the Old Testament about how God made the sun stand still so Joshua and his peeps could route the enemy. I have no trouble believing this.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I experience it on a regular basis.

Every afternoon at work between one thirty and four thirty, I write reports, review reports, analyze reports. And instead of passing, time just oozes. Like molasses flowing uphill on a cold day. I'm pretty sure I could defeat a few armies in the afternoons and still have time to paint my toes. If I didn't have to write reports, that is.

Well, today was the exception!  I came back from lunch at 1:15ish and started grinding out those reports.  When I glanced up, expecting it to be, oh, 1:16, it was already after 2:00!  And then a mere blink later it was going on 3:00! And in less time than it would take to take down an Amorite, the work day was over.

Hallelujah! It's a miracle indeed.

Thank you, God, for a fast workday. Thank you for time. Please keep making it go fast during work and slow all the other times. All my love.

Charge!

There are a lot of messages I like. For instance the email from Starbucks that I've earned a free drink, or the note in my mailbox saying I have a package at the apartment offices.

There are also messages I don't like. One of my least favorites is this.

photo from mons-diary.blogspot.com 

Okay, so it's not exactly like that, but you know what I mean.  In my habit of jumping on bandwagons just as a new bandwagon takes off, I bought an iPhone 5 mere weeks before the 5s was released.

I like it. I really do. And I have the cutest blue polka dot cover.

But the battery lives as long as your average fruit fly. And if I play Pandora, its cut even shorter. Like a fruit fly with a bad nicotine habit.

Which makes me grateful for car chargers. While I would like to be the kind of organized that always has a pen in her purse, a plan for dinner, and fully charged electronics, I'm just not. Even with a car charger my phone does die on occasion and its misery. I mean, I just know that the pivotal call/text/email/facebook message/tweet/retweet that never comes while my phone is on will soar through cyberspace and hit the brick wall of my dead phone leading to nebulous but serious consequences.*

Okay, yes, I do have control issues.When I think back to the pre-cell days when you stood tethered by a cord to the kitchen phone counting twenty-two rings before you decided the other party must not have an answering machine, it's all hazy like a bad, low-tech dream. Less stressful, but still.(Shiver.)

While walking around with a dead phone is probably a good exercise in letting go, its a lesson I don't have to learn, thanks to my lovely blue car charger. And for that I'm grateful.

Thank you, God, for whoever put the cigarette lighter in cars that now serves to charge things. Thank you for portable technology, for my phone and its cute blue cover, for all the crazy apps it lets me use. Thank you for friends who send me texts, tweets, emails, and messages elevating my phone from an electronic paperweight to a means of connecting. All my love.

*Note: I have no qualms whatsoever when my work blackberry dies. In fact, I gloat a bit over its still form.

Fortune

Long ago, an industrious restaurateur realized he had a bunch of extra cardboard coasters he didn't know what to do with. After a bit of thinking and fiddling, he discovered that if he folded them into a U-shaped pocket and slipped a piece of paper inside, he could give them out as cookies to grateful patrons.

Okay, I made that up. But I am not convinced anyone actually likes fortune cookies. They are to cookies what charcoal is to gems. But, that little scrap of paper inside makes us crack it open anyway to see what our fortune is, and then eat the halves because it would be wasteful not to.

Tonight at P.F. Chang's I got this:

Not really a fortune, P.F., but trueish. I would amend that by saying summits. As in, plural. And then I agree, even if it's still not a fortune.

Thankfully, we don't climb alone. This past weekend at the American Christian Fiction Writers conference I got to spend time with my peeps.  I left my day job behind, including my blackberry (suck it, blackberry!) packed up my favorite outfits, and jetted off to Indianapolis.

It was fabulous to catch up with old friends and meet so many new amazing writers.

But even in Indianapolis,  I was approaching the summit. I couldn't leave the hard bits of life behind, which I thought would be a liability. But, even though I didn't know it at the time, this was the very reason I went this year. Because I talked with two dear friends who helped share the load. Who can look over the other side of the mountain, can see the view that I can't yet envision, and help me continue to climb. 

Rachel Hauck and Reba Hoffman are two people I want to be when I grow up. Both had their own biz goin' on at the conference, but each took time to stop, talk with me, pray with me, and exhort me. To help me free my feet from the cold packed snow and start to climb again. These are the encounters that change you. Give a fresh view of the world that cannot be taken away. After all, that's really all that changes at the summit. You're still on top of a mound of rock, but the perspective is wide and long and beautiful.

Yes, I pitched and learned and pitched and learned. And that was fabulous. But the most lovely of blessings is seeing that God had prepared these two and gave them to me. Just the gifts I needed right when I needed them.

Thank you, God, for your people who you have been generous with. For painful/wonderful writing. For hope.  All my love.